Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

"Oh, God!"

Because Churchill was unconscious, Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee had to assume temporary prime ministerial duties.

After reading the casualty report he had just compiled, his face turned pale and he let out a groan of pain.

This report records that three days ago, the German army bombed the Thames Dam and flooded London, causing more than 60,000 civilian casualties. This is not all. Many places have not had time to conduct detailed inspections. It is conservatively estimated that at least 100,000 people died. during this flood.

What's worse is that it's only early March and the weather is still a bit cold, with the temperature at night hovering around freezing. After being soaked in the cold sea water at this temperature, countless people became sick. Once the disease spread, the consequences would be unimaginable in today's London.

The most important thing is that if the gap in the Thames Dam is not blocked, London will become the second Venice.

The German troops who landed at Dover attacked fiercely and advanced to the outskirts of London to set up camp. In a few days, German troops from Norwich and Plymouth would also arrive, and by then the entire London would be surrounded.

After sighing for a long time, Clement Attlee summoned the war cabinet.

"We have tried our best...gentlemen." Clement Attlee looked at the dejected colleagues around him and sighed deeply. "Does anyone think that we are still okay and that we still need to keep fighting?"

"..." Everyone looked at each other. Although their wartime cabinet was all about war, no one was more determined, stubborn, and persistent than Churchill; and now that Churchill was unconscious and uncertain about his life or death, and the German army was already approaching the city, they could not help but His thoughts arose.

Arthur Greenwood, the Minister of Ignorance, muttered softly. "It's okay to surrender, but the problem is that the German Crown Prince wants to send us all to a military court."

The last time Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth went to Germany for negotiations in person, the news she brought was that Crown Prince Yannick was going to hand over the wartime cabinet members headed by Churchill to the European Military Tribunal for trial and severe punishment.

The person next to him sighed dejectedly. "But if I don't surrender, I'm afraid I won't even have a chance to go to a military court."

Listening to the conversations of these colleagues, Clement Attlee could tell that these people were willing to surrender, but they were afraid of losing their lives in a military court. "Now let's discuss what chips we have to save everyone's lives."

"Chips?" Everyone's eyes lit up, and Foreign Secretary Aiden was the first to speak. "Giving our agreement with the Soviet Union to Germany should be considered a big bargaining chip, right?"

"..." When the Soviet Union was mentioned, everyone looked as disgusted as if they had eaten flies. Even if the Soviet Union gained some energy, the situation would not be as bad as it is now.

Clement Attlee shook his head. "I'm afraid the Germans have noticed it a long time ago, otherwise they wouldn't have supported Finland so strongly." If it weren't for Germany's covert support, Finland would not have been able to resist the Soviet army until now.

After thinking for a while, Clement Attlee's eyes lit up. "Maybe the German Crown Prince will be interested in the contents of the Manold quarry!"

The Manold Quarry is located in the Manold Mountains of Blaine Ffestiniog, a small town in North Wales. It has a history of more than a century. Years of mining and excavation created a huge cavern in the middle of the mountains, the upper part of which was covered with hundreds of feet of slate and granite to withstand bomb blasts. In addition, the remote location here makes it easier to keep secrets; therefore, after the war broke out, many works of art in the UK were moved here and hidden.

During World War II, Churchill had a famous saying when talking about British art treasures. “Hide the works of art in caves and cellars and never let a single painting leave the British Isles.”

As the Allies retreated from Dunkirk and bombs dropped on London, the German invasion of Britain seemed imminent. How to protect the collection of the British National Gallery has become a big problem. Churchill was determined to save the National Gallery's collection from destruction by enemy bombing and directed that these national treasures must remain on home soil.

The National Gallery paintings had been stored in various temporary locations in Wales since the outbreak of war, but it was clear that these locations were not suitable for long-term preservation. Experts scoured the UK looking for a suitable hiding place - eventually zeroing in on the Manold quarry in the north Wales town of Blaine Ffestiniog.

Suzanne Boseman is a senior photo researcher at the National Gallery and author of The National Gallery in the Second World War. She said that transferring about 2,000 works by masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Anthony van Dyck, William Turner, and John Constable was a "quite difficult task."

In order to welcome these most precious paintings in the world, Manold also needs to be "fully prepared". “A cold, wet quarry is not a good place to place a precious piece of art,” says Suzanne Boseman. "Before moving the artworks in, six sealed, climate-controlled huts were built in the mountains." Keeping artworks in a mine may not sound like a perfect plan, but in fact, the artworks “It was not a bad stay there.”

In order to collect art, dynamite was used to blast the mine entrance to enlarge it so that the largest works could be moved inside. A railway system was also established in the cave. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the paintings will "ride" on a specially built narrow-gauge railway, and the railway will transport them to the door of the cabin in sealed carriages. The paintings are unloaded only after entering a space where conditions are strictly controlled.

Boseman pointed out that in fact, the transportation process was not as smooth as described, and Anthony Van Dyck's painting "Charles I on Horseback" was a huge challenge.

The painting is approximately 12 feet long and 5 feet wide. Boseman jokingly called the painting like a "monster": mounted on the back of a truck, the painting is much higher; on the road leading to the quarry, there is a very narrow S-shaped bend, and the bend is exactly at Under the arch of a railway bridge where the road passes, "It's like trying to find a sofa at the corner of a staircase: the height is sufficient, but the angle must be correct."

Eventually, people had to dig up the road to lower it a few inches. "You can still see to this day that the curbs on this section of the road are higher than on other sections, which reflects how important the evacuation was at that time," Boseman said.

The National Gallery is not the only institution to transfer its collections to Wales: the British Museum is sending Magna Carta, works by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, as well as rare books by Shakespeare, Milton and others. National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. However, even this was deemed not safe enough, and during the war an underground cave was dug, complete with a special heating system, to store these national treasures.

Everyone nodded. After all, these are treasures of the British Empire and are extremely valuable. The German Crown Prince should be satisfied.

Clement Attlee continued. "To be on the safe side, prepare a few more chips. Well, we can also disband the 'auxiliary troops'."