There is never a denial that capitalists, especially financial capitalists, are the most evil people in the world.

Among them is Hu Chuyuan.

The five brothers gathered together to discuss in secret, cashing out the part of each industry that could be cashed out, and everyone's capital began to shrink, and the remaining capital was concentrated in the national debt, which could support the national war and at the same time reasonably avoid risks.

The capital of the Hu family, in addition to Hu Chuyuan's assets in the five major systems of Swire, rich countries in the Americas, rich countries in Asia, BASF, and CITIC, is almost all concentrated in Fukang Company, which holds a large number of company stocks in the stock markets of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and as long as these assets can be successfully cashed out, they will be able to increase their holdings of 400 million yuan of treasury bonds in China.

After reaching an agreement within the family, Hu Chuyuan, in accordance with the original plan, asked the Prime Minister's Office to agree to France's demand for reparations, and sent Foreign Minister Ouyang Geng to Moscow to mediate, and also sent Sun Zongyuan, a special envoy of the Prime Minister's Office, and Su Ruizhao, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Participation of the Consul General, to Tokyo to negotiate the "Sino-Japanese Peace and Trade Treaty" with Yueben.

Hu Chuyuan's series of diplomatic moves caused the situation in the Far East to suddenly warm up on the surface, and the French political axe no longer mentioned the possibility of military action against China, but instead took the opportunity to negotiate with China on the new "Sino-French Trade Supplemental Regulations" in an attempt to adjust bilateral tariffs on items with major changes in Sino-French trade.

Along with this diplomatic activity, the international stock market swept away the shadow of a possible war in the Far East, and the shares of the four major companies of the Swire family and several of the holding companies were rapidly trading at a premium.

During this period, Hu Chuyuan quickly withdrew from the market, reducing his average shareholding in the Swire system to 11%, with the exception of BHP Petroleum & Mining.

In the U.S. market, because Andrew Carnegie has decided to withdraw from the capital market and officially retire, Hu Chuyuan and JP Morgan jointly established U.S. Steel, and he cashed out $530 million from the U.S. capital market through J.P. Morgan.

Since then, Hu Chuyuan has successfully cashed out the two giant industries of steel and railroads in the American market, and a large number of shares he has held in the American stock market for a long time have also been sold, many of which he has been holding since 1882.

Taking advantage of the gentleman's agreement with JP Morgan, Hu Chuyuan asked George Westinghouse to establish the International General Motors Group in the United States, integrating Westinghouse Electric, Thomson Electric, Oakland Arsenal, Colt Gun Company, and a number of automobile, engine, and ship manufacturing plants to form five subsidiaries: General Electric, General Motors, General Machinery, General Dynamics, and General Marine.

Except for General Electric, which occupies an absolute monopoly position in the U.S. electrical industry, the total share of the other four subsidiaries is not very large, but this is just the beginning.

Like Wanqi Group, the International General Group is a holding subgroup of the American Wells Fargo Investment Bank Company, a member of the Americas Rich Nation Consortium, and began to enter the European market in preparation for the future bottom of the European economy.

In the domestic market, the Fukang Company also began to withdraw capital on a large scale, concentrating its capital on the acquisition of treasury bonds, and formally established the four major industrial groups of Jiangnan, Fuguo, Hyundai, and Great Wall under the banner of Asia's rich countries, and began to comprehensively expand the scale of military industrial production capacity with the four major groups as the core.

In terms of continued investment in China, Fuzhou Hyundai Group invested in Shanshan, Xinjiang Province, while Tianjin Great Wall Group invested in Jinyang, Shanxi, and Asian rich countries no longer opened new companies and projects separately.

Economics determines politics, and politics determines war.

It's a phrase that never goes out of style.

In November 1900, the rich Asian consortium was ready, as were Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and other consortiums.

Everyone believes that the final victory must be their own.

You are not so much saying that this is a war between China and the Entente, but rather a war between China and the Entente, and even more so between the rich Asian consortium and the four major consortia, or between Chinese industry and the industry of the Entente.

…… Winter in Harbin comes very quickly, and the cold autumn is just a matter of moments, and the sky is already snowing heavily.

After all, Yang Zongli is Yang Zongli, and his vision is different from that of ordinary people, not long after arriving in the Northeast, he determined that once Russia officially declared war on the Northeast, it would first attack Harbin.

He did not believe that he would have landed from Korea, attacked all the way up, and then passed through Dandong into the northeast...... If he really did this, he could only say that the people of Shanxi, who were known as the father of the army, were really in vain.

Therefore, he established a new command area in Harbin very early, with the Zhili Corps being deployed in the Shengjing and Changchun areas, the Qingxu Corps being arranged in Harbin, and the Northeast Corps being disbanded on the spot and transformed into more than 30 local columns, scattered in the mountainous areas of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces.

Yang Zongli has never seen such a beautiful snow in his life, the sky is full of goose feather snowflakes, colorful falling, at a glance, the whole small city is flooded with heavy snow, a white expanse.

Looking into the distance from the Yongxing Pagoda of Puzhao Temple, even the surrounding world for hundreds of miles seems to be covered with snow.

What a beautiful northern country!

Yang Zongli sighed in his heart with great excitement, last night, the State Intelligence Administration sent him the latest intelligence information, and he had a hunch that it was indeed possible for Ben and Russia to send troops before the complete freeze, but he had a strange excitement.

In his military career spanning more than two decades, he has commanded countless wars, but this is the first time he has commanded such a large-scale campaign.

He doesn't think China will lose.

Compared with the past, and even compared with Russia, China is completely ahead of the times in military technology, and before the war has begun, more than 100 radio installations have been sent to Harbin.

In Fushun County, the 10th Division of the Zhili Corps is intensively carrying out training for the mechanized corps, with more than 60 machine gun armored vehicles, more than 30 self-propelled gun vehicles, and more than 100 trucks, and intensive training of drivers and operators.

In Shengjing (Shenyang), maintenance training courses were set up around Anshan Iron and Steel Plant and Machinery General Factory.

In addition, all divisions have replaced the M10 Browning rifle, which was finalized in 1897 and equipped with the Philippine Reading Force on a small scale for equipment experiments, and in 1898 a new modification was carried out, and finally finalized as the M10 Browning rifle.

The new rifle and the Lee-Enfield rifle have a large similarity in the construction of the gun, but the style is concise and practical, and absorbs some of the advantages of the Mauser G98 rifle, which normally has a brake capacity of ten rounds, and the rifle surname can be generally equivalent to the Lee-Enfield rifle, and the advantage is that the common surname of the parts is higher, the manufacturing difficulty is low, and it is more suitable for large-scale production.

Three kinds of howitzers of 152mm, 105mm, and 75mm calibers, new light and heavy machine guns, mines, grenade launchers, rack-mounted mortars, and off-road vehicles have all begun to appear in the Zhili and Qingxu Corps.

Among other things, there are six specifications and models of mines alone, and there are more advanced remote-controlled detonating mines, which are more suitable for ambush operations.

In order to prevent the use of chemical weapons by Ben and Tsarist Russia, all divisions and regiments were also equipped with anti-gas suits to carry out chemical weapons prevention education, and mustard gas shells temporarily imported from Britain also quietly appeared in the ammunition storage warehouse.

At this time, Yang Zongli's greatest feeling was that there were too many new weapons, and he and commanders at all levels had to quickly absorb them, and they must make good use of them; for this reason, he held many meetings in succession and secretly held military exercises in various mountainous areas to help commanders at all levels explore experience in the use of new weapons.

Under the calm on the surface, war is about to break out, and Yang Zongli is ready.

The snow was getting heavier and heavier, and Yang Zongli was still accustomed to standing on the Yongxing Tower, looking into the distance with a high-powered cylinder telescope to check the situation of the nearby camps.

In the past few months, he has explored the terrain of the Northeast through several main railway passages in the Northeast, just as the instructor Lu Guangquan said that a good commander must keep the terrain firmly in mind.

Every part of the terrain in the entire Northeast was clearly imprinted in his mind.

Therefore, he also knows very well which places must not be fought for, which places can be fought in delays and fortified battles, and which places must be defended to the death.

There is no doubt that Harbin is definitely not a place to be defended.

Except for Shenyang, the last supply center, he plans to give up the rest of the places to fight a tug-of-war with Russia.

This is also the bottom line that Hu Chuyuan gave him, the entire Northeast can be used as a battlefield, luring the enemy into depth, expanding the opponent's supply line and defense range, rapid and mobile operations, constantly fighting encirclement and annihilation, and destroying the opponent's main force.

It was getting late, and the snow clouds in the sky were even darker, and I didn't know how long it would take.

The snow in the northeast, Yang Zongli has some understanding.

He was about to leave Yongxing Tower, when several guards hurriedly ran up from under the tower and informed him that Zhang Zhidong, the governor of the three eastern provinces, had arrived.

Oh?

Yang Zongli raised his eyebrows curiously and walked down from the top floor of the tower.

At the general headquarters in the backyard of Puzhao Temple, he soon saw Zhang Zhidong, who was questioning the deputy general Shang Dequan, wearing the official uniform of a first-class official of the imperial court, wearing two dazzling feathers, long white braids, and a long silver beard, quite a bit of fairy style.

At this time, Zhang Zhidong was already a sixty-three-year-old man, but after all, he was a person from Zhili, he still looked tall and strong, with a tall and tall figure, and he did not have the slightest appearance of an old dragon clock, and his face was also very ruddy.

The weather was cold and was about to turn into ice, Yang Zongli stepped forward quickly, and Zhang Zhidong paused and saluted: "I have seen the Governor!" ”

"Oh......!"

This is not the first time they have met.

Zhang Zhidong is still a little unaccustomed to the etiquette of the new army, especially the kind of military salute that Yang Zongli insisted on, he didn't say anything, only said: "It's cold, let's go into the house and talk about it!" ”

Yang Zongli immediately invited Zhang Zhidong into the big room of the headquarters, there was a warm kang inside, and when he entered the room, he felt warm and hot.

Zhang Zhidong is also used to it now, and when he entered the house, he sat down on the kang, and said to Yang Zongli, who was sitting down beside him: "Yang Inspector, this Zhongtang tried his best to receive the tip, Russia is very dissatisfied with the draft treaty listed by our country, and I am afraid that there is a bad heart to send troops from Manchuria, I wonder if Yang Inspector has a corresponding strategy?" ”

"It's ......!"

Yang Zongli crossed his legs, thought about it, lit a cigarette for himself and smoked, and only replied to Zhang Zhidong after a while: "I don't think Tsarist Russia will send troops from Manchuria, even if it does, it doesn't mean much." Their Far Eastern Railway was built from east to west, the western line to Kamensk, and the eastern line to Boli...... Personally, I feel that it is possible for Russia to suddenly attack all the way from Mudan Ula Province, and the Western Front is just a cover-up. ”

"Oh?"

Zhang Zhidong was noncommittal for a while, to be precise, he was invited by Hu Chuyuan to the three eastern provinces to take charge, and the goal was to assist the three major corps of the New Army to win the war.

Please come and supervise the northeast, he has no opinion, the result is only auxiliary, not supervision, the real supervision of the war and the power to command the army are concentrated in a Yang Zongli who has never heard of it, which makes him very dissatisfied.

Zhang Zhidong, who is proficient in the world, just never deliberately showed it.

After a pause, Zhang Zhidong and Yang Zongli asked, "Then from the perspective of the Overseer, how many troops can Russia send?" ”

Yang Zongli said: "It's hard to say, as long as there are strong men and rifles, even Yueben can transfer millions of troops, according to the calculations of the General Intelligence Bureau, Yueben currently has at least 1.2 million rifles, and if the local army retains 200,000 troops, it can at least send one million troops to the northeast." ”

Hearing this, Zhang Zhidong's face couldn't help but turn cold, and said, "Isn't that twice as much as our new army?" ”

Yang Zongli said: "Don't worry about this, it is not enough to squeeze out the quality of soldiers purely by squeezing troops like this, especially in a war of this level." As long as I am given three years, I dare not say that I can at least train 1.8 million troops in the northeast. ”

"So?"

Zhang Zhidong was silent for a moment, and then asked, "From the perspective of the overseer, when will Russia send troops?" ”

Yang Zongli said: "It should be in the near future!" ”

Zhang Zhidong couldn't help but be a little surprised, and asked: "No, it's cold winter now, and in another month, the northeast will be cold and freezing, and the supply will be difficult, isn't it taboo to send troops at this time?" ”

Yang Zongli said: "It's not a taboo to talk about now. I think that Russia and its possibility, during this period of time, will be able to repair on the spot, attract the main forces of our army to concentrate in the areas of Jiamusi and Mudan Ula, and wait until the beginning of spring next year to suddenly carry out annihilation operations...... If they had sent out troops at this time, there would have been only such a plan and a possible surname. ”

Zhang Zhidong had to nod in agreement, and said, "Yang Dujun is really a person who is good at using soldiers, and Ben Zhongtang is quite pleased. ”

After a pause, he said: "Inspector Yang, if the thieves really think so, we can make a plan, secretly ambush the soldiers, wait for work, and annihilate the enemy who came by the thieves, this move will definitely protect our northeast territory, and we can defeat it, so that the thieves will not dare to run rampant." ”

Yang Zongli smiled silently and said: "This is not bad, but we have to wait until that time to talk about it, Lord Zhongtang, the use of troops can only be decided on the spot, and the specific way to fight depends on the opponent's equipment, personnel quality and quantity." If the opponent has too many troops, we still have to focus on defending and not rush to counterattack for the time being. ”

Zhang Zhidong nodded slightly, and asked in a low voice: "The secret garrison in the Fushun area, the equipment used is mostly unheard of in this middle hall, and there are many strange powers, one thing can withstand tens of thousands of strong enemies......!" ”

Yang Zongli couldn't help but interrupt his words, and said with a smile: "Lord Zhongtang, I have been marching and fighting for twenty years, and I haven't seen those things before. Weapons are double-edged swords, they hurt others if they are used well, and they hurt themselves if they are not used well! ”

As soon as he heard this, Zhang Zhidong said: "The Overseer is indeed a person who has experienced a hundred battles, so this Zhongtang is relieved. ”

Yang Zongli smiled silently in his heart.

Where can Zhang Zhidong and these people truly understand the essence of modern warfare? After talking for a long time, there was nothing to say, and after talking for a long time, all the talk was about the fur issue.

Gap.

Yang Zongli quietly thought in his heart, this is the gap between Zhang Zhidong and Hu Chuyuan.

For this upcoming war, Zhang Zhidong is nervous in his heart, and hopes to seek a victory as soon as possible, and then he will reap the benefits as soon as he sees it, and he does not see the disadvantages and advantages of both sides clearly.

Hu Chuyuan is different, Hu Chuyuan knows very well where China's advantages are, formulates the entire grand strategy around the advantages, follows the grand strategy to formulate every small plan and local plan, and does practical things for the real big victory step by step.

The gap is too big.

The two discussed for a night, and he wanted to ask Yang Zongli about the specific countermeasures, but Yang Zongli didn't say it explicitly, but he just hoped that Zhang Zhidong would have to think about everything in the long run.

The next day, Zhang Zhidong visited the vicinity of Harbin and Acheng, and confirmed that Yang Zongli's ability to train troops really had some outstanding strengths, and that the morale of the whole army was high, the military discipline was strict, and the training was well-trained.

After he left, Yang Zongli sent a telegram to Hu Chuyuan and Li Kaiye in Xinjiang Province through the General Staff of the Army, asking about the areas where war was really possible at present.

China is an international trading power, with its total annual exports ranking third in the world and its total imports ranking fifth in the world.

At the same time, the United States is the largest exporter to China, the United Kingdom is the largest investor in dialogue, and Germany is the country with the deepest military cooperation with China.

If we rashly provoke a war with China without a suitable reason, we will inevitably face tremendous political and military pressure in the world.

There is no doubt about that.

After Hu Chuyuan's return, the Entente had actually lost the appropriate excuse to launch a war of aggression against China, and the only reason that could be provoked at present was the issue of Russia's so-called Yarkand Khanate's sovereignty.

If the Entente wanted to go to war, the first battlefield would inevitably be in Xinjiang Province.

In this regard, Hu Chuyuan and the War Department of the Prime Minister's Office had a very sober understanding of this, and the real main force corps was concentrated in Xinjiang Province.

As negotiations between China and Russia on the Yarkand Khanate and the Northeast Railway finally reached an impasse, Russia's ambitions to launch a military attack on China were exposed, and war was a real possibility.

All wars are Pandora's boxes, if you don't open them, you will never know what kind of disasters and sufferings are hidden inside, and all the data and speculation on paper are not the key to determining the outcome of a war.

Because.......

Thousands of troops are easy to obtain, but one general is hard to find.

(To be continued)