Xiao Zhenlei went south, accompanied by some members of the staff group, several cabinet ministers, some officials of the Supreme Court, the Supervisory Yuan, and other departments, and of course, the heads of the military, military intelligence, and internal and foreign intelligence departments.

This time, Xiao Zhenlei took the Jinghan Railway to the south, along Hebei, Henan, and Hubei to the south, and every time he arrived in a province, he always had to stop and inspect several counties and cities in the province for a few days to see the living conditions and living standards of the local people.

Xiao Zhenlei is pleased that after several years of development, there have been fundamental changes in various places, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were often starvation and freezing bones on the roadside, but now it is basically invisible, and wasteland can rarely be seen in the wild, because the government has regulations, if the field is barren, it will be reclaimed by the government for more than a year.

In addition to not seeing the wasteland, Xiao Zhenlei also saw a large area of well-preserved vegetation greening mountains and forests along the way.

On the train, Xiao Zhenlei pointed to the scenery outside to the accompanying officials and said: "Look, we are peaceful here, the mountains and rivers are green, and the greenery is verdant, can you see it in Europe at this time?" At this time, Europe was full of gunpowder smoke and ruins, this is the advantage of keeping the war out of the country, we are not afraid of war, but if we want to fight, we will fight outside the country, we must not break out on our own land, let our land always maintain the current peace! ”

"Yes, the president is all extreme!" The accompanying officials agreed one by one, and there was no shortage of sycophants and sycophants, and Xiao Zhenlei neither rejected nor rejoiced about this.

In addition to ordering that farmers and landlords should not be allowed to waste land, the authorities also ordered the nationalization of all mine energy in the country. Private individuals cannot occupy land where minerals or energy are buried, and if it is found that there are lands or forests buried with minerals or energy underneath. The government will take it back and compensate everyone for some compensation, and the burial site will be protected. No private mining is allowed.

After all, minerals, energy and other resources are limited, the more they are mined, the less they can be used in the future, in order to exploit prematurely and excessively, the authorities order that most of the resources needed are imported from abroad, and a small part is exploited domestically, but for the reserves of domestic resources, the authorities have been sending people to explore, as long as they can explore minerals or oil and other energy sources. Immediately mark and protect them so that they can be mined in the future when they are not available from abroad, and they will not run away if they are buried underground.

According to Xiao Zhenlei's idea, it is to use other countries' resources first, and if you really can't buy resources from other countries, then use your own domestic ones, so that on the one hand, you can ensure that you always have resources to use, and on the other hand, you can protect the ecological environment in a certain way, after all, it is impossible to mine minerals and energy without destroying the environment.

However, in terms of mining technology. Huaguo has not relaxed, has been researching more advanced mining technology and research and development of advanced equipment, these developed equipment is not used in its own country for the time being, can be sold to other countries for use. Huaguo is just maintaining its advantage in mining technology, and wait until one day, the country will have to mine its own minerals and energy. We will not be helpless because of immature mining technology and poor equipment.

At present, most of China's iron ore or other ores are imported from abroad, most of which are Australia, North and South Africa and Africa. Xiao Zhenlei used his memory to send people to buy a large amount of land rich in minerals in the north and south and Australia, and sent people to mine it. After mining, some customs duties are contributed to the local government or shipped back to China.

On the crude oil side, part of it is attacked from the United States, and the other part is purchased from Britain and other places. Xiao Zhenlei originally wanted to go to the Middle East to buy some land to exploit oil, but at this time, the Middle East was ruled by the Ottoman Turkish Empire and belonged to the camp of the Allied countries.

If an agreement can be reached with Britain and France to take over Southeast Asia this time, Xiao Zhenlei will send an expeditionary force to Europe to deal with the Central Powers, the first thing to deal with is Ottoman Turkey, first defeat the Ottoman Empire, disintegrate this empire, and let it split into those Middle Eastern countries in the future, and then China will send troops to garrison Middle Eastern countries, establish military bases, airports, naval bases, etc., support local Islamic forces to take power, and cooperate with the local people, so as to master most of the oil resources here.

Xiao Zhenlei thinks that this idea is very good, but if you want to achieve this strategic goal, you still need to go through some careful arrangements and deployments, especially in the cooperation of the Entente, you can't compromise with the British, the British are used to being the boss, and they have to have the upper hand in many negotiations before they give up, but Xiao Zhenlei doesn't eat the British, if the British then claim to be the world boss, it's a big deal that everyone will break up, and then each family will have their own ability.

On this day, the southbound train entered the Jiangxi territory, and the secretary Xiao Gao came to report: "President, the left-behind personnel in the Beijing office have called and said that the British Plenipotentiary Envoy to China, Zhu Erdian, has asked to see you urgently!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei took a puff of cigarette and said, "Presumably the British feel that they are about to be unable to hold on, right?" ”

Wang Yaqiao, who was standing next to him, said: "President, our intelligence officers have recently discovered that British diplomats in the United States are actively contacting the top level of the United States, and there are all kinds of signs that the British are doing their best to win the United States to join the war against Germany!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei was not surprised by this news, it would be abnormal if the British did not send people to actively contact the top level of the United States, "Oh? So did the efforts of the British make progress? ”

Wang Yaqiao shook his head: "For the time being, there is no clear news that the Americans have signs of joining."

Xiao Zhenlei pulled the curtain of the car to look at the receding mountains and fields outside, and after two minutes, he said to Xiao Gao: "Let the left-behind personnel assign someone to bring Zhu Erdian over, and they must not stop in the middle, go to Xiamen to meet me!" ”

According to the itinerary, Xiao Zhenlei will stay in Nanchang and Fuzhou for one day respectively, and in Xiamen for two days, and if Zhu Erdian immediately takes the train south from the capital, he should be able to meet Xiao Zhenlei before he goes to Bay Island.

"Yes, President!"

On 3 April, Xiao Zhenlei inspected the interior and exterior of Xiamen Island for one day, and in the afternoon of the same day, Zhu Erdian rushed to Xiamen by train, where he met Xiao Zhenlei that night, and at the same time came to meet Xiao Zhenlei with diplomatic personnel from embassies of various countries in Gulangyu.

Prior to this, the countries that established consulates on Gulangyu included Britain, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and other countries, and after the establishment of the new government, they did not ask the countries to forcibly withdraw these embassies, but after the war, the two consulates of Germany and Japan were closed, and the diplomatic personnel of Germany and Japan were also evacuated one after another, and the consulates of several other countries remained normal.

Xiao Zhenlei held a cocktail party in the evening to entertain the consuls of various countries in Gulangyu, in fact, everyone drank and danced together, and the consuls here basically saw Xiao Zhenlei for the first time, so they were also very interested in this cocktail party.

At the banquet, Zhu Erdian did not find a chance to talk to Xiao Zhenlei alone, and it was not until after the reception that he was led to Xiao Zhenlei's temporary study here, which was already ten o'clock in the evening.

"Mr. Zhu Erdian, please have tea!" Xiao Zhenlei made a gesture.

Zhu Erdian took off his top hat and bowed and said, "Thank you, Your Excellency, President!" ”

Seeing that Zhu Erdian drank a few sips of tea, Xiao Zhenlei asked, "I heard that Mr. Zhu Erdian has something urgent to see me?" I don't know what it is? ”

Zhu Erdian hurriedly put down the teacup and said, "Does the president know the news that Germany has begun a large-scale bombing of our cities?" ”

Xiao Zhenlei nodded calmly: "I've heard a little, but I don't know much about the specific situation, if Mr. Zhu Erdian doesn't mind, can you tell me about the bombing of Britain?" ”

"Of course, I'm honored!" Zhu Erdian agreed, and immediately told Xiao Zhenlei in detail about the bombing of the British mainland by the Luftwaffe in the past few days.

According to Zhu Erdian, the German bombing of the British and English areas is very frequent these days, but the British side did not let the Luftwaffe wreak havoc over the British mainland, but organized some planes to conduct a number of air battles with German fighters, in these encounters, the two sides have their own winners and losers, and the British did not suffer much loss in the air confrontation, mainly because although the British fighters are not as good as the German fighters, they are fighting on the ground and do not need to fly for a long time. It was possible to land at any time to refuel and replenish ammunition, but not with German fighters.

After these days of competition in the air, the British also know the shortcomings of their own fighters' insufficient performance, so they are making every effort to imitate the remaining few Huaguo Flying Eagle fighters, although only a dozen have been produced at present, but they have already mastered the manufacturing technology, as long as there is enough time, the British will build more fighters sooner or later.

According to Zhu Erdian's words, although Britain withstood the German bombing, but its current loss of fighters is also very strict, the production speed is almost unable to keep up with the speed of damage, I hope to buy another batch of fighters from China, this time it is 500, the price is the same as before, but this time it can not be disassembled and transported by ship, after the aircraft is manufactured, it will take off directly from the Chinese airport to the United Kingdom, and the British side can be in Burma, India, Pakistan, Iran, In places such as Egypt, airports were built to allow aircraft to be transferred, refueled and refueled during flights.

There is business to do and money to be made, of course Xiao Zhenlei is willing, 500 fighters are a lot of money according to the previous price, it seems that the British are really rich, but Xiao Zhenlei asked to pay in gold or Chinese dollars, Zhu Erdian said that he had no objection to this. (To be continued......)