"It's time for military preparations!"

After the press conference, Yang Chao took a train to Harbin and held talks with Duan Qirui here, and at the same time inspected Duan Qirui's army, and saw that Duan Qirui's Beiyang Army was still combative, and his heart was relieved. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

However, the Beiyang Army of Jilin and Fengtian made Yang Chao not optimistic, and even felt that these two armies had been abolished, Duan Zhigui was the governor of Heilongjiang, and the third and fourth towns of Beiyang were stationed here, although Duan Zhigui was nominally in charge of a town, but he had no time at all, he was busy with activities in the officialdom, so the army has always been managed by Duan Qirui.

Duan Qirui's reputation was not very good in later generations, and he was beaten into the ranks of warlords, but this person was very honest and very famous.

Duan Qirui believes in Buddhism, eats fast most of the time, is serious and rigid, does not smile, lives a simple life, is as honest as water, has no savings and no real estate. The creed of being a man is "no smoking, no drinking, no prostitution, no gambling, no greed, no possession", and later generations called the "six no prime ministers", which is very valuable in the late Qing Dynasty when material desires were rampant, no officials and no greed.

It is precisely because Duan Qirui has faith that he has maintained the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Army in the two towns under his command, so the 30,000 troops in Harbin are still available, Duan Qirui also said that he absolutely obeys Yang Chao's command, once the Russians attack Harbin, he vows not to retreat, and is willing to repay the country with death!

"What can't die. The Shandong New Army was commanded by Wu Peifu and would soon be stationed in Harbin. I'm sure you'll like Wu Peifu very much. ”

The two major warlords of the Republic of China are about to meet in the northeast and fight side by side, and Yang Chao himself feels that this history is too outrageous compared to him.

After waiting for the arrival of the first batch of troops led by Wu Peifu and the Shandong Road Protection Regiment in Harbin, Wu Peifu and Duan Qirui met and explained to the two of them, asking them to cooperate sincerely and not affect the battle situation for personal reasons.

But Yang Chao also knows that whoever cares about these two people will not be convinced, Duan Qirui is a senior. Wu Peifu went to a military academy in Germany, Duan Qirui has 30,000 Beiyang Army in his hands, and Wu Peifu has 50,000 road protection regiments in his hands, who can convince whom?

So Yang Chao didn't naively think that these two people could cooperate. did not let the two serve as the chief and deputy commanders, both of them are deputy positions, and Yang Chao plans to take the post personally, and with himself in town, the two may cooperate.

Let Wu Peifu immediately lead his road guard group to Duan Qirui together. Build defensive positions outside Harbin to prevent a surprise attack by the Russians.

Yang Chao immediately returned to Shandong, and immediately made an appointment with more than 50 heavy industry enterprises that had already been put into operation, as well as the managers of more than 20 factories desperately trying to complete the initial construction this year.

Without exception, all of these enterprises have foreign capital backgrounds, and most of the German-funded enterprises are wholly-owned enterprises, while most of the other countries are joint ventures with Yang Chao, that is, Yang Chao is the shareholder of half of the enterprises.

But Mr. Yang met them in an official capacity, citing the terms of the agreement signed between the United States and Germany with him, saying that war in China was likely. All relevant enterprises, all those with the ability to manufacture military equipment, are required to immediately readjust their factories and convert them into military factories within a year.

These enterprises have the production of gears and bearings, the production of mining machinery, the production of machine tools, and the production of electrical equipment, but without exception there are technicians who know how to operate machine tools, and their equipment can be used to produce some military components. At least it is not a problem to process the bolt and barrel, and the parts and components they produce will be sent to the arsenal to be assembled at that time, which is munitions.

There are also chemical companies. Yang Chao asked them to adjust their equipment to produce synthetic ammonia. The technology for ammonia synthesis was provided by Harper, DuPont has this capability at its plant in Yantai, and DuPont also has a complete TNTzha pharmaceutical plant.

The raw materials for synthetic ammonia are finally sent to DuPont's zha pharmaceutical factory, and finally turned into TNTzha drugs. Finally, it is loaded into shells and bullets produced by the arsenal.

These companies don't have too many opinions on Yang Chao for them to change production, firstly because there is a treaty, and secondly, who doesn't know that arms are lucrative.

Then Yang Chao began to formulate various rules for these factories, such as obeying the management of a war control department set up by Yang Chao, Yang Chao will set up a team to inspect the arms parts produced by these enterprises, and Yang Chao will set a price, give each enterprise a reasonable profit, but not a huge profit, but limit it to the range of 30%, to ensure that everyone makes a good profit, but do not let them drink Chinese blood.

Although these enterprises are a pity for this, if Yang Chao can ensure their productivity after the conversion, they are also willing to cooperate, after all, Sancheng's profits are already very rich, if the war really continues, and protracted, it will at least quadruple the profits of their normal industrial products.

Later, Yang Chao met Zhang Zhidong and told Zhang Zhidong that the imperial court had to borrow at least 500 million taels of silver this time, which really scared Zhang Zhidong, but Yang Chao asked him to refer to the Russo-Japanese War, and Zhang Zhidong understood that if he really fought with the Russians, 500 million taels of silver was only the minimum consumption.

And not all of this money is spent on the Army, the Navy also spends a lot of money.

The current naval commander is Sa Zhenbing, an old man of the Beiyang Navy, and a naval veteran who can be accepted by the Manchus and Hans.

The navy of the Great Qing Dynasty has begun to be rebuilt, and the first two American-produced Dreadnought-class battleships have been delivered.

These two dreadnought-class battleships, because they were built later than the British dreadnoughts, are more advanced in various indicators.

The standard displacement reached 20,000 tons, which is 2,000 tons more than the 18,000 tons of the British Dreadnought. The ship is 180 meters long, 30 meters wide and has a draft of almost 10 meters. It is powered by 18 coal-type boilers and four steam turbines made in the United States. With an output of 30,000 horsepower, this allows the cruising speed to reach 23 knots. Armed with 10 305-mm guns, 6 500-mm torpedo tubes. The thickness of the armor was more than 100 mm, the thickest turret frontal, turret and front conning tower reached 300 mm, and the total weight of the armor was about 8000 tons.

The first ship was named Taishan, so these battleships were called Taishan-class, and there are only two of them at present, but the Americans have already started construction of the remaining four at the Yantai shipyard, and there are two British dreadnoughts in the British shipyard, and the Germans have begun to build as many as ten cruisers on the slipway in Qingdao.

But the fastest are the British, who will be able to deliver by the end of the year; The second is the Germans, the Germans have built a shipyard in Qingdao, after receiving Yang Chao's order, they expanded the shipyard and immediately began production, the first batch of 8,000-ton cruisers will be launched next month, and the remaining nine cruisers ranging from 5,000 to 8,000 tons will also be launched this year; The construction of the American dreadnought in Yantai has just begun, and it will not be completed until at least the second half of next year.

After Zhang Zhidong was ready to borrow, Yang Chao rushed to Shanghai non-stop, and asked Xie Guanhui to gather all the bosses of Shanghai's leading and faced, Yang Chao planned to let them swallow the loans of the Qing government this time, and let the foreigners eat the profits every time, which was not cost-effective.

Although the money they earned from HSBC was not as much as Yang Chao, it added up to more than 100 million, after all, they also sold more than 5 million taels of gold to HSBC, and every tael was eaten for 80 taels of silver, and finally sold 100 taels, and also earned 20 taels of silver, and 5 million was exactly 100 million taels.

These people were also very excited when they heard that Yang Chao planned to let them jointly undertake the Qing court loans, and the amount was as high as 500 million taels, they didn't know that those banks of HSBC always undertook the loans of the Qing court, and they ate a lot of money, and they could only follow the HSBC to pick up a little leftovers.

According to the rules used by HSBC and the Qing government, under normal circumstances, when they underwrite, they directly deduct 10% of the interest, and only need to pay 90% of the silver, similar to the so-called 90% out of 13 returns for Chinese loan sharks.

Of course, HSBC will not ask for those interest, after they take the loan, after eating this layer of profits, they will sell it through these banks, and the cost will be borne by retail investors of all sizes.

This layer of profits, Yang Chao will not be given to HSBC, but handed over to China Qian Zhuang industry, shared by them with Yang Zi Bank, Yang Chao said, Yang Zi Bank as the general underwriter, will not be so black, we jointly set up an underwriting team, Yang Zi Bank is responsible for the underwriting of 100 million taels, the other 400 million taels to the major money banks for distribution. Asking about eating 40 million profits made these money bank owners couldn't help but be moved. They have expressed their firm support for Yangzi Bank to raise funds for the war for the country.

From production to economy, Yang Chao's series of actions made everyone feel that the Chinese were preparing for war.

The Russians immediately came to inquire and asked the Qing government to explain Yang Chao's behavior.

The Qing court replied that this was all a preparation for the situation in the northeast, and not only for Russia, but only for dealing with a possible crisis in the northeast.

But fools know that it is aimed at Russia, Yang Chaodu and Ito Hirobumi jointly announced that China and Japan will advance and retreat together in the Northeast, not against Russia, against whom?

The international situation has once again been affected, and all military commentators have been shocked, and they could not have imagined that not long ago Russia and China were both issuing warnings to Japan, as if the two countries were going to unite to clean up Japan and force Japan to end its provocative behavior in Northeast China.

But in the blink of an eye, it became that the Chinese and the Japanese united to resist the Russians, simply because the Russians sent their symbolic fleet to Lushun, and the purpose of their visit to Lushun was only to put pressure on the Japanese.

No matter which military strategist thinks that China should unite with Russia and expel the Japanese, but who wants the Chinese to hook up with Japan in the blink of an eye, which makes a large group of military experts feel as uncomfortable as being slapped in the mouth. (To be continued.) )