Li Guang left Datang Island and stayed in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, for a few days, and then accompanied MacArthur to offer condolences and reward the three armies. On Christmas Day in 44 years, the Tang Army of the U.S. Army held a grand military parade in the ancient capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom on Okinawa Island, and Li Guang and MacArthur put on a big performance.

According to the negotiations of the Cairo Conference, Ryukyu will become Chinese territory, but at this moment, there is not a single soldier of Chairman Chiang, which is really a bit embarrassing.

There are many military affairs or miscellaneous affairs, busy and busy, and time flies very quickly, Li Guang even feels that it is almost a blink of an eye, and a few months have passed.

Mai Dashuai is a passionate performance, and Li Guang is enjoying it.

There's no way not to be happy.

On the return trip, Li Guang was not on a relatively safe escort destroyer, but on the transport cruiser Zhenwei. What's more, what's even more strange is that Li Guang doesn't like to stay in the relatively comfortable captain's room, wandering around the stuffy bilge all the time, and even has a tendency to look for abuse - and occasionally sleeps in the harsh bilge at night.

There were no beautiful women in the bilge, just a pile of cold metal—a full seventy-five tons of gold, and sacks of jumbles.

He can be regarded as a figure who has seen the world, but the economy of Haitang has always been in a state of tension, and Li Guang has seen a lot of gold and silver in the treasury, but he has never been able to warm up, so he spends it.

These 75 tons of gold were really the largest batch Li Guang had ever seen. Gold has an indescribable magic, and this thing is so exciting that it is difficult for Li Guang to calm down. So it seems understandable to stay in the bilge and masochist?

Li Guang is not a good student of history. But Li Guang still knows something about the story of Yamashita Fengwen's treasure. The Japanese army looted countless gold, jewelry, and artworks in the South Seas, and a considerable number of them were concentrated in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

Since the US military attacked the Philippines very suddenly. The sea route was tightly blocked by the Allies, and the Japanese commander Yamashita Fumifumi wanted to send a large number of gold and jewels back to the mainland, but he could not make the trip. Therefore, when the U.S. military approached Manila, Yamashita Bongfumi hid a large number of treasures in the mountains and forests north of Manila.

Although history has changed, Li Guang thought that the little devil would definitely not have time to send the gold back to his homeland, so he had a good idea early.

When U.S. forces occupied Manila in June. Yamashita fled in a hurry, but his luck was not as good as in history, and he was shot down by Allied fighters. Fell into the sea to feed the fish.

Li Guang has been planning for a long time, so naturally he will not let go of such a large amount of treasure, but it is quite difficult to make moves on the territory of the US military. In line with the principle of "no greed, no possession". Li Guang once again showed a great character. The excellent quality of not eating alone was admirable, so Li Guang and MacArthur hit it off, and a "small business" about gold was quickly agreed.

Therefore, when the American forces captured Manila, MacArthur had no time to take care of the Japanese prisoners, citing insufficient troops. As a result, the more than 20,000 Japanese prisoners of war captured in the Philippine Campaign were all handed over to the Haitang Army. These prisoners of war were naturally sent to Datang Island to sweat for the infrastructure construction of Haitang. Japanese prisoners of war are easy to use. This is already a recognized fact of Haitang.

The errand of interrogating the prisoners was naturally mastered by the Haitang Army, and the Military Intelligence Department to which Lin Lili belonged showed his skills. The torture methods of the agents trained by the Tang-US cooperation have achieved good results, and the secrets about the treasure have also been stripped of the cocoon by the Haitang Intelligence Department and gradually revealed.

At the same time, Haitang sent one of the most elite jungle battalions to assist the U.S. military in clearing the remnants of the Japanese army who had fled the mountains and forests. The leading officer was Captain Zuo Shandong, the only special squad leader of the Haitang Army.

The relationship between the two armies was the most intimate period, and the Tang army was almost unscrupulous on Luzon. The command of this small unit is quite special, and it is directly under the command of Marshal Mai, and other US generals have no right to intervene at all. In fact, no one dared to ask, after the defeat of Manila, Mai Dashuai's reputation was in full swing, and he was a little domineering, but there was no problem at all. As a result, Zuo Shandong's actions were incomparably free in the Philippines.

After half a year of hard work, the twelve treasure sites of the Japanese army were discovered one after another by the special squad of the Haitang Army and the jungle battalion.

These treasures, if required by high moral standards, should have been returned to the countries of Southeast Asia after the war. If it were a basic moral requirement, MacArthur should have handed over the treasure to the U.S. government.

Mai Dashuai is a pure person, for fame and profit.

As a result, Mai Dashuai and Li Guang added two by one, and one and a half of them swallowed this huge treasure very blackly. Historically, Mai Dashuai was also greedy for this treasure, but there were too many people who handled it, and he had to take care of all aspects, and what fell into his own hands was only 7.5 tons of gold. This time, Mai Dashuai and Li Guang cooperated happily, and because the Haitang Army was in charge of all the things about the treasure, the US military was completely unaware of this. Therefore, in the cooperation with Li Guang, Mai Dashuai obtained much greater benefits, and Mai Dashuai received a full 37.5 tons of gold. However, the gold is temporarily in the custody of Haitang.

There are three irons in life: carrying a gun together, "floating too long" together, and sharing the spoils together. MacArthur and Li Guang now have at least two irons. It is certain that in the future war spoils, Haitang's interests are absolutely guaranteed.

By the way, some people, such as Captain Zuo Shandong, the leader of the special operations team, are not very qualified in their ideological style. Specifically, Mai Dashuai didn't know anything about the sacks of art, jewelry and other things in the cabin.

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A country, even a small one, will always encounter such and such things. When Li Guang returned to Datang Island, the time was exactly February 4 in the fourth or fifth year -- on this day, one of the most important meetings in the history of World War II -- the Yalta Conference was held.

Li Guang, who is blind in history, knows very well about this meeting, not only the content, but also the exact time and place. However, it was a major meeting that Li Guang knew best, and Haitang was also fully prepared, but he did not have the opportunity to attend the meeting. All the diplomatic activities of the Haitang Kingdom did not work, and the 'rubbing meeting' failed. This was a major failure of Li Guang, a prophet and a speculative historical traveler, and Li Guang felt very awkward.

The reasons are easy to analyze. The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union did not want Haitang to appear at the Yalta meeting, even if he was an observer.

The wheel of history has entered four or five years, and this war that has affected the whole world has not yet been won. But the stolen bargains are already time to set the tone. This kind of game related to the world pattern, although Haitang is gaining prestige in the world pattern, he is still not qualified to participate for the time being. In the final analysis, it is the truth that strength determines status.

In this regard, Li Guang was very dissatisfied, but he was helpless.

However, a piece of news came from the British Isles. But it made Li Guangxing up. Just when the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union were meeting in Yalta, a major event that affected the course of World War II finally broke out - the British economy collapsed.

Scholars have mixed opinions about this economic collapse.

Many economists have analyzed that the cause of the collapse of the British economy was the discovery of the counterfeit British pound banknotes in the Haitang Kingdom.

In fact, the discovery of counterfeit banknotes is not a big deal in itself, and both sides made their own losses in the war. Everyone has counterfeit money. Britain made the German mark, and Germany made the British pound, which was an inevitable trick.

However, in different situations. The ending is very different. You must know that the British economy at this time is far more dangerous than at the same time in history. Four or four years in history. Britain's military expenditure is more than 60 percent of the people's income, and at present, due to the existence of Li Guang's butterfly, the British Empire's military expenditure has accounted for 65 percent of the people's income.

Although the proportion of the virtual economy in Britain is not as good as that of the United States, 65 percent of its military spending is about 70 percent relative to about 70 percent. This is an extremely dangerous statistic, and its degree of danger is actually on the same level as Japan's 98 percent military expenditure in 44 years. It's just that the British Empire has hundreds of years of experience in capital and has a superb means of controlling the economy. Until the end of April 4, there was no economic collapse.

As for counterfeit-banknotes. The British government knows this. The British printed the German mark, and Germany forged the pound, which would have been part of the war.

The German counterfeit-money project was called "Operation Andrew". The first to propose the issuance of large quantities of fake pounds to bring down the British economy was the fanatical Nazi Alfred. Nauyoks. Heydrich, a senior Na-C-SS official, appreciated the idea and included the dollar as a target for counterfeiting.

Heydrich entrusted this task to the Fourth Directorate of the Reich's Central Security Directorate. In the summer of 1942, the SS opened a factory for printing counterfeit banknotes in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Major Kruger led the forgery work. The Nazis gathered some of Germany's best experts in engraving, papermaking, and mathematicians, who specialized in calculating the numbering rules for pound sterling banknotes.

?

Due to the lack of suitable paper, the printing paper made in the early days of the Nazis did not have the same color under ultraviolet light as the real pound. It was not until 1943, when special linen for the Bank of England was bought from Turkey, that suitable paper was produced.

The Germans have always been serious, even if they are counterfeits, and they classify counterfeit coins into 4 grades: perfect, near-perfect, flawed, and unacceptable. Germany had originally planned to airdrop the non-conforming products to the UK, but in order not to be detected, they were eventually destroyed.

Perfect counterfeit - banknotes were stored for use by German spies in enemy and neutral countries. Near-perfect and flawed counterfeit-coins were shipped in batches to the occupied territories, and some of them were distributed to the German embassies in neutral countries for exchange into local currency.?

German agents had specially brought a batch of fake pounds to Switzerland for exchange and had the audacity to ask for the authenticity of the pounds (he explained that the pounds had been bought on the black market). Upon reminder, the bank picked out about 10% of the "counterfeit coins" and took the rest in full, thanking the agent for his "honesty".

It was by accident that Haitang discovered the sterling counterfeit. Coincidentally, the existence of a fake pound was discovered by chance in the United Kingdom: a Bank of England clerk stumbled upon the serial numbers of the two banknotes in her hand that were identical.

However, British economists who have a deep grasp of the laws of economics know very well that the degree of damage to the economy caused by counterfeit banknotes is definitely not determined by the total amount of counterfeit banknotes, and the absolute amount of pounds printed in Germany is actually difficult to hurt the British economy. But counterfeit-money will cause panic among the people, who are already emotionally unstable in the war, panic in the world, so that the pound will be devalued and the British economy will collapse.

As a result, the Bank of England had to remain silent about the amount of fake pounds found in the circulating market, and even took the initiative to accept pounds that it knew to be counterfeit. Therefore, it is simply impossible to remind the outside world of the existence of counterfeit sterling banknotes.

And so. Without even knowing it, Haitang made the British pound counterfeit money public, and suddenly broke the already fragile economic balance of Britain.

About that. Haitang absolutely denied any malice. And from the bottom of his heart, Li Guang didn't have this idea at all. Although the British slandered, it was difficult to accuse Haitang, you must know that Haitang confirmed it through the British Embassy in Haitang before announcing the counterfeit banknotes of the British pound, and it can only be said that the British diplomats are too unprofessional and lack financial knowledge. Poor communication with the country, did not stop it in time.

Later, some economists analyzed the comparison to the point: the British economy collapsed. Haitang's discovery of counterfeit banknotes was just a fuse. Because Britain adopted wartime economic regulation during the war, similar to a planned-economy, the banknotes themselves played a small role in the national economy (foreign trade had a huge impact), although Britain had already seriously overdrawn its economic potential. But in the case of strict economic control. Crashes don't happen that easily.

A certain prime minister once said: confidence is stronger than gold. In fact, people's confidence is crucial to the economy. At this juncture, the power of faith is on full display.

During the war, Britain was quite short of supplies and the people's lives were difficult, which had been maintained for several years. In the past four or five years, when the Allies had effectively resisted and counterattacked Germany, and it could even be said that they were victorious, the people should have had high confidence. An economic collapse is unlikely.

But the collapse did happen, and one of the most fundamental reasons for it was the high morale of the people. At this point, he lost his faith. Without him, the Allied war in France was too brutal, and the Germans were not as exhausted and powerless as they were in history. Historically, Britain lost more than 100,000 soldiers in World War II, but due to various differences, the British army lost more than 100,000 casualties in the first half of the French battlefield alone, and the total number of casualties has exceeded 500,000.

Note that the 500,000 casualties were genuine British, not the colonial army. The casualties of 500,000 soldiers were simply unbearable pain for the British Empire, which had a total population of less than 40 million.

The war is still going on, victory is far away, the British do not know how much they have to die to see victory, so the psychology of the British people has been extremely fragile, when the counterfeit-money incident began to spread, the psychology of the British people immediately collapsed.

The British people worked hard to support the war effort, and earned a little pound in their pockets, but once the psychology collapsed, there was a large area of irrational buying frenzy across the country, and the people were irrationally buying everything they could, useful or useless. It is said that some civilians have bought enough salt for their families to consume for 100 years. As for the strikes, work marches, and marches are in full swing.

In just one month, it is no longer the butterfly effect, but the domino collapse, and Britain is not only the civilian economy stagnant, but also the military industry. At the same time, the pound is depreciating rapidly not only in the British Isles, but also around the world.

The collapse of the British economy is the only recourse to the United States. However, in the corner of the world, South Africa, the southernmost tip of Africa, had to turn to Haitang for help.

South Africa, the most important British colony in Africa, is actually no less important in the eyes of the British than India, which is known as the Queen's Crown.

During World War II, many of Britain's colonies actually had difficulties in operating and did not bring much benefit to the British Empire, but India and South Africa were two cash cows for Britain, and they could also provide Britain with a large amount of cannon fodder, which is self-evident in their importance.

The collapse of the British economy was naturally a looting of the colonies, which led to the resistance of the indigenous people of all ethnic groups in South Africa. In order to stabilize South Africa, Britain had to turn to the Haitang. Although Haitang's economy is not very good, it is one of the few net exporters of grain in the world, and even controls some of South America's food exports. In the event of an economic collapse, food is the most important commodity, even more important than guns.

Under such favorable conditions, Haitang will naturally not be polite. In addition, Li Guangzheng was angry and did not have the opportunity to participate in the Yalta Conference, so Haitang also put forward a series of conditions.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Haitang rejoiced, and the knife was sharp. Eventually, taking the opportunity of the collapse of the British economy, Haitang was granted a "concession" of about four square kilometers in the western part of Cape Town, South Africa.

Drawing a concession in the colonies of the British Empire is truly a wonder in the history of world colonization. Although this concession, Haitang not only has no sovereignty, but even the governing power is incomplete, but no matter how you say it, it is a concession, and it is a small one to be proud of.

A small piece of land, Li Guang actually doesn't care, this year, casually in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean, there is more than so much income.

However, the significance and role of this small piece of land are incomparable, and it marks that Haitang has an excellent springboard for meddling in South Africa's internal affairs in the future. Economically, with the acquisition of this small concession, the trade between Haitang and South Africa began to be close, and more importantly, the British pound declined, and Tang Yuan officially penetrated into the South African economy.

The British economy collapsed, and the burden on the United States increased again. As we all know, the US economy is unrivaled, but under such circumstances, Li Guang has a question: How great is the potential of the US economy, and will it collapse, or to what extent?

The collapse of the British economy was a major event that seriously affected the Allied offensive. You must know that on the European battlefield, the US and British armies basically divided the combat missions equally. In fact, the casualties of the American army were a few more heavy than those of the British army, and the British were unable to attack because of the turmoil in the military spirit, so the Americans naturally would not risk their lives to fill the vacancy of the British army. Therefore, the army Chen soldiers under the city of Paris, but it was difficult to organize an attack. As a result, the Allied offensive in the European theater was unexpectedly unsustainable. Hitler's Germany was on the verge of being given a rare respite.

Overall, the economic crisis delayed the Allied offensive for three or four months, and it was not until May of '45 that the battle for the capture of Paris began to heat up again.

The economic collapse of the United Kingdom, with the help of the United States, came and went as fast as it came. However, one thing is certain, the glory of the empire on which the sun never sets is gone. The decline of the country's power has become unstoppable, and the British can only be sad, as Churchill said: "strong".

In this historical case, in addition to pulling the fuse, Haitang has no other "responsibility"?

Oh, and the most fundamental point. It seems that the United States' strategy of putting Europe first and then Asia is indeed not being implemented so smoothly, and Britain's losses on the battlefield far exceed the historical level, and the British economy has long been overdrawn. The initiator - Li Guang. (To be continued......)