Chen Shaokuan's expectation is that it is almost an impossible task, if the Type II submarine shipyard can be built within half a year and the ship can be handed over at the beginning of next year, and the pro-China faction has not stepped down at this time, then there may be some hope; The Type VII submarine will be launched this time next year and delivered in the autumn after outfitting - it was already the Munich incident, and Hitler dared to threaten war, apparently subduing the Wehrmacht.

Li Kongrong did not believe that Field Marshal von Blomburg would survive until that time, and that Hitler would certainly find another way to get him down. If history does not change, he only hopes that the German-made arms will survive the battle of Wuhan, reduce the shipping schedule, negotiation period, shipment, land transportation and other times, and Germany will postpone the suspension of the Sino-German arms deal until July. The next step is to look at the Soviet Union, since China wants to hold Japan down in order to protect itself from being attacked from both sides, it will certainly provide arms loans to China.

This is the case in terms of time, but there are exceptions, and with the meticulous style of the Japanese, they will certainly not believe the lies they told to Vice Admiral Bastian, and they will inevitably break the submarine deal. Just, what will they do?

On the ship returning to Berlin from the submarine port of Neustadt, Li Kongrong has been thinking about how to solve this problem. He felt that with German-Japanese relations, in the Sino-Japanese war, unless Hitler spoke, it would be difficult for these submarines to return to China. Another premise is that Chang Kaishen did not start a war in Shanghai, and the war was limited to North China. In his sight, he would rather a hundred thousand nations. The resistance of the army is not as strong as the inconvenient transportation. If the battle is fought in North China, the time of coastal fall will be greatly delayed, and even if the Japanese take the initiative to start a war in Shanghai, they will not be able to put in heavy troops in this land where they can outflank the landing on both sides, but should resist in turn on the Wufu line and the Xicheng line.

It depends on Kong Xiangxi, if he can convince Chang Kaishen, then China's situation will be very likely to be reversed. As the saying goes, 'the illness of the sitting, but the wife can be cured; Madame's illness can only be cured. There are only one or two people in the world who can convince Chang Kaishen.

Li Kongrong thought about Kong Xiangxi, who had already left, and hoped that he could change history, but Zhou Yingcong, who was sitting next to him, was looking for Lübeck with a map of Germany. He was so unfamiliar with Germany that he couldn't find it after looking for a long time.

"Big brother, here!" Li Kongrong pointed to the upper right side of the map. Germany is shaped like a severed-headed eagle, with Denmark as her head, Poland as her right wing, and the Netherlands and Belgium as her left wing. The Czech Republic and France are under her wing, while Austria and Switzerland are behind her tail. The city of Lübeck, where the right wing meets the neck, is a small bay in the Baltic Sea. Neustadt is on the north side of the bay, while Lübeck is at the base of the bay, on the banks of the Travi River.

"It's actually here." Zhou Yingcong has been looking for it on the coast, I don't want this Lübeck City to be on the coast at all, she is still more than 20 kilometers away from the coast. "Is this shipyard small?"

"I don't know." Li Kongrong didn't know how big the Lübeck shipyard was, but since he hadn't heard of it, it must be a small shipyard. The Germans arranged themselves here, in addition to the protests of the Japanese, and also to prevent themselves from discovering the secrets of the Kielbremen shipyard - the Zeppelin aircraft carrier and the Bismarck battleship were being built.

"Didn't the Germans say they would pass by later, so they don't know if they can go and see it." Li Kongrong said.

"The minister mentioned it, but the other party didn't agree, and we didn't have time to say it." Zhou Yingcong said, "We don't have foreign exchange in our hands, but shipyards from all over the world always have to go for a walk, otherwise it won't make people look down on people, and it's not good to hurt friendship." ”

"Just slap a swollen face and become fat?" Li Kongrong wanted to laugh in his heart. In his opinion, if you have money to go to the mall, what else to go to the mall if you don't have money, and wait in line with the old lady for a special price?

"How is this a swollen face and a fat man?" Zhou Yingcong didn't see the smile in Li Kongrong's eyes, "I received more than a dozen invitations in my hand, and if I don't go, I can't just say that we don't have money, or ask them if they want soybean tungsten sand?" Aren't you very sociable? The minister is now in Europe, and he always has to show his face, and you know that at the coronation in London, the minister has the rank of admiral, and his position is ahead of the other admirals......"

In private, Zhou Yingcong always likes to talk about the grand occasion of the coronation of the British king more than a month ago, and every time he mentions that Chen Shaokuan stands in front of other **** admirals, it feels like a very face-saving thing.

Zhou Yingcong muttered, the traffic boat has reached the mouth of the Telavi River, which is a narrow river channel with a slight turn, the river goes into less than a kilometer, and there is actually a checkpoint next to the town, with German flags and Nazi flags floating on it, which makes people feel very abrupt. However, thinking that this checkpoint is the Baltic Sea, Li Kongrong was relieved, isn't this a border station.

After this border post and walk for about a kilometer, the river widens in vain, and the left side looks like a lake, of course it is not a large lake, and you can see the shore of the lake from the boat. The lake is gourd-shaped, and a narrow mouth farther to the left is followed by a water, but there is no longer a river connected there. Standing on the boat, you can't see the edge, but the map shows that it is no bigger than the other half of the gourd.

After a while, the boat began to turn along the river again, and then to the straight, and when the boat turned again, Vice Admiral Bastian pointed to a factory area on the right and told everyone that it was the Flemish shipyard.

Including Chen Shaokuan, everyone immediately looked at the shipyard. Although he was not happy to choose here, Li Kongrong was a little comforted by the fact that this shipyard near the river was quite large, and the chimneys felt better than the Jiangnan Shipyard. In addition to the chimney, he could see the small train, the piles of wood in the factory area, and the busy workers.

Only when the ship had completely sailed through this section of the river and could not see the shipyard could be seen did Li Kongrong put down his binoculars. From what he had just observed, he felt that this shipyard seemed to be a little under-employed, and there were so many piles of wood, could it be that it was a wooden ship? Worried about the technical level of the factory, he thought that he would have to live here in the future - he would have to run the shipyard from Berlin to both ends. On the one hand, they were worried that the Nazis would favor Japan, and on the other hand, they were worried that the shipyards would deliberately sabotage. Although there will be people from China to supervise the construction after the contract is signed, they are only naval engineers, and only he, the naval attaché of the embassy who is about to take up his post, is a diplomat, and he will give some face to the Germans.

The shipyard saw the city of Lübeck not long after. Under the arrangement of the Germans, the group did not make any more stops in the city and rushed directly to Berlin, which was more than 280 kilometers away.

Chen Shaokuan and the others left early the next morning, and Li Kongrong, who had sent them off, thought that he could rest, and then thought about a few things at hand, and didn't want to wait in the reception room just after returning to the naval dormitory. When he saw Li Kongrong coming in, he stood up and smiled, "Brother Hansheng is really hard to find, the younger brother waited for two days to wait today." ”

After the reception that day, Li Kongrong also met Du Luming three times, and three times he invited him to dinner, the purpose of course was to learn more about armored tactics. Li Kongrong is not hiding his secrets, he asks and can think of everything. It's just that armored warfare can be finished in a few meals, from weapons to tactics, and then from tactics to establishment, and today Du Luming is here to compile.

"I can't help it." is familiar with it, Li Kongrong is not good at refusing people thousands of miles away, "I went on a business trip in the past two days." ”

"Yes, I heard, Brother Hansheng worked hard." Du Luming said, "But the younger brother is always thinking about the ...... of the establishment of this armored division, the younger brother has little reading and less knowledge, you see, this is going to ask Brother Hansheng for help again." ”

"I've roughly written a copy of the compilation, you wait." Li Kongrong said that he would ask the officer on duty to help him go to the room to get it. After a while, he took the things down, opened them first and looked at them to make sure that they were correct, and then handed the document to Du Luming, "That's it, you can take a look first." ”

Du Luming had to make a fuss about getting an armored division, and Li Kongrong, who had eaten a few meals from him, had to reluctantly agree (one meal actually cost 1,000 marks at the checkout at the Nanjing Hotel), and asked him not to invite him to dinner if he had anything to do, and to ask him directly if he had any questions. As for the establishment of the armored division, he only slowly recalled, and it took more than a week to write a preparation table.

The Air Force, artillery, and infantry are all essential things for armored divisions. The Air Force couldn't count on it, and the artillery contacted France and actually said that there were 120mm mortars, and the price was not expensive (it is estimated that no one wanted them), and Du Luming immediately prepared to buy a regiment of 36 guns, each with 1,000 shells. It's just that the French can't pay for a total of two million dollars if they want foreign exchange. In the end, he listened to Li Kongrong's suggestion, bought all the guns, and only bought 10,000 shells, which was not enough, and the domestic arsenal that was not enough copied it with the information provided by the French.

The problem of self-propelled guns is solved, and the LT-35 tank Skoda is also willing to sell, but the problem is that the price is expensive, 950,000 kroner is about 38,000 dollars per tank, and an armored division assumes 200 tanks, which costs 7.6 million dollars, but fortunately it can be bartered, and the Czech Republic accepts soybeans. But this is still too expensive, but thinking that if the war takes place in the Yellow River and Xuzhou area, Li Kongrong felt that it was still necessary to have such an armored force, so according to the establishment of the Soviet army, the level was raised on the basis of the German army, and the tank company became a tank regiment, and the tank regiment became a tank brigade.

This turned Du Luming's armored divisions into armored corps: each division had a tank brigade under its jurisdiction, including three tank regiments, each regiment had 21 tanks, a total of 64 tanks; There is also a motorized infantry regiment, a self-propelled artillery regiment, and battalions of communications, fuel, baggage, and boat bridges under the division, with about 4,000 people in the division, and the three divisions are combined into an armored corps, with about 13,000 people in the whole army. The motorized infantry division Li Kongrong also simply wrote a formation, compared with the ordinary infantry division, in addition to the addition of bicycles, there is also an additional 37mm anti-tank artillery regiment, as well as two 75mm mountain artillery battalions.

Li Kongrong thought that the compilation he wrote was good, but Du Luming, who was holding the compilation table, was uneasy. He didn't think there was anything wrong with the formation, he was frightened by the cost of the entire legion. Even if there were only 192 tanks, plus three 120mm mortar regiments, plus the cost of trucks, boat bridges, and communications, this would cost 10 million dollars. This is not counting the cost of fuel and ammunition, the training of the troops requires oil, and the war not only costs fuel but also artillery shells, and I really don't know how much it will cost this year.

"Questions?" Seeing that Du Luming was silent for a while, Li Kongrong opened his mouth to ask.

"It's too expensive!" Du Luming said, "The equipment alone costs 33 million national coins, which can arm six German armorers." ”

"There's no way around it." Li Kongrong smiled, "That's why I reduced the number of tanks in the armored division, and each division only included sixty-four tanks." In fact, armored units can build blocks, and tanks, infantry, and artillery can be disassembled at will according to different situations. If it's too expensive, buy sixty-four.

And it is less difficult to command in this way. We are not far from the day of war, and there is not so much time for us to train. In my opinion, it is better to start with a tank brigade, with a tank regiment with a motorized infantry battalion and an artillery battalion. Don't you have an armored regiment in your hands now, although they are all old tanks, you can also practice first, people have to be saved, and you just have new equipment when you run out. ”

While drinking tea and talking about his own suggestions, Li Kongrong's eyes blinked a few times, and suddenly thought of Jiang Weiguo, and then thought of him that he had not yet enlisted in the army, and he learned armored tactics in Germany in history, how to get his phone?

Sighing heavily, Du Luming patted the pieces of paper and said, "That's all it takes." In China, it is just possible to prepare armored divisions while training and waiting for equipment. ”

"It's best for Skoda to place an order at one time, and then deliver it in a year or a year and a half, and I'm afraid of changes after a long time." Li Kongrong thought of the last question. "Aren't you a protégé of the Son of Heaven, the chairman of the committee will say more good things about the tanks of the two brigades first, plus those tanks in the country, whether they are good or not, they will be concentrated, and they can barely be regarded as a tank army. Remember, as long as the place can be opened, and the roads, logistics, and cover are also allowed, then as many tanks as you can get on the tank, only then can you control the battlefield, control the battlefield you can tow the anchored tanks back for repair, the losses are small, and it is likely to capture enemy equipment. ”

The protégé of the Son of Heaven made Du Luming laugh, but this is a fact, otherwise how could he go to Europe to buy tanks. He said, "I'll do what Brother Hansheng suggests." The younger brother will live up to his brother's expectations and must come back from the captured tanks from the Japanese. ”

"That's good." Li Kongrong still had some expectations for him, and thought that Chang Kaishen often gave orders indiscriminately, so he said: "Although soldiers take obedience as their duty, the use of armored divisions must have specific conditions, otherwise the loss of equipment is a trivial matter, and the loss of personnel is a major matter." Remember that you can't fight in places with dense rivers, you can't fight in hilly and mountainous areas, and you can't fight in urban street fights. Li Kongrong said three no-fights in one breath, and then said: "If you really want to go to war, there will be one less tank to fight, you can't listen to the chaos and lose all your lives all at once." ”

Li Kongrong spoke bitterly, Du Luming immediately stood up and saluted, and said seriously: "Please rest assured Brother Han Sheng, the junior brother will keep in mind these three no-fights." ”