Kukochi flew a fighter plane with two more rows of bullet holes in its fuselage and wings to return to Guangde Airport safely, and after jumping out of the plane, he yelled at the wingman pilot Wu Hanchen. The young pilot was so obsessed with chasing the Japanese planes that he forgot his main duty, causing the long plane to fall into the circle of three Japanese planes. Fortunately, Kukochi was lucky, and after shooting down an enemy plane, he relied on maneuvering to get rid of the Japanese plane's attack.

Japan's aviation industry, like China, started around 1913, and although Japan's aviation industry was more developed than China's, they did not introduce much advanced technology. The British were also jealous of Japan's ambitions and refused to sell them the most advanced fighters, while the Americans' combat aircraft at this time were still one level worse than those of Europe.

However, China received the most advanced combat aircraft of Germany and Austria, and their performance was naturally superior to that of Japan, but this advantage of the Chinese side could not be maintained for a long time, and the war would eventually fall into the mutual attrition of industrial capacity.

The Songhu battlefield fell silent.

The Japanese army is redeploying troops, and the Chinese side is also readjusting the deployment of troops.

Xu Shuzheng's headache was the attack of the Soviet army, which put the Chinese side in a dilemma of fighting on two sides.

After the outbreak of the war in Shanghai, Germany, Austria, Britain, France, Italy, and other countries, in order to ensure their own interests in China, jointly proposed to China and Japan that Shanghai be designated as a non-belligerent zone, that the Chinese and Japanese troops should be withdrawn from Shanghai, that the defense of the Shanghai area be maintained by the Shanghai police in coordination with the troops sent by various countries, and that no Chinese and Japanese troops should enter within 20 kilometers of Shanghai.

Germany, Austria and Italy joined forces to put pressure on Japan to withdraw its troops from Shanghai, but after the notice of the three countries was sent to Japan, it never received a definite reply from the Japanese government.

It is clear that Japan does not have plans to completely invade China at the moment, and they may have reached some kind of secret agreement with Soviet Russia. Partition of "Manchuria" and Mongolia in northern China, which Japan claimed to be within the territory of "Manchukuo". However, Japan demanded that China cede the whole of Northeast China and Hulunbuir, recognize the "independent status" of Manchukuo, and put an end to anti-Japanese movements at home.

This is clearly unacceptable to the Beijing side.

By 23 August, the Japanese Government had rejected the "peaceful construction" proposed by the five European countries and announced that it would abandon the policy of not expanding the war. and formed the so-called "East China Dispatch Army" with the intention of forcing the Chinese side to submit.

After the loss of three warships, the Japanese Navy withdrew from the mouth of the Yangtze River, and Shanghai temporarily returned to calm.

At present, the Chinese side has only the 4th and 10th Divisions of the Army and the 2nd Zhejiang Division in Shanghai, and has formed a confrontation with a division of Japanese troops and more than 8,000 Japanese marines. In stark contrast to the battlefield from Zhabei, Hongkou to Wusong, the foreign concession area, which was only across the iron bridge, was still peaceful and almost unaffected by the war.

Julius. Lieutenant General Lingle did not expect that foreign passenger liners would be able to freely enter and leave Shanghai in the midst of the war, and he thought that it would take a lot of twists and turns to enter here, but he did not expect it to be so smooth.

Military Attache of the Embassy in China, Hans. Colonel Schroman greeted the group on the docks. The group got into a car and drove to the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Shanghai. Aside from a few scattered streets and a few young people collecting donations from pedestrians, there is not much of a war atmosphere here.

The car drove into the Austro-Hungarian Consulate on Shima Si Road, which is not far from the Bund, and the river can be seen from the upper floor of the consulate.

"Has the Empire decided to intervene in this war in the Far East?" Hans. Colonel Schrohmann was still a little surprised by Lingel's arrival, he was the head of the Far East Division of the Imperial Military Intelligence, so he naturally had to stay where there was something to do, but General Ringle was the commander of the Imperial Royal Third Army. The empire had never sent an active senior commander to China.

Moreover, the emperor has always stood on a pro-Chinese position.

"Nope. I can only help them train and form a new army group, and General Le Maire will help them reorganize the General Staff. "His Majesty the Emperor thinks that our mediation will not work, and that the war in the Far East will expand. The aim of the Japanese was to gain a foothold on the mainland, they chose Manchuria and Mongolia, but the Chinese side was certainly not going to give up there. What is the situation with the Chinese army? ”

"Some equipment and training was ok. But their well-equipped troops were pinned down in the north, and the troops in the south were much poorly equipped and trained. "Beijing has been trying to weaken the military in the south, and now they are tasting the consequences of what they have sown." ”

"What about the Far Eastern Republic?"

"According to my analysis, there will be no more zài in the Far Eastern Republic. After the Japanese began their offensive, the Yenisei River defense line that they had been holding on to was also breached, and now that their government had withdrawn to Suiyuan, the two railway lines from China to the Far East were crowded with fleeing people, what a disaster! "Beijing insisted that the military protect the expatriates in the Far East, where there were more than 5 million people, and most of the Russians in the Far East had begun to flee, frightened by their own propaganda against the Sunanee, fearing that the Red Army would confiscate their property when it arrived, and that they would be shot and exiled." ”

"Beijing is already ready to abandon the Far East?"

"There is no way, they need to shrink their defenses, and maybe even Mongolia will be lost. Beijing is ready to make every effort to deal with the Japanese threat to East and South China first. But it seems that it is already too late. ”

"Are the Japanese ready?"

"Yes, they have already started landing in Jiangsu yesterday, and I judge that the Japanese may not be ready to storm Shanghai. Once they had built airfields north of the Yangtze River and had gained air superiority, they prepared to land at Luodian or at Jinshanwei to threaten the flanks of the Chinese forces, so that the Chinese would have to be forced to retreat from Shanghai. But the Germans created enough trouble for them. ”

Schroman refers to the fact that after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, the German side declared the Jiaodong Peninsula a demilitarized zone, forbidding China and Japan from fighting in this area, and sent an additional 9,000 marines to Qingdao, and at the same time announced the dispatch of the Third Fleet to the Far East to strengthen the strength of the Far East Fleet.

Although this move undermined China's sovereignty, it was obviously biased in favor of the Chinese side, and it seems that the Germans still did not forget the hatred of the Japanese occupation of Qingdao during the European war, and took the opportunity to retaliate.

"How many troops did the Japanese probably concentrate in East China?"

"It should be around 350,000, they don't have enough troops, so they can only move along the Yangtze River. But my analysis shows that they are very likely to hit Nanjing, where the Chinese are undermanned and poorly equipped. General Wu in Wuhan had about 9 divisions in his hands, plus the local troops in this area, the total strength was about 450,000. ”

"Is it possible for them to withstand the Japanese attack?"

"It's difficult, but Beijing is mobilizing troops to reinforce it, and 200,000 people from Guangxi, Sichuan, and Yunnan are on the way. But according to my analysis, they may not be able to reach Nanjing before the Japanese army breaks through. The equipment and training of China's elite army is not very bad, and it is basically trained by our military advisory group and that of Germany, and if it is to face Japan alone, except for the navy, they are no worse than the Japanese. But now that the Russians have pinned down their main forces, perhaps after the north has stabilized, they will have the energy to launch a counterattack. ”

"Japan wants to force China to sue for peace, but Beijing has no intention of doing so, and the war will actually be prolonged. However, His Majesty believes that the Chinese will win. "We only provide assistance, and the concrete results are up to them." With billions of kroner in aid to China, the German and Austrian economies have finally come out of the doldrums, and I think that's what the big conglomerates want. (To be continued......)