Early the next morning, when the door of the Tang Mansion slowly opened, Tang Jian walked out wearing a woolen coat. Behind Tang Jian were the presidential guards headed by Chen Chusheng. 1(1)
It turns out to be sunny after the heavy snow!
Tang Jian raised his eyes and looked around, and saw that the entire Wuhan was covered in a blanket of silver. It was a vast expanse of white where he could see it. The winter sunlight was reflected in the remaining snow, making it dazzlingly white.
Tang Jian waved, got into the presidential car and went straight to Wuhan Airport.
While Ouyang Yanqing was developing military aircraft, in order to facilitate the travel of Tang Jian and other senior members of the Chinese army, he improved and built an aircraft that could carry passengers. However, this type of aircraft was relatively small and could only carry three people with the pilot. .
Even so, Tang Jian is still very satisfied. After all, this is a successful attempt. With this small crew aircraft, large-scale crew aircraft can be developed in the future, and even military transport aircraft can be developed, which is very important for the long-range operations of the Chinese navy and army. It's a big help in combat.
At this time, the snow on the runway of Wuhan Airport had already been cleared away. Tang Jian did not make any stop and boarded the plane directly towards Fuzhou. In Fuzhou, all the generals of China's sea, land and air were already waiting.
With a roar, five planes took off and flew toward the southeast. Gradually, the huge figures of the five planes shrank into a black dot in the sky, and then disappeared into the clear blue sky after the snow.
In the afternoon, five planes landed at the military airport in Fuzhou one after another. At the airport, senior generals of the navy, army and air force greeted their young president in the cold wind.
Tang Jian got off the gangway, and Ye Zugui, Cheng Biguang, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, Cao Kun and others came forward one after another. After Tang Jian shook hands with everyone one by one and said hello, he waved his hand: "Come in and say hello!"
At this time, in the hall of a villa in Fuzhou, a hot dinner had already been prepared. The firewood in the fireplace was crackling and burning, and a sense of warmth filled the entire hall.
Tang Jian took the lead and stepped into this large restaurant. After Chen Chusheng took the woolen coat that Tang Jian took off and handed over, everyone began to sit down in an orderly manner.
Soon, the entire restaurant was filled with more than a hundred senior generals from China's navy, land and air force. Tang Jian sat at the head table. After everyone sat down, Tang Jian said: "Haha, today is the first day of the new year. God, I¡¯m here to wish everyone a happy New Year!¡± Tang Jian bowed to everyone.
The generals smiled and saluted Tang Jian one after another.
Tang Jian continued: "Today is the first day of the new year. It was originally a good day for our family to reunite, but I still rushed from Wuhan to gather everyone together. I definitely didn't come to have a reunion dinner with you. Since my own reunion dinner Everyone has eaten, it should be pretty good! Haha."
Everyone laughed, and the atmosphere in the hall suddenly became lively, and the cold air that they had just contracted at the airport was dissipated.
"Although I am not having a reunion dinner with you, don't be formal. This banquet is to bring you together to discuss the recent international situation and what attitude China should take to face it. "Don't just watch, you should eat and drink." Tang Jian took the lead in raising his glass and toasting everyone.
After drinking a cup, Tang Jian suddenly felt that the pores all over his body were open. Just now, he was blown into popsicles by the bone-chilling cold wind on the plane.
Since Tang Jian opened his mouth and took the lead in raising a toast, the generals returned the toast and started chatting with the generals they were familiar with. Of course, the focus of the generals' discussion was all about the tense situation in Europe.
After drinking for three rounds, Tang Jian coughed lightly and asked: "Since the victory of the war against Japan, there has been no war in China and it has developed rapidly in a stable environment for four years. However, since 1911, The smell of gunpowder smoke in the air is getting stronger and stronger, and the source of the gunpowder smoke is Europe. Is there anyone who knows more about the recent situation in Europe and can share it with everyone."
Duan Qirui stood up, raised his glass and greeted everyone, and said: "In 1907, after Britain and Russia ended their colonial disputes, they signed the 'British-Russian Understanding'. In the same year, France, Britain and Russia were affected by the The threat of Russia's power in the Ottoman Empire jointly formed the Triple Entente, which formally competed with the "Triple Alliance" signed by the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Italy more than 20 years ago. Since then, Europe has been divided into two camps. On the colonial issue, the contradiction between the two camps is becoming more and more intense, and a melee situation may break out across Europe at any time, and this contradiction has no possibility of reducing, but intensifies."
Tang Jian nodded and said: "Yes, the German Emperor Wilhelm II not long ago strongly invited China to join the Allied Powers, but I flatly rejected it. At this time, Europe is likeIt is a huge tinderbox. As long as the temperature exceeds the limit, a big explosion will occur immediately. At this time, forming an alliance with Germany will undoubtedly set you on fire. "Feng Guozhang twisted his beard and said: "Although I say so, once the European War spreads, China will inevitably be affected, and the fire will always burn on us. Once the situation gets out of control, the president must also know very well that China cannot be immune to itself. , after all, European countries and the Far East all have entangled relationships in one way or another. "
"At that time, since we can't be alone, we can only fight head-on. At this time, China is not a soft persimmon. It's not something anyone can pinch." Tang Jian snorted coldly: "But, not until necessary. At this time, we do not need to prematurely get involved in this predatory war of imperialist hegemony. After all, China is in Asia, and Asia and the Pacific are the areas where China¡¯s power should develop, not the Atlantic Ocean.¡±
Tang Jian paused and said: "Of course, the conflicts between Western European countries are not without benefits for China's development. Just like now, European countries are busy competing for hegemony on the European continent and the Atlantic and have no time to take care of the Far East. This is why In the past few years, China has enjoyed stable development without interference from foreign forces. Haha, I also want to take advantage of these few years to get back the land that the great powers seized during the Qing Dynasty. With war clouds looming in Europe, how can they have time to take care of China? What about the colonies? Also, didn¡¯t the military expansion and war preparations of European countries also promote the development of China¡¯s economy? Nowadays, there are many military factories in China, but some of them are still unable to supply the strong purchasing power of European countries. "
"Haha, I feel like we in China are a bit like arms dealers." Cao Kun joked.
As soon as Cao Kun finished speaking, everyone burst into laughter. Of course, he was not laughing at the title of "arms dealer", but was proud of the huge profits Huaxia had made through selling arms in recent years.
In the past few years, China has continued to sell science and technology that is almost obsolete for the military but is very advanced for European countries, such as tanks, aircraft, the first generation technology of M14, etc. When European countries imitated At that time, China's technology was innovating again. More advanced and more powerful weapons would be produced soon. The development of weapons technology in European countries was far behind the weapon technology innovation of China's technology.
Tang Jian smiled and said: "It's not like being an arms dealer, but you must become an arms dealer. This arms can be a huge profit. When the foreign powers invaded us, they smuggled opium here and plundered various minerals and other raw materials. I don't know how much wealth was revealed. Go to Europe, and at this time, isn't it possible to make money by selling arms? European countries have collected countless wealth from all continents since the Age of Discovery. They are all extremely rich, so don't kill them now When can we wait longer?¡±
Everyone laughed again and agreed with Tang Jian's idea of ??making China an "arms dealer."
Tang Jian looked around at the generals, and a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. The generals present may not know it, but as an authentic time traveler, Tang Jian knows very well how the United States sold arms and made high profits during World War I and World War II. , who made a fortune during the war and became a superpower after World War II.
Tang Jian is very familiar with the contradictions among European countries. In order to unify Germany and compete with France for European hegemony, Prussia broke out in the Franco-Prussian War with France from 1870 to 1871. As a result, France was defeated and Prussia won a great victory, and finally established the German Empire.
However, the Franco-Prussian armistice contract at that time was extremely harsh. Prussia stipulated in the contract that France would cede Alsace and Lorraine to Germany, and also demanded compensation of 5 billion francs. This made France resentful and extremely unhappy with the outcome of the war. willingly.
After the Franco-Prussian War, France always wanted revenge, wanted to take back Alsace and Lorraine, and wanted to annex Germany's Ruhr mining area, while Germany wanted to continue to weaken and contain France's development, and then seize France and other countries want to establish a "Central European Empire" in order to gain territory, which makes the conflicts between Germany and other neighboring countries increasingly fierce.
Among them, the most essential contradiction is that the emerging capitalist powers led by Germany are dissatisfied with reality and want to redefine their spheres of influence. Although imperialism rose in the 20th century, in the Bismarck era, Bismarck, in view of the establishment of the unified German Empire, so he had no control over the colonies. less involved in the competition.
Later, in view of the rise of domestic merchant power, merchants asked the German government to compete for overseas resources and markets. Therefore, after Wilhelm II, the iron prime minister Bismarck was deposed. The German emperor believed that Germany had too few colonies, insufficient raw material production areas and insufficient commodity markets, so he abandoned In addition to Bismarck's policy of distant diplomacy and close attack on the European continent, he began to implement the "world policy" and required the redefinition of the scope of global power.
So this violated the respective interests of the old colonial powers, Britain and France, and then the countries began to join forces, which directly led to the two major imperialist armies.Although Tang Jian knew that the war in his original time and space broke out in 1914, he was still not sure whether the war in this time and space would break out early. Judging from the current situation, the smell of gunpowder in Europe became more and more intense. The weather is getting thicker and the First World War is still about to break out!
That¡¯s why Tang Jian summoned the generals in such a hurry. Tang Jian¡¯s purpose was to prepare for war in advance in case of emergency!
PS: There are two updates today. I¡¯ll post them early today. There will be additional updates tomorrow. I¡¯m not sure exactly how many updates there will be, but I guarantee there will be three updates.