With the economic crisis in full swing, not only did Franz not dare to take any risks, but the British government likewise didn’t dare to cause any trouble. Exporting revolution to the European continent might seem like a way to undermine the Holy Roman Empire’s nascent hegemony, but the problem was that revolutionary ideas were contagious. With Europe’s economy in shambles, Great Britain’s economic situation was no better. While it wasn’t at the point where a single spark could cause a full-blown explosion, lighting a fire would absolutely make them face serious consequences. As the world’s largest financial empire, Great Britain was also the world’s largest bubble empire. The losses from the bubble bursting were naturally the greatest. In this highly developed financial nation, over one-sixth of the population had invested in stocks, bonds, or futures. In London, a street sweeper could talk to you for hours about stocks. If it were just regular investment, things would be fine. As long as the companies were sound, they could just wait for the next bull market to break even. After all, London had plenty of bull markets and one came around every few years. But things were different for those who used leverage. Many unlucky souls were liquidated in a single wave. During the stock market crash, it sometimes took only minutes to go from being a millionaire to a million-dollar debtor. The collapse of this artificially extended bull market brought losses more severe than any previous crisis. According to incomplete statistics, over 20,000 people committed suicide in London within the first three months of the crash, and hundreds of thousands of families were on the verge of bankruptcy. The direct evaporation of wealth was a minor problem. More seriously, it became difficult for companies to raise capital. Companies with insufficient cash flow were either struggling on the brink of bankruptcy or had already gone under. To survive the crisis, businesses cut jobs and salaries to reduce operating costs. As a result, the unemployment rate in Great Britain also skyrocketed. Looking at the crowds of people protesting in the streets every day, it was clear that the public was deeply unhappy with the current economic climate. How to restore the economy had become the biggest challenge facing the British government. In such a critical moment, Prime Minister Robert Cecil naturally had no mind to play with fire. … Prime Minister Robert Cecil asked in confusion, “Austria wants to work with us to mediate the Japanese-Spanish War? Are they abandoning Spain?” It wasn’t that he was overreacting, but the Holy Roman Empire had no reason to abandon Spain. It was true that the Holy Roman Empire was the biggest victim of the economic crisis in terms of total economic output. But when you considered the impact relative to the size of their economy, the situation was completely different. In this respect, nations focused on manufacturing and industry had an advantage over those that focused on finance. No matter how much paper wealth evaporated, their fixed assets remained unchanged. The recent actions of the Austrian government showed this. They had recently provided large loans to various European nations, clearly indicating they still had resources to spare. Even if they wanted to appease Great Britain, there were other ways. It made no sense to abandon Spain, a nation whose strategic location was crucial, as it could directly threaten the Strait of Gibraltar. Foreign Secretary Cameron disagreed and said, “Quite the opposite. The Austrian government isn’t just not abandoning Spain, they’re demanding that we stop supporting the Japanese. According to that old fox Wessenberg, we are all European nations and cannot stand by while a Japanese monkey steps on Spain. The reasoning is so impossible to refute, I almost believed him myself.” Whether you believed it or not depended on your interests. In the short term, a Japanese victory in the Philippine campaign was clearly more beneficial to Great Britain. After a moment of thought, Robert Cecil slowly said, “No wonder the Spanish have been so active recently, constantly visiting Liberal Party members. If those restless fellows are swayed by the Spanish, we’ll be in a world of pain. The Treasury needs to balance the books quickly. From now on, we can no longer provide direct funding to the Japanese government.” The sentiment of Greater Europe held little sway, but a powerful accusation of “wasting taxpayers’ money” was extremely damaging, especially during an economic crisis. You could never assume a politician was too smart. In their eyes, partisanship was always more important than national strategy. The public was no better as most British citizens didn’t even know where Japan or the Philippines were. Talking about strategic significance with them was like talking to a brick wall. They might grudgingly accept it if the conflict were with the Holy Roman Empire, but politics often required a subtle hand. No matter how great the threat from the Holy Roman Empire or how intense the covert conflict between the two nations, Robert Cecil was unwilling to bring the conflict out into the open. “Bringing it into the open” meant a “showdown.” Unless he had a guaranteed victory or the contradictions between the two countries were impossible to suppress, no one would choose a direct confrontation. The reason was simple: a “showdown” was often accompanied by war. With one nation unable to land an army and the other unable to cross a strait, the outcome would be a mutually destructive outcome. Unable to show their hand, using Japan and Spain as proxies to take the blame would not convince the public. However, if he simply guided public opinion and changed the narrative, the situation would be completely different. For example: claiming that high-ranking government officials were taking bribes from the Japanese and that’s why they were providing them with funds. Even Robert Cecil would have believed it if he weren’t in power. The reason was simple: this was the very essence of Great Britain. Corruption was normal and a lack of corruption would be the real problem. British corruption ran deep, and pointing the finger there was always the right move. No matter where you started looking, you’d find a whole host of parasites. To avoid stumbling into this trap, Robert Cecil wisely followed his gut. As for the Japanese, they were on their own. The difference of a single word between “direct support” and “indirect support” may seem subtle, but in terms of impact, it was a world of difference. The former could provide tens of millions of pounds to the Japanese government, while the latter would be lucky to even get a million. Cameron remained noncommittal and said, “Prime Minister, we don’t have to be so pessimistic. Since our enemies can find a way to undermine us at home and cut off the Japanese’s funding, we can naturally launch a counterattack. The Holy Roman Empire is difficult to attack, but Spain is full of weaknesses. The economic crisis and war have simultaneously arrived, and the Spanish people are already struggling to breathe under the pressure. It would take just one spark to set them off. Of course, directly igniting the flames of revolution in Europe is too risky. We might just end up getting burned instead. But that’s alright, the Spanish colonies are not peaceful either. The leaders of the Cuban independence movement are in London. All we have to do is send them back and support them with weapons and equipment, and the Spanish will be run ragged. Who will endure longer—the Japanese or the more resilient Spanish—is a matter for God to decide.” Politics was a cruel business. Great Britain could abandon the Japanese, just as Austria could abandon the Spanish. It all boils down to interests. The Austrian government was only supporting Spain because of the Philippines’ unique geographic location, which affected peace and stability in the East Indies. Cuba was a different story. While Cuban sugar and cigars were excellent, it had no relevance to the Holy Roman Empire. Whether the Spanish could hold onto it was their own problem. … The British’s act of pulling the rug out from under them would take time to implement, but Japan’s crisis was close at hand. Without financial support from Britain, the Japanese government instantly felt the pressure. Ever since the war began, the Japanese government had been living on borrowed money. Despite their best efforts, the funds they could raise themselves only covered two-thirds of the war’s expenditures. When the dreadful news of the sudden loan cut-off from the British arrived, even though he was mentally prepared, Emperor Meiji still felt anxious and restless. There was no helping it as mental preparation didn’t translate to financial readiness. The Japanese had never completely trusted the British’s moral compass. As early as the start of the economic crisis, the Japanese government had sensed the danger, but the war machine had already started so it wasn’t something they could simply stop. From the moment they became a pawn in the Anglo-Austrian rivalry, the initiative was no longer in the Japanese government’s hands. Emperor Meiji asked, “What did the British say? They couldn’t have just cut off our loans for no reason, could they?” “The British explained that the risk was too great and didn’t meet the bank’s lending standards,” Itō Hirobumi replied. “Unless we can provide more collateral, the banks will terminate our loans. I spoke with the British envoy in person last night. The British government has not abandoned its support for us, but due to a political upheaval, they can no longer provide us with debt guarantees. However, the British envoy also brought some good news. The Spanish’s good fortune is about to run out. The situation in Cuba has become unstable, and the independence movement is planning an uprising. As long as we can survive the next few difficult months, the situation will improve. The British have advised us to use the Austrian government’s offer of mediation to our advantage, secure a ceasefire with the Spanish first, and wait for the situation to develop further.” No matter why the money from the British government turned into bank loans for Japan, it was simply a characteristic of the era. Back then, a normal international loan that wasn’t outright usury was at least on the brink of it. An interest-free or low-interest loan, even with political strings attached, wouldn’t be handled by a private commercial bank, so why would they take on all the risk and give up their profits? The only way to make a commercial bank take on such an unprofitable loan was for the government to pay for it, with the government making up the money through other means. Now that the situation was bad and the British government couldn’t afford to pay, the bankers naturally refused to play along. To strengthen the Japanese government’s resolve to continue the war, the British decisively used their tactic of empty promises. The Cuban independence movement, which hadn’t even started yet, was used as a piece of good news to be delivered to the Japanese government. Emperor Meiji frowned and gave a piece of his mind, “The Cuban independence movement? Are the British not joking? In the past few decades, have you ever heard of any colonial independence movement succeeding?” It wasn’t that Emperor Meiji looked down on the Cubans. The key was that this was the peak of the colonial empires and the wave of independence movements had shown no signs of emerging yet. The Cuban independence movement had been going on for decades, originally supported by the Americans. After the American Civil War, the movement lost its backers and fell into a slump. The British suddenly bringing up the Cuban independence movement now just wasn’t very convincing. Kuroda Kiyotaka replied, “Your Majesty, whether the Cuban independence movement succeeds or not has little to do with us for now. Regardless of their success or failure, it will not affect the Philippine campaign in the short term. In fact, the army we’re fighting on the Philippine Islands is no longer the Spanish army, otherwise we wouldn’t be in such a passive position. Even if the Cuban uprising breaks out, the Spanish cannot possibly pull their mercenaries from the Philippines to suppress the rebellion. The enemy we face will not get any weaker. The only purpose of the Cuban uprising is to drain Spanish financial resources. As an old colonial empire, no one knows how deep their coffers are, but in a financial war, they will definitely outlast us. Instead of relying on the Cuban independence movement, we’d be better off hoping the economic crisis gets even more severe and a revolution breaks out in Spain. Unfortunately, the Spanish royals have already reached a compromise, and the Carlists, who inherited the French throne, are not going back to fight for the Spanish one. Hoping for problems in Spain is a long shot. Just as the British said, our only viable option for the time being is to use the mediation offered by Austria. The problem is that the Austrian government has always supported the Spanish, and their mediation will most likely favor them. To use the mediation to stall for time and wait for the situation to improve, I’m afraid…” He was about to say “a ceasefire” but, considering the domestic political situation, Kuroda Kiyotaka had to swallow his words. It wasn’t that he had chickened out, the British’s sudden retreat had simply made him lose confidence in winning the war. A look at the battlefield could confirm that the Spanish expeditionary fleet, which they had dealt a heavy blow to, was quickly replenished with help from the Austrian government. After they defeated the Spanish army, a new group of French mercenaries immediately appeared. If this continued, the Austrian government might one day tear off its disguise and personally join the fight to help. The enemy’s backer was providing a level of support that was unimaginably large, while their own backer was only selling them weapons, providing loans, and offering words of encouragement. Even the encouragement wasn’t strong enough. Politically, only Britain was supporting the Japanese government, while Spain had the backing of over a dozen European countries—they weren’t even in the same league. Now that the loans were cut off, Kuroda Kiyotaka, who had always opposed the southern campaign, completely lost all hope of winning the war. … The imperial conference continued, but the situation in Tokyo changed first. No matter how many “victory announcements” the government made, the sustained war couldn’t be hidden from the people. Although the Japanese government did its best to block news from the front lines, the truth couldn’t be wrapped up forever. Foreign embassies had no obligation to keep their secrets, and ships traveling to and from Japan had no obligation to either. The average person couldn’t verify whether the news was true or false, but their stomachs couldn’t be fooled. In the early days of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, a large amount of supplies were plundered from the islands, and even ordinary Japanese residents enjoyed a few good days. But the situation quickly changed. With the Spanish counterattack underway, the recently fallen prices in Japan immediately began to skyrocket again. It was a case of “when it rains, it pours.” Against the backdrop of rising prices, people’s wages fell instead of rising. To raise more war funds, the Japanese government had increased taxes on domestic businesses, and the capitalists simply passed the loss on to the working class. After a day of hard labor, the final income wasn’t even enough to make a living, and naturally, conflict arose. On June 16, 1894, a few textile workers in Tokyo went to a rice shop. When the shop owner suddenly raised prices, they went forward to argue but failed. In a fit of rage, they simply raided the rice shop. People were easily swayed. Seeing someone take the lead in stealing rice, the hungry crowds, unwilling to starve, joined in. One rice shop was certainly not enough for everyone. The people who were too slow to get anything set their sights on other nearby rice shops, and in an instant, the entire street descended into chaos.
*** https://postimg.cc/gallery/PwXsBkC (Maps of the current territories of the countries in this novel made by ScH)
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