Chapter 448 Meiji New Residence
Chapter 448 Meiji New Residence
"Extra! Extra! The Germans bombed London, causing the Great Fire of London, killing 50,000 people!"
The streets of Hailing were filled with running newsboys, and the urgently printed special editions of the declaration were sold out.
Newsboys are not children who have dropped out of school, but are those who go out to work and study during the winter vacation.
Thanks to the existence of the "Princess Sissi Education Fund", there are no children who drop out of school in China.
The student aid fund only helped a small number of needy families. What really made a difference was the government's large investment and tuition waivers, which were directly ordered by Shao Quanzhong and enforced nationwide.
When the hundreds of thousands of college students, millions of high school students and technical school students trained by this generation graduate every year, China's various types of high-level talents and technical workers will surge, exceeding the total of other countries in the world - the benefit of a large population.
The only country whose population can be compared with that of China is India, a British territory. Will Britain allow all Indian children to go to school?
This matter was quite controversial in the northern parliament, as people believed that the proportion of tax revenue to education expenditure was too large. However, even the provincial governors strongly supported this action.
The older generation of Chinese rulers were unanimous in their opinions on this point, and it was rare for the north and the south to reach a consensus.
Flamethrowers and incendiary bombs are easy to make, and the Good Fruit Company didn't make much money from them. It's just a problem of thinking, and most people can't think of it in a short time.
For tens of thousands of taels of silver, the patent was sold to the Germans. Of course, the Huai Army itself would also be equipped with flamethrowers in the future.
Unfortunately, it was a month later when the Germans got the incendiary bombs and flamethrowers.
The Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme have both ended. In the two battles, the British, French and German sides suffered more than two million casualties. In the end, Germany failed to capture Verdun, and Britain and France failed to break the German defense line in northern France, and the two sides continued to confront each other.
It was not used in the major battles, and the Germans simply used air raid airships to drop incendiary bombs on London.
In World War I, the German army used airships to bomb London, but it was just a deterrent and not many people were actually killed. This was because the cruel idea of napalm bombs was a sudden flash of inspiration that the Americans came up with during World War II.
It’s not that this thing is difficult to make, it’s just that no one has thought of it before.
This time, what the Germans dropped on London were not bombs, but napalm bombs, and so - London was doomed to tragedy.
After a fire, London was evacuated urgently. There was chaos and the streets were crowded with refugees fleeing London.
The next night, the bombing airships arrived as expected. This time not many people died, and London almost became a deserted city in one day.
But the bombing continued, and post-war reconstruction of London probably wouldn’t require demolition.
The Queen, who was hiding in Windsor Castle, was furious and ordered the arrest of war criminals William I and Moltke. At the same time, she ordered the Prime Minister to quickly organize the development of incendiary bombs and form a British airship fleet to bomb Berlin.
With this idea in mind, the British no longer need to ask Shao Quanzhong to buy the formula for napalm bombs, as this thing is easy to make.
Three days later, Berlin was bombed. Well, not many people died because Germany was prepared, but countless exquisite buildings were burned down.
Both Britain and Germany began to build airships and incendiary bombs on a large scale, and their eyes were red with anger.
February 1876, 2, Qiao Garden, Erfen Bamboo House.
Shao Quanzhong looked through the latest report, which said that all major cities in the UK had been bombed with napalm bombs, as had all major cities in Germany, except Heidelberg.
——Because Shao Quanzhong is the Count of Heidelberg.
Before incendiary bombs and flamethrowers had played any major role on the battlefield, more than 500,000 civilian casualties had already occurred on both the British and German sides.
In newspapers of various countries, Xu Shou, who invented the napalm bomb, was awarded the title of "Great Devil", replacing Maxim who had just been awarded this title.
"Report! Madam Rong Hui has been awarded the position of Honorary Principal by Oxford."
"Shao, this is an application from Cambridge, granting you the position of honorary president of Cambridge."
Shao Quanzhong was stunned and pointed at his nose - Me? Being a university president? I will be laughed at by future generations.
"No, absolutely not!" Half an hour later, "After urgent research by the Cambridge University Council, you are accepted as a member of the Cambridge University Council and nominated as the Chairman of the Cambridge University Council."
Shao Quanzhong was amused. "Damn it, these intellectuals are really smart. Forget it, Isabel, donate 50,000 taels of silver to Cambridge, and I will be the school director."
Xu Shou, who focused on learning, became a big devil, and Shao Quanzhong, a warlord who killed people without blinking an eye, became a famous philanthropist and a moral model of respecting knowledge and talents.
However, in terms of respecting knowledge and talents, Shao Quanzhong is indeed qualified.
Although he himself was not educated, he had special respect for educated people.
The next day, Shao Quanzhong went to the Hailing Arsenal in person and awarded the chemist Xu Shou the ninth-class Jiahe Medal in recognition of his contributions to science.
The next day, another piece of news made the headlines. A major uprising broke out in Ireland. Overnight, the power that had been secretly developed by Fenian members in various places for a long time was suddenly exposed, and the whole of Ireland fell.
The Irish heroine Jessica was elected Queen of Ireland, and the urgently formed Irish Parliament announced that it had submitted an application for independence to the British King.
If approved, Ireland would be willing to "follow Canada's example" and nominally be under the leadership of Britain. If not approved, Ireland, which had already armed 20 divisions, would cross the sea to attack the Isle of Man, land in England, and march to London.
This is really like adding insult to injury. I don't know where the equipment for Ireland's twenty divisions came from.
Well, someone found out that the equipment was produced by the Good Fruit Company, but they paid for it. The money was paid by Lopez, the spiritual leader of the South American Bau Federation.
The Irish heroine Jessica is Lopez’s sister-in-law. After Ireland’s independence, she had to repay the money with interest.
The British have even sent militia to the European continent. If the Irish want to attack, London will be in real danger.
Although London does not need to be defended in its current situation, the British Empire cannot afford to be embarrassed if its capital is captured.
Parliament held an emergency meeting in Oxford and allowed Ireland to become independent. The Irish had been struggling for independence for so long, and suddenly they succeeded overnight.
The UK suddenly lost a quarter of its land area, and even Northern Ireland was lost, which was a huge blow.
…………
Qiao Garden, Cai Qingtang.
Caiqingtang is a large restaurant where the Shao family gathers for dinner once a week, allowing Mr. and Ms. Shao to enjoy the happiness of having their children and grandchildren around them.
As Shao Quanzhong's adopted son, Wang Yongxian was the real eldest son of Qiao Yuan. Shao Quanzhong never treated him as an outsider and attended every dinner.
"Grandma, isn't it funny? Zhang Zhidong really did everything he could to win the bet."
"The Qing court moved its capital to Osaka. There can't be two tigers in one mountain. After consolidating its rule in southern Japan, it sent the vassal prince Meiji to the capital, and arranged for our superior country to live by the Chaobai River in Shunyi, to be neighbors with the Prince Zhongshun from Kokand."
"He is a prince after all, so he should build a palace like the King of Kokand, right? As a result, the North asked us to pay half of the 20,000 taels of silver for building a palace. They are not so stingy."
Wang Yongxian was telling his grandmother a joke, but Shao Quanzhong was not happy with it. "No! Damn it, the Japanese still want me to spend money to build a palace for him?"
"Well - godfather, we have to arrange for someone to stay. It would be bad if we don't pay, right?"
"Tell Zhang Zhidong that I have arranged a place for the little Japanese prince to live. I have an old residence on the bank of Chaobai River. Why not let him live there? It's a ready-made house, so why spend money?"
Ah? Wang Yongxian hesitated a little, "That broken house——"
"Why? I've lived here, Sven has lived here, even the old Buddha has lived here, so why can't he, a mere vassal king, live here?"
"Send someone to tell the little Japanese prince that this is the former residence of Marshal Shao. Ordinary people don't have the honor of living there. Letting him live there is a sign of respect for him. That's it!"
(End of this chapter)