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While An Yi and his generals were using their brains to recruit troops, Franklin, who had already been inaugurated as president of the United States on March 4. Roosevelt summoned Zhang Xi at the White House. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Roosevelt did a great deal of work during this time, ordering the national bank to go on vacation, and then convening an emergency session of Congress to pass a series of decrees giving him greater powers. Today is the day when all preparations are made and his new policy measures are officially implemented, and the "100-day" new deal officially kicks off on this day.

Roosevelt and Zhang Xi discussed economic policy for a while, and their mouths were a little dry, so they called the staff to add a cup of coffee to themselves and Zhang Xi, and took a sip of it comfortably, and then said with a smile:

"Zhang, I heard that the Chinese side has stopped importing our grain, which has led to a sharp drop in the purchase price of grain products nationwide, is there such a thing?"

"Yes, due to successive civil wars, Japan's wars on the Shanghai and Great Wall lines, and successive famines, China's economic situation is extremely bad and it is on the verge of bankruptcy. The purchaser of the 500,000 tons of grain was An Yi, a general of the Young Zhuang faction of the squadron, who was also my business partner. Zhang Xi said a little heavily.

Roosevelt was very pleased with Zhang Xi's outspoken relationship with An Yi: "I have heard about the situation in China, and I deeply regret the civil war in China and Japan's gradually expanding ambitions. Since last month, the governors of all the states except the western states and New York have ordered the closure of all or part of their banks, and the country's financial industry has almost collapsed, which is not much better than China's, and now I am focusing on this area. Zhang, I don't have extra energy to focus on industry and agriculture, once China's agricultural product orders are lost, many farmers who are in urgent need of money will immediately go bankrupt, do you have any good ways to do this? ”

Zhang Xi's face was extremely grim: "I was also a little caught off guard by this, but fortunately, I contacted some consortiums in the west to build a large number of freight yards and freezers, which can digest some, but no matter more, I can't bear it." ”

Roosevelt naturally understood the relationship between Zhang Xi and the Chinese consortium, smiled and praised: "Zhang, I appreciate your efforts in the general election and in support of the New Deal. ”

Zhang Xi's heart sank, but his face remained silent: "Since I knew that the president intended to repeal the 'Prohibition', those friends of mine have decided not to interfere in this kind of business that will bring unhappiness to all parties. Nowadays, the consortia are paying more attention to the investment focus on finance, media, electronics, medicine, real estate, transportation, department stores, mining and metallurgy, especially now that the national financial order is chaotic, and those friends of mine are willing to contribute to the president in this financial field. ”

"That's a good thing! As you know, the economic crisis that has swept the world is triggered by the financial crisis caused by crazy speculation, and what we need to do most now is to restore the public's confidence in our banks, and a large number of banks with capital and strength will be re-certified and protected, so that the people can quickly stabilize and devote themselves to new work and life, so you let your friends have no worries, and you can put forward any requirements! Roosevelt said with a smile.

Zhang Xi was overjoyed, and the meaning of what Roosevelt said was obvious, that is, forget about the past, as long as he was close to his side from now on, the smuggling and trafficking of smuggled goods by the Western Chinese Consortium would not be to blame in the past, but in the future, he must work the things he ordered.

All kinds of thoughts flashed through Zhang Xi's mind, but his face was unmoved by a smile, and soon he talked about the "Emergency Banking Law" that was about to be implemented, and after chatting for a long time, Roosevelt suddenly asked: "Zhang, tell me, if our chief Gu An presides over China's military affairs, will it be better than the current Chairman Chiang?" ”

"This—"

Zhang Xi was very surprised, and was stunned for a while before shaking his head: "It stands to reason that I should support my partners, but the current situation in China is far more complicated than we imagined. According to General An's reputation, he is not a universal response in China now, at least the veteran generals in the army do not necessarily support him. Taking the Great Wall War of Resistance as an example, he was only able to mobilize a few divisions under his command, and the warlords from all walks of life did not regard him as the same thing. I dare to say that without Chairman Chiang, China would be in chaos! ”

Roosevelt frowned slightly, looking very puzzled: "I have read the newspapers in the past few days, doesn't it say that the Chinese people worship General An, from the north to the south, a praise?" According to the latest spot check conducted by the reporters stationed in China by China's major newspapers, General An's approval rating is as high as 90 percent, so it stands to reason that there will be no problems...... You know, I also relied on the support of the people to ascend to the position of president, why can't it be General An's turn? Is he too young, lacks some necessary qualifications, or something like that......"

Zhang Xi smiled bitterly: "Since the rule of the Qing Dynasty, the Chinese people have been ignorant and backward for a long time, and the people who are really thoughtful, educated, and conscious are less than five percent of the total population, and it is estimated that the urban population surveyed by European and American institutions is less than one-tenth of this part of the population. Many people have never left the countryside where they live since they were born, and hundreds of millions of people have never seen a car or train, so what those warlords and officials above their heads say, they think it is, and even do not hesitate to fight for some one-sided propaganda, so the so-called support rate in the newspapers does not represent the will of the whole people in China, and the vast majority of people simply do not know anything, and they may even stand on the opposite side of General An at any time in order to survive and for the sake of their families under the bewitchment of some well-intentioned people. Now that Chairman Chiang occupies the moral high ground, those local warlords and forces do not dare to act rashly, and if Chairman Chiang suddenly disappears one day, some people will certainly jump out and fight for the dominance of the country, and then it will turn into a great melee that will sweep across the Far East, and then China's disasters will be far worse than they are now, and if Japan takes the opportunity to invade, it is not impossible for a country and nation to be destroyed and extinct! ”

Roosevelt was silent for a while and shrugged his shoulders: "Zhang, you are right, it seems that things in China are far more complicated than we imagined, and many things that seem to be obvious at a glance actually do not stand up to scrutiny. But can you tell me if there is a chance that General An will reach the top? ”

Zhang Xi thought about it for a long time, and finally shook his head: "If General An ignores the interests of the country and the nation, and stays in the southwest to preserve his strength and develop for ten years, there may be hope." From the analysis of Sino-Japanese history and the current situation, there will be a decisive battle between China and Japan, once the Sino-Japanese war breaks out, the powerful Japanese army will surely sweep through the Central Plains and a large area south of the Yangtze River, but it will also fall into a stalemate because of the elongation of the battle line, after all, China's territory is too big for the Japanese to swallow in one bite. At that time, if General An's troops, who had endured the accumulation of many years, went out to the southwest, adopted the method of taking the camp step by step, used various means to unite and gradually encroach on the forces of all sides, and finally fought with the Japanese army, there would be no possibility of reaching the top. But in my understanding of him, this possibility is almost none, however, General An Yi is a patriot, and can even be said to be a tough nationalist, for the interests of the whole country and nation, he will never choose to retreat because of the difference in strength, and will definitely lose his strength in the war of attrition again and again, this was the case in the 128th Great War in Shanghai last year, and the same is true of the ongoing Great Wall War of Resistance, so at best, he can only be a hero of one side! ”

Roosevelt pondered: "So, Chairman Chiang is the only suitable person to lead China?" ”

"So far, it does!"

Zhang Xi nodded, and then said with emotion: "This is the difference between politicians and patriots, politicians can sacrifice everything for the sake of their goals, while patriots can't bear to damage the interests of the country and the nation and can only stand up...... But then again, if General An was not such a person, how could he be respected and loved by so many people? ”

Roosevelt sighed: "Originally, I expected that China, which was poor and white, could quickly end the civil strife and engage in large-scale construction, so that it could partially boost our economy, but now it seems that it is good to maintain the status quo." By the way, is the southwest of China still buying our industrial products and bringing in unemployed workers? ”

"Yes, since the beginning of the 29th century, China has gradually become our indispensable trading partner, and in terms of product procurement and imports, it has become our second largest trading partner in recent years, after Russia...... I have heard that in the first year after the outbreak of the economic crisis, Russia signed more than 70 agreements on technical assistance with our experts, involving many important economic sectors, such as metallurgy, industrial machinery, metal processing, fuel power, petrochemical industry, transportation, agricultural machinery, agricultural irrigation engineering, automobiles, ships, and aircraft manufacturing, and by the end of last year, the number of projects receiving technical assistance from Russia had increased to 124, with a total value of more than $40 million. During the period of their first five-year plan, a large number of modern backbone enterprises, especially in the new industrial sectors such as iron and steel, machinery, fuel power, chemical industry, automobiles, tractors, aircraft, and shipbuilding, were established using our advanced equipment and technology, and even with the direct help of our experts. I heard Stalin say, 'About two-thirds of the large enterprises in Russia are built with the help or technical assistance of the United States...... Most of the rest were established with the technical assistance of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and other countries, and it seems that this economic crisis has created an opportunity for the rise of Russia as a great power. Zhang Xi shook his head.

Roosevelt smiled faintly: "Not only technology, but also Russia imports a large number of China's machinery, attaches importance to the introduction of talents, attracts China's loans, etc., I think that in a few years, the huge Russia will become the second largest economy after the United States." But now that the global economy is so hard to recover, we know it's poison, and we have to grit our teeth and swallow it. It is a pity that China is not an independent and unified country, otherwise its achievements may not be much worse than that of Russia, and it is difficult to make any substantive changes in the southwest alone. ”

At this time, Zhang Xi did not know that Roosevelt's conversation with him would affect the US policy toward China for more than a decade, and he was still secretly happy about his achievements in the past few years:

In fact, thanks to the smuggling of anti-inflammatory drugs such as alcohol, heroin, methamphetamine and aspirin, the machinery and products shipped to Chinese enterprises in China, Southeast Asia, Australia and other places are not much worse than those in Russia. In the past four years, one-third of the machinery and equipment exported by the United States was sold to Chinese, the year before last, one-tenth of the world's total machinery exports were sold to Chinese enterprises, and last year this figure rose to 20 percent, just the total import volume of southern Sichuan, and the import of machinery and equipment accounted for one-thirtieth of the world's total in 29 years, and as high as one-fifteenth last year, in other words, the development potential of southwest China is definitely not as simple as Roosevelt saw, because many export businesses, It is done through companies registered in Australia, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, as well as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas, Netherlands Antilles, etc., and only you know where these things are going.

In terms of talent introduction, the southern Sichuan region has more advantages than Russia, not to mention the suitable temperature and beautiful living environment, only to say that the humanities and social circles composed of European and American people, as well as freedom of religious belief, are not comparable to Russia in this period, coupled with the negative propaganda of the Red Empire that has been accepted, almost most of the technical talents who are willing to go abroad choose to work in China, if An Yi can calm down and develop, the future achievements will be limitless.

But the problem is that An Yi is indeed short of money, but this lack of money is not the same as the central government borrowing money from everywhere to live.

After entering southern Sichuan in 1931, An Yi's development focus fell on Xufu and Luzhou. Syria is known as the first city of the Yangtze River, covering an area of about 15,000 square kilometers, with the continuous influx of immigrants in the past two years, the population is about 6 million, and it has rich water resources and mineral resources, including coal reserves of 5.3 billion tons, pyrite reserves of 1.5 billion tons, and rock salt of 10 billion tons. Luzhou, also known as Jiucheng, is located at the junction of Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Yunnan, and is located in the transition zone between the southern edge of the Sichuan Basin and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, with an area of 13,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 4 million, it is the most important agricultural production area in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, with extremely rich biological resources, mineral resources and energy resources, with coal reserves of 4.3 billion tons and pyrite of 3.2 billion tons. The combined population of the two places is close to 10 million, and as dozens of mining sites have sprung up in both places, seven large and medium-sized steel mills have sprung up.

The foundation of modern industry is the steel manufacturing industry, think about it, machine tools, machinery need high-quality steel, make weapons, vehicles, ships need steel, build railways need steel, run factories and engage in construction all need steel, no steel industry to pave the way, others can not develop, so from the beginning, the development of southern Sichuan revolves around the steel industry.

Syria and Luzhou are rich in products, but for a long time, the mining of coal and iron ore is relatively small, and now although the mining efforts have been increased, and the capital of Jiangsu and Zhejiang has been vigorously introduced for development, but due to many reasons such as deep burial of ore and backward mining technology, it is impossible to fundamentally meet the needs of the development of the iron and steel industry, so An Yi has focused on the layout of the entire southwest region from the beginning, in addition to the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan in southwest Sichuan under the jurisdiction of Liu Wenhui, the confluence of the Jinsha River and the Yalong River. In addition to sending exploration teams to inspect mineral resources in some areas of Dechang, they also developed coal and iron ore resources in the entire southwest region.

Located in the south of Chongqing, the Qijiang Iron Ore Mine is an old mine with a history of more than 1,000 years, first mined in the Song Dynasty, two years ago, a smelter in Dongxi opened the Qianyu Iron Ore Company, which leased mining from Liu Xiang, who is based in Chongqing. With An Yi's entry into the southern Sichuan region to set up a large number of iron and steel enterprises, more and more iron ore is needed, and the mining of Qijiang iron ore has also increased, and the profits are very considerable. Seeing that it was profitable, Liu Xiang took back the mining rights of iron ore and set up a company for development. After more than two years of development, a large-scale iron ore mining enterprise has been formed with Xiaoyutuo as the center, including five mining areas such as Daluo, Tutai, Pingtong, Maliutan and Baishi, with an annual output of 200,000 tons of iron ore, all of which are digested by iron and steel enterprises in southern Sichuan.

Guizhou's Panxian, Shuicheng and Liuzhi have always had a history of mining coal and iron ore, but due to the rugged roads and the prevalence of banditry, they have not been well developed. After Shi Zhen occupied Qianxi and Qianbei, An Yi sent a geological exploration team to this area, after half a year of investigation, finally determined that the reliable reserves of the coalfield in this place are more than 50 billion tons, and the reliable reserves within 500 meters are as high as more than 10 billion tons, and the coal types are complete, the coal quality is excellent, the burial is shallow, which is very conducive to development. And let Shi Zhen send troops to various mines, spend money to repair and widen the road, to 31 years after stationed in southern Sichuan, but also specially sent two divisions of engineering troops, every mountain to open a hole and meet the water to build a bridge, specially opened a high-standard highway from Liupanshui to Syria, and later with the 918 incident and the Yangtze River, Huaihe River basin floods, a large number of refugees poured into southern Sichuan, with a steady stream of labor, some of them were organized and sent to repair the road, by the end of last year, the road was finally built, It brought much-needed coking coal and iron ore to the industrial development of southern Sichuan.

It is precisely because of the coal in the Liupanshui area that the 10 large-scale thermal power stations in Syria and Luzhou, which were built in advance, have come into use, providing a steady stream of power support for iron and steel and other industrial enterprises, and the five small and medium-sized hydropower stations built in Syria and Luzhou have been put into use, and the industrialization process in southern Sichuan has been accelerated a lot.

Originally, according to the Chinese consortium in Australia and South America, they have taken advantage of the economic crisis to demarcate the land to mine mines, and it is more economical to directly buy iron ore and transport it to southern Sichuan than to mine it yourself, but considering that the future Sino-Japanese war is likely to lose the sea, it is very necessary to establish a completely own iron ore supply line, and the mining of ore and road construction can solve the employment of a large number of people, which is good for driving the economic development of the regions along the way, so An Yi from the beginning, It is the policy of grasping with both hands and being firm with both hands.

As of the end of February this year, the iron and steel enterprises in southern Sichuan have achieved a monthly output of 90,000 tons of steel and pig iron, although far less than Russia's monthly output of 500,000 tons, but for China, which is poor and has no industrial base, this is already a very terrifying figure, which means that southern Sichuan has more steel to produce machinery and weapons.

In addition to the energy and steel industry on the basis of industry, the most important thing to pay attention to is the machine tool industry, to know that the machine tool is the basic production equipment of the machinery industry, in addition to the general cutting processing, there are casting, forging, welding, stamping, extrusion and other functions, mechanical parts are usually processed with machine tools, the variety, quality and processing efficiency of machine tools, directly affect the production technology level of other mechanical products, therefore, the modernization level and scale of the machine tool industry, is one of the important symbols of a country's industrial development.

The production line introduced by An Yi is all a new generation of equipment that is being used by bankrupt enterprises after the outbreak of the economic crisis or has not yet been unpacked, and there is absolutely no problem in terms of precision and advancement, coupled with the operation of skilled workers from the United States, it can be said that compared with other machine tool companies in China, the machine tool industry in southern Sichuan has been winning at the starting line from the beginning.

With a perfect machine tool industry, you can produce a variety of targeted machine tools according to the drawings, such as gear processing machine tools, screw processing machine tools, spline processing machine tools, gantry planers, heavy grinders, universal milling machines, and various boring machines can be produced continuously, but the development of southern Sichuan can not wait for a machine tool to be produced and then slowly build factories to produce machinery and equipment. Therefore, the machine tool factory is more responsible for training skilled workers and delving into new technologies, those technicians recruited from the United States, each of them brought dozens of students from the University of Science and Technology and carefully selected from the old Nanchang factories to have a cultural foundation of skilled workers, talent spread in this way, ten to spread a hundred.

As of February this year, oil refineries, crane factories, welding machine factories, cigarette factories, motor factories, match factories, machine-made sugar factories, miners' lamp factories, electric light factories, mining machinery factories, screw factories, glass factories, chemical plants, pharmaceutical factories, automobile factories, tractor factories, shipyards and other factories and enterprises have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Australia and South America, etc.

An Yi is now short of money, the development and expansion of various industrial zones, the leveling and widening of roads connecting the southwest of the country, the exploration and exploitation of mines in the two places, the research and development of new weapons and new technologies, the electric light and telephone projects in the two places, the investment in education, the construction of infrastructure, the eating, drinking, and ammunition consumption of hundreds of thousands of troops under his command, etc., all of which have not been allocated by the central government, all of which are self-raised, but with the vigorous development of the industry in southern Sichuan, new products are introduced to the market every day, and the profits earned are getting bigger and biggerMany enterprises in the eastern coastal areas have gone bankrupt one after another, not so much because of the global economic crisis and frequent wars, but because of the huge rout of the old small workshop-style production and operation of new technologies and advanced productive forces, but ordinary people cannot see through it.

Therefore, the temporary predicament is a good thing for An Yi, at least Chiang Kai-shek, who gradually saw the inside story of the development of southern Sichuan, and the key officials of the Central Committee, have to weigh and weigh carefully what they do to An Yi.

In the Miyun camp, it was already late at night after discussing with Hu Jialin, Lu Yixuan, Yang Jiuxiao and others, and at this time, Lin Yaodong walked in and handed An Yi a telegram:

"Coming from Berlin, Hitler's Nazi Party won 43.8% of the votes in the Reichstag election, further consolidating the Chancellor's throne."

An Yi's heart moved, remembering the scene when he saw the mustache on his last trip to Europe, and secretly shouted "Coming", took the message and read it carefully.

It turned out that in the German presidential election held on April 10 last year, Hitler unexpectedly won 36.8% of the votes, and although he lost to the incumbent President Hindenburg, he had already demonstrated great strength. The Nazi Party won 37.3% of the votes and 230 seats in the Reichstag elections on July 31 last year, making it the largest party in the Reichstag, and on January 30 this year, with the support of the overthrown Hohenzollern royal family, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and then issued Proclamation No. 1 on February 1, claiming that President Hindenburg had announced the dissolution of the Reichstag and a new election. Hitler believed that he would win the election so that he could exclude the other parties in the coalition government and establish a system of one-party rule. Hitler took it one step at a time, enacting the Act for the Protection of the German People on February 4 in order to broadly restrict opposition parties, and on February 6, dissolving the Prussian State Parliament, allowing Goering, Prussia's acting Minister of the Interior, to take over the police station, creating the conditions for the Nazi Party to seize power in Prussia. On February 27, the arson of the Reichstag was concocted and blamed on the Germans, setting off an unprecedented wave of poverty in Germany, and the "Law on the Protection of the People and the State" was quickly promulgated, authorizing the government to take over the power of the states. Now that the Nazi Party has won a resounding victory in the new parliamentary elections, it is expected that Hitler's arrogance will be even more arrogant, and he will get closer and closer to the throne of his Führer.

An Yi was greatly surprised by Hitler's endless methods, and Chiang Kai-shek's political skills were much inferior in comparison, not to mention himself.

After thinking about it, An Yi immediately ordered to send a congratulatory telegram to Hitler, congratulating the Nazi Party on its election success and striving to obtain the greatest benefits before Germany favored Japan.