"The scene of the Duke of Cumberland shaking hands with the General Yue was left on the oil painting called 'Hand of the Century', which is still hanging on the wall of the corridor of the House of Lords in London, but everyone knows that the oil painting can still be The time spent there is numbered, and it has been more than a century since then, and the two parties shaking hands are now clenching their fists and staring at each other."
"I was not able to see the original painting with my own eyes, but I had seen the reproduction when I was a child. At that time, I parroted the words of the school teacher and praised the greatness of Seris in front of my father, as well as the unbreakable friendship between Seris and Prussia that lasted for hundreds of years. My father. He found the painting, pointed to the red figures on it and said, they are all the same, Karl, Siris and Britain are all the same. The reason why the world is so chaotic and painful is because of these two red devils. One east and one west rule the whole world.¡±
"When I looked at the painting, it was all bright red. I couldn't tell the difference between the Britons and the Seris. I just saw two very different faces, smiling brighter than the hawker who had been forgotten by the tax collector. At that time, I Even when I was nine years old, I thought that smile was hypocritical. Looking back now, maybe it was the British painter who was secretly warning his countrymen."
"When my thoughts were no longer swayed by a person's words or the feelings of a painting, I looked at this painting again and finally saw the obvious difference. The red of the British Redwood Army is more vivid, and it matches the white pants. At the same time, it is more dazzling. The red of the Seris Red Army is much duller and thicker, perhaps due to the color difference of the dark blue trousers. In short, it is more depressing. In such a color, the Europeans jokingly call the Sailis 'flat face' The Lysians are by no means inferior to the Europeans in terms of aesthetics. In my personal opinion, the Admiral is more masculine than the playboy Duke of Cumberland."
"By the way, this oil painting that was painted just after the war actually has a lot of flaws. The Berlin city in the background is actually much more shabby. The Seris artillery ruthlessly swept away the Russian and Austrian allied forces' defense lines, and the outside of Berlin was a ruins and rubble. These are just details. The real appearance of the Seris Red Army is very different from the picture. Except for the officers, most of the soldiers are from Portugal, the Netherlands and even Poland. They are almost a mercenary group."
July 1865, Lisbon, Portugal. Karl Marx lay on the rocking chair on the terrace of the Bell Palace, enjoying the slight sea breeze with boredom. In front of him, the Lisbon port was unobstructed. With the pipe in his mouth, he wrote down the thoughts he was immersed in a hundred years of remembrance. He is not the kind of academic historian who knows nothing about the classics. He likes to use his own thinking and even inspiration to reorganize the context of history.
"I personally am also an avid military enthusiast. Although there are a lot of historical materials on Seris's European dispatched legions in World War I, I feel that there are still many aspects that have been ignored by military historians from various European countries."
"When Admiral Yue and the Duke of Cumberland shook hands with each other, it was the third year that he led the Seris European Legion to fight, and the number of troops under his command also expanded from 10,000 to 30,000. As mentioned above. , most of them are mercenaries. The cost of transporting a large army from the mainland of Siris, or even from Tianzhu to Europe, is too high, and Britain does not allow Siris to blatantly use the European battlefield as a training ground."
"Another important reason is that the naval war between Britain and France has begun in full swing. The two sides are fiercely competing for control of the Celtic Sea, Bay of Biscay, and Gulf of Cadiz. In this case, the transport ship The safety of the regiment is obviously difficult to guarantee.¡±
"Yes, the Siris people had the most advanced iron-clad steam fleet at the time, but later military scientists believed that Siris's first-generation iron-clad steam fleet did not have the advantage to completely overwhelm the sail war, at least in front of Europa's main sail battleship. Reese's fast battleships cannot be considered opponents of the same magnitude, although this conclusion is somewhat sentimental. However, after the Battle of the Alboran Sea, the Seris fleet docked in Lisbon for two months of repairs. This also shows that the armored fleet is not indestructible."
"However, in Portsmouth one hundred and four years ago, the British were obviously not so confident and calm. Siris's ironclad fleet docked at Portsmouth, which caused great irritation to the British navy and ordinary people. This was also the reason why the British An important reason for strongly opposing Siris¡¯s expansion of the scale of involvement in the European War.¡±
"The British would rather bear half of the military expenses of Siris's European legion than to have Siris's navy cross north of Lisbon harbor. There were even rumors in the House of Lords in London that some members shouted in horror that if Siris were to People have mastered the hydrology and shipping routes of European waters, who knows whether the Seris people will explode an armored fleet of unprecedented scale, transform into the Genghis Khan of the sea, and sweep across Europe?"
"Perhaps the British people regretted it at that time. Many MPs accused Prime Minister Pitt of inviting wolves into the house, but they forgot that they were the ones who supported Prussia, and they were also the ones who supported the Jews.It is usually maintained at about sixty divisions. According to the traditional organization calculation of Seris in the 1820s, each division has about 10,000 people, which is an army of one million. "
"In Europe, we call Russia, which can easily mobilize five to six million standing troops, a behemoth. But looking around the world, the real behemoth is Seris. They can easily mobilize one million standing troops, and their equipment and training are not at the level of farmers. Britain In 1842, at the cost of more than a dozen lives, spies obtained the ultimate war mobilization plan of the Siris General Headquarters. The maximum mobilization capacity listed in the plan was five million. I remembered it correctly. It was indeed five million. , not five million unarmed men, but a regular army that has received certain military training, is fully equipped, is organized and equipped with a considerable number of artillery."
"We should be thankful that no country on this earth can force Siris to carry out extreme mobilization. Britain proudly declares that the only people who can defeat Britain are traitors like the American Federation and Britain itself. And Siris's declaration I¡¯m afraid it will be shorter: Siris has no one but himself.¡±
"We should be thankful that technology has not advanced enough to allow millions of troops to overcome thousands of miles and enter Europe as easily as fighting around the homeland. As the gateway to Europe, Russia has appropriately attracted the nation of Seris Emotions make it impossible for Siris to recreate the old scene of Genghis Khan galloping across Europe hundreds of years ago."
"Of course, there is no need for Siris. Their products and their free trade policy are enough to defeat Europe. No, it has already defeated Europe. Isn't it because of this that the haze of war is spreading in the sky?"
As he writes this, Max is a little irritated. His emotions are splitting into two parts. One part is substituted into the identity of Europeans, and the other part is substituted into the torrent of history. With compassion that transcends the country and the nation, he watches the people who are about to appear again on the entire earth. The bright red blood stains spread out.
"Hand of the Century When General Yue shook hands with the Duke of Cumberland, such a day was already destined. The two parties involved may have already realized this. For them, this battle will not happen until a hundred years later. , this world has dragged on for too long.¡±
Max quickly regained his consciousness as a historian, his irritability disappeared, and he wrote more solemnly.
"Soldiers are overly vigilant after all. Neither Yue Jingzhong nor the Duke of Cumberland expected that the decisive battle between the East and the West would be postponed until a hundred years later. The First World War did not clearly sort out the global power structure. Only the sphere of influence has been demarcated, and the actual benefits within the scope still need to be reached by each country."
"The more profound impact of the First World War was that it promoted the first industrial revolution to break out at a faster speed. As a pair of destined enemies between the Eastern and Western hegemons, there were still too many internal and external problems to solve one by one. When Britain faced During the revolution in North America, Siris also had to face the tide of revolution in Asia caused by his indulgence of the capital monster to devour neighboring countries. Although the two sides have always been on this string, they have to continue to cooperate in various fields"
Exhaling a long breath, Max marked the name and date on the page. When he looked up again, the whistle was blaring in the Lisbon port, and a giant steel ship was slowly setting sail.
Lin Liang fast battleship, with a standard displacement of 18,000 tons and equipped with eight ten-inch heavy guns, is the first batch of products in the shipbuilding competition between the Seris Empire and the British Kingdom. Ironically, the biggest role of this giant ship that spans the ages is to travel between Europe and Asia, playing a role in friendship exchanges and military mutual trust. Warships with larger displacement and larger gun caliber are being built overtime on the slipways of the two countries.
"A hundred years ago, the flagship of the Seris Ironclad Steam Fleet seemed to be also called Lin Liang Let me think about it, where was it at that time? Oh, by the way, it was in the Mediterranean. Damn it, how could I forget it? , the North African War was the foreshadowing laid by the Lin Liang."
The protagonist who asked Max to pat his forehead a hundred years later is also patting his forehead. On September 22, the forty-third year of the Holy Path, in the Mediterranean Sea, Prince Li Keming, Commander-in-Chief of the European Fleet of Seris, Admiral, could not believe what he was seeing.