House of Commons, London, United Kingdom.

Noisy, noisy, noisy, fried into a pot of porridge.

Churchill sat in a chair with his eyes closed and no expression on his face, but those who knew Churchill well knew that at this moment, Churchill's emotions were quite emotional.

Specifically, it's anger, quite anger.

1947 was destined to be the most painful and uncomfortable year for the British Empire.

Britain's national power has declined to the level of a second-rate country, but no British will be willing to be so degraded by the British Empire, the world hegemon of the past, and even more so Churchill.

As a result, the British Empire, the former world hegemon, and the United States and the Soviet Union, two countries that were competing for a new world hegemon, fell into a peculiar relationship.

The United States and Britain are allies, and their common enemy is the Soviet Union, but because Britain is not willing to be a little brother to the United States, the big brother of the United States is not very at ease with this little brother.

The East Indies is the largest colony of Britain, and it is a thigh of the British Empire, and if this thigh is broken, it is more certain that the British Empire will become a small British Empire.

In the matter of calling on the British Empire, not only the United States wanted to do it, but the Soviet Union also wanted to do so, because the Soviet Union had suffered too much loss in the Far East, and the strategic position of South Asia was extremely important, so the Soviet Union had much more strength than the Americans to break the thigh of the British Empire.

Two young and strong hooligans teamed up to beat an old hooligan who was old and frail, and the results can be imagined.

The British Empire is still very smart in small things, and it can still be understood by the feet and fingers together, rather than being forced to get nothing in the end, it is better to simply let go, so as to keep the economic interests and political influence of the British Empire in the East Indies.

Thus, on December 17, 1946, the new British Prime Minister Attlee announced in the House of Commons that the British Empire was ready to accept the East Indies' demand for reading.

Attlee was extremely helpless to make such a statement, but Attlee didn't expect that he made a statement to end the trouble, but in fact, the trouble had just begun.

Historically, the East Indies were never a unified country, and it was the British who forcibly united the East Indies.

At present, there are not only fierce sectarian conflicts in the East Indies, but there are as many as five or six hundred princely states in the East Indies.

For the British Empire, the complete disintegration of the East Indies and the juxtaposition of nations would be a catastrophe that would not only greatly damage their economic interests, but also minimize the Empire's influence in the East Indies.

Therefore, the East Indies can be divided, and a moderate split is not only not harmful to the British, but it is also beneficial, but it must not be chaotic, especially not chaotic, and in order to meet this requirement, in the present situation, it is better for the East Indies to be divided into two countries.

Originally, if you want to do this, with the skillful hand of the British Empire, there is not much problem, but now, there is one more variable, and this variable pushes the British Empire into an extremely uncomfortable situation.

That variable is the Chinese.

At the beginning, in order to deal with himself, Britain was forced to cede Assam, Nagaran, and Manipur to the Chinese.

Now, the two major political forces in the East Indies, the Congress and the Muslim League, disagree, and each of them wants to claim the region for themselves.

The problem, however, is that Britain must get the Congress and the Muslim League to agree to the agreements they signed with the Chinese.

It's just too hard.

The Congress Party was already extremely dissatisfied with the division of the East Indies into India and Pakistan, and it was even more unlikely that the Congress Party would accept the cession of Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur to China.

The Muslim League's opposition is more to stir up the situation, hoping to catch a fish in troubled waters or something, and more to force Britain to win greater interests in the process of partitioning India and Pakistan.

Ignore China, okay? No way.

If this is not done, not only Hong Kong will have problems, but more seriously, the Malay Peninsula and Myanmar will have problems.

This situation is absolutely not allowed, so the demands of the Chinese must be met.

However, it is too difficult to meet the demands of the Chinese.

It is difficult enough to get India and Pakistan to accept it, not to mention that there are also the United States and the Soviet Union stirring up the situation in it.

Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to sow the seeds of war between China and India.

Actually, Britain wants to, too.

The Soviet Union had a great influence on India, and the United States had a great influence on Pakistan, and this matter was mainly related to India.

If it is mainly related to Pakistan, then there is still hope to negotiate with the United States, but Britain and the Soviet Union have no possibility of trading, and they do not have the bargaining chips they need from each other.

So, in this way, the problem is almost unsolvable.

Churchill was angry, not only because of the situation in Britain, but also because of Attlee's incompetence.

-- On 29 June 1947, a special plane landed at Nanyuan Airport.

The special plane is British, and the current British Prime Minister Attlee and his predecessor Winston Churchill visited Yenching on the same plane.

Churchill failed to run for prime minister, but still elected members of the House of Commons, and this visit to Yenching was of a very high standard, not only with senior political officials led by Prime Minister Attlee, but also with many heavyweight parliamentarians.

Such a high standard of the British visit is not only to save face for China, hoping to win China's favor and help the next negotiations, but also for the United States and the Soviet Union.

The situation is already very clear, that is, struggle and cooperation, which is the basic form of the game between the great powers.

The United States and the Soviet Union are bitter rivals, which is beneficial to both sides, and helps them better control the countries in their control, but outside of the struggle, these two young and strong hooligans also have considerable room for cooperation, such as completely reverting the British Empire, the former world hegemon, to the original form, and for example, containing China.

In the matter of containing China, the cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union is the most tacit, and it has reached the realm of knowing everything from one mind to another.

At present, the United States and the Soviet Union do not have a very good way to deal with China, after all, their main forces are placed in Europe, so their basic idea of containing China has invariably chosen to ignore.

To ignore it is to not let China play, for example, not to allow China to join the United Nations, not to allow China to enter its own trading system, and not to allow China to participate in various issues.

In addition, in addition to neglect, it also creates all kinds of troubles for China.

To make trouble for China, the Soviet Union did not have many means for the time being, and so far it has only laid mines for China with its strength in India.

In this regard, the United States has focused much more, in addition to cooperating with the Soviet Union in planting mines in India, the United States has more important means of exerting influence in China.

China is still not a unified country, and not allowing China to be unified is the biggest containment of China.

Obviously, in the future, it will be difficult for war to become the main means of the game between the great powers, and this is where the greatest significance of the emergence of the atomic bomb lies, so the economy will inevitably replace war as the main means of the game between the big powers.

Among the four great powers of Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, the United States and the Soviet Union are the two strongest, while the United Kingdom and China are the two weak, and the cooperation between the two weak is beneficial to both sides, especially to China, and this is the main reason why Britain sent such a large visiting delegation.

If it had only come to unilaterally beg China and ask China to make concessions, then Britain would not have been so high-profile, but would only have secretly come to negotiate conditions.

So, this is also a signal to China that Britain is coming with sincerity.

The Chinese received the signal from the British, and the welcome ceremony was grand and grand, and the Chinese premier personally greeted him at the airport.

After warm greetings from both sides, the Prime Minister invited the guests to get into the car.

When the splendid carriages stopped in front of them, these big men from the British Isles were stunned, some of them knew that the high-end transportation in Yanjing City was not a car, but a horse-drawn carriage, but they were still very surprised to see it with their own eyes.

In the British Isles, this level of carriage was used by the great nobles, but the most luxurious carriage they had ever seen, in front of the carriage of the Chinese, was the difference between small landowners and large nobles.

This distinction is not in the object, but in the "gods".

The carriage came out of the airport, and the eyes of the guests widened again, is this really China?

The road is a third wider than London's, three times more beautiful, no, not three times, thirty times, three hundred times!

The eyes are the blue sky, the clouds like flocculents, the streams like jade belts, the small lakes like mirrors, the colorful flowers, the attractive melons and fruits, and the air is full of elegant or rich fragrance.

All the way to amaze, all the way to envy, suddenly, everyone's eyes looked ahead, and they couldn't help but squint their eyes.

It's so glaring!

Yanjing City is purple, and the entire city wall is covered with a layer of purple wall skin.

Purple, heavy, noble, majestic.

Under the reflection of the sun, Yanjing City is shrouded in dazzling purple brilliance.

Purple gas is coming from the east!

This is the heavenly court of Chinese legends!

Entering the city, the guests of the British Isles were still amazed.

What a wide street, what a thick atmosphere, what an elegant populace!

The British are arrogant, even if they decline, even if they come to beg for help, they are still arrogant, but just by getting in the carriage and only going to the Yanjing Hotel, after this section of the road, their arrogance has unconsciously melted a lot.

Even when the British Empire was at its strongest, London was like a small city in the countryside compared to the Yanjing City in front of it.

It's amazing!

-- Comax was also in the crowd of people picking up the airport.

No matter how much dirt there is in the secret, how many swords and swords there are, on the whole, the US-UK alliance is already unbreakable, which is determined by the deepest geopolitics.

Britain belongs to Europe, but it does not belong to Europe, and like the United States, Britain's fundamental interest lies in the chaos of the European continent, so even if Britain has the ability to eliminate France, it will not eliminate France, and it is Britain's fundamental interest to maintain the balance of power on the European continent.

This was true when Britain was strong, and even more so when it was in decline.

Isolated from the European continent, the British Isles were once an outlier in Europe, and they are even more so.

Without a shocking reversal, the British are destined to embrace the Americans' thighs in order to help the United States pursue their own interests in the scourge of the European continent.

The current Britain is like a comprador two devils among the Chinese, extremely groveling to the master, but when he turns his face and faces his compatriots, the sense of superiority is simply more intoxicating than the fairy brew of the queen mother.

It is the United Kingdom and the United States that see this very clearly, so that the two sides can fight to their heart's content, but they will never break it.

The shock of the British was as good as Comers could have imagined with his toes.

Of course, China is still extremely backward now, but Yanjing City is the first city in the world.

In the world, except for Yanjing City, no big city is full of rich people, and there is no poor person.

In the hands of Han Lihong, in just a few years, Yanjing City has experienced great changes, and Comax is a witness to this history.

At first, Comax didn't understand the profound significance of this vicissitudes of life, and he even despised Han Lihong because of it, but now, he understood.

Yanjing City is the spiritual home of the Chinese people and the direction of the Chinese people's struggle, and she profoundly shows the ambition of the Chinese.

War, any other form, military, political, economic, etc., is secondary, only the victory of culture is the final victory, and the other victories are temporary, no matter how great they are.

This is understood best in the West, so Christian missionaries always go ahead of the ships.

Compared with the West, China is still at a disadvantage in an all-round way, and it is a great disadvantage, so Han Lihong opened up the world and took advantage of various times to create the Yanjing City today.

China is very poor and backward, but China is too big, there are too many people, and its cultural heritage is far from being comparable to that of any other country or race.

Today, Yanjing is home to at least half of China's wealthy and an absolute number of cultural elites.

A large part of the wealthy and cultural elite overlapped, so it is safe to say that Yanjing City gathers at least seventy percent of the essence of the whole of China.

There can be no second such Yanjing City in the world.

Yanjing City is Han Lihong's supreme weapon to challenge the hegemony of Western culture, at least in China.

The purpose of Britain's visit to Yenching was very clear to Comax, and he concluded that Britain and Yenching would definitely reach an agreement.

If the United States and the Soviet Union want to contain and contain China, and China wants to break the situation, Western Europe is undoubtedly the best breakthrough point.

France was locked up by the Chinese with South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and now, like France, Britain will be tied to Hong Kong, the Malay Peninsula and Burma by the Chinese.

The situation is very complicated.

How should a report to Washington be written? Comax's head hurts, and he can't judge at all whether such a fight between the United States and China will ultimately be harmful or beneficial to the United States.

――――In the VIP suite of the Yenching Hotel, Churchill's huge body was sunk into the sofa, and his huge head was leaning on the sofa, closing his eyes and contemplating.

The seven-day trip to Yanjing will end tomorrow.

The negotiations were completed long ago and were unexpectedly smooth, and the Chinese did not put forward any of the harsh conditions they expected, and the Chinese only put forward one condition, that is, to maintain normal economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.

In the final negotiating text, the only thing that is somewhat special is the final retaliation clause, which stipulates the retaliatory measures that either side will take in the future if either side interrupts or disrupts the normal economic and trade exchanges between the two countries.

This retaliation clause is nominally bilateral, but in reality, it is only valid for the Chinese, because the Chinese have the means to retaliate against the British, and the British have no means to retaliate against the Chinese.

It's an unequal clause, unequal to the British, but the British welcome it.

Normal commercial and trade with China would be beneficial to both sides, but the Americans would certainly come to interfere and obstruct it, and with this clause, the mouths of the Americans, and even more so, the opponents in Britain would be silenced.

The second devil is not a specialty of China, the United Kingdom also has it, and there will be more and more.

This trip to Yenching was extremely shocking to every British, and Churchill was the same, which is why he stayed in Yenching for so long.

In the past few days, they have been wandering the streets and alleys of Yanjing like ordinary people. In addition to Yanjing City, they also went to villages and factories outside Yanjing.

Shock, except for shock or shock.

For Churchill, these shocks were still superficial, and in Yanjing, he was even more shocked by touching the soul.

What shook Churchill to the soul was one man, and that was Zhou Enlai, the prime minister of China's political axe.

Churchill was extremely proud, not only because of the British Empire, but also because of himself, because of his own great courage and learning.

Churchill was quick-witted and eloquent, but in the face of Zhou Enlai, although extremely reluctant to admit it, Churchill felt like a barbarian.

Churchill [***], and extreme [***], although he knew that Zhou Enlai was one of the biggest [***], but in the face of Zhou Enlai, he couldn't remember [***].

Churchill is thinking about Zhou Enlai now, and he doesn't understand, what kind of culture can give birth to such a great figure as Zhou Enlai?

Churchill was still extremely hostile to China, but in the face of Zhou Enlai, deep down, he had to bow his head, because he was not really a barbarian.

While Churchill was closing his eyes in contemplation, the door opened, and his assistant Hidman entered.

Churchill heard it, he opened his eyes and asked, "It's time." ”

Sidman nodded and said, "Yes, sir." ”

Too fat, Churchill got up from the couch with some difficulty, and said, "Let's go." ”

On the last day of his stay in Yanjing, Han Lihong hosted a banquet in the Han Garden to entertain the British delegation.

For Han Lihong, the bandit-born leader of the Black God Army, the world, especially foreign dignitaries, are extremely curious, but it is extremely difficult to see Han Lihong.

Han Lihong is very low-key, nominally a white man, he does not hold any public office, it is normal not to see anyone, and no one can pick out anything.

When they saw Han Lihong, the members of the delegation were all surprised, they knew that Han Lihong was young, but this was too young.

Han Lihong is most interested in Churchill, and Han Lihong is also very interested in Churchill.

Han Lihong was in the spotlight, after all, he couldn't talk about it, and when he was leaving, Churchill looked at Zhou Enlai in the distance and sighed: "Mr. Han, Mr. Zhou shouldn't be in politics, politics is too dirty, and Mr. Zhou should be a sage." ”

Han Lihong didn't have much affection for Churchill, but he deeply agreed with his words.

(To be continued)