The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 280 This is absolutely true

Teng Yuzhao pointed to the various foreign liquors placed in front of the ministers and smiled slightly.

"These foreign wines are also our spoils of war. We are using them to entertain you today. It can be regarded as a gift from the Buddha."

Teng Yuzao took a puff of cigarette and continued, "In a word, if we can drag it out, there won't be any problems for at least one or two years. As for how long each of your countries can drag it out, in my opinion, this is a very worrying issue."

Teng Yuzao waved his hand to stop Komura Jutaro from retorting, "Mr. Komura, please listen to me. I will talk about your Japanese affairs later."

"First of all, some countries in your coalition are already borrowing money for military expenses. As for other countries, your military expenses are not sufficient. At least in this year's military expenditure, you will not have this budget. Moreover, as far as I know, the military expenditures of your countries are not sufficient either."

"For example, if you, the British Empire, want to maintain the title of the empire on which the sun never sets, you must control the vast colonies all over the world. This requires a large navy to protect the safety of maritime shipping and to be able to send troops to the numerous colonies in a timely manner. It can even be used to deter other countries from taking your colonies."

"You know, among the emerging powers, the ones that are developing rapidly don't have any colonies yet."

Teng Yuzao, smiling, swept his eyes across the faces of Bellow and Kangge.

"Now the only countries in the world that are qualified to compete with the British Empire are the United States and Germany. The United States still has the colony of the Philippines, and even the Caribbean region which is regarded as its backyard by the United States. But Germany has nothing, because the better places are now occupied by the British Empire and France."

"So where are their colonies going to come from?"

Teng Yuzao added meaningfully, "I am very interested in Germany's Irena and protected cruisers. This type of cruiser is very well designed."

At this time, let alone battleships, even fully armored cruisers were just in their infancy. When it came to ironclad shipbuilding technology, Britain, France, and Germany were all in the world's first echelon. They started almost at the same time, until before World War I, when the British, with their richer foundation and greater investment, left the Germans behind in terms of navy.

Teng Yuzhao glanced at Bellow, who had a complicated expression, and then said to Dou Nale.

"So, in order to protect your colonies, your British Empire has spent a lot of military expenditure on the navy, and the army expenditure is insufficient, so that your local army's standing force has to be maintained at a pitiful 200,000 or 300,000. What's more, this pitiful local force is now firmly tied down in southern Africa by the Boers."

Teng Yuzao seemed to be very pleased as he blew out a smoke ring, continuing to torture Dou Nale, whose face had already turned somewhat ugly. "Warships cannot land on the coast."

"Sir, I really want to know, what are you going to use to reinforce your troops? Where are you going to draw your reinforcements from? From southern Africa?"

"You don't want the Witwatersrand, the world's largest gold mine? I heard that Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany sent a famous telegram to Transvaal President Paul Kruger to congratulate him. If you are unwilling to give up southern Africa, you can only make up the numbers with those useless colonial troops in South Asia."

Teng Yuzhao sighed, as if he couldn't bear to continue.

"Oh." Teng Yuzao seemed to suddenly remember something and said, "I forgot to mention that if you count the British troops that are currently being besieged in the outer city, I have wiped out more than 10,000 British troops in the past three months. Of course, most of them are your South Asian soldiers."

Teng Yuzao looked at Komura Jutaro again, "I killed the most Japanese soldiers, more than 30,000."

Teng Yuzao waved his hand to stop Komura Jutaro from jumping up again, and turned to Resar, "The number of Russian troops I destroyed was less, but it should be about this number, or even more."

Teng Yuzhao turned his gaze to the face of the French Acting Minister Bi Sheng and said with a wry smile.

"Unfortunately, although your French army has nearly a million people, because you French people have always wanted to preserve your strength and avenge the Franco-Prussian War, you only sent a small number of regular French army to participate in the war. The rest are troops from Southeast Asian colonies. And you don't seem to be working very hard, so I didn't kill many of your French soldiers."

Although Bi Sheng was only the acting minister, he would have spoken out when Teng Yuzhao exposed his shortcomings, otherwise he would have acquiesced.

Bi Sheng's face flushed as he shouted, "I protest. This is a blatant slander against France. You are alienating the relationship between France and Germany."

"slander!"

Teng Yuzao smiled faintly and said, "Mr. Bisheng, if you are not conserving your strength, then why don't you send the stronger French troops from your homeland to join the coalition forces? The British are unable to withdraw their land forces from their homeland, so what is your reason? Are you looking for an opportunity to prepare for revenge on the Germans?"

"Also, I heard that you have developed a new type of artillery that has a firing rate three times higher than the German artillery. It has been kept secret for several years."

When they heard that the French had developed such advanced artillery, not only Bellow, but also the Russian Ministers Resar and Donald, the Italian Minister Savago, the Austro-Hungarian Charge d'Affaires Rosston, the Japanese Minister Komura Jutaro, and even the American Minister Conger all looked at Bisheng in surprise.

This made Bi Sheng blush and feel very uncomfortable.

Before Bi Sheng could deny it, Teng Yuzao smiled and said to Bi Sheng, "I believe that Mr. Bi Sheng, as a French gentleman, has no problem with honesty. Don't deny the existence of this new artillery. I can even tell you its model and parameters. This advanced artillery is produced by Schneider, and the model in your country is M1897."

Although Bi Sheng also thought about denying it, he knew that his denial was completely meaningless because these people would immediately report this information back to their respective countries, and then these countries would spare no effort to try every possible means to verify and confirm it, and then the truth would come to light.

Bi Sheng's expression made everyone understand that what Teng Yuzao said was true. Bellow turned around and took his translator's briefcase, quickly took out a notebook, a pen and an ink bottle, and began to write quickly on them.

Teng Yuzao looked at Bellow, who was in shock, and listed the technical parameters of M1897 one by one.

Looking at Bellow who was recording, Teng Yuzao continued, "Mr. Bellow, please believe me, everything I said is absolutely true..."

(End of this chapter)