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"Error...... Not from our planet, but from ourselves. ”

- William? Shakespeare

The year 1908, almost since the world entered this year, was in a kind of turmoil that had never been seen before. The increasingly fierce arms race occupies the front pages of newspapers in various countries, and the national sentiment of almost every country is sliding towards radical aspects under the manipulation of public opinion.

Even in the Chinese newspapers, which have always been relatively calm, there are now more and more fierce words, first some people criticize the navy's concessions in the Pacific as a loss of power and humiliation of the country, but for the people, they do not have the power to influence the navy, or even the navy. Even the so-called Consultative House is only a consultative body and does not have the right to raise any questions about the Navy.

However, this did not prevent people from attacking the navy's concessions, and what really aroused people's dissatisfaction was probably the "discrimination" reported in the newspapers -- the discrimination of Chinese goods by foreign newspapers.

It was also in this year that after five years of industrial construction, China had completed the transformation from an agricultural country to an industrial country, and in the past five years, in addition to the billions of yuan of heavy industry projects led by the government, private capital has also invested in the construction of a large number of consumer goods factories. This had already triggered the West's wariness of China's industrialization efforts, but this wariness was masked by the increasing import of machinery.

As for the industrial consumer goods produced by the factories were originally to replace imported goods, with the increase of peasant incomes, the peasants' demand for consumer goods is also growing, and at the same time, with cheap labor and raw materials, the industrial consumer goods produced in China have entered Southeast Asia with the help of overseas Chinese, and Chinese businessmen have quickly occupied the Southeast Asian and Asian markets by using cheap commodities such as cotton textiles and shoes and clothing, and even exported to South America and Africa.

With many colonies in Britain, people gradually fell in love with high-quality and inexpensive Chinese goods. Coincidentally, China's main exports to Asia and Africa are also cotton products, posing a huge challenge to British textile exports on the continent. As a result, "Chinese dumping" became a term that could often be seen in British and colonial newspapers.

When British politicians and scholars called for a halt to the "dumping of Chinese goods", their articles were also reprinted by Chinese newspapers, which in turn aroused the dissatisfaction of the Chinese people against the British, and the idea of "persecution" naturally sprung up in the hearts of the Chinese people. Especially after the navy retreated, the people had a kind of idea that "the Western powers will not die if they die".

In the face of all kinds of "baseless" accusations from the West, first of all, the press and public opinion circles "turned defense into offense", they first accused the white race of being the "scourge" of world peace, and then advocated that China would "liberate the eastern countries oppressed by the white race."

It is precisely under the guidance of this viewpoint that in newspapers, you can often see words such as "preparing for war against the United States" and "preparing for war against Britain." And the government seems to be taking a conniving attitude towards all of this - because it has no intention of damaging the fledgling nationalist sentiment.

The imperial palace located in the east of Nanjing, is built on the site of the Ming Imperial Palace, after several years of construction, this imperial palace is not inferior to the Forbidden City in Beiping in terms of its scale, and compared with the Forbidden City, its building scale is more grand, the modern reinforced concrete provides a good guarantee, and the Western-style garden and the Chinese garden style have also achieved an almost perfect combination in the garden of the Imperial Palace, just like the modern Chinese architecture in the Imperial Palace.

"Nationalism is a weapon!"

In the imperial garden of the imperial palace, walking into this garden that blends Chinese and Western garden styles, Tang Haoran's tone seemed extremely calm.

"Now, the key for us is not to cool this emotion, but how to use it, manipulate it, and then through this emotion, carry out some kind of transformation of the people!"

In the face of the increasingly radical remarks of the newspaper public opinion circles pointed out by Zhang Zhidong, Tang Haoran seemed very calm, and for him, the current situation was predictable.

"Your Majesty, such a statement now may even affect the policies previously formulated by the state! This is most likely to exacerbate the contradictions between us and the British! ”

As the prime minister, Zhang Zhidong is not a diplomatic expert, all he sees is that Britain is the world's number one power, but he does not see that for China, Britain is actually equivalent to an enemy.

"I have been informed by the Admiralty that a number of British companies, including Vickers, have ceased to cooperate with us, and Your Majesty, I believe that it is the current radical civil rhetoric that has affected our cooperation with Great Britain."

"Cooperation ...... with the United Kingdom"

After a moment of silence, Tang Haoran glanced at the sky in the distance, it seemed that in the long history, this scene was not uncommon, but compared with the blockade suffered by Japan and Soviet Russia, China seemed to be earlier.

"Zhang Qing, one thing we must see is that compared with other countries, our population is too large, the total economic volume is too large, every little progress in our economy is a frightening progress for Western countries, just like last year, our steel production exceeded 15 million tons, as a result, the whole Europe was shocked, they think that our steel production, in just four years, has increased 7 times, but what they don't take into account is that we use 15 million tons of steel to supply the needs of 400 million people, This is something they would never consider, and if we had to expand our industry at least tenfold in proportion to our population, we would have to reach the current level of the British......"

As he walked, Tang Haoran used slightly mocking words to express the fact that with the expansion of China's industrial scale, European rhetoric is becoming more and more unfavorable to China, and the tone of the "**** theory" is always seen in European newspapers, which has even affected the relationship between China and Germany -- Germany used to be the host of the "**** theory", but now, forced by the threat from Britain, Germany is in a vacillation.

"For a country like the UK, it seems to them that they will feel reassured only if we abandon the fleet, or even the industrialization of the country, but is this possible? Apparently there is no possibility! ”

Taking a hard puff of cigar, Tang Haoran's tone became excited.

"Maybe Britain can stop cooperating with us, but don't forget that capital is always profit-seeking, American factories are still open to us, and Germany, in the next few years, we will invest more in industry than the rest of the world combined, and the annual market of billions is something that the British can't ignore, and they think that by stopping the current cooperation, they can stop us? No! ”

Shaking his finger with a cigar cigarette, Tang Haoran, who knew the power of capital, knew very well that in another time and space, even during the Cold War, American and Western companies, driven by profits, still did not hesitate to harm national interests to transfer technology and export equipment to Soviet Russia, not to mention that in this era without any constraints, as long as China can provide sufficient benefits, they will be willing to transfer all technology.

This is also the reason why the monopoly of foreign trade was immediately completed after the reunification, not only through the monopoly of trade to obtain export profits, but more importantly, through the monopoly of an enterprise on import trade, so as to obtain the advantage of scale. In the Manchu Dynasty, the import of equipment was scattered, that is, it was impossible to form a scale effect, and it was impossible to make the production enterprises agree to transfer technology through scale, but now, even a cotton thread is operated by a trading company, and all companies, whether public or private, must import equipment by submitting a list and imported by the trading company.

The end result is that large-scale imports allow companies to obtain cheaper equipment, and through large-scale imports, their foreign manufacturers also agree to transfer technology, which is the biggest gain for China. At present, Britain has banned only technologies related to the construction of warships - such as the 15-inch naval guns, which are urgently needed by the navy.

"Obviously there is no such possibility, and the British may be able to prohibit their enterprises from supplying 15-inch naval guns to foreign countries, but the world is not only Britain who can provide this technology, but Germany can also ......"

Yes, Germany can also provide artillery technology, although now Germany's artillery technology is not necessarily more advanced than China, after all, as early as a few years ago, China imported 14-inch naval gun technology from Britain, but if the two countries cooperate, Tang Haoran believes that it should be able to break through the technical barrier of 15-inch naval guns.

Of course, more importantly, the time has come for China to adjust its diplomacy on all fronts.

"Based on the information we currently have, it is highly likely that Britain and the United States have reached some kind of secret treaty against our country......"

This is where Tang Haoran is really worried, he is not worried about Germany's attitude swinging, soon, with the British unceremonious suppression of Germany, all prompted Germany to be fully anti-British, at that time, Germany will inevitably take the initiative to hand over an olive branch to China, as for Russia, as early as two years ago, China and Russia have really reconciled, and even on the issue of Persia, Russia is more supportive of China's control of Persian oil, of course, in return, China also expressed its support for Turkey's territorial claims, Of course, this support is paid lip service, after all, Turkey is still a half-ally of Germany to some extent, and Germany should not sacrifice Turkey unless it is forced to do so.

But one thing is certain, as the contradictions between Britain and Germany continue to deepen, the alliance between China and Germany will be just around the corner, but the question is whether war can be avoided!

Although Tang Haoran has a clear understanding of the future, and has even made up his mind that in the future war, he will work with the Germans and Russians to completely and fundamentally disintegrate the British colonial empire. However, he did not know whether war would break out, after all, the lessons of another time and space clearly told him one fact - the First World War could have been avoided.

In fact, World War I was never the result of a naval race.

The UK's only advantage over Germany is its status as an international financial centre and the pound's status as an international hard currency. However, this does not mean that the UK can afford to borrow indefinitely. In fact, if we take into account the low level of Germany's fiscal revenues and total national debt as a percentage of GDP, Germany's level of financing is not much worse than that of Great Britain!

From the point of view of future generations, if war had not broken out and brought an end to the "naval race" provoked by Britain through the "two-power standard" established by the Coastal Defense Act, Britain, whose GDP and output of most industrial products had already been surpassed by Germany, would sooner or later be dragged down by itself. Sooner or later, Britain will accept the fact that the German navy is at least 60% or more than that of the Royal Navy, just as it had accepted the young U.S. navy's global flex of force earlier.

In another time and space, in 1913, after Churchill proposed to Germany a "naval holiday" to stop the construction of warships for a year, Tibbitz had already sensed the dilemma that Britain could no longer support the naval race, and in his report to Wilhelm II he made it clear that "as far as naval policy is concerned, the British have reached the limit of their financial, political, and naval technical power." The only way Britain could avoid the bankruptcy of both the navy and the national treasury at this time was to undermine the German naval law. This undoubtedly meant that, as long as the British interfered with and the naval program continued, it would not be long before Tibbitz's theory of risky fleets would enable the German Empire to win the friendship of Britain.

Just as there is a certain consensus between China and the United States on the naval issue, Roosevelt, despite his ambitions, must take into account the attitude of the opposition parties within Congress, and even if he is lucky enough to insist on expanding the navy, will the successor president continue to insist on naval expansion after the change of president? These are all questions.

But in another time and space, "lucky" for the British Empire, the gunfire in Sarajevo succeeded in changing all that.

And in this time and space, will there be that world-changing gunshot?

This is what Tang Haoran really can't be sure of, and this is also the biggest change that has occurred with the change of history.

If war had not broken out, what would China have done?

At this time, no one can give him an answer, all he can do is to decide the future and the future of this empire based on historical experience and through his own judgment.

And he also knows very well what it means for the country to make the wrong choice! (To be continued.) )