Units of the World People's Liberation Army landed in Southwest England and immediately advanced toward London. In early December, the temperature hovered around ten degrees Celsius. With British industry largely at a standstill, the skies over Wales and England had gradually returned to a clear, brilliant blue, much like the transparent skies of Africa.

Though they encountered some resistance along the way, it was exceedingly fragile. Some of these units were old adversaries of the WPLA—veterans of the British Afrika Korps. They had fought tenaciously in Africa, but in defending their own soil, their performance could not even match that of the Italian Afrika Korps.

The Italians in Africa hadn't lacked effort; they had simply been overwhelmed by the WPLA’s superior numbers and equipment. In contrast, the British officers and men fighting on their home turf were behaving passively, showing no will to win the war and merely executing orders mechanically. When attacked by the WPLA, they chose to retreat, and often that retreat quickly devolved into a full-scale rout.

By December 11th, despite the WPLA’s cautious advance, the lead elements could already see the arches of the Thames bridges and the spire of Big Ben in the distance.

The citizens of London faced these events with numbness. As long as the British government could still provide grain, these subjects felt fear at the thought of an invasion by a Black army. But now that the day had truly arrived, the starving Londoners were left with no other choice.

Some troops in London continued to resist; the Royal Guard, for instance, was defending Buckingham Palace. Most other British units, unwilling to continue the fight, had withdrawn from the city to the outskirts.

Gaunt, sallow-faced Londoners stood on the roadsides, watching with cold eyes as small WPLA squads cautiously entered the city districts. These soldiers wore camouflage uniforms that obscured their silhouettes, and the skin tones between their helmets and collars were not particularly striking.

It wasn't until they reached the vicinity of the Thames bridges that they met fierce resistance. It was unclear what motivated this particular group of British soldiers to hold their ground so desperately. However, there were only a few hundred of them, and it wasn't long before they were outflanked. In the ensuing urban combat, after exchanges of fire between Lee-Enfield rifles and Type 81 assault rifles, this determined British force was quickly driven into nearby buildings.

The WPLA did not launch a frontal assault on these red-brick structures. Instead, they brought up several flamethrower tanks. British bullets and grenades clattered harmlessly against the hulls of the Type 59 tanks, unable to injure the crews. When thick pillars of fire roared from the windows into the rooms, the British soldiers within were incinerated.

Compared to such skirmishes, the forces concentrated around Buckingham Palace were much larger. The Royal Guard was indeed a full regiment in size, bolstered by numerous other units.

When King Henry VI learned that personnel from the WPLA were requesting an audience, he cursed the London Defense Commander in his heart for being so unreliable. But since things had come to this, he granted the visitors entry to the Palace.

The WPLA delegation consisted of three members: Henry, a British volunteer; Abu, a Kenyan from Africa; and Lieutenant Colonel Wang Xinli, a Chinese officer.

Wang Xinli walked silently through the corridors of Buckingham Palace. Observing the ornate carvings and gilded beams of the building, he felt that in terms of sheer, extravagant decadence, Britain was a truly rotten nation.

Since the establishment of the Palace Museum in 1927, the Old Summer Palace and the Summer Palace had all been returned to the state as public attractions. While a cadet at the Baoding Military Academy, Wang and his classmates had visited these sites during their holidays.

He had to admit that those buildings had been somewhat disappointing to a man from the Western Frontier Province. In terms of scale and grandeur, the imperial architecture was respectable, but the actual living quarters were cramped and narrow—not even as spacious as the large dormitory at the Baoding Academy.

After Wang Xinli graduated and joined the army, he had returned home on leave in early 1944. Seeing his family’s new four-bedroom, two-living-room apartment—purchased with a military housing loan—he felt that the rooms in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace were simply incomparable to the housing enjoyed by ordinary Chinese people.

The modern residential buildings were standard eight-story structures, with two households per floor, equipped with both elevators and stairs. After driving into the underground garage, one could take the elevator directly from the second basement level to their own floor.

Wang Xinli felt deeply proud of the lifestyle of New China. As people said, except for the lack of a large retinue of servants, the standard of living for an ordinary person was not necessarily inferior to that of so-called royalty.

Indeed, being "served" was regarded as a moral sin in New China. If one required assistance with daily life, they could purchase labor services. Whether one provided the funds or the service, they were equal human beings. As the saying went: "There are only differences in labor roles; there is no such thing as high or low among people."

Wang Xinli had been a member of the New China established by the He Rui government since he was old enough to understand the world. Raised with such education, he believed it was precisely these ideals that had built the great China of today.

Although his political education in the military taught him to acknowledge that buildings like Buckingham Palace were representatives of human culture, his internal sense of disdain did not fade.

He mentally rehearsed what he was to say, repeatedly warning himself not to speak the truth—that is, he must not tell King Henry VI that the only reason the WPLA hadn't stormed Buckingham Palace was that the King's life was worth no more than the palace building itself.

This was a factual view, documented in meeting records. Since they believed there was no hierarchy among human beings, Henry VI was just a man—one human being no different from any other.

The Kenyan, Abu, was visibly more emotional. A graduate of a Chinese university's law department, he possessed full military training. But Abu had never imagined that one day he would walk into Buckingham Palace to announce the decisions of the World People's Liberation Army to the British King as an equal. The feeling gave him a sense of surreal disorientation.

Henry, the British revolutionary, felt mostly anxiety. As a Briton, he had truly worked hard to overthrow the current evil political system of his country and establish a new one. Yet, as his expectations were about to be realized, he felt the pressure. He truly did not want to see Britain's cities turned to ash and its people slaughtered in heaps.

This meeting with Henry VI to persuade the King to surrender made Henry feel a sense of trepidation. He wasn't sure if the King would capitulate; if the persuasion failed, the war would inevitably become unimaginably brutal.

A similar sense of trepidation was felt by the units tasked with seizing Whitehall—specifically the Colonial Office and the archives.

The Chinese members of the WPLA Committee believed that these colonial records were of the utmost importance. Once they possessed this data, they could conduct a well-founded and evidence-based trial of Britain.

Colonial history was filthy and filled with sin, but the history of mankind was simply history. These primary source materials were vital to the record of human civilization.