On August 18, 1914, the sky was already bright, the fish belly was white in the distance, and the mountains of official documents on Chai Dongliang's desk were gradually thinning, he stretched his waist, ate two peanuts on the table, and drank a cup of hot tea, feeling a little relieved of fatigue. The breeze brought by Zhongnanhai blew away the heat of the summer night and brought a trace of coolness to Chai Dongliang's study.

On 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. On 30 July, Russia mobilized and prepared to send troops to aid Serbia. On 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia, and on 3 August, Germany declared war on France. On August 4, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, and Belgium declared war on Germany; At the same time, Britain declared war on Germany, taking into account the importance of Belgium to its homeland security and the Treaty of London signed earlier in 1839 to ensure Belgian neutrality. On August 6, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia, Serbia on Germany, and Italy declared neutrality. On 12 August, Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary.

At present, the two camps have been determined, both sides are deploying troops, and in some hot spots, they have already begun to fight!

The war has begun, and the austro-Hungarian [***] team has entered Serbia, and the Serbian people who had been eating pot pulp to welcome the king's division and tried to overthrow the tyrannical rule of Dimitrievic with the help of foreign forces knew that they were wrong. The Austro-Hungarian army slaughtered ordinary people, with adult men being shot, women being annihilated and hanged, and children being grabbed by their feet and banging their heads on trees like rabbits. Serbia's western border is littered with gallows, each with a bloody corpse on each one. The ferocity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was unimaginable to Western journalists, who openly cut their throats and executed a hundred people at the Belgrade railway station!

The self-proclaimed civilized Austro-Hungarian [***] officer, wearing snow-white gloves and smiling, listened to the music of Wagner and Bach, and then gave one brutal slaughter order after another. In just one week of the war, more than 4,000 ordinary Serbs have been innocently killed.

The crazy act of a talented reader after the onset of paranoia actually makes the whole nation pay for it with his life!

Only then did the Serb people suddenly realize that the revenge of Austria-Hungary was not only against the political axe and the army, but against the entire country and nation!

The ferocity of the enemy, united the Serbs, and no one had any illusions about Austria-Hungary anymore. The revolt may still be alive, and the fate of surrendering and being killed inspired the Serbian army to fight. In the southern part of Serbia, at the Liseda Mountains, a major battle was fought between the main army of Serbia and the main force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Surprisingly, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had an absolute superiority in troops and equipment, was defeated by Serbia, which hated the same enemy, and the Serb army took advantage of the favorable terrain to lead the main force of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into the ambush circle step by step, and then used artillery to teach these self-proclaimed civilized beasts a hard lesson. The characteristic of the beast is that it is extremely ferocious when it has the upper hand, and if it fails, it will be defeated.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was almost immediately crushed, pursued by the Serbian army, which abandoned its cannons, wagons, and all its baggage, including the pianos used by the officers, and fled in panic towards the border. In order to fight for the only escape route, they killed each other, and the officers' whips and pistols no longer had any deterrent effect. The Austro-Hungarian [***] people scattered all over the mountains knelt on the side of the road and shivered.

The result of atrocities can only be exchanged for atrocities! The Serbian army treated the prisoners in the Austro-Hungarian way, and they likewise prepared enough gallows.

Serbia has already paid for the lives of 130,000 adult men, and the number of casualties among women and children is incalculable!

At this point, Austria-Hungary had no choice but to turn to the Germans for help, otherwise the Serbian army would likely invade the empire. As a multi-ethnic [***] empire, the most terrible thing is the invasion of the enemy, once this happens, the domestic opposition forces will collude with the empire, the surging national reading movement will completely destroy the empire, and the fate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire will be unavoidable.

The war also affected China, and Chai Dongliang ordered an urgent expansion of the regular army to 600,000. In order not to increase tax revenues, the Ministry of Finance simultaneously issued 200 million yuan in treasury bonds with an annual interest rate of 5 percent, and repaid the principal and interest after five years. Chai Dongliang's policy has always been to borrow rather than increase taxes casually. At present, the national economy is still too fragile to withstand the exploitation of excessive taxes and miscellaneous taxes. At the same time, the Presidential Office issued an order to recruit and train 3 million reservists nationwide, mainly in the areas south of the Yangtze River. Mainly in Anhui and Jiangxi provinces.

At the same time, all the backbone personnel of the Jianghuai Army, such as Gao Ming, Gao Chuguan, Kuang Haishan, Gu Nanshan, He Tianshou, and Fang Qingyu, were transferred to Yanjing City to secretly discuss how to deal with the changes in the current world situation. Headed by Wu Jintang, an economic committee was formed to plan how to take advantage of the war in Europe to reap the maximum economic benefits and improve the domestic industrial system.

Chai Dongliang feels that his biggest advantage is that he never thinks that he is smarter than others, so he believes that stupid birds fly first and take precautions, and make plans in advance, so as not to be caught off guard. And this is also his greatest advantage, after all, there are two hundred 21st century book friends with various skills and advanced knowledge standing behind him.

Sometimes, he has the feeling that he is engaged in time and space smuggling, but this feeling is really cool!

Recently, he has been reflecting on his experience in the past three years, relying on the advantage of foresight, taking advantage of the Qing court's intimidation by the revolutionary party, he took Wuhu with two duck eggs, and killed the salt lord Xu Baoshan to seize Yangzhou's seven million taels of silver, and moved a large number of wealthy people to Wuhu, thus obtaining the first pot of gold necessary for development. He ruthlessly used Anqing City to tempt Zhang Huitao, the leader of the Huaishang Army, and then eliminated the Huaishang Army and controlled the entire Anhui Province. reluctantly handed over the salt administration of Lianghuai, and exchanged the title of Jianghuai patrol envoy from Yuan Shikai, so that he could reasonably and legally take Jiangxi controlled by the revolutionary Li Liejun??? Then put down the rebellion of the Mongolian Living Buddha, defeated the plan of the Kwantung Army to seize Mukden, and the battle of Dagukou made the prestige of the Jianghuai Army far and wide, so that he walked step by step to Zhongnanhai Huairentang.

This way, although it is a little difficult and dangerous, it is quite smooth, after all, Chai Dongliang has a huge advantage that others cannot match, and he can foresee the major events that have occurred in history, so as to make correct predictions.

However, this time he almost miscalculated, he didn't expect Yuan Shikai to collude with Yue himself, nor did he expect Yuan Shikai to turn his face and beat him to blame him. Chai Dongliang once planned not to unify China first, and only control the wealth south of the Yangtze River in his hands, and when the First World War was coming to an end, the Jianghuai army went abroad to participate in the European war, relying on unparalleled prestige and the power of the powerful army to overwhelm the local powerful factions, so as to achieve the unification of the country without a fight. Later, Chai Dongliang planned to unify China by force before the First World War, and made various plans for this purpose, contacting the anti-Yuan forces in Yanjing City, but Yuan Shikai turned his face and made a national hero, so he couldn't do it.

In the end, it was with the huge gap in strength and the fact that Yuan Shikai himself was no longer ambitious, that Chai Dongliang was able to enter Yanjing.

All these changes are no longer under the control of Chai Dongliang himself, and the final decisive role is the comparison of strength. Under the real strength, all intrigues and tricks are in the end a flash in the pan.

Opportunistic, there must be a very special time, such as Chai Dongliang two salted duck eggs to take Wuhu, at that time the south has been in chaos, the revolutionary party's bombs will scare the officials of the Qing court, at the same time, the Huaishang army attacked more than ten prefectures and counties in northern and eastern Anhui in three ways, and Dangtu County, which is only dozens of miles away from Wuhu, has also been broken by the revolutionary party. Under such conditions, Chai Dongliang can scare the officials in Wuhu, otherwise, the Lord of Wuhu Soldier Beidao only needs to give an order: Prepare the knife and axe!

Chai Dongliang's head was separated from his neck on the second day of the crossing!

Not to mention that Chai Dongliang still has two duck eggs in his hands, and his IQ is at least normal, even Sun Tiansheng, a turtle slave who has never been to school and doesn't even know a word when he falls down, can become the governor of Yangzhou with his bare hands. At that time, as long as you have the courage to cover the sky, anyone can do earth-shattering things.

However, that era was too special after all, and opportunistic things often only brought temporary success, for example, Sun Tiansheng became the governor of Yangzhou for a few days, and was forced by the salt lord Xu Baoshan [***], and Xu Baoshan was captured alive by Chai Dongliang with sailors and cut off his head.

A drink and a peck, it is not predetermined!

After Chai Dongliang arrived in Yanjing, he also went to several universities and middle schools to give lectures, but the atmosphere here made him very depressed. Northern China carries too much history and is too heavy, especially Yanjing, which was the capital of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and Chai Dongliang didn't like it very much.

First of all, the streets here are narrow and dirty, people defecate everywhere, the first thing they do when they open the door in the morning is to splash sewage on the streets, and even worse, the sick will dump the dregs into the streets, and it is said that whoever steps on them will take the disease away, and the master's illness will be cured, and the person who steps on it will be infected!

This is what a vicious psychology, the ancients understood a truth two thousand years ago, do not do to others what you do not want, if this kind of person is cured of illness, God has no eyes, if he dies of illness, it is heavenly retribution!

What makes Chai Dongliang even more unbearable is that the young people in Yanjing are extremely enthusiastic about being officials, and have no interest in doing business and doing business. College students are arrogant and don't know what to say, and middle school students are fair-skinned and weak, looking like sick men, compared to those sun-scorched black but healthy and sunny young people in Anqing City, they simply don't look like compatriots of the same nation!

But Chai Dongliang knew in his heart that this was the real traditional China, and the cities along the southern coast along the river were more pragmatic because they opened their ports earlier and had a strong business atmosphere, while the north was closer to the center of power, so they tended to be officials and masters. Moreover, in the Chinese tradition, the social status of officials is much higher than that of merchants, and they are naturally willing to look forward to high school and become a superior person one day.

They even look down on rich businessmen, let alone learn a craft to become a craftsman!

There is a famous joke in Yanjing City, a high-ranking Qing court official was ordered to visit the foreign minister, and when he saw the minister playing in sweat, the official was greatly moved, and came forward to praise: "The lord really loves the people like a son, and he refuses to call people to play in person!" ”

What kind of court and what kind of officials, what kind of officials produce what kind of people, and the people who rule the country are such goods, how can you blame the people for their low quality?

Chai Dongliang thought about it again when he first arrived in Wuhu and Anqing, wasn't it the same in Anhui at that time? The streets are overflowing with sewage, the people are unkempt, and the hungry are waiting to be fed.

Although Chai Dongliang opened a factory and arranged employment for some disaster victims, but in the end, the problem was solved, wasn't it still a surging private enterprise? Chai Dongliang created a system, and the people spontaneously changed the environment! When the rulers walk in the spring breeze, there will naturally be autumn rains to bring a good harvest.

Only by insisting on the reform of the system can it be possible to transform the national surname, and the idea of improving the national morality and thus transforming the country is nothing but a fool's dream.

Seeing that the sky was getting brighter, Chai Dongliang simply washed his face and brushed his teeth, and simply ate some breakfast. Of course, he will not be as boring as Yuan Shikai, and he will let the military band blow and play when he eats.

After a while, Gu Weijun arrived at the presidential palace.

"Shaochuan, let's have some breakfast together." Chai Dongliang greeted warmly.

"President, Gao Ming, Gao Chuguan, Kuang Haishan, Gu Nanshan, He Tianshou, and Fang Qingyu are all going to Yanjing this morning, do you want to arrange a welcome ceremony?"

"No need, just come to me at night and be happy with yourself! I miss them so much! Chai Dongliang said with a smile.

Gu Weijun has always suspected in his heart that Chai Dongliang must have made a very big move recently, otherwise it would be impossible to get the entire team to Yanjing City at one time. But he won't ask, unless Chai Dongliang tells him personally, which is also his cleverness.

"President, what are we going to do about the Americans tearing up the Bethlehem Contract? Is it to encourage the Bethlehem Company and the Rockefeller Group to go to the US political axe and Congress to protest? Gu Weijun asked.

Chai Dongliang smiled: "You are a doctor of law from Columbia University!" If you are fighting a lawsuit with the Yankees, China will fight it in the United States and all the way to the Supreme Court! ”

"Is this okay? It's normal to win or lose a lawsuit? ”

"If we win, let's get back a compensation, that is the failure of the Bethlehem Company and the American political axe, if this kind of lawsuit with conclusive evidence, as well as you and a large group of legal experts who graduated from prestigious universities, if we can still lose in this way, it means that the United States law is bankrupt, once the spirit of freedom and the rule of law is lost as the foundation of the country, the United States in the future will not have to worry, and it may be annexed by Mexico!" Chai Dongliang smiled faintly.

The "Bethlehem Contract" used to be very important and played a very important role in promoting the economic development of the Jianghuai and Shanghai areas, but now that Chai Dongliang's wings are gradually full, the little loans and some technology exports from the Americans are no longer important.

Gu Weijun nodded and said, "In addition, the British minister asked to meet you, and he hopes that you can make a clear statement on the current war." ”

"My attitude is very resolute, they can fight as much as they like, we are neutral, oh, by the way, you ask the British minister, if you need to provide any weapons and ammunition or something, we guarantee the supply, and definitely help them fight more lively! However, our weapon system is different from that of the UK, and it is estimated that they will not buy it! Chai Dongliang said disapprovingly while eating fritters.

"The British minister hopes that we can send troops to take Qingdao back!"

"It's our own business, I can take it back whenever I like, I don't have to worry about it!" Chai Dongliang took a sip of porridge and said.

Of course, Chai Dongliang doesn't want to take back Qingdao now, a German cruiser detachment is getting ready to go there, and Chai Dongliang is still counting on this German fleet that has created a miracle in another time and space to create some trouble for the British!

Now if troops are sent to attack Qingdao, this fleet will not be able to leave the port, and the war will not be lively!

"The British said that if China did not send troops to occupy Qingdao, they would support Yue himself to send troops!"

With a "snap", Chai Dongliang smashed the rice bowl: "Fuck, shameless!" Tell the British minister that as long as the British dare to undermine the neutrality of our country and send troops or even if they themselves send troops to Qingdao, Lao Tzu will first make a down payment of Weihaiwei and Hong Kong, and then send a fleet to Bombay and Calcutta to cut off the connection between Britain and India! Let's shoot and scatter, the fish is dead and the net is broken, who the fuck is afraid of! ”

Seeing Chai Dongliang's face distorted with anger, Gu Weijun hurriedly persuaded: "President Chai, calm your anger, calm your anger, this is not the time to be rash!" ”

Chai Dongliang thought about it, and gradually calmed down his anger, he also knew the consequences of doing this, he currently has three seaplane aircraft carriers in his hands, although he can cut off the connection between India and Britain in a short time, and even incite India to revolt against British rule, creating huge trouble for the British, but what is the benefit of doing so for China?

Moreover, Russia and Britain are allies, and if China is on the wrong side, not only will the plan to sell supplies to Russia make war money will go bankrupt, but the northern frontier will also face the risk of being overwhelmed by the Russian army, and at the same time, the British fleet will cut off the shipping lanes along China's southeast coast, and the national industry and private economy, which have just picked up, will also face a great threat.

The gains outweigh the losses! Impulsiveness is the devil, and as a ruler, you must not be emotional!

Chai Dongliang suddenly laughed, and he said to Gu Weijun: "Tell the British minister that I haven't been in good health recently and can't see him!" ”

"President, are you going to drag it out?"

"What's the use of dragging? I just don't want to see him??? However, I want the British to understand that China's affairs can only be discussed with the Chinese, and it is useless to count on Xiao Yuben, the watchdog! When Kuang Haishan and the others arrived, they all came to me for an emergency military meeting, and they all said that it was up to the owner to beat the dog, and I would beat the dog first, so that its master knew and knew the fate of the dog's murder! Chai Dongliang picked out a cruel smile at the corner of his mouth.

(To be continued)