Cooperation between the Chinese military delegation and its German counterparts was temporarily terminated on August 2, and Germany was fully mobilized, including civilians who appeared to have nothing to do with the war. The General Staff, as the brain of the German army, has quickly entered a state of war and has no energy to negotiate and communicate with the Chinese.

The Chinese delegation was still well received. The Chinese's request for close observation of the German military mobilization was satisfied, and they were divided into several groups, each with a different field of observation and learning mission, most of them staying in Berlin, and a few of them left Berlin accompanied by their German counterparts.

Cheng Jianguo's part of the work has been basically completed. The most critical transfer of information was the latest finalized single-seat biplane combat (reconnaissance) aircraft, which was the work of the Aviation Directorate of the General Staff at the end of 1913, and had just been equipped with two flying groups.

The aircraft has an empty weight of 680 kg, a maximum take-off weight of 920 kg, a maximum speed of 190 kilometers per hour, a range of one and a half hours, a prototype engine of the German Mercedes company, with an output of 134 kilowatts (180 horsepower), and the front compartment is equipped with two 7.62mm caliber heavy machine guns produced by Shandong Military Industry Group, with 2,500 rounds of ammunition. In addition, the aircraft also hoisted four small bombs for ground attack, which was a sharp weapon against artillery positions. During the Sino-German joint military exercise in Laizhou, the Germans were impressed by the aircraft's sharp ground attack. When determining the visit of the Chinese military delegation to Germany, the German side asked for all the technology of this aircraft by name, especially in the field of weapons. In exchange, Germany is willing to provide Mercedes with all the technical information of this type of engine.

The reason for this is to exchange engine technology. This is because the Chinese previously purchased 60 engines of this type from Germany. China's first engine plant has been built in Shanghai, with technology and equipment entirely from Ford Motor Company. However, the Americans' products did not match after they were loaded on the plane, and the Chinese chose German products and the test was successful, so they bought the German finished products. Originally, only four engines were wanted to be bought for imitation research, but the Germans insisted that they must be bought in bulk. In the end, a base figure of 60 units was agreed. Due to the success of the Laizhou exercise, the Germans, in order to obtain the tactics and weapons that the Chinese had already explored, "generously" handed over all the drawings of this engine to the Chinese.

Except for the engines, the aircraft was entirely designed and finalized by the Chinese, including the aircraft's weapons - two heavy machine guns that were 21 percent lighter than Makqin, but were not inferior in performance to Maxim. All are Chinese works. According to the industrial power of the Germans. After obtaining the drawings, they could achieve mass production within three months, the only problem was the onboard weapon - the German gun caliber was 7.92mm, but the Chinese had unified their standard caliber to 7.62mm.

For this. Cheng Jianguo went to Frankfurt accompanied by Major Gao Ming, the military attache stationed in Germany. There was an aviation training base for the German army. Cheng Jianguo explained to his German counterparts the formation tactics studied by the Chinese Air Force. It was welcomed by its German counterparts. It is easier for an expert to accept or reject what is in business, and the Germans quickly understood that in the field of aviation. The Chinese were already ahead of Germany, and while the Germans still used aircraft primarily for communications and reconnaissance, their Chinese counterparts used them for combat purposes - shooting down adversary aircraft and ground attacks, especially the latter of which aroused great interest among the Germans. Therefore, Cheng Jianguo was greatly respected, and his trip was delayed, but of course Feng Guozhang's consent was obtained, and the president made it clear that everything about the aviation could be handed over to the Germans without reservation.

After the official outbreak of the European war, Cheng Jianguo and Gao Ming were still in Frankfurt and did not return to Berlin to join the brigade. They witnessed the frenzy in Germany at the outbreak of war - rallies cheering for the outbreak of war, soldiers rushing to the assembly sites, families seeing off their sons and husbands, anthems and cheers, and large quantities of flowers being thrown at the marching soldiers.

Not far from the air base there is a railway bridge across the Rhine, and the military train leading to the Guò railway bridge can be clearly seen from the airport tower, and on August 7, a powerful attack group on the right flank of the German army had already entered Belgium after occupying the Luxembourg railway junction according to the Schlieffen plan, and was struggling to storm the fortress of Liège, which had blocked the advance of the German brigade. Cheng Jianguo and others could not get the specific battle situation, but they saw the military trains on the railway bridge over the Rhine roaring past, and at least 600 trains passed through the Guò that day! This was the result of Cheng Jianguo and Gao Ming's calculations, and they were extremely shocked by it. When asked about this by the officers of the German General Staff who accompanied them, the Germans did not hide it, and they introduced the basic methods of war mobilization in Germany, the core of which revolved around the railway. It can be said that German war mobilization was a railway war, in which all the reservists gathered at the nearest railway station, where they received their personal equipment, were grouped, and then boarded the train and marched to the next assembly area. In this way, from company to battalion, from battalion to regiment, by the time of the final assembly point, the troops had already completed their formation. It has become a field army that can carry out strategic tasks.

The ability of the Germans to mobilize after the outbreak of war shocked their Chinese counterparts! Cheng Jianguo, who returned to Berlin and was about to return to China, exchanged his views with Colonel Xu Shuzheng, the first division of the Mobilization Department of the General Staff, and was amazed by the level of mobilization of the Germans.

Xu Shuzheng, who stayed in Berlin, was even more impressed. He was a graduate of the Japanese Army Infantry Division, secretary of Duan Qirui during the Jinzhou Campaign, and after 1910, he was recommended by Duan Qirui to enter the General Staff, and was the director of the First Division of the Mobilization Department at that time, and was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1911, and became the director at the end of 1913, and the rank was promoted to colonel. He told Cheng Jianguo: The Germans are very friendly to us, and some top-secret information in my opinion is not blocked, and it is expected that in a very short period of time, the German army will soar from about 700,000 in peacetime to more than 2 million. It's an incredible speed, and our mobilization capacity is much worse than that of Germany. If we quadruple the number of the Wehrmacht, we are afraid that we will have to do it for more than three months, and we will not take into account the state of weapons reserves. Xu Shuzheng admits that it is difficult to imagine Germany's organizational ability without seeing it with his own eyes. Behind this is a strong industrial base. It turned out that he was still intoxicated by the progress of the Wehrmacht in the past four years, and it seemed that the president was still smart. The gap between us and the first-class armies in Europe is huge! When we go back, we must thoroughly study our mobilization system and catch up.

In Cheng Jianguo's eyes, the war that has broken out can be summarized as a railway war. Railways have become a major reliance for military mobilization and troop mobilization. Cheng Jianguo noticed this, and on August 7, there were at least 600 military trains on the railway bridge over the Rhine. This is the result of Gao Ming's calculation after staying on the tower for two hours. Of course, the German counterpart will not tell the Chinese everything about the specific situation. The reality was that from 6 August to 12 August, Germany's 1.5 million field armies (about 40 corps) were deployed through the well-developed railway network. How many trains does a field army need? The number disclosed afterwards was as follows: 170 wagons were needed for officers, 965 for infantry, and 2,960 for cavalry. Artillery and baggage units 1915 pcs. A total of 6010. They were organized into 140 columns. And their supply convoys need about the same number of trains. Under the careful organization of the railway bureau of the German General Staff, each military train departed on time and passed through the Guò transportation hub on time, like an incomparably accurate clock. Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne. Every ten minutes, there is a train of military vehicles. There is no difference in the pool. The incredibly high organizational art of the Germans is shown. The meticulous precision of the Germanic people is revealed.

When Cheng Jianguo raised this, Xu Shuzheng fully agreed. He told a joke he had heard from a German general that was not funny. It is said that the best graduates of the German Military Academy are assigned to the railway bureau, and this railway bureau is not the other railway bureau. It is a military-affiliated transportation agency under the establishment of the General Staff, and after these first-class military talents trained by Germany are drained of value in the railway bureau, the madhouse is their only home. Xu Shuzheng said that the level of our railway organization is absolutely not up to the status quo in Germany, and the delegation has senior staff officers of the Military Transport Department, who admitted that the gap is huge, and that when the 6th Division went north to deal with the Tangnu-Ulianghai crisis, the Military Transport Department was very busy with the cross-military transfer of a division of the first type. The actual strength of one of our divisions can reach one or more German armies, but the rapid and precise movement of 40 armies is really amazing.

Due to the outbreak of war in Europe, the mission of the Chinese military delegation to Germany ended prematurely, and they left Berlin on August 11 to return home after receiving instructions from home. The German side very much hopes that China will join the camp of the Central Powers, and given the current relations between China and Germany, Germany very much hopes that China will join the Central Powers in order to contain the power of the Entente in the Far East. If China joins, Germany estimates that China will contain 40 or more Russian divisions in the Far East, and the Germans even think that as long as China deploys troops on the northern border, Russia will be extremely nervous, and they will have to put heavy troops on the Irkutsk-Chita-Vladivostok line, which will be a great help to Germany.

More importantly, the Qingdao base, Germany's largest base in the Far East, will be absolutely safe after China joins the Allied camp. There was a British base in Weihai, and, according to the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Japan would definitely follow Britain in declaring war on Germany and Austria. Britain and Japan will definitely attack Qingdao, and without China's support, it will be difficult to hold the Qingdao base without support. The loss of the Qingdao base will deprive the German East Asian fleet of its "homeland". The German Tsingtao-based East Asian Fleet currently had six cruisers, and the task of the East Asian Fleet would be to break diplomatic relations, mainly to disrupt and weaken Britain's maritime transport capabilities. On the other hand, if China were on the side of Germany, the Qingdao base would be unharmed. As a result of the report of the German army in Qingdao, the German General Staff's judgment of the strength of the Chinese Wehrmacht was constantly improving, believing that it was a force sufficient to influence the situation in the Far East.

In order to draw China into the camp of the Allies, the German government hastily issued a huge "reward list" to China, including all the weapons of China's 30 infantry divisions, an interest-free loan of 60 million marks to China, a promise to return the Qingdao base and the Jiaoji and Tianjin-Pudong railways to China free of charge after the war, and to exempt all remaining Gengzi indemnities. These conditions could not but make the Chinese military delegation feel excited.

The mission does not have the authority to determine the direction of the country's diplomacy. The demands of the German side could only be quickly transmitted back home. In this regard, Feng Guozhang is extremely worried. He knew that the middle and lower-ranking officers were eager to join the Allies in the war, and when the German Foreign Office and the General Staff jointly interviewed him, there was a secret discussion within the delegation, and most of the members of the delegation, who were fascinated by Germany's huge war potential, decided that Germany would win the war, and if China formed an alliance with Germany, it would enjoy huge war dividends, so why not side with Germany? In the history of the development of the Mengshan Army, Germany has always been the object of cooperation, and in terms of military allies, if Germany is not counted, then China will have no friends. Yes, the Americans also have close ties with China, but they are limited to the civilian sphere, and there is very little military aspect. In terms of conventional military power, the United States is not as good as China.

Feng Guozhang rejected the proposal of Cheng Jianguo and others, and only promised to report Germany's demands to the country without any inclination, instead of building a central alliance with Germany.

"The president has repeatedly stressed that military personnel are not allowed to interfere in politics, and what kind of foreign policy the country should adopt is not something we should consider! Besides, the Germans must have negotiated at home through diplomatic channels. Feng Guozhang told his men that he actually hoped that China would not take sides, and that Feng Guozhang knew the power of Britain and Japan, especially the naval power. If China were to join the Allies, the Japanese Navy alone would not be something that China would be able to resist. Shanghai is definitely under attack, and even Tianjin is difficult to defend. The Germans were strong, but their navy was no match for the British, and once China sided with Germany and Austria, it would be caught between Russia, Japan, and Britain, and would be in an isolated and helpless situation. Joke! ”

You Huisheng agreed with Feng Guozhang's opinion, "Ladies and gentlemen, Minister Feng is right. Foreign policy is not something we should be thinking about. It is believed that the president will make the most favorable decisions for the country, as before. Our mission has been accomplished, let's get ready to return home. ”

On August 11, Feng Guozhang led a military delegation out of Berlin and returned to China by the same route. The harvest of the Chinese was in the navy, and the Germans offered their most advanced submarine technology and 20 torpedoes. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Navy has focused on the direction of submarines, and has established a well-equipped submarine factory in Shanghai, and the technology comes entirely from the German side. The Germans believe that China's weak navy will not pose a threat to Germany in any case, and that their strengthening of the construction of submarine forces will only pose a threat to Britain and Japan, which Germany is happy to see, especially now.

The Chinese-flagged cruiser Haixiong sailed south through Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. When refueling at a port in the Mediterranean, in addition to hearing the battle situation of the German army crossing Belgium and attacking the heart of France, I also heard the news that China had officially declared neutrality. Feng Guozhang said to You Huisheng and Cheng Jianguo, "I expected this result. With the shrewdness of the president, how can he choose to take sides without a score? Now I am relieved. ”

But neutral China did not stay away, and a major war unprecedented for the Wehrmacht was coming. (To be continued......)