Volume 2: The crown and the hat are all over the capital, and the spirit is full of energy and enter the foggy city Chapter 61: Duel (Part 1)
Subtitle of this chapter: What's the point of attending a dance without a duel?
Harold Alexander was born into an Irish aristocratic family on December 10, 1891. He also attended Harrow School. In his youth, he was interested in competitive sports and painting, and hoped to become the president of the Royal Society of Arts.
In 1911, he graduated from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and joined the Irish Guards as a second lieutenant. During the war, he served as platoon leader, company commander, battalion commander and temporary brigade commander. He was wounded twice and was gradually promoted from lieutenant to lieutenant colonel.
From 1918 to 1919 he served in the British Military Mission to Poland.
In 1919, he was ordered to command the Landswehr Brigade to participate in the armed intervention against Soviet Russia. In 1920, he came to the United States as a diplomatic military attaché.
Of course, in the original timeline, this lieutenant colonel would become a famous general and army marshal in World War II.
To be honest, during the Battle of France, when the Third Reich crushed the British and French forces, he was only the major general commander of the 1st Infantry Division. During the "great retreat" at Dunkirk, he was only promoted to the commander of the 1st Army. It was not his turn to take the blame. In fact, the commander of Operation Dynamo was Bertram Ramsay, the commander of Rendover Port.
However, the Burma Campaign, which he commanded, was really unkind. The British troops defending the Mandalay Line retreated without a word and burned all the supplies before leaving. When the expeditionary force retreated, Chuanlin Beitui came to stir up trouble again, ordering that they must return home instead of going to India, and thus the great tragedy of the Savage Mountain occurred.
Even so, he was still the second-ranked general in the British Army, and his command ability was second only to Montgomery.
It is true that there are no heroes in the British army, but only young men can become famous.
"Hahaha..." It was no wonder that our Master Yuan laughed out loud again. This time he laughed especially loudly, attracting the attention of people nearby. Among them were several important or not so important historical figures.
"Infuss! VERY Infuss!" Yuan Yan suddenly said in a loud voice: "It's really Infuss for an Irishman to ask such a question. Is this the humor of you British gentlemen?"
That’s right, the point is that Lieutenant Colonel Alexander is actually Irish.
He spread his hands and said, "Then I must admit that you British gentlemen are the most flattering people in the world..."
"Mr. Yuan..." After this period of contact, Nomura Yoshisaburo next to him had some understanding of the old man's character. He immediately stepped forward, pulled his sleeve and stopped him softly.
Master Yuan glanced back at the Japanese naval colonel and thought to himself, you are not qualified enough to stop me from showing off!
There was a gleam of light in his eyes, which scared the other party and made him involuntarily retract his hand.
Yuan Yan turned around and said, "Yes, according to your Western standards, we Chinese are not civilized enough. We once let you break into our capital, we once killed Western diplomats, we once foolishly declared war on all nations, we are still smoking Aphrodite, we still can't even build a battleship, we can't even fully protect our own land..."
He was silent for a while, then said frankly: "As an honest gentleman, I can't deny !"
"But..." He stretched out his tone, looked around and said: "Ladies and gentlemen. No matter how barbaric we Chinese are, we will never starve a quarter of our compatriots to death!"
Our Master Yuan pointed at Lieutenant Colonel Alexander and said sternly, "And Lieutenant Colonel, isn't that what your ancestors did?"
“Hahaha…” The other party laughed in anger, “Mr. Neo Yuan, you are slandering me out of thin air. My ancestors starved my compatriots to death. This is completely nonsense!”
"Slander out of thin air? Nonsense?" Yuan Yan shook her head and said with a click of the tongue: "Tsk tsk... Mr. Lieutenant Colonel, other British people might be fine, but for someone like you who comes from an Irish aristocratic family to say such things, then you are either stupid or evil!"
"You don't understand, so I'll explain it to you..."
In fact, the Great Irish Famine was both a natural disaster and a man-made disaster... Why does it sound so familiar?
“Pika Pika!”
As we all know, the famine was caused by a blight that infected Irish potatoes. But that was only the surface reason. The real reason was… land, always land.
Irish landlords, that is, Irish nobles and British farmers, used large amounts of local land to grow "high-end grains" or for grazing.
Jeremy Rifkin, president of the US Economic Trends Foundation and advisor to the president of the European Council, once wrote that after Britain came to rule Ireland, in order to meet the huge demand for beef in its domestic market, it used Ireland as its "pasture." In order to survive, Irish farmers could only grow potatoes on small pieces of land.
In Ireland, each acre of land could produce 6 tons of potatoes, while wheat and oats produced less than a ton, and these "luxury" grains were exported exclusively to Britain. This difference was impossible to ignore, especially after the enclosure movement caused farmers to lose their common land.
So the Irish proverb says: "The poor man's meal - except for small potatoes, it is big potatoes." Another saying is: "There are only two things in the world that you can't joke about, one is marriage, and the other is potatoes."
So in the final analysis, the Great Irish Famine was a crime committed by land monopolists, and Colonel Alexander's ancestor was naturally one of the murderers.
"Colonel Alexander, so your ancestors were also the executioners who massacred your compatriots!"
When our Master Yuan uttered these words in a resounding voice, a dance music had just ended, and his voice was so loud that at least half of the people in the dance hall could hear it clearly.
The other party was naturally furious. If he hadn't been a diplomatic military attaché and had a clear mind, he would have rushed over.
“Neo Yuan, I demand an apology from you!”
Yuan Yanshu was about to speak when someone else came over to deliver a message. Cao Linsheng hurried to his side and whispered in his ear, "Brother Hongjian, the two ministers asked you to apologize as soon as possible."
Master Yuan glanced at the two anxious diplomats not far away and smiled. He thought to himself, you are big enough to stop me from showing off, but your friendship is not enough.
What's more, I'm not just showing off, but collecting some interest in advance for the expeditionary soldiers who sacrificed in that timeline!
He also whispered back: "Brother, I have my own opinion on this matter."
Master Yuan turned around and asked Lieutenant Colonel Alexander loudly: "Lieutenant Colonel Harold Alexander, what if I don't apologize to you?"
"Humph!" The other party snorted coldly and said firmly: "Mr. Neo Yuan, if you don't apologize, then I want to fight with you..."
"duel!"
