World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

It was 4 a.m. Dubai time, and it was still dark.

Reporter Fang sat in the darkroom, his hands soaking in developing solution, retrieving photographs one by one from the tray. Under the red safety light, the images looked as if they had been pulled from hell—the muzzle flashes of the HMS King George V's cannons, the fireballs rising from the bow of the Huaihe, the sailors running to put out the fire on the deck, and Zhang Zhen standing by the bridge window with his face covered in blood.

His hands were trembling. Not from exhaustion, but from the weight of these images, so heavy that he couldn't bear them.

"Teacher Fang, how much longer?" came the voice of a young reporter from outside the door.

"Wait."

He pulled out another photo. This one showed the moment the Huaihe was hit by the third shell—the shell had just penetrated the secondary gun deck, and the flames hadn't even had time to erupt, but the tremors of the ship were already visible in the photo.

This one can be seen by the whole world.

At 4:30 a.m., the first batch of twelve photographs was delivered to the telegraph room. The technician from the Lanfang News Agency looked at the photographs, his hands trembling.

"Where to send it?" he asked.

"London, Berlin, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Rome—wherever there are telegraph lines. The President said, let the whole world see." (The editor doesn't know if that was possible back then, but domestic newspapers in the Republic of China era already had photos of foreign countries.)

The key began to tick. The images were transformed into dense Morse code, which traveled along undersea cables, across the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean, surging towards every corner of the world.

1 a.m. London time.

George Jeffrey, editor of The Times, was awakened by the ringing of the telephone. He fumbled for the receiver in the dark and heard the voice of the editor on duty in the editorial office, a voice he had only heard during the German bombardment of London—lowered, trembling, as if he had seen a ghost.

"Editor-in-chief, Lanfang News Agency has sent a set of photos. You must take a look at them yourself."

Twenty minutes later, Jeffrey burst into the editorial office. On the table lay the twelve photographs, freshly developed and still wet.

He looked through them one by one.

His hands started to tremble when he saw the third picture.

He closed his eyes when he saw the seventh picture.

When he saw the last picture—Zhang Zhen standing in front of the bridge window with his face covered in blood—he remained silent for a full minute.

"When did this happen?"

"Yesterday morning. In the Arabian Sea. The British fleet... attacked the Lanfang people."

Jeffrey looked up at the editor on duty: "Has it been confirmed? This isn't a German conspiracy?"

"Reuters' Dubai correspondent also reported back. He said...it's true. Two warships in Lanfang were attacked, and more than 100 people were killed. Tens of thousands of people have gathered outside the city hall."

Jeffrey glanced at the photos again.

"Front page," he said. "The entire page. Not a single page is to be deleted."

"Editor-in-chief, this..."

"This is news. What are we journalists supposed to do if we don't report the truth?"

At 3 a.m., The Times urgently changed its layout. The printing presses roared, and hundreds of thousands of copies of those photographs were printed, which would appear at every newsstand in London within hours.

The same scene unfolded simultaneously in every newspaper office on Fleet Street. The editor of the Daily Mirror, upon seeing the photograph, uttered only one sentence: "This is the most embarrassing day for the British Empire in a century. Print, print all."

At five o'clock in the morning, the first batch of newspapers were delivered to the streets.

It is 6:00 AM Dubai time.

The sun hadn't risen yet, but the dock was already packed with people.

The first to arrive were the shipyard workers. They lived in the dock area and were woken up by telegrams around four in the morning—relatives and friends from the city were calling to say that the British had attacked their ships. The workers got dressed and ran to the dock.

On the dock, the Huaihe and Zhujiang ships lay silently. In the morning light, the sight of those two warships seemed to freeze everyone in place.

The bridge of the Huaihe was almost completely flattened, leaving only a pile of twisted steel. Water was still seeping from the huge hole on the port side, dripping into the sea. The deck was riddled with bullet holes, some of which allowed a direct view into the compartments below. The red flag with a golden dragon, the Lanfang Navy flag, still hung on the half-mast, fluttering in the sea breeze, but the flag was riddled with bullet holes.

An old worker knelt down.

His name is Lin Fusheng, he is fifty-eight years old, and he has worked at the Dubai shipyard for thirty years. On the day the Huaihe was launched, he was the welding foreman and personally welded the keel of the ship. His son, Lin Yuan, is an engineer on the Huaihe and spoke to him on the phone the night before last, saying that everything was fine.

He was kneeling there, staring at the wrecked ship, muttering something. Those around him couldn't hear him, only that his shoulders were trembling.

Where is Lin Yuan?

No one dared to ask.

The crowd grew larger and larger. By seven o'clock, several thousand people had packed the dock. No one spoke; they just stood there, watching the two ships. The silence was more unbearable than any shout.

A young worker suddenly rushed out, ran to the dock, and shouted towards the sea, "My brother is on the Pearl River! He's only nineteen!"

No one pulled him up. He just stood there, shouting at the sea. As he shouted, he squatted down, buried his head in his hands, and cried.

A middle-aged worker walked over and patted him on the shoulder. He didn't say anything, just patted him.

At 7:30, some people started walking towards the city hall.

First a few, then dozens, then hundreds. No one organized them, no one shouted slogans, they just walked in silence. As they passed, more and more people joined them. Dockworkers, city vendors, school students, and even a few elderly Arabs in robes.

By 8 a.m., more than 30,000 people had gathered in the square in front of the city hall.

On the flagpole in the center of the square, the Lanfang Golden Dragon Flag was lowered to half-mast—it was a flag of mourning.

From the crowd, an elderly man leaning on a cane stepped forward. He was wearing an old military uniform, with several medals hanging on his chest, awarded twenty years ago during the war. He turned to the crowd and said:

"I fought in the War of Resistance Against Japan. Back then, we had nothing. The British bullied us, the Dutch bullied us, even those small countries dared to ride roughshod over us. But now? We have warships, cannons, and soldiers who are not afraid to die! The British killed our people, and we can't just let it go!"

Someone in the crowd started shouting, "A blood debt must be paid in blood!"

One person shouted, then ten, then a hundred. Finally, the entire square was chanting: "Blood for blood!" "The British, get out of Asia!" "Lanfang cannot be bullied!"

The shouts were deafening, even the glass windows of the city hall were rattling.

5:00 AM Berlin time.

German Information Minister Joseph was awakened by an urgent phone call. After listening to the report on the phone, he only said one sentence: "Send me the photos. The fastest car."

Thirty minutes later, he looked at the stack of photos and a smile slowly crept onto his face.

"God is on Germany's side," he murmured.

At 6:00 AM, all major German newspapers simultaneously received a notification: the front page must feature a photograph of Lan Fang, and the headline must be uniformly prepared by the propaganda department—"The British Empire Reveals Its True Colors! Jellicoe Massacres Neutral Sailors!"