However, the foundation of China's 100-year weakening is too thin, so thin that any measures taken by the governments of the northeastern provinces in Zhang Hanqing's plan are financially stretched. If there is no money, when will the national construction in Zhang Hanqing's mind be realized?

Surrounded by a strong enemy, Japan, and other imperialist countries would not allow China to rise, and if it could not quickly develop to the scale of forces that the great powers had to face squarely, any movement of the Feng army in the northeast could be suspended at any time.

There is a saying, "If you are a lion, you can boast about yourself; But if you are a sheep, excessive obesity is just the right excuse to covet the other party. ”

In the past, China was able to benefit from the world-renowned reform and opening up, which was closely related to attracting large-scale foreign investment. But now that the First World War has just ended, the whole of Europe is in ruins, everyone is busy recovering the economy, and no country can come up with a large amount of money to help the Northeast Autonomous Government to carry out economic construction. Without money, how can such slow growth quickly change the balance of power between China and Japan?

Where do you get the money?

An idea that had been buried in his heart for many years was surging more and more intensely, and this thought was so strong that Zhang Hanqing once risked breaking with the Japanese in advance to control the Middle East Road. It was this idea that made Zhang Zuolin desperate and firmly supported the eldest son on the issue of the Middle East Road. It's just that I didn't expect the Middle East Road to be solved so easily, and I was just worried about it.

In early summer, the Marshal's Mansion. Gao Jiyi and Ji Yiqiao were ordered to meet the young marshal.

As the commander of the well-known "Fengqing Bureau", Gao Jiyi has widely spread the intelligence network since the establishment of the "Fengqing Bureau" more than two years ago, and his tentacles have spread all over the three eastern provinces, the Far East and even as far away as Siberia, and he has firmly established himself in various systems of the Fengjun army. Ji Yiqiao's special operations brigade is even more elusive, and it has the first meritorious service in the "Kuanchengzi Incident" and has also performed amazingly in the anti-bandit activities. It's just that keeping a low profile is the tradition of this unit, and it's not known to outsiders. The special operations brigade has been expanded into a special operations brigade, which is a personal soldier of the young marshal and is also the unit with the strongest combat effectiveness in the Feng army at present.

The land reform and industrial construction in the Northeast are in full swing, and it is not an exaggeration to describe the young marshal with every opportunity, what do you have to find yourself? Both of them are Zhang Hanqing's cronies from the crowd, and it is their desire to make contributions, full of excitement before accepting the task. After all, according to the usual practice, the young marshal must have very important things to deal with, just like the "Kuanchengzi Incident" a few years ago.

Paradoxically, the young marshal sat in the study of the marshal's mansion, not the living room, accompanied by Zhang Zuolin! And Zhang Hanqing's guard captain Jiang Huanan personally stood in front of the hall to greet him, and all the idle people avoided him, this atmosphere made the two feel the importance of what they wanted to talk about today.

Zhang Hanqing waited for the two of them to sit down, and directly arranged the task, that is, to try to find out the gold stored in Omsk by Tsarist Russia and try to obtain it. The young marshal stressed: "One thing that must be paid attention to is that the Soviet Russians or the Japanese or anyone else must know that it was obtained by the Feng army, otherwise all the achievements will be wasted!" ”

Although they knew that the task of the young marshal must be very arduous, when they learned of this task, their brains could not help but buzz.

Loot the gold! The gold of Tsarist Russia! A whole 600 tons of gold!

Historically, in Northeast Asia, there is an unsolved case that still haunts the Russians, and that is the mystery related to the disappearance of 600 tons of Russian gold. For this reason, the Russian-Japanese gold dispute has lasted for more than 80 years.

After the outbreak of World War I, the Russian army was defeated on the battlefield. By the following year, the Germans were closing in on Petrograd, the capital of Russia. For safety, the tsar ordered the transfer of the country's gold reserves to the rear. Soon, about 600 tons of gold bars and coins were transported to Kazan.

At the beginning of 1918, this batch of gold had been stored in Kazan for three years. By this time, Soviet Russia had been formed, but the situation in the country had not stabilized. In March 1918, Soviet Russia signed the Brest Peace Treaty with Germany, withdrawing from World War I. Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and other Entente countries were very frightened by the socialist revolution in Russia, and under the pretext that Russia had made peace alone, they sent troops one after another to intervene in Soviet Russia.

The value of the Kazan gold was even more evident in the turbulent situation, and both the Red Army and the White Bandit Army realized that this gold could have an important impact on the course of the civil war, as it could purchase large quantities of military equipment and supplies, thereby changing the balance of power between the two sides. In August 1918, Petrov, a White Bandit officer, led an army to raid Kazan and seize gold.

The Red Army, having learned of the loss of gold, quickly launched an attack on Petrov's troops. In order to keep the gold, Petrov gave it to Kolchak, the leader of the White Bandits. At that time, Kolchak was one of the largest white bandit leaders in Russia, and he proclaimed himself the "Supreme Governor of Russia" and was recognized and supported by the West, Japan, and other countries.

Kolchak was overjoyed when he received this batch of gold, and he quickly transferred the gold to his old nest of Omsk, which, according to the records left at the time, totaled 583 tons.

As Zhang Hanqing, who loved to read the unsolved mysteries of history in his previous life, this huge wealth can be said to have been coveted for a long time. If nothing else goes by, it won't be long before the "Supreme Governor of Russia" will be defeated by the devastating attacks of the Russian army, and on the way to the Far East with the gold, Kolchak will be captured in Irkutsk and immediately executed.

And that gold will be partially "blacked out" by the Cossack cavalry near Chita under Petrov's protection, and then deceived by the Japanese in Manchuria on harsh terms. It is estimated that the value of this gold was twice that of Japan's national revenue at the time.

However, it is ironic that the Japanese troops stationed in Manchuria did not hand over the gold to the Japanese government. In their report, they did not mention Petrov's gold at all, but simply wrote: "On April 19, 1920, the troops encountered bandits near Manchuria, completely annihilated the enemy and captured many booty. The loot has been disposed of to cover daily expenses."

In fact, a considerable part of the gold was divided among the Japanese commanders. Historical data shows that after returning from China, a high-ranking Japanese military officer became rich overnight, became the leader of Japan's largest political party, and began to compete for the prime minister's throne. Later, it was revealed that he had embezzled Russian gold in China, but the prosecutor investigating the matter was mysteriously assassinated, and the case was eventually closed.

The remaining gold was transferred by the Japanese army to a warehouse north of Tokyo. Then, they played a trick of stealing the bell: they secretly transferred the gold, then set the warehouse on fire, and then the whereabouts of the gold were completely unknown. Since then, this priceless gold has led to a dispute between Russia and Japan for 80 years, which has become a major highlight before Zhang Hanqing's crossing.

Gao Jiyi personally led the elite to the extremely cold land of Siberia to carry out the very important task solemnly assigned by the young marshal. This task Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Hanqing personally listed it in the top secret level, called "Aunt Huang Operation".