It has been nearly two months since the war began, and during these two months, the British and French forces and the German army used a large number of bombers and artillery to bomb each other indiscriminately on the battlefield on the Western Front.

The trenches on both sides stretch for hundreds of kilometres, stretching from the coastline to most of the north and south.

The trenches on both sides formed a no-man's land on the surface, and no one dared to stick their heads out of the trenches, which meant that they could be attacked by snipers or artillery.

Germany has dispatched a large number of submarines, and is still building submarines, and is ordering Type VIIB submarines from the East China Autonomous Government.

The Mawei shipyard was working overtime to manufacture submarines at this time, some ordered by the East China Navy, and some ordered by the German Navy.

As for the Entente, the Entente did not order submarines, because it was useless for them to build submarines, and the German surface ships were basically out of the sea, and their submarines seemed to be useless.

As for anti-submarine?

Submarines in this era are unable to attack underwater objects, except for the VIIB type submarines equipped by the East China Navy, which can attack underwater targets, other submarines do not have this capability, and the Entente naturally cannot think of using submarines for anti-submarine.

German submarines caused great trouble for the British, and British merchant ships were constantly sunk by submarines, and even a German submarine set a record for sinking three British [***] ships in two hours.

Of course, this is very rare, submarines are generally used to attack merchant ships, and the speed of warships is beyond the speed of submarines. The Entente also rarely used aircraft for anti-submarine purposes, which made anti-submarine capabilities very low.

Under the cover of night, a convoy of twenty submarines was slowly approaching the British blockade.

Many mines were dropped on the blockade line, and twenty submarines began to dive underwater, easily avoiding them.

By the time they surfaced, they had already crossed the blockade.

The next morning, the twenty submarines arrived at a small port in Germany, which had been blockaded and the inhabitants of ten kilometers had been relocated.

This is a port specially vacated by Germany for Chinese transport submarines, and sure enough, just as the East China Autonomous Government informed Germany, the transport submarines arrived in Germany on time.

These submarines were all behemoths, with a displacement of 20,000 tons and carried more than 10,000 tons of cargo, and the first submarines brought all kinds of munitions needed by Germany to Germany, as well as many raw materials that had been processed into semi-finished products, such as steel.

The arrival of this batch of transport submarines shocked the German top brass.

What they didn't expect was that China would already be able to build such a huge transport submarine.

These transport submarines are precisely the key to opening up Germany's communication with the outside world, which has attracted the attention of the German high-level.

The goods on the submarine were quickly transported to the port, and the East China Commercial Hall loaded the prepared goods into the submarine. The goods that had just arrived were traded with the Germans under the auspices of the East China Merchant House.

It is also reasonable that the East China Autonomous Government will only receive gold, US dollars, and Fuxing coins in the process of trading with Germany, and at the same time, Germany can also exchange Nabi political aid loans for these materials.

The East China Commercial Hall exchanged the goods sold to Germany before the war for a large sum of cash in US dollars and about 500 tons of gold.

Germany's trade balance is also very large, so the German people have a lot of precious metals, which are not officially owned by Germany, but are stored in banks.

The gold was loaded into 20 transport submarines, and in addition to these precious metals, the East China Autonomous Government also received some scientists and technicians.

The East China Autonomous Government hired these personnel to Germany at a clear price, sent a skilled worker, and Germany could get the corresponding materials.

Germany was very interested in this business, and the war caused some German mechanics to lose their jobs, such as shipbuilders, who would not have needed so many workers if they had actually only built submarines.

These workers were needed by the East China Autonomous Axe, so many shipbuilders had already been sent to China by the German Axe.

One by one, these shipbuilders got on the submarine and set out on a journey that made them feel a little lost.

A variety of engineers, skilled workers, and the necessities they needed filled twenty transport submarines.

The submarines, carrying gold, silver, and people, began to return home. One trade was so successful!

Three days later, a second convoy of transport submarines arrived in Germany, where they again brought valuable supplies and gold, silver, and personnel.

Negotiations with Germany were also underway in exchange for shipbuilding technology.

The East China Autonomous Axe requires warship manufacturing technology, and Germany's warship manufacturing technology is not inferior to Britain, and even stronger than Britain in some places.

In addition to technology, that's experience.

The East China Autonomous Axe also needed German shipbuilding experience.

However, at this time, the German and Anglo-French forces were fighting on the Western Front, the Russians were pressing forward on the Eastern Front, and the Navy was blocked off the coast and could not get out.

The main content of the negotiations was the question of how much arms and materials should be exchanged for German shipbuilding technology and senior engineers, and Germany naturally wanted to exchange more arms and materials.

Although the East China Autonomous Government also has the technology exchanged with Germany, compared with the warship construction technology, these technologies are not very good on the table.

The negotiations progressed very quickly, and the East China Autonomous Political Axe did not bother with this, and finally exchanged 300 million yuan of Fuxing currency for German warship manufacturing technology.

300 million yuan, which is a huge amount of military expenditure, is worth two years of military spending of the East China Navy.

However, this money is well spent, first of all, this money will be ordered in the form of orders for arms and materials sold by the East China Autonomous Government, which means that the real payment is only about 100 million yuan.

Second, warship manufacturing technology and experience are something that is urgently needed by the autonomous political axe of East China.

Germany not only handed over its technology to the East China Autonomous Government, but also sent engineers and workers to China to help China build warships, which was tantamount to absorbing Germany's experience into China.

Such a deal was a good deal, and the East China Chamber of Commerce soon signed an agreement with Germany.

…… United Kingdom!

At this time, there was already a shortage of food in England, and the food of the inhabitants changed from wheat to potatoes.

Because potatoes can be grown in the UK, but wheat cannot be grown in the UK.

Wheat was generally grown in the colonies of Australia and Canada, and the main production area was Australia, although the British did not even have too many ships to transport wheat at this time.

A large convoy of cargo ships, flying the five-color flag of the East China Autonomous Axe, sailed into the British port.

There were more than 30 of these ships, surrounded by three escort destroyers, and because they were flying the five-color flag of the East China Autonomous Government, they were not attacked by German submarines on the way, and they reached Britain safely.

This fleet brought a lot of food to the British, and there was a lot of food for it.

There was wheat, there was meat, there was even more fruit, and the fleet even brought only food and other civilian supplies. The arrival of this batch of supplies made the British housewives who heard the news ecstatic, and they ran out of the house to rush to buy.

From the beginning of the war to the present, the merchant ships of the East China Autonomous Axe would often arrive in groups to the British, and these merchant ships would usually carry many civilian supplies.

In terms of military supplies, in addition to producing British orders, the East China Autonomous Government currently transports the rest of its military supplies to the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

This month, the East China Ocean Shipping Company added 500,000 tons of merchant ships, of which 200,000 tons were built by itself, and 300,000 tons of merchant ships were bought from other places, and they did not know where they bought them.

As a result, the merchant tonnage of the East China Ocean Shipping Company has risen to the level of 2.5 million tons, and it has once again distanced itself from the United States.

By next month, the shipyards will be able to produce 400,000 tons of merchant ships, as the inland factories where most of the parts are made and then shipped to the dockyards for assembly.

The profits of the transport industry can be said to have increased dramatically at this time, as the British merchant ship began to gradually withdraw from all kinds of commercial cartons, and the market gradually became blank, resulting in a rapid increase in freight rates. The transportation industry has also entered a golden age, and the main business of East China Ocean Shipping Company is to transport export products to their own countries.

Many countries' exports are still facing the problem of not being able to transport their products at this time, but in China, there is no such problem, and the skyrocketing tonnage of cargo ships allows China's goods to be transported smoothly.

As the autumn harvest came to an end, so did the carrying. This makes the East China Ocean Shipping Company not have enough energy to pay attention to the cargo transportation of other countries, and can only focus on the transportation of goods in its own country, but the scale of the East China Ocean Shipping Company is constantly expanding.

In terms of sailors, I heard that it will not be long before a large number of German sailors will come to work for the East China Ocean Shipping Company, which can reduce the pressure on the personnel of the East China Ocean Shipping Company.

Although there are many students learning to sail in the nautical school, it is not achieved overnight, and many things need time to precipitate and accumulate.

However, this does not mean that goods from other countries really cannot be shipped, and many British merchant ships can still be transported at sea normally.

The main thing is that German merchant ships are suddenly unable to go to sea, which is the main reason why the transport industry has suddenly entered a golden age.

But over time, the more these British ships were sunk, the bigger the market would be.

The Chinese market is all carried by the East China Ocean Company, while the rest of the country is still carried by the British and their own ships.

The rapid increase in merchant ships of the East China COSCO Company will continue to occupy this blank market, which is a very large market.

But in terms of profitability, the UK has been able to generate nearly 200 million pounds of revenue in the transportation industry every year, and 200 million pounds is 2.2 billion renaissances. In addition, there are three countries in this market: Germany, the United States, and France.

At this time, Germany in second place will be the first to go out of the competition, and France in first and fourth place will also suffer heavy blows one after another, and the rest are China and the United States.

As for the Ben, they did not have a large number of merchant ships, and their total tonnage was less than one million tons.

In order to occupy a larger market, Xia Jun began to sell VIIB submarines to Germany in order to make German submarines more ferocious.

Xia Jun has been relatively idle recently, so he calls various departments at home when he has nothing to do, and asks them to send the latest statistics over for him to study and study.

At this time, most of the things are capable of being done, and there is no need for him to stare at them from time to time, and the East China Autonomous Political Axe has basically formed a relatively perfect system.

If we want to talk about the line of the axe of East China's autonomous government, that is, to first form a perfect system and then expand the territory, it is similar to the line of the United States.

This is undoubtedly the right route, but once the territory suddenly becomes larger, then it will cause all kinds of legacy problems, and many aspects will become chaotic.

In terms of system, the current system formed by the autonomous political axe in East China is a one-party dictatorship and media supervision, and administratively combined with the central government and local autonomous assemblies.

In terms of the division of powers, there is a separation of four powers, namely, legislative power, executive power, judicial power, and supervisory power.

In terms of these four powers, the executive, legislative and judicial powers are controlled by Xia Jun, and the mode of centralization at the top and separation of the middle and lower levels is implemented. The legislative, judicial, and executive powers do not interfere with each other, but they all obey Xia Jun's instructions. The power of supervision is not controlled by Xia Jun, but by the media and the people.

The East China Autonomous Government implements social benefits such as free education, medical exemption and exemption, and housing security.

In agriculture, high-tech agriculture with land annexation and extensive planting is promoted. In industry, the policy of pollution control, technical assistance, and industry support is implemented.

The route taken is industrialization and urbanization, which will move the population to the cities, while agriculture will be intensive, mechanized, and high-tech.

The economic route is mainly to develop foreign trade and internal economic construction. It is mainly based on high-tech agriculture and light industry, and at present industry is shifting to heavy industry, but light industry is not letting go.

In terms of domestic economic construction, the main focus is on building infrastructure to meet the consumption of the internal market, and tariff and ethnic barriers are established to squeeze out goods from other countries.

In terms of external competition, Xia Jun is very concerned, and each industry submits a detailed market report every month or quarter, and the report should conduct a detailed investigation of competitors.

If it is technically inferior to its competitors, then the technical problem will be solved, and if it is a policy problem, such as the customs tax is too high, then the export tariff will be reduced, which is a management problem, and then the management will be ordered to be rectified. Those enterprises that are not suitable for domestic development will relocate to foreign countries for development.

In agriculture, it is to use the overwhelming technological and cost advantages to carry out a mob impact on the agriculture of other countries in order to attack the agriculture of other countries.

In both areas of industry and agriculture, the East China Autonomous Government emphasizes competition and the creation of trade balances.

The world's international market is so big, I don't have it if I occupy it, and I don't have it if you occupy it. If we occupy the market of this industry, we will be able to provide more jobs for our own country and absorb the wealth of the world into our own country.

As a result, when oneself is strong, other countries are weak.

Xia Jun can be said to have raised the competition to an unprecedented strategic position, and the exchange platform in his hand can quickly reverse the disadvantages of many industries, which is his biggest advantage.

The stumbling block is the issue of national education, which is also the main reason why Xia Jun vigorously develops education, and it is also for the future of the country to vigorously develop education.

With the development of foreign trade and the control of the internal market, wealth will not be lost, but will flow in a steady stream, and some taxes will be collected in all aspects of the political axe, so the country will also have money.

Xia Jun was at home looking at the data of German submarines sinking Allied merchant ships, according to the latest survey data, Germany sank nearly half a million tons of Allied merchant ships in a month, and the number is still rising.

"500,000 tons, that's not enough!" Xia Jun touched his chin and thought, since he had a submarine in his hand, he naturally had to encourage the Germans to launch a submarine war.

If Germany had enough submarines, they could even go and storm the blockade.

If the blockade line can be broken through, the merchant ships of the East China Autonomous Political Axe will also be able to sail in, of course, this possibility is very small, and it is just a matter of thinking.

The main thing is to wear down Britain's financial resources. In addition, the pressure on the Germans on the battlefield was relieved to keep the war going longer.

After making up his mind, Xia Jun made a phone call to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs talk to Germany, as long as Germany buys the materials of the East China Autonomous Political Axe, it will send a submarine as much as it buys, and as many torpedoes as it wants...... He could not send submarines and torpedoes to Germany in a straightforward manner, because after the end of World War I, the Allies would detain a basin and buy arms and supplies as they were attached, which was purely a commercial act.

As for the British blockade, you can't stop it yourself, it's our business. At that time, the British can only suffer a dumb loss, and they are really not afraid of them if they want to beat Xia Jun.

At the same time, Xia Jun asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lower the prices of submarines and torpedoes to the cost price.

Originally, the profits of submarines were also quite high, but in order to encourage Germany to continue submarine warfare, let's earn some wages! The profit in this area is gone.

As long as Germany can sink more Allied merchant ships, the higher the return of the East China Autonomous Axe!

Xia Jun, who was full of bad water, changed history again.

At the same time, the price of the 50 submarines ordered by Germany was also adjusted, and 100 were built for the Germans, and 10 more torpedoes were not included with the Germans when they were delivered.

Germany was very happy to hear this news and continued to order another 50 VIIB submarines, increasing the number of orders from the original 50 to 150, a full triple.

German Ambassador Todmann immediately asked to meet Xia Jun and expressed his gratitude to Xia Jun in person. At the same time, he expressed his willingness to abolish some of the existing unequal treaties with China, and to return all the German concessions in China to the East China Autonomous Government, and to hand over the railways controlled by Germany in China to the East China Autonomous Government.

Xia Jun couldn't help but be stunned when he heard this, and suddenly thought that this was an opportunity!

China has to withdraw money every year to repay the Gengzi indemnity, and it is just taking this opportunity to abolish all the Gengzi indemnity payments of various countries.

"Mr. Todman, thank you very much for your support, I wonder if we will hold a media conference tomorrow to make a grand announcement of this?" Xia Jun asked Todman.

"Of course." Naturally, Todman had no opinion, and there was nothing to lose Germany by announcing this news.

(To be continued)