When it comes to the end, George. Mead suddenly reacted and looked directly at Lincoln, who had a calm face: "Mr. President, since you already have an idea in your heart, why did you specially call me here for questioning?" ”

Lincoln nodded: "You're right, George, I do have a final decision in my heart, that is, in the current situation, it is imperative to negotiate peace, which will do more advantages than disadvantages for us, but ......"

Speaking of this, Lincoln paused, seemed to sort out his thoughts, and then continued: "It is better to negotiate with the Southerners alone, but if the negotiation fails, how long the negotiation will take, and what the content of the negotiation will be, is another matter." ”

"What do you mean?"

"My meaning is very simple, that is, in the process of negotiation, if we don't negotiate for a day, we and the Yankees will still be in a war situation, and the two sides can still attack each other." Lincoln smiled, "But the question is, once we start separate armistice negotiations with the Southerners at the urging of the Chinese, what will the British and French think?" ”

Hearing Lincoln say this, Mead suddenly realized: "I understand that the negotiations with the Southerners are false, but they are just a delaying tactic, the purpose is to take the opportunity to drive a wedge between the Southerners and the British and the French, so that they can no longer be as close as before, and even can drive a wedge between the Chinese and Britain and France, so that Britain and France are suspicious and miss the fighter, while we take the opportunity to launch an offensive and gain a favorable situation on the battlefield?" ”

"That's right." Lincoln nodded, "Originally, we had to deal with three enemies at the same time, the Southern Yankees, the Chinese and the Anglo-French coalition, and none of these three forces was easy to deal with, especially the Chinese.

Now, the Chinese have taken the initiative to withdraw, believing that in a short time, as long as we do not touch their bottom line. They will not backtrack, so for the time being, the biggest enemy of the Chinese can be ignored, then the only thing left is the Anglo-French coalition army, which is dominated by the British, and the most odious southerners.

Among them, the British and the Southern Yankees are actually not a cause for concern, but the bad thing is that they have a very close connection with each other, cooperate very well, and are much stronger than the Chinese who fight alone.

I was also having a headache. How to crack the cooperation situation between the British and the Yankees, but now the application for a truce from the Yankees has given us a chance.

Obviously, the southern Yankees' application for a truce this time is certainly not their own willingness, and there must be the shadow of the Chinese behind them, after all, at present, the southern Yankees are a little better than us in terms of the battlefield situation and have more initiative than us. We are on the offensive side and we are on the defensive, especially as the British are consolidating their newly acquired territory and have no time to do anything else. So supposedly at this time, the Southerners should not have proposed negotiations.

However, the southerners took the initiative to apply for an armistice, which shows that they either lack stamina and are no longer able to continue fighting. Either the Chinese put pressure on them, so they had to do it.

Either way, this is the best time for us to drive a wedge between them and the English, French.

So. In order to seize this opportunity, I suddenly had an idea, or an idea, so I came to you to help me see if it could turn into a plan that would turn us into a winner. ”

"And what exactly does Mr. President think?"

"It's simple, it's a risk." Lincoln narrowed his eyes, "I will send someone to negotiate with the Southerners, during the negotiation, we will transfer half of the strongest Potomac River Army to the north, and then transfer all the James River Army on the western front to converge with the Shenandoya River Army in the north, and the total strength can exceed 500,000!"

We will concentrate these 500,000 men and take the opportunity to launch a large-scale, large-scale counteroffensive against the British in the direction of Boston!

This attack must be resolute, effective, huge and not afraid of sacrifice, that is to say, no matter how many people are sacrificed during this period, it must be before the end of the negotiations, with the most resolute will and great sacrifice, to completely defeat the British one after another, to recapture Boston, to retake the entire New England region, and even to cross the border and directly enter Canada!

Once the British are defeated and New England is regained, then we will lose an enemy and a constraint in the North, and we will be able to concentrate on the Southerners with greater peace of mind.

At that time, because the negotiations are not over, we can gain more initiative, even if we still have to stop fighting with the Yankees in the end, at least after the threat of the British is missing, we can put forward more favorable conditions for us, limit the development of the Yankees to a greater extent, and lay the groundwork for us to regain the southern region in the future.

And, if possible, we can take the opportunity to take Canada, so that we can get back from Canada, even though we have lost a lot of land in the South. ”

"Take the opportunity to take Canada?" George. Mead was stunned, "Mr. President, you really have this idea...... The British were not so easy to deal with. ”

"Hmph, what's so hard to deal with." Lincoln snorted coldly, "Canada's troops are only 100,000 people, more than half of them are militiamen, and the real regular army is less than 50,000.

The reason why the British dared to do it against us this time was because the Yankees were involved in South Africa, the Chinese advanced on the Western Front, and the British mobilized 150,000 people from the mainland, plus 100,000 in Canada, resulting in their local superiority in troops in the Boston direction.

Although it seems that the British are very strong now, but in fact, the British have too many overseas colonies, not only to care about those overseas colonies, but also to pay attention to the situation on the European continent, the military force is always in a situation of insufficiency, they cannot mobilize all the troops for the sake of Canada, in fact, I think they have mobilized 200,000 people, it is already the limit, if there are more, Europe will have problems.

On the other hand, because of the war, we have launched a full mobilization, and even for the time being, we still have more than 700,000 troops, a scale far beyond the British can resist. ”

"That being said, though." George. Mead frowned, "But Mr. President, the most powerful thing for the British is not their army, but their navy, once they use the navy to harass us. Continuing to lock us down is also quite a headache for us. Moreover, Canada also has the St. Lawrence River as a line of defense, and once they rely on the St. Lawrence River to defend with the help of the British naval fleet, it will be very difficult for us to really fight it. ”

"The St. Lawrence River is not a problem." Lincoln smiled, "It's not 1812 anymore, and the scale of the war now is ten or twenty times greater than before."

When the war of 1812 was fought, we were even after a general mobilization. All the combined forces were only more than 35,000 men, and it was clearly at a disadvantage to attack Canada, the long coastline of the United States of America, and to guard against the naval assault of the British.

But now it's different, we've mobilized more than 700,000 troops, and 300,000 are in emergency training, such a huge force. It's definitely not something that tiny Canada can resist.

With the superiority in our forces, we can use land artillery to block the St. Lawrence River, easily blockade Montreal, and take advantage of the situation to capture other areas.

Most importantly. We have lost the south for the time being, and although we have lost a great deal of territory, we have also lost the vast coastline of the south, which has greatly shortened our maritime defenses. The great superiority in the maritime defense, which did not have to fear the naval harassment of the British, allowed us to concentrate our forces on the Montreal direction.

This time. It was the British who took the initiative to attack, which was equivalent to giving us the best excuse to send troops, so we must seize this opportunity to take Canada in one fell swoop and completely drive the British out of North America! ”

"But there's a problem, Mr. President." George. Gordon. Meade frowned, "We don't just have to deal with the British now, our biggest enemy is the Southerners, and their strongest enemy is also them. Once we draw a large number of troops north and fight the British, what do we do to resist their attack if the Southerners take the opportunity to launch a counterattack? Only half of the Potomac Army? ”

"That's right, just half of the Potomac Army." Lincoln smiled faintly.

"This ...... It's absolutely impossible. "George. Mead shook his head, "If the Southerners don't know, once they know the news that we are concentrating our forces on fighting the British, they will definitely send troops on a large scale and launch a full-scale attack, and at that time, we will definitely not be able to stop their all-out attack." ”

"They won't." Lincoln smiled, "If the Southerners could make their own decisions, maybe they would do it, but unfortunately, they may not be able to make their own decisions, don't forget that the Chinese are still standing behind them."

At the beginning, the Chinese army easily agreed to an armistice with us when it was victorious, and later restrained the southerners to sign an armistice agreement with us, and did not hesitate to be witnesses and protectors...... Having done all this, the intention of the Chinese is already quite obvious, which is to divide our United States of America into two countries, thereby weakening our power and facilitating their colonization of the western part of North America.

Just as the Chinese will not allow us to defeat the Yankees and restore reunification, they will certainly not agree to let the Yankees completely defeat us and achieve reunification from the south to the north. Because whether it is from the north to the south or from the south to the north, in fact, it is unified, and the united America is not something that the Chinese want to see.

Therefore, once we start armistice negotiations with the southerners, the Chinese will go all out to promote the success of this negotiation, and if we start a war with the British at this time, the Chinese will definitely be happy to see it, and they will definitely restrain the southerners, and will not agree to them taking advantage of the fire at this time.

You know, Britain still has many colonies in Asia, once the British fight with us, the investment in the direction of Asia will definitely be reduced, which is quite beneficial to China, so there are also many contradictions between China and Britain, which can be seen from this intervention war, the Chinese and the British almost did not cooperate with the action.

On the other hand, the southerners, although they wanted to continue the offensive after knowing that our southern border was empty, after all, the Chinese expeditionary force was still in New Orleans, and once they insisted on going their own way and did not listen to the Chinese, the Chinese launched an attack from behind, and the southerners could not bear it, and they absolutely could not afford this kind of loss.

Therefore, normally speaking, once we agree to negotiate with the Yankees and take an attitude of allowing the South to become independent, the Chinese will definitely manage the Yankees well and will not allow them to take the opportunity to attack us. ”

"But what you're saying is normal, and it's speculation." George. Meade shook his head, "But the reality may not be like that, what if the Southerners have to attack us despite opposition?" Or what if the Chinese don't have a particularly strong grip on the **, or if they can't completely control the southerners?

You know, what you're saying is hypothetical, but if there is a mistake and the Southerners take advantage of our troops to move north, then we will be all done.

At that time, not only will we be completely defeated by the Southerners, but even the northern battlefield may be lost, and we may be defeated by the British, and we will lose more land and power. ”

"I thought about it, of course I thought about it, and even thought of the results that were even more terrible than you said." Lincoln shook his head slightly, "But, George, have you ever thought about what we will be like if we don't do this, once the war is over?" Can we get back what we lost? Or do you really think we can take back the land of the South by military action at the moment? ”

"But that's too risky." George. Meade shook his head.

"We have lost so much in this war." Lincoln raised his head slightly, and said with a somewhat confused gaze, "Once we do nothing and accept the armistice like this, we will not only lose the lands in the west and south, but even the vital New England region will be lost to the British, and at that time, our great America will be completely divided into small pieces, and there will be no hope of rising."

Since we have reached this point, why not fight hard at the end, it is good to succeed, even if we fail, we just lose a little more.

Even, to a certain extent, I also hope that the southern Yankees will not listen to the Chinese and take the opportunity to launch an all-out attack on us, so that although we will fail, the north and the south may also take the opportunity to reunify, and such an outcome is not unacceptable to me. ”

Hearing Lincoln say that, George. Mead finally nodded heavily: "I understand, Mr. President, I will definitely work out a perfect plan as soon as possible according to your ideas, and do my best to complete him to ensure that your will is perfectly executed!" (To be continued......)