Not far away, a few unassuming dinghys were slowly heading towards the beach on one side of the bay.

"What is this? Ferry? ”

Churchill looked at McKenna in confusion, Prime Minister Asquith gave him a questioning look, and Father Fisher smirked.

"Read on, you'll understand." McKenna said.

A few minutes later, the dinghy washed up to the beachhead, the towering gangplank at the bow was lowered, and heavily armed Marines poured ashore like sardines poured out of cans.

"Specialized landing craft, most merchant ships and warships of more than 3,000 tons can carry or mount it, each can carry 40 soldiers, and a large landing craft that can carry cars, wagons and gun carriages is being designed, which will be able to sail the ocean on its own." McKenna explained.

"What are you going to do with it?" The young cabinet minister, Winston Churchill, was at a loss.

"Against Germany, or China, or whatever, if we can build these landing equipment in batches, we'll be able to get the Marines or Army Corps or Army to the coast of a handpicked one more quickly, and believe me, it's going to overshadow the old-fashioned paddle sampans and motorboats."

Churchill smiled dumbly: "Germany? You are talking about Germany? No, I suspect that you are wrong, Germany will not be our enemy. ”

Churchill, like another important member of the Cabinet, Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George, was skeptical and even sneering at the fear that Britain would go to war with Germany, and thus resolutely opposed the naval budget proposed to the Cabinet by Secretary of the Admiral Reginald McKenna for the construction of six Intrepid battleships between 1909 and 1910.

Prime Minister Asquith once complained to his wife that Lloyd George and Churchill "were vaguely hinting at the ...... of resignation, and on several occasions I wanted to remove them immediately". Subsequently, the Cabinet reluctantly reached an agreement in September 1908 to build only four "Dreadnought" battleships according to the previous plan; If it is clear that there is a need for an increase, four more ships can be built.

"Winston, it may be our enemy, there are no eternal enemies, there are no eternal friends, the interests of the empire are eternal." At this time, Prime Minister Asquith could not forget to give the young cabinet minister a gentle slap on the limelight.

"Look over there." McKenna pointed to a dirt road behind the beach to warn the crowd.

"That's nothing." Churchill wondered.

"Listen carefully, it's about to appear."

Sure enough, there was a low rumbling sound in the direction McKenna was pointing, the sound was getting stronger and stronger, and the ground began to tremble slightly, and it was vaguely discernible that it was some kind of mechanical operation.

"The Devil's Cry in Hell." Daddy Fisher excitedly took up his cane and posed as an opera singer.

Appeared!

What is that?

A play toy made of a water tank and a bucket?

"I think it's a water tank." Churchill shrugged.

McKenna nodded and smiled, "Yes, we'll call it 'tank' for now." ”

"But what about the bucket on its head and the iron straps on its sides? And that bucket seems to be able to turn? ”

"Don't you want to take a closer look?"

No one objected, and the group approached the creeping monster strewn with rivets.

"Beautiful mechanical toys." Prime Minister Asquith said disapprovingly.

Churchill, who had always been concerned about military issues, had a light in his eyes and looked up and down carefully.

"It's big, much taller than me...... Is the boiler steel plate used? This iron pipe in front is a 6-pounder naval gun? The pipe sticking out of the iron bucket on top...... It should be the Vickers-Maxim machine gun! This iron strap on the side is wrapped in a big circle...... It turns out that it is by rotating this belt to move forward, an infinite orbit...... Great! ”

"I would like to call it a land cruiser, and I would like to attach it to the large landing craft that the Minister of the Navy has just mentioned, and land on any beach, and then lead the infantry around behind the enemy's strong coastal defense fortresses and capture cities and ports." Daddy Fisher spun his cane around beautifully.

"Terrible idea, how much budget are these things going to eat?" Prime Minister Asquith has already begun to plan the plate.

"It depends on how much of a threat our potential enemy poses to us, the interests of the British Empire cannot be infringed upon, and if the Chinese want to drive us out of the highlands north of India, then we need to extract more generous compensation from the Asian coast." McKenna was upset at the mention of China, as if China's more than 400 million people each owed him a few hundred pounds and had not paid it back for decades.

"The Chinese emperor wanted not only the mountains north of India, but the whole world."

The iron door behind the left side of the "Land Cruiser" opened from the inside, and a fat man of medium size squeezed out, dressed in leather clothing, and after removing the fur hat with a rubber curtain attached, the face of an East Asian was revealed.

"Who is he?"

Churchill, who had seen this man for the first time, looked to the left and right, but the other three did not show the slightest expression of surprise.

"You can call him Mr. D." McKenna posed as an introducer, "Mr. D, this young gentleman you met for the first time is named Winston Churchill, the youngest cabinet minister in the history of the British Empire. ”

"You are the famous Mr. Churchill? It is a great honor for me to meet you. Mr. D held out his yellow hand.

If possible, Mr. D still hopes that someone will remember his full name - Wu Dingguo, or "Dingguo * Wu" in the British way, but in order to save this little life that still craves revenge, it is natural to try to avoid more people from telling him about his glorious identity a few years ago - the general of the Imperial Chinese Army and the head of the logistics department of the General Staff.

"The mechanized landing craft you saw just now, as well as the 'land cruiser' in front of you, are the brains of this Mr. D and his friends, and they have many more brilliant ideas, and we'd better have afternoon tea together later, and ...... before that."

With that, McKenna nodded to Mr. D.

"Let's all come out." Mr. D called out to the iron door, and soon five young men dressed like him appeared, all of them grizzled and haggard, and at once they were busy taking the plugs out of their ears.

"Everybody come over here."

McKenna led the group to a pile of sandbags about a hundred yards away, on which were two Maxim machine guns and a pile of rifles and pistols.

"Now, gentlemen, let's see the most meaningful performance of this 'tank', which is completely immune to the bullets fired by these weapons! Hopefully we'll be able to get all the bullets here before tea time comes. ”