Emperor Song Biao was clearly reluctant to talk to Winston. Prime Minister Churchill met, but there are also many things in this world that he cannot choose. When he flew back to Yanjing, Prime Minister Churchill had already held meetings with Prime Minister Gu Weijun and Chief of General Staff Jiang Fangzhen.

The bargaining part, that is the work between the three of them, Emperor Song Biao's final authority is only the result of the negotiation of the three of them.

Therefore, on the evening of returning to the Central Palace, Emperor Song Biao, after having dinner with his family and taking time to talk with his eldest son, Crown Prince Yuhua, about the current situation between China and Britain, immediately asked Gu Weijun and Jiang Fangzhen to meet him in the imperial study to listen to the reports of the prime minister and the chief of the general staff.

Gu Weijun and Jiang Fangzhen were very well prepared, and the two soon arrived at the Central Palace one after another to meet the emperor in the imperial study.

Emperor Song Biao was still very special this time, leaving Crown Prince Yuhua by his side to participate in the discussion of this matter, in Gu Weijun's memory, this should be the first time, but he didn't feel anything surprising, after all, with the emperor's old age and decrepitude, Crown Prince Yuhua's experience accumulated in the central cabinet, the military department, and the parliament for a long time is gradually enriched, and this is the moment that will come sooner or later.

Maybe he won't see him when Gu Weijun is in office, but one day, the emperor will retreat into the background, and let Crown Prince Yuhua be more of the heir of Emperor Hua to replace his father to hear the testimony, and even one day, the emperor will become the real emperor.

Gu Weijun and Jiang Fangzhen are actually very happy to see the arrival of this day, after the Yuhua Crown Prince graduated from the Central Imperial University of Political Science and Law Master's Degree, entered the central agency to begin the fifteen-year study road, they have successively served as mentors, looking at the Yuhua Crown Prince is gradually mature and steady, as well as the recognized evaluation of "virtue and virtue", Gu Jiang and the two of them are indeed the same at this time in their hearts for the smooth gradual succession of the imperial system.

That's a really good thing.

These two important ministers who have served by the emperor's side for more than 30 years, and have cultivated a deep tacit understanding for many years.

Emperor Song Biao's feeling about this matter was very ordinary, and he didn't think so, because he had been handling this matter step by step, and others didn't dare to speak, so they could only look at his arrangements every step.

Crown Prince Yuhua is also not very excited, in fact, he is still very nervous, but also very cautious, standing aside and bowing his head silently, the competition he faces is not as fierce as between the Manchu princes of the previous dynasty, from the moment he was born, his identity as the crown prince has been set for most of the time, the reason why he is nervous is because the father emperor next to him is indeed a very terrible person.

Looking at China's three thousand years of imperial inheritance, there are only a handful of emperors like his father, except for Emperor Qin and Emperor Han Wu and Tang Taizong, others are really difficult to compare.

The emperor of the empire, the emperor of China, the evaluation still depends on the merits of opening up the territory, no matter how well you do in other aspects, as long as you lose the territory, it can only be regarded as second-rate, or even third-rate.

At the beginning of the founding of the Han Dynasty, although he was subject to the Xiongnu, he endured humiliation and burden, so that his great-grandson could find an opportunity to defeat the Xiongnu and recover the lost land.

Crown Prince Yuhua stood beside such a father and listened to the government, and his mood can indeed be described as walking on thin ice.

The mood of these four people in the imperial study is different, and Emperor Song Biao is of course most concerned about the results of the negotiations between Churchill and Gu Weijun, because he must meet with Prime Minister Churchill tomorrow and give a clear answer to the other party.

Of course, Emperor Song Biao already knew the British requirements before returning to Yanjing, and the British demanded that China participate in the exhibition immediately, because Britain could no longer hold on.

As for whether Britain has really reached the point of exhaustion, this is not a matter of Prime Minister Churchill's mouth, China will believe it, and this needs to be speculated by China's own intelligence agencies.

After Gu Weijun and Jiang Fangzhen sat down, Emperor Song Biao asked Gu Weijun, "How credible do you think Churchill's words are?" ”

Gu Weijun thought for a while and replied: "Back to Your Majesty, I thought his words were not very credible, but Britain really couldn't hold out for too long, and he had a sentence that was correct, that is, Britain was not fighting Germany for Britain itself, Britain was for all other countries, if China and the United States did not participate in the war, and could not give more free aid, Britain would rather lose its dignity and negotiate an armistice agreement with Germany, as he himself said, the British Empire is no longer the empire it once was. In the face of a Germany that already occupied the Soviet Union and the whole of Eastern Europe, Britain could not bear it. ”

Emperor Song Biao also admitted, saying: "The colonial crisis and the pound crisis have caused great damage to Britain in the past two years, if Britain wants to continue fighting, it can still get a lot of support from Canada and Australia, and China and the United States will continue to give more support, the key is that it will give up this kind of battle." If Britain and Germany reach an agreement and the two sides temporarily armistice are suspended, Germany will not continue to attack Britain and the British colonies, especially those colonies that Britain still retains in Africa, four or five years later, Germany will officially digest France and French colonies, plus the resources and industrial systems of the original Soviet occupation zone and Eastern Europe, Germany will continue to wage a larger war against Britain until the entire British African colonies are under Germany, I think, Prime Minister Churchill understands this very well, so, The likelihood that Britain would unilaterally armistice with Germany was extremely low. In addition to Germany, there are three most powerful countries in the world today, namely China, the United States and the United Kingdom, in which the conflict between Germany and the United States is the lowest, and fighting a naval war with the United States is by no means what Germany is good at. If Germany wants to go to war with China, occupy the whole of Central and Western Asia, and take away China's Soviet-occupied areas and northern regions, then it will need to prepare for many years, so for German expansionism, its best pioneering aspect is the British Empire, which was once brilliant, but in terms of overall strength, and is also the weakest link in the world's three powers. With Germany's current industrial resources, as long as it produces aircraft carriers and other ships together in all its shipyards, it will have the strength to engage in a decisive battle with Britain at sea in three years, and five years will be enough for it to easily destroy the British navy. ”

Speaking of this, Emperor Song Biao paused for a while, and finally concluded: "Therefore, Britain will definitely fight to the end, such a simple truth, Britain still understands, and Prime Minister Churchill is a person who understands it very well." Behind closed doors, we are definitely going to go to war, because the United States will settle the score, and now Germany's biggest threat is Britain, followed by China, and finally the United States. We have a saying that is good, the emperor is not in a hurry, what is the eunuch in a hurry? The United States will not be able to enter the war, and China will stand up to it when the sky falls. ”

Jiang Fangzhen nodded in agreement, this is also the consensus between several high-level leaders of their Central Defense Commission, the Sino-German war will be fought sooner or later, and the only question now is when to start the war and with which suitable reason.

He said to Emperor Song Biao: "I think that this war is better fought later than early, although in the end we still have to rely on special means to end the war, but before that, we can take the opportunity to expand our control in Africa and Eastern Europe through appropriate means of war." ”

Emperor Song Biao nodded silently, and asked Gu Weijun and Jiang Fangzhen, "What is your current attitude?" ”

Gu Weijun was silent.

Jiang Fangzhen said: "Completely solve the Papua and Burma issues, as well as the sale of some islands in the Indian Ocean to our country, especially the Burma issue, without Burma, our navy would have to go far to obtain sufficient supplies." Once the Burma issue is resolved, we will establish a naval base in Burma, which will allow for large-scale naval replenishment directly from the Kunma Railway. ”

Song Biao asked, "Have you talked about it?" ”

Jiang Fangzhen said: "There are no talks yet, our current public attitude is still to veto the war, maintain the original agreed conditions, unless Germany attacks Spain and Sweden, and seriously threatens China's maritime rights, China will not consider declaring war on Germany." ”

Song Biao nodded in recognition of this negotiation principle, or to raise the price and force Britain to accept higher conditions, rather than appear short-sighted and stupid in international politics, but also to actually get more benefits.

After careful consideration, Emperor Song Biao said to Jiang Fangzhen: "I will cautiously continue to express the determination of the empire to safeguard its interests in the world, but I will not easily let go of the British declaration of war." Taking a step back and saying that even if Britain leaves the war, we still have a way to solve the problem, which means that we have enough capital to negotiate. Of course, if we don't end up with a new agreement with Britain that we agree to agree with, we should still give Britain more real resources, and Congress can push for a new Lend-Lease Act that would allow us to lend the remaining military supplies to Britain to support Britain in its war effort. ”

Jiang Fangzhen agreed to come down with Gu Weijun.

The views of the three people are basically the same, it is a matter of time before they enter the war, the key is to maximize the benefits, from the financial considerations, Gu Weijun relatively hopes to declare war later, while Jiang Fangzhen is worried about the success of Germany's nuclear weapons program, and hopes to enter the war as soon as possible and solve the problem as soon as possible.

Jiang Fangzhen considered more factors, because Germany and the United States are both developing nuclear weapons, Germany is advancing faster, and it has taken out more national resources, and Germany now has such a huge support from the Soviet-occupied area, plus France, the Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other European occupation countries, it is likely to be a matter of two or three years to develop nuclear weapons.

The three of them discussed this issue for nearly two hours, analyzing all kinds of problems that might be encountered, and finally decided that the best time to declare war should be before September next year, and if it was later, the size and overall strength of the German army would reach a very terrifying level through the integration of the whole of Europe.

In general, the sooner war is declared, the better.

That is the case, but tomorrow's negotiations with Prime Minister Churchill are a different matter.

After the secret meeting that night, Gu Weijun returned to the Prime Minister's Office late at night and made some new arrangements for the emperor to receive Prime Minister Churchill tomorrow afternoon.

In the afternoon of the next day, Emperor Song Biao received Prime Minister Churchill in the state guest hall of the Central Palace; in order not to make Germany suspicious, the meeting was not very grand in terms of etiquette, and it was basically similar to a normal prime minister's visit, and even the meeting time was only scheduled for an hour, and in principle, the two sides would not issue any joint statement or announcement.

Just like Prime Minister Gu Weijun's visit to the King of England, it seems to be just a matter of etiquette.

This was actually the first meeting between Emperor Song Biao and Prime Minister Churchill, and Emperor Song Biao also made a small experiment with Prime Minister Churchill, introducing Crown Prince Yuhua to Prime Minister Churchill, and began to gradually push his heir to the world political stage.

In the presence of Crown Prince Yuhua, Emperor Song Biao fully demonstrated his sympathy for the British Empire and his short-sightedness towards international politics, which was diametrically opposed to the secret conversation last night.

Emperor Song used his own personal demonstration to tell Crown Prince Yuhua the most basic truth - national interests are the most important, many times, short-sighted, trivial calculations can strive for more interests for the empire, and the so-called national friendship is pure empty talk.

Prime Minister Churchill's seven-day visit to China this time is actually to negotiate with China, and he also understands that China will definitely send troops, and the key is that Britain must pay a very high price to allow China to enter the war.

This is a very absurd thing for Britain, because even if China enters the war, it is fighting for itself, but the reality is always so disgusting.

In the following four days, Prime Minister Churchill, Prime Minister Gu Weijun, and Chief of General Staff Chiang Fangzhen held two more talks to negotiate the issue of the Empire's strategic support to Britain, but Britain did not continue to offer higher prices, and the Empire did not agree to declare war on Germany.

It was unlikely that the Reich would have exposed its true plans and ideas during this period, as it was likely to be unilaterally exploited by the British, such as deliberately leaking intelligence and the results of the negotiations to Germany.

The real negotiations have not yet begun, and now it can only be said that the status quo will be maintained, and the Reich will contribute money and efforts to support Britain to fight for a while to see the results, and at the same time, the Reich will continue to speed up the pace of preparations for war and prepare for the final battle against Nazi Germany.

After reaching an agreement with Great Britain, the Reich began to consider strengthening its military deployment in three directions in Germany, in addition to increasing military aid to Britain and the size of its garrison in Spain, and on the east bank of the Volga River, it also strengthened the deployment of military training and integrated operations, as well as the increase in the storage of strategic materials, without expanding the military scale.

In order to prevent Germany from taking the initiative to intensify the contradictions, the Reich also adopted a more explicit policy at the diplomatic level, but not to provoke Germany, and sent Foreign Minister Guo Taiqi to visit the United States, and through joint prestige, he demanded that European countries stop the war as soon as possible and avoid causing further damage to the world.

The mediation condition put forward by China and the United States is that Germany withdraws from France, resumes peace talks, and after the settlement of the problem through negotiations, Germany further withdraws from Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway.

It is an indisputable fact that Britain's overall strength was severely depleted in a collision with China, but across the English Channel, Britain was able to resist the German invasion plan by virtue of its superior air and naval forces.

China and the United States also played an important role in this process, successively passing the Lend-Lease Act, leasing naval ships and aircraft to Britain, and selling more destroyers and combat aircraft to Britain to help Britain defend itself against German military attacks.

In view of the fact that Britain lagged far behind Germany in the development of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, the Reich also sold early models of short-range missiles to Britain on a large scale to assist Britain in countering the German missile offensive.

In Winston. Soon after Prime Minister Winston Churchill left Britain, the Straits Settlements in Singapore held a referendum vote and passed a resolution to annex the Chinese Empire with a high vote rate of nearly 90%.

The empire's plans for this part of Singapore were already a long-term thing, and the British were forced to set up the Temasek Bang in 1931 with a total area of 4,600 kilometers with the Straits of Johor as the boundary under the pretext of protecting the interests of the Chinese.

These places, together with the Bintan, Batam, Riau Islands, and Singapore and Linga Islands that the empire divided during the Dutch partition of Indonesia, will be the empire's new Singapore Zhili Province, with a total area of 12,000 square kilometers, and 8% of the Chinese in the jurisdiction will occupy an absolutely important special position in Southeast Asia because of its port, geographical and local financial advantages.

With the incorporation of Singapore, the empire's overall layout strategy in Southeast Asia was completely complete, after Britain gradually withdrew from Southeast Asia, the empire successfully weakened Malaya and Indonesia into smaller countries, and the empire had Singapore Province, Kalimantan Autonomous Province, and Sulawesi Autonomous Province in Southeast Asia, and the influence on the whole of Southeast Asia has been extremely solid.

In the subsequent policy of Southeast Asia, the empire will formally promote the reading power of Indonesia, Malaya, and Papua, and similarly, the empire will allow Ambon and East Timor to read the power, and on each issue, the empire will make a division around its own interests and long-term needs, ensure that the empire enjoys the highest privileges in all of Southeast Asia, and limit the opportunities for these countries to challenge the authority of the empire in the future.

For example, in the division of the Republic of Tungbun and Indonesia, the empire made a demarcation line in the Tual Strait on the southeast side of the Banda Sea, so that neither country could control the strait, which meant that the empire had the highest de facto control over the Banda Sea, and the empire not only had naval fleet garrisons and bases here, but also had free access to the two entrances and exits of the Banda Sea.

The empire incorporated West Papua into the entire Papua Republic, so that Indonesia's actual territory was basically limited to Sumatra and Java, and for the new Papua Republic, the empire carved out the New British Isles, renaming the area as the Pomeranian Islands, which was also the third largest autonomous province of the empire in Southeast Asia.

Strength is indisputable power.

Regardless of whether the empire is hegemonic or hypocritical, strength ensures that the empire has enough power to divide Southeast Asia in favor of the empire, so that the empire has absolute control over the entire East Asian region.

At the same time, the empire also developed new plans to assist Southeast Asian countries in economic development, signed free trade treaties, helped them build infrastructure, roads and ports, encouraged enterprises to invest, and continued to import resources and export industrial products from these countries.

The Chinese are still the most important driving force in the development of Southeast Asia, and the empire will continue to maintain an annual immigration rate of 1 million to 1.5 million in the next two decades, with the Chinese as the economic and political subject, and re-establish a new order in Southeast Asian countries.

Under the imperial immigration policy, the proportion of Chinese in Thailand has exceeded 50% in the past 30 years, and the proportion of Chinese in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaya has exceeded 30%.

With the implementation of this policy for 30 years, except for the capitalists in the whole East Asia, the Chinese businessmen occupied an absolute dominant position, and more than half of the Chinese in Southeast Asia still held imperial passports and dual citizenship, and under the deterrence of the empire, all East Asian countries except the original were also forced to recognize dual nationality, which made the demographic expansionism of the empire reach an unprecedented peak around 1940.

In this kind of population expansionism, the Chinese not only brought modern culture, capital, labor, and industry to Southeast Asian countries, but also brought about the exchange and mixing of populations, and the Chinese and the population with Chinese blood will gradually occupy the dominant position in the whole Southeast Asia.

In this process, the total number of Chinese on the mainland has not actually increased significantly in the past thirty years, the total population of the empire in 1941 was 580 million, and the permanent population of the country was about 450 million, and there were more than 100 million Chinese and nationals with imperial passports living in the whole of Southeast Asia - in fact, the number of Thai, Malay, and Burmese who obtained imperial passports through marriage and became imperial nationals was also quite large, although the vast majority of them did not return to live in the mainland, But in the demographics of the empire, this is still part of the calculation that must be factored in.

This has actually become a more troublesome issue between the empire and Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand, where about one-quarter of its population holds Chinese passports, and if the empire's existing constitution is concerned, there are still about 15 million people who are eligible to apply for Chinese citizenship.

Thailand's main problem is that it and the empire are indeed too close in terms of economic and human flow, and Thailand's major financial institutions and large and medium-sized enterprises, even more than 70% of small and medium-sized enterprises and more than 1/2 of the land resources are concentrated in the hands of the Chinese, which is also a very embarrassing problem for Thailand.

In the long run, this will be a very complex and long-term demographic problem, and it will even threaten the security and stability of Asia as a whole, but at this stage, Southeast Asia is indeed the fastest growing and relatively most stable region in the world.

(To be continued)