Originally, in the early days of the outbreak of the war in Europe, according to the previous agreement with Britain, Japan needed to declare war on Germany and other Allied countries, on the one hand, the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japan had to declare war, plus the large number of bonds and support from Japan purchased by the United Kingdom, which was the political aspect. On the other hand, there are practical interests, not to mention anything else, Jiaozhou Bay, which is close at hand, is a place that makes Japan salivate, and small Japan, which is always fighting for the land and has a large land and abundant resources, has become the primary choice for expansion.

In the First Sino-Japanese Naval War, they got North Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan, and in the course of several decades, Japan gained a lot of benefits, and now, a godsend, they must take Shandong, expand Japan's strength, and then the entire Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, and even the East China Sea are under the control of Japan, under the premise of full control of sea power, no matter how strong the army in the northwest is, it can only have an advantage on the road.

Of course, it is slightly different from history that the current China is not a war-torn China in history, which has been made a mess by various revolutions and doctrines, since 1911, the Chinese mainland has not stopped, and the rise of the northwest has put China's development on another path, the Beiyang Northwest Revolutionary Party, forming a situation of confrontation between the three countries, under the deliberate control of the northwest, Yuan Shikai did not dare to call himself emperor and dictatorship, let alone deal with the Kuomintang, and the 1912 general election was not conductedIn this way, the three aspects maintain opposition and balance, which keeps China alive.

Among the three groups, Japan is the most vigilant and worried. It will always be the northwest, and the northwest is too far away from Shandong. Japan absolutely did not dare to attack the idea of Shandong. Now, though, things have changed slightly. It has been 10 days since the war began, but the situation of the Entente in Europe is not good, Britain and France are being chased and fought by Germany, and the second battlefield on the Eastern Front promised by Russia has not been opened for a long time, and Britain and France, who are in a hurry to go to the hospital, directly hit the head of Japan, which has a fairly strong naval fleet and a permanent army of 18 divisions. Britain and France not only recognized Japan's interests in Northeast China, but also Shandong also belonged to Japan by default, and at the same time 120 million US dollars of orders and 700,000 tons of freight for long-term use, 120 million orders. Almost 60% of the income can be obtained, as for the long-term freight contract of 700,000 tons, it is about 14 million net profit per year, which is directly supported. A shot in the arm for Japan.

The changes in the war were not good for the Entente, but it was the rear of the Entente. But it is almost the whole world, regardless of the land area. resources, or population. They were all far above the Allies, whether it was the previous relationship, or the strength of the base, coupled with the immediate interests, all doomed Japan to belong, and it was three days later than planned, that is, on November 16, 1913, the Japanese Foreign Ministry finally declared war on Germany.

On the day of the release of the declaration of war, Japan and Germany entered a state of war, and 80% of the hundreds of warships of the Combined Fleet were urgently mobilized, and the 18th Division and the 9th and 8th Divisions were also mobilized together, which was completely different from the history of only 45,000 people, and Japan mobilized 110,000 troops at once, and the corresponding ships were also in coordination.

The declaration of war is an important node, Yang Yuanzhao does not remember the time when Japan officially launched its attack on Qingdao, besides, even the time of the outbreak of the First World War was because of Yang Yuanzhao, a big butterfly, which broke out almost a year in advance, even if he knew, it was useless, he could only continue to keep an eye on Japan. As far as the intelligence it has obtained from Japan at present is concerned, after the declaration of war, Japan did not set out directly, but was still making preparations, and Japan, which was so patient, more or less exceeded the expectations of the northwest; on the one hand, it ordered the intelligence bureau to closely monitor, especially on the coastline of Shandong, to prevent Japan from landing at will, and on the other hand, it intensified its investigation in Japan itself, striving to make a breakthrough in intelligence and obtain conclusive information.

It has been 7 days since the return of Qingdao, and the Northwest has spent several years and invested heavily in the construction of a huge railway network throughout China, which has also made it much easier for the Northwest to increase troops in Shandong.

The First Group Army, born out of the former First Division, not only participated in the war against Beiyang and Russia, but was also the first batch of re-equipped, with six permanent divisions, the first, ninth, twelfth, thirty-third, seventy-eighth, and seventy-ninth divisions, of which the first three were all permanent divisions with good traditions, all of which had participated in the First War against Russia, and the latter few were also based on the backbone forces that had participated in various wars. The six divisions are all first-class, according to the establishment of the northwest, with a full establishment of 27,000 people, plus an independent army of nearly 30,000 directly under the army, the entire First Army has nearly 200,000 people, and it is the most powerful army in the army, the ace army.

At present, the first and ninth divisions are stationed in Qingdao, they serve as the main battlefield, and the remaining four divisions are distributed in Yantai, Rizhao and other harbor cities, with the help of fortresses and shore-based batteries, which are enough to protect this coastline impermeable.

The cannon is just to prevent the opponent's warships from getting too close, and the light attack is to the land fortress or defensive position, the real killer weapon, Yang Yuanzhao has long been determined to be an aircraft, which is also the strongest attack force in the northwest.

A few months ago, when the civilian facilities were handed over, preparations had already begun, and the construction of 12 field airports and 3 permanent large military airports in the entire Jiaozhou Bay had already been secretly built in the name of the factory, and now they have been basically completed, and today, the largest, that is, the most important Qingdao airport will also be all military and acceptance, the largest can accommodate 700 aircraft, with 21 standard runways and 6 ultra-long runways of the airport, will be the anchor of Qingdao's defense.

The airport, for most people in this era, is a strange thing, in the plane or a hobbyist toy, most of the planes are on the grass, or relatively flat land on the take-off, the northwest airport has been specialized, specially developed high-grade cement, was applied to the top of the airport, under specific circumstances, the runway can even be laid with armored steel, in order to enhance the runway's resistance to bombing, referring to some of the later generations of civilian large passenger aircraft, The huge take-off weight and take-off length were reserved early, and in the future, when the research of heavy transport aircraft and bombers with 4 or even 8 rounds in the northwest is completed, it can be directly used here.

In addition to Qingdao Airport, Rizhao, Yantai, and Weihai all have the same large professional airports, which can accommodate at least 2,000 aircraft at the same time, while the 12 field airports, which can accommodate a slightly smaller number of aircraft, can provide ammunition and gasoline supplies, emergency landings and group flights, and many other capabilities, in short, for this war, almost more than 90% of the aircraft produced in the northwest will be concentrated in Shandong.

The groundbreaking ceremony of Qingdao Airport is today, Cai Ye of the First Army and Yang Yuanzhao, the founder of the Northwest, were invited to participate in this ribbon-cutting ceremony, both of them were happy to go, the army has been basically ready, 200,000 troops in the previous simple construction of the permanent position of the support, spent several days, built a large number of protection groups, now a total of more than 20,000 kilometers of various trenches, plus roadbed batteries, all kinds of train guns and aircraft, the protection system is quite three-dimensional.

More than 600 planes will fly from the northwest and will fly directly from Shanxi, along with these planes, as well as a large number of personnel and accessories, and the Northwest Air Force will assemble on a large scale for the first time, and even carry out combat missions as an independent unit alone, which is also an unimaginable initiative.

The wide airport, the endless runway, looks very desolate, under the witness of the core personnel, Cai Ye and Yang Yuanzhao cut the ribbon together, after the ribbon cutting, the command tower issued a signal to the group of aircraft that had taken off, the plane that covered the sky and the sun was already within 100 kilometers of Qingdao, according to the flight speed of the aircraft, at most twenty or thirty minutes, the plane will land in turn.

Sure enough, the neat aircraft group, shaded the sun in the sky, originally regarded as a light aircraft Northwest No. 1, and a larger circle of Northwest No. 2, lined up in a neat camp began to fly to Qingdao Airport, under the order of 7 command towers, began to land on 21 runways, the design of the runway, taking into account the requirements of actual combat, the airspace is almost divided quite accurately, and the impact on each other is very small, in the case of emergency, you can receive the whole process of aircraft landing, now it is not in a hurry, so the speed of landing is not fast, Only about 12 planes can be landed at a time, and it is estimated that once every two minutes, it will take an hour and a half at most, and all of them can be landed.

The ground staff who arrived in the early stage have been proficient in manipulating the various facilities of the airport, receiving the aircraft, and the landing aircraft will follow their guidance to enter the 12 semi-submersible permanent hangars, which is the most laborious construction of the airport, and it is completely a permanent fortress-type hangar, this design does not take into account that now, the enemy has no aircraft and reduced, but because of Yang Yuanzhao's forward-looking and strengthened a lot, these hangars have at least 2 meters or more reinforced concrete structure, It is enough to withstand the direct attack of bombs of more than 1,000 pounds, and with the semi-submersible structure, some of which are also excavated by relying on stone mountains, the protection is first-class. (To be continued......)