The British can openly ridicule China for being an ignorant and backward country, even if it can produce guns and ammunition now, but these guns are always shoddy things, useless in a few years, and have no other advantages except cheapness.

The British Empire's coalition cabinet had to be more pragmatic in its thinking, because the Chinese army was not inferior, at least on the level of Austria-Hungary, and was one of the best equipped armies in the world, and at the same time had the greatest potential for expansion.

According to the first national census conducted by the Imperial Cabinet of China in 1914, China's actual population in that year was 437 million, and at this scale, China could explode with an army of 20 million in at least two years.

……

Now that the posture of blackmail has been put on for maximum gain, it is no longer necessary to care about face, in the case of the Emperor and Arthur. After an unpleasant negotiation with the Marquis de Belfort, the Imperial Cabinet was forced to sign the "Imperial Wartime General Control Order" the following day (September 2, 1916) under the pressure of the Central Military Department, officially speeding up the recruitment of new recruits throughout the country, and all the veterans who had retired in the previous years participated in the short-term training of non-commissioned officers, and at the same time a large number of non-commissioned officers were drawn from the patrol army to expand the number of new regiments to 650, and all units of the Central Army also stepped up to enter the state of national war, and each unit expanded the regimental level to eight companies.

In just one week, the empire mobilized 2.6 million new soldiers, mobilized the country's railway engineering forces to rush to repair the improvised railway between Xinjiang Province and Lanzhou, and built a temporary railway dedicated to the transportation of military materials within half a year at all costs.

At this time, the Anglo-French forces had lost nearly 700,000 troops on the Somme front, and although the Germans were on the defensive throughout the campaign, a large number of light and heavy machine guns and submachine guns did cause extremely terrible casualties to the Anglo-French forces, so that the entire Entente camp felt extremely discouraged.

Realizing that the rigid and conceited posture of the Conservative Party could not have been promised anything in the Chinese Empire, the British War Secretary Lloyd. Sir George also arrived in Yenching on 17 September to begin new talks on behalf of the two armies.

Britain's condition was to take the initiative to return Hong Kong and recognize China's suzerainty and governance over Tibetan Province, but demanded that China promise to assume all responsibility for the war without a bottom line and fully participate in the war until the Allies were defeated.

War Secretary Shu Fangde, who negotiated on behalf of the Central War Department, ridiculed the British War Secretary Lloyd. Sir George - Fight China for a price that would be paid to a beggar, and let the beggar give everything for you.

Obviously, Britain in the early 20th century, like the United States in the 21st century, always thought that the world had to revolve around itself, and as long as they gave away a little bit of leftovers, other countries should grab food like cheap dogs, and be grateful to Dade forever.

What China needs to do is very simple, that is, it will continue to pile up troops on the Sino-Russian border, officially send troops into the Tangnu-Ulianghai area, rush to repair the railway in Xinjiang Province, make a posture of all-out attack on Central Asia, and then go south to liberate India.

For this reason, at the behest of the Central Committee, Liang Qichao, who served as the vice speaker of the National Assembly, publicly made a statement in the "Declaration", declaring that Britain should let Indians read and should not continue to enslave India and other Asian countries, which is a symbol of evil.

Even so, the Central Military Department was actually making a close general mobilization for the attack on the Allies.

China's demand is to open a new front in the Middle East, send troops from Iran to attack the Ottoman Empire, force the Ottoman Empire to withdraw from the war first, reduce Russia's military pressure, and make Russia concentrate its forces against Germany and Austria-Hungary, while China will increase troops in Greece and Serbia at the same time to support Italy and Austria-Hungary in the war, after the end of the Middle East front, China will transfer its main forces to the Balkans to eliminate the Austro-Hungarian army, force Austria-Hungary to withdraw from the war, and finally move north from the southern front to encircle Germany with Russia, France and Britain.

Of course, after the victory over the Ottoman Empire, China had the right to continue to station troops in the Middle East and retain control over the occupied areas, and as a concession, China could completely relinquish its colonial occupation in Africa.

If Britain did not agree to this, China would not continue to support the Entente, even if it would not withdraw from the Sino-French alliance.

In fact, at the beginning of 1915, Song Biao considered using Iran controlled by Britain and France as a springboard to attack the possible surname of the Ottoman Empire, in order to test the possible surname of this road, he sent Ma Yugui, the commander of the 25th Division, as a secret envoy to visit Iran at the end of 1915, and then sent Vice Foreign Minister Liang Dunyan to visit Iran officially. The Shah made the last secret negotiations.

Song Biao promised that as long as Iran guarantees the material supply of the Chinese expeditionary force in Central Asia and cooperates with China in the war, China will conclude a military alliance agreement with Iran after winning the war, support Iran's political reading, and no longer be easily controlled by Britain and Russia.

When negotiating with Britain on opening up a new Middle East front, no matter what Britain thought, Song Biao had already decided to just do it, sending Fu Liangzuo, Zhang Liangyuan, Ma Yugui, Han Chunlin, and others to form a Middle East General Staff Bureau and formally take charge of preparing for war.

It's just that Song Biao has never found a suitable answer to the question of who to send as the commander of the Middle East Front.

After thinking about it, he still decided to go out in person, but nominally continued to use Duan Qirui, who had been in the northwest for many years and was already familiar with Muslim issues at this time, as the commander.

Because it was not clear whether Duan Qirui agreed, Song Biao recruited Duan Qirui from the northwest.

The population of Gansu and Shaanxi declined on a large scale in the decade before 1883, and the population of Gansu province fell sharply from 15 million to more than 6 million.

For the empire at this time, it was easier to govern than in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, and after the implementation of some pacification policies, the northwest had gradually stabilized during this period of time, and there was not much to do, and Duan Qirui did not have much work.

After receiving the edict, Duan Qirui immediately took the train back to Beijing, and at this time he really didn't know what bizarre things were about to happen in the future.

When Duan Qirui returned to Beijing, it was already late September, and the Middle East General Staff Bureau was formed, and all work was being carried out intensively.

Since 1911, the empire has been doing its best to support the Far East Shipping Company, Shanghai Steamship China Merchants Bureau, Nanyang Shipping Company and Yu Qiaqing's Jiangnan Shipping Company to expand the four major shipping companies, buying a large number of ships from the United States and building a large number of self-built ships, and eagerly developing the industrial chain of self-built 10,000-ton merchant ships.

In the event of a war on the Iran-Iraq border, thousands of miles away from home, and the empire's shipping power is limited, the best solution is to try to buy supplies from Iran and India to reduce the pressure on ocean shipping.

In the afternoon of that day, Song Biao summoned Shu Fangxin, Jiang Fangzhen, Fu Liangzuo and others to the imperial study to discuss the issue of supply with them.

In the past two years, Xinhua Company has taken advantage of the confiscation of assets in China by China and Britain to negotiate with Germany through special channels to buy out the assets of the German Chanson & Co. in Europe, and then cooperate with British Jewish businessmen in Shanghai to register the Chanchen & Co. in Singapore as a Sino-British joint venture foreign firm, and use it as a shell to carry out arms trade business in Europe.

Since last year, Chanson has expanded its trade with Iran and India to prevent all sorts of surprises, including the possibility of an eventual war between Iran and Iran.

Song Biao, Jiang Fangzhen, Shu Fangxin and others calculated that if the troops sent to Iran were 600,000, the entire war would ensure an average of 300,000 tons of material delivery capacity every month, and the capacity of the Far East Shipping Corporation and the Shanghai Steamship China Merchants Bureau could be satisfied, but how to ensure the materials of the African Expeditionary Force and the European Expeditionary Force, and the final question was if the four major companies were all dispatched to ensure the transportation of military materials, what would happen to the domestic shipping industry, and would all business be suspended?

Therefore, with the exception of firearms and ammunition, it is best to purchase all the materials that can be purchased locally.

When several people were discussing, Duan Qirui had already arrived at Xuanzheng Garden, and when he heard that he arrived a day earlier, Song Biao was also very happy, so he let him come in directly to meet him.

After a while, Duan Qirui entered the imperial study and bowed to Song Biao and said, "Your Majesty, Duan Qirui, has seen the emperor. ”

Song Biao smiled: "You came just in time, I have to talk to you about a few big things!" ”

Duan Qirui was naturally happy when he heard this, what big things can a soldier talk about, especially in such a situation, the tenth ** still sent him out to lead the troops to fight, although he himself felt that his ability was limited, and he could not compare with these young people who had just started up, but as long as he was in the same faction of the imperial party, he could also pay attention to his qualifications.

He immediately replied: "As long as the emperor gives orders, his subordinates will be loyal and dutiful, and they will not hesitate to die." ”

Song Biao and Jiang Fangzhen laughed together, and said, "Commander Duan is so serious, sit down, no matter what it is, do you have to sit down and talk slowly!" ”

Saying this, Song Biao asked Han Linchun to move a chair for Duan Qirui, and when Duan Qirui sat down again, he said: "Commander Duan, I want you to go to the Middle East battlefield as a commander this time, in fact, I am also going to go, just like when I was in the northwest, I will give you the chief of staff." ”

Hearing this, Duan Qirui smiled bitterly and said, "Your Majesty, how dare your subordinates." It's just that the emperor said it very well when he was in the northwest, and his subordinates also thought that they had to do a good job, and they didn't know that they didn't have to do anything when they rolled up their sleeves, which was really ...... It's really a bit disappointing, after all, the ministers have been waiting in the northwest for many years, and the emperor easily solved the problem, which made the ministers sigh. ”

Jiang Fangzhen corrected: "Commander Duan, this is enough to show that the emperor is a sage and virtuous monarch today, and if he lifts a weight, he can easily solve big things, and it is as easy as a finger." ”

Duan Qirui also hurriedly changed his words: "The emperor is really a saint and a benevolent monarch. ”

Song Biao said: "What happened to that matter, let's not mention it, now we will only talk about the Middle East front." The ancients said that although a country is strong and warlike will perish, we do not have to fight, but I always say that the economy determines politics, and politics determines the military. At present, the new data of the empire statistics prove that the effective arable land available for development in the empire is about 2 billion mu, and the maximum may reach 2.2 billion mu. Agricultural mechanization is a major trend in the development of the world, look at the United States and Germany can be clearly aware of this, if we have so much arable land continue to mechanize, the oil resources to be consumed is very amazing, our exploration results over the years show that China and Europe are the same lack of oil resources in the country, and it is estimated that the Middle East oil resources may be more than the United States, in short, China's agriculture to develop, the country to be rich and strong, agricultural mechanization is the inevitable way, This means that the empire must have stable oil resources, and we have to send troops to the Ottoman Empire for oil, so no matter how much Britain can give, this battle will definitely be won. First, the generals must not fight a war for which they are uncertain, and second, they must not fight a war for which they are unprepared, and when they will send troops to go to war is a matter for the future, and the most urgent task at the moment is to do a good job in making preparations. ”

Hearing these words, whether it was Shu Fangxin, Jiang Fangzhen, or Duan Qirui, everyone nodded silently and said yes.

Since only by continuing to send troops to attack the Allies can Britain return Hong Kong and stabilize the southwestern frontier of the empire, it is better to fight a place where the empire must fight.

Duan Qirui was a little apprehensive in his heart, after all, the distance of sending troops was too far, and he could only rely on sea transportation for supplies, and the amount of supplies was limited, so he said: "The only problem is that it is too far, once defeated, it will be difficult to even withdraw the troops." ”

Song Biao said: "As long as we are well prepared, the probability of defeat is still very low, and the key depends on whether we can be very well prepared." The Ottoman Empire still has a relatively strong control over the straits of the Persian Gulf, which further determines that our war supply will be very difficult. What I mean is to adjust the logistics as much as possible, and all the materials that can be procured in Iran and India are procured locally, such as soldiers' tents, rations, blankets, winter clothing, etc., and those that are difficult to procure can be transported in advance. ”

Shu Fangxin said: "Back to the emperor, the company's side can roughly allocate two million pounds of funds to purchase military supplies in India and Iran. ”

Song Biao still nodded with satisfaction, the expenditure of two million pounds is not much, but it is basically enough to meet some expenses in the early stage, and the weapons and ammunition still have to be transported with the soldiers. Jiang Fangzhen cautiously reminded in Russia: "Your Majesty, you have to go directly to command the three armies far away, isn't it too dangerous?" ”

Duan Qirui also felt that this was very risky, but he didn't know how to say it, after all, he was dispatching a million troops thousands of miles away, not to mention that he Duan Qirui didn't have this ability at all, even if he did, he was not at ease as an emperor.

Looking at the country, in fact, everyone knows that if you really want to fight this battle, I am afraid that you will really have to be personally conquered by the emperor.

Song Biao said: "It doesn't matter, I've thought about it, Duan Qirui used to be a commander and a front-line commander, and Fu Liangzuo, Zhang Liangyuan and others gave him the chief of staff. ”

Hearing him say this, everyone's hearts are more stable.

If you just go to the northwest to drive the expedition in person, it will not be a big problem, but when you go to Iran, everyone is worried that there may be some wolves and rats in the country who will take the opportunity to cause trouble, after all, the stability of the empire now actually depends on the emperor's prestige.

Duan Qirui has no opinion, his own ability, he understands it very well in his heart, he really wants to lead millions of troops to fight in the Middle East, what if he loses? How could he bear so much responsibility and risk?

Now this arrangement is the best, he is just a shield for the emperor, saying that the emperor is giving him a staff officer, but it is better to say that he is a deputy to the emperor. If the emperor loses, he has to carry the black cauldron for the time being, and there will always be a time to reactivate it in the future, or even reuse, if the emperor wins, he will wait for further promotion.

Taking advantage of the fact that everyone was here, Song Biao, Duan Qirui, Jiang Fangzhen and they discussed various details of sending troops to Iran, saying that 1,000 to 10,000 should be established in the final analysis to establish a shipping force sufficient to guarantee transportation capacity, and in addition to the domestic merchant ships and freighters, it is necessary to lease merchant ships from abroad as much as possible, especially from the United States and Britain.

Basically, in order to win this war, the empire must at least ensure the size of a maritime fleet of 600,000 tons, almost 200,000 tons of freighters and nearly 100 ordinary freighters of about 5,000 tons, as well as a number of large cruise ships converted into troop carriers, and the empire has four troop carriers, all of which are also converted from French leased cruise ships, and are currently used in the European theater.

In addition, it was necessary to effectively defend the Ottoman navy. Submarines were not a big problem, because it was difficult for German submarines to enter the Mediterranean, let alone cross the Suez Canal into the Indian Ocean, and one of the most important factors in Song Biao's choice to concentrate China's main forces on the Middle East line was to avoid German submarine forces.

In the second half of 1916, the empire adopted a foreign policy of interests on the wall, assuming the posture that I was ready to send troops to fight on a large scale, and now it is up to you to see which of you gives me more benefits, and this posture is actually very disgusting and hated by the international world.

As we all know, the Chinese Empire has so far contributed the fourth lowest number of troops among the Entente powers, only higher than Portugal and New Zealand, but the benefits obtained in the war are far higher than those of any of the Entente countries, not only occupying Germany's major colonies in Asia and East Africa, but also becoming the largest creditor of Britain and France from the arms trade of the Entente countries.

With the British Prime Minister's Henry. We don't know what else this new empire will need, nor what they will fight for, but if there is no justice, they may not get anything!

Everyone will subtly threaten their opponents in their own way, and Prime Minister Asquith wants to subtly make a statement in the media, warning China that if it does join the German-Austrian camp, it will lose everything.

In any case, the German envoys have been operating within the new empire, and in the caricatures of the British in the mood of [***] and discrimination, Europeans wearing German imperial hats walk under the Forbidden City with gold coin bags marked with gold marks in their hands, surrounded by Manchu officials in the style of the Qing Empire.

This shows that the vast majority of British, or almost all Europeans, do not understand what kind of changes have taken place in China.

In their minds, China was a concentration camp for poor lepers, a poor, backward, ignorant, thin, ignorant, barbaric country, not worthy of respect at all, and even such a country would be a disgrace to the glorious British Empire and France to join the Entente.

To put it bluntly, even the members of Congress don't know what China means, and even when Prime Minister Asquith keeps emphasizing China's important surnames in Parliament, there is a burst of laughter from the table that thinks he is talking about a talk show.

Even though the Chinese Army had won the battle in 1911 and had only used 200,000 troops to contain the offensive of 35 Austro-Hungarian Army infantry divisions, it not only had a huge population and war potential, but was also the main supplier of arms to the Entente at present.

Among the firearms used by the Allied forces, 1/4 of the rifles, 1/3 of the machine guns and submachine guns, 1/5 of the explosives and grenades, 1/3 of the shells and bullets, 1/10 of the artillery and mortars, and more than 1/2 of the rubber products, gas masks, tents, and steel helmets came from China.

Even in 1916, China's total industrial scale was only about 1/7 of that of the United States, but in the field of military industry and related basic mining, China actually had more advantages than the United States under the support of the Entente Mutual Insurance Treaty. At present, in the field of the world's military industry, the United States, Britain and France sell machinery and equipment to China, and Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and other countries and China itself supply a large amount of raw materials, which are produced and processed into weapons, ammunition, and other military supplies in China.

If these materials were purchased from the United States, the Entente countries, including Britain and France, would have to pay for the precarious gold reserves of each country, not the national debt, although there are still many problems in the quality of China's products, and it is true that there are no advantages other than production capacity and cheapness, but in this stage of rapid consumption in the wartime, production capacity and cheapness are the most important key issues.

The Battle of the Somme had inflicted heavy losses on the Anglo-French forces, and the general war-weariness in Europe was spreading, forcing the British and French wartime cabinets to prolong the problem.

In October 1916, French Prime Minister Briand arrived in Yenching and held talks with Tang Shaoyi, the Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet. Sir George signed the "Middle East Secret Treaty" on behalf of Britain, France and the Empire, that is, Britain and France supported China to send troops from Iran to attack the Ottoman Empire, in order to share the pressure of Russia in the two-front war, after forcing the Ottoman Empire to withdraw from the war, the empire continued to move to the Balkans, united Italy and other Entente countries to attack the Austro-Hungarian army, forced Austria-Hungary to withdraw from the war, and realized the strategy of encircling Germany on three sides.

Under this secret treaty, Britain and France recognized the right of the Chinese Empire to continue to garrison and protect the occupied areas of the Middle East, and Britain would return Hong Kong before the end of the war, recognizing the Empire's territorial sovereignty over Tibetan Province.

However, in this agreement, Britain did not agree to the agreement on the demarcation line between China and India and China and Burma proposed by the Empire, nor did it recognize the Riau Islands as owned by China, which in fact meant that the post-war Sino-British relations would never be very smooth, and the disputes between the two countries were far greater than cooperation.

In addition to signing the "Secret Treaty of the Middle East between China, Britain and France", France continued to sign the "Indochina Peninsula Peace Entente" with the Chinese Empire, returning the protection of Laos and Cambodia to the Chinese Empire, while the Empire recognized France's "permanent protection" of Vietnam, and promised to transfer the "peaceful and friendly" German colonies in West Africa to France for protection after the war.

France, of course, was also a cheater, and it gave the protection of Laos and Cambodia to the Chinese Empire, which was tantamount to further intensifying the competition between the Chinese Empire and Britain in Indochina, but even if it was a French trap, China had to eat it.

In fact, both China and France knew very well at this time that the damage caused by France in the war was too great, not to mention that the victory had not yet been seen, even after the victory was a miserable victory, France would have a recovery period of several decades, and Britain would become the only strong player in Europe and continue to maintain control over Asia and Africa.

This means that whether it is between wars or after the war, China and France must maintain closer cooperation, as for in case everyone is defeated, then drink cold water together and sit and watch Germany occupy Europe and Asia and Africa, if China does not continue to send troops, it may be able to mix with Germany in the future, once it continues to increase troops, it can only fight to the death.

Although Song Biao did not feel that this "Middle East Secret Treaty" made much sense based on the credibility of the British, especially with reference to the example of Britain playing Italy, he was still willing to implement a new plan on this basis, formally send troops to Iran, and begin to carry out larger-scale military mobilization and war preparations, and strive to launch a large-scale military operation against the Ottoman Empire by March next year.

In fact, it was still very difficult for China in this period, because it had no status as a great power politically and diplomatically, and it did not have such a status militarily, except for France, which was forced to unite with China, other countries, including Russia, did not recognize what kind of strength China had at all, and even looked down on China.

In the final analysis, it is the navy and long-term historical discrimination, and it is true that this kind of discrimination was not really broken until the period of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea, and this is not a real break, it can only be said that it is just for other countries to recognize that China has stood up, and as for China is still a 1.5-meter little man on the basketball court after standing up, that is another matter.

This is not only the discrimination against China in the European and American world, but also the discrimination of the Anglo-Saxon race against the entire pan-Asian race, and if it were not for Hitler who made the world realize how terrible this racial discrimination is, so that Europe and the United States reflect on it, this kind of discrimination would have lasted for at least a few hundred years.

If you want to break this habitual surname, it is very simple, just like the People's Liberation Army challenges the US military, find a world-recognized power to fight, even if you bleed all over your body, you have to stand and die.

Might is right.

The status of the state is always played out.

(To be continued)