Chapter 370: Is China Important?

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Does China matter?

When many people in Europe knew that war was inevitable, there was a huge disagreement among European countries on the question of whether a semi-colonial country with a population of 450 million was worth co-opting, and Britain believed that the Anglo-Japanese alliance could ensure that Asia would not leave the arms of Britain to win over poor and backward China, which would undoubtedly put a greater burden on the already difficult finances, and that the insignificant industrial scale was not even a tenth of that of Italy, so there was no need to waste energy ().

In their eyes, even if reunification has been completed, China is still a semi-colony and a resource-exporting country, not to mention that it is necessary to sacrifice a lot of interests in China to win over China, and who is willing to give up hundreds of millions of yuan in returns every year? Although the grim situation in Europe has caused Britain and France to hesitate to intervene in China and miss the best opportunity to contain it, British diplomats, including Jurdes and even Whitehall, still feel that there is no need to be alarmed, because everyone believes that even if a war breaks out in Europe, it will be short-term, and as long as they tide over the current difficulties, they will have enough ability to re-establish their own proxies in China, and even unite with Japan to launch a partition war.

Although Yang Qiu showed an unusual fanaticism for industry, especially heavy industry, industry could not be done by building a few dozen factories, and the British gentlemen had enough patience for the sake of the core interests of the Atlantic. Therefore, when the government of the Republic of China dragged its feet on the issue of tariffs and continued implementation of the preferential treatment of the Qing government, they still maintained a leisurely work rhythm of meeting in the morning and drinking tea in the afternoon.

Boom!

The door of the office of the British Minister Zhu Erdian in Dongjiaomin Lane, Beijing was slammed open by the staff, and an encrypted piece of information was placed in front of him under his gaze, and when he picked up the information and read it carefully and in detail, his cheeks, which had not been moved for decades, twitched a few times. In fact, the intelligence is not complicated, it is just a piece of news that the Chinese and German armies will each dispatch 2,000 people to conduct joint military exercises along the Jiaoji Railway.

Zhu Erdian rarely lit a cigar and focused on thinking about the meaning behind this exercise, the exercise is not terrible, there will be the same exercise between Britain and Japan every year, but if there is any other meaning behind the exercise? Such as forming an alliance! So what should I do? Because of several hostilities between China and Japan and the interests of Manchuria, there has been a big change in the Far East, which has only been quiet for a year?

"Damn it! This damn bastard! ”

In the British Merchants' Club in Dongjiaomin Lane, such curses could be heard all night, and after getting the information, Zhu Erdian immediately summoned the envoys of various countries in China except Germany to discuss countermeasures. Although Beijing has lost its status as the capital, the envoys of various countries in China who refuse to recognize the government of the Republic of China have not yet moved here, and it is said that this is the suggestion of the Russian minister, because he thinks that it is better to stay here after moving to Nanjing now, and maybe he will move back in a few years.

At this time, the Russian minister was desperately stuffing delicious caviar into his mouth, God knows! Did these Russians come without eating? When he finally wiped his mouth with a napkin and regained a trace of aristocratic demeanor, he opened his mouth and said something earth-shattering: "I don't think there is any need to waste my tongue, my country has 300,000 garrisons in the Far East and Siberia, and we can enter Manchurian and Mongolia at any time and go south." ”

Next!

The Japanese minister can't wait to stuff the caviar tray into the mouth of the Russian minister, you have 300,000 down, is Japan not doing anything to watch you annex Manchuria? Isn't this dragging Japan into a war that will never end up again? It is also impossible for Zhu Erdian to agree to this plan, not to mention that it is not easy to use the hand of Japan to send Nicholas II back to Europe, if this guy peeps into the Far East and draws a large number of living forces from Europe, once the war breaks out and loses the containment of millions of "gray cattle" on the Eastern Front, will Germany and Austria be able to attack the Western Front with all their might?

After the Russo-Japanese War, your French big brother invested billions of francs to save the fool of Nicholas II to finally stabilize the Franco-Russian alliance and ensure that the enemy Germany can be killed on two fronts, if you come to the Far East, will you let the great France face the abnormal brain of Wilhelm II alone?

Even actively advocating deepening exchanges and opening more doors to American businessman Jia Leheng has a solemn face this time, doesn't Yang Qiu understand the current world situation? This is possible, the largest country in Asia does not represent the strongest power in Asia, Japan is still the only country with the right to speak in Asia, and it is normal not to understand the outside world in a country where even its own problems have not been solved and the guns in the northwest are constantly ringing, but is this true?

Seeing that the audience was full of opposition, the Russian minister muttered a few words and stopped speaking, and the conference room suddenly became extremely quiet.

At a time when Britain, France, and other countries were trying to dismantle the Sino-German exercise so as not to lead to more serious consequences, Germany was particularly active in this military exercise, and even said after receiving Traun's telegram that the navy should also be involved, and the Spee fleet and the Chinese fleet should organize maritime resistance training together.

It is no wonder that the German General Staff was so excited to learn of this news, although the population of 450 million could not help Europe, but it would be very scary if it really wanted to be armed. With the help of Germany, in just three years, Yang Qiu not only kept the industrial seedlings left by the Qing government, but also continued to expand, and now it can manufacture basic equipment including cannons, and the quality is not said to be better than that of Europe, but the design is very advantageous. According to the calculations of the German General Staff, after the reunification of the whole country, the Wehrmacht alone captured more than 400,000 guns of various types, and the two factories in Hubei and Chongqing reequipped the troops at the rate of one brigade per month, and the ammunition could support the consumption of one year.

In other words, if Yang Qiu is in a hurry, he can pull out an army of one million in a few months! If Germany can support another batch before the outbreak of the European war, it will not be a problem to even arm an army of 2 million.

2,000,000 ah ()!

Japan, the strongest in the Far East, has only 300,000 men at full strength, and Russia has only 600,000 troops in total, which is not as good as the Wehrmacht, so he is absolutely capable of completely muddying the Far East and forcing Russia to draw more troops from Europe. What's more! Once the war broke out in Europe, Yang Qiu could have marched from Guangxi and Yunnan to the southeastern peninsula, and if he had greater ambitions, he could even send troops directly from Tibet to the Great Plains of India regardless of the casualties on the plateau.

Once India is divided, what will Britain, having lost its crown jewel, do against Germany, which is armed to the teeth? The exercise, it must be carried out immediately, Wilhelm II shouted, and for this reason he specially invited Prince Reinhardt, who had been at home for a long time, to be a special envoy to visit China, and even asked him to bring a list of weapons aid sufficient to arm six divisions.

It would have been impossible not to reveal the news of such a momentous visit, and at the same time that Prince Reinhardt, who was in his sixties, boarded the cruiser Emden for the Far East, the British Whitehall was already in turmoil.

What to do? What to do?

"Dispatch the Far East Fleet to immediately bombard the Chinese coastline and contact Japan to attack Qingdao." Qiu Fatzi was holding a cigar and was ashamed to say that he had a plan to destroy the nascent Republic of China, but he got countless blank eyes. If Wilhelm II had been willing to stop the endless sea race, the Empire would not have bothered about such a thing, but now the question is constantly on the minds of those in charge of the Empire.

No one could have imagined that an exercise in the Far East would actually stir up half the world, and when European and American countries speculated about whether the Sino-German exercise would indicate that the two countries would enter a formal alliance from now on, its initiator had already set foot on the German armored cruiser Scharnhorst, which had come to greet him, and went to Qingdao to personally observe the first exercise between the two countries.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, General Spee."

On the deck, the sailors crossed their hands behind their backs, and greeted this young man who had become famous all over the world in just a few years with the most rigorous military posture, in the center of the white military uniform, with a high nose bridge, his hair combed in the slightest, and a pair of eagle-eyed Graafspei like a lion with swaggered hair, thinking of the Battle of Coronel that was called the most painful memory in the history of the British Navy half a year later, Yang Qiu even had the idea of revealing history to him in advance ().

In addition to Shi Pei, there were some fleet officers behind him, and two of them were young men who looked a little like him and made Yang Qiu look at them a few more times, secretly thinking that these would probably be the two sons who died in the sea with him.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, and allow me to extend my sincerest greetings to you on behalf of the Scharnhorst and the Far Eastern Fleet." Shi Pei was not only an outstanding admiral, but also very eloquent, and after speaking, he also took out a small metal model of the Scharnhorst: "This is a small gift made by the soldiers themselves, please accept it." ”

"Thank you."

After letting Lei Meng accept the model, Yang Qiu and his entourage began to visit this famous warship under the leadership of Shi Pei, and Traun also lost no time in promoting Germany's sophisticated production technology, and even had the meaning of helping the Chinese Navy build two ships, so that Sa Zhenbing, who accompanied him, kept making him look at him. In the era when the ultra-dreadnought and battle cruisers were rampant, and the Japanese Kongo-class began to enter service, it was impossible to buy two such heavy cruisers no matter how rich he was, so Quan Dang didn't see the longing eyes of the old man, not to mention that he didn't think of defecting to Germany at all.

When the Scharnhorst had just entered the Taiwan Strait with Yang Qiu and his entourage, the two British and Japanese warships caused a little restlessness, and I didn't know whether Spee wanted to show off his excellent sailors, or was determined to protect the most honored guests of Germany now, and the eight 210mm guns quickly opened their gun jackets.

With the influence of the data machine, Yang Qiu quickly recognized these two warships, and the corners of his mouth that had been closed for nearly half a month finally drew an arc, the Japanese Navy's Kurama-class battlecruiser and the British Far East Fleet's Old Man Star battleship.

Because Britain strictly restricted the Japanese navy's access to the waters south of the Taiwan Strait in the Anglo-Japanese alliance agreement, the Japanese navy would normally only operate in the ocean east of Taiwan, but this time it appeared in the Taiwan Strait with the United Kingdom, which shows how big the impact of the news of this exercise is.

But this is exactly what he wants to see, and some people should also understand that the world cannot do without China!

! @#