There is an old saying, called "the mountains and rivers are full of doubts, and the willows and flowers are bright and another village". Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

It might have taken Qin Lang a long time to remember it if no one reminded him—his brain was full of so many plans, numbers, formulas, and blueprints, and having lived in an English-speaking country for too long, that Chinese proverbs had become rather unfamiliar—but Yi Shui didn't think about as much as he did, and that he could quickly remember that phrase and that he communicated with his father a lot.

He told Qin Lang that it could serve as a summary of the situation they had faced in the past few days.

Just a few hours earlier, the trouble that Vice Admiral Makarov had created for them had come to an abrupt end in a dramatic fashion, and Qin Lang had not yet come up with a plan and had done nothing but to admonish his Jewish partners to be patient.

It was not the combined fleet that did anything, and despite all its might, in the end it came to nothing: Makarov was quite aware of his situation and acted decisively, and after the attack on Tokyo, the whole fleet was divided into two parts, one was cruisers, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Kolchak, which rushed to Vladivostok at maximum speed, and the other part was three battleships, which the vice admiral personally led to the south, and finally reached Guam safely, where he surrendered his weapons and placed under the temporary supervision of American troops. Until the last moment, the commanders and staff of the Combined Fleet remained unaware of the actions of the Russian Navy, did not capture either Kolchak or Makarov, and although they had mastered the control of the sea, they could not feel even the slightest joy and had to endure the ridicule of the Japanese Army.

Moreover, perhaps with the tacit approval of the senior officers of the Army, the Army's outspoken mid-level officers and the Army-biased Japanese newspapers are brazenly promoting the stupidity and incompetence of the Navy, as if trying to make the Combined Fleet a laughing stock for the whole of Japan.

Even in the United States and Europe, however much biased towards the Army, Japanese newspapers were careful to remove the obvious excesses of the officers, or to replace them with relatively mild words, so as not to be attacked by the Navy or its supporters, but the Western journalists who reprinted the news had no same concerns, and not only copied every word of the Army officers, but also added to the tradition of the press.

So, since the situation of the Japanese Navy is so bad, who can expect it to provide any help to itself?

It was the Russians who helped Qin Lang.

To be more precise, was the Supreme Commander of the Arthur Fortress, Lieutenant General of the Russian Imperial Army, Anatoly? Mihainovich? Stessel, helped him.

He surrendered.

Qin Lang originally thought that Vice Admiral could hold out for a while, half a month or a little longer, but the information he finally obtained showed that almost as soon as Vice Admiral Makarov's fleet left the Arthur base, his secret representative had already begun to contact the Japanese to discuss various details about the surrender.

It seems that Lieutenant General Stessel had a complete plan for his fate, even for a short time, long ago.

As a result, Qin Lang's problem was properly resolved, and it was worth holding a small celebration.

But he won't do that, because there are many other issues to be solved. Qin Lang developed and implemented many plans, and the war between the Russians and the Japanese was only one of them.

When the news of Stexel's surrender was confirmed, he took only one action: to lower the intelligence priority in the Far East so that he could redirect most of his energy to the rest of his plans. The war in the East is no longer worth paying much attention to, everything is moving forward along the predetermined route, two exhausted countries are about to seek a solution other than war, and then Theodore? President Roosevelt would intervene to induce St. Petersburg and Tokyo to sign a peace treaty that would receive the Nobel ******, the Tsars would lose their interests on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast China, and the Japanese would find themselves in a huge debt that would take many years to pay off, and perhaps never.

In the old timeline, it took almost fifteen years for Tokyo to pay off its war debts, and now, with its debt levels higher and its economic situation deteriorating day by day, its fiscal position on the verge of bankruptcy, it will be extremely difficult to repay its debts, and perhaps at some point, the country will have to make a difficult decision between defaulting and collapsing.

That was exactly what Qin Lang was looking forward to, one of the ultimate goals of his plan: if Japan chose to collapse, it would be a day worth celebrating; If Japan chooses to stop paying its debts, then the US Navy's Pacific Fleet will tell the Japanese what will happen if they pay their debts.

It's called a win-win.

Maybe......

Qin Lang was not worried about Japan's alliance with Britain. Russia's expansion in the Far East has been curtailed, and in keeping with centuries of chaotic nature on the continent, London will forge a new alliance with St. Petersburg and Paris against the aggressive Kaiser Wilhelm II and his German Empire. The countdown to the world war was imminent, and once it finally broke out, the British Empire would not have the power to stop American military action in the Far East.

Moreover, the British were also creditors of the Japanese, and if the Japanese stopped paying their debts and the British had to make up for the losses caused by the world war, the Japanese would not be happy when the warships of the Royal Navy entered the Gulf of Tonkin.

This is the Imperial Prime Minister Winston? Winston Churchill once said, "There are no eternal friends or enemies in the world, only eternal interests." ”

Everything was in his plan.

Of course, there is a risk that any plan that looks perfect will not be successfully completed until it becomes a reality, but there is still a long way to go before the world war officially breaks out - even if it is very likely to happen before 1914 under the current situation - Qin Lang still has many opportunities to repair the flaws in his plan, deal with the damage caused by the unexpected, and ensure that the war will go the way he intended.

It will be a bloodier, more brutal, and at the same time more spectacular war, and on its first day, the soldiers who go into battle will have to face the murderous devices he has prepared for them: automatic rifles and high-speed machine guns, nerve gas, mines, bombers...... If possible, there may also be flamethrowers or incendiary grenades.

And tanks, of course.

Qin Lang finally decided to call his war machine a tank instead of something else. Most of the reason is to hide from others, and a small part is because he is familiar with it and likes it, so he refuses to use other names. No objections have been raised yet, and theoretically there will be no one in the future, no matter how conspicuously different the final product may be from the water tank, it can indeed be confusing now.

The Russians sent a telegram in great earnest, asking him what the "water tank" mentioned in the previous telegram represented. This stupid move made Qin Lang feel that his prospects for cooperation with St. Petersburg might be a little bleak, although he knew that the Russians were unlikely to keep the secret for too long, and that the French, the British, and perhaps the Germans and Austrians could all obtain information through open or secret channels, but directly asked about the meaning of a noun that was obviously a code name......

Maybe the Russians really didn't understand that it was a cover-up codename, but Qin Lang hoped that this was a blatant leak, at least to make it look less funny.

However, that was wishful thinking, and he had to take immediate remedial measures: apologize to St. Petersburg, put the blame on Umbrella's communications department, saying that it was just the staff on duty who sent the wrong telegram, and finally, in all subsequent telegrams sent to the Russians, changed the tank to the official name used by the Russian War Ministry, "Land Cruiser".

It always reminded him of Toyota's off-road cars, or a steel monster of at least a hundred tons.

At first, Qin Lang thought it wanted a steel monster of at least a hundred tons, but after a week, he realized that the Russian officials, generals, and engineers who could speak out didn't really know what they wanted.

He quickly found the reason, and then regretted that he had neglected this simple question: since the tank had not really been born, no one knew what this new war machine should look like. Everyone has a different opinion, some with minimal differences, but some with diametrically opposed opinions, including whether a tracked chassis should be used or not. Even proponents of tracked chassis are divided: over the top or not over the top.

The design request made to him by the Russian War Ministry was only a cobbling together of the opinions of the supporters, and even then it was still unclear: most of the army's generals demanded the installation of a large-caliber artillery, but there was no consensus on whether to install a naval gun or a howitzer, and no one was willing to give up their views for the time being.

It is not the final version. Each of the Russians' telegrams was subject to varying degrees of adjustment, and at one point they even abandoned large-caliber artillery in favor of two three-inch-caliber guns and six machine guns - but except this time, the Russians always took the trouble to talk about how important a large-caliber artillery gun was to the Russian Army.

They even vaguely mentioned that Russian engineers had submitted a design for the installation of such a gun.

Finally, they also mention the designer's name.

Just seeing that name, Qin Lang had a preliminary understanding of his design plan: Vasily? Dmitrievich? Mendeleev, who was and still has no significant reputation, actually "had" designed for the Russian Army a steel monster that was almost as heavy as the "Mouse" super-heavy tank, and the armor was almost as thick, and the main weapon was a 4.7-inch naval gun, which seemed to be named the "Land Cruiser". At the same time, he was Dmitry, who discovered the periodic law of the elements? Mendeleev's son.

Although the same designer does not mean that he will design the same weapons, Qin Lang feels that since the Russian Army requires the installation of a 4.7-inch naval gun, there will not be too many differences in the design plan of the young Mr. Mendeleev.

Theoretically, yes.

That is, the Russian Army will not really build the "Land Cruiser" designed by Mr. Mendeleev, there are only two places that fit into it, the designer's drawing tablet and the painter's military painting. If you have to add a third, then there is only a military museum.

The reason why the Russians mentioned it in the telegram was obvious - and it was also the reason why they continued to discuss the new weapon with him by telegram at the risk of revealing their secrets - and the War Office was apparently anxious to quell the endless arguments of officials, generals, and technicians in order to arrive at a definite design and move on to the next stage, and his opinion seemed to know the weapon better than anyone else, and his opinion was a suitable object of reference.

His latest discovery made Qin Lang feel quite bad.

"These cunning Russians." He complained to Rachel and O'Connor, "I see them as potential customers for new weapons, and they only want to think of me as a consultant!" ”

Rachel guessed what he meant: "Are you worried that the Russians will eventually decide to design and build that kind of weapon themselves, rather than entrust us with such a job?" ”

"No, the Russians don't have enough technical strength to finish it." Qin Lang told his joke seriously, "What annoys me is that the Russians obviously don't intend to pay me for the consultation. ”

"So you plan to stop telegraph contact with St. Petersburg?"

"Yes, I have asked the Russians to send a delegation here to discuss technical issues with us face to face." Qin Lang said, and then added in his heart: and sign an order for weapons that will make the Russians heartache.

Originally, his decision was to let Yi Shui go to St. Petersburg to discuss those issues, and he had already told the Russians of the arrangement, since the Russian War Department had been pestering him, then he could only abandon that arrangement and let the Russians go to San Diego and let him handle it personally.

He didn't like the decision, but Yi Shui definitely liked it. He had left San Diego a week earlier, the day after the Pentagon received the news of Lieutenant General Stessel's surrender, and was somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, unsurprisingly still thinking worriedly about how to accomplish his mission - even sleepless at night. But now, his mission is only the easy one, and he can sleep well.

He shook his head. "I believe that for Yi Shui, this must be the best news he has heard in this time."

Rachel automatically ignored the taunt. "I'll tell him to adjust his itinerary right away."

"But how are you going to negotiate with the Russians?" O'Connor asked, "From what I have observed, they can give up almost all technical indicators, but definitely not large-caliber artillery." ”

"Then we'll give them a tank with a large-caliber gun." Qin Lang declared with certainty. He already had an idea: a diamond-shaped hull, over-the-top tracks, a 160 mm rear-loading mortar on the right side of the front of the hull, and a turret with a 75 mm gun, then seven crew members crammed in, and finally only armor with a maximum thickness of no more than 15 mm.

Basically, it's an enlarged version of the CharB1 tank with weakened armor, but he'll call it the Emperor's Blade, Macarius, or Riemann? Ruth, each one is a good name.

"But that kind of tank is not what we need." O'Connor cautioned, "This will lead to higher development costs for us." ”

He already knew part of the indicators of the kind of tank that Qin Lang really wanted to build, which weighed no more than twenty tons, had only five crew members, a 75mm gun and two .30 caliber machine guns, and installed a V-shaped 12-cylinder engine with a volume of 1790 cubic inches. It's not something the Russians want, and probably won't have much in common.

If the Russians were to accept their request, even if they were modified according to the actual conditions of the Umbrella, the simultaneous development of two tanks would be beyond the company's technical capabilities, resulting in rising research costs, but Qin Lang's original intention of pulling the Russians into his plan was to reduce the cost of development, and his new idea was running counter to it.

"It doesn't matter." Qin Lang waved his hand, "Because in fact, we don't really make that kind of thing." It was just a bait used to get the Russians to sign a contract. ”

"I'm afraid the Russians are not so easily deceived." O'Connor said, "What if they ask to track the progress of our research? ”

"Then buy the guy who tracks the progress."

"Uh......" was a fairly stylistic decision, and O'Connor didn't know what to say.

"And we're going to start with a wooden model, then a test rig made of mild steel without a turret and weapons, then a technical demonstration vehicle with a turret but no weapons, and maybe we'll actually build a test vehicle with weapons on it, if we can." Compared to when he asked Yi Shui to go to St. Petersburg, Qin Lang already had more knowledge of how to execute the contract with the Russian Army, and together they constituted a hoax, "We can use leftover materials from other projects and scrapped parts to make those things, and test them for many years, but never make any modifications." ”

"This can delay some time, but not for long, and the Russians won't have that much patience."

This question is also in Qin Lang's consideration. "In the end, we will tell the Russians that there are too many insurmountable technical hurdles in the whole project, so it is very regrettable that we can only cancel it, and at the same time advise the Russians to purchase our own kind of tanks."

"Will they?" O'Connor was skeptical.

But Qin Lang was full of confidence. "Of course."

He didn't explain what the reason for his confidence came from, it was really just two words: world war. It is the final answer.

The Russians would have accepted his offer. (To be continued.) )