Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

In the twentieth century, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War ensued; Britain did not dare to give up this natural danger easily.

Until the end of the 20th century, the international situation changed. The United Kingdom joined the European Community in 1973. In less than 20 years, the volume of passenger and freight traffic across the English Channel doubled. There was an obvious need to establish a more convenient and faster link between Britain and continental Europe.

In February 1986, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Canterbury on tunnel connection. The tunnel project officially started in December of the following year and was officially opened to traffic on May 1994. It took more than 8 years and cost about 10 billion pounds (approximately 10 billion pounds). 15 billion US dollars), which greatly shortens the time for traveling from Europe to and from the UK (the tunnel length is 50 kilometers, the submarine length is 39 kilometers, and the one-way only takes 35 minutes).

Although Yannick's preparations started more than 30 years in advance, it is not impossible. Some countries have dug undersea tunnels before.

"Undersea tunnel?!" Queen Elizabeth couldn't help but widen her eyes. It's not like she hasn't heard rumors about the undersea tunnel before, but those are just rumors, and what Yannick said may really mean that construction will start. "How much time and money will it cost?"

"In terms of time, it's about 10 years, and in terms of money, it's about 10 billion euros, and with those prisoners of war at my disposal, I can save a lot." This is also one of the reasons why Yannick is eager to start the English Channel Tunnel project. Now with the war situation, It has become increasingly clear that the whole of Europe has once again set off a "new infrastructure" boom. In addition to the English Channel Tunnel project, high-speed railways and highways throughout the European continent, large bridges, large jet airports, various electric and hydraulic communication facilities, etc. are in full swing.

"I really hope this war can drag on for another three to five years, and then the whole of Europe can accelerate its development for at least 20 or 30 years." Think about it, if they don't take the initiative to attack, this war can really drag on for several years.

Queen Elizabeth sighed softly. "Isn't this too cruel to those prisoners of war?"

"Cruel?" Yannick almost laughed out loud. Compared to the way the Soviet Union and Japan treated prisoners of war in the original time and space, he was simply a living Bodhisattva.

The brutality of the Japanese army goes without saying. As for the Soviet Union, the Soviet army captured more than 5 million prisoners of war from Germany, Italy, Japan, Hungary, and Romania throughout World War II. A total of 24 frontline prisoner of war camps, 72 reception and delivery stations, more than 500 prisoner of war camps, 421 labor camps and 322 repatriation camps were established. Another 2,112 prisoner of war camps were established under the prisoner of war camps, almost throughout the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union suffered huge losses during the Great Patriotic War, especially the loss of labor resources. After the war broke out, millions of young men in the Soviet Union went to the front lines. By the end of 1941, the number of workers and clerks in the Soviet national economy had dropped sharply, equivalent to only 7% of the pre-war level, and the ratio of male to female labor force had changed significantly. The number of prisoners engaged in forced labor in many fields has also dropped sharply due to the large number of soldiers joining the army. Because of the shortage of labor force, even pregnant women, nursing mothers, patients, and blood donors who had not been engaged in childbirth in the past were recruited in large numbers by the Soviet Union to engage in front-line production.

In order to make up for the serious shortage of domestic labor force, restore and develop the national economy as soon as possible, and offset the expenses of holding prisoners of war, the Soviet Union decided without hesitation to use prisoners of war to engage in forced labor.

In June 1945, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain determined at the Yalta Conference that they would use German labor as a method of war compensation (the topic of using Germans as forced labor for compensation was first raised at the Tehran Conference in 1943). The war against Germany has ended, and the number of prisoners of war has increased sharply. How to maximize the use of prisoner of war labor and restore and rebuild the national economy has become an important task for the post-war Soviet Union.

Subsequently, the Soviet Defense Committee promulgated "Resolution No. 8921" and began to use prisoners of war to work on a larger scale in various fields of the national economy, thereby maximizing the cost of incarcerating prisoners of war.

According to statistics, from 1943 to 1949, the total output value created by these prisoners of war reached 50 billion rubles, of which the output value created by German prisoners of war accounted for 64%. Mainly concentrated in important fields such as construction, road construction, fuel and power, defense industry, metallurgy and machine manufacturing, timber harvesting and processing, which require high physical exertion, serious shortage of labor force, and large financial expenditures for hiring workers.

Prisoners of war not only built a large number of railways and roads, but also built and rebuilt a large number of heavy industry enterprises. They also completed some defense industry projects. After the war, prisoners of war accounted for 4% of the total labor force in the defense industry. Prisoners of war also played an important role in the reconstruction of Stalingrad. Prisoners of war worked successively at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, the Stalingrad Oil Supply Station, the Yerman Wood Processing Plant, Factory No. 91, the "Red October" metallurgical factory, the "Barricade" factory, the Red Army and the Stalingrad Ship Repair Plant. He participated in the construction of the Stalingrad Hydropower Station, the construction of the Saratov-Stalingrad-Almavir road, and the construction of the canal between the Volga River and the Don River.

Prisoners of war made up for the serious shortage of labor force in the Soviet Union after the war, helped the Soviet Union build a number of industrial projects in a short period of time, and promoted the rapid development of Soviet industry. The price was that more than one million German prisoners of war never returned to their homeland.

Another group of labor force that the Soviet Union focused on "taking care of" was the Japanese army. You must know that the Soviet Union and the island country have long been enemies. As early as 1904, in the Russo-Japanese War, the Soviet army suffered 160,000 casualties and 80,000 prisoners. It can be said to be a heavy loss. In the Battle of Nomenhan in World War II, although the Soviet Union suffered a huge The Japanese army was defeated, but it also cost more than 30,000 casualties.

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union captured hundreds of thousands of Kwantung Army soldiers. Originally, according to the relevant provisions of the Potsdam Declaration of the Allied Powers, these captured Kwantung Army prisoners of war should be repatriated to the island country after the war, except those charged with war crimes. However, the top Soviet officials decided not to release these prisoners of war for the time being. Instead, under the pretext of repatriating them to the country, they were transported by train to Siberia for "reform through labor" and to participate in the post-war reconstruction of Soviet Russia.

Due to the inconvenient transportation at that time, the Far East of the Soviet Union basically relied on the Siberian Railway for transportation. At that time, Japanese prisoners of war had to complete a large amount of distance on foot. If they were not left behind on the road, they would be shot. The cold weather caused many prisoners of war to freeze to death on the march.

In order to speed up the march, the Soviet army deceived these prisoners of war and said that they would transport them back to the island country through the Siberian Railway. So when the prisoners of war walked to Lake Baikal, they thought they could return to the country when they reached the seaside and get on the boat.

Finally arrived in Siberia. Many mines did not have room to accommodate so many prisoners, so these prisoners had to build their own houses. The Soviet Union was already short of supplies at that time, and 600,000 prisoners was not a small number. They even ate their own people. If they weren't full, of course they couldn't care about the prisoners. The regular meals were only enough to feed half of them. At night, the temperature was over 40 degrees below zero, and dozens of prisoners of war were crowded into the drafty work sheds. Some people froze to death every night. The temperature was too low and the soil was hard. There was no place to bury these frozen people.

However, after the initial period of crazy oppression, the Soviets slowly discovered that the resentment of these laborers seemed to be increasing day by day. In order to prevent them from mutiny, they decided to let them complete their work every day and at the same time provide ideological and political education to these prisoners of war. The Soviets arranged ideological classes for these prisoners of war, forced them to receive Marxist-Leninist ideological education, and even conducted assessments. Once some prisoners of war passed the ideological assessment class, they would receive better treatment. As for those whose thoughts are not simple yet, just continue to do hard work until they figure it out.

In such an environment, the thinking of Japanese prisoners of war was sublimated in all aspects. Some prisoners of war even performed extremely well and were willing to become spies for the Soviet Union after returning home.

Although all walks of life in the island countries have done a lot of hard work for the repatriation of prisoners of war, the Soviet Union did not respond most of the time and remained silent before the post-war reconstruction was completed. Really annoyed, the Soviets sent several ships of ashes to the island country, including even the ashes of Emperor Hirohito's nephew Mitsui Taimaru. The emperor was so angry that he almost vomited blood. It was not until October 1946 that the Soviet Union began to repatriate Japanese prisoners of war. At the same time, the Soviet Union also tried its best to delay the repatriation process. It was not until the end of 1956 that the last 1,025 people were repatriated to the island country, and more than 600,000 prisoners were taken. Only more than 300,000 people returned to the island country alive.

"The Soviet Union did not sign the Geneva Treaty, and I gave those Soviet soldiers treaty treatment, otherwise these guys would realize what cruelty is."

(The Spring Festival is coming, I am a bit busy, there may only be one chapter in these few days)