Chapter 52: If you want to fight, build the road first
Midway through the story, Tom pointed to the beautiful Texas flag on the cotton swab.
"If one day comes, I, Tom Smith, will be like Jefferson Hamilton Davis, holding the banner of our Texas and rushing to the front!"
"Even if I die in battle, I will enter heaven with a smile!"
"I will meet those glorious ancestors of Texas. I can walk up to the great Charlemagne with my head held high. I can proudly say to him: I, your descendant, have not embarrassed you. I am great for you."
Slavery and Texas shed its last drop of blood!”
"We fight for slavery! We don't fight for freedom!"
"We are not machines, we are not cattle and horses, we are slave owners!"
"A Texan who never gave in!"
"We unite in the name of the monarchy!"
"Fight for a new, hierarchical world!"
“We fight for slaves for all! We fight for those we enslaved to return to Texas and be slaves again!”
“Fight so we don’t have to shout protests all day long! Fight for our dignity! Fight for our promises!”
"Fight for the restoration of monarchy in this country! Texans, we fight for the honor of our ancestors!"
"Fight so that our children and grandchildren can proudly say: We are Texans who never surrender!"
"Long live Texas and its people, my fellow citizens! Long live freedom!"
"Long live!"
"Long live slavery!"
"Go and fight for slaves and land!"
At Tom's call, the first batch of tens of thousands of pioneer employees from Hero Company boarded the expedition ship.
A "small number" of knights and attendants under the name of Tom's Hero Company boarded the civilian ship and embarked on an expedition.
Tom, a new knight, does not have many knights and squires under his name.
The total number of knights and attendants planned to go to the battlefield is only 150,000, which is only a few hundred million more than the French expeditionary force of several thousand.
Including the logistics personnel in Houston, there are still not many, just over one million people.
“Recently, I feel like Europeans and Yankees can’t buy anything anymore.”
"We can't stop the factory, so let's make some munitions to consume."
"Employees who don't work are waste, and employees who work are employees."
"John, this is the war plan. Get it and follow it when you get to Mexico."
"Whether our hero company can own a territory as large as Texas depends on you."
"Come on, you are the real hero of our hero company!"
"The cannons are firing to blast his mother, and the sea is coming back home."
Tom gave his "number one knight squire" - John, an envelope. On the cover of the envelope was this eternal line from the "great poet" during the Republic of China.
John, who couldn't read Chinese, didn't pay attention to this "the most powerful military poem in history" and boarded the paddle steamer with the envelope.
Looking at the paddle steamer getting further away, Tom couldn't help but sit down on the edge of the harbor and started crying.
With Tom, who had just made a passionate speech, "taking the lead in crying", all the family members of the soldiers who were leaving were also standing by the port crying. The scene was quite miserable.
"Woooooo~ My employees, my employees, my employees!"
"Brother Tom, are you okay? We brothers are not going to the battlefield in person, so there is nothing to cry about."
"What do you know! War has always hurt capitalists like me the most."
"???"
"Capitalists have always been the main victims of war. Capitalists lost their employees, their slaves, and their tools of production in the war."
"???"
"Where are those soldiers? They just lost their lives, but I lost my assets!"
"???"
"Uuuuu~ They are all my tools and my assets, can't I just cry?"
"???"
Loki: I know you are not a human being, brother, but can you at least look like a human being?
Tom paid homage to what Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton called "the theory of male oppression."
She Hillary can say that the death of men in war is the gender oppression of women.
Why can't I, Tom, say that the death of employees in the war is an oppression of capitalists like me?
Finally, Tom kept "crying" until the paddle steamer sank into the sea level and disappeared from the sight of the people seeing him off.
Tom stopped crying, put on a smiling face, called Rocky and Johnny and walked towards the carriage.
"Let's go, pop the champagne to celebrate the start of the war."
"???"
——————
John Muller led tens of thousands of "apprentice knights" to the port of Veracruz.
Henri Rene de Talleyrand who greeted John at the port was dumbfounded as dozens of paddle steamers entered the port in an orderly manner.
"Mr. Muller, is this the "Knight Squire" under Knight Smith?"
"Yes, Your Excellency, the noble Minister Henri René de Talleyrand, I am also a "knight squire" under the knight Tom Smith."
"Didn't he say there were only a few people?"
"It's true that there are just a few hundred million people here, and there will be several groups of people in the future."
"besides?"
"For this war, Lord Knight Smith has mobilized almost all of the "Knights and Squires". It is expected that 150,000 "Knights and Squires" will eventually be put into the frontal battlefield."
"One hundred and fifty thousand?"
These did not come directly from the US-Mexico border, but took the sea route.
In René's eyes, this was half an expedition.
Tom also promised not to participate in the war from the US-Mexico border in order to prevent the US government from making excuses.
Rene was very happy at the time, feeling that Tom could only send a few hundred people to participate in the war with "secret weapons" at best.
Even if a miracle happens and the situation of the war is reversed, France's thousands of expeditionary troops will still be the largest "main force in enclosing land".
Even the kings of large European countries dare not say that they have the ability to support an expedition with an army of 150,000 people.
Rene was a little incredulous, already wondering whether this Tom Smith was a capitalist factory owner or a serious imperial emperor?
Rene is now even considering whether Tom is the de facto "president" of the United States. Otherwise, where did he get such great power?
With such a huge number of private armed forces, doesn’t the American government care?
"Mr. Muller, aren't you here to fight? Why do you think you are here to build houses?"
René stood at the port, looking at thousands of "security guards" and tens of thousands of Chinese workers carrying bags of cement with clear division of labor. René was even more confused.
John Muller did not respond to Rene, but just smiled and watched with Rene as tens of thousands of Chinese workers carried cement from the ship.
If you want to win, build the road first,
Can use cannons, but don’t need guns,
Can use a gun, not a knife,
Can use incendiary bombs, not TNT,
Never negotiate with barbarians!
During the voyage, John just glanced at this too simple "war plan" and burned it.