In any case, the Chinese Empire has an army of 1.3 million, which is a force that neither France nor Russia can give up, and it is interesting that China and Russia are not allied, only China and France have signed a military alliance treaty.

After his visit to Russia, French Prime Minister Viviña continued to arrive in Yanjing by train from the Far Eastern Railway, arriving on the morning of 2 August.

At this time, the French Prime Minister Vivigna really had no room for negotiation, and when he met with the Imperial Prime Minister Tang Shaoyi, he could only agree to the six provisional agreements put forward by the Imperial Political Axe, the first was that the Reich solemnly announced that it would abide by the "Sino-French Military Alliance Entente" and hoped that Germany would stop declaring war on France; The second is that in the event of a formal war between Germany and France, the Reich should declare war against Germany within a month at the latest; thirdly, after the declaration of war by the Reich, the French Asian Fleet was not allowed to withdraw from Asia and participate in operations against the German Far Eastern Fleet; Fourthly, the Reich should not send troops to fight in Europe in principle, and if France asked the Reich to send troops to Europe, it should cancel all debts owed by the Reich to France on the principle of mutual benefit, and the Reich promised to send at least 300,000 troops to the war; Fifth, after the victory over the German-Austrian Alliance, Germany's leased lands in China must be permanently returned to China, the right to dispose of all German-Austrian and Allied property in China belongs to China, and the ownership of Germany's other colonies in Asia belongs to China. Sixth, if the Reich sent troops to attack the colonies in Africa and other regions outside Germany, the colonies occupied after the annihilation of the German army would belong to China.

After the two sides reached the six-point agreement, on the evening of 2 August, Imperial Premier Tang Shaoyi and French Prime Minister Viviña issued a joint statement in Zhongnanhai, swearing that Sino-French friendship and alliance relations are more important than everything else, and that China will definitely abide by the "Sino-French Military Alliance Entente," and that Germany stop the war and solve the problem through consultation and negotiation, and that if Germany declares war on France, China will also declare war on Germany.

Although China and Germany are far apart, the empire has an army of 1.3 million troops, which can be called well-equipped, and the industry has developed rapidly in the past few years, and it is fully capable of supporting a major war.

The German minister to China, Xin Ci, hurriedly met with Tang Shaoyi and proposed the return of the leased land in Qingdao, as well as various other conditions, hoping that China would declare no war and that if China was willing to withdraw from the Sino-French alliance, Germany would be willing to give more preferential terms.

It's late.

Arrogance always comes at a price, whether it's Germany or England.

If China were in West Asia, such a large number of land forces would indeed worry the German-Austrian alliance, but after all, it was too far away, and Germany could not offer a price that really satisfied the Reich at this time, and Germany's focus was on the big plan to defeat France, and the attack on Belgium was also on the line, and Britain also understood that it was necessary to enter the war in order to contain further German expansion.

It was under such circumstances that the First World War finally broke out uncontrollably.

As for whether China declared war on Germany, China could delay for a while under the constraints of the six-point agreement, and Song Biao's idea was to wait until after the Battle of the Marne.

If Germany had won the Battle of the Marne, crushed France in one fell swoop, and occupied Paris, then he would have to wait for a while before declaring war, and if he had not won, it seemed that he could declare war directly.

Chen Qicai, who is the deputy chief of the General Staff, has already led the military observation group to Paris at this time, and he will be responsible for making the Central Military Department clear about all kinds of information on the German and French military fronts as soon as possible.

The First World War really came, and this thought sometimes made Song Biao feel extremely surprised, as if he suddenly found that he had come to this era for so long, spanning the Russo-Russian War and the First World War, and maybe the Second World War.

After Germany officially declared war on Belgium, it completely broke Britain's delusion of neutrality, and from August 3, the German army attacked Belgium with 60,000 troops, and by the end of the 18th, it completely occupied Belgium, which was two days faster than Song Biao expected.

At this time, the German army also began to install a large number of light machine guns and submachine guns, and the German army used Popnin submachine guns, in addition to Britain, France, Russia and Austria-Hungary also used Popnin submachine guns, which in itself made the Far East Arms Corporation profitable.

Like other countries, Germany bought the patents directly and paid the Far Eastern Arms Corporation a patent fee for each production, and the British modified a submachine gun based on the Vickers machine gun, but it did not work very well, they did not reduce the ammunition capacity, making the submachine gun more difficult to control than the machine gun.

Before the declaration of war, Russia and France had urgently ordered large quantities of Popnin light machine guns and submachine guns, as well as other munitions from the Far Eastern Arms Corporation.

On August 20, the German Army officially attacked France, which rolled the French army all over the ground, and the army rushed straight to Paris, which made France panic, and the French political axe was forced to move to Bordeaux, and Britain finally officially sent troops to war.

The impact of the Xinhai War on the First World War was already very obvious during this period, especially for the German army, which not only equipped a large number of light machine guns, but also adopted the Tumen River offensive tactics on a large scale in the offensive, expanding the scope of the offensive and tearing apart the French defense line, and using the Huthier tactics in a small area to carry out infiltration operations through the theory of artillery and fire coordinated operations.

With the quality of the German Army, as soon as they started doing this, the French army would be as hard to stop as mud.

This made Song Biao a little frightened.

He had a terrifying premonition that Paris would be taken by the Germans.

Song Biao didn't know how to make a choice for a while, but after careful and careful consideration, he decided to declare war on Germany in advance, and even if France was finally defeated, he hoped to recover Qingdao before that.

The German minister to China, Xin Liping, warned the central cabinet, and he vowed that Germany would quickly defeat France on the European continent and win the final victory, and that if China formally declared war on Germany, Germany would never easily forgive China.

Such a provocation made Song Biao feel deeply disgusted.

On September 1, three days before the final deadline for declaring war agreed between China and France, the Reich Cabinet officially declared war on Germany, interrupted the diplomacy between the two countries, and issued an ultimatum to the German garrison in Jiaozhou Bay and the German Far East Fleet, demanding that the German troops leave Jiaozhou Bay within 24 hours, but in the port of Ningbo, the French Asian Fleet and the Central Fleet temporarily formed by the Central Navy had already converged in an attempt to completely defeat the German Far East Fleet in the East China Sea.

At 14 o'clock at noon on September 2, the 1st Infantry Division and the 15th Infantry Division stationed in Jinan launched an attack on the German army, and Xin Liping was forced to leave China.

Kwenson, commander of the German Far East Fleet, rejected this agreement, and after leading the fleet to withdraw from Jiaozhou Bay, he engaged the Sino-French combined fleet in the waters of Fushan Bay, resulting in the sinking of an old ironclad ship and several cruisers, and only after self-destructing the last ironclad ship did Kwenson agree to surrender.

Almost at the same time, the German army launched the Battle of the Marne in advance on the Western Front in Europe, and the chief of the French General Staff, Xia Fei, had been taking a strategic retreat until then, although the German army occupied Belgium and northeastern France, but did not let the army suffer too many losses, and at this time, Xia Fei persuaded the British army to form an alliance with the French army to complete the German resistance between the Marne and Verdun and Paris.

It is said that the influence of the Xinhai War on the world military is huge, but the French army did not really understand and analyze this war, but simply increased the number of light machine guns and submachine guns purchased.

Based on the overwhelming military strength displayed by the Germans in the capture of Belgium and the pursuit of the French army, the whole world was deeply frightened and skeptical, and doubted that France would be able to withstand the German Imperial Army.

Even Song Biao was disappointed and deeply suspicious of the French army, and on the night of the German launch of a large-scale offensive on the north bank of the Marne, Song Biao called both Jiang Fangzhen and Shu Fangde to the imperial study to discuss with the two of them how long the French army could resist.

Jiang Fangzhen and Shu Fangde's views are exactly the opposite, Shu Fangde believes that the German army is strong, brave in battle, strong in discipline, the French army has been defeated in a battle, and it will definitely repeat the mistakes of the Franco-Prussian War again, or it will not be long before the Germans capture Paris, and Jiang Fangzhen believes that the French army is still a strategic retreat at this stage, and there is no situation where large forces are encircled and annihilated, as the German army goes deeper into France, the supply will gradually restrict the rapid attack of the German army, plus the addition of the British army, It is likely that a long war of attrition will form between the two sides in the area around Paris, and once such a situation is reached, the situation will gradually turn against the Germans.

This is when human talent manifests itself.

Jiang Fangzhen's point of view is very clear, on the basis of learning from the Chinese Xinhai War, the German army has increased the number of submachine guns and light machine guns on a large scale, introduced grenadiers and 60mm mortars from the empire to produce them locally, and also installed a large number of troops, including tactics, which were obviously affected by the Xinhai War, and this posed a greater problem to the German army's logistical supply.

During the Xinhai War, the actual main combat force of the Northeast Army was 300,000, and the auxiliary units and newly formed units accompanying the operation were 400,000, responsible for logistics, fortifications, and coordinated offensive work, and at the same time equipped with 600,000 horses and 2.7 million laborers, plus large-scale transportation by three railways, so as to ensure the Northeast Army's rapid offensive all the way.

Not only that, but the Northeast Army has gone deeper in its research and practice of the theory of mobile rapid offensive, and has carried out large-scale adjustments on several occasions to promote rapid mobile operations by expanding the number of soldiers in grassroots units and reducing the burden on individual soldiers on an average basis.

Judging from the current establishment of the German army, the German army obviously did not realize the huge difference between 14 and 10 infantry squads, and you must know that during the Xinhai War, many infantry squads of the Northeast Army were large establishments of 20 people, and the numerical advantage was used to average the marching load.

As the so-called threesome, there must be my teacher.

Jiang Fangzhen's far-sighted judgment reminded Song Biao.

At this time, it was already late at night, and the three of them discussed for a long time in the imperial study, Song Biao sat on the dragon bed pondering Jiang Fangzhen's opinion, and pondered for a long time before he and Jiang Fangzhen and Shu Fangde said: "Germany made a fatal mistake, they only retained a small number of troops on the Eastern Front, and concentrated all the main forces on the Western Front, obviously wanting to win a quick battle and eliminate France in the fastest way. There is nothing wrong with such an idea in itself, the problem is that this tactical idea may have been implemented for a little too long, and in the last ten years, there have been great changes in the theory of operations, especially the emergence of trench warfare, and the development of the theory of trench warfare, which was a great obstacle to the rapid offensive plan of the German army, and secondly, the change of weapons. The appearance of light and heavy machine guns, submachine guns and mortars on the one hand makes it easier to break through the trench defense line, and on the other hand it becomes more difficult, which depends on the level of weapons on both sides, in fact, in the level of weapons, Britain, Germany and France have not actually formed an absolute generation difference, France is indeed a bastard, for a little sesame things can drag on for half a year, In 1911, we suggested that the French army use 7.62mm rifle cartridges, and they also agreed, but as a result, they had not been officially installed until the beginning of this year, and in June they were in a hurry, and urgently ordered with us, and the order was placed, and the Congress was noisy and wanted to repent, and continued to order French-made weapons, but the French state-owned military factories were even more procrastinated, and said that it was not conducive to their export sales, and they still had to engage in 8mm rifle cartridges, so even if France was defeated, it was not worthy of sympathy. ”

When Song Biao said this, Shu Fangde was confused, and continued to ask Song Biao for some reason: "Your Majesty, do you think France can win or Germany can win?" ”

Song Biao was silent and didn't answer, picked up the teacup and took a sip of tea.

Jiang Fangzhen said: "At least in the battle of the Marne, the French army will suffer, but the German army will not take advantage of it." In fact, this is a very simple question, if we are in command of the German army, the current deployment of the British and French forces on the Marne River will not be less than one million, the size of the German army is roughly the same, the level of weapons and training is about the same, do you think it is possible for us to encircle and annihilate the British and French armies? The problem now is that the German army has a tactical advantage and is at a disadvantage in supply, if the size of the accumulation of troops on both sides continues to expand, the greater the number of troops, the smaller the impact of the tactical superiority, the greater the impact of the supply inferiority, if the German army continues to go deeper, the farther it penetrates, the more complicated the problem will be. At the beginning, we calculated on average that the operation of a main soldier on the front line should be equipped with 1 auxiliary soldier, 1.5 horsepower and 8 civilians, and there are three railway lines behind it, in other words, under the scale of 1 million army, the German army should be equipped with 1.5 million horsepower and 8 million laborers, and 1 million second-line soldiers engaged in fortification, supply and other work. If the Germans could not do this, the faster the main forces of the front broke through, the more problems there would be. ”

Song Biao sighed at this time and said: "The result of a war can only be known after it is over, because war is commanded and executed by people, and people are always the biggest variable." ”

Speaking of this, he and Shu Fangde asked: "How did Chen Qicai and Xinhua Company talk about in France, according to reason, the first batch of arms sold to France in China should almost arrive in France, right?" ”

Shu Fangde said: "It's here." It's just that the situation on the French side is very complicated and chaotic, and we are still picking and choosing when we are so angry, our guns and ammunition are all in stock, and if you order them today, you will be able to France in twenty days, and the French military factories can't reach this speed at all. Chen Qicai really didn't know what to say about the problems of the French wartime committee, and he sent me a secret telegram back yesterday, saying that the attitude of the French logistics department was also very strange. ”

Song Biao could only reply: "That's why it's called wonderful." ”

The more clearly he understands France, the more Song Biao feels that France is a wonderful country, and such a country can actually win World War I and World War II, I really don't know how the Germans should feel?

In a way, this is the ills of a so-called republic, everything can be blamed.

Therefore, Napoleon is indeed a generation of geniuses, and it is not easy to make a country like France into the first military power in Europe.

Take the 7.62*54cr rifle cartridge as a very simple thing, the design of a new rifle bullet is a very complex work, seemingly simple, in fact, it requires a large number of test experiments, a series of adjustments to the shell, bullet diameter, charge, gunpowder formula, primer formula to achieve the final desired result of the military, if you want to design a rifle based on this in the future, then these test results are more needed.

The Reich is willing to provide all the data of the 7.62*54cr rifle cartridge to the French War Department, and the two sides unify the rifle ammunition, which is conducive to the logistics of the allies, and the French War Ministry initially fully agreed, but when it came to the cabinet axe and the Congress, it became inexplicable, one faction believed that France was an army power, and the introduction of technology from China appeared to be incompetent and would be ridiculed by foreign countries (at this time, forget that the French War Department also asked for the introduction of a patent for the production of Popnin submachine guns and 60mm mortars); On the other hand, France should continue to stick to the 8mm rifle cartridge.

In short, a matter that should have been decided immediately was debated in France for two whole years, and it was only after it was finally settled that the French War Department decided to develop a new rifle on the basis of it, and the so-called development was to continue to improve the Bettier rifle again.

Song Biao felt crazy after confirming the news at that time.

The French rifle problem during the First World War was definitely a mockery, but the pain and self-deprecation in it was probably only understood by the French soldiers themselves, and it was clear that the Betier rifle, which could only have a three-round magazine capacity, was inferior to the Mosin Nagant rifle.

Forming an alliance with such a strange country, looking back, even Song Biao himself felt incredible, he felt that he must have been blinded by the French franc and his IQ.

Fortunately, France has entered the era of wartime committee control, and everything will enter a period of simple and effective militarization to control everything, and perhaps even France itself knows that once their noisy style of work is used in wartime, it will really let the German army occupy the whole country again and again.

(To be continued)