The Italian king Emmanuele and the prime minister Giolitti calculated the accounts, and found that their life after the war would not be too difficult, after deducting the first indemnity, they could still have 700 million Chinese dollars left, such a huge amount of money was enough to rebuild the smashed Italy, not to mention that Italy was mainly broken in the north, especially Lombardy and Venezia, but these two places were ceded to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and they had nothing to do with it, so that their reconstruction pressure was greatly reduced.

As for the reparations next year and later, that is a matter for the future, it is a big deal to ask Emperor Yang for a loan, they also know very well what such a loan means, relying on borrowing to control other countries, that are all invented by Europeans, of course the Italians will not understand, but now Italy has been spurned by Europe, after the war Britain and France, these countries will hate them to the core, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire and even Greece in the Allied Countries have potential conflicts of interest with them, and it is absolutely impossible to be friends with them, as for Germany, Are the Germans rich?

The only one who is rich and willing to be friends with Italy is Emperor Yang, if he doesn't hold Emperor Yang's thigh firmly, he is a fool, as long as he is obedient, Emperor Yang will definitely not care about lending to Italy, although he lends out all the gold standard Huayuan banknotes, but the gold is locked in the treasury of the People's Bank, which means that Huayuan is just a beautifully printed small piece of paper, no matter how much he borrows such a loan, he doesn't care.

Although even such a small piece of paper must be exchanged by the Italian royal family and government in the way of betraying the national interests of the country, in exchange for putting themselves and Italy under the wing of Emperor Yang, it is also a good deal, both for them personally and for Italy as a country, just look at Spain to know the benefits of doing so.

In order to show their loyalty to Emperor Yang, the Italian government even ordered their troops in Croatia to attack the American-British forces that were attacking Budapest, but they were then beaten back by the enraged American-British forces. Fortunately, the opponent was almost out of ammunition at this time, and his attack ability was greatly reduced, so he could block it in the mountains of Croatia again.

Originally, the US-British coalition forces really wanted to take advantage of the situation to fight back to Italy, and they had no other way out at this time, but under the insistence of the Italian army of 700,000 and the counteroffensive of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Austro-Hungarian troops behind them, this goal was impossible to achieve, and finally the US-British coalition forces had to retreat to Serbia.

At the same time, the Chinese European Army in Thessaloniki and the Chinese and Ottoman armies on the eastern shore of the Bosphorus also launched a campaign to retake Istanbul, and the 200,000 American and British troops who remained here were struggling to support themselves with limited supplies from the Russians on the Black Sea. But their end is decided, how can the Russians maintain their operations at this time, especially since the Chinese bombers are still bombing the transportation lines on the Black Sea, and it would be good if half of the supplies sent could reach Istanbul.

After holding out for a week, the US-British coalition took the initiative to abandon this hard-fought key node, retreated north to Bulgaria and then followed the withdrawal from Serbia to make peace, and then directly attacked Romania in the north.

And everyone knows that this nearly half a million army is just trying to survive. The war had come to an end, and there was no need to waste the lives of the soldiers, so not only did the Romanians retreat to the mountains of Transylvania to their own devices, but even the German army under Field Marshal Golz opened the way for them in Bessarabia. Let them enter Ukraine and join the Russian army.

The fighting here has actually stopped, everyone understands that the war is over, and more than two million Chinese troops on Ottoman territory are pouring into the Balkans and then rushing towards Hungary. Austria, the Czechs and even Germany, the Russian army will never again break through the Carpathian defenses. The Anglo-Russian coalition will never enter Prague, and after five years of war, tens of millions of casualties, and the bankruptcy of the entire country, everything has come to naught.

Although the governments of Britain and Russia did not issue an order to stop the war, in fact, the gunfire on all fronts was spontaneously calming down, from the Pyrenees to Bessarabia, millions of soldiers who were fighting have stopped fighting one after another, including those generals, have also accepted this fate.

The only ones who are still fighting are far away North America, and unlike Europe, they are resisting the invaders, and of course their resistance is meaningless.

St. Petersburg, where a heavy snowfall turned the capital of the Russian Empire completely white, on the snowy streets, three cars drove slowly in the direction of the Winter Palace, and Prime Minister Stolypin, who was sitting in the middle of the car, looked out the window with melancholy eyes, the war was over, even if it failed, it was over, there was no doubt about it.

Although the tsar is still hesitating, but in any case there is no point in continuing to fight, even if it is necessary to cede the entire east of the Urals, then it can only be accepted, in fact, he is also very clear that Yang Feng's bottom line cannot be the Volga River, there are tens of millions of Russians living in that land, what is the use of the Chinese going? The mere suppression of resistance can drag an empire to its death. As for the reparations of 30 billion pounds, it can only be solved by negotiations, it is naturally good to be less, even if it cannot be less, it is not a big deal, as long as the Russian Empire can unite, it will not take twenty years to restore its strength, and even if it is not paid at that time, what can the Chinese do? Another war? Fools do that, the Germans will be happy to die, besides, even if they fight, it is difficult to say who will lose and who will win after the Russian Empire recovers its strength, if Russia wins, it is a big deal to double down and let the Chinese return.

But it may be difficult for Russia to unite, for he has just received an uncertain piece of information that the rebels of the Russian Social Workers Party may well have obtained a large number of weapons from abroad, and if this is true, then what the Russian sinners are going to do next must be to extinguish any dangerous fire by thunder.

As for the method, it was very simple, mobilize the St. Petersburg garrison to search the refugee camp north of the city on a large scale, if there were really hidden weapons then they could only hide there, but at this point he had to persuade the tsar to make up his mind, knowing that it was not an ordinary refugee camp, at least 300,000 Far Eastern immigrants repatriated by China were all gathered in that vast slum. Because of the shortage of food and the severe cold, those refugees were extremely aggressive, and it was not once for them to gather and run to the Hermitage Square to make trouble, and the garrison of a division in St. Petersburg mainly watched them, and His Majesty the Tsar did not want to provoke these guys without the necessity.

While thinking about it, the sudden honking of the car made him wake up, and a lot of people gathered on the road in front of him, as if they were watching something, blocking the whole road, and the driver of the bodyguard car in front kept honking the horn, and the crowd moved slightly, but it was only possible to make the car pass, and through the gap in the crowd, it could be seen that there were two people inside who were supporting a person on the ground.

Stolypin did not think much about it, because of the lack of food, it was not uncommon to meet people who were fainting or even starving to death on the streets of St. Petersburg, and his car passed slowly past the crowd, but at that moment three people on the ground suddenly jumped up, and then the crowd dispersed as fast as possible in panic, because the three men were holding three submachine guns in their hands.

Before the bodyguards could react, the three submachine guns were each aimed at a car and spewed flames at the same time, and the bullets easily penetrated the hull of the car a few meters away and smashed the inside into a mess, and after the magazine was empty, the three assassins took out the grenade from their arms almost at the same time, pulled the fuse and threw it directly into the car through the broken window, and then fled as fast as they could.

Poor Prime Minister Stolypin had already received two bullets by this time, and the grenade that exploded next to him completely ended his life, and when the news reached the Winter Palace, Nikolai was completely enraged, and at this time his mood was on the verge of an explosion because of the confirmation of defeat, and the assassination of the Prime Minister directly detonated his anger.

Under his orders, a large-scale manhunt was immediately launched throughout St. Petersburg, but he was not sure which side did it, Stolypin had many enemies, and the most important reformer of the Russian Empire touched the interests of too many people, not only the poor ghosts, although his reforms were good for the poor ghosts, but the poor ghosts did not appreciate it, and in their opinion they deserved more. The repressed landlords, the democrats he suppressed, including the military generals who needed to vent their anger because of the defeat in the war, could have turned their guns on the unpopular prime minister, which was the inevitable outcome of the reformers.

So in the absence of certainty who was behind the scenes, Nikolai listed all possible forces as the target of the hunt, and he now needed a target to vent his anger, in his opinion, the Russian Empire's miserable defeat that had been set back hundreds of years was entirely due to those rebellious ministers and thieves. If it weren't for the trouble, Omsk would not have been lost, Omsk would not have lost the entire east of the Ural River if he kept him, and as a result, the Chinese would have directly threatened the Volga River Valley, if it were not for these chaotic parties making trouble, he could have mobilized more troops and produced more munitions, and he could have entered Germany early, instead of making a breakthrough until the Chinese had half a foot in Europe.

All in all, Stolypin's assassination became the best excuse for Nikolai to release his love. (To be continued......)