Chapter 1281: The British lost their deer, and the world chased them together (First update. Please subscribe)

"Bang!"

After a gunshot, accompanied by the barking of hounds, a group of hounds ran towards the distance like lightning and soon brought back a hare.

After ejecting the shell from the shotgun, Emperor Zhu put the shotgun on his arm and continued walking forward, talking as he walked.

"Negotiation is simply unrealistic. The Boers may be conceited and proud, but they overlook one point... The British Empire is also conceited and proud. Even the dignity of the empire will not tolerate them sitting at the negotiation table after their defeat!"

Ordinary people cannot understand this kind of dignity at all, but only imperialists can deeply understand imperialists. On this point, Emperor Zhu was able to sympathize with the British. Of course, their positions were different, but they also had some common positions and views.

This understanding is built on this basis.

"Whether it's the Boers' proactive attack or their temporary advantage on the battlefield, it will only make Britain intensify its efforts to send more troops to the battlefield, and even attack with all its might until its goal is achieved. After all, the empire... the empire cannot be challenged!"

"This seems to be somewhat similar to Emperor Yang of Sui's conquest of Goguryeo."

As the assistant minister, Fang Zhanbo participated in the compilation of the imperial history textbooks. Due to the changes in historical perspectives, he rewrote the history, including the Emperor Yang of Sui's conquest of Goguryeo. Therefore, in the history books of the Ming Dynasty, he did not accuse "Emperor Yang of Sui of being ambitious", but analyzed the necessity of the conquest of Goguryeo from the perspective of the threat posed by Goguryeo to the Sui Dynasty's hegemony in Northeast Asia and national security.

"The hegemony of the empire cannot be challenged. If one challenger succeeds, it will only lead to thousands of imitators. This is a burden to the empire. In order to avoid being torn apart by a pack of wolves, the safest choice for the empire is to tear the first challenger to pieces at all costs, so as to warn other ambitious challengers. In this world where the strong prey on the weak, this is the only way to survive!"

When saying this, Emperor Zhu felt a little sad. Why? To put it bluntly, one day, the empire will replace Britain and establish its own world hegemony. At that time, the burden of the empire will also appear on the empire. At that time, the roles will change.

This is the inevitable development of history. Today, the empire can think of every possible way to bleed Britain. In the future, there may be other opponents who will use the same method to attack the Ming Empire and use the empire's must-fight places to bleed the Ming Empire!

"Your Majesty, the British and the Boers are continuing to implement their respective South African policies through economic and diplomatic means, but neither has worked. In order to remove obstacles and achieve their goals, both sides seem determined to resort to war. The British and the Boers are already on the verge of a war. Now that Milner has taken office, the situation will become even more tense, although there is news that Milner and Kruger will hold a negotiation on the issue of foreigners in Bloemfontein in June. However, the issue of foreigners, tariffs, and railways are simply unresolved issues. I think the two countries will go to war in the last one or two months!"

"It should be summer!"

Emperor Zhu thought for a moment and then said.

"A ray of hope! For Kruger and other Boers, the only ray of hope is to take the initiative and use military victory to force Britain to make concessions at the negotiation table. Therefore, the Boers will definitely go to war. The current negotiations are nothing more than Kruger pretending to be submissive and trying every means to delay time. Because the Boer militia cannot fight without horses, and horses cannot fight without grass. It is still winter in South Africa now. There is nothing on the grassland except stones, sand and dry bushes. Even if there is some hay reserves, they are almost exhausted. So they have to wait until September, until the first spring rain falls, until the grass grows on the wasteland of South Africa..."

War always needs to take weather into consideration, at least in this era. In fact, even 100 years later, history will still tell people that weather is one of the main factors that determine the final outcome of a war.

After a slight pause, Emperor Zhu continued.

"One year. From the Johnson incident last year to this summer, the Boers have been preparing for a full year. They have almost completed the preliminary preparations. The rest depends on what reason they choose to start a war."

What reason do we need to start a war?

For Emperor Zhu, none of this matters at all. The only thing that matters is that the empire will stick to its position - fight to the last Boer!

When this thought came to his mind, Emperor Zhu saw a sika deer appear in front of him. He immediately loaded two deer bullets and aimed at the deer. The sunlight shone on the deer. Looking at the deer, the corners of his lips raised slightly, and then he pulled the trigger.

The moment the gunshot rang out, the deer fell down, and Fang Zhanbo immediately complimented him.

"Your Majesty, good marksmanship."

As the hunting dogs barked and ran towards their prey, a thought suddenly came to Emperor Zhu's mind - if the British lose their deer, the whole world will chase them together.

…

Almost every day is a countdown. For the top officials of the empire, whether they are civil servants or military generals, they are preparing for war every day, paying attention to when the war in southern Africa will break out, and adding fuel to the fire at the right time.

Of course, for the vast majority of ordinary people, they are still enjoying peace and the affluent life under the rule of the empire. War...war seems to be very far away from them. As for the tension in Africa, no one will care about it at all.

However, even so, in some factories of the empire, there are still a very small number of people who are aware of the threat of war.

"Is the war about to break out?"

Once again, Cheng Tianyu was there looking through the factory's first quarter production report.

As an engineer, he could tell from the report that the factory's output had been increasing continuously since the fourth quarter of last year, and now the production scale had more than doubled.

“It’s overloaded now.”

"What?"

Cheng Tianyu answered in response to his colleagues' surprise.

"I'm talking about our factory's production. Our designed production is 300,000 rifle rounds per day. In the first and second quarters of last year, we just maintained normal production. Now, we have not only exceeded the designed production, but we even started to increase the night shift in the fourth quarter of last year. The current daily production is... 600,000 rounds."

"I told you, it's just a normal update of the ammunition depot. Anyway, I think this is a good thing for us. The factory's production has increased, and everyone's income has also increased a lot. This is a good thing."

"Good thing...I hope so."

Cheng Tianyu said while drinking coffee.

Coffee smells fragrant but tastes bitter. People who are used to drinking it don’t care about this, but this is not what he cares about at all. As an engineer, he may not have thought about this issue more deeply, but one thing is certain, he is vaguely aware of the danger.

Danger, what kind of danger could it be?

Cheng Tianyu didn't know, maybe, this was just a kind of intuition...

(End of this chapter)