"Li Bodhisattva is getting more and more disagreeable, he has no money and no soldiers, and he wants to abolish all of our local overseers, it's really a fool's dream." Wang Zhanyuan said angrily, the Republic of China has a big and small Xu, big and small paragraphs. The size of Xu refers to Xu Shichang, Xu Shuzheng, the size of the Duan is Duan Qirui, Duan Zhigui, with Duan Qirui's ascendancy, Duan Zhigui was also transferred to the center, Wang Zhanyuan picked a cheap one, served as the overseer of Hubei, Hubei is strategically located, choking the throat of the Yangtze River, and there is a lot of arable land. The financial resources are not low in the provinces of the Republic of China, at this time Wang Zhanyuan was not long on the throne, and he was amassing his wealth, no matter who wanted to engage in the separation of military and political affairs, and limit the majesty of the local overseers, he was undoubtedly his enemy.

Li Yuanhong used to serve as the standard commander in Hubei, and when he was the co-commander, he was kind and kind, his head was round, and he shaved his head and loved to laugh, so he got the nickname of Li Bodhisattva.

"That's it, I don't look at how many catties and taels he has now, if President Yuan didn't go the wrong way, it wouldn't be his turn to be president for hundreds of years, and now he actually wants to use chicken feathers as an arrow, and he is also worthy?" Ni Sichong, as an Anhui cadre, looked disdainful.

"Li Bodhisattva does not have the prestige of President Yuan, but if he wants to do the same thing, it will naturally not work." Xu Shuzheng said with a smile, Yuan Shikai had previously changed the provincial overseers to a general system and added the post of provincial governor, the purpose was to gradually strip the power of the provincial superintendents and realize centralized power, which was also accepted by enlightened people, after all, it was beneficial to the country. Afraid of Yuan Shikai's pressure, there was no obvious desire to resist in the provinces. But Xu Yuanhong wants to do this, who will obey him?

"By the way, I have called you here this time to discuss your views on the war in Europe, after the announcement of the unlimited submarine war by Germany. America's intention to enter the war is already clear. The European powers, the Entente and the Central Powers, were originally equal, but with the addition of the United States, no matter how strong Germany was, it was difficult to defeat the four hands with both fists, and the Republic of China had been weak for a long time, so if it could become a victorious country through this war. On the one hand, it can expand the influence of its citizens in the international community, and on the other hand, after becoming a victorious country, it can strive for some international status and rights, and some unequal treaties that were previously imposed on the Republic of China and the issue of reparations may be resolved to a certain extent. ”

"Going to war?" As soon as Xu Shuzheng said this, the others suddenly didn't squeak much, and the scene was a little embarrassing.

"Again, this matter of participating in the war, I can't say it right now. Didn't the prime minister always have confidence in Germany before, most of our Beiyang Army also purchased German weapons, or wait for a while to see, now Germany has not shown too obvious defeat, I think this matter is better to look at it after a while. The others didn't speak, and Ni Si coughed dryly at the stalwart of the Anhui system.

"The U.S. Navy ranks among the top three in the world, and now it has been building momentum for a long time, and Germany is stronger. After fighting with Britain, France, Italy, Tsarist Russia and other Entente countries for more than two years, it also reached the end of the crossbow. Now with the addition of the United States, there is no reason to be invincible. Since the Battle of Jutland, the German High Seas Fleet has been blockaded in the harbor, useless, and the resources consumed cannot be replenished, which is the same thing as being blocked in logistics. In this battle, Germany and Austria will be defeated. Xu Shuzheng is sure of authenticity.

"The emaciated camel is bigger than the horse, and the 105MM guns on the German side cannot be regarded as heavy artillery, but our local armies, it is good to have 75MM guns, and many of the guns are still eliminated by Germany for many years. Facing the German and Austrian armies, that's not looking for death, I don't think this can be done, the great powers are the great powers, they really want to go to the battlefield, our Republic of China army can't even do the Japanese army, where can we fight against the German army. Zhao Wei hurriedly shook his head and said, he hasn't even done it yet, Liu Zhenhua in the province hasn't been done yet, where is there any spare time to take care of Europe.

"Brother Zhou Ren is right, no matter how weak the German-Austrian allies are, it is not something that our Republic of China army can afford to provoke, and the Western countries are strong and warring, hundreds of cannons, machine guns are not countable, and tens of thousands of people can be killed and injured in a battle. Jiangxi Overseer Li Chun hurriedly shook his head and said.

"You have misunderstood, to really declare war on the Allies, naturally there is no need to send troops over, our people, this bit of equipment compared to the German army is naturally similar to sending to death, and it will not be of much help to the Entente." Xu Shuzheng said with a smile.

"If you don't send an army over, what kind of person will you participate in the war?" Zhang Xun couldn't help but ask.

"All you need is to organize some laborers to help the Entente with some logistics and moving things." Xu Shuzheng said.

"Just need some labor? It's not that it's impossible, anyway, the two years have not been very good, the water has risen and the water has risen, the drought position is drought, and the victims have grabbed a lot of money, and they don't have to worry about having no labor. Ni Sichong responded with a smile.

"If it's just some burden-carrying bitterness, it's nothing. But just now when it comes to airplanes, I heard one thing, it turned out that when Meng Enyuan of the 23rd Division of Jilin fought with Qin Yu of Fengtian, I heard that Qin Yu moved a plane to attack Jilin, and the bomb was thrown down, which was too much compared to the 75MM shell, and Meng Enyuan's nephew Gao Junfeng was seriously injured on the spot, and now he is still kicking on one leg and it is not easy to walk. I heard that there are quite a few planes in Fengtian, by the way, what does Premier Duan say about Fengtian? I think that in the past two years, Fengjun has been in Hebei since the death of the president, but there has been a lot of noise, and I am in Hebei for the merchants on the Fengtian side, and I don't know how many times I have heard about it. Cao Kun suddenly remembered such a thing.

"Yes, don't you say that I haven't remembered it yet, I heard that Qin Yu robbed Meng Enyuan's Jilin last time, and he used three divisions at one time, and his 27th division was still in Fengtian City and didn't move, when did this Feng army become so strong? It was only half a month before Meng Enyuan was cleaned up. But if you want to say that Qin Yu is also a guy who sells dog meat on the head of a sheep, if you want Jilin to say it clearly, but under the banner of punishing the culprit of the commercial system, isn't this counting everyone here? "Zhang Xun was well-known in the late Qing Dynasty and among the Beiyang generals, he was loyal and straight, and he was not very good at turning corners. For Qin Yu's hand, he didn't look too much at it, and when he talked about Qin Yu, he didn't have a good temper, "Brother Yunshan, your hot river is close to Fengtian, and you definitely know much more about Fengtian than we do." Tell me, what kind of thing is this Qin Yu? ”

"I haven't met Qin Yu, and I don't know much about him, but judging by his various actions in Fengtian, this Qin Yu can also be regarded as the number one person. I don't need to say more about his own tens of millions of fortunes, none of us present can compare with him, even if several people are combined, they may not have his pockets. Fengtian has developed rapidly in the past two years, and the coal mines mined one after another. A few of my nephews, my nephew couldn't stay in Rehe, and as soon as he had the effort, he ran to Fengtian City, speaking of Fengtian City, it was a belly of energy, what a tram, a building more than 20 stories high, and there were more cars on the road than horse-drawn carriages now. I can't say enough about some other miscellaneous things. No worse than Shanghai. In addition, a distant cousin of mine who has stayed in the ocean said that Fengtian City is not much different from a large and medium-sized city of the current great powers, and the great power city should have something in Gaoli. Mukden City is almost there. Tanaka Yu said a few words roughly, especially when it came to Qin Yu's net worth at this time, most of the people present had a look of envy.

"Similar to the Great Powers? Not really, or wouldn't he have said that he would hit whoever he wanted? Cao Kun frowned.

"I don't know about this, but the wealth of Mukden can't be faked. Others have spent more than 4 million yuan to build a university, and in the future, they will invest more than 1 million yuan every year, and it will cost millions of yuan to engage in compulsory education in primary school. It can't be faked. Tanaka Yu listened to Cao Kun's words of questioning himself, and said with some displeasure.

"Tut, just to invest thousands of dollars in education, how rich is this Fengtian?" Everyone present shuddered, "Raising one division is more than one million a year, doesn't it mean that it is easy to expand Fengtian by five or six divisions?" ”

"Fengtian's strength cannot be doubted, but it is not as scary as I have heard, after all, it is only a province of the Republic of China, no matter how strong it is, Guangdong is also a rare rich province in the Republic of China, I have seen what Fengtian Province looked like a few years ago, I don't believe that it can be equivalent to several Guangdong provinces in just a few years." Xu Shuzheng shook his head and said, Duan Qirui and the old devil Xiyuan have reached an agreement on the loan, the first batch of 5 million yuan has been on the account, and there will be nearly 100 million loans later, with this money, the Anhui Department can directly form its own army, at this time Duan Qirui controls the power of the central government, how can a Fengtian compare?

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"The February Revolution?" Qin Yu, who was lying on a chair basking in the sun, sat up when he heard the news, and knocked over the teacup placed next to him, and the white cup fell on the grass and rolled a few times before stopping.

"Yes, the Romanov dynasty, which ruled Tsarist Russia for hundreds of years, has finally come to an end." The Romanov Dynasty can be regarded as a dynasty that has influenced the global pattern, but it collapsed in an instant, making Lan Tianwei, a staff officer who has always regarded Tsarist Russia as a great trouble, as if he had lost a huge opponent all of a sudden.

"I went to the Nikolai Dynasty, and there was another Menshevik, change the soup without changing the medicine, and don't pay too much attention to him, let's just do our own thing." Qin Yu quickly recovered from the shock, in fact, the contradictions within Tsarist Russia were already very acute, but before participating in the European War, relying on the prestige accumulated by the Nicholas II family for many years and a group of princes and nobles loyal to the dynasty were enough to maintain the royal family for decades. Tsarist Russia has a vast land, although serfdom is backward, and most of the poor peasants live a very simple life, but the vast land of Tsarist Russia enables these people to continue to live, and as long as a person still wants to live, he will not embark on the road of revolution so easily.

Qin Yu remembered the October Revolution in Tsarist Russia very well in history, but he couldn't think clearly of the February Revolution. However, after the success of the February Revolution, it was still a bourgeoisie-led regime, but with a change of stakeholders, the future October Revolution could be regarded as a complete makeover for Russia.

"Yes, I think the problem of Tsarist Russia is because the war consumes too much energy and resources, and I don't know how many people in the country have died because of this. If you can't eat, as long as you are still fighting and the consumed materials are not replenished, the contradictions will still exist, and sooner or later there will be an outbreak. Lan Tianwei pointed out the root of the problem, "The current Tsarist Russia has only temporarily gained peace." An even larger rebellion is likely to come in the near future. ”

"Well, as long as the problem is still there, sooner or later there will be another outbreak. This may lead to a change in the balance of power between the Allies and the Entente. However, now that Germany has declared unlimited submarine warfare, leading to the direct participation of the United States in the war, Germany and Austria cannot fundamentally change their disadvantages. The Allies are going to lose this battle. Qin Yu nodded in agreement, and at the same time felt a little sad in his heart, Lan Tianwei could see that this problem was because of his true talent and learning, and he relied on the unpredictable prophet of the entire war process from the traverser.

Because the High Seas Fleet was unable to compete with the British and French fleets, Germany could only stay in the harbor with grievances. The loss of sea power not only allowed the Allies to continuously bring in supplies from overseas, but their own resources were depleted less and less. At the same time, the United States can only choose to sell arms, oil, and grain to Britain. Loans to Britain, and now Britain, France, Russia, and other Allied countries owe the United States a large amount of loans, and if they want these tens of billions of dollars not to be wasted, at the last moment, the United States will only go into battle shirtless. "Lan Tianwei sees the whole thing very clearly." A country's right to the sea is really important. The Republic of China now has no sea power, and even the army has no way to protect itself. ”

"Sooner or later, the Navy will have to be built. I didn't buy the blueprints of the Russian warships for no toilet paper. Qin Yu said, "In the future Republic of China, the military should not stop at land, and only by going out of the country can we safeguard the country's status and interests in the world." ”

"Commander, everyone knows the importance of sea power. However, the huge manpower, material and financial resources required to build a navy are an astronomical amount. The cost of a dreadnought is tens of millions, and with Fengtian's current financial resources, if it is necessary to form a navy, I am afraid that the construction of other aspects will be seriously delayed. He believed that the current situation should give priority to the development of the army to achieve the goal of self-preservation, and that after the army was not afraid of the Japanese army, it could build up a large number of navies if it had spare strength. Lan Tianwei has a different opinion on this point, "Even if the army is formed now, it is too weak for the Japanese Combined Fleet, and if it really clashes with the Japanese army, it will only be as embarrassing as the current German High Seas Fleet and become an existing fleet." ”

"That's a good thing, but now the skills of the great powers are changing with each passing day, and the drawings we have in our hands have lagged behind the British and German powers to a certain extent, if we don't bury our heads and forge ahead, and wait until a few years later, even if we have the heart to build another fleet, I'm afraid the price we have to pay will be several times the current one, or even ten times higher. The backwardness in technology cannot be made up for in a short period of time. In addition, no matter how strong the combined fleet is, there are shortcomings, Germany's high seas fleet is weaker than Britain, but it makes up for its own great shortcomings in submarines, Japan is somewhat similar to Britain, if the submarine force of the Republic of China is large enough, it can also cause a huge deterrent effect on Japan. Japan is inferior to Britain, and although the Republic of China is inferior to Germany, its vast territory and large population base are not comparable to Germany. ”

"Submarine forces? Dashuai said yes. Lan Tianwei nodded, Qin Yu's perspective on the problem was a little different from him, Lan Tianwei looked at the problem more from a military point of view, while Qin Yu took the comprehensive strength of a country as the starting point, and his relative vision was much broader.

"Well, start with submarines, torpedo boats, submarine hunters, destroyers and other small-tonnage ships, strive to reach the same height as the great powers, and then accumulate strength later, and then build larger warships. With Fengtian's current financial resources, there are still some small ships. ”

"That's right." Lan Tianwei said with a smile, if the Republic of China is the fastest developing place, there is no doubt that it is Fengtian, Fengtian Bank's profit last year was as high as more than 7 million, and more than 20 hydropower, thermal power stations, and vehicle tolls earned as much as 14 million. Other commercial taxes and income taxes in the outbreak period add up to the majority, totaling more than 53 million. The industries in which the Mukden government is directly involved are mainly electric power, as well as munitions, and the profits of the artillery shells and bullet factories this year are as high as more than 8 million. That's more than 83 million.

Under the circumstance that all kinds of internal and external debts have almost been paid off, it is something that Lan Tianwei could not have imagined before. What Lan Tianwei didn't know was that Fengtian would launder dozens of funds from abroad through casinos every year, and the accumulated tens of millions of dollars would enter the account of Fengtian Bank, which was also the reason why Fengtian Bank expanded so rapidly and expanded its profits. At the same time, even if Fengtian Province completes the expansion of the army this year, in addition to the fact that there is still some shortage of artillery, rifles can already meet the needs of the expansion of the army this year and next.

This year, after the expansion of a reorganized division and a shelf division, the military expenditure of Fengtian and Jilin will reach more than 21 million yuan, and the salaries of police and other office personnel will add up to more than 12.7 million yuan. The above totals 33.7 million. There is still a surplus of nearly 50 million. With Yingkou, Dandong, Benxi, Anshan, Tongliao, Fengtian, Jinzhou, Huludao Taonan and other cities as the center, a large number of cities, roads, hydropower facilities and other infrastructure construction has consumed a lot of financial resources in Fengtian, and at the same time, infrastructure construction will be further extended to Jilin, and the development of Jilin will also be the main task behind. Compulsory education in primary school, army reserves, etc., add up to almost seven or eight of these financial resources, as for the aviation school, engines, and tank research institute expenses, the further construction of the Yingkou wharf can only be regarded as a small head. (To be continued......)