World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

He walked to the door, then stopped:

"Mr. Chen, you are a sober man. In this crazy world, soberness is a luxury. I hope... I hope that after the war, we can still drink like this."

"hope."

The door closed.

Chen Feng stood alone in his office. The setting sun streamed in through the window, bathing the room in an orange-red hue. The clock on the wall ticked away, time ticking away.

He knew that from this moment on, history had changed.

On June 28, 1914, a single shot in Sellajevo would ignite a global war. Millions would die, empires would collapse, and the world order would be reshaped.

Lanfang, this newly established nation, will have to find its own way to survive in this turbulent world.

The phone rang.

Chen Feng answered the call.

"Commander-in-Chief, it's me, Zhou Tieshan." The voice on the other end of the phone was urgent. "I just received a telegram from Borneo. Mr. Wang has suffered a sudden heart attack and is being resuscitated."

A double blow.

Chen Feng gripped the microphone tightly: "How's the situation?"

"It's still unclear. The military doctor said it's very dangerous; the old man is elderly, and he's been exhausted these past few months..."

"Notify the best doctors to go there. Use the fastest boats, whatever is fastest. Tell Uncle Wang..." Chen Feng paused, "...tell him that he must hold on. We're already home, and he wants to see the new headquarters built with his own eyes."

"yes!"

After hanging up the phone, Chen Feng walked to the world map.

His hand traveled from Dubai, across the Indian Ocean, and stopped in Borneo. That was the newly reclaimed homeland, the place where Wang Bo had fallen.

Then it moved to Europe, stopping in Serrajevo. That was where the war had begun, where Archduke Ferdinand had fallen.

Two old people, two continents, two deaths.

One symbolizes rebirth, the other symbolizes destruction.

Night had completely fallen outside the window. Dubai's lights began to illuminate the city one by one, and the port's lighthouse started to rotate, its beams piercing the night sky.

Chen Feng stood by the window and looked out for a long time.

Then he turned around and pressed the call button on his desk.

Wang Wenwu pushed open the door and entered: "Commander-in-Chief?"

"Notify all cabinet ministers and military generals of an emergency meeting in one hour." Chen Feng's voice was calm, but every word was as hard as steel. "There is only one topic: War has come, what should we do?"

"yes!"

Wang Wenwu turned to leave, but Chen Feng called him back:

"Also, send a telegram to Li Te. Just one sentence—"

He paused for a moment, looking out the window at the southern starry sky:

"The storm is coming; speed things up. I want to see the Lanfang flag raised across the entire island of Borneo within three months."

The order has been issued.

On the basement floor of the Dubai administration building, twelve state-of-the-art Siemens telegraph machines clicked rhythmically in the telegraph room. The clock on the wall pointed to 3:20 p.m. on July 28, 1914. The scorching heat of the Persian Gulf was kept out by the thick concrete walls, but another kind of heat was rising inside the room.

When Zhou Tieshan pushed open the heavy oak door, fine beads of sweat had already appeared on his forehead—not from the temperature, but from the telegram he had just translated in his hand.

"Where is the President?" His voice was slightly more urgent than usual.

The telegraph operator on duty looked up. He was a young man in his early twenties, wearing round-framed glasses. "Director Zhou, the President is in his office on the top floor. Minister Wang and Mr. Schmidt, the German advisor from the Commercial Section, are also there."

"German advisors?" Zhou Tieshan frowned. "When did they arrive?"

"About half an hour ago, they said they came to discuss the renewal of the oil transportation contract."

Zhou Tieshan didn't ask any more questions and turned to walk towards the stairs. His leather shoes made a crisp sound on the cement steps, which carried far in the underground corridor. When he passed two sentry posts, the guards recognized him, stood at attention and saluted, and he only nodded slightly.

The door to the top-floor office was ajar, and voices could be heard coming from inside.

Zhou Tieshan knocked three times, the rhythm being the secret signal he and Chen Feng had agreed upon—two short knocks followed by one long knock.

"Come in."

Pushing open the door, I saw Chen Feng sitting behind a large desk, with Wang Wenwu and a gray-haired German man sitting on the sofa opposite him. Several documents were spread out on the coffee table, along with a half-cup of cold black tea.

"Commander-in-Chief, urgent telegram." Zhou Tieshan skipped the pleasantries and went straight to the table, placing the telegram on the mahogany table.

Chen Feng picked up the telegram, his eyes quickly scanning the few lines of text. His expression didn't change much, but his fingers tightened slightly as he held the paper, causing fine wrinkles to appear at the edges.

"Mr. Schmidt," Chen Feng raised his head, his voice calm, "I'm afraid our conversation will have to be temporarily suspended."

The German advisor, Schmidt, was clearly a seasoned diplomat. He immediately stood up, a polite smile on his face. "Of course, Mr. Chen. If it involves urgent business for your country, I can come another day. However…" He paused, "if the information you receive concerns Europe, I might be able to offer some perspectives from Berlin."

Chen Feng handed the telegram to Wang Wenwu, his gaze returning to Schmidt: "Austria and Hungary declared war on Serbia at noon today. Vienna time is 11:00 AM, which is three hours later here."

The air in the room seemed to freeze for a few seconds.

Schmidt's smile slowly faded, replaced by a complex expression—a mixture of shock, worry, and a hint of... "I knew it."

"In the end..." he murmured, taking off his gold-rimmed glasses and wiping the lenses with a silk handkerchief. "Berlin warned Vienna last week not to push things too far. But His Majesty Emperor Franz Joseph clearly won't listen to any advice."

After reading the telegram, Wang Wenwu looked up with a grave expression: "Commander-in-Chief, this means..."

"This means that Tsarist Russia cannot sit idly by." Chen Feng picked up the conversation, stood up from his chair, and walked to the huge world map on the wall. "Serbia is Russia's bridgehead in the Balkans. If Austria-Hungary annexes Serbia, Russia's southward expansion will be completely blocked. Nicholas II must respond."

His long, slender fingers slid across the map, from Vienna to St. Petersburg, and then from St. Petersburg to Paris.

"Then France will fulfill its obligations under the Franco-Russian alliance." Schmidt put his glasses back on, walked to Chen Feng's side, and said in a low voice, "And once France enters the war, Germany will have no choice but to execute the Schlieffen Plan, defeat France first, and then turn to deal with Russia."

"The Schlieffen Project?" Wang Wenwu was somewhat unfamiliar with this term.

"A battle plan that has been in preparation for ten years," Chen Feng answered for Schmidt, his finger tracing from western Germany through Belgium and Luxembourg, pointing straight to Paris. "The German General Staff believes that France must be defeated in six weeks before Russia completes its mobilization. To do this, they need to go through Belgium."

"Belgium is a neutral country," Zhou Tieshan interjected, noting that he had studied international law while studying in Europe.