No one could stop the Emperor's determination to ally himself with France and Russia, for it was indeed the choice that was best for the Chinese Empire as a whole.

The year 1912 was a very important year for the Chinese Empire.

This is the year in which the foundation of China's restoration was laid throughout the country, a year of comprehensive expansion, and a year of deification and personality worship of the emperor. It was a year of comprehensive reorganization and northeastization of the CSKA Army; This was the first year of the development of the Central Navy; This is a year in which China's political parties are closely integrated with the emperor's party; This is the first year of China's 175 national industrial plan and the beginning of the golden twenty years of industry; This is a year of great improvement in the industrial industry of the three eastern provinces; This was a year of great development of capitalism in China; This is a year in which China's education is moving towards universal quality education; This is the first year of China's water conservancy construction; This is the first year of the rich peasant ...... in China's agriculture!

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Before the arrival of the First World War, the relations between the countries of the world were complicated and interrelated in a wide range of countries, even if China had signed the "Sino-French-Russian Mutual Assistance Agreement", and even possibly completely joined the Russian-French alliance, the cooperation between China and Germany did not stop because of this, first of all, the economic and trade complementarity made it difficult for China and Germany to completely divide the economy and politics, and secondly, Germany's most powerful competitor in Europe was Britain, and China's biggest enemy in Asia was also Britain.

In the first half of 1912, the military cooperation between China and France increased rapidly, and the two sides sent military delegations to each other to study and visit the two countries, and there were exchanges in various fields such as the military industry, equipment, military training, and preparation for war.

At this time, France was considering replacing the 8mm rifle cartridge, because of the urgency of time, France's initial plan was to introduce the design of the 7.5mm rifle cartridge directly from Sweden, but under the persuasion of China and Russia, especially after China provided all the data and information of the 7.62*54CR rifle cartridge, France directly introduced this model of new ammunition, named the 7.62*54F rifle cartridge.

France transferred to China a complete set of technologies for long-stroke tube demobilizers and M1897\1906\1912 75mm field guns and light field guns, transferred manufacturing technology for light armored cruisers, submarines and torpedo boats, produced light armored cruisers, submarines and torpedo boats through joint venture shipyards, sold two old models of Glorious-class armored cruisers to China as flagships, and established a larger French advisory bureau on the basis of the French advisory group in the northeast in accordance with the secret agreement between the two sides. The total number of French experts involved in this work will reach 4,000 and will assist China in further developing its military industry and military technology.

In return, China will formally join the Russian-French alliance after reaching a full agreement on aid loans, and France will receive a part of the German news from China, as well as the design patents for the Shenyang rifle, the Popnin submachine gun, and the 60mm mortar from the Far East Arms Corporation, and on this basis, it can be transformed into a new French standard weapon with slight improvements, so as to make up for the gap between France and Germany in light weapons as soon as possible.

Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria, Italy, and Russia all sent delegations to the Northeast Army for inspection and exchanges, and even Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic, which were small European countries, also sent visiting delegations.

During this period, the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions and the 1st Cavalry Division of the Central Army were all units that could be openly visited by foreign delegations, which played a very important role in military exchanges between China and foreign countries, and also allowed other countries to further understand the combat level of the Chinese Army.

With the deepening of military exchanges and understanding, China's position as an emerging power in the world's army has also begun to become more consolidated, and the Russian-French alliance has become more active in trying to win over China.

In July 1912, China and Britain finally reached the "Sino-British Reciprocal Trade Treaty", Britain gave China a long-term low-interest loan of 14 million pounds per year for a period of six years in the form of political axe financial assistance, and the two sides gave each other reciprocal most-favored-nation economic and trade treatment, Britain charged the lowest preferential tariffs on China's textiles, mineral products, soybeans, raw silk, tea and some light industrial products, and China opened its financial market to Britain to the greatest extent, allowing British enterprises to operate in the three eastern provinces and other special zones, coastal open cities, Inland open cities are free to invest, and the lowest preferential tariffs are charged on British machinery, ships, electrical, steam turbines, automobiles, aircraft, diesel engines, gasoline engines and other products.

In this treaty, the two sides further reached a number of new treaties conducive to the further development of relations between the two countries, and Britain formally agreed to fully transfer customs powers at the end of 1913 and ban Britain's inland shipping rights in China; except for the Hong Kong issue, the seven British concessions in China, Shanghai, Tianjin, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Zhenjiang, Jiujiang, and Hankou, were to be fully included in the scope of the Special Administrative Region in three to five years, and Weihaiwei, which was occupied by the British, was to be returned to China immediately after the treaty was signed.

In 1912, the number of foreign banks operating in China increased several times, especially shortly after the signing of the Sino-British Reciprocal Trade Treaty, the Imperial Central Bank and the Bank of England signed the Sino-British Agreement on the Standard Guarantee of Chinese Golden Yuan Bills, and the Bank of England purchased about 70 million pounds of Imperial Chinese government bonds through the Central State Bank to guarantee the stable exchange value of Chinese gold yuan bills.

With the support of this agreement, British loans and capital, which have been far away from the three eastern provinces, have also begun to pour into China on a larger scale, especially the crazy influx into the three eastern provinces, and the big banks of Britain, France, Germany and the United States have successively set up offices in China and the three eastern provinces, and opened the business of capital remittance into China on a large scale.

In 1912, China opened a new era in this brilliant and great wave, and China's industry began to flourish in the real sense, especially the industries of the three eastern provinces in this year, which really opened the country's big market.

At the end of the year, Britain and Germany began the fourth naval treaty negotiations, which was also the last time Britain and Germany negotiated on this, and if this negotiation broke down, it was only a matter of time before Britain and Germany went to war.

Prior to this, China and France formally signed the Sino-French Military Alliance Entente, in which the two sides formally agreed that in the event of an invasion of China and France, the allies must declare war on the enemy country.

Since then, China has completely joined the British, French and Russian Triple Entente.

As one of the advantages of joining this organization, Britain and France once again agreed to the Chinese cabinet's request for the purchase of huge international bonds, although China's international bonds are non-liquid debts that can only be held and not sold in advance, and the long-term interest rate is not high.

At this time, China relied on the strange strength of the army and the huge material resources in its hands as a hole card to exchange funds and technology from Britain and France, and the General Administration of Foreign Experts of the Cabinet of Political Axes also began to recruit experts from abroad on a larger scale to provide professional and technical support for China's development.

In April 2013, the fourth Anglo-German naval treaty negotiations failed, and since then the two countries and countries around the world have understood that the declaration of war between the British and German navies has only been a matter of time, but in terms of the specific time of the war, Britain and Germany judged that it was after 1915, while Russia and France judged that it was at least after 1918, and the difference between these two judgments soon brought different effects, for example, French submarines generally used German diesel engines, and Germany began to gradually delay the delivery of diesel engines at the end of 1913.

The vast majority of military cooperation between China and Germany also came to a standstill after September 1913, and was replaced by large-scale and intensive military cooperation between China and Britain and between China and France.

Considering the issue of the supply of military supplies in wartime, China invited officers from the military technology and quartermaster departments from Britain, France, and Russia to form a special advisory group, spent a huge amount of money to introduce production lines and technologies of different specifications from various countries, invested in the construction of corresponding basic mining industries on a large scale, trained workers on a large scale, and reorganized and privatized the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau in a way guided by political axes, so that it could be led by Yu Qiaqing to establish the Jiangnan Industrial Corporation, and jointly operate with the British [***] fire giant Vickers Company in a number of branches.

The Machinery and Weapons Manufacturing Bureaus in Tianjin and Shandong were merged into the North Industries Corporation, the Shipbuilding Bureaus and Manufacturing Bureaus in Fujian and Guangzhou were merged into the South Industries Corporation, and the Hanyang Arsenal was a joint venture between the Far East Weapons Company and a number of French military enterprises.

The time is getting shorter and more urgent, and the scale of China's investment in the military industry has far surpassed its capital in just a few years, and it has rapidly leaped forward to become the largest military industrial country in Asia.

The Far East Arms Corporation is a real Chinese industrial giant, which not only participates in the privatization process of the military industrial enterprises in the south of the Yangtze River, the North, the South, and Hanyang, but also the main force in expanding the scale of investment in the military industry, and the total investment accounts for half of the industrial expansion in China, and at the same time, a large number of mining companies that provide basic raw materials for the military industry in the three eastern provinces, Chahar, Shanxi, Shandong, Lianghu and other provinces, especially in the development of miscanthus nitrate, sodium sulfate, nitrate, and coal chemical industries, have invested heavily in the accumulation. A large number of advanced equipment and technologies have been introduced from Britain, France, the United States, and other countries to expand the scale and level of the military industry.

Even in the field of textile industry and food industry, the Far East consortium has gradually become capable of providing military supplies to Britain and France, and in the field of aircraft, through cooperation with Britain, France and the United States, the Far East Aircraft Manufacturing Company has opened 17 branches, which completely covers the entire industrial chain, and hires the best designers and engineers from Europe and the United States to participate in this emerging industrial project.

In the field of shipbuilding, after privatizing the Fuzhou Shipyard and the Guangzhou Shipyard, the Far East Consortium has invested in the construction of Asia's largest marine diesel engine and ship boiler production base in Haizhou, the largest iron and steel metallurgical company in Asia and the highest level of technology in Liaoyang, the largest machine tool, train and aircraft manufacturing company in Asia in Shenyang, and the first-level coal chemical base in Asia in Fushun.

This series of large-scale investments seems to be part of the 175 national industrial plans jointly promoted by the cabinet and China's national capital, but behind it is the emperor's invisible iron fist.

At the end of 1912, in order to promote the export of light machine guns, the Far Eastern Arms Corporation launched a new model of the M1912 Meines light machine gun. Maynes served as the designer, and it was called the Shenyang-made light machine gun in China.

In the field of warships, through the introduction of British and French technology, combined with the original American engineers, a destroyer with a design displacement of 600 tons and a light armored cruiser with a displacement of 3,000 tons were built at the Golden State Shipyard, using American-made steam turbines and diesel engines.

From 1912 to 1913, the whole of China was advancing at high speed in this surging and crazy wave of revival, everything was trying to learn from Germany, and the number of students sent to Germany was second only to the United States, but at the stage of preparation for the war, it went to the Anglo-French-Russian Entente.

In China, in 1912 and 1913, there were as many as 142 secondary colleges built in the country, and about 1/4 of the teachers came from external recruitment.

In the past two years, the cabinet has done a lot of work, but the real strength that has made the country develop is the capitalists, workers and peasants, and the real power that has made the country's economy develop at a high speed comes from the banks.

The emperor also did a lot of work, building a huge military industry, continuing to reorganize and supervise the training of the Central Army, expanding the Central Navy, formally establishing the Central Air Force, and setting up the first and second air force reconnaissance regiments in Yanjing and Liaoyang.

In 1913, when the Tibetan province tried to read the force, the emperor sent a Tibetan provincial patrol regiment of about 4,000 men from Sichuan to accompany the central minister in Tibet along the ancient tea horse road into Qamdo, and this force did not arrive in Lhasa until October 1913.

In June of that year, the Second Balkan Campaign began, the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Russia further expanded, and the shadow of World War I was finally coming.

In order to further observe the military situation in the world and the development of new tactics, the central authorities dispatched an observation group headed by Chen Qicai to the Greek army, and provided some staff advice to the Greek army, and also exported arms to Greece, Seville, and Bulgaria on a large scale for the first time, exporting a large number of Popnin submachine guns, rifles, mortars, ammunition, and explosives to Greece, Seville, and Bulgaria, and even six reconnaissance planes equipped with foreign engines, cameras, and other accessories.

If the Sino-Chinese Xinhai War in 1911 proved the strength and reputation of the Chinese Army, the Second Balkan Campaign in 1913 was the first time that China gave full play to the value of an army power in the true sense, and at the same time played an excellent role in stimulating the Chinese industry.

At the end of 1913, two old models of Glorious-class armored cruisers sold by France arrived at Longmen Port in Jinzhou and became the flagships of the North Sea Fleet of the Imperial Central Navy, "Liaoyang" and "Fushun".

In the year of 1913, the trade of Korea entered an era of unprecedented large deficits, and the export of textiles to China and the export of raw silk to the United States suffered a real heavy blow, and the dominance of Korea's foreign trade continued to be controlled by Chinese merchants.

In this year, China's total textile imports fell sharply to 23 million yuan, only 1/6 of 1909, domestic textiles began to occupy the absolute dominant position in the market, and the total export volume increased to 41.2 million yuan, and the textile industry in North Korea, Southeast Asia continues to maintain a fierce competition situation.

During the year, China's coal industry mined a record 76.35 million tonnes and steel and pig iron production capacity reached 7.9 million tonnes, with the industries of the three eastern provinces accounting for more than 75% of this share.

In this year, China began to truly promote the electrification revolution in major cities, and introduced policies to continue to strengthen support for the domestic electrical industry.

In the rapid tension of the past few years and mainly relying on investment-led economic tide, China has been ready to meet the arrival of the First World War, although the development of China's industry is very short, more than three-quarters of the industrial output value is born in the three eastern provinces, the regional development is extremely unbalanced, but in terms of technology, level and total volume has surpassed this not a strong opponent.

At the same time, World War I was finally coming.

(To be continued)