On the European continent, diplomatic mediation in all aspects is intensifying, and even some neutral countries are involved, and some small European countries are maintaining neutrality among the two major blocs, but no one is willing to really start a big war, and there seems to be no contradiction between Germany and Russia that cannot be solved and must go to war.

The Entente led by Britain, in order to prevent Germany from really combining with the northwest of China and dealing a heavy blow to Russia, must make concessions on a certain course, and Britain has long known that the northwest is tough, and they can only use small means except to continue to support Beiyang and the Kuomintang and strive to hold back this crazy beast in China.

For example, restricting Germany's passage through the Suez Canal, Britain's control over the Suez Canal is very strong, coupled with the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, Britain's approach directly allows Germany to go to the Middle East, expanding thousands of nautical miles, and this consumption will be very huge.

In normal times, such an approach may hit Germany hard, but unfortunately Germany really does not plan to transport materials from the mainland to the Middle East, in the signed agreement, the northwest is fully advanced, whether it is steel rails or sleepers or something, and even some necessary things on the railway, are produced and provided by the northwest, and Germany needs to do it, just borrow ocean-going cargo ships and transport them from China.

In this way, the impact on Germany is only concentrated in the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Malacca, which is the shipping artery of Asia, and the Lion City of Singapore, which is the node location, is occupied by the British, where the British Asian Fleet is, but unlike the Suez Canal, which is controlled by the British commercial canal, the British can freely control his quota, a slight tilt, let Germany suffer a big loss, there is an international waterway, Britain's ability to control Malacca, far inferior to the Suez Canal, Even the Strait of Gibraltar is not possible to restrict the passage of others.

On the surface, these straits are under the control of the British, but unless the war breaks out, it is absolutely impossible for the UK to prohibit the passage of others, no matter what, the basis of capitalism is free trade, prohibiting the passage of others, this is an opposition to free trade, and even will cause a series of problems, other countries will be in danger, if the UK uses this trick on them, how will they respond?

Because of this, the British had no way to blockade the Strait of Malacca, and seeing a steady stream of materials and personnel going to the Middle East through Malacca, all they could do was to impose restrictions, for example, on the coast of Malacca and India, prohibiting cargo ships carrying railway supplies for resupply.

Such a method, perhaps a few years ago, or even more than ten years ago, may be able to work, ocean shipping, supply this thing, is simply too important, the Russo-Japanese War of that year, Russia was pitted by Britain in this way, Britain united with France, in the name of non-intervention in the war, banned the supply of the Russian Far East Fleet, thousands of miles of voyages, but also to endure supply and many difficulties, the strength of the Russian Navy, out of ten, may not be able to send out 7 percent, meet the strength is not weak, to wait for the Japanese Navy, This led to the defeat of the Russian navy, which in turn affected the army, allowing Japan to win the Russo-Japanese War.

The current ocean-going cargo ships basically do not need to be replenished every once in a while, and the cargo ships departing from Shanghai, as long as they are replenished in the Philippines and Indonesia, there are the chassis of the United States and the Netherlands, and they will not listen to the British for the time being, and Malacca will pass through directly, since India can't get close, then go directly to the Middle East, less than half of the voyage, and it is no problem if there is no supply for thousands of nautical miles.

Britain saw that it could not work, coupled with diplomatic and national influence, they were attracted by the tension between Germany and Russia, and there was no way but to use British influence in the Middle East to carry out some covert activities.

Britain's influence in the Middle East can be said to be absolutely strong, itself, most of the Middle East is a British colony, but outside the Suez Canal, the rest are barren land, after Britain forced Kuwait to recognize Britain as the suzerain, just asked for a name, barren Kuwait has no resources at all.

Of course, the greedy British Empire would not spare any interests, and in 1939, when Kuwait discovered oil, it became a protectorate and occupied a part of Cowell's rights.

It is precisely because of historical reasons that even in Basra, Iraq, there are many pro-British, and even the British themselves, and after some manipulation, Basra began to have a countercurrent.

After graduating from the United States, he was invited by the Northwest to join the railway construction troops, starting from a young age, and became a commander at the level of the corps step by step, the Northwest Railway Plan, in just a few years, built more than tens of thousands of kilometers of railways, a large number of construction tasks exercise, in addition to the actual chief engineer Zhan Tianyou, also emerged a large number of managers, Wang Xuan is one of the leaders.

The background of returnees, coupled with the knowledge of German, these two advantages make him stand out among a series of legion managers, other legion managers who are stronger than him, without his open international thinking and international cognition, in addition to the country, I am afraid that even he will not be able to take care of himself, let alone build a 2400-kilometer railway.

The personnel are gradually in place, and the materials are basically complete, because of the relationship between the carrying capacity, the northwest even put the concrete component factory, directly built in Iraq, which is the key to the rapid completion of the construction in the northwest, in a segmented manner, the components of some large bridges, tunnels, and even railway sleepers, through the guò prefabricated parts factory for prefabrication, when the time comes, when the construction is carried out, as long as the prefabricated parts are installed, there is no need to prepare the shelf at a little bit, inject concrete, which saves a lot of time.

However, most of the Middle East is short of water, and seawater cannot be produced as a prefabricated part, so I chose an oasis with abundant water for a long time.

The prefabricated parts factory can be produced smoothly, and the tasks began to be rolled out, just when Wang Xuan began to be full of ambition and wanted to make contributions, in recent times, there have been a series of problems, for example, the prefabricated parts factory has been besieged, and some locals say that the prefabricated parts factory has drained their water source, making their practical water barren and turbid.

The water source of the desert is extremely precious, Wang Xuan originally felt sorry and was about to solve it, but there was an accident in the port again, and many berths refused to berth cargo ships transporting materials from the northwest, saying that there was pork on them, and some local porters refused to unload the ships from the northwest.

When he came to the Middle East, because of the religious belief in the Middle East, Baotou attached great importance to all the logistics and supplies, all the logistics and supplies were beef and mutton, and there could be no pork at all, and there was also a point that around the prefabricated parts factory, there were only three independent small villages, because of the harsh climate in the Middle East, the total number of those small villages would not exceed 200 people, but the siege of the prefabricated parts factory, at least 3,000 people, Otherwise, the prefabricated parts factory will not come to the emergency. By all indications, an undercurrent is emerging in Basra and even in Iraq, and their purpose is to promote the Baghdad railway.

Sure enough, next, the various construction sites and the railway itself, there are different problems, although they are all small things, but the small things accumulate and become big things, less will affect the construction progress, large will lead to small-scale conflicts, in short, the construction speed has slowed down.

After understanding most of the situation, Wang Xuan thought about it for a while, and after gathering everything, he made an appointment with the contact person of the German railway in Baghdad.

The contact person's name is Faller, who was born in the aristocracy, and was originally the deputy of the German ambassador to Turkey, but this time because of the importance of the Baghdad Railway, he was directly sent here, and after Wang Xuan took out some information and part of the investigation, Faller sneered a few times and said to Wang Xuan: "I know, I'll deal with it!" ”

The next day, Wang Xuan didn't wait for Faller's treatment, he wondered, was Faller bragging, or maybe they didn't pay attention? Wang Xuan didn't know that this matter was directly transmitted by Faller to Berlin, Germany, and went to a special meeting of His Excellency the Emperor, and after a night of consultations, a radio wave, directly transferred to the German-Russian border, the German troops stationed on the German-Russian border, not only began to mobilize, but also became tougher.

The tough attitude immediately made Russia nervous, and the European countries were also nervous, they don't know why, hasn't the situation eased down, why is it still so tough, diplomats, and even special envoys, have gone to Berlin.

His Excellency the Emperor did not see him, and the Prime Minister did not even attend, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke in a fog, and finally, during a special meeting with the British envoy, he threw out part of the information.

The British blushed and denied that they did this, but no one would believe what the diplomats said, but then, similar incidents began to become fewer, except for a small number of places where friction has occurred, and the antagonism is very heavy, the problem of port berths has not been well solved, not that it is not undone, I don't know when it started, many small boats appeared in Basra, and the berths they occupied greatly affected the loading and unloading of materials on the Baghdad Railway.

Wang Xuan found Faller again, but after Faller asked about the situation, there was no way, according to his explanation, it was a small move by Britain before, and it was a disgraceful means, as long as he got the evidence, he could solve it very lightly, but this is a means that he knows is still a British method, but it is a commercial means, and it can be easily denied by the UK, but it is not easy to solve, he needs to return to the country, and it takes time to deal with it.

In this way, the progress of the Baghdad railway slowed down again, and Wang Xuan, after several urgings, had no choice but to send the telegram back to the northwest and ask for guidance from his superiors. R1152