Chapter 344 Political Situation

The UK proposed that the British side retreat to the Sinai Peninsula and hand over the Jordan Valley to the jurisdiction of the four-way coalition forces of China, Arabia and Turkey. The two sides used the eastern line of the Sinai Peninsula, which is from the Port of Arish in the north to the Port of Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba in the south, to use this line as the border between Egypt and the Arab Kingdom, which is the ceasefire line between the British and Sino-German coalition forces. After reaching a ceasefire agreement, China and Germany should ensure in writing that British personnel and materials leave the current combat area and exchange prisoners of war with each other.

Initially, I naturally have no objection, but the British request also includes content that requires Chinese assistance to convince the German side. Obviously, they do not have much hope for whether they can convince the Germans who have not gained any cheapness on the battlefield under this condition.

Judging from the combat readiness state on the front line, the British army did not slacken at all. In addition to taking the lead in the attack in the south and taking a little advantage in the unstable Chinese, they also held the defense line under the impact of the German-Turkish coalition forces in the north. Compared with Europe, the British army in the Middle East seemed more energetic and combat-effective.

Judging from the attitude of the Germans since the war started, it is unlikely that they will accept this condition. They had plans to directly control Egypt with my General Staff. They would not put the good situation of attacking the British army on both sides and put the opponent's vitality back to Egypt. For them, if they left the hard bones behind and chewed them, who can tell the future situation?

So I also instructed the previous battle photos to fight and the negotiations will continue as usual, fighting and fighting, and contacting the German army to see their reactions.

The domestic political situation has basically begun to become clear. The New Confucian Party is full of momentum. Before the date of voting on June 1 is about to arrive, various media surveys have shown that the New Confucian Party will win a great victory. In addition to the few subtle areas that show that other political parties still have resistance, 800 electoral votes in 50 provinces across the country, including the army and vassal states, that is, among the 800 seats in the first parliament, the New Confucian Party has a great hope of winning more than 85% of the seats in the first investigation report. Although this data may not be accurate, it is obvious that Zhang Jian's first position as Yuan Prime Minister is basically a foregone conclusion.

Judging from my deep hopes, I also support Zhang Jian as the general head of the cabinet. In the five years from 1916 to 1920, I will do my best to help him build up his prestige and help him solve some problems that he cannot coordinate at present, and leave a prestigious and capable candidate for the Yuanxian candidate for the country after 1921. According to my estimate, the New Confucian Party will never encounter any substantial challenges in the first few general elections. Although the Labor Party is large at present, the class it represents has never become a habit of becoming the ruling class, and it will not be supported by the main body of this empire, the gentry class. This can be seen from their so-called five-non-slogan slogans. They do not know how to use some grand slogans to package their political ideas, so maybe they will need another ten or twenty years to truly become a mature political force.

So the situation of this war has basically been determined. What we need to observe is when the United States will officially join the war and become a catalyst for ending the war. There are still some things in Russia that need to be put into operation, that is, adjustments in internal affairs, including the adjustment of the industrial focus of the country from military to civilian industry, continuing to increase investment in long-term aspects such as science and technology and education, and gradually opening up some aspects that were concentrated in the centralized system in the past, such as propaganda, to lay a solid foundation for the overall transformation of the country from a monarchy to a constitutional monarchy state, that is, whether the vassal system has perfectly completed the transition from a vassal system to a constitutional monarchy, and the consolidation work of newly landed land.

The work of the two educations is still the focus of consolidating the land and educating the people. In addition, the Propaganda Department has issued a series of encouragement to develop folk art groups into areas outside the traditional Chinese Middle-earth Empire, including various operas, especially Peking Opera - because it helps promote standard pronunciation of Chinese language, various traditional folk art situations, such as crosstalk and storytelling. As well as a series of hardware and software construction projects jointly launched with the Ministry of Construction to promote the construction of radio in the county, a group of "foreigners" who admire Chinese culture overseas have gradually cultivated overseas. Cantonese opera has a market on the Indochina Peninsula, whether it is the Myanmar province within the territory of the empire or the north and south Annan countries outside the territory.

The highest-ranking king of the Arab Kingdom is Saudi Arabia. He prefers the form of storytelling. Although he doesn't understand it, according to the official report from the front, the Saudi king is very interested in asking the empire to help him write the history of his country into an Arabic storytelling version. Fortunately, it was circulated in the Arab region. Although he obviously had political considerations, this is not a good thing for the empire. However, most of the talents in China who are currently familiar with Arabic and Arab history have other uses, and they cannot find anyone to help him do this for a while. Moreover, storytelling also has special requirements for language, and not any language is suitable for using this form of expression.

Of course, this is not a big deal. Judging from the current situation, once the British army withdrew from the Middle East and returned to Egypt, the fate of the Abdul family in Jordan has almost been decided. The Arab Kingdom will not let go of this tribe that has hated them in history and now, and neither China nor Germany has any reason to restrain Saudi Arabia from doing such a thing.

In the long run, maintaining a certain degree of hatred within Arabia is not a bad thing, but the current situation does not allow such a thing to happen. After all, it is a global era. Even Germany cannot cover it when the Turks massacre Armenians. I don’t want Saudi Arabia to go up to kill Abdul and provide anyone with an excuse to intervene.

So although from a military perspective, the British ceasefire plan is a good deal for us, politically speaking, it is more in line with the interests of the empire that the British army will continue to stay in place to maintain a protection of the Abdul family. After sharing these ideas with the Army Command and staff in the front, I believe they should be able to form some support for my idea on the battlefield.

By the end of May, several changes were formed on the battlefield from the Middle East to Europe. First, on May 20, the Austrian army went deep into the front line less than 200 kilometers away from Rome, which was known as "never defended city". Although the Austrian commander claimed that he would never offend His Majesty the Pope, the Italian government could not place its security in the Holy See, so they first sent an armistice telegram to the Allies, demanding peace negotiations with Vienna under the intermediary of the Holy See. Although it is said that London expressed serious dissatisfaction with this, because they did not make much contribution to the lifting of the Italian defense pressure, the Italians could no longer worry about London's feelings. Moreover, the British themselves were not having a good life.

This idea became even stronger after a naval battle in the southern Adriatic Sea. Although the Italians did not lose their battleships, three cruisers were sunk by Austrian submarine forces during their cruises. The navy believed that if Austria launched a main showdown in the near future, the Italian Navy would likely follow the footsteps of the Royal Navy of the British Empire, so they suggested that the government sign a ceasefire agreement with Austria as soon as possible. After Milan and Venice fell one after another, Italy had actually failed, and it would be irresponsible to the country to continue to fight. Although this argument was not approved by the Blackshirt Party, the morale of the army had been seriously affected, especially when they lacked the strength and courage to fight.

After consultation with Germany, Austria, Crown Prince Carl personally came forward and after consultation with senior military officials, decided to agree to Italy's ceasefire request. The two sides will conduct preliminary negotiations in Vienna on the follow-up of the war under the auspices of the Pope.

This was a huge trauma for the Allies. After Russia's withdrawal from the war cleared the threat from the Eastern Front for Germany, Italy declared the uncertainty of the current status of the British Empire's Mediterranean fleet, southern France, and northern Africa with substantial surrender.

The Allies will face unreserved attacks by the Allied armies. Some pessimists even believe that the demise of the British Empire is imminent. They have very good reasons. After receiving the help of the Austrians' attack from southern France, Germany would have almost no problem in disposing of the British and French coalition forces on the French ground. The English Channel, which the British Empire relied on to protect itself, has theoretically lost the guarantee of local security after the high seas fleet currently has a comprehensive maritime advantage. Germany's airship bombing on London was not so good in terms of effect, but it was a symbol after all. The British Empire was no longer the great empire that shocked the world a few years ago or more than ten years ago.

Although there are rumors that Crown Prince Carl is about to die and Austria is about to collapse, it is said that Joseph I's crown prince is basically dead, and Carl's predecessor Rudolph and Ferdinand have written footnotes for him, but this propaganda offensive without much attack seems so insignificant in the current almost one-sided public opinion environment.

With the news of Verdun's fall on the military battlefield, this environment has made the British almost unable to maintain the courage to continue fighting even a little. After paying the huge and heavy price of more than 300,000 casualties for nearly a year, the Fifth German Army finally completed this goal after a continuous offensive from mid-May to early June. The 50 divisions that the German army began to invest are still surviving, less than 70%. The nearly eighty divisions invested by the French army successively, and when they retreated to Paris at the end of the battle, there were only more than 300,000 left. Verdun was like a huge meat grinder, talking about the young lives being grinded into a piece of meat paste. France's blood was poured into France's territory, and the whole of Europe was about to be burned to pieces by this war.

Although Paris still did not fall on the Western Front, this obviously cannot last long. When industrial production cannot make a breakthrough, France will no longer send more soldiers who can shoot accurately to defend Paris. After the German Fifth Army captured Verdun, the German troops would run over the Champagne area like locusts until the eastern and southern parts of Paris, and the entire Paris was trapped in a heavy siege. Although from a spiritual perspective, defending Paris is to defend France, military considerations no longer allow General Xiafei to let his troops stay in Paris.

Only the British Expeditionary Force did not encounter major setbacks in the direction of the Somme. But hundreds of thousands of British soldiers obviously would not think that they would be able to defeat the already unstoppable German Army in France. They miss Britain extremely. But it is still a question whether the navy can still transport them back to the country safely. After the naval battle was successfully over, the High Seas Fleet had slowly expanded their sphere of influence. The Scotland, the former important naval base of the Royal Navy, has been included in the cruise range of the High Seas Fleet. As long as the Germans are interested, they can bombard any target on the shore with huge ship guns at any time.

From a strategic perspective, this war has reached a time when we need to breathe. The resource consumption of both sides has basically reached a limit. After the use of overseas colonies has been cut off from the Asia-Pacific region, they no longer have an absolute advantage. So what they lack is high-quality soldiers, while Germany has just stepped out of the resource bottleneck. The battlefield advantage before the summer is understandable, but the large eruption of such a scale cannot last too long for them. So after the Pope issued a new round of peace appeals, I estimate that they will temporarily walk to the negotiating table.

However, General Alanby in the Middle East had a difficult life. On the one hand, before summer came, the German army needed to establish more advantages to serve future negotiations. Therefore, the German-Turkish coalition launched an uninterrupted attack on the northern line and once occupied the important drinking water resource point of the Cross Station. However, after repeated tug-of-warming, the British army finally re-occupied this stronghold on May 31.

On the southern front, the tank division of the Chinese Empire began to exert its power on the battlefield. Since tanks did not encounter natural enemies such as large-caliber artillery on this ground, the tanks did not suffer any damage on the battlefield in the battle a few days before June came. The failure rate of up to 40% did not make much progress in this army. And because fuel, oil and other cost materials need to be transported from the country, the cost of use seems too high, so the cavalry is still the protagonist on the battlefield.

After protruding dozens of kilometers forward and defending for more than ten days, the British army finally declared lost on June 2. Both Chinese troops on both sides made breakthroughs. The troops on the Western Front had penetrated into the north of Eilat and suppressed the few British troops around. The confrontation between China and Britain in the Jordan border area was gradually formed.

Of course, the negotiations between the two sides were also going on intermittently, which was actually a test. Both sides knew that the war here could not last too long. Once summer came, it would be difficult to walk here, let alone fight. Therefore, neither General Alanby nor General Zhang Xun closed the door to the negotiations to each other.

Therefore, in this June, the focus of domestic attention is still on the election pattern. Considering the different local traffic conditions, the election validity time was set to two months. The election supervisors sent by the cabinet to each province are all juren in the new scientific examination. They supervise the provincial government to urge local officials to implement the election goals, and mobilize local administrative and social forces to increase the election rate. Because the media has not stopped promoting this aspect before, by the end of June, the turnout rate had exceeded 40%, which means that more than 200 million votes have been generated in the country, which will determine the fate of a person and even the political party behind him.

At present, the number of members of the New Confucian Party in the country is said to be 20 million. In fact, I think it is about 10 million. This number is really terrifying. There is almost one New Confucian Party member in almost 40 or 50 people across the country. My empire is basically based on such a mass foundation and maintaining a unified state. If there is no unified culture, it will be a catastrophic situation if such a large empire collapses.

The second largest party, Labour Party, also has a population of 170 million, claiming to be two million. In addition to the Clan Party, the Kuomintang and other small parties, there are more than 20 million people with clear political beliefs in the country. Of course, the others are not political idiots, but they have not been attracted by these political parties. Therefore, all political parties have taken advantage of the opportunity of the whole nation to enter the political stage to expand the influence of their own parties. In fact, Labour and other parties also know that this election cannot compete with the New Confucian Party, which has ruled this country for thousands of years. The reason why they spared no effort to participate in the event in the election was to use this opportunity to spread their political ideas to the whole nation.

The changes in the country over the past 30 years have been too great. It is not just a series of changes in the appearance of the political stage. With the progress of construction, several large cities of the empire have joined the list of the most prosperous cities in the world. Beijing, Tianjin, Taiyuan, Xi'an in the north, Shanghai, Jiangning, Wuchang, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and even Nanning in the south, including Manila, Vladivostok, which were later incorporated into the empire's territory, have gradually formed their own urban characteristics according to their own urban functions. Many people have also felt proud of China while marveling at the towering skyscrapers of foreigners.

In fact, this is also a normal phenomenon. When a country is in an expansion period and an upward period, it will naturally develop many people who are obsessed with, elevate, and deify their cultural habits. For example, Liang Qichao's teenage son Liang Sicheng developed a strong interest in architecture and urban naturalization. Since there is no such course in China's middle and advanced education, Liang Qichao sent him to the United States to study architecture after asking me, and sent him to develop a building system that combines Chinese and Western cultures, which is in line with the aesthetics of the Chinese nation and can play a substantial role.

With the changes in the domestic economy, the urban pattern has also begun to change a lot. Multi-story residential buildings such as later generations have begun to appear in some big cities, but their functions are somewhat different from those in later generations. As land annexation is becoming increasingly respectful to private property, the resettlement of urban poor people has become increasingly social problems. In many cities, governments have paid money to build some multi-story buildings that are rented for the poor to live in at a low price.

With the formulation of a series of securities market regulations, Beijing also opened its own securities market for the first time this year. When the market opened, almost everyone who entered the market received a vaccination for some disastrous events in the world's securities markets issued by the government, such as the stock market crash in France and the promotion of stock market crash in the South China Sea company in the UK.

By early July, after two months of operation, the total market value of the securities market located in the east of Beijing had exceeded 350 million silver dollars, and more than 90 companies in the city had achieved good financing results. Since I have not yet relaxed it, the East Asia Co., Ltd., the major shareholder of the royal family, did not enter this market. The crown prince Puxia, who has always been responsible for the task of formulating economic policies, also obtained a ban included in the law in accordance with the current regulations: that is, the children of the royal family and government officials are not allowed to trade stocks in any way to prevent collusion between officials and businessmen.

Although this ban encountered some different voices, after the Qing Dynasty collected evidence of several Beijing officials intervening in the securities market in the name of their families, they reported to me, and all of them lowered the level three levels and ordered them to withdraw from the stock market, there were fewer opposition voices.

The emergence of the securities market also marks the basic foundation of Beijing's urban structure after decades of expansion. With the emergence of dozens of new roads, the concept of Beijing is much bigger than in the past. The Forbidden City is naturally at the core of this city. The inner city area north of the Forbidden City is basically the office area of ​​various military departments. In addition to the General Staff Department arranged it in the west of the city due to its special nature, the Army Department and the Navy Department are all located in the north of the inner city.

The various departments that the cabinet handles internal affairs, including the Congress, are located in the area south of the Temple of Heaven in the south of the city. The main functions on the east and west sides are located in some municipal departments, including Shuntian Prefecture Yamen, Shuntian Prefecture Court, water plants, power plants and other departments in urban life. The east side of the city is designed as a financial and economic center, the central bank of the empire, the treasury of the Ministry of Revenue and other important economic departments are all set here.

Before summer came, I also visited several construction sites all over the city. Obviously, a new urban pattern has been basically laid. Since Beijing is almost a large construction site, this kind of inspection has almost become an important part of my activities in addition to military and political affairs during this period.

This situation continued until July 25, the agreed monthly armistice day. This was an opportunity for all parties involved.
Chapter completed!