Chapter 100: The Death of Britain

Windsor Castle, 7 December 1946, South England

Although the hands of the wall clock on the wall were quietly approaching 10 a.m., the sky was still as dark as dusk. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Under the lead-gray gloomy sky, thick thick clouds blocked the faint winter sun, and the cold wind wrapped in snowflakes roared from the north violently, quickly carrying away the accumulated heat of the earth, so that the bleak and lonely scenery filled every corner of the horizon.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Empress of India and protector of the Christian faith, who has just turned 20 this year and has been on the throne for less than half a month, is lying on the windowsill of her bedroom at Windsor Castle, looking up boredly at the dark sky outside the window.

Looking at the gloomy scenery around her, she couldn't help but have the illusion that she was not the Empress of the British Empire, who ruled the world of Seven Seas Megatron, but just the princess who was trapped in a castle from childhood to adulthood in those fairy tales set in the Middle Ages.

In fact, Elizabeth II also knows very well that the land that really belongs to her, the queen, is now probably only this small Windsor Castle. As for the place outside Windsor Castle, it has become a miserable and inhumane Shura hell......

Newspapers and magazines are long gone, government officials have not visited Windsor Castle for days, and most of the UK's radio stations have been shut down. But by listening to the news on the European continent across the Channel, as well as the high-powered radio stations dedicated to the royal family, and the occasional fugitive passing by Windsor Castle, the young Queen was able to get some up-to-date information...... Unfortunately, it's almost always bad news.

-- After the nuclear bombing of Belfast in Northern Ireland, Soviet bombers still did not stop their strategic nuclear strikes on cities on British soil. Last week's nuclear bombings hit Portsmouth, Southampton, Bristol and Scotland's industrial powerhouse of Glasgow, and this morning it bombed Swansea, Wales. Even Elizabeth II, who had been staying at Windsor Castle, had witnessed the flash of a nuclear explosion from her window more than once.

As a result of the collapse of the British central government, the command system of the army was also paralyzed, and the local Royal Air Force, radar units, and ground anti-aircraft artillery units were not provided with the necessary supplies and instructions, and their ability to resist enemy air raids became weaker and weaker, and it became more and more difficult to pose an obstacle to the Soviets' nuclear strike strategic bombing.

By early December, the skies over Britain were almost completely open for Soviet planes to come and go.

And as cities turn into radioactive wasteland in the mushroom cloud, terrified British city dwellers flee to the countryside outside the city - this atomic bomb is not a few small bombs dropped by Nazi German planes during the air battle in Britain, which can be carried by digging a bomb shelter in their own backyard. More critically, even if they continue to stay in the city at the risk of being bombed by a nuclear bomb, they will no longer have access to water, electricity, heating and food rations – because the British government and logistics system have collapsed.

In other words, the state apparatus of Britain itself has been shattered by the successive Soviet nuclear bombs, and the British mainland, at least the part of England that has suffered the largest number of nuclear bombs, has basically entered a state of anarchy, and transportation, commerce, and logistics have all been suspended.

To make it clear, the area of England, which was originally highly socially complex and economically and logistically prosperous, has been beaten back to the dark ages after the collapse of the Roman Empire by the Soviets with atomic bombs! The consequences of this are basically devastating, and those who have been hit by the atomic bomb will naturally die and everything will be over. Even those who have not been bombed are living in a collapsed, fragmented modern society.

Nobel Laureate in Sociology, Famous sociologist, historian, philosopher, educator, Dilan. His Excellency Gould once said that the production and concentration of material wealth in modern society have reached such a level that it has given rise to the illusion that human existence is ordinary and natural, and that human beings should be happy and naturally happy when they live -- but the cold reality is not so warm.

What does a modern city look like in the anarchy of logistics collapse? First, electricity, running water and heating were gone, and the standard of living of city dwellers fell back to the Middle Ages overnight; Second, the daily necessities and food imported into the city are gone, banknotes are turned into waste paper, and people find themselves fighting each other for a piece of bread, a can, or even a mouthful of clean fresh water. Third, the city's garbage is not collected, and the sewers are not cleaned, and the city with a large number of people will soon become filthy and stinky, and even mosquitoes and flies breed and diseases spread. In the end, law and order will soon disappear, and the city will instantly become a criminal paradise and a bloody hell of violence. Guns, knives, blunt weapons, all sorts of bizarre things will be used by hungry people to take the lives and goods of others. Everything from food, medicine, clothing, fuel, soap, toilet paper, young women, and so on, was the target of their robbery. Those military and police who are supposed to maintain law and order will rely on their weapons and experience in military training to rob homes and houses, and in turn become the most terrible robbers and thugs

Faced with such a dangerous and terrible life, the citizens could not bear it and had no choice but to flee the city that had turned into purgatory and go to the countryside, where food seemed to be found...... After all, the world is material, and spirit cannot replace bread, and even Jesus would starve to death if he didn't eat for a month.

However, without government agencies to organize evacuation and resettlement, even if they made it to the countryside, they could not find food or shelter. The money and ration cards in your pockets have long since become a mass of hard waste paper that wipes your buttocks, and if you want to get some food from the increasingly apathetic peasants, you have to exchange jewelry, watches, clothes, and the like, often at ridiculously high prices, and sometimes a wedding ring can only be exchanged for a few potatoes......

Because the law was gone, many British citizens, who could not be exploited or driven mad by hunger, took up arms in anger and killed the farmers who cultivated the land and owned their produce, and robbed them of food, housing and firewood. Not to be outdone, the peasants of the English countryside were armed in droves to form various robbery gangs, killing the refugees who had fled the cities and plundering their belongings. Many citizens who came to the countryside in high spirits were disappointed to find that the once beautiful and delicate pastoral countryside had now become so cruel and indifferent.

All in all, in this cold and hungry winter, the human beings of this land of England seem to have degenerated into savage animals, constituting the ethical relations and social etiquette of society, replaced by the law of the jungle, and in both the city and the country, people have become Jack the Ripper, armed with guns and knives and clubs, walking through the streets and fields, wantonly hunting their own kind, and then taking from them the supplies used to sustain life.

At the same time, the war against Ireland was still going on, but its nature and significance had changed dramatically - because of the complete collapse of industrial production in Britain and the difficulty of maintaining a steady supply of ammunition, ordnance and fuel, the British regular army on the front line had only taken control of a few important ports in the eastern part of the Republic of Ireland and began to struggle and become unable to attack. But then a large number of the National Guard of England, armed with all kinds of old shotguns and even cold weapons, crossed the sea into Ireland in all kinds of rudimentary boats, and as soon as they came ashore, they went about raiding houses, looting food, clothing, and fuel, or blasting the Irish out of their houses and giving them and their relatives to live in, as if they were armed immigrants...... It is clear that this is no longer a fight for the glory and hegemony of the empire, but a fight for the survival of yourself and your family!

In this situation, as Queen Elizabeth II was naturally anxious to see her own United Kingdom gradually descend into the dark age of barbarism, but she was almost helpless - as a newcomer to power, a pure political symbol and vase, she had no way to end the war, no way to drive the country to do what she wanted, and still less to save these subjects who were in existential crisis.

As a royal forbidden place in the British Empire, Windsor Castle does store a lot of food and fuel and other supplies, as well as its own generators, which can still ensure the basic living standards of the castle owners at this time of apocalypse. However, in the face of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of refugees, this material is still a drop in the bucket. Just to maintain the daily consumption of so many people in the castle is already barely enough.

However, the refugees, who were hungry and cold, without food and clothing, and whose lives were on the verge of life, could not understand the queen's distress. They first gathered outside Windsor Castle to petition for mercy and relief, and then, because they were not satisfied, under anger and fear, they began to riot and storm again and again. Like the exiles of the Middle Ages who tried to loot the mansions of the lords. If it weren't for the fact that there was a loyal guard at Windsor Castle, and that she had stockpiled enough arms and ammunition to disperse the refugees who stormed the castle many times, she would not have been able to guarantee her own safety.

Right now, she had nothing to do but stay in Windsor Castle in a daze, listening to the bad news on the radio.

Fortunately, at this moment, her mother, Queen Elizabeth, and her sister, Princess Margaret, had already left Britain on a military plane shrouded in a cloud of nuclear mushrooms (the British always seem to like to take such repeated names, full of Elizabeth, Margaret and Edward), and fled to Canadian territory across the ocean after a transit at the Icelandic airport, and are now safe and sound.

And she, as the queen, must fulfill the duties of the crown and stay until the last moment in this country that is about to be destroyed......

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As the clockwork clock on the wall struck twelve times, it was finally time for lunch.

At the sound of the maid's reminder, Queen Elizabeth II yawned, got up and walked out of the bedroom, and walked down the escalator to the dining room.

As in previous days, Her Majesty's lunch today was very simple, with nothing but a cup of black tea, two slices of bread smeared with jam, a boiled egg, and a few slices of fried Spam luncheon meat, which at first glance seemed so crude that it was not worthy of the royal family of the British Empire. But in this "nuclear winter" where the vast majority of British people can't even nibble on potatoes, just having a hot meal is a luxury.

Not to mention the hot air from the radiator and the music of the gramophone in Queen Elizabeth II's private dining room......

As usual, Elizabeth II, who was dining alone, first whispered a prayer to God to thank the "Lord Almighty" for giving her food, and then grabbed the shiny silver knife and fork and slice open a slice of fried Spam luncheon meat...... However, before she could put the luncheon meat in her mouth, the secretary panicked and brought unappetizing bad news," ...... Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Just received a telegram! A coup d'état broke out in Scotland today! ”

-- In the early morning of December 7 of that year, after witnessing the tragic situation of Glasgow being swallowed by a cloud of mushrooms, a military coup suddenly broke out in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, which was in danger of being blown to ashes by an atomic bomb at any time, and found that it was likely to be the next target of a nuclear bomb.

By some tacit understanding (which was better than a nuclear bomb anyway), and with the collective acquiescence of the Edinburgh garrison, police and government officials, a small group of armed rebels who had emerged out of nowhere suddenly seized the government building and the radio station, and telegraphed the whole country to declare Scotland's independence from the United Kingdom and its re-establishment of independence. At the same time, it surrendered unconditionally to the Soviet Union, hoping that the Soviet army would be able to guarantee the safety of the lives and property of the Scottish people......

Obviously, for the citizens of Edinburgh, frightened by the might of the nuclear bomb, only the last one is the real focus.

When Edinburgh issued an initiative for independence and unconditional surrender, all parts of Scotland, which were also deeply afraid of the imminent nuclear bomb, also responded in droves.

So, almost in the blink of an eye, Elizabeth II found herself missing a vital chunk of her United Kingdom.

What's even more disturbing is that she is now trapped in Windsor Castle, and she can't do anything about Scotland's rebellion and secession.

Then, before Elizabeth II had finished her wax-chewing lunch, another piece of even more disturbing bad news came.

-- Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a secret telegram from Northern Ireland, arguing that in view of the current situation, it was impossible to resist the Soviet invasion on the mainland, but the war must continue. It is hoped that the Queen will be ready as soon as possible to go with him to Canada to set up a British Empire-in-exile government......

However, Elizabeth II categorically rejected this reasonable proposal.

“…… No! I'm not going! I've had enough! Let the Prime Minister go to Canada himself! I want to live and die with my country! ”

She wiped her mouth with a napkin and said categorically, "...... Stop thinking about what laws and practices are! Now electrify the whole of Europe in clear terms and declare the armistice and surrender in my name...... If Stalin wants to take away my crown, then let him take it! ”

Speaking of this, Elizabeth II seemed to have exhausted all the strength of her body, and the whole person collapsed limply on the chair, looking exhausted, and still muttering to herself, "...... That's it, no matter what, let's get the damn over it! (To be continued.) )