Iron Sonata of World War II

Compared with the large-caliber high-level dual-purpose secondary guns, the small-caliber rapid-fire guns of the new ship are still a bit stretched.

In the last plane, Krupp once acquired one-third of the shares of Bofors, thus becoming the largest shareholder of Bofors. However, due to the design concepts of the two parties, there were irreconcilable differences: Bofors wanted to develop 40mm medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns, while Krupp favored large-caliber anti-aircraft guns above 88mm. As a result, Krupp parted ways with Bofors in order to concentrate on making large-caliber anti-aircraft guns .Later, Krupp and Bofors each designed a generation of classics, which are the famous Krupp 88mm anti-aircraft gun and the Bofors 40mm anti-aircraft gun that all countries like.

Although from the perspective of later generations, the Krupp company at that time was so stupid, but Helena knew that the Krupp company in the previous plane actually had difficulties. Due to the restrictions of the "Treaty of Versailles", the Krupp company The production of military products in China has shrunk greatly, and the funds are not abundant. It is somewhat difficult to support two difficult anti-aircraft gun research and development projects at the same time. Moreover, the future development trend of anti-aircraft guns was not clear at the time.There is nothing wrong with Krupp's divestment and contraction risks.

However, due to Helena's strong intervention in this plane, Krupp did not withdraw its capital from Bofors. The research and development of the 40mm anti-aircraft gun as a cooperative project is still going on, and the progress is even faster than the previous plane.However, Helena, who has a growing appetite, is not completely satisfied with the famous Bofors 40mm/L60 naval gun in the last plane, and puts forward new requirements for Krupp and Bofors, which delays some research and development. time.

What Helena is most dissatisfied with about the Bofors 40mm/L60 naval gun in the previous plane is its protection for the gunner. This naval gun only has a few poor baffles to protect the safety of the gunner.If an enemy plane dives and shoots or a bomb explodes nearby, the unprotected gun positions will inevitably be bloody, and even when the main guns of one's own battleship are fired, the muzzle storm will pose a serious threat to the personnel on the open gun positions. This is what Helena cannot tolerate.So Krupp and Bofors, who didn't dare to disobey the benefactor's request, had to obediently go back and improve.

1Chapter 16 Final Summary

Although it will take several months for the designers to further refine the adjusted design plan before the construction of the new ship starts, the overall design plan of the new ship has been roughly determined in early January 1934. as follows:

The new ship adopts a flat-deck ship with a medium freeboard height, with a total length of 240.5 meters and a total width of 32.4 meters. The initial design standard displacement is 36500 tons (the standard displacement is expected to increase to 38250 tons after the gun is refitted).

The bow of the battleship has an upturned sheer, which is combined with a forward-inclined parabolic bow to improve seaworthiness in high sea conditions.Below the bow column is the SV bulbous bow that is resistant to wind and wave slamming, which can reduce sailing resistance in a wide speed range.The stern adopts a square stern with excessively rounded corners (commonly used by Soviet warships during the Cold War), and a tail wedge with good drag reduction effect is installed at the bottom of the stern.

主武器方面，新舰主炮初期采用三座三联装55倍径330毫米主炮，后期计划改装为三座双联装50倍径420毫米主炮。初期使用的55倍径330毫米舰炮采用高速重型弹丸，可以将重达640千克的炮弹加速到每秒825米的高初速。

In terms of secondary weapons, 15 dual-mounted 60-fold diameter 130mm high-level dual-purpose naval guns are used. The projectile weighs 27 kg, the muzzle velocity is 900 m/s, and the rate of fire is as high as 25 rounds/min.The new ship is also planned to be equipped with a number of small and medium-caliber rapid-fire guns, but the research and development of this gun has not yet been completed.

In terms of carrier-based aircraft, the new ship can carry up to 4-5 water reconnaissance aircraft. These aircraft are usually stored in the hangar at the stern of the ship. When performing tasks, they rely on the crane and gunpowder catapult at the stern to complete the release and recovery work.

It is also worth mentioning that the lifeboats of the new ship are arranged in the rear side boat garage like the Japanese "Yamato" class battleship in the previous plane, so that a lot of deck space can be saved for arranging more weapons and electronic equipment.On the other hand, the "Iowa" class battleship of the United States on the last plane placed the lifeboats above the decks on both sides of the bridge. This design not only took up valuable space on the ship's deck, but also affected the arrangement of side air defense weapons.

In terms of protection, thanks to the maturity and application of welding technology, the structural weight of the new ship is greatly reduced.This makes the armor weight of the battleship excluding the rotating part of the turret exceed 16200 tons, accounting for about 42% of the standard displacement of this class of warship after the gun is changed, which is basically the same as the "Scharnhorst" class battleship of Germany on the previous plane.Thanks to the relatively generous armor weight, the protection level of the core cabin of the new ship is quite outstanding among warships of the same tonnage in this era.

The main armor belt of the new ship is about 130 meters long. It adopts a three-layer composite structure similar to the "Veneto" class battleship on the previous plane, protecting the vertical height of the hull side of 4.8 meters.The outer layer is 70 mm thick homogeneous armor, which is used to destroy the cap of the incoming armor-piercing projectile; the middle is a 250 mm thick foam cement layer, which is used to completely separate the cap from the projectile; the inner layer is 280 mm The thick surface carburized hardened armor (starting from 1.2 meters below the waterline and gradually thinning to 180mm at the bottom) is used to resist the armor-piercing projectile that has lost its cap.The entire main armor belt is inclined 20 degrees to the sea level, which is greater than the 15 degrees of the "Veneto" class on the previous plane, which allows the new ship to have a better vertical position than the "Veneto" class on the previous plane. protective ability.

The main horizontal armor of the new ship adopts a large thickness single-layer armor plate of 160 mm. The thickness of the two sides of the horizontal armor is increased to 185 mm and is connected with the vertical main armor belt through a depression angle of 7 degrees, which can reduce the vertical main armor a little. Height, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing weight under the same level of protection.It should be noted that this layer of horizontal armor plate has no back plate. It is not only a part of the battleship's protective structure, but also participates in the overall longitudinal bending of the battleship as a part of the battleship's load-bearing structure. The structural weight reduction method used by the "Scharnhorst" class and "Bismarck" class battleships.

The torpedo protection system of the new ship consists of four layers: "expansion compartment", "absorption compartment", "collapse energy absorption compartment" and "filter compartment". extension area.The new ship's underwater bomb protection system and torpedo protection system are integrated, consisting of a 60 mm high elastic steel plate located at the rear of the "absorbing cabin" and an underwater armor belt located at the rear of the "crushing energy-absorbing cabin" (the middle and upper parts are 180mm thick. mm, gradually thinned down to 60 mm).The two together constitute a complete underwater protection system for ships.

The two ends of the battleship's core compartment are sealed by vertical and transverse armor walls with a thickness of 380 mm, forming a complete armor box around the core compartment.The ring part of the turret also has a side part with a thickness of 460 mm, which is gradually weakened to 380 mm in the front and rear.In addition to the solid core cabin protection, the new ship also built auxiliary armor boxes at the bow and stern of the battleship.The purpose is mainly to protect the transmission shafting, wheelhouse and reserve buoyancy of the battleship.

The auxiliary armor box of the bow consists of dome armor and waterline vertical armor.Among them, the vertical armor thickness of the waterline is 80 mm, and the vertical height is 3 meters, which completely covers the waterline part of the bow.The bow dome extends about 25 meters from the core compartment, and does not cover the entire length of the bow.The thickness of the horizontal part and the inclined part of the dome are both 130 mm. The inclined part is connected to the lower end of the vertical armor at the waterline through a depression angle of 20 degrees. The inclined part of the dome and the vertical armor at the waterline overlap the incoming shells Ballistic.The structure of the auxiliary armor box at the stern is basically the same as that of the bow auxiliary armor box. It is still the structure of 80mm waterline armor plus 130mm dome armor, but the stern dome extends to the top of the main wheelhouse and is placed in the main wheelhouse. The top is thickened to the same 160mm as the core cabin.

The steam source of the new ship's power system is 12 round furnace heavy oil pressurized boilers, and its steam parameters are higher than those of the previous "Deutschland" class: the temperature is 450 degrees, and the pressure is 50 kg/cm58.However, considering the [-] kg/cm[-] steam pressure of the "Scharnhorst" class battleship in the previous plane, the selection of steam parameters for the new ship is not considered radical.This is mainly because Helena asked the designers to put the reliability of the powertrain in a more important position.

The steam generated by the boiler drives 4 series/parallel reaction steam turbines to provide power for the battleship.When the power is high, the steam turbines are in parallel mode, and the high-temperature steam generated by the boiler first drives the high-pressure steam turbine and the medium-pressure steam turbine at the same time, and then works on the low-pressure steam turbine.When the power is low, the steam turbines adopt a series mode, and the steam drives the high-pressure, medium-pressure, and low-pressure steam turbines to do work in sequence.This takes into account the power density at high power and the economy and fuel saving at low power.In the high power state, the four steam turbines are expected to generate a total power output of more than 180000 horsepower, which is enough to allow a warship with a good drag reduction line to run at a speed of more than 34 knots.

The author has something to say: This boat is finally finished.

1Chapter 17 Preparing for the Olympics

The old calendar on the desk finally turned the last page. While Helena was still racking her brains for the design of the new ship, the world line of the plane quietly advanced to 1934.In the past year, with the support of the "Meifu Bonds" with an amount of 50 billion marks issued, through large-scale infrastructure investment and education expansion, the German economy has stopped the free fall and started to show signs of decline. signs of recovery.Most importantly, unemployment in Germany has been greatly eased.In just one year, the total number of unemployed people in the country fell from nearly 1933 million in early 600 to 180 million.

It is worth mentioning that, because Germany's anti-crisis measures in this plane are more powerful and scientific than those in the previous plane, the results achieved are far higher than those in the previous plane.If Helena remembers correctly, although in the last plane, the unemployed population in Germany fell by more than half (from nearly 600 million to 270 million) in the first year that Moustache came to power, this number is the first time It fell below 200 million in early 1936.

The drastic reduction in the number of unemployed has reduced the bleak atmosphere on the streets of Berlin. Although the economy has not yet returned to pre-crisis levels, most people believe that the worst is over. At least the unemployed who lined up on the streets to receive black bread The long dragon was almost invisible.As the host city of the 1936 Olympic Games, Berlin at this time was undergoing large-scale urban reconstruction work to welcome the Olympic Games. The whole of Berlin has become a huge construction site. The unemployed were all recruited to the construction site, so Berlin became the first city in Germany to eliminate unemployment.

Like the previous plane, Hitler was not very enthusiastic about hosting the Olympics at the beginning, but under the reminder of Helena, Mustache quickly realized the economic and political value behind the Olympics, and turned to fully support it With the hosting of the Olympic Games, Germany's Olympic preparations have entered the fast lane earlier than the previous plane.

From an economic point of view, the construction of infrastructure related to the Olympic Games can absorb a large number of unemployed people and excess production capacity, and the "Olympic economy" can stimulate domestic consumption and bring a large amount of foreign exchange income to Germany.What must be explained here is that the "Olympic economy" is not a panacea for all diseases.From historical experience, for large industrialized countries, hosting the Olympic Games generally has a significant positive effect on economic growth, but for those countries with a small size or a relatively flat industrial structure, hosting the Olympic Games It may not be an economic boon.

For example, in the previous plane, the Greek government invested heavily in hosting the 2004 Athens Olympics. However, the Greek economy is limited in scale and has a single structure, and it simply cannot afford the big pie of the "Olympic economy".The result of the country's unsustainable economy is naturally the large-scale spillover of the "Olympic economy": construction materials need to be purchased from abroad, and skilled workers also need to be imported from abroad.As a result, many of the economic dividends from the Athens Olympics have flowed to other countries, but Greece has to bear the debt itself.

Therefore, after studying the impact of previous Olympic Games on the host country's economy, Helena believes that those countries whose economies are too small or have no industrial base at all should not rush to bid for the Olympic Games.The Olympic economy is indeed a delicious pie, but not all countries can eat it.

In the previous plane, the 1936 Berlin Olympics was very successful economically. In addition to the traditional game ticket revenue, the development of various peripheral products was also in place.In fact, it is precisely because of this Olympic Games that countries began to realize the potential economic value of the Olympic Games, which is one of the reasons why Helena is willing to strongly support Germany in hosting the Olympic Games.

In order to raise funds for the Olympic Games, under Helena's suggestion, Germany also issued a special Olympic sports lottery (this is mainly issued in the country, and there are many legal obstacles to the issuance in foreign countries, and the scale cannot be too large).Due to many irregularities in lottery issuance in Germany before, in order to unify the issuance of Olympic sports lottery, the German Lottery Federation was also established under the promotion of Helena, which was 26 years earlier than the previous plane (previous plane) One-dimensional German Lottery Federation was established in 1959, which is also the earliest lottery federation in the world).

Compared with Helena's emphasis on the economic value of the Olympic Games, Hitler was more concerned about the potential political value of the Olympic Games.In his view, the much-anticipated sports event is undoubtedly a stage to gather the morale of the people internally and to demonstrate the strong national strength externally.More importantly, Moustache can't wait to use this Olympic Games to establish himself as a good person who loves peace and pursues equal ethnic relations in front of the whole world.

Hitler's confidant, Albert Speer, born as a construction engineer, was fully in charge of the urban reconstruction project of Berlin.The entire urban renewal project is roughly divided into three parts:

The first part of urban transformation is the construction of Olympic venues.

Beginning in 1933, it was planned to spend three years building a magnificent main stadium with a capacity of [-] spectators, a large swimming pool capable of accommodating [-] spectators, and an Olympic Village with a beautiful environment, using granite and marble. It is full of flowers and trees transplanted from various places, and many small animals and birds have been released. In addition, the gymnasium, basketball court and other auxiliary venues also need to be newly built.

The second part of urban transformation is the shantytown renovation project.

In order to build a good international image of Germany at the Olympics, Hitler could not tolerate the existence of Berlin's unsightly slums, so the low-rise shantytowns in Berlin would be demolished and replaced with new, standardized worker housing complexes.

This is actually one of the important anti-crisis measures of Nazi Germany in the previous plane. In the previous plane, a total of 1934 houses of various types were built in Germany in 28.4, an increase of more than 1932% compared to 100.In order to speed up the construction progress, under Helena's suggestion, these newly built houses on this plane adopt a prefabricated integral frame structure on a large scale.All prefabricated parts adopt the mode of standardized production and standardized assembly.

It should be pointed out that although the prefabricated structure house can almost be equated with shoddy construction in the motherland of Helena’s previous life, this is not a defect of the prefabricated structure itself. In fact, later generations of European countries, especially northern European countries including Germany, The use of prefabricated structures in housing construction is very common, and there have been no widespread quality problems in use.

The notoriety of prefabricated structures in Helena’s former homeland was mainly due to the special development period: many prefabricated board houses built in the Republic during that period were prefabricated boards and brick-concrete structures, and the structural strength was inherently flawed. The technical level of the construction team is uneven and cannot be guaranteed.In addition, in the later period of use, all kinds of random drilling, slotting, wall demolition, and random construction by residents emerged endlessly, and it would be strange if there were no problems.

The third part of urban transformation is urban infrastructure construction.

In addition to the routine matters of widening urban roads and beautifying the urban environment, under Helena's suggestion, the construction of subways and huge urban underground pipe corridors has also become the top priority of this part.The so-called underground comprehensive pipe corridor is to build a huge tunnel space underground in the city, and then arrange various pipelines such as electric power, communication, gas, water supply and drainage in the city after unified planning and unified management.

The construction of this project not only eliminates the messy wires in the city sky, beautifies the urban environment, but also facilitates the maintenance and repair of municipal facilities.In order to leave space for future urban development, the underground pipe gallery also leaves ample space for laying out reserved pipelines.

In addition, the newly-built subway lines and pipe corridor systems have a certain role in civil air defense.Its thick concrete top section, covered with soil and urban pavement, is strong enough to withstand the bombing of a 2000-pound bomb.In the relatively important main lines, the pipelines with serious damage consequences and difficult restoration are all equipped with higher compression levels. In the long straight sections of the pipeline corridor, protective unit walls with anti-blast effects will also be set up.In this way, in the event of an air raid, the city's core pipe network will not be easily damaged, and the subway and underground pipe corridors can also be used as temporary shelters for residents, which can be said to serve multiple purposes.

Chapter 148 The Disintegration of the Galaxy

On the afternoon of January 1934, 1, Helena was looking out of the glass window of her house at the street in a trance.As far as she could see, the originally flat road had now been dug into a deep and wide ditch, where countless workers and engineering equipment were busily busy.According to the city plan submitted by Speer to Hitler, an important subway line and a municipal main corridor will pass here.

It is only two and a half years before the Berlin Olympic Games. In order to complete all urban renovation projects before then, there are now a total of millions of workers working in three shifts on major construction sites in Berlin.Due to the huge scale of this project, Berlin, which had a very prominent unemployment problem, even experienced a shortage of labor for a time. Speer had to put up recruitment signs in cities around Berlin to guide the unemployed in these areas to Berlin.

Although the excavation of the construction site temporarily blocked the traffic, which caused some inconvenience to the citizens; although the sound of ding ding dong dong outside the window continued day and night, so that Helena had to wear earmuffs to fall asleep when she slept these days , but most Berlin citizens don't seem to have much to complain about.Compared with walking through the cold streets and queuing for hours every day to receive a little bit of poor relief black bread, some workers who are frightened by the painful memory of unemployment even feel that falling asleep with the sound of construction is very reassuring , after all, this voice means that there is something to do.

When Helena was at home in the past few months, one of the most common things she did was to look at the workers' construction outside the window, while secretly calculating how much the value of her house would appreciate after the subway was completed.Although with Helena's current status and wealth, it seems a bit petty to think about this quietly, but it may be because of her inherited thinking habits from her previous life. Whenever she stands in front of her window, Helena still enjoys it the same way.

But today was an exception, Helena who was standing in front of her window did not calculate the future value of her house as usual.She just got the news that just yesterday, under the impetus of President Roosevelt, the United States had just passed the "Gold Reserve Act".Although this was no surprise to Helena, who was familiar with the course of history, when this day really came, Helena still felt a lot of emotion.

In Helena's view, it was the launch of the "Gold Reserve Act" that marked the disintegration of the international currency system under the gold exchange standard.With the disintegration of the international monetary system, the originally relatively unified international market will also tend to split with the increase of trade barriers in various countries, and the ebb tide of globalization has become irresistible.According to past experience, every occurrence of serious anti-globalization will never be the prelude to peace, but must be the clarion call of fierce disputes among major powers.

In March 1933, as soon as President Franklin Roosevelt came to power, he immediately stopped the bank's gold exchange. Then, under the banner of stabilizing the economy, Roosevelt announced that it was illegal to hide gold privately. Gold in the hands of the inhabitants.What's more pitiful is that after all the gold in the hands of the residents was taken back to the country, on January 3, 20.67, President Roosevelt passed the "Gold Reserve Act", which directly devalued the US dollar to US$1934 per ounce of gold. And continue to prohibit people from exchanging gold privately.

Domestically speaking, Roosevelt's approach is actually blatantly robbing the gold wealth hoarded by the people, which is equivalent to the government's compulsory buying of gold in the hands of residents and selling it at a high price.However, the targets of the robbery did not include the bigwigs on Wall Street. On the contrary, the financiers on Wall Street made a lot of money from the depreciation of the dollar!

Long before the introduction of the "Gold Reserve Act", the bigwigs on Wall Street had already received news from "internal channels", and the dollar assets in their hands had already been exchanged for gold and other currencies and flowed to the financial markets in Europe and Hong Kong.When the "Gold Reserve Act" is promulgated, they will sell the gold and foreign exchange in their hands, and immediately get a super high return of 70%.

Naturally, Helena would not let go of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to steal money. The scale of the "Peace Fund" easily exceeded tens of billions of dollars after Roosevelt launched the "Gold Reserve Act", and it has become a pivotal presence in the international financial market. .Over the years, under the promotion of Helena, the "Peace Fund", which was originally semi-official in nature, has now increasingly taken on the color of Germany's sovereign wealth fund.

Although the sovereign wealth funds of later generations seldom engage in financial risk-taking, the so-called horse has no night grass and no fat, and the country has no windfall and no wealth.Without high-risk investment activities, it is impossible for the "Peace Fund" to expand to today's volume.Helena knew that Roosevelt's currency depreciation would inevitably lead to asset price inflation, and this wave of asset price rises would last until 1937. After that, because the real economy did not really recover, the U.S. capital market would inevitably be like it was in history. It also ushered in a second collapse, and the original plane might be even more tragic.

That is to say, German capital still has a happy time of more than two years in the United States. After 1936, it must be considered to gradually return these capitals to Germany.In Helena's memory, the large-scale rearmament of Germany in the last plane started in 1936, which perfectly coincided with the return of capital planned by Helena.

For the international market, the United States' "Gold Reserve Act" started a very bad start. It marked the beginning of a large-scale competitive devaluation of national currencies. Decoupling from gold, but that is a last resort after all.However, the United States actually broke away from the gold standard when its gold reserves were relatively abundant.This directly led to the disintegration of the currency star system that originally revolved around gold. By 1931, France, which was relatively stubborn on the gold standard issue, also abandoned the gold standard, and the world currency market was completely in chaos.

Incidentally, Roosevelt's financial policy also brought serious disasters to the Chinese people. In order to expand the base money supply and better complete currency depreciation, the United States purchased a large amount of gold and silver in the international market.This directly led to a serious outflow of silver in China, which implemented the silver standard at that time. In November 1935, China's silver standard system officially went bankrupt.

The act of the United States rushing to buy silver caused a serious financial crisis to China at that time.This seriously affected China's preparations for the war against Japan, and also prevented the Chinese army's planned weapon refitting work from being completed as planned.As for the financial crisis he caused to China, President Roosevelt even declared boldly: "Accelerating China's crisis can force China to strive for strength step by step and stop completely relying on Japan and Europe."

Helena knew that with the disintegration of the international currency system under the gold exchange standard, the world trade system would inevitably disintegrate, and the complete world market would be split into four major sectors: the British pound zone, the US dollar zone, the French franc zone, and the ruble zone.The United Kingdom, the United States, France, and the Soviet Union would all increasingly prefer to conduct international trade within their own sector, to the exclusion of trade with other sectors.For example, in the British Empire in the last plane, as of 1936, 49.3% of its domestic exports and 39.2% of its imports were carried out within the empire by relying on the "Empire Preference System".

This kind of disintegration of the international trade system is obviously very unfavorable to Germany. The above four major sectors control most of the world's markets and raw material origins. Since Germany is just outside these four major sectors, it is tantamount to becoming an international trade system. Drifters trapped on isolated islands in China have a strong industrial capacity, but neither enough market space nor enough raw material production areas. Historically, Schacht has developed and Barter transactions cannot solve the fundamental problem. After all, Germany's industrial volume is too large...

Chapter 149 Deglobalization

The great geographical discoveries in the 15th and 16th centuries marked the beginning of the era of globalization.In the past 500 years, the process of globalization has greatly promoted the progress of human civilization.

Although globalization is the general trend of the development of human society, globalization does not develop along a straight line. It has shown a law of periodic fluctuations in history.Every time the development of globalization goes through a period of upsurge, there will be periodic ebbs and flows, which we can call the phenomenon of reverse globalization.

What is more interesting is that whenever globalization develops rapidly, peace and development will become the theme of the world, and an industrial revolution often occurs during this period; and whenever there is a serious reverse globalization, the theme of the world often will switch to War and Revolution.In fact, before the two world wars, there were two relatively serious globalization ebb events in the world.

Since the Age of Discovery, the first serious anti-globalization event occurred in the first half of the 17th century.During this period, the famous 30 Years War broke out in Europe. At that time, all major European powers were involved in this protracted war, and the German region was the main battlefield of this international war.

After the Thirty Years War ended, globalization entered a period of stable development that lasted more than 30 years.In the middle of the 100th century, the first industrial revolution first broke out in the United Kingdom and quickly spread to European countries, and human productivity has also risen to a large level.However, in the early 18th century, because of Napoleon's "Continental Blockade" policy, globalization once again encountered headwinds.Everyone knows what happened afterwards: the Napoleonic War broke out, the major European powers were once again involved, and the German region sadly became the main battlefield again.

After the defeat of Napoleon, European countries re-established the balance of power through the "Vienna System", and globalization once again ushered in a century-long golden age.In the 19s, the shock wave of the second industrial revolution spread to the whole world centered on Germany and the United States, and the level of human productivity once again took an astonishing leap.Everyone is more familiar with the latter: In the first half of the 60th century, the process of globalization suffered another setback. During this round of ebb tide of globalization, two world wars broke out.This time Germany is not only the main battlefield, but also one of the main sources of war.

It was not until after the end of World War II that the process of globalization picked up again, and the third industrial revolution, which had a far-reaching impact, also broke out during this period.With the end of the Cold War and China's accession to the WTO, this round of globalization has also reached its peak.In the few years after China's accession to the World Trade Organization, the world economy once grew at an astonishing rate of 5% per year.Unfortunately, since the 2009 financial tsunami, with the rise of populism in some countries, globalization is once again facing serious threats.

……

Why has there been such cyclical fluctuations in globalization over the past 500 years?Helena believes that the main reason lies in the uneven distribution of globalization dividends.Although globalization is beneficial to the vast majority of countries and the vast majority of the population in the world, the dividends of globalization are not evenly distributed, but there is a serious imbalance.This imbalance exists not only between countries in the world, but also between people within each country, and the imbalance of dividend distribution will inevitably stimulate conflicts. There are three specific manifestations of this imbalance:

One is the uneven distribution of globalization dividends between established and emerging powers.

Since each round of globalization is dominated by a certain big country, this big country is in a conservative position in this round of globalization.Since the established powers hold the leading power in this round of globalization, they must occupy a priority position in the allocation of global resources.This kind of priority position allows the established powers to enjoy more globalization dividends than other countries, which is difficult for the emerging powers to accept, and the established powers will inevitably regard the emerging powers as coveting their own priority By.

The second is the uneven distribution of globalization dividends between industrial and agricultural countries.

With the development of the industrial revolution, industrialized countries have a clear advantage over non-industrialized countries, which allows industrialized countries to grab the wealth of non-industrialized countries through various means.Including direct seizure by force and use of industrial and agricultural scissors to obtain.This imbalance in the distribution of dividends will lead to a growing gap between industrialized and non-industrialized countries.This will inevitably lead to non-industrialized countries dissatisfied with the dividend distribution of globalization led by industrialized countries.

The third is the uneven distribution of globalization dividends among different classes within countries.

With the in-depth development of globalization, the role of capital has become more and more significant.Whoever can better organize the global flow of capital can cut a bigger piece of cake in the distribution of globalization dividends.This will lead to the distribution of globalization dividends naturally favoring capital owners, which in turn will lead to a faster rate of wealth concentration in the hands of the rich.This will widen the gap between the rich and the poor within each country, which in turn will induce economic crisis and even social unrest.

Therefore, although globalization is mutually beneficial, the benefits of each player are uneven; although globalization is a win-win situation, the chances of winning for each player are not equal.Whenever a wave of globalization and the corresponding wave of dividends from the industrial revolution begin to falter, the contradictions brought about by this imbalance and asymmetry will become acute, and the phenomenon of anti-globalization will become inevitable.

Facing the wave of anti-globalization that is imminent, it is almost impossible for Germany to farm while looking at the sea. Historical experience has shown that once the globalization ebb tide triggers international conflicts, no matter whether the war is initiated by Germany or not, Germany has no possibility of staying out of it.After all, Germany is located at the "crossroads of Europe", which is considered a geographical advantage in peacetime, but it also means that it will bear the brunt of conflicts!

Therefore, from the moment the U.S. "Gold Reserve Act" was introduced, Helena understood that this round of deglobalization was inevitable, and under the cold current of this wave of deglobalization, how long can this false peace last? Woolen cloth?Since the world line has changed a lot compared to the previous plane, Helena is not sure.But one thing is certain, that is, once a conflict occurs, whether it is active or passive, Germany at the crossroads of Europe will definitely be involved.

In this case, it is very important to plan the posture of Germany entering the water in the future.

1 Fifty Chapters of Difficult Copy

"The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" said in the opening words: "Talking about the general trend of the world, long-term divisions must be united, and long-term unions must be divided." This sentence is also quite appropriate to summarize the process of globalization in the past 500 years.

The ebb tide of globalization that occurred in the 20s was essentially the inevitable result of the long-term uneven distribution of globalization dividends, and a general outbreak of contradictions accumulated in the process of globalization over the past 30 years (WWI not only did not Solving the imbalance in the distribution of globalization dividends has actually exacerbated this imbalance).This ebb tide of globalization directly led to the disintegration of the unified global market. With the disintegration of the international gold exchange standard and the rise of trade barriers, the separatist situation of global currency and trade began to take shape.Helena believes that once such a separatist situation is formed, the fuse of the world war will be ignited.

With the establishment of regional economic internal circulation systems centered on their own countries by the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Russia, the capacity of the world market will inevitably shrink sharply, which will cause countries like Germany that are highly dependent on the international market to lose their survival and development relying on.If Germany does nothing at this time, the economy will die of chronic suffocation like a fish in a dry pond.

However, as an industrial power, it is impossible for Germany to sit there and wait for death.Before the economy is suffocated, Germany must fight to the death. After all, as long as the economic internal circulation system of Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union is broken, the German economy will be saved... The inevitability of World War II is reflected here.No matter who leads Germany, no matter which political party is in charge of Germany, in the face of a large-scale ebb of globalization and the collapse of the world market, in fact there is no alternative but war.

In the short term, Germany can rely on government-led large-scale infrastructure investment or enhanced military construction to dump excess production capacity.But even without taking into account the debt and currency risks posed by expansive government spending, such temporary measures cannot be used in the long run.Because the marginal effect of this kind of government-led investment is diminishing, this will eventually happen: the newly expanded government investment cannot be transformed into actual economic growth, but can only aggravate inflation.In the last plane, the stagflation-type economic recession in Western countries in the 70s has fully proved this point.

It must be strictly stated here that Helena's understanding of the inevitability of the outbreak of the Second World War does not mean that she agrees with the war launched by Nazi Germany in the previous plane.On the contrary, it is precisely because Helena can deeply understand the economic roots of the outbreak of the Second World War that she can criticize the war launched by Nazi Germany in the previous dimension more deeply.What Helena wants to criticize is not the behavior of Nazi Germany in launching the war, but the purpose of the war established by Nazi Germany.

In the previous plane, what was the war goal that the Axis powers wanted to achieve?Generally speaking, it is to change the old world colonial system centered on Britain and France over the past hundred years into a new world colonial system centered on Germany, Japan and Italy.Once Germany has established this war goal, it has already lost completely strategically.

What era was the first half of the 20th century?It was an era when the national consciousness of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples was constantly awakening, and it was an era when the forces against colonialism and the forces of colonialism ebbed and flowed!In this era, even old colonial empires like Britain and France are increasingly unable to maintain their own world colonial system. The specific manifestation is that the cost of colonial rule is getting higher and higher, while the benefits of rule are getting lower and lower. .

In this context, Nazi Germany in the last plane wanted to win over Japan and Italy to establish a colonial empire system larger than that of Britain and France, which is undoubtedly a dream.Because driven by such a war goal, the enemies that Germany needs to face will not only be the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union, but also the forces against colonialism all over the world.

In the last plane, wherever the Axis soldiers went, there were some unknown local people who welcomed the Axis soldiers as saviors who helped them get rid of the colonial rule of Britain, France and the United States.But soon they realized that the purpose of the war of the Axis powers was only to replace their original suzerain and become the new colonial rulers, and this new suzerain might be more brutal than their old suzerain.After all, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States are planning to operate the colonies as long-term meal tickets. While suppressing the resistance of the colonial people bloody, they still understand the truth that they cannot kill the chicken to extract the eggs.

In Helena's eyes, it was the war purpose of establishing a new world colonial system that determined the injustice of the war waged by Nazi Germany on the previous plane. It not only went against the trend of history, but also went against the vast majority of the world the wishes of the people.The world does not need a new world colonial system after England and France!

Taking a step back, even if Nazi Germany's force value in the last plane is overwhelming, what if a new colonial empire with Germany, Japan and Italy as the axis is really established?Do you know why there was a great ebb of globalization in the 30s?It is because this round of globalization is mainly driven by the colonial expansion of imperialist countries around the world, and the contradictions brought about by the unbalanced distribution of long-term dividends make this kind of globalization based on colonialism unsustainable!

Now that you have replaced the world colonial system centered on Britain and France with one centered on Germany, Japan and Italy, has the main contradiction facing this round of globalization been resolved?Didn't work out!Helena dared to say that even if the Axis powers of the last plane got lucky all the way and established a new colonial system, they would immediately face a new economic crisis. After all, the productivity potential that the suzerain-colonial production relationship can accommodate is basically The limit has been reached.Therefore, even if Germany cannot stay out of the conflicts brought about by the current round of globalization ebb, it must not regard the establishment of a new colonial empire as its war goal.

In Helena's view, Germany can only be invincible if it is on the side of the inevitable victory, so who is the inevitable victory?Helena believes that there are three forces that are bound to win: the first is that a new round of globalization based on fairer rules will inevitably defeat the current economic separatism; Third, the power to pursue equal ethnic relations will inevitably defeat white racism and big ethnic chauvinism.

Helena believes that as long as Germany can truly stand on the same front as these three forces, even if the United Kingdom, the United States, France, the Soviet Union, Japan, and Italy fight together, Germany will surely win.Although such a "victory" may not be the kind of global domination that many people imagined, the establishment of a multi-polar world without a hegemon is indeed the most beneficial to Germany as a land-sea composite country It may be the most beneficial to China, which is also a land-sea compound country, and it is also the most beneficial to the vast majority of people in the world.

Although it may be a bit difficult to complete this dungeon, Helena is still going to try her best.

Chapter 151 Political Masks

For many years, Helena has never held any official position in German government agencies, but she has been able to maintain influence on Germany's domestic and foreign policies. The real secret is not Helena's identity and status, but her It can continuously create and tap incremental benefits for Germany without touching the stock benefits too much.This is Helena's biggest trump card as a time traveler, and it is also the fundamental reason why the rulers cannot reject Helena's proposal.

If you still can’t imagine the power of this incremental benefit induction, just look at the change of Hitler’s attitude towards the Jews in this plane:

Since Germany and the Zionists reached the "Hawala Plan" aimed at relocating Jewish refugees at the bottom of society to the Palestinian areas of the Middle East, according to the agreement, the British and American Jewish bankers must provide a sum of money for each of these Jewish refugees. The loan is used as the start-up capital for starting a business in Palestine. This loan must be deposited in the "special account" of the German government and can only be used to purchase German industrial equipment and goods.

As a result, a large number of German companies, which were precarious in the economic crisis, got rid of the fate of bankruptcy because of the orders from the Palestinian area, and completed the renewal of fixed capital by the way.The German government, on the other hand, obtained gold and foreign exchange that could stabilize the mark, which became more precious in the context of sluggish global trade.However, the total number of Jewish residents in Germany is only 60, and the total number of new Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe does not exceed 10.Since very few wealthy Jewish people were willing to go to the Middle East to dig sand, the German government soon found that there were not enough Jewish refugees in the country.