The meeting in the main hall of Matsunokaku ended an hour later, except for the fact that Yang Rui did not understand how to effectively deal with the Philippine American bombers, the two sides reached a consensus on other matters, and based on this consensus, Hirohito finally promised to help promote the process of monetary integration between China and Japan, that is, agreed to put the issue of the Asian dollar on the agenda.

In the current political landscape of Japan, although Hirohito's promise is important, it is only a passive permission, and it is impossible for him to directly issue an edict requiring the cabinet to implement monetary integration, and the matter of the Asian dollar still has to start with the Japanese Diet, which will involve the chaebol, and Duke Xionji Gongwang must see it.

On the way to the hotel, Yang Rui smoked easily, but Pei Shoutong was thoughtful. After all, he has retired from the post of chief of the General Staff for several years, and he has no idea what the General Staff under the management of the current Chief of the General Staff, General Xu Jingxi, has drawn up and what the US combat plan has formulated.

As I said earlier, the key to the plan lies in whether or not it can stop the bombing of US bombers, if not, the advantages of fast shipbuilding cannot be reflected, and defeat is only a matter of time. Therefore, he also had the same worries as the Japanese, but unlike the Japanese, he saw some hope -- Taiwan and the northernmost tip of the Luzon Peninsula were about 500 kilometers apart, just within the range of cruise rockets, and if the navigation problem was solved, then something that cost less than 3,000 yuan could be fired at US airfields.

"Sir, can the problem of navigation of cruise rockets be solved in five years?" In the hotel, Pei Shoutong asked his worried questions, and he felt that navigation was the key to the plan.

"I don't know!" Yang Rui's answer was unexpected. Yang Rui did not intend to solve the US bombers with cruise rockets at all. "Maybe, but this kind of ...... No one can say for sure what is too far ahead of its time. The problem now is that there is a coupling between light and light, and in layman's terms, one light and another light are fighting, and once they fight, they don't work. ”

I heard that Yang Rui was very anthropomorphic about navigation problems. Pei Shoutong couldn't help laughing, but he didn't understand the technical things, so he had to give up on this issue. He remembered another question: "What will happen if the US Treasury debt exceeds 70 billion and will go bankrupt?" If they weren't going to use war to get out of the New Deal. ”

"What will be the result?" Yang Rui smiled, "As a result, I have already said it, which is a good thing for us." It's definitely bad for the United States, so either the United States that doesn't go to war bankrupts the federal government because of its unsustainable national debt, and eventually changes the domestic political landscape and power structure; Either the United States, which started the war, is defeated by us, causing a more serious domestic political crisis, and thus completely declining. ”

"But we can't land on the continental United States!" "The United States doesn't have to worry about a naval blockade, even if we can bombard its shipyard with cruise rockets, if the navigation problem is solved." ”

Seeing that Bei Shoutong's level of understanding was still at the military level, Yang Rui shook his head and said. "You have a typical military mentality, so it is right to say that soldiers are not allowed to interfere in politics, especially if they have not experienced a complete aristocratic education.

Many countries are difficult to defeat, but easy to destroy, and some are the opposite. The key lies in his culture and finances, with the former being the ruling software and the latter the ruling hardware. Because of this, those sinologists in Europe and the United States were all banned and expelled by the Ministry of Rites. Because if they understand our culture, it's easy to find loopholes in the culture. It is convenient to create procedural conflicts that can destroy our country and even our entire nation, so it is extremely important to maintain faith and targeted control of public opinion.

There is a cultural danger, and financial problems can also bring down a country, isn't this how the Ming Dynasty perished? But usually the collapse of a country is a combination of the two, and the fiscal situation causes a political crisis. The political crisis caused the cultural crisis, and after the cultural crisis, some indignant youths who dared to challenge the current regime and the current order arose, and finally the revolution or coup d'état rewrote the original political power structure, and the result of the rewriting was to shorten the life span of the civilization of the entire country or nation, and this is the goal we want to achieve. ”

Yang Rui, who persuaded the Japanese, had a rare leisure. Speaking of this, he suddenly asked, "Ji Mei, do you know who the ruling group of Japan is?" And what is the ruling culture? ”

"This ......" I didn't expect Yang Rui to ask rhetorically, Bei Shoutong said after a slight sigh: "The foundation of Japan's rule should be the emperor and the nobles and chaebols under the emperor system. The ruling culture is the theory of imperial power. ”

"What about the Russian ones?" Yang Rui asked again after committing it.

"It's a member of the Bolshevik Party, that is, a cadre. The ruling culture should be Max and Li-Ningism. "Bei Shou is like-minded.

"What about the American one?" Yang Rui asked again.

"Just now Mr. said that it was a capitalist who rules the culture...... "Pei Shoutong wanted to say the U.S. Constitution or the Declaration of Freedom, but he felt that it was not so simple, so he had to say: "I don't know about this." ”

Yang Rui didn't delve into this question, and then asked, "What about us?" ”

As a core member of the ruling group, Pei Shoutong was a little embarrassed when answering this question, he said, "We, and the gentry...... culture is the quintessence of the country compiled by the Ministry of Rites, as well as the civilization theory of Mr. ”

Most of Pei Shoutong's answers were correct, and Yang Rui no longer asked, he said: "The ruling group in the United States can be said to be capitalists, but in fact, it is the Anglo-Saxon family that arrived on the American continent early to believe in Protestantism, and her ruling culture is not the American Constitution and the Declaration of Freedom, but the Protestant Bible. The essence of equality in the constitution is that all people are equal before God, and the inviolability of property rights is only a part of the Protestant ethic, which allows the property of the capitalists to be secured, and then creates a prosperous industry and commerce, and creates the current capitalist society.

In this sense, the basis of American rule is the devout white Protestants, but under the influence of brainless literati and the weakened European civilization, especially the secular civilization of France, the equality of the existence of only the Pietists is abused to any American-born person, with disastrous results. Another disaster is that the development of industry and commerce makes capital continue to grow itself, which further destroys the ruling culture, coupled with the difference in industrial development between the North and the South of the United States, which eventually led to the Civil War between the North and the South. Even now, blacks are not emancipated.

Have you read the history of ancient Rome, Ji Mei? Yang Rui suddenly asked.

"Read some. Mr. Once again, he felt that he would never reach the heights of his husband.

"It's good to read it," Yang Rui nodded, he didn't regard the conversation as a business, but only as a kind of small talk between teachers and students. "Ancient Rome, from birth to death, was a complete cycle of civilization. And because European civilization is directly inherited from ancient Roman civilization, it is very similar to the United States. By understanding ancient Rome, we can understand the United States, and in turn, we can judge how the United States came to an end.

Although the history of the United States is only more than 200 years, it should not be forgotten that his childhood and adolescence were spent on the European continent, and landing in the Americas can only be said to be a family. Although Rome had a civic electoral system like him, unlike the United States, Roman rule was not based on devout Protestants, but on the soldiers of the Roman legions, where only warriors had citizenship. Everyone else was a slave or a commoner.

Rome would not have fallen if the principle that only warriors had the right to vote had been followed, but large-scale wars changed that. Around 100 B.C., after the Romans destroyed Carthage and its allies, because most of the soldiers from the cultivators went bankrupt, the army had no soldiers to conscript, so Rome carried out a military reform, from a conscription system to a conscription system. It was a crucial turning point in Roman history. Because according to Roman law, warriors had the right to citizenship. In the past, the soldiers were all propertied and organized into legions according to the amount of property, but now because they were conscripted, the soldiers were proletarians, and the acquisition of citizenship by these people was a disaster for the Roman constitutional system.

When there is a change in the structure of the source of the elected votes. The political power landscape will change. Just like us, in the early years of the founding of the country, the electorate was mainly peasants, and now the peasants do not pay taxes, so the court of suspicion is full of gentry. It can be said that in the Marian era, the policy of changing the conscription system to the conscription system was changed. In the end, Rome transitioned from a republic to an imperial system - since the proletarians who served in the army had votes in their hands, they shouted slogans to buy them during the campaign, welfare, insurance, jobs, money, beautiful women, ...... as long as they wanted, they promised that they could not come to power and pull them down, and when they came to power, they would tax the propertied people, and it would be illegal to not pay taxes.

This is Rome, what about the United States? Her important events that would affect history such as the Roman military reform began with the Declaration of Independence of the thirteen British colonies in North America on July 4, 1776, which said: 'They consider the following truths to be self-evident...... Yang Rui smiled here, "...... All men are created equal, and their Creator has endowed them with a number of inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's a great thing to say! He teased.

"I think that the business people who are now extremely afraid of Roosevelt's tax hike must have hated this sentence very much, and regretted that they did not add the qualifier '...... before God' at the beginning, and it is estimated that everyone was a devout Protestant at that time, and I forgot that many American citizens in the future will not be devout Christians, and even many of them will be Catholics and pagans.

The Declaration of Independence was only the beginning of American-style Roman military reform, followed by the U.S. Constitution, which enshrined in law that all Americans had the right to vote and to be elected, and then the Civil War provoked by Lincoln. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution confused the pious and the non-believers, this time the whites and the blacks, although the situation of the blacks afterwards was worse than before the Civil War - as slaves of Southern farmers, they were an important asset to the farmers, a black slave was worth 1,800 dollars at that time, but in the eyes of the factory owners in the North, they were worthless, especially in times of economic depression, no one cared about his life or death, and the so-called freedom was only the freedom to replace the more ruthless slave owners, nothing more......"

Yang Rui finished smoking at this time, and when he paused to take out another cigarette from the cigarette case, Pei Shoutong asked, "Sir, who will Roosevelt be?" Sula? ”

The United States is still a republic, and if the Marian era in the United States was from the War of Independence to the Civil War, then the United States is between the Marian era and the Antony, Lypida, and Octavian eras. According to Roman history, Sulla was the ruler after Marius, and after Sulla Crassus, Caesar, and Pompey, he felt that Roosevelt was Sulla.

"How could Roosevelt be Sula?" Yang Rui, who lit a cigarette, smiled, "Although Sulla was the first person to dictate in Rome, the purpose of his dictatorship was to safeguard the interests of the aristocratic faction of the Senate and fight against the democrats. If nothing else, his abolition of the system of rationing cheap grain to urban homeless people shows that he was by no means Roosevelt. ”

"Then ......" Bei Shoutong thought of something, he shook all over, and lost his voice: "Could it be Caesar?!" ”

"Hmm. It's Caesar! Yang Rui laughed, seeming happy that he had guessed.

"Sir, this is ......" Pei Shoutong could not connect the well-known disabled man Roosevelt with Caesar, who had the impression that Julius Caesar was a warrior, but Roosevelt was just a paralyzed man.

"Don't look at appearances. It depends on the substance. The essence is the role he played in the history of Rome. "The unemployed workers in the United States today are similar to the nomadic class in Rome at that time, who live on free rations from the state. Caesar is indeed not crippled, but both he and Roosevelt have the characteristics of seeing the wind and steering, and are good at using public opinion to come to power, but they will abandon some civilians after coming to power to curry favor with the other faction, which belongs to the kind of two ends to please and two to betray.

They also have a common trait, that is, they like deficit finances, and Caesar is said to have left a lot of debts in office there, and several times he had to rely on his father-in-law to pay them. What is the money used for? It is not the development of industry and commerce. Instead, they were used to build public works, such as arenas, and then the proletarians who had the right to vote were invited to watch the arena. That's equivalent to ...... Hehe......" Yang Rui couldn't help laughing, "Just like when we used to have peasants who could vote, the gentry invited them to the theater in order to get votes, and some people invited them to go to the kiln...... Haha......"

Yang Rui was overjoyed, feeling that the democratic election was really ****** funny, with silver tickets, drama tickets, and meat tickets. It is precisely because of the nostalgia of the era when they were 'masters' that they worked hard to reach the tax payment line and become voters. Others, who were already voters, sent their strongest sons to serve as soldiers, so that they could represent the township or county inspectorate to honor their ancestors.

Yang Rui laughed at Yang Rui, and Pei Shoutong recalled the history of Rome, Rome after Caesar fell into civil war again, and then Antony, Lybida, and Octavian allied to rule Rome. Octavian later defeated the other two and was named Augustus by the Senate for quelling civil strife that attempted to divide Rome, and was venerated as a god by the Senate after his death.

Thinking of Octavian's life, Pei Shoutong waited for Yang Rui to smile and asked: "Is the change in the political pattern of the United States that Mr. said about the Roman political reform when Octavian was in power?" ”

"This is just one of them, and the whole political landscape changes include all the political reforms from Caesar to Octavian." Yang Rui nodded. This was actually a patch up to the Roman constitutional system after Marius's military reform. Sura, who had previously been known as a dictator, also wanted to close this constitutional loophole. However, after several wars at that time, not only was the supply of soldiers gone, but the toxins accumulated by the development of civilization also made the propertied people generally tired of war and pursue pleasure, so there was no way to repair this loophole.

In fact, in summary, there are two factors that will accelerate the decline of civilization, one is large-scale, long-term, and brutal wars, because too many people are mobilized, and civilians and even slaves who are not citizens are also conscripted. Bloodshed and paying taxes are both acts of doing their duty for the country and the nation, while in a normal country, rights and obligations are equal, and people shed blood and pay taxes, so it is natural for families to have corresponding political rights, but changes in the voter base will produce political crises and eventually accelerate the decline of civilization. The history of Britain is unique in that it is mainly a navy, and the navy is small in numbers, so she can maintain a stable political landscape;

Looking at Germany again, before the war, because there were not enough aristocratic officers and the number of army was insufficient, but once the war began, it was not possible to recruit soldiers, and victory was more important between the nobility and victory, so before the war ended, the influence of the Social Democratic Party increased greatly. Although Britain was victorious, she also sent in the army, and the prolonged war increased taxes, so the post-war political scene was in a miasma, and the Labour Party, which could not come to power, began to govern. Another factor is the abundance of loot. Don't look at others at this point, just look at the people.

In the 17 years before the economic crisis, the United States exported $4.7 billion[note 152] and imported $4 billion, with a surplus of $700 million. What now? Last year, she exported 1.9 billion yuan, imported 1.8 billion yuan, and had a surplus of 100 million, and last year should have been her last year of surplus in the balance of payments, and it must not be forgotten that his import tariffs were as high as 40 percent on average, the first in the world. If her tariffs were at the same level as ours and the UK, she would have a huge balance of payments deficit.

Our industrial products are robbing her market, as are our agricultural products, especially cotton and cotton cloth. The result of her high tariffs is that the industrial and agricultural industries of the United States have completely lost their international competitiveness, and they will not be able to lower the tariffs when they want to, and then the domestic agricultural and industrial groups will find ways to persuade the congressmen to veto the reduction of tariffs, or reduce the tariffs but implement huge trade subsidies, both of which will worsen the finances.

Finances are not improving. If workers continue to lose their jobs, the political situation in the country will be dire. There will be more and more populist politicians like Roosevelt, until the opposition stands up to stop it, and if nothing else, it must be the Republican Party, the idealistic, devout Republican Party who came from bankrupt families but got the opportunity. But he was unable to change his finances, and the result was to amend the Constitution.

Then there is the long struggle between populist politicians and increasingly authoritarian Republican politicians, during which the South, which did not have independence during the Civil War, will take the opportunity to demand independence, and they are already at odds with the philistine and greedy Yankees, and it is likely that there will be a Octavian-like figure, Lincoln II, to stop the split, and then it will be the imperial time of the United States. ”

Speaking of the imaginary United States, Yang Rui thought of the United States in later generations. If the United States had not won World War II and established a dollar-oil tie to obtain the world's dollar seigniorage, the country that had been born with problems would have decayed as quickly as the countries of southern Europe. She was able to stay sustained without the constitutional crisis of Roosevelt's New Deal. It is because Americans, especially the poor in the United States, are supported by slave labor all over the world. Now, Yang Rui has decided to prevent him from establishing a dollar-oil system, and at the same time will squeeze American goods in the international market with high-tech goods, worsening his balance of payments and allowing her to enter the imperial era early.

The world will be a pluralistic one, with the British Empire still symbolically overpowering, the world's colonies still in place, and the great powers relying on the League of Nations. Suppress democracy, welfare, and the Bolsheviks in order to continue the nineteenth century. It is believed that the civilization of such a world will last longer than that world in later generations. In such an international environment, the foundation of China's rule will become more and more solid, and after the final disintegration of Soviet Russia, the whole of Siberia will be integrated with Guanwai. Thanks to the harsh environment, it will be a religious reservation, and in a few hundred years, if the world's civilization finally collapses like the civilizations that have disappeared in history. The pious Trinity Christians outside the Guanxi will be the spark for the resurgence of China......

-- With the inertia of the topic of Rome and the United States, Yang Rui seemed to see the end of world civilization, but he quickly let himself jump out of this line of thought, which was not what he was thinking about now, and the two most important things at the moment were to prepare for war and suppress Germany to go to war. If either of these two is not done well, China will be drawn into the path of civilization accelerated decline by the United States.

"Ji Mei......, if you are free, accompany me around the world." Yang Rui said to Bei Shou.

"Traveling the world?" Yang Rui's use of Rome as a metaphor to explain the United States is tantamount to opening up a new world for Pei Shoutong, allowing him to analyze other countries, including China. He didn't expect Yang Rui to want to travel the world.

"Yes. We would like to have Britain and France endorse us on the Treaty of Naval Disarmament, and if Britain refused, the other way would be for the League of Nations to oversee our and Japan's shipbuilding, composed of men from all countries, who would inspect the dockyards, the docks and airfields of the Pacific islands, excluding the purely defensive underground fortifications, and then issue regular bulletins. I think that was enough to put pressure on Roosevelt.

If the Americans are not convinced, we can also invite the American senators to visit our dockyard and the Pacific islands to see if there are any ships in the dockyard and to see if there are large docks on the islands where large fleets can be moored. I believe that this is enough to give isolationists, pacifists, reasons to oppose Roosevelt's expansion. Yang Rui said a suggestion that Yang Du had mentioned, and felt that the League of Nations was becoming more and more useful.

"Sir, isn't there a super-heavy crane in our shipyard, won't this be exposed?" Bei Shou is the same way. He knew that there was nothing to worry about the island's underground fortifications, and that it was okay for the fleet not to cheat, but he was worried about the dockyard.

"Then we don't use super-heavy cranes, we use large hydraulic cylinders." Yang Rui explained, "There are two ways to build a shipbuilding in sections, one is to lift the gantry super-heavy crane from the air, and the other is to push the large hydraulic cylinder from the outside of the dock to the inside, and push a section on the welding, and the dock will be full after welding, and then the ship can be launched." Besides, although the gantry crane is conspicuous, who can see how much the crane can lift, they want to see whether there are warships under construction in the dock, and there are large aircraft carriers with a construction period of two or three years. ”

"This is a good idea!" Pei Shoutong smiled and nodded. "Then Roosevelt, and those who want to go to war, can't find an excuse now."

"It doesn't matter if you have an excuse or not, the key is whether you want to fight or not." Yang Rui said. "If you go out, Germany will still be pressurized, and the United States will naturally solve the war in Europe."

"Sir is going to Germany?" Bei Shou is the same way.

"Yes, to go. Wanted to go more than 10 years ago. Yang Rui suddenly thought of Leo, and his voice was a little low. I don't care if Germany is now in the Kaiser's hands or Goering's decision, they are absolutely not allowed to go to war, otherwise we will send troops again. ”

"Sir, I'm afraid this ......" Thinking of the current situation in Germany, Pei Shoutong couldn't help but shake his head. Both the restored Kaiser and Chancellor Goering were haunted by the last defeat.

"They will be unhappy, but so what?" Yang Rui said proudly, "Besides, we have to prepare for the war, and it is estimated that we will purchase more than one billion machine tools and equipment, which is also a supplement to the German economy." The last thing I went to was Soviet Russia, and I had been friends with Stalin for nearly twenty years, so I should see it, and the canal had been dug for several years, and I heard that it was about to pass, and I wanted to take a look. ”

Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, with the exception of the United States, this really took the world around. However, thinking of Italy, which was at war with the Chinese and Japanese fleets, Pei Shoutong said uneasily: "Is Mr. going to the Mediterranean?" ...... over there, Italy"

"What are you afraid of Italy?" Yang Rui smiled disdainfully, "We haven't declared war on each other yet." I wanted to go to Skimayo first, then to France in the Mediterranean, then to England, then to Switzerland, then to Germany, and finally to Soviet Russia, and then to see the canals when I came back from meeting Stalin. That's probably going to take more than half a year. ”

Yang Rui had thought about the itinerary, and Bei Shou said, "When is the time for Mr. to leave?" ”

"I don't pay attention to this, whether it is before or after the negotiations in London, the main thing is that the international situation in the next few years is very important. Yang Rui said, his eyes flashing with the enthusiasm of his youth. (To be continued.) )

PS: Note 152: The original history was 5.128 billion, which was reduced to 4.7 billion taking into account the commodity competition between China and the United States. American Studies, 2012, No. 1, p115. U.S. Trade Policy and U.S.-China Trade in the Great Depression, by Sun Yuqin. Other trade data is also derived from this.