World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

伦敦，唐宁街10号，1916年7月30日上午9时

Rain pattered against the bronze lion-head rings on the black lacquered gates of the Prime Minister's residence, and the incessant July drizzle gave the streets of London a damp, leaden sheen. Yet, the atmosphere inside the Cabinet meeting room was even more somber than the sky outside.

Twelve people sat around the long oak table. Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith sat at the head of the table, his hands folded on the dark green velvet tablecloth. To his left were, in order, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of War Lord Horatio Herbert Kitchener, and First Lord of the Admiralty Arthur Balfour; to his right were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State for India, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and other key cabinet members.

The air was thick with the murky scent of cigar smoke, old paper, and men's body odor. The portrait of Queen Victoria on the wall, illuminated by the chandelier, seemed to gaze sternly at the men who would decide the fate of the empire.

"Gentlemen," Asquith began, his voice dry like sandpaper scraping against a board, "let's begin. Sir Grey, please give your briefing."

Sir Edward Grey rose to his feet. The fifty-four-year-old Foreign Secretary had the typical features of an English gentleman—a neatly trimmed grey beard, deep-set eyes, and a perpetually slightly furrowed brow. But today, those brows were furrowed so deeply they almost met.

He picked up the folder on the table, but didn't open it. Instead, he scanned the room with his tired blue eyes.

"In the past seventy-two hours, we have received three corroborating intelligence reports." Gray's voice was calm, but every word was as sharp as an icicle. "The first came from MI5's liaison station in Paris. On July 26, the French Second Army on the Verdun front captured four Asian soldiers wearing German M1916 field uniforms. Under interrogation, they confessed that they were from the 6th Regiment of the 3rd Division of Japan."

A suppressed commotion arose in the conference room. The Indian Affairs Minister opened his mouth, as if to say something, but Gray stopped him by raising his hand.

"The second intelligence came from our neutral observers in Switzerland," Gray continued. "Between July 27 and 28, at least eight special military trains entered France via Strasbourg. Each train had about thirty carriages, all the windows of which were sealed, but several railway workers confirmed that they heard 'an Eastern language that was not German at all.' When one of the trains made a temporary stop in Cologne, soldiers got off to get water, and this was accidentally photographed by a local photographer—this is the photo."

He pulled a blurry black-and-white photograph from the folder and pushed it across the table to Lord Kitchener. In the photograph, several soldiers in German uniforms, but noticeably short in stature, were filling water at a tap; their profiles were indeed Asian.

Lord Kitchener picked up the photograph, squinted at it for a few seconds, and then slammed it heavily onto the table.

"The third one," Gray's voice finally crackled with barely suppressed anger, "came from our high-ranking informant in the Berlin Ministry of Finance. On June 15th, the German Reich Ministry of Finance transferred eight million pounds to an overseas account codenamed 'Eastern Cooperation Account.' And the account's bank was the London branch of Yokohama Specie Bank."

"Eight million..." Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald McKenna murmured. "That's enough to arm twenty divisions, or... pay the salaries of two hundred thousand mercenaries for a year."

Gray finally opened the folder and pulled out the last file: "Early this morning, a confirmed battle report came back from the Somme front. In the B5 defense zone south of Albert, the Australian 5th Division encountered extremely fierce resistance. The enemy was wearing German uniforms, but they made extensive use of infantry charges and bayonet fighting tactics, engaging in fierce hand-to-hand combat with our troops in the trenches. During the post-battle cleanup, it was discovered that more than 70% of the enemy soldiers killed were of Asian appearance. They had no identification documents on them, but some of the bodies had Japanese amulets and Japanese photos of their families in their pockets."

He paused for a full ten seconds, allowing the information to be processed in everyone's minds.

"Gentlemen," Gray's voice suddenly rose, "the conclusion is obvious: Japan, the nation that signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with us in 1902, won the war against Russia with our support in 1905, and is still nominally our ally, has deployed at least eight divisions of its army, disguised as German troops, to the Western Front, and is slaughtering British, Australian, Canadian, and Indian soldiers!"

"Bang!"

Lord Kitchener slammed his fist on the table, causing the water in the silver kettle to ripple. The sixty-six-year-old field marshal, with his steel-brush beard and hawk-like eyes, now had those eyes burning with rage.

"Traitors! Despicable traitors from the East!" His voice echoed in the room like a war drum. "We gave them international status after the Russo-Japanese War, allowed them to annex Korea, and turned a blind eye to them in Asia! Is this how they repay the British Empire? Wearing German clothes, slaughtering Imperial soldiers on French soil?"

"Calm down, Kitchener," Asquith said in a low voice, but the Prime Minister's own temples were throbbing.

"How can I remain calm?" Kitchener turned to Navy Secretary Balfour. "What about your navy? Didn't you say even a fish couldn't swim across the North Sea? How come eight divisions, two hundred thousand men, have just run from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in eight months? Did they ride a flying carpet?"

Arthur Balfour's expression was also grim. The 68-year-old politician, a philosopher by training, was completely devoid of his usual composure. He took a deep breath and adjusted his monocle.

"Lord Kitchener, firstly, those two hundred thousand men were sent by the Lanfang people to deal with the Russians. Secondly—" He took a thick report from his briefcase at his feet, "—I'm about to report something else. This matter may be more serious than the Japanese troops."

The meeting room suddenly fell silent. Everyone looked at Balfour.

"July 19th, Wilhelmshaven." Belfort's voice was soft, but every word carried the weight of a hammer blow. "The German Navy held a grand ceremony to welcome the two new battleships into service. Emperor Wilhelm II attended in person and named the two warships 'Bismarck' and 'Tirpitz'."

"New battleships?" Asquith frowned. "Aren't the German shipyards all under our surveillance? Where did they come from...?"

His words came to an abrupt halt. He had seen the photograph that Balfour had shown him.

Those were two aerial photographs, clearly taken from a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. Some were blurry, but clear enough. The photos showed two massive warships anchored at the deep-water pier in Wilhelmshaven, their long hulls, compact superstructures, and four twin-gun turrets…

"My God!" the colonial minister exclaimed in a low voice.

"Based on visual estimations and proportional calculations by reconnaissance pilots," Belfort continued, his voice tinged with a near-desperate calm, "these two warships have a displacement of at least 40,000 tons, possibly even 50,000 tons. The main gun caliber is estimated to be over 380 mm, and the hull design... completely surpasses all our current dreadnoughts."