China's huge size, large population, long historical heritage, so that China is destined not to always be a second- or third-rate goods, as long as the right path is found, China's ability to burst out of the power is absolutely amazing, and Chinese civilization is self-contained, richer than Western Christendom combined, if China rises, it is the fundamental interests of the Western world.

Li Zongwu has been in Europe for so long, and he also feels the West's fear of China, although the concept of white supremacy in this era is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and Western politicians are also above the top, but there are still a considerable number of outstanding politicians who regard China as a potential huge threat, and now although the main task of various countries is to share the spoils and contain Soviet Russia, Britain and France have recalled all military technicians in China, and have also decisively terminated all technical cooperation, for which they do not hesitate to pay China a huge amount of liquidated damages. In order to prevent the rise of China's power.

Li Zongwu shared what he observed with Gu Weijun and others, and Gu Weijun and others also sobered up and had a new understanding of the current situation, Britain and France were too seriously attrition in the war, and their world hegemony was already shaky, so they would definitely try their best to suppress Germany, but also suppress the United States, and this attitude towards China is also the same, because once China reads hard, it will be a fatal blow to the colonial order all over the world, and at the same time, Russia also needs to be contained.

There are too many things that Britain and France need to do, but the fatal thing is that the power in their hands is too weak, their hearts are higher than the sky, their lives are thinner than paper, and what is worse is that these two countries are still full of contradictions, each with its own ghosts, Gu Weijun thought of this and asked Li Zongwu: "Mr. Li, do you see if we can unite with the United States, the big deal is that we can exchange some commercial interests, as long as the United States can stand on our side, things will be easy to do!" ”

Li Zongwu still shook his head: "Although the United States has put forward the so-called principle of self-determination of colonial nations, but that is just a deception, and the United States is also dissatisfied with the rise of the southwest, after all, after the rise of the new industrial zone, the sales of goods in the United States will definitely be affected, and it will not be able to plunder China's resources as it pleases, so I don't think the Americans can count on it!" ”

After Li Zongwu finished speaking, Gu Weijun, Lu Zhengxiang and the others were dumbfounded, and sure enough, as Qiao Yu said before, don't expect to get anything by relying on the peace meeting, Lu Zhengxiang was stunned for a long time, and asked: "Mr. Li, according to what you say, how can we take back our power, is there still justice in this world?" ”

"Minister Lu, why do you always want to let the powers give us reading power and freedom, our power is lost after the defeat, if we want to get the power back, we have to rely on our fists, and we can never solve the problem by negotiation, our main task now is to transport all the skilled workers back as soon as possible, transport the machinery and equipment back, and send back the experts from various countries we have hired, this is the foundation for our next development of industry and strong national defense, and when we train a million soldiers, even if the powers don't give it, we will take it back!"

Li Zongwu understands Qiao Yu's policy of building industry more and more, and the standard for striking iron is its own hardness, and now the standard for measuring national strength is war, and what supports the victory of the war is industrial strength, simply put, how much steel, how much coal, how much oil, and how many aircraft and cannons can you produce, and the basis of everything is the industrial system, which is something that cannot be changed.

Although Li Zongwu held the high position of foreign minister of the southwest and was also one of the representatives of the Chinese side to the Paris Peace Conference, since Li Zongwu saw the virtues of the great powers, he did not have any hope for this peace conference, and his main tasks were two, the first was to collect accounts, and Britain and France still owed a large amount of money and liquidated damages to the southwest, which must be repaid.

Of course, Britain and France are unwilling to give real money to China, but they can't refuse, because Britain and France have a bigger creditor, that is, the United States, if they refuse now, Britain and France will lose their national credit, and then the economic collapse will follow, you must know that the Americans still hold a lot of bonds in their hands.

Britain and France now repay the debt method is to use the factory to repay the debt, the French [***] team has driven into Germany, began a large number of dismantling industrial equipment, and then compensated these equipment to China, although these equipment is not the most advanced, but for China is already very good, although China has suffered a little loss in the price, the old equipment is basically sold as the price of new equipment, but some things can not be bought by money.

In addition to asking for accounts, it is to abduct people everywhere, several empires in Europe have collapsed, Britain and France because of the end of the war, a large number of military experts have naturally lost their jobs, the United States and the United States have now fallen into the post-war depression, even if they will recruit talents, they will only recruit those high-end, unlike China, as long as they have some special skills, so now the sea route from Europe to Asia is not much more depressed than during the war.

There were more than 3,000 military technicians recruited from Austria-Hungary alone, more than 1,000 German experts, and quite a few British and French experts, and a large number of personnel and equipment were transported to China.

The two lakes were also included in the development plan by Qiao Yu, Wuchang, Changsha and other places have also become busy construction sites, Qiao Yu implemented a new round of reform around the land as the core has begun, starting from the most economically developed Dongchuan, one after another in various places have begun to redeem the landlord's land action, this kind of fundamental reform action that touches China for thousands of years, has become a lot of attention from the beginning.

Dongchuan, especially in the area near Yucheng, not only did not receive any resistance, the landlords and peasants were also very welcome, the landlords looked beautiful, in fact, most of the small landlords also had to work in the fields themselves, and they may work harder than the tenant farmers, it is still too difficult to get rich by relying on the land, far less easy than industry and commerce, there have long been many flexible landlords who sold the land, in exchange for capital to open factories, these people have made a fortune by the east wind of the First World War, compared to the original Yuzi scenery too much, It's also much easier.

The redemption that began now is tantamount to giving all the landlords the opportunity to enter the industry and commerce, and the slightly ambitious people accepted it, and began to change from landlords to capitalists, of course, there are more landlords who choose to continue to operate the land, and their knowledge is still much stronger than that of the peasants, and almost all of them have become major shareholders of the farms, and after the change of the system, these people are also forced to try their best to lead their farms to obtain greater profits.

During the First World War, the urbanization process of Sichuan was rapid, the population of the city swelled more than three times, after the population increased, the need for food, all kinds of agricultural and sideline products increased, so after the transformation of the farms began to engage in breeding, planting fruit trees, vegetables, and continue to grow grain farms are transformed into the position of providing fodder for breeding farms, in the process of redemption is actually a process of capital from the political axe to the peasants and landlords, after the development of various farms, The corresponding number of people required for the processing and sale of agricultural products has increased, and the number of small factories of all kinds has increased, and the number of self-employed people has also increased wildly.

This kind of transformation has prompted more people to move to the city, and the farms far away from the city have to face the problem of labor shortage due to the population flow to the city, so they have to turn to purchase more agricultural machinery, relying on the power of machinery to make up for the lack of labor, and the development of agricultural and sideline industries, farmers can finally see money in their hands, and the consumption capacity has also improved, and the problem of overcapacity in the southwest has also been alleviated.

A new kind of industrial relationship is being bred on the land of Dongchuan, and ancient China is also undergoing rapid transformation, although China is giving birth to huge power, after all, it will take time to complete this evolution, and China still has little status in the world.

At this time, Gu Weijun was engaged in a heated debate with the representatives of the great powers at the Paris Peace Conference, and Li Zongwu also participated in the peace conference on behalf of the southwest, and the Paris Peace Conference was destined not to be a reasonable place from the day it was convened, and the political leaders and foreign ministers of the five countries of the United States, Britain, France, and Italy, a total of 10 people, formed a 10-member conference and had the power to decide on the surname, and the Chinese representatives immediately raised objections to this 10-member conference, and China's contribution to the Entente was absolutely higher than that of the Entente and Italy, and could almost be compared with that of the United States.

Except for the Battle of Qingdao, there was not much action, although the navy and labor were also sent, but it was far from the scale of China, and Italy had no other role than selling cuteness, and it was somewhat unreasonable that the two countries could squeeze into the Supreme Council without allowing China to participate in the meeting with the highest power.

Lu Zhengxiang and Gu Weijun immediately demanded that at least one place be given to China in the ten-member meeting, Britain and France also knew that they were a little disappointed to do so, but they were absolutely unwilling to give China a chance, so they instigated this to come forward and interfere wantonly, and could not squeeze into the Supreme Council, and China also suffered a loss when appointing plenipotentiary representatives, each of the five major powers had five places, China and Brazil, Serbia and Belgium were second-class, and there were only three places, in fact, in real history, China did not even mix with the second class, and became the third class. As in the nascent Poland, there are only two places.

The Paris Peace Conference perfectly illustrated what it means to be a weak country without diplomacy, and at this time Gu Weijun was debating the issue of the privileges of the great powers in China and the Qingdao issue.

"In this tragic war that affected the whole world, a total of 1,400,000 Chinese laborers crossed the ocean to Europe to work for the Allies, and a total of 7,320 Chinese laborers died of air raids and diseases; China provided more than 150,000 troops, sacrificed 34,635 soldiers, and at the same time China also provided the Entente with 10 million tons of various materials, not counting the part to Russia, China's contribution to the Entente is obvious to all, it can be said that China has made great contributions for international justice, regardless of its own difficulties, but when it comes to distributing the fruits of the war, the Entente countries do not give up their privileges in China, continue to ride on the head of the Chinese, how can such actions declare international justice, How can you comfort the Chinese who have paid their blood and sweat for the Entente! ”

Gu Weijun listed irrefutable facts, and the Entente could only bow their heads and remain silent, but no one agreed with the speech of the Chinese representative, Gu Weijun's voice became louder and louder, "As a defeated country, Germany should naturally return the Chinese land occupied before the war, and Jiaozhou Bay should belong to China, and it cannot be handed over to the original side without reason, Shandong is the hometown of the Chinese sage Confucius, just as Jerusalem is the hometown of the Western sage Jesus, China must not lose Shandong, Just as the West cannot afford to lose Jerusalem! ”

(To be continued)