London Metropolitan Westminster Borough, 10 Downing Street.

In addition to being the official residence of the Prime Minister of the British Empire and the Prime Minister's office, the Prime Minister's secretaries, assistants and advisers all work in the Prime Minister's official residence.

The Prime Minister works with his cabinet and think tanks at 10 Downing Street every day to set policy, while the general confidential departments such as the Parliament, the Treasury and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are only minutes away from 10 Downing Street, so the Prime Minister has easy access to information and contact.

Of course, Buckingham Palace, where the Queen lives, is also nearby, so that the Prime Minister can visit Buckingham Palace regularly to report to the Queen.

However, due to the increasing photochemical smog pollution in the city of London, Her Majesty has moved back to the countryside after recovering from the trauma of the major stock market crash.

At this moment, the elder Churchill hoped that His Majesty Victoria would be in London, in Buckingham Palace.

At least that way, you won't be the focus of all the gossip.

Time goes back to half a month ago.

As soon as news of the bombing of Calcutta, known as Operation Sanitation, reached Britain, Churchill Sr., owner of 10 Downing Street, had to attend a regular government press conference in the press briefing room of the Prime Minister's residence.

Such press conferences are usually attended by the spokesperson of the Prime Minister's Office, and only when there is a major change will the person himself appear first.

The elder Churchill, with the help of his staff servant Haji, prepared a lengthy response to Prince Arthur's unfortunate capture by the Ming people.

However, events eventually deviated completely from the direction expected by Churchill Sr. and Harker.

At first, the questions asked by the reporters from The Times were relatively normal.

Probably about the latest economic policy of the Empire, the development of wars on the continent, and so on.

The elder Churchill went around in circles with ease, and finally concluded: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are on the right path, even if the process is a little tortuous, but the war with the German hillbillies will be won!" ”

The reporters of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail whispered to each other,

"What do you think the Prime Minister means?"

"Who knows? I guess the front-line troops are deflated again, and the Germans' tanks are not easy to deal with. ”

……

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, we're talking about Prime Minister Takami."

The reporters who whispered were reluctant to talk to the guy who was the last to interject.

Because he is not from London, but a journalist from the Manchester Guardian.

Since the birth of the first cotton mill in Manchester in the 80s of the 18th century, this originally unknown city has quickly become the most important cotton and wool textile production city in the United Kingdom and even in the world.

The rise of Manchester's textile industry gave Manchester's capitalists and factory owners the ability to speak on an equal footing with the Celestial people of the City of London.

But, just as all old money looks down on the up-and-coming nouveau riche, Londoners don't want to see Mancunians, no matter how rich they are.

What's more, in the field of cotton textiles, Manchesters are losing overseas markets in a thousand miles.

With incredible efficiency, the Ming people faced Manchester with incredible efficiency and carried out dimensionality reduction attacks on both sides of price and quality.

Therefore, the cotton mill owners in Manchester are the most important promoters of "resist the globalization of trade", "resist free trade", "resist made in Ming", and advocate that "Ming countries engage in unfair trade, and we must punish them".

Seeing that his colleagues in London did not want to see him, the reporter of the Manchester Guardian snorted coldly, "You better not be surprised by the exclusive news of our Manchester Guardian for a while, of course, it is useless for you to be surprised, because we have already put the news on the front page and published it in advance!" ”

Timeliness is always the life of a newspaper.

In a sense, timeliness is more important than authenticity and reliability.

If the power of the media is left unchecked, timeliness will undoubtedly prevail over authenticity, and bad money will drive out good money.

However, everyone is a journalist, everyone is fast, and it is too difficult to get important news one step ahead.

Seeing the mysterious look of the Manchester Guardian reporters, the reporters of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail burst out laughing:

"Do you want to say something about Prince Arthur? Do you think we didn't put it on the front page? ”

"Bran registrant, please."

At this time, the voice of the moderator of the press conference was heard.

The Daily Telegraph reporter shook his head and whispered, "Okay, okay, Manchester boy, I'm the first person to ask the Prime Minister about Prince Arthur." ”

As he spoke, he stood up and asked confidently:

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I am Brandon, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Telegraph, His Royal Highness Arthur, a member of the royal family who went to Freeport Kolkata, India, to attend the commemoration of the coronation of His Majesty Victoria as Queen of India, whose whereabouts are unknown during the Ming air raid on June 16, and it was recently reported that His Royal Highness the Prince was arrested by the Ming army and placed under house arrest in Yangon, Myanmar.

What is your assessment of this, and whether the Imperial Government has any plans to redeem His Highness Arthur, or to follow the example of the Ming Dynasty's 'Operation Pineapple Pizza' and use the Royal Air Force to carry out a strike and rescue in Yangon to rescue His Royal Highness the Prince? ”

The corners of old Churchill's mouth twitched.

Haji was right, and sure enough, a reporter with cow dung in his head would whimsically ask the empire to carry out an operation similar to Zhu Fugui's rescue of Abdul.

This is to roast yourself on the fire!

Not to mention the raid on Rangoon, whether the Royal Air Force of the British Empire can safely fly out of the Mediterranean Sea is a big question.

The R-1 airship that flew to Constantinople actually took off from a military base in Austria, and its real combat radius was only a few hundred kilometers.

If you want to use it to fight the air power of the Ming Kingdom, it is simply sitting on the crystal with a bare ass and hitting the stone with an egg!

Of course, this question certainly cannot be answered in this way.

Old Churchill motioned for the questioner to sit down, then cleared his throat and said:

"Thanks to this journalist friend for the question.

First of all, as Prime Minister of the British Empire, I must condemn in the strongest possible terms the despicable and shameless sneak attacks of the Ming Kingdom while our country was holding a large celebration.

Here, I must emphasize that we, the British Empire, in India, and in North America, have the ability and determination to respond effectively to the Ming Kingdom.

At present, we still have 74 Indian divisions and 9 British divisions in India, with a total of 3 million troops.

The total number of troops stationed in Burma and Assam is about 290,000.

3 million against 290,000, the advantage is mine!

Secondly, our troops stationed in Persia are ready to come to India's aid and form a sandwich against the Tatars in the Indo-Western region......"

"But Mr. Prime Minister, what about Zuo Zongtang in northeastern Persia? He's a cunning old fox......"

"Please follow the rules of the press conference!"

The moderator promptly asked the Daily Mail reporter to sit back in his seat.

Old Churchill also pretended not to hear the difficult question, and continued,

"Let's talk about Prince Arthur's misfortunes.

First of all, we can confirm that the reckless dictator of the Ming Kingdom, the shameless man I don't even want to mention by name, once again trampled on the bottom line of the war and brazenly detained our youngest and most promising Prince Arthur.

Last night, I spoke to Her Majesty on the phone, and on the phone, the Queen choked up several times.

But she never said a word of compromise with Akito!

As for the Ming 'Pineapple Pizza' operation you mentioned, I can only say that it was a complete failure and had no strategic value at all.

Only a dictator like the unspeakable Ming tyrant would spend taxpayers' money on such a meaningless thing.

We, the British Empire, are a beacon of human democracy and a model of world parliamentary politics, and we are absolutely impossible, with such a fruitless military adventure......"

Old Churchill spat and devalued Zhu Fugui's rescue of Abdul as worthless.

This made Haji, who was listening in the audience, cover his forehead.

This passage was added by the elder Churchill himself.

Although it means that, you can't say that!

Yesterday I told him clearly and answered the reporter directly: "We will provide all necessary, feasible, logical, and non-contradictory actions other than military intervention and financial bribery to actively rescue Prince Arthur............

To be honest, Haji also felt that Zhu Fugui had spent so much money to save a deposed sultan.

The British Empire has always been very calculating.

In 1783, the British, who had calculated that there was no benefit in continuing to spend on the thirteen states of North America, acquiesced in the independence of the United States.

In 1861, the British decided that it would be too expensive to send troops directly to help the Southern government, so they gave up directly intervening in the American Civil War.

In 1863, the Ming Dynasty declared war on the Japanese shogunate, and the British once again chose to stand on the sidelines.

In 1865, the French Emperor Napoleon III invited the British to invade Mexico with them, but the British eventually sent only one warship and a military observer mission to the front......

It can be said that the Ming Dynasty rose little by little with the continuous careful calculation and continuous appeasement and connivance of the United Kingdom.

Historically, Britain has also had countless opportunities to cut off the path of America's rise, but in the end, they have missed it perfectly again and again.

It can be said that although the British Empire is a global empire, the vision of their elites will never exceed that of the European continent, and will never exceed the next fifteen or twenty years.

A hundred-year plan or something, completely non-existent.

Similarly, they couldn't understand why Zhu Fugui had to save his former allies who had no effect.

Although the elder Churchill's words were so straightforward that Haji shook his head again and again, the reporters did not feel that there was anything wrong with them, and they all wrote them down quickly.

Of course, they would have preferred to have interviewed the queen herself.

After all, it was the prince who was captured by the Ming people, and if he could interview the queen and even take a photo of two of the queen crying, then his newspaper would definitely sell out of stock.

However, interviewing the queen is not as easy as interviewing the prime minister.

They can only settle for the next best.

The Daily Mail reporter glanced defiantly at the Manchester Guardian reporter, as if to say: "Hillbilly, you see, the most important question is really to arrange for our London newspaper to ask questions, you Manchester stinky food, you only deserve to ask if there will be a new wool market opened next year." ”

Sure enough, it wasn't until the last five minutes of the press conference, when the moderator announced that there was one last chance to ask a question, that he symbolically handed it to the Manchester Guardian.

The press conference was not a show, and the last one to appear was the big axis.

Generally speaking, the more you can ask questions first, the more valuable news you can ask, and in the end, it's all broken sesame seeds.

Everyone felt that this press conference had reached garbage time.

Everyone has asked about Prince Arthur's hot news from all angles, and in the end, this stranger can only pick up people's teeth.

However, the truth was unexpected.

Wallace, a reporter for the Manchester Guardian, stood up without mentioning Prince Arthur, and instead took a document from his arms.

"Dear Prime Minister Churchill, a few days ago, our newspaper received a big piece of information from a person claiming to be from Basingstoke, Hampshire, an employee of the De La Rue banknote printing factory, and of course, he declined to give more information."

Wallace's words immediately aroused the interest of everyone, and everyone changed their fearless attitude and took the pen out of their pockets again.

If there is anything that has most irritated the nerves of the British in recent months, the war may not be in the first place, and the first place is likely to be difficult to contain, the rising hyperinflation, and the pound that has depreciated at an alarming rate.

So when they heard that the source was related to the mysterious De La Rue banknote printing factory, everyone immediately pricked up their ears.

The reporters of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail looked at each other and knew that there must be some breaking news that the Manchester Guardian must have taken the lead.

But now is not the time for jealousy, and they also pull out their pens and wait for the following.

As it turned out, the news from the Wallace reporter was even more violent than the explosive news the two expected.

"Mr. Prime Minister, these are just photocopies, and the originals are somewhere you can't easily find them."

Wallace said, "According to the source, you have used your public power to illegally print over £200 million for you and your family in the project of presiding over the over-issuance of money to stimulate the economy!" And this has led to the abnormal flood of pounds in the market today, which has led to the soaring prices, do you have anything to say about this? ”