Chapter 289

August 21, 1866.

London, Buckingham Palace.

Sitting in front of Queen Victoria is Clayston, who has been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for nearly half a year, and Russell, the Foreign Secretary.

The two came to Buckingham Palace for their weekly debriefing talks.

The two previous talks were different, but this time the talks came with pressure.

To be precise, the Queen is very dissatisfied with the current diplomatic situation in the UK, so the pressure on the two can be imagined.

At present in British politics, although Queen Victoria's influence cannot directly decide who will be the British Prime Minister, because the latter depends on the results of elections.

However, don't forget the Queen's absolute influence among the British nationals. As long as she lets out the wind to support who is against whom, not to mention 100%, it can at least reduce the support rate of her opponents by half.

That's enough to be lethal.

Therefore, in the British political arena, no one dares to take the Queen's attitude lightly. Clayston's one-year term as prime minister is about to end. If he is looking forward to gaining the Queen's support in the prime minister's election at his age, he will go to Buckingham Palace. Run and run, but you can get more support from the queen.

It was the suggestion made by the Viscount Palmersto to Viscount Creston before he died, and the latter also accepted.

Queen Victoria frowned and asked, "Why is this report so detailed?"

I was talking about the report of the Amsterdam Institute for Peace. In recent years, whenever she stared at the above report, she couldn't help but feel dissatisfied. Why, she found that this report was even detailed enough to be compared with the British Ministry of Defense report. accuracy is about the same.

As the Queen of England for more than 20 years, she has been rich in power, and naturally understands the stakes. Therefore, she cannot help but feel uneasy and dissatisfied that the intelligence of the British Ministry of Defense has been touched so thoroughly.

Sure enough.

Crystal and Russell looked at each other, obviously expecting that the Queen would care about this issue.

That's right, when they saw this report, they even thought it was completed with the participation of senior officials of the British Ministry of Defense.

But after adjustment, it is found that there is no such thing.

As a result, the pair were alarmed by the intelligence capabilities of the Netherlands.

Creston calmed down and replied: "Your Majesty, the Netherlands has made great efforts in this regard. I suspect that they have participated in the collection of these intelligences in the foreign ministries of various countries, and there are also private teams involved at this time. That's why it's so detailed."

Queen Victoria was not satisfied with this answer, but she did not intend to hold Creston responsible for this. After all, the guy in front of him has only been in charge of No. 10 Downing Street for only half a year, and the report is about to come. It's been ten years.

"Can we produce the same report?"

See Russell and Creston hesitate with God.

Queen Victoria seemed to have seen through the ideas of Clayston and Russell, saying: "The Whigs can have their own share, the Tories don't care, as for the foundation, I think you can cooperate with the "Financialist" and "London" "Collaboration, gathering information after all, that's their forte"

Russell and Creston's eyes lit up, but they felt that the Queen's idea was good. When it comes to collecting information, who else can compare to a professional newspaper. They have complete channels for collecting information.

If combined with the military's mysterious MI6 intelligence information, it is very likely that an organization similar to the Amsterdam Peace Research Institute will emerge.

Thinking of this, I couldn't help but admire the Queen.

Queen Victoria was a little disappointed with the Whig party in her heart.

These are actually all information collected by the British Royal Intelligence Service under her banner. In fact, she ordered the Royal Intelligence Service to track this organization a few years ago. Therefore, after understanding the chakra composition of this organization,

At the time, I even thought about setting up this organization. At that time, the domestic arms dealers were dissatisfied, because they were afraid of leaking their information to the British cabinet government of the United Kingdom and making their company's secrets public, which was very unfavorable for the company.

Therefore, even if he was as strong as the Viscount Palmerston at that time, he could only give up. Now this comprehensive report from the Netherlands has made the British arms giants speechless and unable to refuse, so she brought this issue up again.

Even the benefits of the Whig party were false, and the other two agreed.

The selfishness of the Whigs and Tories is also evident.

Queen Victoria mused:

The Netherlands is not strong enough. It is because other big powers have relatively weak vigilance against it, but it is not weak. It is because other big powers give certain respect to the Netherlands.

The Balkan Peninsula and North America's American Civil War is still ongoing, and the five people can accurately determine the time when it will end.

Since the Civil War in North America, William IV of the Netherlands has telegraphed to Queen Victoria several times. William IV expressed his concern to Queen Victoria that the interests of the Netherlands in the Commonwealth of Millikin might be affected by the war, and suggested that Victoria Direct dialogue between the Queen and the Lincoln government of the Commonwealth of Millikin.

William IV also said that he could facilitate direct three-way dialogue as a mediator between the federal government of Millikin and the British and Confederate governments.

William IV also said that the Netherlands is even willing to maintain friendly relations with the United Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia, and in the Balkan Peninsula War, to help the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire and the Tsarist Russia Empire to start a dialogue, conditionally act as a mediator in the Balkans.

Conditional?

When Queen Victoria thought about the conditional condition that the young king had expressed to herself, she actually wanted the UK to recognize the legalization of the arms business in the Netherlands, agree that the arms business between the Netherlands and the UK exists, and do not maliciously suppress the other party.

But at the beginning, he refused. After all, the arms business of the United Kingdom is the best in the world. Naturally, the United Kingdom will not tie its hands and feet.

However, she did not expect that the Netherlands would break out into a world and even a share. In just over five years, it has never been less than one-tenth of the UK's, and has reached 30% of the current UK foreign trade arms business. There will even be a trend of large-scale development in the future.

Just yesterday, William IV sent her a telegram again. This little guy actually asked her hypocritically whether the sale of steam battleships by the Netherlands to the Commonwealth of Millikin would break the balance of the current naval power of various countries?

Wars all over the world have shrunk the sales channels of British industrial products, and British industrial products have been piled up in London, especially when the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Sweden and other countries are dissatisfied with the United Kingdom, consciously reject the British industrial manufacturing level. , and the bad relationship between the Commonwealth of Millikin and the United States of America has reduced the market of 23 million people for British industrial products. The Ottoman Empire has recently threatened to increase tariffs on British industrial products from time to time, so that the prices of British industrial products will increase in disguise, making the British of manufactured goods would be less competitive than comparable goods in France, Prussia, Holland, and the Commonwealth of America.

Once these persist, the challenges to the UK's economic development will be even more severe.

This is the dilemma for the UK.