1855 United States Tycoon

The so-called terrible new weapons refer to gas bombs. Since Dena revealed that the Germans were producing and storing usable gas bombs in chemical plants, every country in the world with a little scientific research capability has stepped up research in this area. Britain is no exception. Like the Germans, the British have also tried methyl isocyanate, but after discovering the storage difficulties caused by its corrosiveness to metals, the British changed the direction of research. (The United Kingdom is different from Germany. Its territories are all over the world, and it has higher requirements for the convenience and safety of storage and transportation.) Soon a variant of the poison gas developed by the Germans entered the attention of the British. This is Shuangguang. Qi.

Unlike the gaseous phosgene, the double phosgene is liquid, which also makes it more convenient in storage and transportation. Once heated, it will decompose into two parts of phosgene. This is a highly toxic suffocating gas, which can effectively kill enemies that lack protection.

In the original history, until World War II, this poisonous gas was still used in large quantities on the battlefield. For example, when the Japanese Locust Army was fighting with the Chinese Army, it used double light gas many times. (The Japanese are actually equipped with more toxic mustard gas, but the mustard gas remains for a long time, it is inconvenient to disinfect, and it needs full body protection. The Japanese army itself cannot protect the mustard gas well. In case of an accident, it may bring serious consequences. In contrast, To deal with light and gas accidents, all you need is a gas mask. The Chinese army has no gas mask at all, and no gas can be protected. Therefore, for the sake of safety and convenience, the Japanese Locust Army still mainly uses it on the Chinese battlefield. Shuangguang Qi) Of course, even if he was beaten badly during the war with the American and British ghosts and animals, Little Japan did not dare to use any chemical weapons, even non-lethal tear gas. Because there are more such things in the U.S. and Britain.

"Your Excellency, as far as we know, the Boers do not have equivalent weapons, so we don't have to worry about equal retaliation. In addition, from the intelligence we have, the Boers have no corresponding defense methods. The effect of using such weapons will be very prominent. If we use them, we can avoid huge casualties and quickly put down the Boer rebellion.” Another minister is very supportive of the use of such weapons.

"But if we use such a weapon, will it lead us to passivity in public opinion?"

"If we can't take Johannesburg quickly, we will face more than just the pressure of public opinion!"

...

After taking Kimberley, Lord Roberts let the army rest for a week. On the one hand, this is to allow the troops to recover from fatigue, and on the other hand, they are also waiting for the reinforcement of logistical supplies. The effect of making things like fortresses bigger is not that they cannot be attacked. There has never been a fortress in the world that cannot be attacked. The greatest military significance of fortresses is to save troops. In the absence of a fortress, in order to protect the most important targets, you must deploy more troops near the target, and if there is a strong fortress here, then fewer troops are needed to ensure adequate defense. After that, the extra troops can be used to attack opponents. For example, the Kimberley Fortress has a total of more than 6,000 troops, but it can withstand the attack of tens of thousands of people for a long time. Containing them near Kimberley allowed the Boers to save more power to do other things, such as harassing the supply lines of the British army.

The distance from Cape Town to Kimberley is still short, and the number of British troops restrained by the Kimberley Fortress is relatively small, so Lord Roberts still has enough troops to repel the harassment of the Boers and protect the own logistics supply line, but If you continue to advance and then besiege Johannesburg, the logistics line will be lengthened, and the force required for the siege itself will increase, and the logistics line will become dangerous when the situation changes.

Therefore, Lord Roberts also used this time to build many bunkers along the railway line, and converted several trains into armored trains to protect the safety of the railway line.

A week later, Lord Roberts’ forces continued to advance towards Johannesburg.

...

It is now October 1898, and in the southern hemisphere, this is the early spring season. Although the sun is warm during the day, it is still quite cold at night. Although the wind from the sea is generally slightly warmer, Saint Lucia is surrounded by cold west winds, so even the sea breeze is not warm. In addition, during the war, the port was blocked by the British and no ships could approach it. So even in the daytime, there were no two people in the port, and it was even more silent at night.

However, on this evening, the dark sea outside the harbor suddenly lit up, flashing and flashing again and again. Then the lighthouse that had been closed at the port also lit up. After a while, a strange-looking ship with only a very low bridge and painted black all over appeared near the port. At this time, how many people were on the berth? The light also came on, guiding the boat slowly to the dock. Then all the lights were turned off except for the one that was not very bright. Vaguely you can see a large group of people holding various weapons and surrounding them. Then a door was opened at the bow and stern of the strange ship, and some people removed boxes one after another. The boxes were moved down from above, and the boxes were immediately carried by other people to the carriage that was parked next to them.

Yes, this is the transport submarine of the McDonald Consortium, which is performing transport tasks.

To be honest, the efficiency of this submarine is really a problem. Firstly, it has a small amount of equipment. Secondly, although there are two non-pressure-resistant cargo warehouses on the submarine, it can be used as a non-pressure-resistant structure. Open a bigger door, but this door is not much bigger, and what’s more terrible is that everything that can be placed in this warehouse must meet certain conditions, that is, either it can withstand huge water pressure. Or it can be placed in a specially made container that can withstand huge water pressure. And most of the goods cannot withstand such water pressure. If you want to use a special container, good guy, one-third of the shipment volume is consumed by the weight of the container. What? You said to put it in the pressure hull, this, the crowded space inside the submarine, how can it be stuffed!

So the cost of this mode of transportation is indeed outrageous. But this time, the transportation of weapons is of secondary importance, and more importantly, a batch of gold must be shipped out of South Africa.

Johannesburg is about to fall into a heavy siege. Although the Boers feel that the city is impenetrable and the British cannot conquer it at all, it is not safe enough to put all the gold in the city that is about to be besieged. But is there any other safer place for the Boers, so they remembered to transfer gold to banks in other countries. According to the information provided by Scrooge, Rothschild is basically behind the big banks in Europe. Rothschild was on the side of the British Empire on the South African issue. Therefore, many banks in Europe are naturally excluded. Is it possible that the Boers deposit their money in the writing bank, and then let them lend the money to the British to beat themselves? In this way, they have not many choices, and only a few banks are left. Not long ago, Morgan helped the British sell a batch of war bonds in North America, so at least in North America, the only bank that the Boers can trust is McDonald Ventures.

So the Transvaal government began to transfer large amounts of gold to McDonald Venture Capital Bank. The method of transportation is naturally to use the transportation submarine of the McDonald Consortium. Of course, letting the transport submarine go on an empty ship is a waste of resources anyway, so the submarine sent to pick up the gold also brought a lot of munitions and other cargo.

After the arms were removed, some people in black then carried some small boxes onto the submarine. These boxes are not big, but they are very heavy, and it even takes two big men to move him. And in these boxes, there is no doubt that they are filled with heavy gold.

During the Boer War, how much gold was secretly deposited in the McDonald Venture Capital Bank through this method has always been a mystery. In short, after the war, the British could not find any gold from the captured Johannesburg. Later, the Transvaal government also split. Some people went into exile and organized the government-in-exile to declare that they would fight the British to the end. Others surrendered to the British in the name of the Transvaal government. Declaring ownership of this large deposit, their dispute continued until both parties entered the soil with no result. And because a lot of things were lost in the war, and some of the people who handled it died in the war, the Transvaal government had a lot of deposits in McDonald's, and even the Boers themselves didn't know how much money they had. As for the McDonald Venture Capital Bank, they must know everything clearly, but they said that they could not reveal the secrets of their customers, so everything was "no comment." In short, this mysterious gold has been kept in the MacDonald Ventures Bank account and stored in the Fed's vault. In theory, it still belongs to the government of the Transvaal Republic, although this government no longer exists.

...

When the fish belly began to appear on the side of the day, the transport submarine had completed the task of loading and unloading cargo. The boat slowly left the pier in the morning mist and then began to dive...

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