The outbreak of the First World War was precisely because the European continent pursued the hegemonic concept that "might makes right" and every country vainly tried to compete for hegemonic interests in the world through military strength.

It is precisely for this reason that Britain has maintained great greed for Tibet for a long time.

In August 1912, shortly after the conclusion of the military alliance between China and France and the conclusion of the Sino-British Treaty of Reciprocal Commerce, the British Foreign Office, in its secretly signed "Memorandum on the Situation in the Border Countries of Northeast India", wrote that "it is imperative to be convinced of the new status of Tibetan Province", that is, "while Tibet Province nominally maintains its self-governing state under Chinese suzerainty, Tibetan Province should in fact be in a position of absolute dependence on Indian political axe" and "Tibetan Province should be very sincere and completely subordinate to British power".

Britain wanted to turn the province into a "buffer state" around the British Empire's Indian colonies, retaining only nominal Chinese suzerainty while the actual power was controlled by the Indian colonial axe.

The Anglo-German contradictions continued to brew in Europe, Britain, France, and Russia had signed the Triple Entente, and China and France had also signed a military alliance treaty.

The plan of the British Secretary of State for India, H. Crewe, was to convene a tripartite conference between China, Britain and Tibet to force China to recognize Tibet as an autonomous state and a buffer state, on the basis of which Britain would be able to leave China alone and negotiate all issues with Tibet alone, and no longer have to pay attention to China, and if China had any objections, then answer them with the armada of the British Empire.

What arrogance!

Such arrogance is not the problem of a certain British minister, but the problem of Britain as a whole, and of Europe as a whole, so that the First World War will inevitably break out, and this arrogance of old Europe is destined to destroy them.

McMahon, the foreign secretary of the British colonial government, also proposed a demarcation line at this time, the so-called McMahon Line, just like the countless border legacies left to China by the British Empire, which is a very evil and unequal demarcation line, relying on the strength of the British Empire to frantically occupy other people's territory.

However, the Imperial Cabinet of China did not agree to the British request for a tripartite conference between China, Britain and Tibet, and at the same time rejected any British coercion in this regard, and the two sides fought bravely and even fiercely in political and diplomatic affairs, and did not reach any conclusion until 1914.

World politics is always complicated, and simply understanding the alliance will definitely suffer, because there will never be real allies between countries, and some are just a group of speculative rats, and in the same way, the political axes of various countries are also complex and changeable, some people are pro-China, some people are pro-China, some people are pro-British, some people are pro-German, and the total number of variables entangled together is an unclear shit-like international politics.

So, politics is the dirtiest thing in the world, and war is the cruelest thing in the world.

As the ruler of a country, he should be both dirty and cruel, wringing out the blood of other countries and his own people, and squeezing out all the results he wants.

Again, this is the truth of the First World War.

……

After Song Biao returned to Yanjing.

In April 1914, the Reich's Central Monetary Reserve Authority, on the pretext of increasing its gold reserves, converted the Reich's foreign exchange holdings of the Mark, ruble, and franc into gold at the central banks of various countries, and this exchange continued in October last year.

For the central political axe of the empire, if the war does not break out, it is a happy thing for all, and it is beneficial to China's long-term stable development at this stage.

At this time, the total assets of Vickers, Britain's largest military industry-style monopoly group, were 18 million pounds, the capital of Sweden's Nobel Company was roughly the same, and the total assets of DuPont of the United States were about 4 million pounds.

In this comparison, it seems that the scale of the expansion of the Chinese industry in the past four years can be seen, the total capital of the six major arsenals of the empire and the three major shipyards of Jinzhou, Fuzhou and Jiangnan is close to 70 million pounds, and the Far East Arms Corporation, the Far East Chemical Corporation, and the Far East Shipbuilding Corporation are the three giants of the Chinese industry, monopolizing more than 75% of the production capacity.

Two years after the implementation of the Industrial Science Management Act, the empire had largely adopted Taylor's scientific management ideas and systems, especially in industries based on human superiority such as metallurgy, textiles, mining, and food, which were more widely implemented by the Far Eastern consortium.

During his inspection in Northeast China, Song Biao fully realized this, so he said that China was ready to take advantage of the First World War to attack the status of an industrial country.

……

On June 28, 1914, Gavrino, a member of the "Mafia Society" in Seville. Princip assassinated Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and the "Serbian Mafia", an organization that pursued a unified policy of Yugoslavia, hoped to achieve this goal by assassinating the Austro-Hungarian magnates. This is particularly evident on the Winchester M1910 semi-automatic pistol used by Princip.

The bolt structure of the Winchester M1910 semi-automatic pistol is basically the same as that of the Type 92 pistol, and it officially became the standard pistol of the Central Defense Forces and the National Police in 1911, and then became the standard semi-automatic pistol of France, Russia, Greece, Mexico and other countries.

In the Empire, the official model of this pistol was P3, and the Nagant revolver was P1 for the first troops, and the Barge gun for later was P2, also known as the "Type 3 pistol".

During the Second Balkan Campaign, the P3 pistol was sold in large quantities to the Balkans, making it difficult to trace the pistol's origin.

What many people don't know is that this incident is not an accident to some extent, the organizer and leader of the Black Hand Society is Colonel Draculadin, the intelligence chief of the Serbian General Staff Headquarters, and before Archduke Ferdinand's visit to Bosnia, the Serbian political axe had known about it in advance, and persuaded Archduke Ferdinand to interrupt the trip, and at the same time sent intelligence officers to stop the assassins, but with the help of other political axe officials and high-ranking military officials, several assassins were able to enter Sarajevo without any problems.

The Intelligence Department of the Serbian General Staff Headquarters and the Imperial Central Military Intelligence Department had close contacts and cooperation, and it is not known whether the Central Military Intelligence Department was involved in this incident, but at the time of this incident, Chen Qicai, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Central Military Department, was indeed visiting Serbia.

What happened after that, as everyone is familiar with, was a "fortuitous event" that plunged the whole of Europe into an unprecedented crisis.

This event was only used by the European powers, in fact, the war was already being prepared, and Austria-Hungary's desire to formally annex Serbia was not as short as a year or two, everything was ready, and all the powers believed that they were most prepared, and they only needed to defeat their opponents in a large-scale decisive battle, and they could sign a contract to force their opponents to make major concessions, and to demand an astonishing war claim from their opponents.

No one could have imagined that it would be a real and protracted world war.

The German-Austrian alliance began to actively preach that war could solve all these problems, and they were actively mobilizing each other, and not giving their opponents any chance, because Germany was convinced that if it went to war now, it would be the best option for Germany, Austria-Hungary was declining, and Russia was gaining strength.

On 20 July, French President Poincarre and Prime Minister Viviña visited Russia and held a grand meeting ceremony with the Tsar, declaring together the "precious friendship of the naval and army allies as close as brothers."

Also on the evening of the same day, Emperor Song Biao convened a very small cabinet training meeting in the Xuanzheng Garden, which was attended by important cabinet ministers in addition to Foreign Minister Ouyang Gengzheng in Russia.

On the conference table of the gorgeous and delicate wenge wood, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of the Navy, the Minister of the Army, Ouyang Xi, the Director of the State Administration of Taxation, and Liang Shiyi, the Director of the General Administration of Customs, have all arrived, and Rong Yaoyuan of the Central Monetary Reserve Administration has also attended the meeting.

Jiang Fangzhen, chief of the general staff of the Central Military Department, has not yet arrived because he has to wait for another important secret information, and the other officials have already arrived.

Song Biao, as the emperor, arrived one step early, sat in his seat and waited silently, and was not in a hurry to hold a meeting.

Speaking of the three crystal chandeliers above the head is a very interesting thing, originally intended to buy from France, Song Biao felt that it was a pity to earn such funds for France, he has always adhered to the economic principle of "reducing imports and increasing exports", so he asked the General Administration of the Inner Court to reconvene the court craftsmen and craftsmen of the imperial workshop during the Qing Dynasty axe period, and the General Administration of the Inner Court funded the establishment of a company in Yanjing, specializing in the production of luxury goods, and cooperated with the Far East Electric Company to order crystal chandeliers.

At the beginning, it saved a lot of money, but later many people sat here and were always worried that the crystal chandelier would suddenly fall apart or something, and there were often ministers who would inexplicably look up and take a look, and they would get used to it after a long time, anyway, even if the three crystal chandeliers were all smashed down, they would definitely not be able to hit Song Biao here.

This is a small matter, but there are still a lot of waves caused by the cabinet political axe, and affairs are handled in a similar way everywhere, but wherever imports can be reduced, as much as possible, but wherever there can be a reduction in expenditure, they are also reduced as much as possible, after all, the Central Investigation Bureau is not controlled by the cabinet ministers, just like the brocade guards of the Ming Dynasty are active throughout the country, who knows where these people will complain.

After waiting for a few minutes, Jiang Fangzhen, chief of the General Staff, hurriedly walked in with a new piece of information that had been newly collated, bowed to the emperor alone after entering the door, and then presented this information to the emperor alone.

Song Biao took a cursory look and realized that it was a joint declaration by French President Poincaré and the Tsar.

He closed the intelligence file, sealed it and handed it back to Jiang Zuobin, the first-class chamberlain behind him, and said: "Since you have all arrived, let's have a formal meeting. China and France are military alliances, and according to the military alliance agreement, once France is attacked, China must send troops to reinforce it. However, there was no clear agreement on the number of troops to be sent, and Pasteur and I talked about this matter, and promised to send troops to wage war against German military forces in Asia according to the situation of France, and the French Asian fleet would assist our army in the war. Of course, this commitment was based on the premise that France and Germany were already at war. The current situation in Europe is still in a very chaotic situation, the war is definitely going to be launched, now it is only a matter of scale, as far as the known intelligence is concerned, Britain has not decided to enter the war, the Triple Entente signed by Britain and Russia and France is not a real military alliance agreement, if Russia and France and Germany and Austria go to war, Britain may be neutral, but this neutrality is theoretically meaningless, because once Britain is neutral, and Germany defeats Russia and France, Britain will be completely isolated, and will eventually be replaced by Germany as the world hegemon. Therefore, I think that as long as Austria-Hungary marches into Serbia, Britain will definitely enter the war, but it needs a more suitable reason, and a question of time. Therefore, even if France and Germany go to war, and the French Far East Fleet is willing to go to war against Germany with the Imperial Navy, we should wait for British action. ”

After Song Biao finished speaking, Jiang Zuobin distributed a statistical table of Germany's naval and land military forces in East Asia and the Pacific to every cabinet minister present.

Germany's military armed forces in the Far East are not strong, mainly concentrated in Qingdao, mainly in the leased area of Jiaodong Bay, with an army of about 6,000 people, which is only equivalent to a downsized brigade in the German army, while the total tonnage of the German Far East Fleet in China and the Pacific is about 60,000 tons, and the greatest deterrent to the Central Imperial Navy is an armored cruiser and two old ironclad ships, and the others are mainly light cruisers, which are generally inferior to the French Asian fleet in Vietnam. ”

After the signing of the Sino-French military alliance, France temporarily retained the right to lease Zhanjiang Port, and the South China Sea Fleet of the Imperial Central Navy also frequently entered Zhanjiang Port to carry out cooperative training with the French Asian Fleet, and also took advantage of this opportunity to strengthen naval training with the help of France.

Overall, the German Navy was not a big threat, as long as the French Asian Fleet and the Imperial Central Navy combined, it was completely easy to defeat the German Navy, while the threat of the German Army to the CSKA was negligible.

Naturally, all the ministers present here have a common question in their hearts, that is, what if Germany wins in Europe?

Yes, it is easy to eat German troops in Asia now, but when Germany wins France, what will China do in the future? At this time, many people in the cabinet did not want to declare war on Germany, but they were constrained by the Sino-French alliance, and they really did not know what to do.

Fortunately, the emperor is Song Biao, and Premier Tang Shaoyi and Foreign Minister Ouyang Geng are also people who understand, China does not have this kind of international prestige and influence, everyone was very excited when they borrowed a loan from France, and now they are afraid when it is their turn to repay the debt.

Seeing that everyone didn't speak, Song Biao understood what kind of worries you had, and said: "I know that there are many people who still don't want to participate in the war, or nominally participate in the war, but in fact, they don't send any troops. If you want to recover the Chinese nation, you must create a powerful Chinese empire, a real great power, that is, you can speak your word in the international world, and only in this way can you win the respect of other countries in the world. Even if we are defeated in the end, as long as we play with the dignity of the nation and the prestige of the Central Defense Force, as long as we have the strength in our hands and can make foreign countries afraid, even if Germany wins the three countries of Britain, France, and Russia in Europe, we will not be able to continue to go to Asia and continue to wage war with us frantically. So, this is a really good opportunity for the Reich to fulfill its promises, and of course, a deputy foreign minister is enough for us to come forward and make a commitment, and if we want to send troops and solemnly fulfill our promises, we can ask France to send a really important and highest official over. ”

As soon as he heard this, Liang Shiyi couldn't help but sigh: "Yes, our Chinese empire has 450 million citizens and 1.3 million army, how can we say that it can also have the foundation of a great power in the world, and the French president and prime minister have gone to Russia to preach the alliance, but only sent a vice minister of foreign affairs to ask us to declare our commitment to the Sino-French alliance, which is too much to look down on us." ”

Liang Shiyi is an official elected by the New Deal Power Council, in fact, he is Yuan Shikai's person, but Yuan Shikai deliberately withdrew from the New Deal Power Council and served as a cabinet minister as a member of no political party, indicating that he has no relationship with Xu Shichang, Liang Shiyi, Cai Tinggan, Duan Qirui and other old ministries.

In fact, the New Deal Strong Nation Council is very strong in the cabinet, and it has the strength to completely replace the Restoration Party's reading power to form a cabinet, which is what makes the New Deal Strong Council completely different from several other political parties, so the Liberationist Party chose to form a cabinet with the New Deal Strong Nation Association to govern.

Song Biao didn't like the group of people in the New Deal Strong Council, but the ability and experience of these people were also urgently needed by the empire at present, and there were not many people in the Restoration Council who were really capable of presiding over important cabinet departments, at least not enough when the cabinet was formed for the first time.

After listening to Liang Shiyi's words, Tang Shaoyi said more experiencedly: "The prestige of the empire is still second-rate, and it is by no means that it can become one of the great powers in the first war of Xinhai, and Russia's current status is also proved by previous wars in Europe." The emperor's sage, the matter has come to this point, more wins and less losses, you might as well make a big show and fight Germany again, in order to prove the status of our country, the emperor's meaning, you must understand in your hearts that if our country wants to officially declare war, it is a trivial matter for France to send only one deputy minister, and it is impossible to give more conditions. ”

Song Biao smiled, pointed at Tang Shaoyi and said: "It's still you, the prime minister, who understands me, of course, small things are also big things, since French Prime Minister Viviña has arrived in Russia, let him come to visit, if you don't come to talk, the cabinet will just simulate a few words of persuasion for peace, not to mention expect me to come forward to make a final statement." ”

Tang Shaoyi nodded yes and said: "Your Majesty, rest assured, Your Majesty has asked Ouyang Gengwai, who is in St. Petersburg, to express his attitude to French President Poincarre, that if the French Prime Minister cannot arrive in our country and make certain commitments, my country will not risk a full-scale war with a country like Germany!" ”

Song Biao said: "Face depends on strength, but sometimes, it is easy to be considered easy to be bullied if you have strength, so the empire must not only be good at talking, but also fully prepare for a rogue and hooligan political axe, otherwise it cannot strive for the maximum interests of the empire and the 400 million people." ”

Tang Shaoyi could only say yes and said, "What the Holy Lord said is very true! ”

At this moment, although Liang Shiyi is only the director of customs, he looks down on Tang Shaoyi's cowardice, of course he knows that anyone sitting in this position can only be like this, but he feels that instead of this, instead of letting Tang Shaoyi be the prime minister, it is better to let him be the prime minister directly.

He has always felt that signing an alliance agreement with France was a big mistake in itself, and now he wants to see how Tang Shaoyi ends, and wants to see Tang Shaoyi's jokes, although he was also one of Tang Shaoyi's subordinates back then.

Liang Shiyi was thinking like this, Song Biao suddenly changed the topic, and said to the ministers: "The war is imminent, and our country has absolutely no possibility of escaping. ”

The ministers led by Tang Shaoyi nodded yes at the same time and agreed together.

Song Biao continued to ask Liang Shiyi: "Has the emergency plan on the customs side been prepared?" ”

Liang Shiyi immediately replied: "Back to the emperor, the emergency plan on the customs side has already been prepared, if Germany and France go to war, China's exports to Germany will be stagnant across the board, and the customs will increase the examination and approval process and enable the spare warehouse stations at the customs points in various places." In addition, customs has issued a warning to merchants everywhere to suspend the purchase of German goods, and resolutely not to pay in advance to avoid unnecessary losses during the war. ”

Song Biao bowed slightly, and continued to ask Zhang Kangren, Ouyang Xi, and Rong Yaoyuan: "What is the situation of international silver prices in the past few days, and what will be the follow-up impact?" Do you have a rough idea of what to do? ”

Zhang Kangren replied: "Back to the emperor, the international silver price has been soaring since the end of June, the international silver price against gold in early June was 28.53, and it increased to 24.45 on July 20, and the bottom line we estimated was 25, so we sold silver reserves in London, Aurora, Shanghai, and Hong Kong at the same time in advance to buy gold." Our silver spit out a large amount, for the time being, the price of silver back to below 25, but it is difficult to say how long it can be pressed, international capital from Eastern Europe, Germany, France and Russia is very fast, a large number of fleeing to the silver market, if it is not for the beginning of the year in our country has formulated a more stringent "National Currency Foreign Trade Act", I really don't know how much silver will flow from the market to foreign countries. The problem now is that the empire is based on the silver standard and silver reserves, and the silver reserves that have been sold so far have reached 40 million taels, and this is really just the beginning. ”

Song Biao pondered for a moment and asked, "How much is the Imperial Silver Reserve?" ”

Zhang Kangren said: "There are also 134 million taels of silver, and the silver currency appreciation reserves held by the Far Eastern Bank, Commerce Bank, Bank of Shanghai and other foreign banks add up to about 230 million taels of silver. As far as is known, Deutsch-Hua Bank has sold a large amount of silver reserves to buy gold, which should have exceeded the limits of the banking law, and has not made any notification to the Reichsbank Bank. ”

Song Biao said: "Suspend all its operations in China and send police to temporarily seal its silver reserve warehouses in Shanghai and Northeast China." ”

Zhang Kangren said yes.

Song Biao thought about it for a while, he was still not very proficient in these issues, so it was difficult to say how to arrange it, as for the rise and fall of silver, he and Ouyang Xi had discussed it separately a few months ago.

According to Ouyang Xi's analysis, if silver is steadily increasing from 31 to 28 as in previous years, it will be beneficial to the empire, but if it is rapidly increasing by more than 20% in a year, it will actually do more harm than good to the empire, unless the empire can prohibit the outflow of silver from private institutions and individuals.

Therefore, once the price of silver breaks through a limit, the Imperial Central Bank must intervene in the international market to force the price of silver to fall, in order to avoid the short-term price increase caused by the domestic silver price surge, even if the growth of silver price is an inevitable trend, the empire is powerless to fight, and the process of silver price growth should be smoother as much as possible.

If it is a flat growth, it will be a mixed blessing for the empire, the disadvantage is that the domestic labor cost advantage is reduced, and the advantage is that the purchasing power of the state and the private sector increases, and the purchasing power of the people increases, especially after the short-term price rise, and in the long run, as the price of silver rises, the price will show a downward trend relative to the growth of national income.

Song Biao can't tell whether Ouyang Xi's analysis is right or wrong for the time being, but apart from Ouyang Xi, there is no more suitable expert in this area in China for the time being.

Therefore, Song Biao chose to believe Ouyang Xi's judgment, as much as possible, to prevent the growth of silver prices first, or to make this unstoppable trend as smooth as possible, and then give up the silver standard under a suitable condition to avoid the impact of the growth of international silver prices.

China's central financial strength is still too weak, compared with the overflow capital of billions of pounds in the international market at this time, hundreds of millions of taels of silver reserves are simply vulnerable, and only 200 million pounds of money in the international capital market frantically poured out to buy silver, which can directly swallow the silver reserves of the Central Monetary Reserve Administration.

Fortunately, 200 million pounds is not a small amount for the time being, as long as the First World War does not really break out, it is not expected to be so crazy, but once the First World War completely breaks out, and continues until the two sides obviously enter a state of attrition, then there will really be more than a billion pounds of assets into the silver market, pushing the price of silver back to 1:15, or even 1:10 is possible, unless the world's largest silver circulation country, the Chinese Empire, completely abandons the silver standard.

This is a very complex question, and how China should face such a situation, at this time, even Ouyang Xi and Zhang Kangren do not have an accurate and reliable answer.

(To be continued)