"Another country has joined!"

After receiving Yang Chao's assurance, the Russians immediately began to secretly transfer Siberian troops, and at the same time diplomatically broke off the Kaiser's deception, telling the Kaiser that the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia was intolerable to Russia. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Russia then issued an ultimatum to Austria-Hungary, demanding that Austria-Hungary immediately end its military operations and immediately sit down at the negotiating table, otherwise Russia would take all actions to prevent Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia.

Germany immediately reacted-for-tat, demanding that the Russians cancel the ultimatum, otherwise Germany would take countermeasures.

Russia did not hesitate to refuse Germany's demands, and the Kaiser announced a military mobilization of Germany.

In the German military concept, mobilization means war, because once the army is mobilized will take over everything, including the telegraph, the railway, the post office, the press agency, etc., mobilization is the activation of the war machine.

This means that a third country has joined.

At the same time as the German mobilization, an ultimatum was also sent to France.

Germany's ultimatum to France is interesting because they have a Schlieffen plan, in the event of a war with Russia or France, they will first deal with France, they will break France in two to three weeks, and then turn their forces back against Russia, so whether France says it or not, they must deal with France first.

The core basis of Germany's plan is that as long as Germany is threatened by Russia or other countries, then France will definitely not sit idly by, they will definitely stand on the opposite side of Germany, and they will become Germany's great enemy, this is a pair of mortal enemies, no one will let go of anyone, so Germany must solve France first.

The German ultimatum to the French was very harsh, they demanded that the French withdraw their troops from the border, and let the Germans occupy Verdun and other places on their border as collateral to prevent the French from taking military action against them, and then return these places after the war was over.

Where is this ultimatum, this is simply an insult to the French, and France, of course, did not hesitate to refuse.

Immediately afterwards, the French also announced a military mobilization.

"The fourth country! It's up to the UK. ”

Although France and Germany had only mobilized and had not yet declared war, Yang Chao knew that war was inevitable.

Sure enough, on July 22, the moment the Russian army crossed the Austro-Hungarian border, Germany declared war on Russia.

This was followed by Russia declaring war on Germany and France declaring war on Germany.

"Mi Qing, what's the latest situation?"

Yang Chao immediately summoned Propaganda Minister Mi Qing, as the Propaganda Minister, she was not only in charge of China's Propaganda Department, but also the entire world's Fuqiang Party propaganda organizations, all under her management, and there had always been telegraph contacts from Europe to China.

"The Russian army has been engaged in war with the Austrian army, and there is no news of the battle yet."

"What about the British?"

Yang Chao is most concerned about the British, the British do not participate in the war, what kind of world war, the most important thing is that the British do not participate in the war, Chinese industry will not be able to completely occupy the market, you must know that in the Chinese market before, British goods are the first, and Japanese goods eat a little leftovers at most.

"There is no news from the UK yet."

Yang Chao was a little regretful.

"Okay. Tell me about the dynamics in other countries, which you think is necessary to tell me. ”

Mi Qing nodded and took out his notebook: "Public opinion in all countries is very supportive of the war. Think that a war is good for the economy. The soldiers in Paris were excited, they looked high in morale, and the young people were cheering and shouting hooray. The situation in Germany was even more intense than in France, the situation in Russia was unknown, and I heard that the common people were not very supportive of the war. British public opinion tends to be neutral, and the British people do not like war. ”

Well, this war is really unavoidable, except for the British, almost all the mainland countries are eager for war, this is the public opinion, think about yourself and worry that the war will not start, it is really unfounded.

"What else. How ready are countries? ”

Yang Chao asked again: The occupation of capital by various countries is related to their own arms business, and they must be concerned about their plans to make a fortune.

Mi Qing said: "The readiness of the countries, Germany is the best prepared, they have mobilized industry, and the railways have been taken over by the army. Soldiers are being brought in from all over the country, and it seems that they intend to attack France first. The preparations of France were not very active, their industrial mobilization was slow, and French public opinion believed that there was no need to make a fuss, that there was no need to mobilize industry to end the war. ”

Yang Chao couldn't help but be a little surprised: "What do the French think? ”

Mi Qing nodded: "The French newspapers say that the war can be ended in three months. ”

Yang Chao suddenly felt that the sky was thundering, the French were too naïve, or they thought they were Super Saiyans.

"The French are so confident?"

"The French thought that they only needed to fend off the Germans on the border for a month, and Russia would be able to deal with Austria-Hungary. Then attack Germany from the flank, then only one charge is needed, and they will win. ”

Well, the French still plan to rely on the Russian steam roller, but the world has entered the era of the internal combustion engine, and the steam roller is not good.

"Uh-huh, maybe. From today onwards, you will live here. ”

"Me?"

Mi Qing blushed a little.

Yang Chao sighed: "It's not just you. Li Fu'an, Li Sidi, and even Pan Xun will live here, and including your team, from today onwards, everyone will form a joint wartime team until the end of the war. From now on, we are also in a state of emergency! ”

From today onwards, Dashifang is Yang Chao's command center, where all his forces are dispatched.

Europeans are optimistic that this is a short-term war, but Yang Chao knows very well that once this war starts, it will not be so easy to end, this is a war of attrition, a tug-of-war, and it cannot be stopped without draining the blood.

Northeast Front.

Even in the Heilongjiang River Basin, it is already the season of sunny and warm people, and after a heavy rain, the bad roads are muddy and slippery.

Rows of troops were marching, and on the right side of the road were infantry with rifles on their backs, carrying either Springfield rifles or Mauser rifles, but the soldiers themselves could not even tell the difference between the two rifles, because they did not need to distinguish between them, and the two rifles used the same kind of bullet.

In 1902, Yang Chao and the Americans jointly established an arsenal in Laiwu, when the Americans bought the patent for the Mauser rifle, and were improving it, intending to make a kind of their rifle, of course, the Americans did not plan to use the Mauser rifle cartridge, but at the request of Yang Chao, they changed the design and unified the rifle caliber with the Mauser rifle, which could use a kind of bullet.

It was originally used by Mauser's bolt design, and even the bullets were the same, so many people couldn't tell the difference, but the veteran could still tell clearly, and the veteran thought that the Springfield rifle was longer and more accurate.

In the middle of the road are bicycles loaded with machine guns and mortars.

Yang Chao equipped the mortar team and the machine gun squad with bicycles, which can be regarded as mechanized troops.

One guy didn't want to push the cart even on muddy ground, and waited proudly for the cart, but he didn't slip and fell to the ground, and the infantry on the side of the road laughed loudly.

The unusually tall machine gunner in the mud glared at the group of infantrymen, pushed the cart, and continued to push away with his head held high.

This is a division, which is rushing from Harbin to Heihe.

The railways in the northeast are still very backward, except for the broad-gauge railway built by the Russians, the Dongqing Railway, Yang Chao did not build a railway here, so they have to feel the black river on foot.

On the other side of the Heihe River is Hailan Pao, a big fortress of the Japanese army, where the Japanese army has recently strengthened its troops, so Wu Peifu also targeted to strengthen the strength of Heihe.

Because Wu Peifu knows very well that the European war has broken out, the Japanese are estimated to attack the Northeast soon.

Heihe Town had long been abandoned before, because during the Gengzi National Disaster, the Russians occupied and destroyed this place, and the people on the opposite side of Hailan Pao were killed, and the people of Heihe Town also fled.

Wu Peifu re-strengthened here, built a large number of fortifications, and connected Heihe Town with Aihui Town, 30 kilometers to the south, to form a large defensive position in depth, Heihe Town is the front line, Aihui Town is the rear, and ten positions were built between them, and the Japanese want to cross the river, and this is the place where they must break through.

If the enemy breaks through here, Qiqihar is the third line of defense.

Qiqihar is the fulcrum of the northern defense line, to the northeast to support the Heihe operation, to the northwest to support the Manchuria, Harar line, Manchuria as the front line, the rear is relying on the Great Khing'an Mountains to deploy Harar, placed 50,000 people, the rear is Qiqihar.

With Qiqihar as the fulcrum, it guarded against Japanese attacks from the north and northeast.

The eastern fulcrum is Harbin, with Harbin as the fulcrum, to support the Jiamusi operation in front, if the Japanese army wants to attack from the Songhua River, it must pass through Jiamusi and then attack Harbe, the position here is more important, because the Japanese want to attack from Boli, they will definitely break through from here, so ten divisions are deployed here.

Similarly, the Mudanjiang River southeast of Heilongjiang is also an important area to prevent the Japanese army from attacking from Haisenwei, but where the mountains are dense, the possibility of the Japanese attack is very small, so two divisions were directly released.

However, the real main position was still in the old area of the Russo-Japanese War, from Shenyang and Liaoyang to Lushun, along the railway line Wu Peifu was intensively deployed, 100,000 people were deployed in Lushun alone, and many pillboxes and fortresses were built on both sides of the railway, so as not to give the Japanese army a chance to cut off the rear of Lushun.

Wu Peifu decided that if a big war broke out, it would definitely be on the Liaodong Peninsula, because this was the only place where it could fight all year round, and in the north, it would freeze in autumn and winter, and it would be impossible for the Japanese to regard it as the main battlefield.

Compared with Europe, which regarded a major war as a short-term war, Wu Peifu treated the Northeast War as a long-term war from the beginning.

Because he knew very well that in the era of machine-gun trenches and barbed wire as a means of warfare, it was almost impossible to end the war in the short term. (To be continued.) )