The Ottoman Empire, as well as the issue of the Baghdad Railway, began to enter a long tug-of-war.

Because of Germany's strong reaction, China adopted a plan to let the Ottoman Empire build the Baghdad railway on its own, providing a long-term government bond loan totaling 170 million pounds, including the construction of the railway, and promising to sell 3 billion yuan of government bonds in Huawei's Ottoman Empire.

On this basis, China and Austria signed a more comprehensive commercial and trade agreement, the Istanbul-China and Austrian Trade Treaty, which made China the largest most-favored-nation country in the Ottoman Empire, and nominally opened up markets for China in Sudan, Egypt, the Middle East, Libya and other countries...... Sudan and Egypt were largely under the British sphere of influence, but nominally, the Ottoman Empire still had territorial rights.

Germany and Russia were outraged by the enormous benefits that China had gained, and even Britain and France were dissatisfied.

China is getting too much.

Even if China were to demand essentially only commercial trade interests and respect for the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, this would still be an unacceptable treaty of special interests for all countries.

According to the provisions of the Treaty of Istanbul, China received much more preferential tariff treatment in the Ottoman Empire than other countries, and Chinese capital could freely intervene in most regions and fields of the Ottoman Empire.

Moreover, China and the Ottoman Empire signed a military aid and cooperation program that would help the Ottoman Empire build a new army and navy.

If China says that it is not a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire...... No one will believe it.

Germany and Russia did not dare to fight, the Ottoman Empire was nothing, China was different, China got such a big benefit, it was absolutely worth China to go to war with any country.

If you really fight with China, then your wife will ......!

There is not a single great power that does not hate, but what about China...... There's nothing you can do about it.

The aftermath of the war in the Far East is still there, and no country has yet dared to tear its face with China, which is mighty and powerful.

After the signing of the Treaty of Istanbul, China quickly renegotiated with Britain to carry out new coordination on British interests in the Ottoman Empire, and incorporated HSBC, a subsidiary of the Swire Consortium, into the financial system of the Ottoman Empire, and listed it as the four major note-issuing banks and international trade settlement centers of the Ottoman Empire along with Ottoman Bank, CITIC Bank, and Standard Bank.

In September, Hu Chuyuan personally left for Britain to renegotiate with Prime Minister Bannerman and coordinate the two countries' strategies in the Ottoman Empire.

Personal friendships can play a very special role in many cases.

With his good international reputation and personal friendship between the two, Hu Chuyuan persuaded the British Liberal Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Bannerman to readjust Britain's foreign policy towards the Ottoman Empire.

…… London, the original Belize House, now the Imperial Hotel London.

The Swire consortium includes Swire International Shipping, British Agri, Swire & Co., Swire Telecom, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, ABN AMRO, Commerzbank, BHP Mining, Shell Petrochemicals, Unilever, Philips, International News & Newspapers, and Lipton Foods...... and dozens of other star companies, as well as a luxury hotel company all over the world - Imperial Hotel.

Currently, the most famous works of the Imperial Hotel are the Imperial Hotel in London and the Imperial Hotel in Manhattan in New York.

Economics determines politics, and politics determines war.

This is a truism.

No one believes that China and Britain will eventually be completely divided because of this incident of the Ottoman Empire, in addition to the fact that the two countries are now involved in a big sauce vat and cannot get rid of each other, the two countries also have the world's largest international consortium -- the Swire Consortium, which is the biggest beneficiary of the Sino-British colonial cooperation strategy, and its presence has long spread throughout all the colonies of the two great empires of China and Britain.

In the presidential suite at the top of the 23rd floor of the Imperial Hotel in London, Hu Chuyuan stood calmly on a huge balcony, looking down on the whole of London.

Only when he arrived in Europe could he experience the wariness and antipathy of the whole of Europe towards China's rapid rise and expansion, and a powerful [***] wave was spreading throughout Europe.

People demanded that the political axe be more forceful to protect the interests of the British and to take more drastic measures against China.

Watching China's rapid expansion and development, watching China's textiles, silk, tea, and porcelain spread in Britain, watching China's industrial products continue to expand around the world, watching China completely surpass Britain even in the field of steamship manufacturing and coal exports, the British were spreading a peculiar pessimism, which gave rise to even stronger [***] sentiments.

The British began to accuse the British capitalists of lacking patriotism, transferring a large amount of capital to China, producing in China, and ceding jobs to the Chinese.

Jobless rate.

The term began to be used in England and has been used so frequently that even the most conservative classical economists must admit that involuntary unemployment does exist.

The Conservatives are gaining more seats in the House of Commons in the UK and are likely to form a new government.

Wu Shuzhen had already brewed a pot of Qimen black tea, brought it out and put it on the coffee table, she sat down first, poured a full cup for Hu Chuyuan, and there were pecans that Hu Chuyuan liked to eat very much in the tea tray.

At this time, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman also arrived at the hotel.

The moderate financial expert has been a major promoter of pro-China policies, and his personal relationship with Mr. Hu is indeed good, and this is the third time he has come to the hotel to meet with Mr. Hu in the past few days.

Hearing that Prime Minister Bannerman had arrived, Hu Chuyuan personally went back to pick him up and invited him to the balcony to jump over the fog of London and look down on the whole of London.

They had already discussed a lot about the new British policy towards the Ottoman Empire.

For the most part, the British political axe would have taken Hu Chuyuan's suggestion to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire with China, with Britain in North Africa, China in the Middle East, and the Ottoman Empire recognizing the autonomy of non-Turkish Ottoman territories.

Britain still has major protections in Egypt, Libya, and Sudan in North Africa, while China receives major protections of the Arabian Peninsula from Britain.

In the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and other regions remained under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire, Oman, Qatar and Yemen were protected by the United Kingdom, and Kuwait, Bahrain and the entire central Arab region were protected by China.

China would organize the central part of the Arabian Peninsula into a more liberal United Arab Emirates, which would later become Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Hu Chuyuan persuaded the British and Ottomans not to support the House of Saud from a religious point of view, and their views of the Wahayi sect were too extreme and could well give rise to a new Islamic jihad.

The International London Conference, which was held to deal with the Franco-German conflict, the Baghdad railway, the African colonies, and the Ottoman Empire, was approaching, and the prime ministers, prime ministers, and foreign ministers of the various powers would gather in London to discuss new measures.

Hu Chuyuan is the representative of the Chinese side.

As for the basic argument of the London Conference, China and Britain must also be reunified, and this is the reason why Hu Chuyuan and Prime Minister Bannerman met privately for the third time.

On September 17, the London Conference was officially convened.

In the case of the Franco-German conflict, the final solution was to divide Senegal into two parts, the north and the south, which belonged to Germany, and as a concession, Germany recognized the Ottoman Empire's right to administer the internal railways.

The question of the African colonies still maintained the outcome of the Berlin Conference, and the occupation of overseas provinces and protectorates in Africa required substantial military presence and effective administration, and for areas with local power, there must be legal ententions in order to become protectorates.

After a long period of tug-of-war and controversy, Portugal and Italy finally failed to gain recognition from other countries and lost those overseas provinces and colonies that they claimed to own, while China became very "legitimately" all the countries of Nigeria, Congo (including Gabon, Congo, and Bencru Congo), Angola, Mozambique, Djibouti, Guinea, the Comoros Islands, and the island of Anoben, according to the new international standards of the London Conference, in which China has a stable garrison, There is also actual management.

The London Conference actually proved one thing - one cannot try to have any plans in Africa without a strong navy.

The reason why China and Britain are so strong in Africa, that France can barely maintain its interests in Africa, and that the complete withdrawal of Portugal, Belgium, and Italy is ultimately a naval issue.

Far from resolving any problems, the London Conference will intensify the contradictions between the existing countries.

Hu Chuyuan knows this.

When he left London for a new round of state visits to the United States, Mexico, and Venezuela, Germany and Italy announced new warship construction plans one after another, and in retaliation, Britain also accelerated the construction of Duke-class battleships.

With this trend, Hu Chuyuan believes that France and Austria-Hungary will soon be dragged into an arms race by this wave, and even Russia, which pursues the first place in the army, cannot avoid it.

The world is getting restless.

With the world's second-largest navy and the world's largest army, China has gradually sent 157,000 troops and an Atlantic Fleet with four battleships to Africa in just six years, and has occupied a colony of up to 6.2 million square kilometers in Africa.

It can also be said that China is a bad example.

It is undeniable that China's management of the African colonies is very good, and after the occupation of Guinea and the Congo, China's political axe has provided about 50 million yuan of support to the African colonies every year, focusing on agriculture, infrastructure construction, education and medical care.

With the size of China's colonies in Africa reaching 6.2 million square kilometers, it is expected that in 1907, China's total investment in African colonies will exceed 200 million yuan.

In the past five years, the Fukang consortium alone has invested a total of 230 million yuan in Africa, mainly in iron ore, petroleum, bauxite, manganese ore, copper ore, phosphate, but also covering timber industry and agricultural investment.

In terms of actual management, China basically adopted a policy similar to that of the Ming and Qing dynasties, setting up provincial-level political axe organs in each overseas province, and following according to the distribution of local tribes, the overseas provinces were divided into dozens, or even hundreds, of autonomous areas, and county-level institutions were set up in the autonomous areas, and local tribal autonomy was the mainstay, and the county-level administration was mainly an auxiliary role, transferring knowledge of agriculture, education, and medical care to the tribes.

The overseas provinces could also issue public bonds at home through the Governor's Office to raise funds for the construction of infrastructure, and the Governor's Office could also negotiate with the tribes to buy more suitable land ownership in the area, and attract the Chinese to these new colonies through short- and medium-term tax exemptions, so as to establish more prosperous market towns, cities, and even new industrial cities.

In Africa, the Chinese garrison will have stable camps and farms, adopt the system of cantonment on the spot, and hire African natives to form regimental training troops in various places, and they are also good at using indigenous troops to expand deeper into Africa...... That is why Belgium was forced to abandon the Kingdom of the Congo.

However, China is still a bad example.

China's success in Africa is encouraging Germany and Italy to take more aggressive measures to occupy new colonies.

Germany preempted a strong military attack on the Kingdom of Abomey before China could attack the Kingdom of Abomey (Benin, between Togo and Nigeria).

Italy also accelerated its attack on Libya, trying to create a fait accompli and effectively occupy Libya before Britain could send troops.

Hu Chuyuan didn't pay much attention to these small problems.

He was more concerned about when the whole Great War would break out.

At the end of 1906, November 17.

Hu Chuyuan returned to Shanghai by boat, and after returning to China, he secretly convened a new meeting to continue to strengthen the research and development of new weapons through the State Military Commission.

This time, he bet his treasure on the plane.

Especially heavy bombers.

For this reason, when he returned to China, Hu Chuyuan secretly prepared a new air force system in China, with Wang Huaiqing as the minister of the Air Force, responsible for the preparation of the entire air force, and the 101st, 102nd, and 103rd divisions of the Air Force were added, with the 101st Division being a fighter unit, the 102nd Division being a mixed unit of fighters and bombers, and the 103rd Division being an airborne division.

Compared with Russia, China's preparations for the air force and the development of heavy bombers have been carried out earlier, and the current progress is also very good.

With a fuselage of 23 meters, a wingspan of 33.54 meters, a load of 22 tons, and four propeller engines, the H-5 heavy bomber is ready for test flights.

Hu Chuyuan meticulously sorted out and re-proposed two improved models of the Y-5 and H-5Z on the basis of the H-5, the former being a transport aircraft and the latter being an electronic cruise reconnaissance aircraft, and a large radio communication and radar system was installed in the fuselage of the H-5Z to detect the opponent in advance, detect enemy movements in the air and on the ground, and command other troops in a timely manner.

A new weapon, even if its surname can be stable and reliable, if it does not have a quantitative advantage, it is difficult to play a vital role in the initial stage.

This is the conclusion that the Far Eastern War left for Hu Chuyuan.

Therefore, from now on, once the H5 model has the conditions for stable service, it will be produced in large quantities, the number of air forces will be continuously increased, and it will be secretly placed in Sichuan, Shanxi, Hanzhong, Shaanxi, Huguang, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningbo and other relatively hidden areas, so as to increase the training of air force pilots and maintenance personnel, and increase the reserve of scientific and technological personnel in the aircraft industry.

Of course, with regard to the mechanized troops that Russia and Germany are speeding up the development and production, China will inevitably have to develop weapons of restraint.

Hu Chuyuan's choice was to expand the scale of the mechanized troops, suppress the opponent with quality and quantity, force the opponent to constantly enlarge the armored vehicle force, and finally come up with a series of means such as rocket launchers, extended-wheel grenade launchers, cluster bombs, and anti-tank submunitions.

Through the development of a strike aircraft, which fired armor-piercing shells of 25mm caliber and even 30mm caliber using aviation machine guns specifically for land armored vehicle units...... This is obviously a great option as well.

In short, constantly the opponent is who.

Hu Chuyuan hopes that his opponent will regret it completely.

(To be continued)