Unlike China, an empire that wants to become a world power must have a large enough colony, especially at a time when China's economy and trade are at an unprecedented standstill. The economic and trade war between China and China has continued from 1908 to the present, spreading from the northeast to the world, in addition to the protection of each other's internal markets by tariffs, the economic and trade war between China and the markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America has become more and more intense, and this economic and trade war has actually been of great benefit to both sides after 15 years of development, stimulating the national industries of both sides to make great strides in technology, management, marketing, and products.

Right now, just today, in this era, in the 11th year of the Great Empire, and in the 12th year of the Shenwu of the Chinese Empire.

The empire's territory is 42 times that of the empire, its population is 8 times that of the empire, its total economic output is 10 times that of its own, and the total amount of major resources such as coal, iron, copper, and aluminum is thousands of times that of the empire.

It is said that the pace of development cannot be stopped, and once it stops, it will be crushed by the Chinese empire in the palm of its hand, and this moment is precisely the stage where the gap between the Chinese and Chinese navies is the largest.

It is said that Ben is in the most glorious stage after the Washington Treaty, and the Imperial Navy is just getting started, and it will take at least ten years to close the gap.

The fearful Sayben embarks on a more thrilling adventure strategy.

……

Song Biao's political acumen allowed him to make another successful prediction, and it was not so much that he sent Rear Admiral Akiyama Mayuki to apologize, but that he was asking for the colonial rights of Chinese New Guinea, and at the very least, he wanted China to sell him at a suitable price.

It was also proposed that if China transferred the former German New Guinea to the Empire or sold it to the Empire, the Empire would be able to meet the requirements of the Chinese Empire and prohibit the use of the word "China" in domestic political documents and diplomacy.

A striking feature of Ouyang Geng's cabinet in diplomacy was that it was tougher than in the Tang Shaoyi cabinet, and the cabinet not only rejected the unreasonable and ridiculous demands of the people, but also condemned the arrogance and rudeness of the cabinet, and did not make any concessions on the colonial issue.

What is German New Guinea?

Hundreds of thousands of tons of copper concentrate and nearly ten tons of gold output per year in the colony, how can the empire cede to foreign countries, let alone cede to the capital, do not underestimate this place, the climate and environment here determine its advantages, the German colonial period has laid a good economic and agricultural foundation here, rich in palm, copra, coffee, cocoa and rubber, plus the surrounding abundant fishery resources, as well as oil and gas resources, the empire is absolutely impossible to transfer.

The Empire's policy has always been to do everything it can to "reduce imports and increase exports", and this happens to be the best complement to the Empire, and the Empire has even begun a large-scale resettlement program to occupy New Britain, the island of New Britain, which is the most dense in gold and copper, and New Ireland, which is rich in oil resources, and which in the next ten years will gradually emigrate 600,000 people, and use this as a springboard to continue to export more people to the South Pacific.

As the empire entered the second industrial revolution, the empire's demand for copper grew rapidly, the current world refined copper output is only 1.4 million tons, the empire's copper production last year accounted for 17% of the world's copper, New Guinea copper mine is not only the only world-class copper mine controlled by the empire, the copper content of copper concentrate is also much higher than the domestic poor copper mines, so the empire will never make any form of concessions.

A new round of conflict has come.

Although Akiyama Shinyuki hoped to solve the problem by meeting the emperor directly, the emperor did not arrange to meet him, and could only return to China in a tough conflict with the imperial foreign minister, and no one expected that this would be the complete decline of the pro-Chinese faction in his own country.

Their greed and the expansionism they had to maintain brought back the Sino-Chinese relations, which had been in a state of cold war for a long time because of economic and trade wars.

Shortly after Akiyama's departure, he sent two battleships to Port Moresby, which was administered by Australia, and the Empire ordered the garrison in Central New Guinea to be on first level alert, and also prepared to send two Aurora-class battleships to Lae Harbor to garrison it.

Before the warship was about to sail out of the Qingdao naval base, Jiang Fangzhen, chief of the general staff of the Central Military Department, Sa Zhenbing, chief of the naval staff, and Song Wenhui, minister of the navy, went to the office of the Central Palace to report the latest situation of the incident to Emperor Song Biao and wait for the emperor's final order.

The expressions of all three of them were unusually serious and nervous, because the navy they were about to confront maintained three times the level of the empire on the capital ships.

The written report was written by Sa Zhenbing, chief of staff of the Navy, and he presented it to His Majesty the Emperor with respectful hands, and at this moment, deep in his heart, he was also full of an inexplicable fear, worried that the emperor would decide to adopt a more fierce confrontation method.

As the chief of staff of the Imperial Navy, Sa Zhenbing knows very well that the Imperial Navy is not the opponent of the Imperial Navy at all, although the Empire already has two Austro-Hungarian Combined Forces-class battleships and four Aurora-class battleships, because of the small tonnage, the total displacement tonnage adds up to only 114,000 tons (British), which is only equivalent to 1/3 of the Imperial Army.

It is said that the navy has six super-dreadnoughts with a displacement of more than 30,000 tons and four super-dreadnoughts with a displacement of more than 25,000 tons.

Obviously, this battle cannot be fought.

It is an indisputable fact that the Imperial Army is the best in the world, but the Navy is far weaker than the previous one, and of course the Imperial Navy also has a long-term grand plan, but this kind of long-term plan is at the most vacuumous stage at this stage.

According to the Washington Treaty, the Imperial Navy will have a maximum of 275,000 tons (British) of capital ships displacement gross tonnage, although the total amount is less than the 385,000 tons, but the Empire is allowed to build two additional 35,000-ton battleships and allow the use of 16-inch guns.

In addition, the Imperial Navy will maintain the same 85,000 tons (British tons) standard in terms of the total tonnage limit for aircraft carrier construction, which will further narrow the gap between the Imperial Navy and the Imperial Navy to some extent by virtue of the Empire's air force and aircraft industry superiority.

However, according to the plan of the Imperial Admiralty, this gap would not be closed until around 1935, and the Imperial Navy would not have the strength to challenge the naval supremacy in the western Pacific for the next decade. Song Biao, Jiang Fangzhen, Sa Zhenbing, and Song Wenhui are very clear about this, because this decision was made by them together.

Song Biao looked at the latest information provided by the Naval Intelligence Department, saying that the Navy had been under full martial law, which meant that the Navy was ready for battle, and all of this was just another conspiracy that had been planned for a long time.

He knew very well that he had wanted to fight the Imperial Navy for a long time, but he had never had a chance in the past, but now he had finally found it.

At this time, there was also a confusion of policy, on the one hand, the cabinet wanted to get the Chinese New Guinea, and on the other hand, the navy was crazy and dreamed of fighting with the Chinese navy, defeating the Chinese navy in World War I, once again establishing the position of the only naval supremacy in Asia through war claims, and once again regaining the national fortunes and all the privileges in China that had been lost by the army.

When Song Biao was looking through all kinds of information here, Jiang Fangzhen, Song Wenhui and Sa Zhenbing were all full of nervousness, they knew very well that once the Aurora and Lushun left the port, they would probably be like Zhenyuan and Dingyuan, and they would never come back.

Everyone struggled to cede New Guinea to the Zobenz, but they also did not want to risk a decisive battle with the Zoben navy.

Song Biao didn't know that the Imperial Navy was still in its cradle, and now it had just learned to walk, and it had been waiting for a long time, but the reason why it really forced it to take such a tough posture came from the compromise between Britain and the United States, and it really had no choice but to develop, except for fighting for interests with a crazy provocative posture, it had almost no other choice.

The colonies that can be fought for in the whole world already have masters, and although the Dutch colony in Indonesia is weak, it has the protection of Britain, and the United States in the east cannot be offended at all, so it can only take a risk to China to maximize its interests.

Song Biao pondered this question silently.

Song Wenhui finally couldn't help but propose to Song Biao: "Your Majesty, maybe Ben has no intention of going to war, after all, they have just signed the "Washington Treaty", and they have set off a new round of naval war at this time to completely force our country to launch the treaty, and other countries will not allow it, right?" ”

Song Biao hummed slightly, and then corrected: "It's hard to say, I see the tolerance and sympathy of Britain and the United States and other countries for Yuben, to a large extent, because our country is expanding too fast, even if it is a quasi-ally like the United States and an ally like France, they actually have a mentality of wanting to contain our country. It should be said that we have seized this opportunity, and we have indeed relied on the army to force Britain to make a lot of concessions, but how can Britain be willing? ”

Song Wenhui asked: "Your Majesty, then how should we deal with it, should we ask the United States and France to come forward to coordinate?" ”

Song Biao was noncommittal.

Before signing the Washington Treaty, he considered buying four battleships from the United States for emergencies, and the United States was going to dismantle this part of the battleships anyway, but in the end he gave up the matter because of luck, and now he has suffered retribution.

Because the United States has made major concessions to the United States and withdrawn from various naval bases in the western Pacific, the United States is now powerless to stop this state of affairs.

After thinking about it for a while, Song Biao speculated that the current international environment is still relatively stable, and although countries have a certain intention of using this to contain the empire, they may not really want to tear up the Washington Treaty.

Especially for the United States, it is only once the United States is allowed to intervene in this matter, the outcome becomes difficult to say.

Considering this, Song Biao and Jiang Fangzhen instructed: "For the time being, there is no need to send battleships into the South Seas, the entire air force will be put on second-level alert, the 215th Division will be transferred from Fujian to New Britain Island, the 55th Air Force Divisions 204th, 205th, 207th, 208th, and 210th will be transferred to the Northeast Military Headquarters, and the 208th and 210th Divisions will be transferred to the Pyongyang District, so that the Air Force will do a good job of unsealing and overhauling the old models and be ready to return to service at any time, the 213th Division will be transferred from Nanchang to Taiwan, and the other divisions will be transferred to the coast one after another. Five new air divisions from 216 to 220 were added to prepare for entering the Northeast and North Korea, and at the same time the speed of heavy bomber production was increased, and the air force bombing exercise against warships was secretly conducted in the waters of Qiongzhou Bay to test various previous related research and new torpedo technology. ”

Hearing these orders, Jiang Fangzhen and the others understood that the emperor wanted to use the empire's superior air force to confront the emperor, because a large number of aircraft were exported during the First World War, the scale and level of the empire's aircraft industry has always been maintained at the leading level in the world, and it has three well-known aircraft manufacturing companies, Shenyang Aircraft, Far East Fokker and Shanghai Curtis, and its cooperation with France and the United States is also extremely close, and in recent years, it has carried out secret cooperation with Germany to a large extent.

This is beyond the reach of this company.

Under the influence of the Sino-Soviet War, the empire still maintains a regular establishment of 15 air divisions, and the provincial patrol forces also retain an aviation patrol detachment, and the air force of the empire is greatly affected by the army, each air division maintains two air combat regiments, one bombing regiment and two ground support regiments, and each air regiment maintains three aviation detachments, each detachment has 30-35 fighters.

The difference between the air force of World War I and World War II and the latter part of World War II is very large, and for the time being, especially after the test of the Sino-Soviet war, the establishment of the imperial air force as a whole is more suitable for the needs of the war at the present stage.

In the event of a large-scale war, the subordinate air detachments of each air regiment will proliferate from three to ten, and the reserves of flight and ground crews will remain at the most advanced level in the world.

If the Empire could not understand the Empire's air superiority, and blindly attacked and tried in vain to blackmail, the Empire could only take the initiative to attack and use the superiority of the Air Force and the Army to prove the Empire's strength to the Empire.

After making a series of military deployments, Song Biao believed that his warnings were sufficient, and if he ignored these warnings, the next step would inevitably be a new Sino-Chinese war.

After the Imperial Air Force began to move frequently, it seemed that he suddenly realized that China was no longer the Manchu Empire of the past, and that the Chinese Empire had no intention of making any form of concession, even at the cost of all-out war. This result came as a surprise to him, and although he had absolute naval superiority, he had to consider it carefully considering the influence of the Sino-French alliance and other factors.

Because the request for the Empire to transfer German New Guinea and the dispatch of two Ise-class battleships to Port Moresby to threaten the Empire were called the Naka-Ise Incident, after the Imperial 215th Air Division was stationed on the island of New Britain, the Empire's 215th Air Division, which lacked sufficient air support, was forced to withdraw the two Ise-class battleships to the mainland.

The long-planned Ise Incident thus turned into a contest between the Chinese Air Force and the Chinese Navy, because of the large-scale use of the Chinese Air Force in the Sino-Soviet War and its irreversible tactical superiority, the Ise Incident ended silently in the secret war between China and China.

After the end of the Ise Incident, the Shocho no longer continued to mention the New Guinea issue to the Empire, but instead re-requested the signing of a new Sino-Chinese trade treaty that was more favorable to the Ise, but he still continued to use the term "Shina" to refer to China in the official documents and society without any idea of apology, and the intention of the Imperial Foreign Ministry to pursue the matter was similarly diluted, and the Ise Incident seemed to have entered a new Cold War stage, but the Ise Incident once again deepened the Cold War between the two countries, and the political axe and the nation were full of hostile consciousness like a cold ice cave.

A few days later, Song Biao still went to the office early to handle official business as usual.

Early in the morning, Wang Zhaoming prepared for him a special copy of the "Chao Yue News" from the Japanese version, and prepared a translation for this purpose, which was somewhat unconventional and was not within the scope of Wang Zhaoming's authority.

Song Biao still finished reading the translation of the "Chaoyue Shimbun" morning newspaper a week ago, and only then did he understand Wang Zhaoming's intentions, and it turned out that the "Chaoyue Shimbun" that day published an article by Rear Admiral Mayuki Akiyama, the new vice minister of the navy, "Who have we offended?" 》。

Wang Zhaoming's translation is basically faithful to the wording of the original text, and has a prose-poetic essay style, which makes people sigh after reading it.

In the first line of the article, Masayuki Akiyama wrote: "Before I was commissioned by Prime Minister Takahashi to go to Shina, I had a premonition that it would be a bad official trip, and it turned out to be so, and it made people like me feel frustrated and sad.

"After returning home, I cried bitterly in the spacious office behind the birch door panel of the Navy Headquarters, and closed the door, so no one knows how painful and mournful I feel in my heart, maybe I know that we will not risk war with the Empire of China, but I am still very sad, alone in the middle of the night in the Navy Headquarters, I used to sleep during the Battle of the Navy, I also tossed and turned, I always wonder why the Empire and China have come to such a heartbreaking state today?"

"We want to get colonies, because every country has the right to make its country rich and strong, and to make its people happy, and this is the right of every country, so said Mr. Yukichi Fukuzawa, the philosopher of the Restoration, whom my brother and I admired the most, and we are convinced that so, but the world is cruel and always persecuts our nation to face the most painful situation."

"After the defeat of the Korean Peninsula in the 44th year of the Meiji era, I was forced to end my beloved position as commander of the Arthur Fleet and return to Japan to serve as the principal of the Naval Non-commissioned Officer School. Before that, I was probably a fan of the Yamato people who lived in China, I liked their ignorant and simple hard workers, I liked the former governor of the three eastern provinces, and later the emperor of the Chinese Empire, His Majesty Song, who was more of a simple soldier at that time, always with a keen sense of tactics and strategy, as well as amazing tactical innovations and new and progressive modern warfare ideas, and in limited interactions, even a naval officer like me could always benefit a lot from talking to him. Therefore, I always like to say that he is the god of war in Asia, and he is so powerful that even my invincible brother, who has been arrogant and arrogant since childhood, has nothing to say. After I left Lushun, even as the principal of the Naval Non-commissioned Officer School, I would always find various opportunities to go to China every year, thinking of a way to meet him, even if it was just a simple conversation with him about boring topics such as the weather. ”

"I know that His Majesty the Emperor of China is always changing, becoming more strange, still sharp and can be called the god of the Asian army, but he is so high that I can no longer read his heart, in the limited few meetings, through his eyes, all I can see is indifference and ruthlessness in addition to nobility, I will always insist on reading all the editorials of the Central Committee of China under his pen name, although I know that many of those articles are written by his staff, but after all, they can still represent his thoughts."

"We hate His own His Majesty Shenwu, that is the biggest factor we hate him, but whenever I sort out his editorials and his public remarks in China, I am still surprised to think that he is simply the kind of Emperor His Excellency who is the reincarnation of His Majesty Shenwu, he seems to be very good at it, and he also likes to greatly Westernize on the basis of maintaining the essence of China's culture and tradition, I always feel that this is the main reason why China's country has become stronger rapidly in the past ten years."

"Many times, I was always very sad, not because my friendship with him had grown so cold that I could hardly see each other, but because since he came to the throne, China has excluded us from the world when it opened up to the world, and it is not difficult to explain that it is well known that his parents and family died at the hands of our soldiers, and we have always denied this again and again, and we have refused to apologize to him and his people."

"Oh my God!"

"Whenever I suggest that the military department apologize for this and is met with unanimous rebuke and vicious criticism, I wonder what is wrong with us, is our psyche sick? Don't we know what we've done, don't we know that the emperor is the god of the army of Asia and the emperor who rules over 400 million people? I have always asked my tormented soul again and again, is it really necessary for us to be so arrogant? Is it arrogant to the point of losing one's mind and one's name? ”

"From what I know about China and us, both of us are the kind of people who like to blame others for it, and we always believe that we are innocent and righteous. So we refuse to apologize, we don't apologize, and Shina never apologizes to us. They never realized that they had hurt us, and we didn't realize it, so things kept getting worse and worse. ”

"In the Taisho year, as long as we opened the newspapers, we hated the reports of China, and they adjusted the tariffs against us again and again, refused to leave our products that were better than theirs, and did not allow their citizens to enjoy a cheaper and more affordable life. They have also cut taxes for us again and again at home, making their products cheaper internationally, even if their products always have problems of one kind or another. We have trained so many talents for them that half of the people in the Cabinet of China have studied in the country, and more than seventy percent of the middle and high-ranking officers of the army have graduated from the Lu Shi, and during the five years of the New Deal in the three eastern provinces, we have opened our arms to all the talents they need, set up schools for them in the three eastern provinces, and then dreamed that the two countries of Asia would take off together and unite against the Anglos, but is that the result? Are all we do just to keep them out of us? After we have done so much for them, the Europeans have bullied them for so many years, and yet they have excluded us and embraced Europe with open arms? ”

"So, we have reason to hate their stupidity."

"It's just that when we look back on the past, when we demanded a huge amount of 200 million taels of silver from them after the Qing War, so that the Qing Kingdom was cornered, did we consider that the source of everything was our too eager desire to be strong and rich?"

"Now when they are strong, and unceremoniously excluding them, it is as nasty as a despicable man who takes advantage of his neighbor and kicks him out of the feast, but they are indeed powerful, and that is an indisputable fact. Perhaps I will meet with a lot of opposition when I say this, and we will always report that they are as ugly and ignorant as ever, and even the most impartial newspapers like to use them. They were not willing to make any report about their purchase of two 10,000-ton water presses from the United States, and they criticized them for producing their own battleships, saying that they were provoking us, that they were all relying on the help of the Europeans, that they could not even make screws very well, but as far as I know, they were now ready to use their own super-dreadnoughts with their own steam turbines and triple guns, possibly more than fifteen inches. We always criticize them for producing planes and tanks with the help of the Europeans, without the charity and help of the Europeans, they would be nothing, and they are still the most ignorant 'Chinese pigs', but it is also an indisputable fact that they were the largest aircraft manufacturers in the First World War. ”

"When their aviation combat regiment arrived in German New Guinea, our navy was completely helpless. When we were discussing this, a stupid general who was always stupid actually said that he could solve those planes with just a few anti-aircraft guns, and I asked him rhetorically if the empire had its own anti-aircraft guns, or if it would buy them from France, and whether France would sell them to us? Even if France were willing to sell, how much would we need to buy to withstand thousands, if not 10,000 bombers? ”

"No one answered, and when the entire Navy Headquarters was silent, I felt even deeper pain!"

"I've been through so much, I've always been talking to my friends late at night about these sad things, and I've always said that if they realize that we're Asian, and we realize they're Asian, we both get rid of all the hatred and become good friends."

"Every country has the right to make the country rich and strong, and the people happy, this is the right of every country!"

"The thinker who influenced my life said so, and I think so, but I always ask why we don't have room to grow, we need a place to sell our products, we need resources, only then can we become richer and stronger, we can make people happy, this is our right. This is also the right of China, but why should China take away this right from us, looking back, we have always done something wrong, and so have they, and now there is a time when both sides must admit their mistakes, and if we still want to lead Asia, I think we should probably apologize first. ”

"I never deny that the statement that 'even if we apologize to Shina, it is impossible to get forgiveness and fair conditions', but if we don't bravely face our hearts and be brave enough to try, how will we know the result?"

"I think I know, and there are other people who know, at least my brother and our friends, who always like to teach me, know that the time has come for the empire to change, and I have to face up to a real reality, a reality that even Europeans know very well, that China has become one of the most powerful empires in the world in the last ten years, and even if their navy is still weak, it will be many years before they become one of the strongest naval states in the world."

"I think I know, and there are more people who know, that if we don't do something now, we're going to be torn apart by this empire around us that is 42 times our territory, but definitely not by the kind of provocation that we did in the last few months, which will only make things worse between the two Asian empires."

"It's just that if we don't even have the courage to apologize to His Majesty the Emperor, who rules half of Asia, what else can we do to give Yuben a chance to regain his prosperity?"

"In the cold middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep because of the same pain as before, I asked myself this, at this moment, one day at the beginning of the summer of Taisho 11, I also want to ask others."

Song Biao read the whole article very carefully, and his heart was also greatly touched, and he suddenly realized how painful it is for a sober person to live in a sleeping and imminent world.

Akiyama Shinyuki will be in pain precisely because he is awake.

Song Biao sighed silently, feeling bitter for this former friend and the only few Zhihua factions in China, since the economic and trade war between China and China was basically divided in 1913, and the large-scale departure of this product from the Chinese market, the people-to-people exchanges between China and China have almost been interrupted.

China will still send students to Sakhalin, but because of the rapid deterioration of the environment, there are fewer and fewer students being sent to the two countries, and if we count from Sakhalin Island, the territory of the two countries is already bordering, and if we count from the east and west Ryukyus, the two countries are only 300 kilometers apart by straits, but the exchanges between the two countries have been almost completely interrupted.

Both sides no longer understand each other, and they think about each other one-sidedly, thinking that they are right.

What really hit Song Biao's heart was Akiyama Shinyuki's quote from Fukuzawa Yukichi - every country has the right to make the country rich and strong, and make the nation happy, this is the right of every country!

He had nothing to say about it.

The domestic market of the two countries is too small, while China's domestic market is more than ten times that of the capital, and the economic and industrial development of the empire has different logic and methods.

China said that the economic and trade war was doomed from the moment it began.

During the First World War, the European industry declined significantly, and the products of China seemed to have unlimited market space, only these few years were the prosperous moment of the Taisho period, and from 1921, the Sino-economic and trade war began to become more intense, and both sides were fighting in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the United States on the basis of sticking to their own markets.

When it was said that most of the raw materials for production had to be imported from China, it was doomed to be at a disadvantage in this war, and the high tax policy adopted by China in order to maintain military spending was further widened because of China's fiscal abundance.

China's industrial planning and support policies, as well as a more relaxed plan for the introduction of talents, also made China's industry improve rapidly in technology, from the beginning of the First World War there have been planned continuous improvement and expansion, in 1921 this watershed, except for the shipbuilding industry, the gap between the two sides has been further widened to the point that it is difficult to catch up.

Even in the shipbuilding industry, in addition to the disadvantage of battleships of more than 30,000 tons, China has surpassed the capital in the fields of merchant ships, engines, boilers, and marine steel.

China has the strength to compete with Germany in the fields of oleochemicals, industrial ceramics, coal chemicals, dyes, fertilizers, electrical, and internal combustion engines, and is also close to Britain and France in the textile and food industries, and has attacked the United States in the fields of automobiles, petrochemicals, machine tools, metallurgy, and communications, and has the strength to compete with Germany, the United States, Britain and France in emerging fields such as aircraft, electrified railways, and special machine tools.

After importing two 10,000-ton hydraulic presses from United Machine Tools for the manufacture of automobiles, aircraft, steam turbines, bearing shafts and ships, China is also challenging the 12,500-ton hydraulic press and more super-heavy-duty boring and milling machines at Far East Machine Tools.

The gap between China and China is getting bigger and bigger, but they have never really realized this, and they are still looking at China from the same perspective as ten years ago, even before the First Sino-Japanese War.

Before 1911, there were more than 400,000 people coming and going each year, but after 1913, the number of people coming and going each year had dropped to less than 20,000, and the vast majority of them were only between the military and the government and the educational circles.

It's a terrible thing.

Maybe it was caused by Song Biao.

Song Biao also finished reading Mayuki Akiyama's "Who Did We Offend?" with a fair mentality? He realized this, and perhaps he had to take half of the responsibility for the current problems between China and China, and it was his ruthless and indifferent kicking out of China that had also closed the future of the Zhihua faction and the pro-China faction, so that they gradually declined and could no longer have a positive impact on the Chinese faction.

Song Biao inevitably sighed a little sadly, and asked Wang Zhaoming, who had been waiting for him to read the whole article, "How long did it take you to translate this article?" ”

Wang Zhaoming replied respectfully: "Back to the emperor, it only took a day for his ministers to complete the translation, because I think it is better to have the original text of such an article, so I waited until today to send an urgent letter to the embassy in this country before submitting it to the emperor." However, according to the latest information, it seems that Rear Admiral Akiyama Shinyuki has angered the top officials of the [***] faction of the military and the cabinet because of this article, and has been ordered to withdraw from the cabinet, and it is said that even the navy does not intend to keep him in the service. ”

Song Biao was surprised and asked, "So miserable?" ”

Wang Zhaoming replied: "Yes, it is indeed very bad, and my subordinates think that in addition to using contemptuous titles, his article may be very fair and objective, and it has some inspiration for us." No matter how bad it is, we don't need to be so urgent. ”

Song Biao thought for a while and said, "What we did was indeed wrong, but we had no other choice." 'Every country has the right to make the country rich and strong, and the nation to be happy, this is the right of every country', we are just exercising our own rights, do we still have the obligation to give the same rights to share the prosperity and strength in our country? Akiyama's reflection was not thorough enough, and if he had positioned himself in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium and adopted a policy of light taxation and limited low military spending, they could have developed better. Development is the right of every country, but every country has no right to deprive other countries of the same rights, and cannot rely on exporting commodities and occupying the markets of colonies and other countries to satisfy themselves, which is why we promote the national policy of emphasizing the law and loving the people, and promote the general prosperity of the people as the basic national policy, as long as the people are rich, the domestic market can be expanded, enterprises can be expanded, and the country can be more prosperous and powerful. ”

Regarding Song Biao's last remarks, when Premier Ouyang Geng forcefully implemented the "Land Restriction Act" and the "Labor Protection Act", there was already a comprehensive debate in China, and now almost everyone knows this truth.

The country should be strong, and the people should get rich first.

It's just the other way around.

Wang Zhaoming paused: "The emperor is sage." ”

Song Biao thought about it, but said: "In fact, the truth lies in this sentence in "Persuasion", solemnly respecting the virtuous and king, respecting the law and loving the people and tyranny, it's just how to interpret this sentence from the perspective of a modern world view. Akiyama Shinyuki's intelligence and his realm are largely due to Fukuzawa Yukichi, which is why we say that the thinker is the most important thing, and the thought can guide action, but where are our modern thinkers? ”

Wang Zhaoming immediately replied: "Your Majesty thinks that the emperor is the thinker of today's empire, and it is precisely because of the emperor that the empire is rich and powerful, and the emperor's words and deeds are guiding the development of the empire." ”

Song Biao sighed slightly, but said, "I'm afraid I'm not even right." The current empire is developing well, but it is far from good enough, because we still lack a thinker like Fukuzawa Yukichi. We always say that we should honor the virtuous, but we still have not been able to wait for the real new thinkers of China. It will take time, because what we need is a big thinker who can truly interpret the West and is proficient in Chinese studies, and only such a big thinker can answer the root of China's problems. We always talk about modernization, but in fact we are too cowardly to admit that modernization is Westernization, and everything we do is only to greatly Westernize it through the slogan of recovering China, and only on this basis we have ensured some foundations for Chinese studies, but this is not enough, the degree of our Westernization is far from enough, and the degree of revival of our Chinese culture is also far from enough. It is easy to say, but it is really difficult and difficult to do. ”

Wang Zhaoming didn't dare to pat the emperor's sycophants anymore when he heard these words, but he always felt that although the emperor's thought was not worthy of the status of Confucius Mengxun, it was also practical, enough to lead the empire to be rich and strong, and enough to lead the empire to realize the great task of Chinese rejuvenation.

(To be continued)