For two great powers, war is never a troublesome issue. It is simply destruction or being destroyed, or fighting until both sides can fight no longer. The troublesome thing lies in the fact that both warring parties believe the war is controllable. It wasn't until nuclear weapons threatened the existence of all mankind that a type of war with completely uncontrollable consequences finally appeared.

In Chen Ke's timeline, before World War I, the great powers all believed that war was completely controllable. After reflecting on the tragic First World War, facts proved to the great powers that war between them was not entirely controllable either. Therefore, the major powers were unwilling to engage in a war that gambled the fate of their nations. This lasted until madmen like Japan and Germany were forced to start World War II. After World War II, all great powers understood one thing: the outcome of a war between great powers is uncontrollable. Thus, the so-called "localized war" emerged.

The Korean War was China's war of founding because, in this localized war in Korea, China proved its combat power was sufficient to be a great power. The United States repeatedly calculated the gains and losses of the Korean War and found that if the US used the Chinese mainland as a "localized war battlefield," the intensity of the war would basically be no different from a full-scale war between great powers. So from then on, China existed as a great power. And after World War II, great powers did not fight each other directly.

Under Chen Ke's analysis, the Central Military Commission finally understood this issue. However, Chen Ke was not quite sure if the British could understand it. If the British could understand this issue, then positioning the Korean War as a localized war would be acceptable. A land war purely between China and Japan—the outcome of the war was not worth repeated discussion. But how to view this war was a big issue.

When the comrades of the Politburo were discussing the war, someone raised a point. "If Britain replaces the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with a Sino-British Alliance, would it be helpful for the war?"

Chen Ke laughed: "The first demand the British will make is definitely that China cannot ally with the Soviet Union. This is a condition we cannot accept."

"Break up the Sino-Soviet alliance?" Many comrades were stunned. The Sino-British Alliance and the Sino-Soviet Alliance did not seem to be such mutually exclusive contents. According to the traditional view of the Chinese people, "one more friend means one more path." The fact that Britain insisted on breaking up the Sino-Soviet alliance puzzled the comrades who were unfamiliar with diplomatic issues.

Chen Ke did not want to explain. He suggested that when Zhang Yu negotiated with the British, comrades from the Politburo should send representatives to attend.

Before China could contact Britain, the British Minister took the initiative to contact China. During the talks, Zhang Yu tentatively proposed the idea of a Sino-British Alliance. The British Minister unhesitatingly stated that to discuss a Sino-British Alliance, China must dissolve any alliance relationship with the Soviet Union. At the same time, China must oppose all American actions to enter the Western Pacific.

The main intention of this British contact was to demand that China immediately cease any military operations against Japan.

After the Sino-British meeting, the Politburo continued its meeting. This time, it was Propaganda Minister Zhang Yu who was responsible for the explanation. "The British are currently the world hegemon. What they need is not friends at all, but the power to decide world affairs. We Chinese feel that we can manage our own affairs. The British don't see it that way; they feel that for anything in this world, the British must have the dominance. It must be done according to the order established by the British."

"Bullshit!" Someone immediately cursed. Many comrades felt that diplomacy was a very elegant matter. Seeing the reality behind diplomacy, the more hot-blooded comrades were already bristling with anger.

Chen Ke actually wanted to laugh. Before he realized what hegemony meant, his reaction to the various hegemonic acts of imperialism was about the same as the comrades' current performance. However, before Chen Ke realized that imperialism had no future and that one could not follow the old path of imperialism, deep down in his heart, he actually quite envied the style of imperialist countries. As the saying goes, the Kingly Way is vast, the Hegemonic Way is brilliant. If China could become the world hegemon, Chen Ke would not object much.

*It seems that most people in the People's Party are imperialists,* Chen Ke thought to himself.

The immediate priority in reality was not the Sino-British Alliance or the Sino-Soviet Alliance. The British performance regarding the Sino-Japanese War was actually quite surprising to Chen Ke. The reaction speed of the British was much slower than imagined, and it seemed that the pressure within Britain was not small.

But Chen Ke dared not say such prophet-like words. Chen Ke was now almost an anti-materialist existence within the People's Party, or at least an anti-"On Practice" existence. If Chen Ke engaged in public opinion warfare and then talked about the high domestic pressure in Britain, the connection between the two would be hard for the People's Party Central Committee to understand at present. Chen Ke had seen with his own eyes how foreign countries tried to infiltrate China pervasively in the internet age, but such issues had no practice in 1924. The only thing Chen Ke could do was to order the troops to fight intensely and gain control of the mountainous areas in northern Korea as soon as possible.

The war itself was nothing remarkable. In 1923, China's crude steel output was 8 million tons, while Japan's crude steel output was less than 300,000 tons. In terms of heavy industrial output, China's output in every category exceeded Japan's by more than ten times. Especially in the synthetic ammonia industrial chain, China's categories were much more complete than Japan's. Taking soda ash as an example, China's output was hundreds of times that of Japan. These high-quality and inexpensive soda ash products were exported in large quantities to the whole world. A large part of them was even given to the Soviet Union as aid materials. Japan was also an importer of Chinese soda ash.

In the regular army, Chinese snipers were deployed down to the squad level. The People's Party had started firing glass in Anhui more than ten years ago. Coupled with optical glass technology introduced from Germany and Russia, lens manufacturing technology had advanced by leaps and bounds. According to intelligence collected by the People's Party, the Japanese army secretly imported Chinese binoculars. After importing them, Japan scraped off the labels and installed the Japanese army's emblem on the scraped-off spots. Honestly, the Japanese skill of "making a dojo in a snail's shell" was really good. One really couldn't tell that the "modified" binoculars had been processed in those places.

On May 14th, news came from the front line that the Korean Volunteer Army had already fought to the Han River Plain and occupied the mountainous areas of northern Korea. The vanguard troops were progressing smoothly. The follow-up troops were still working hard to clear out the Japanese remnants in northern Korea, and the main force was besieging Pyongyang. After the Japanese learned that the Korean patriots would chop off heads and dig out hearts upon catching Japanese people, the defenders in Pyongyang were extremely tenacious. Since death was inevitable, dying in battle was much better than being cruelly tortured to death after being captured. Killing one more enemy would be earning one back.

Of course, among the news that came together, there were also stories of the Korean patriots wantonly settling scores with "Korean traitors," with heads rolling everywhere.

On May 26th, the British Minister, Sir Humphrey, was finally granted permission to be received by the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Li Yunshi.

Sir Humphrey knew that Li Yunshi was a rising political star within the People's Party. He became a minister at the age of 31. Although this was not a rare thing in the People's Party, those were the first generation of the People's Party, the rebel team where a 25-year-old could be an elder brother. In British intelligence, Li Yunshi was clearly the second generation.

Regardless of which generation he faced, Sir Humphrey jumped right in to protest China's actions. Minister Li Yunshi was not in a hurry. Speaking in broken Chinese-style English, he said: "Sir Humphrey, there have been many wars between Korea and Japan. This war is no different from the many Korean-Japanese wars in history."

Sir Humphrey was not here to listen to a history lesson; he was here to defend Britain's control over Far Eastern affairs. Therefore, Sir Humphrey had no intention of circling around with Li Yunshi. He immediately put forward the British demands: End the war! Restore the original posture!

Li Yunshi laughed: "Sir Humphrey, what kind of state do you want to restore to? Yesterday's state? The state of 20 years ago? Or the state of 200 years ago, or perhaps the state of 1000 years ago? China has a very long history, and Chinese people also love recording history. In China's thousands of years of history, all kinds of states between Korea and Japan can be found!"

Sir Humphrey was a smart man. After hearing Li Yunshi's words, he already understood China's meaning. As the dominator of the Far Eastern order for thousands of years, China naturally wanted to restore its dominance over the Far East after its revival. Thus, the subsequent topic went directly deep into the discussion of dominance over the Far East between China and Britain.

There was a reason why Li Yunshi rose so fast within the People's Party. His mastery of communism, "On Practice," and "On Contradiction" was extremely high. He was a recognized theoretical expert within the party and also a master of linking theory with practice. With Japan heavily damaged and Britain not yet recovered from its losses in World War I, China already possessed an actual advantage. The People's Party could not possibly make concessions and acknowledge the British dominance over Korean affairs. Therefore, Sir Humphrey deeply felt what a difficult negotiation expert Li Yunshi was to deal with.

Sir Humphrey was a man of the British bureaucratic system. The characteristic of the bureaucratic system was to entangle issues together when discussing them, making people dizzy with thousands of threads. In the end, they would lay out all the maximum boundary lines in the whole matter and create a huge framework.

Li Yunshi, on the other hand, was able to straighten out the many relationships proposed by Sir Humphrey, throwing aside matters unrelated to the war between Korea and Japan, and separating the various relationships between China and Britain extremely clearly. Sir Humphrey felt that this Foreign Minister of the People's Party had mastered the principle of "fighting without breaking" too brilliantly. Unless Britain's policy towards China changed to overthrowing the People's Party government at all costs, he could not possibly gain the upper hand in the negotiations.

Unknowingly, the negotiation turned into a negotiation mode between great powers. Two great powers with their own strength were deciding the fate of small nations for their own strategic interests.

Sir Humphrey found that the negotiation had actually developed to this point, so he cleverly terminated the negotiation. Before leaving, Sir Humphrey left a sentence: "We, Britain, cannot accept the result of the war continuing. The war must end here! If the Chinese side cannot accept this request, then we, Britain, can only intervene in this matter according to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty."

Facing such a naked threat, Li Yunshi was not angry at all. This was Britain's true bottom line. Like the struggles between great powers in the past, any great power acknowledges the status quo. The status quo is the manifestation of strength. The strategic goal of the People's Party Central Committee at the beginning was to liberate the mountainous areas of northern Korea. Because the strength of the People's Navy was not enough to overwhelm Japan. If China's navy could overwhelm Japan, the People's Party's goal would naturally be to liberate the entire Korea.

The wrestling between China, Japan, and Britain ended here. If they wanted to liberate the entire Korea, it would depend on the Korean comrades' own strength.

On this matter, Li Yunshi agreed with the People's Party Central Committee's view very much. "Better to fight a smart man than talk to a fool!" The British could be negotiated with, but when the Korean comrades learned that they had to fight the future war by themselves, heaven knew how they would perform.