The cordial exchange with Kong Xiangxi carried Li Kongrong a little carried away, and he didn't even care about the meeting with Hitler - in a living room with a large globe in the Eagle's Nest, Hitler received the Chinese delegation. Under the introduction of the diplomats, he shook hands with everyone one after another, Li Kongrong only felt that his handshake was weak, his palms were cold and damp, and the gray blue eyes were also life......less, if it were not for the person shaking hands in front of him was the real Hitler, he could hardly imagine that such a cold and indifferent person was the Führer of the Third Reich who made 70 million Germans collectively crazy.

Like Goering, Hitler, in addition to welcoming Kong Xiangxi to Germany, explained that the German-Japanese anti-communist treaty was only anti-communist, and then advised China and Japan to coexist peacefully so that the communists would not benefit from it. Speaking of communism, he became agitated, waving his hand to emphasize that communism is like a germ that spreads and eventually kills when invaded by it, and uses the Spanish Civil War as an example to illustrate the dangers of communism.

The Nazis have always been anti-communist, and Kong Xiangxi also summed up a set of rhetoric, beginning to briefly describe China's anti-communist strategy and past, and then complimenting Germany for the great progress it has made in the past four years, all thanks to the Führer and the Kuomintang Socialist Party.

The meeting lasted for an hour, and it was basically Hitler who was talking and he was listening, but after the novelty of Li Kongrong's first sight faded, he was always thinking about those reports in his heart, and he wished that he had a pen and paper in his hand now and could start writing.

An hour later, at the end of the meeting, as a return gift to the Chinese delegation, Hitler presented each of them with a photograph with his own signature, and the group was presented by the Germans with an eagle's nest. Li Kongrong, who came out of the Eagle's Nest, was so relieved that he began to write hard in the car, slept for a while at night, and perfected the reports on the train.

The first point of the report on the Sino-Japanese issue is to let Kong Xiangxi, Chang Kaishen and others understand the current political ecology of Japan and the strategic purpose of the war against China. The second point is the coping strategy, but that's where the hard part is. It is said that the upper echelons of the Japanese army do not want to invade China, but the middle two below will die, and then the country. The army is too vegetable, and he was stabbed down in Nanjing by others......

Writing like this will definitely make Chang Kaishen unhappy. The 128th Anti-Japanese War and the victory of Bailing Temple made Chang Kaishen feel that Japan was not very capable of fighting, and the German mechanics who had been trained in the past few years couldn't eat the 3,000 Japanese marines? But in fact, it was the Japanese army that summed up the lessons of 128, and the level of warfare technology was improving, but it was the country that was strange. On the contrary, the level of warfare technology of the army is declining.

Li Kongrong can't say why this is so, but he believes that there are two extremely key points: the first is that the country in the past few years. The army has been suppressing the Communists, and the opponent has no heavy firepower, so the basic skills learned during the 128th Anti-Japanese War do not need to be completely forgotten for several years, and then there is no special and strict combat training for the large corps; But don't be afraid to forget about it, country. In recent years, the army has taken Germany as its teacher, and the old-fashioned tactics of the First World War have become obsolete, and now they pay attention to motorization and mechanization.

Writing a report brought up all kinds of grievances in the past, Li Kongrong immediately punched himself in the head, and then he sobered up. He then pondered the question of scale: how much historical fact should be included in the report? If you mention it too much, then the matter of selling intelligence yourself is likely to be exposed. It's not too important to show the stuffing, but what if Chang Kaishen still fights in Shanghai? But if he didn't say something about what was going to happen in the report in order to gain Chang Kaishen's trust, how could he possibly change his plan to attract Japanese troops in North China and avoid Shanghai?

Writing reports is a direct influence, and selling intelligence is a covert influence. If the former is chosen, then the latter may be difficult to implement, but the latter is chosen, because of the lack of trust, Chang Kaishen is likely not to cancel the Shanghai decisive battle plan. What to do? Li Kongrong looked at the other two written reports thoughtfully.

The Spanish shipwreck and the draft of the penicillin R&D were written in an hour. First of all, he applied for $50,000 in start-up capital, and in order to make Kong Xiangxi trust, he also wrote a financial plan, that is, to set up a company and hire financial personnel to manage the accounts, so that he would not get money and save a lot of trouble. German foreign exchange is controlled, so it is better for the company to be located in Switzerland, at least the account is located in Switzerland, and then after determining the R&D personnel, consider which country the laboratory is located.

This is the case with penicillin, and about the shipwreck, he wrote down all the information he knew, as long as he could write it, and then suggested that Kong Xiangxi mobilize the ambassadors of various countries to find the historical materials of the Lady Atoka, although he did not remember the exact location of the shipwreck—he couldn't recall the map in the documentary, which was a perpendicular intersection of several coral reef islands, and the wreck was near the meeting point, so he didn't have to spend years groping in a whole sea area. Just look for an area two or three miles from the intersection of perpendicular lines.

Later, the treasure hunter was in the wrong place at first, and found nothing for many years, and then fortunately, the historian helped to find the key historical materials, and found an iron anchor not long after changing places, but then they were wrong again, and spent more than three years in the estimated direction (southeast direction) and found nothing, and one day when they were disappointed, they suddenly tried their luck to search due east, and found dozens of blackened silver bars at once. In the right direction, progress was naturally fast, and they found the wreck in a few months following the direction of the silver bar.

According to Li Kongrong's estimate, if only he could remember the map (the map indicating the location of the silver bars); At the same time, later treasure hunters were afraid of missing clues, so they turned over every inch of the beach and touched it (which is another reason why the treasure hunt progressed slowly), but he didn't want to, because the documentary said that the wreck was not buried, but was exposed to the bottom of the sea, saying that it looked like a wall 75 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 3 feet high. It was not difficult to find such a wall on the flat seabed, and there was no need to dig up sand in every inch of the seabed, so he judged that the treasure hunt would take three months at most, and if he was lucky, he might be able to complete it in a month.

But if you can't remember the vertical line map of the coral reef, you can only start with the key historical information found by later historians, and start from the iron anchor. But the iron anchor is not a wall after all, it is much more difficult to find, and if you can't find the iron anchor, you can only be scared. Coupled with the time to find historical materials, Li Kongrong can't tell how long it will take, but if he can really start from the iron anchor, he estimates that because he doesn't need to touch every inch of the seabed, he will be able to find the wreck in about a year.

The shipwreck and penicillin matter are so simple, but the report on the Sino-Japanese issue is extremely difficult. After going to the army infantry to study and visit the exercise that morning, Chen Shaokuan immediately asked Zhou Yingcong to call him.

"I will go to the Ministry of Defense at one o'clock later, and Mr. Yongzhi will officially propose to the German side to buy submarines, what is your opinion?" In the hotel, Chen Shaokuan and Lin Xianxin were there, and they all read a pre-written submarine report given by Li Kongrong, but they were never sure what submarine to buy.

"Xia Guan thinks that you should buy spot." Li Kongrong looked at Chen Shaokuan and said. "If it is custom-made, in the event of a war between China and Japan, it is very likely that the German side will not deliver the ship under pressure from Japan, so no matter how much it is ordered, it will be equal to zero."

Chen Shaokuan only felt that today's Li Kongrong was different from the previous time, but he didn't think that it was a different person, he just thought that it was a person who was in good spirits on happy occasions. Seeing Li Kongrong's point of view, he glanced at Lin Xianxi, nodded and said, "We also have this concern." ”

"So the lower official proposed another plan." Li Kongrong said, "Only two Type 1 submarines have been built, but these two submarines have not been launched long ago and their performance is also lacking, so they are currently temporarily used for training. Taking into account the fact that Germany is most likely reluctant to sell active equipment, we can offer to purchase these two submarines. ”

"Hmm." There is this method written in the report, Chen Shaokuan is noncommittal, and Lin Xianxin said: "Since the performance is not good, it is still a training ship, is it appropriate to buy it back?" What if I can't use it? ”

"Don't worry, sir, these two submarines are just a little less performant, and we will definitely be able to use them when we buy them." Li Kongrong said that he remembered that the two submarines (U25 and U26) had been on the battlefield, and the main defects were that the center of gravity was unstable and the dive was too slow.

"But this submarine has more than 800 tons." Lin Xianxin said disgustedly, "If you think it must be expensive, in that case, why not buy a Type II submarine?" If we really want to go to war, we just need to hold the mouth of the Yangtze River and the coastal ports, and I don't think we have that condition for a sabotage operation, don't you also think that the wolf pack tactics are difficult to implement in our current situation? ”

"Yes, sir." Li Kongrong glanced at Lin Xianxi. "But what if the coastal submarine base is lost? We have seen the incompetence of the army before the Qing Dynasty......"

"Shao Sheng, do you mean that the army will also be like the Qing army and will be crushed for three thousand miles?" Zhou Yingcong was surprised, "It's impossible, the Central Army is a German armorer, how can it be ...... if they buy planes, heavy artillery, and cars every year?"

"It won't be too far from the Qing army." Li Kongrong said bitterly, "The most important thing in the army is artillery, and now there is only one artillery battalion in the German armament division, and there are only twelve 75mm mountain guns in the whole division. Although the German advisers set up independent artillery brigades and artillery regiments in order to make up for the lack of artillery, they were seriously short of shells, and they bought a lot of 150mm heavy guns, which they could not use at all......"

Li Kongrong shook his head heavily, he remembered that some 150mm heavy artillery had to be pushed into the river because the troops in front had planted mines on the bridge when they were retreating from Shanghai. German goods were already expensive, but when they bought them, they raised their prices by 30% because of bribery, so that German adviser Seckert couldn't stand it, and suggested that Chang Kaishen buy third-country artillery [Note 10]. The cannon that I finally bought was pushed into the river like this, and it was really a dog.

“…… If China and Japan go to war, the army will collapse, and it will be difficult to keep the coastal military ports. Since it can't be saved, then you should buy a submarine with a long range. In this way, we can use camouflaged merchant ships to replenish, but if it doesn't work, we can go to a non-neutral country for repair and maintenance, even if it is a neutral country, we have a twenty-hour stay, and some minor problems can still be repaired. The last one is that the Japanese army at the junction of Fujian and Zhejiang has no time to take care of it for a while, and we can secretly set up an improvised port as a supply. ”

"There's some truth to that." Chen Shaokuan and Lin Xianxin looked at each other and said. The First Sino-Japanese rout is vividly remembered, and once the army collapses and the military port is not guaranteed, the submarine with a long range can escape. No matter what the situation, the preservation of the ship is the first priority.

"And what if Germany refuses to sell these two training boats?" Lin Xianxin finally looked at Li Kongrong well, and his words were no longer sharp, he said, "Then what should we do?" ”

"Then we can only make it to order, but we must ask Germany to deliver it within a year, we would rather suffer some losses in price and payment, and getting the ship is the most important thing." Li Kongrong said. "However, I am also worried that if there is a change in the country and a war breaks out between China and Japan, the chairman of the committee will cancel the contract."

"Cancel the contract?" Lin Xianxin was puzzled.

"Yes." Li Kongrong nodded. "The Sino-German credit line is only 100 million marks, and if the submarine is ordered to be a 700-ton ocean-going type, the price is likely to exceed 8 million, and the flower head may even be close to 10 million. Once the war starts with a shortage of domestic ammunition, a few submarines will definitely be cancelled in order to save money to buy ammunition. Even if Mr. Yongzhi doesn't do it, the chairman will do it. ”

"The situation between China and Japan is really ...... so fast" Chen Shaokuan sighed, as if he was asking Li Kongrong, and as if he was talking to himself.

"Xia Guan thought that there would be a war this year." Li Kongrong said.

"On what basis?" Chen Shaokuan asked.

"There is no basis, Xiaguan ...... The income from the subordinate official is calculated. Li Kongrong said with a little twist.

As soon as he said this, Lin Xianxin immediately laughed, "Do you know how to tell hexagrams?" ”

"Yes, the lower officials are a little bit clear." Li Kongrong's scalp continued to harden.

"Haha... Haha......" Lin Xianxin laughed. He not only smiled but also looked at Chen Shaokuan, and said, "How old is he?" ”

"It's better to get down to business." Chen Shaokuan doesn't take fortune-telling seriously. "How many submarines do you think should be ordered if it is custom-made?"

"Xia Guan thinks it shouldn't be more than 50 million marks." Li Kongrong said, "Then when the chairman cancels the contract, come up with a feasible plan, let him cancel a few ships, keep three or four, and at least two." ”

"But what if there is no war?" Chen Shaokuan asked again. "Isn't it less that you book like this?"

"The credit line is limited, 50 million marks have already accounted for half, and if there are more army and air force, there will definitely be opinions." Li Kongrong said, "Besides, if there is no war, you can order it again in the next two years." ”

"Well, as you said, we'll limit ourselves to 50 million marks, and we can buy as much as we can." Chen Shaokuan glanced at Lin Xianxi and said what he thought.

After discussing this matter, I don't want Chen Shaokuan to talk about another matter. He said: "Mr. Yongzhi and Ambassador Cheng have both recommended you to be the naval attache of the embassy, and the rank will also be promoted to lieutenant colonel, what is your opinion?" ”

I didn't expect it to come so soon, Li Kongrong was happy in his heart and said at the same time: "Minister Report: Xiaguan only wants to learn submarines!" ”

"Don't worry, learning submarines won't be delayed." Chen Shaokuan said, "But if Germany is willing to sell those two training boats, you don't have to count on it, whether you can get on the boat and be the captain depends on whether you can take care of the relationship in Germany and let the Germans deliver the ship smoothly." Do you understand? ”

didn't expect Chen Shaokuan to come to this hand, Li Kongrong had to say: "Xia Guan understands!" Xiaguan thanked the minister for cultivation. ”

"It's good to understand." Chen Shaokuan's face warmed, "Okay, I'll go to the Ministry of Defense later, and we'll see if the Germans will sell us the spot." ”