Conquering the world from the Kaiser's driver

Lin Shangzhou chuckled and explained to them, "It's very simple. Let the workers go on strike to force the government to agree to the workers' demands. The interests of the workers are mutually exclusive with the interests of the majority of the right wing. If the Central Party agrees to the workers' demands, it will damage the interests of the right wing. The relationship between other right-wing parties and the Central Party is not very good, so this will further alienate the right wing."

"What links the left and the right together is ultimately interests. For the right, the left will damage their overall interests, so when facing the left, the right will be a solid block. But if the right harms each other's interests, even a solid block will break."

After listening to his explanation, Alexandrine and the other two understood a lot, but Alexandrine still had doubts in her heart. She asked, "But Fritz, if the voters of the Center Party no longer support the Center Party and support other right-wing parties, then the power of the right wing has not been reduced, right?"

"Well..."

Lin Shangzhou paused. What Alexandrine said was indeed a problem, but he also had corresponding countermeasures.

"In addition to the right and left, Germany also has a centrist party."

Cecilia seemed to have thought of something and said, "You mean the National Liberal Party?"

"Ah."

Lin Shangzhou nodded and explained, "I will let General Volbeck return to the National Liberal Party. His joining will be a huge boost to the National Liberal Party. The centrists will not disagree with his return. In order to get more votes, I believe the National Liberal Party will do its best to win over those who have lost confidence in the Center Party. They may not be able to win over many people, but as long as they can win over voters who originally belonged to the Center Party, it will weaken the right wing."

"In next year's general election, the SPD may not be able to get more than half of the votes. However, there are four right-wing parties and only one left-wing party. I am confident that the SPD will get more votes than each right-wing party. Although this will cause resistance when the SPD implements policies, there is still the National Liberal Party. The policies implemented by the SPD will definitely make the right wing dissatisfied, but they will not necessarily harm the interests of the National Liberal Party. Moreover, I believe that you will definitely support the SPD, Alexandrine, right?"

After saying that, Lin Shangzhou looked at Alexandrine expectantly. His sudden gaze made Alexandrine a little at a loss. After a moment of panic, the German Emperor nodded vigorously.

Seeing Alexandrine nod, Lin Shangzhou showed a gratified expression on his face. In Germany, a country with real monarchy, the support of the monarch is the greatest support.

Noah didn't know much about that. Seeing the interaction between Lin Shangzhou and Alexandrine, she felt a little jealous, so she quickly asked, "Then you can at least earn several million marks every month in the future. Isn't that enough for you to do other things?"

"Not quite enough."

Lin Shangzhou shook his head. This answer made Noah and the other two open their eyes wide. Millions of marks a month are not enough? What on earth does he want to do?

"A few million marks a month is not enough, Fritz. What on earth do you want to do that costs so much money?"

Cecilia asked with a strange expression. Millions of marks a month was something she couldn't even think about, but now Lin Shangzhou said it was not enough.

Lin Shangzhou shrugged, then sat on the sofa and sighed, "The aircraft research and development and manufacturing of Junkers requires investment. After we have mature passenger aircraft, I plan to expand Mercury Power's business, increase shipping business, and open routes from Germany to the countries of the Imperial Pact."

"Opening routes requires building airports. Governments will not invest in something that does not generate returns, so I have to pay for it. Moreover, this aviation business will definitely lose money in the early stages. It costs money to buy planes, build airports, and maintain company operations."

“Everything costs money.”

Lin Shangzhou leaned weakly on the sofa. The three girls could not think of any good way to solve the problem that Lin Shangzhou was facing. It was because he was unwilling to live off the German Emperor.

“I can only save it slowly…”

.

Chapter 235 Sudden Changes

Although he kept sighing that he had no money, Lin Shangzhou couldn't find a better way to make money at the moment and could only choose to wait.

Anyway, it is still early for a general strike, and we will have to wait at least another month or two. In order to ensure the smooth progress of future strikes, Lin Shangzhou also asked Lin Wenhua, Huo Wen and others to work in the Berlin factory to learn more about the situation.

After a period of work and understanding, they brought some good news to Lin Shangzhou. The workers in Berlin had long been dissatisfied with the status quo, but they did not know what to do because they had no leader, and they did not have much affection for the trade unions.

Lin Shangzhou could understand this.

The so-called workers' associations in Berlin are purely places for capitalists to entertain themselves, and they naturally do not care about the workers.

News also came from the Strasbourg Trade Union. After they had contacted and understood trade unions in other parts of Germany, they found that the trade unions in other places were filled with a large number of opportunists.

After learning the news, Lin Shangzhou felt deeply uneasy. If they participated in a large-scale strike, it would be hard to say whether the final result would be victory or failure.

However, in fact, the failure of the strike is beneficial to the SPD. The workers' failure can fully demonstrate the reactionary nature of the right-wing government, so that people will turn to the SPD or the National Liberal Party.

Moreover, the changes in workers' conditions after the SPD comes to power in the future will make the working class more supportive of the SPD, although this failure will cause workers to go through a difficult period before the SPD comes to power next year and changes workers' treatment.

In his conception, a thorough large-scale strike would have to wait for some time, but the actual development exceeded Lin Shangzhou's expectations.

In early September, several factories in Munich launched a strike. When Lin Shangzhou heard about this, factories in other parts of Germany also spontaneously responded to the strike.

When Lin Shangzhou learned about this, he was extremely surprised and helpless, because the reason why the workers in the Munich area went on strike was very simple: "Women's protests can win, why can't we?!"

The idea of ​​a strike came to them after seeing the victory of women, and the accumulated emotions over the past two months, coupled with the bad behavior of the factory owner, ultimately led them to choose to strike.

Their appearance disrupted Lin Shangzhou's plan. Neither the Free Workers' Union nor the General Trade Union were prepared, and he did not have the money ready. But things had come to this point and complaining was useless. The sudden general strike forced Lin Shangzhou to bite the bullet and fight on.

With the participation of the Free Workers' Federation and the General Labor Union, what was originally a regional strike quickly developed into a nationwide workers' strike in Germany within two days on September 3rd and 4th.

Faced with such a fierce situation, the German government took very tough measures to deal with it. Police and workers confronted each other on the streets, but fortunately both sides restrained themselves and no violent conflict occurred.

After two days of confrontation between the two sides, on September 7, Alexandrine hoped that Lin Shangzhou could come forward as a mediator between the government and the workers to mediate the conflict between the two sides, hoping to quell the strike as soon as possible.

The reason the German Emperor did this was that Cecilia told her that the military's attitude had wavered and that if the strike continued, the military would step in to suppress the workers.

Lin Shangzhou didn't want to see bloodshed, but he knew very well that there was no perfect solution at this time. No matter whether the government called the military or the military decided to take action on its own, one thing could not be changed - the military would take action sooner or later.

The Central Party government knows about this, so they will certainly not agree to all the workers' demands.

The workers don't know what the military is thinking. If they see that their demands are not met, they will most likely insist on continuing the strike.

One of the two parties must compromise, and in reality it is obvious that the workers will compromise.

If he came forward to mediate and the workers still compromised, his personal prestige would be hit. Finally, after repeated consideration, Lin Shangzhou decided to follow Alexandrine's instructions and act as a mediator specially appointed by the emperor to mediate the conflict between the government and the workers.

At the same time, in order to prevent his personal prestige from being hit too hard, Lin Shangzhou asked Cecilia to tell the military that the emperor hoped they would act with restraint.

After receiving the emperor's order, the military began "restrained" actions, only appearing on the scene to confront the workers on behalf of the police and putting a certain amount of pressure on them.

Lin Shangzhou only really came on the scene after the army entered the picture. In the end, the government only agreed to the request of reducing excessive working hours, and did not agree to any other demands.

The workers were naturally dissatisfied with this, but with the army present, they knew clearly which was more important, continuing the strike or their lives, so they were forced to stop the strike and return to their posts.

As for Lin Shangzhou's personal prestige, which he was worried about, it was not reduced as he thought. Instead, his prestige was enhanced thanks to the efforts of the Qianjin Daily.

After all, everyone could see that the situation at the time was difficult to handle, but he still managed to get fewer working hours for the workers.

After experiencing this difficult incident, Lin Shangzhou also realized that he had been too lax in dealing with workers' affairs in the past. If there had been a unified German trade union, this strike would definitely not have been so hasty.

Having learned his lesson, Lin Shangzhou decided to relax the restrictions on the General Federation of Trade Unions. At the same time, he held another meeting within the Social Democratic Party. At the third meeting, the revised "New Berlin Declaration" was formally passed and Lin Shangzhou's position as party leader was recognized.

Once this news was released, it attracted huge social attention. No one expected that the emperor's adviser would become the leader of the SPD. In order to prevent the right wing from getting too excited, Lin Shangzhou simply resigned from his position as the emperor's adviser and replaced a SPD member as a member of the Imperial Parliament.

With just over half a year left until the general election, it is time for him to make his mark in German politics.

.

Chapter 236 Attending Parliament

On September 15th, the second batch of communicators officially went on sale. However, people's attention was not entirely focused on this little gadget that attracted countless wealthy aristocrats. More people were paying attention to another thing - the first Chinese member of parliament in Germany would attend the Imperial Parliament for the first time today.

Although the SPD said that he was temporarily replacing a sick SPD member of parliament to attend the Reichstag, in fact, everyone who understands the situation knows that the so-called temporary is actually permanent.

Since the founding of the German Empire, such a thing has never happened that a non-German native became a member of the Imperial Parliament, not to mention that he was not white, but a person from the far east country with colonial territories occupied by Germany - China, or the Qing Dynasty.

This was a shocking event. For a time, German society was abuzz with discussions and speculations about Lin Shangzhou emerged one after another. However, due to Goebbels' efforts and the subsequent impact of the assassination of the German emperor's driver in the past (antipathy to extreme nationalism and tolerance of foreign immigrants), the German people did not have much negative emotions towards Lin Shangzhou. On the contrary, such events were praised by the "Forward" newspaper as progress in German democracy.

The fact that a Chinese immigrant became a member of the German Parliament encouraged other immigrant groups in Germany, such as those from the United States, Italy, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Northern Europe, and even Jews. They believed that if a Chinese could become a German parliamentarian, they also had the opportunity to get involved in German politics.

However, smart people know that a big part of the reason why Lin Shangzhou was able to become a member of parliament was because of his close relationship with the German emperor, so they decided to move closer to this Chinese-American congressman politically. In other words, they supported this new congressman and the Socialist People's Party behind him.

The right wing was very shocked when the SPD announced that Lin Shangzhou would become the party leader and that he would attend parliament on behalf of a sick member of parliament, and the extreme right was even more angry. They could not accept a Chinese person getting involved in German politics and tried every means to obstruct it. Unfortunately, their actions were all talk and no action, and not many people responded to them, not to mention that the right wing turned a blind eye to it, so Lin Shangzhou smoothly became a member of the Imperial Parliament.

Before becoming a member of parliament, in order to alleviate the concerns of the right wing, he publicly tendered his resignation to the Souci Palace, and Alexandrine agreed to it. This incident itself attracted considerable social attention, but people did not expect that another even more outrageous incident would break out within a few days (referring to Chinese parliamentarians).

After resigning from Wuyou Palace, Lin Shangzhou no longer had a suitable reason to go in and out of Wuyou Palace frequently. In the past, he was the emperor's adviser and was qualified to go in and out of Wuyou Palace frequently, but now he has resigned. After his resignation, it would be inappropriate for him, as a man, to frequently go in and out of Wuyou Palace, which is only for women.

Lin Shangzhou knew this himself, so he reduced the number of times he went to Wuyou Palace. He used to go there every day, but after resigning, he decided to go there two or three times a week. Anyway, he had a communicator, and if anything happened, they could contact each other through the communicator.

Letitia and Noah were very dissatisfied with this. They could see the person they liked every day before, but now he didn't go to Wuyou Palace, and Letitia and Noah couldn't take the initiative to go out and find him, so the two girls were full of resentment towards him on this matter.

But it’s actually okay, just squeeze him a little more when you’re together.

Outside the Reichstag in Berlin, reporters from all sides gathered, including those from other countries of the Reichstag. The fact that Germany had a Chinese-American parliamentarian attracted great attention in Europe and the world.

Amid countless expectant and curious gazes, Bode got out of the car and prepared to open the door for Lin Shangzhou. At this time, someone recognized that the uniform on Bode was the uniform of the Storm Commandos. This news quickly spread throughout the crowd. Reporters took pictures to record this scene. People curiously discussed what was going on and why the Storm Commandos would serve as Lin Shangzhou's bodyguards.

Bode ignored the noisy crowd and opened the car door for Lin Shangzhou. After the door was opened, Lin Shangzhou slowly walked out of the car. After getting out of the car, Lin Shangzhou saw the white flash of the camera light up again, and reporters rushed to take pictures of this Chinese-American congressman.

Some reporters who wanted to seize the opportunity took bold steps forward hoping to get to Lin Shangzhou's side and interview him about some questions. There were only the most basic guards at the entrance of the Capitol, and maintaining order had already consumed their energy. When they saw reporters walking towards Lin Shangzhou, they could not get away and could only scold him a few words.

When Bode saw a reporter coming over and wanted to stand in front of Lin Shangzhou to block them, Lin Shangzhou patted his shoulder to signal him not to move, and then waited for the reporter to come towards him.

The visitor seemed to be very familiar with Lin Shangzhou, and said with a smile: "Mr. Hipper, I didn't expect that you, a congressman, could cause such a sensation."

The reporter then turned around to look at the guards who were maintaining order and said, "But it's clear that some people don't like you very much."

Lin Shangzhou knew what he meant. The government knew that many reporters would follow him to the Capitol, so they should have sent more police to maintain order. However, the reality was that there were only the guards who had been on duty from the beginning.

"Humph."

Lin Shangzhou snorted and looked at the familiar face in front of him and said, "Ask any questions you want. This is my first time in parliament and I still have to find my seat."

The reporter who came was Ma Enna. If it was someone else, Lin Shangzhou would have asked Bode to stop them.

"Okay, I'll interview you right away."

Ma Enna smiled slightly, picked up a pen and notebook and began to ask Lin Shangzhou questions.

After answering Mainna's irrelevant questions such as "What do you think?" Lin Shangzhou walked towards the Reichstag and entered this building that stands in the political center of Germany. Lin Shangzhou was led by the staff to the room where the parliament was located.

The already full seats show that today's lawmakers are particularly active. However, there is still half an hour before the meeting starts. The right-wingers came so early purely to disgust Lin Shangzhou, a Chinese-American congressman.

After seeing the situation at the seat, Lin Shangzhou guessed that someone would use this matter to disgust him. He did not care too much. After thanking the staff, he walked towards Louis who was waving at him.

As expected, when he passed by a congressman, the other party called him "a Chinese with no sense of time", to which Lin Shangzhou responded that he hoped to see this diligent congressman arrive on time every time in the future.

If his presence could motivate members of parliament to arrive early and diligently, Lin Shangzhou would be happy about that.

"Hey, our Senator Hipper is here."

When Lin Shangzhou approached, Louis raised his eyebrows at Lin Shangzhou. Lin Shangzhou smiled and then sat in his seat.

After he sat down, he greeted the people around him. On Louis' side was Otto Wells, and the seat on his right was empty, but judging from the coat on the chair, the other person had just gone to the toilet.

A few minutes later, the owner of the seat next to him came back. Lin Shangzhou was surprised when he saw the other person's appearance. He didn't expect Erich Koch to be sitting next to him.

Erich greeted Lin Shangzhou kindly, and Lin Shangzhou also responded to him in a friendly manner. Although he was once an opponent in his own party, this former opponent has now become a staunch supporter of Lin Shangzhou. No matter what this guy thinks, a united Social Democratic Party is a good thing for Lin Shangzhou.

Then, more than ten minutes later, Alexandrine came to the parliament and sat in her seat. Cecilia stood beside her as usual. After the two of them arrived, Papen announced the start of the parliament.

Some members of parliament proposed a motion to restrict some of the workers' rights. Such a reaction from the right wing was expected by Social Democrats such as Lin Shangzhou. The problems that arose in the previous general strike fully demonstrated that German workers had not yet fully united. For the right wing, they wanted to seize this opportunity to restrict the rights of German workers.

The right wing supported the proposal, while the Social Democratic Party strongly opposed it, with Lin Shangzhou's attitude being the most resolute. Alexandrine pretended to think about it for a while, but then refuted the proposal, believing that it was not conducive to Germany's development and was undemocratic.

After it was refuted, the right wing then put forward another motion proposing to replace the past trade unions with the Berlin "workers' association" system and extend it to the whole country.

This proposal not only received broad support from the right wing, but also received partial support from centrist MPs. After this situation occurred, Lin Shangzhou felt that it was not good. If the capitalist union replaced the trade union, the German workers would have a hard time before the general election next year, and the efforts of the Strasbourg Confederation of Labor would be in vain.

Alexandrine knew what the so-called workers' association was like, but after seeing that most people supported the proposal, she chose to play Tai Chi. She shelved the proposal on the grounds that "it needs to be considered" and "each state has its own ideas."

The right wing is speechless about this. "Each state has its own ideas." Damn, who else but Bavaria would really disobey Berlin's orders?

But the emperor had already said so, and the passage of the proposal required the emperor's approval. The right wing had no choice but to shelve it. It was better than being rejected.

Lin Shangzhou breathed a sigh of relief after seeing this result. He planned to tell Alexandria to put this bill on hold for several months after he returned, and it would be best if it could be postponed until next year's general election.

After these things, there were some things that had little to do with Lin Shangzhou's interests, but he still listened carefully to every proposal and expressed his opinions on them. His diligence surprised others.

At 11 o'clock in the morning, the meeting ended and Lin Shangzhou walked out of the Capitol. As soon as he went out, he felt countless gazes just like when he came in. Ma Enna still came forward to interview him, but this time Lin Shangzhou also answered questions from some other reporters he didn't know.

After answering the reporter's questions, Lin Shangzhou got into his car and left the Capitol.

.

Chapter 237: Encounter at a Restaurant

After leaving the Capitol, Lin Shangzhou decided to go to the Havok Research Institute first. He wanted to go there to see the research progress of the Havok team, and then go to the Worries Palace to tell Alexandrine his ideas and let her practice Tai Chi on the matter, and then return to the newspaper office to work in the afternoon.

Although Bauman is very capable at work, Lin Shangzhou will do many things himself. In the future, he wants Bauman to handle official business by his side. He needs to let Bauman know that he is just a secretary and can only help him do things.

"Bode, let's go to the Havok Research Institute first."

Lin Shangzhou looked out the window and said to Bode who was driving.

"Mr. Hipper, aren't you going to eat first?"

"You are hungry?"

Hearing this, Lin Shangzhou looked at Bode in the rearview mirror and asked, and the young man nodded a little embarrassedly.