1890 King of Southeast Asia

October 12, Huaxia Empire, Borneo, Chang'an City.

"This is the specific situation. According to the intelligence we have, the Italians have lost their ability to launch large-scale attacks." Xie Hui stood in front of the map and summarized to the table of people.

"The Italians are so unreliable. I actually want to know how they can't keep up with the supply of internal operations."

"They have such a big appetite that they started a war on two fronts right away. The Austro-Hungarian Navy didn't move at all, but they were also implementing the highest combat readiness, wasting a lot of resources."

"The transportation construction in Italy is also a problem. In the direction of the Isonzo River, the attacking Italian army has made a breakthrough, but because of the chaos in logistics and supply, the troops cannot move forward, giving the Austro-Hungarian Empire time."

"In addition, in just two years, the Italian army has expanded from less than 300,000 people to 1.7 million people. It is certain that the combat effectiveness has declined, just like the reorganization when we fought the Dutch. This is also one of the reasons why the Italians were blocked in the north."

Several soldiers at the long table talked a lot, either teasing the Italians or pointing out the reasons why Italy performed so poorly.

"Even if the Austro-Hungarian Empire is slow, it should have reacted by now. The Italians have lost the opportunity to win a quick victory, and the crisis of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has temporarily disappeared."

"The war will continue."

Yang Tao turned to Xu Hui and said.

During this period, Xu Hui has been very worried that the Austro-Hungarian Empire will not be able to withdraw enough defensive forces under the sudden attack of Italy, and will eventually collapse.

Once the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapses, the Allies will be divided into two halves, and Germany is likely to directly strive for a decent result to withdraw from the war.

The most likely scenario is that the German army will pay a certain price, and then the Allies will divide the Ottoman Empire to recover.

After all, the British, French and Germans have always been fighting and negotiating, but the price difference between the two sides is too far. If the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapses, Germany will not see the possibility of victory, and concessions will be a matter of time.

However, in this way, China's interests will be affected.

"How is the observation group these days?" Liu Yiming knocked on the table, interrupted the discussion, and then asked.

"After Italy joined the war, Xu Sunming and his team had nothing to do. The originally scheduled naval expedition did not appear, and the observation group simply went to the countryside of London." Lin Anmin said with a smile.

"Ha! Those British people must be regretting it now, right?! At this time, it's not that price anymore." Xie Hui directly expressed everyone's thoughts.

When Italy joined the war, except Liu Yiming who really knew that Italy was a sluggish country in World War I, everyone else was half-hanging their hearts.

In fact, in the final analysis, their worries were not wrong. One difference between Italy in World War I and World War II was that the soldiers were not so war-weary, and they believed that they were just.

In the early days of Italy's participation in the war, it only declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not on Germany. Even though they knew that the German-Austrian coalition was on the east bank of the Isonzo River, they did not involve the Germans.

The war between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was to recapture the Italian territory (claim) that was historically controlled by the Habsburg family, as well as the Italian areas in the west of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Italian soldiers thought they were recovering lost territory and completing the glorious mission of unifying the Kingdom of Italy, which was a legitimate reason second only to defending their country, so the morale of the Italians was high.

On the west bank of the Isonzo River, in the nine-day battle, the Italian soldiers were very brave, even fearless, and defeated the Austro-Hungarian Empire step by step, all the way to the east bank.

Then, because the battle line was stretched (actually only a few dozen or a hundred kilometers abroad), and because of the chaos in Italy's logistics dispatch, the supply of the attacking troops could not be delivered in time.

It's not that there is a lack of ammunition, but everything is missing.

Whether it is weapons, ammunition, or food and medicine, the front line has not been replenished.

The Isonzo River is mostly mountainous and hilly, and the output is not rich. The Italian soldiers can't even get enough food. They are hungry and can't attack anymore.

By this time, even though there was no breakthrough in Tyrol on the northern front, Italy had gained an advantage in the Battle of the Isonzo River and was unstoppable, which gave the Allies a great psychological comfort.

Britain and France did not know the specific situation of the Italians, but it did not prevent them from promoting the victory of the Italians and the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

For a while, in newspapers in London and Paris, the Austro-Hungarian Empire seemed to have collapsed, which caused heated discussions.

Now, the Austro-Hungarian Empire has completed its strategic maneuvers, and various trenches and obstacles have appeared on the Austrian-Italian front.

To attack trenches reinforced with logs, at least a howitzer with a caliber of more than 150 mm must be used, and the shells must fall close to the trenches, otherwise the trenches will not collapse.

If it is reinforced with multi-layer log sandbags and other things, then the few siege heavy artillery must be used.

The trenches of World War I were rarely exposed above the ground. Logs and sandbags were used to reinforce the inside of the trenches, providing structural support to prevent them from collapsing under a single shell.

Barriers such as barbed wire were laid in front of the trenches. This was a standard trench system of World War I, with one or two machine guns per kilometer. Without sufficient heavy artillery support, it was impossible for infantry to break through.

Just like the positions of the Tyrolean Archers of Casso, the layout was not very detailed, and only simple wooden boards were used for reinforcement, but it was completely immune to the attack of 65mm shells, unless the shells fell into the trenches, otherwise it would be useless.

The Italians used 80 260mm shells to open seven holes in the trenches, which directly led to a sharp drop in the combat effectiveness of the Tyrolean Archers. If it were not for the heavy machine guns hidden by Hayden in advance, the front line would have been broken.

The few days lost by the Italians due to the chaos in transportation and mobilization directly made them miss the possibility of ending the battle in a short time.

In this way, everything will return to the original starting point, and the British will have to beg the Chinese again.

"The price is easy to negotiate. We mainly want money, and secondly technology. Don't answer them if they mention colonies or other things. They want money." Liu Yiming lit a cigarette and said easily.

Liu Yiming could understand the stupid behavior of the British. Isn't it just waiting for the Italians to have a major breakthrough so that China doesn't have to join the war and save a sum of money?

At the same time, it can also curb the further development of China's influence. If the war ends like this, the British will make trouble around Chinese Arabia.

"Your Majesty, I can understand the colonies, but why not take the opportunity to obtain some equipment, or the right to distribute equipment after the war?"

"There are also schools, workers, and technicians."

"Market."

"Mineral resources."

"Okay, okay, why are you quoting here one by one? What about workers? What are they doing? Are they human traffickers?" Liu Yiming interrupted the people who were getting more and more excited.

China has passed the time of being a human trafficker (pulling people everywhere). Although various mid- and high-end talents are still in short supply, they still have to pay attention to face when doing things.

"It's just money. The British can't pay it now, so let them owe it. After the war, we will force them to pay back what we want." Liu Yiming slammed the cigarette butt.

"What if they refuse to pay? Or drag it." Everyone present understood what Liu Yiming meant, but some people didn't fully understand it.

"If they don't pay back the debt, we will take it ourselves, British India, Burma, Persia, and the British who invested in China."

"Either pay back the money or pay off the debt, which is completely in line with international practice, and no one can say anything."

"The British are not so stupid. If the pound collapses, it will hurt Britain more than the war. They dare not say they won't pay it back."

Liu Yiming said slowly.

After World War I, the United States returned to isolationism because it did not gain enough benefits. Its military gradually declined. Once the government had the idea of ​​foreign intervention, it would cause protests.

So, how did the United States continue to maintain its influence?

The answer is to collect debts, collect debts from the British, the Germans, and the French. In short, once there is a problem, the Americans will collect debts.

During the war, Britain and France owed the United States a large sum of money. After the war, the Allied Powers still owed the United States more than 10 billion US dollars. In fact, not much of this money was received at the time, and it was slowly pulled later because the British had no money.

France was even more broke. The First World War wiped out a generation of French people, with 1.31 million soldiers killed and 2.8 million disabled. During the war, 1.36 million working people were lost due to wartime production and frontline needs. The entire French youth aged 20 to 30 lost 57%.

According to post-war economic statistics, France suffered direct economic losses of more than 200 billion francs in the war. The exchange rate between francs and Chinese yuan was about 1:1 based on the gold price, about 40 billion US dollars.

What was lost here was productivity, such as agricultural planting, steel processing, etc., not just financial evaporation.

In order to maintain the war, France had to sell off its overseas assets and borrow from multiple parties. After the war, it turned from a loan shark empire into a debtor country, owing more than 6 billion US dollars in foreign debt.

These debts all have interest! After the war, France could not pay back the money at all because their assets suffered serious damage - the hundreds of billions of francs invested in Tsarist Russia were lost, and the heirs refused to admit it.

Later, the French were forced to no choice but to force the Germans to pay back the money, and the Germans paid it back to the Americans.

The Germans had no money and could not pay back. What was the result? The French marched into the Ruhr area to collect debts. Britain and the United States were afraid that the situation would deteriorate further, mainly because they were afraid that France would take the opportunity to weaken Germany and lose balance, so they stepped in to mediate.

Later, in order to balance the power of the European continent (together with the British), the Americans invested in Germany under the banner of guaranteeing Germany's repayment ability, with the aim of strengthening Germany's strength.

How could Germany, which had been stripped of everything and lost all its markets, recover in less than 20 years? It relied on the vitality injected by foreign capital.