World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

Wang Wenwu smiled wryly: "Yes, what does it have to do with us? But the Northern XX Prefecture doesn't think so. They feel this is an opportunity—to demonstrate 'international responsibility,' gain favor with the great powers, and perhaps get a share of the spoils after the war."

He took a sip of tea; it was very hot, but he seemed oblivious. "But they didn't consider how many of those 150,000 people who went would return? 30,000? 50,000? Or... even fewer?"

The clock on the wall pointed to seven. The office door opened, and Chen Feng's chief bodyguard came out. Seeing Wang Wenwu, he was somewhat surprised: "Minister Wang, so early?"

"I have an urgent matter to report to the President." Wang Wenwu stood up and straightened his suit.

"The President has just gotten up and is washing up. Please wait a moment while I inform him."

A few minutes later, Wang Wenwu was invited into the office. Chen Feng was already dressed—a simple white shirt, a dark gray vest, and no tie. He was sitting behind his desk, reviewing yesterday's document summary.

"Wenya, what important news is there today?" he asked without looking up.

Chen Wenya glanced at Wang Wenwu. Wang Wenwu nodded, signaling her to speak directly.

"Your Excellency, the Northern X side... has announced that it will send 150,000 Chinese laborers to the Western Front in Europe to assist the Anglo-French allied forces."

The office was silent for a few seconds.

Chen Feng looked up, his face expressionless: "When did this happen?"

"This is a telegram from this morning. The Northern XX government has officially announced it, and British and French media have reported on it." Chen Wenya handed over the telegram.

Chen Feng took the paper and read it quickly. His gaze moved across the page, his lips slightly pursed. Wang Wenwu noticed that the knuckles of the Commander-in-Chief's fingers were beginning to turn white as he gripped the paper.

He finished reading it. Chen Feng gently placed the telegram on the table, his movements slow and soft.

"You go out first," he said to Chen Wenya.

Chen Wenya bowed and left, closing the door behind her. Only Chen Feng and Wang Wenwu remained in the office.

The clock on the wall ticked. Seabirds cried outside the window. In the distance, the sound of ship horns drifted from the harbor.

Everything was the same as usual.

But Wang Wenwu knew that a storm was coming.

Chen Feng stood up and walked to the window. The morning sunlight streamed through the glass, casting bright spots of light on the floor. His back was straight, but his shoulders were trembling slightly.

Wang Wenwu dared not speak. He had known Chen Feng for over a decade and had never seen the Grand Commander truly lose his composure. Anger, anxiety, and pressure—Chen Feng possessed all these emotions, but he always kept them within a rational framework, always wearing that mask of calm.

But today, the mask seems to be crumbling.

"Fifteen thousand..." Chen Feng began, his voice soft, as if talking to himself, "Fifteen thousand living, breathing people. Fathers, sons, husbands, brothers. Do they even know what the Western Front of Europe is?"

He turned around, his face still expressionless, but something burning in his eyes: "Verdun, after two months of fighting, has suffered 700,000 casualties on both sides."

"This is not war, this is a meat grinder. It's hell. It's a flesh mill where lives are used to fill ditches."

He walked to the desk, placed his hands on the surface, and leaned forward: "We send Japanese soldiers there because it's a deal, trading their lives for our development. And the Japanese know what they're going there to do—they're soldiers, they signed contracts, they got paid." (Some things I can't say too explicitly, comrades, just understand. Being too explicit would get me locked up.)

"But what about these Chinese laborers?" Chen Feng's voice began to tremble. "They thought they were going to 'work,' to 'earn money to support their families.' They didn't know that machine guns, artillery, poison gas, and infectious diseases awaited them. They didn't know that those British and French officers wouldn't care about the lives of yellow-skinned laborers at all!"

Wang Wenwu finally spoke: "President, perhaps... perhaps the situation isn't so bad. Britain and France might provide basic protection for the laborers..."

"Protect?" Chen Feng sat up abruptly, letting out a short, mocking laugh. "Wang Wenwu, have you been in diplomatic settings for too long and forgotten what reality is like?"

He strode to the wall, pulled back the curtain next to the world map, revealing another map—a situation map of the western front of Europe, densely marked with intersecting red and blue arrows, like a menacing spider web.

"Look here," he pointed to northern France, "the logistics area of ​​the Anglo-French forces. How far is it from the front lines? Five kilometers at the closest, twenty kilometers at the furthest. What is the range of the German artillery? Their latest heavy guns can fire thirty kilometers!"

His finger moved across the map: "Laborers are building railways here, where shells could come from ten kilometers away. They're digging trenches here, and they might step on unexploded shells. They're transporting ammunition here, and they might get hit by stray bullets. Not to mention air raids—German airships will come at night to bomb targets behind enemy lines; will they be able to distinguish between barracks and labor camps?"

Wang Wenwu fell silent. He knew that what Chen Feng said was true.

"And there were diseases," Chen Feng continued. "Trench fever, dysentery, cholera, pneumonia. European soldiers had medics, medicine, and relatively clean camps. What did the laborers have? They were crammed into leaky wooden shacks, eating moldy food, bandaging their wounds with rags, and waiting to die when they got sick."

He walked back to his desk and picked up the telegram: "Twenty silver dollars a month. Ha, twenty silver dollars for a life. The Northern XX Prefecture is really shrewd—150,000 people, even if half die, they can still make money off 75,000 lives. And those who die are all poor people, farmers, the lowest rungs of society, nobody cares if they die."

"Commander-in-Chief..." Wang Wenwu wanted to say something.

But Chen Feng had already lost control.

"How dare they!" he roared, his voice shaking the glass windows. "With Europe in such a state of war, I'd rather send Japanese soldiers there than send a single Chinese person! They're our compatriots! They're our family, sharing the same blood as us!"

He grabbed the teacup on the table—a blue and white porcelain cup from Jingdezhen, his favorite set—and smashed it hard on the ground.

"Bang!"

The sound of shattering porcelain echoed through the office. Shards flew everywhere, and tea spilled onto the floor, leaving a dark stain.

"How dare they risk the lives of their own people for a mere empty title and a loan! How dare they!" Chen Feng's eyes reddened, not from the urge to cry, but from extreme rage. "Has Yuan XX gone mad with the desire to be emperor? And that foreign lackey Lu Xixiang, does he think that licking the boots of foreigners will earn him the respect of the great powers?"

He grabbed a pen holder and smashed it against the wall. Then came paperweights, folders, ink bottles… the office was filled with the clatter of ping-pong balls.

Wang Wenwu stood still, letting the shards splash onto him. He knew that saying anything at this point would be useless. Chen Feng needed to vent; ten years of pent-up emotions, ten years of hidden anger, ten years of powerlessness and resentment towards the fate of his compatriots—all of it erupted at this moment.

The door was pushed open, and the head guard rushed in, stunned by the mess on the floor.

"Get out!" Chen Feng roared. "No one is allowed in without my permission!"