Chapter 885 Undersea Tunnel (2)

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 became an obvious need to establish more convenient and faster channels 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 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 that this war can be dragged on for another three to five years, and then the whole of Europe can accelerate its development for at least 20 to 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 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. Due to 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 Council 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 digging 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 that the Soviet Union focused on "taking care of" was the Japanese army. You should know that the Soviet Union and the island country have long been old enemies. As early as the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, the Soviet army suffered 160,000 casualties and 80,000 prisoners, which was a heavy loss. Although the Soviet Union defeated the Japanese army in the Battle of Nomonhan in World War II, it also suffered more than 30,000 casualties.

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union captured hundreds of thousands of Kwantung Army in one go. Originally, according to the relevant provisions of the Allied "Potsdam Declaration", these captured Kwantung Army prisoners of war should be repatriated to the island country after the war, except for those accused of war crimes. However, the Soviet high-level officials decided not to release these prisoners of war for the time being, but under the pretext of repatriating them, they were transported to Siberia by train for "labor reform" and participated in the post-war reconstruction of the Soviet Union.

Due to the inconvenience of transportation at the time, the Soviet Far East basically relied on the Siberian Railway for transportation. At that time, Japanese prisoners of war needed to complete a large amount of distance on foot, and they could not fall behind on the road, otherwise they would be shot. The cold weather caused many prisoners to freeze to death on the way.

In order to speed up the march, the Soviet army deceived these prisoners by saying that they would be transported back to the island country through the Siberian Railway, so that when the prisoners arrived at Lake Baikal, they thought they had reached the seaside and could take a boat back home.

Finally, they arrived in Siberia. Many mines had no place to accommodate so many prisoners, so these prisoners could only build houses by themselves. At that time, the Soviet Union was already short of supplies, and 600,000 prisoners were not a small number. Even their own people could not eat enough, so of course they could not take care of these prisoners. Often, the meals were only enough for half of them. At night, the temperature was more than 40 degrees below zero, and dozens of prisoners were crowded in the sheds with ventilation on all sides. Every night, someone froze to death. The temperature was too low and the land was hard, and these people who froze to death had no place to bury them.

However, after the initial crazy exploitation, the Soviets gradually found that the resentment of these laborers seemed to be increasing day by day. In order to prevent them from mutinying, they decided to let them complete their work every day while conducting ideological and political education for these prisoners. The Soviets arranged teachers to teach these prisoners of war ideological classes, forced them to accept Marxist-Leninist ideological education, and even conducted assessments. Once some prisoners of war passed the ideological assessment class, they would receive better treatment. Those whose thoughts were not pure would continue to do hard labor, and they would think about it when they figured it out.

In such an environment, the thoughts of the Japanese prisoners of war were fully sublimated, and some prisoners of war even performed extremely well. After returning home, they were willing to become spies for the Soviet Union.

Although all walks of life in the island country have made a lot of efforts to repatriate 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 the ashes of Mitsui Taimaru, the nephew of Emperor Hirohito, and the emperor was almost angry to vomit 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 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. Only more than 300,000 of the more than 600,000 prisoners returned to the island country alive.

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

(The Spring Festival is coming, a little busy, there may be only one chapter in the next few days)