Great time travel

Chapter 123: A Resilient Biosphere and a Fragile Civilization
Judging from the fact that the earth is still full of vitality after five mass extinctions, the resilience of the earth's biosphere is undoubtedly beyond doubt.However, judging from the relics of ancient human civilizations such as the ancient Maya and ancient India, the fragility of human civilization is beyond doubt.

To sum up, human beings may not be able to destroy the earth, but they can definitely destroy themselves.

The volcanic eruption in Iceland has naturally had minimal impact on the entire earth's biosphere, and it can't even cause small-scale extinctions of species.But for the fragile human civilized society, it has already been a catastrophe of landslides and ground cracks.

——Especially in the case of the human civilized society on the European continent, which has been tossed to the verge of disintegration by the flames of war before, and is only short of the final blow: so far, Europe, which was once the center of world civilization, is now ravaged by war Countries are still basically in a desolate state of ruins.Even without considering Britain, which is currently in a state of anarchic melee, in continental European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain, there are about 5000 million to 8000 million people who have died because of the destruction of cities. homeless.These people dwell in cellars, ruins, and caves, as long as they have a shelter.There are tens of millions of people who don't even have such a shelter and can only sleep in the wilderness.

Obviously, such poor living conditions cannot withstand the extremely cold weather of minus [-] degrees Celsius. It is just a trivial matter to freeze millions to death.

Even those urban residents who were lucky enough to keep their houses were miserable.Because the urban infrastructure was destroyed by the war, they were completely deprived of the most basic public services, such as drinking water, gas, and electricity. There are such miserable people everywhere in Europe.

For example, in the French port of Marseille, where a bloody tug-of-war has been fought for more than half a year, only two street lights remained in the city after the ceasefire, and 80% of the houses were reduced to rubble.In Vienna, the capital of music, due to the low governance ability of the new Austrian government, frequent internal strife, and no intention to restore the economy, the running water and electricity have not been restored. Ice melting water, even senior officials who visit here, only have one bottle of water for washing every day.People are sitting in the middle of the broken machines of the twentieth century, living the life of the middle ages.

Even in the mainland of the Soviet Union, where the post-war reconstruction had been initially completed, due to the nuclear explosion, there were still a large number of homeless war refugees, who could only live in temporary shelters urgently arranged by the Soviet government. There are forty people, packed like sardines in a can.

Although European cities are in ruins, life in European rural areas is actually not easy.Due to the war, the arable land in continental Europe was either overcultivated, burned by soldiers, flooded, or abandoned.Mussolini tried his best to drain the swamps in southern Italy, but in the ensuing melee, the Allies deliberately flooded the area, which caused a severe malaria epidemic.During the battle between the Soviet army and the British army for the Netherlands, the British army also deliberately opened the Dutch sea dam, causing more than 30 hectares of pastures and cultivated land to be flooded by sea water.

When the war was just over, the victorious Stalin overlooked the European continent, only to find that due to the scorched-earth policy adopted by all parties in the war, the orchards and vineyards in the countryside were burned, poultry and livestock were slaughtered, and even water conservancy facilities were maliciously destroyed. Destruction, such as blowing up the reservoir dam and the like——During the retreat of Nazi Germany, Himmler clearly ordered the front-line SS commanders to completely destroy everything in the occupied areas and even the lost land: "After we leave, No prisoners, no livestock, no grain, no railroad tracks... the enemy will only find a country completely burned and destroyed."

Of course, compared with villages and pastures, industrial and mining enterprises are the first targets to be destroyed.For example, in Hungary, more than 90% of the factories were deliberately burned by the Germans, and almost all coal mines were flooded or collapsed.And in Yugoslavia, where the war was even worse, it has simply been sent back to the agricultural country.

Under such circumstances, the situation of European agriculture is naturally extremely bleak. Even if the surviving farmers escaped the direct killing of the war, when they returned to their hometown, they found themselves in such a desperate situation: no fertilizer, no Pesticides, lack of seeds, no farm machinery - and if there was any, the fuel needed to run them could not be found.Even if they dig out the old wooden plows used by their ancestors, they can't find the animals to pull the plows, so they can only dig the ground with their own hands with hoes.Even irrigation reservoirs have been blown up, and agricultural water is dependent on rain.

Uh, in addition, there are countless landmines buried in many reservoirs, canals and fields. If you want to farm, you have to risk being killed at any time.

Obviously, under such circumstances, the food production in most parts of Europe immediately fell back to the level of the Middle Ages... What's more, with the eruption of the volcano in Iceland, Europe ushered in a "year without summer" "The European villages have lost even the medieval level of food production.

Moreover, according to the evaluation of experts, this situation of basically no harvest in agriculture may have to continue for another two years at a short time, or five years at a time...

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Under such circumstances, the European countries that are in a desperate situation, especially the Western and Southern European countries that have just subsided, can only kneel down and beg for help from the Soviet Union.But then I discovered even more desperately that the current traffic in Europe is generally paralyzed, and even if there is aid, it cannot be sent in!

——The roads throughout Europe are covered with landmines, telephone lines have been cut off, bridges and bridges have been blown up, and traffic across Europe has been paralyzed except for a few main lines carrying military missions.In France and Italy, 80% of the railway and 60% of the road network are unusable.In Greece, three-quarters of the ships before the war were destroyed, and even the port facilities were basically in ruins.The only form of transportation generally valid for Europeans is walking.

To make matters worse, because the Third World War is still going on, millions of anti-government guerrillas are active in European countries, listening to the remote radio instructions of the White House and the Pentagon, bombing bridges, tearing down railways, Digging dams, burning warehouses... The speed of infrastructure repair in many areas is often not as fast as their destruction speed. In the face of super cold waves, abnormal weather and famine, it is naturally more miserable.

Under such circumstances, the capitals and big cities of various countries can only maintain the minimum standard wartime food rationing system at best, and in most remote or severely damaged areas, the local governments—if they still If there is such a thing as a government, the rationing system can no longer be maintained. You can only do nothing and let the people fend for themselves: this is the current situation in Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

The Soviet Union had no choice but to shrink its troops and let it go. Apart from retaining a few port strongholds that could be replenished by sea, the main force of the Red Army originally stationed in Western Europe had basically withdrawn in the summer of [-]. The area west of the "Berlin-Geneva" line retreated to Eastern Europe, where the situation was relatively good, allowing France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain to "self-reliant" and solve domestic livelihood problems on their own.

As a result, no Western European country could solve its own livelihood problems, and only knew to continue to ask for aid from the Soviet Union—but even if the aid was obtained, it could not be distributed due to traffic paralysis, and could only be hoarded and consumed slowly at the port.At the same time, it also triggered an unprecedented wave of refugees. More than 2000 million hungry and cold French, Italians, Spaniards, Belgians, Dutch, Germans and people from various countries in Eastern Europe struggled to escape to the legendary desert with milk and bread. In the Soviet Union, more than half of them died halfway, and less than 1000 million people were able to step into the territory of the Soviet Union alive.

After the refugees entered the country, according to the Kremlin's top instructions, all refugees, except some technical personnel and their families, were not allowed to stay in the European territory of the Soviet Union.Naturally, the refugees reacted very strongly, and no one was willing to go to a place like Siberia willingly.But the problem is, if they are determined not to go to Siberia, then Stalin will send them to hell.

——The Red Army in Stalin’s era was not the Red Army that was soft-hearted later on. The power of the political commissar and the prestige of the Cheka are still more terrifying than the Satan of Hell. To deal with the European refugees frantically pouring into the country at the moment, the Soviets naturally take the same approach The policy of iron and blood, as long as the refugees who dare to make trouble are counter-revolutionaries, they will be shot directly... The Cheka fighters in charge of the implementation originally thought that at least 30 to [-] people would have to be shot to have a deterrent effect.Unexpectedly, more than [-] people were shot before and after, and the remaining refugees were basically honest. It can be seen that these Europeans are really timid.

On the other hand, for Siberia, which has always been short of labor, the bad news of Europe is the gospel of Siberia-with the rapid influx of nearly 1000 million European refugees, Siberia's human resources are now almost overflowing, and It is not the illiterate people in Central Asia who are only willing to recite scriptures and are unwilling to go to school, but high-quality talents from Europe, such as engineers, senior workers, university professors, and agricultural experts. In the difficult initial stage, the prospect of victory in the great development of Siberia must be just around the corner!
——Just as the formation of fertile deltas at the mouth of those big rivers must be at the cost of soil erosion on both sides of the upstream river.The dawn of civilization suddenly appearing in the wilderness of Siberia now needs to use the falling darkness of the whole of Europe as a stepping stone...

"...French newspapers in recent days have been lamenting that the whole of Europe is entering another dark age after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Comrade Stalin's evaluation of this is, you literati who can only shake pens, While newspapers are still being published, spread more fallacies! The real dark age is yet to come! By then, even paper, ink, and newspaper offices will all disappear!"

The ship's mother Sophie spoke so plainly of a topic that would make ordinary people creepy, as if she was just telling a common cold joke.

"...Such words are really cruel...but it is indeed the truth."

Wang Qiu shook his head, "...So, what kind of views do Stalin and the Kremlin hold on the current nightmare life of Europeans? For the European continent that is going into darkness, even if the big brother of the Soviet Union can't be the savior, he has to bear the responsibility. Take some responsibility?"

"... Regarding this question, Stalin's answer was: In the present situation, I cannot make Europeans live better than Africans, but I can only work hard to lower the living standards of the people of the enemy countries so that they can live even better than Africans. We can’t make it through, so as to enhance the happiness of the European people..."

——Well, this answer is really hairy and steely...full of the cruel and violent aesthetics of Uncle Steel and the Slavic nation.

"...Eh? The whole world is already in this situation. In the next two years, those Europeans who stayed in their hometowns can still have the living standards of Africans? I thought it would directly fall to the The standard of living of the cannibals in Papua New Guinea!"

In this regard, Ma Tong blinked curiously, said with an "innocent" face, and tilted his head cutely.

However, the content described in her words is so... Ugh, it's really disgusting!
Fortunately, all of you here are extraordinary people who are used to seeing the big world, so naturally, everyone can take this small scene calmly.

But by the same token, they have no empathy or compassion for the various tragedies that happened in Europe.

What's more, not to mention the traversers who stayed out of the matter, even the leaders of the Soviet Union, in this period of life-and-death all-out war, threw all compassion and benevolence out of the sky, leaving only a cold heart of stone.

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In fact, for the Soviets, sitting back and watching European civilization go to ruin may be the real foresight and long-term stability.

Since the birth of Russian civilization, it has been in a serious geographical dilemma-geographically, Russia is a country that is difficult to defend, and the core areas of most countries have certain geographical barriers to establish defense lines.The core area of ​​Russia has continued from the Grand Duchy of Moscow in the Middle Ages to the present, and there are no mountains, rivers, oceans, etc. to provide protection for it. Its national defense strategy is not based on terrain obstacles, but on the harsh climate to exhaust the enemy's strength. The scorched-earth strategic defense method that caused great damage to itself has caused Russia to suffer from various sufferings in history.

Historically, the invasion of Russia mainly came from two directions: the Eurasian steppe and the Pod Plain, the former such as the Mongols and earlier Huns, and the latter such as the Teutonic Knights, Napoleon, the First German Empire, and the Nazi Empire ——The invasion and expulsion of the Mongols gradually formed Russian civilization through the tempering of blood and fire, while the defense against European enemy countries relied on repeated strides of retreat and scorched-earth policies, and finally ended in tragic victory.

In order to make up for its own defense weakness, for Russia, expansion is the best defense-it must expand all the way to the foot of the mountain and the coast.In any period of history, the Russian country can hardly count on natural barriers to protect itself. Although the north is protected by the Arctic ice sea, and the south is protected by the Black Sea-Caucasus, the east and west sides of the country are wide open, and the road is smooth. There are risks.

In the face of military pressure from the east and the west, Russia needs to continuously expand the buffer zone and win victory by consumption and time. However, occupying a large buffer zone requires garrisons, internal affairs police, and intelligence agencies to maintain rule, forcing Russia to continue to expand outward. , On the one hand, it is necessary to centralize power and even implement a policy of terror... After paying a huge price, the Russians finally expanded eastward to the Pacific coast, ensuring the security of the eastern front in the core hinterland.But on the Western Front, it has only been pushed to Poland, and it cannot be pushed anymore-according to the standard of absolute safety, it needs to be conquered all the way to France!

Although the Russians have been pushing their borders westward as much as possible, compressing the opponent's space.But this is really too difficult, because the west is the hinterland of the European powers, and breaking the head may not win.Moreover, even if the Russians were lucky enough to conquer all of Europe, fight all the way to France, and wash military boots in the Strait of Dover, Russia does not have enough population to digest such a huge territory. Even in the existing territory, the Russian nation The proportion of China is barely more than half of the total population, religious and ethnic issues are in a mess, and the pressure to maintain internal stability is much stronger than that of other powers.

It can be seen that Russia's political center of gravity is separated from its economic center of gravity, and the economic center of gravity is occupied by other nations, so that Russia can only be ruled by a centralized and coercive system, while the economic center of gravity is close to the front line of the war and has no natural dangers to defend. Defeat can easily lead to economic collapse and national disintegration.

——The core problem of Russia’s geostrategy is that because the hinterland is open and there are no dangerous passes to defend, it must rely on a large-scale expansion offensive to maintain the security of the empire. However, excessive expansion leads to indigestion, which in turn leads to internal security problems and disintegration. The risk is so strong that a strong political system is needed to maintain the existence of the empire, and when the system collapses or a powerful enemy invades, internal regional disintegration and national security issues will erupt at the same time.

However, against the background of the outbreak of World War III and global nuclear explosions, the Kremlin found that there was a solution to this geostrategic dilemma: If the European continent west of the border was as ignorant and backward as Black Africa, and as sparsely populated as Siberia, So what?

——In this way, the Soviet Union can build a super empire with only a small hinterland just like the Romans conquered the Mediterranean world!

When the ancient Roman Empire was established, Rome's population was not large, and its level of civilization was not as good as that of the Carthaginians and Greeks. However, relying on the relatively small Italian peninsula, it attacked from all directions, and it was always disadvantageous.While learning civilization and technology from the Greeks, they practiced with barbarian nations as targets. At the same time, with a relatively high level of civilization, they merged with various neighboring nations and eventually ruled the West for 500 years.

The current situation in the Soviet Union is somewhat similar to when the Roman Empire was founded - the Soviet Union itself has stood on top of the world, and it no longer needs to absorb nutrients from the civilizations of advanced European countries to develop itself, it only needs to successfully integrate them, It can reach the sky in one step: For this reason, it is necessary to make other European countries all poorer, backward and ignorant than the Soviet Union, and they can only lie on the ground and look up at the prosperity and wealth of the great Soviet Union. , but the rich and the poor are always relative, as long as other countries are made poorer, there will be no problem), in order to compete for a place to become a Soviet citizen, break the head, and then provide a steady stream of high-quality goods to the labor-scarce Soviet Union Human resource supplement...

In short, it is the Soviet version of the American dream... But because the hardware conditions of the Soviet Union are not as good as those of the United States, in order to make the life of Soviet citizens widely attractive, it is necessary to appropriately lower the living standards of people in other countries so that they It's only going to be worse...

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On the other hand, even while scrambling to deal with the disaster in Europe, the Soviets never stopped their nuclear strikes on the Sahara Desert and the regions south of the Arabian Desert.The strategic nuclear strike long-range bomber force of the Soviet Union has been effectively and rapidly reducing the living standards of civilians in the enemy country on the opposite side of the front line, mainly Arabs, with a frequency of sometimes two atomic bombs per day and sometimes three atomic bombs per day for more than half a year.

——At the beginning of the southward retreat along the east coast of the Red Sea with 30 US and British allied forces from Jerusalem, Admiral Eisenhower originally planned to set up his headquarters in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, so as to facilitate the nearby coordination with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia government. Gather as much supplies as possible from the land.

Unexpectedly, the headquarters is still in the middle of relocation, Riyadh has already been dropped an atomic bomb by the crazy Soviets, and Saudi Arabia has perished... Looking at the mushroom cloud rising at the end of the horizon, General Eisenhower in the desert reluctantly ordered the convoy Turning around and turning to Jeddah Port, who knows that just a few hours later, Jeddah Port, where a large number of American and British allied forces gathered, was also hit by a Soviet atomic bomb, killing [-] US troops and [-] citizens.

Seeing that the port of Jeddah was also finished, Eisenhower had no choice but to move the headquarters into the holy city of Medina despite the protests and riots of the locals, thinking that with the religious status of this place, the Soviets should not dare to mess around again. Did you drop the atomic bomb?It never occurred to me that Comrade Stalin, who didn’t believe in evil, had already gone mad after the nuclear bombing of Leningrad. He didn’t care about the holy city of the heathen. He continued to treat the two cities of Mecca and Medina with atomic bombs. Just like God in the "Bible" sent fire from heaven to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, these two religious holy cities were easily destroyed.

——As the saying goes, "Under the nuclear bomb, all living beings are equal", in the face of deadly heat, radiation and shock waves, no city is more noble.

Nevertheless, Admiral Eisenhower was lucky to escape the catastrophe again.But the nuclear bombs of the Soviets were still falling like hailstones one after another... In the next few days, there was no city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that had not been bombed, and there were not a few cities that had not been bombed. The polluted water source was gone, so Eisenhower had to relocate long distances again, and moved the headquarters to the port of Aden in Yemen with the troops that continued to retreat to the south... As a result, it took only three days to settle down, when another atomic bomb hit the top of the port of Aden. More than 1 U.S. troops and more citizens were sent to the sky.

In this way, for the next few months, Eisenhower moved around the Arabian Peninsula, playing hide-and-seek with Soviet nuclear bombs, while watching cities turn into radioactive wasteland... Finally, in the summer, given the reality of the Arabian Peninsula It was too unsafe, so Eisenhower had to completely move his headquarters out of Asia and continue to retreat south to the port of Mombasa in Kenya, East Africa. The combat radius of the Soviet strategic nuclear strike bomber formation is already out of reach.

The Americans who came from afar can certainly go away, but those Arabs who were devastated by the bombing looked at the cities and oases swallowed by the mushroom cloud, but they could only lament in despair: "Wherever Eisenhower went, the atomic bomb followed." !” —— lamentation is lamentation, but facing the Soviet Union’s atomic bombs everywhere and the American and British allies who are lingering, as native Arabs, there is really nothing they can do except to sit and wait for death.

In fact, not only the Soviets dropped nuclear bombs all over the Arab world, but the Americans also dropped the last two atomic bombs on hand.The first was the nuclear explosion of Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal, which destroyed the Suez Canal more thoroughly, blocking the possibility of the Soviet Red Navy rushing out of the Mediterranean Sea from here and entering the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.Another atomic bomb was used to nuclear-explode Cairo, which successfully created millions of refugees and turned Egypt into an anarchic mess, making it difficult for the Soviet Red Army to travel upstream along the Nile River and attack the Allies from the east to the south. Army-controlled black Africa.

And as time went on, more Soviet atomic bombs continued to fall on the edge of the Sahara and Arabian deserts, turning cities and ports into radioactive dust.According to the development of this situation, the next stage of the third war is likely to become a mushroom-growing competition between the two camps separated by the desert.As for how many Arabs and African black uncles will die on the front line of the nuclear explosion, it is just a secondary issue that no one cares about.

——Even if you die, you can only consider yourself unlucky... In the era when power is truth and bullets are justice, this is the sorrow of being a weak person.

Not only did the two camps not care about their lives, they even planned to intensify their raids on them to deal with the food crisis and war consumption.

In addition to Africa and West Asia, before the Soviets withdrew their troops from Western Europe on a large scale, they also dropped dozens of atomic bombs on the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It completely eliminated the possibility of the US military counterattacking Europe from the Atlantic direction.

At the same time, on the other side of the earth, since the successful end of the battle to seize the islands in the South Pacific and planting the military flag on Easter Island, the Japanese Navy Combined Fleet, which had been silent for a long time, also rose again in the spring of [-]. The battle flag was raised, the anchor was pulled out to sea, and a new big battle was launched...