It is best to arrange it this way now. He is just a shield for the emperor. It is better to say that the emperor serves him as a staff officer, rather than that he serves as the emperor's deputy. If the emperor loses, he will have to take the blame for the time being, and there will always be another one in the future.

When it is activated or even reused, if the emperor wins, he will wait for further promotion.

With everyone here, Song Biao, Duan Qirui, Jiang Fangzhen and others discussed various details of sending troops to Iran. They said that it would take one thousand to ten thousand. In the final analysis, it was necessary to establish a shipping force sufficient to ensure transportation capabilities. In addition to

In addition to domestic merchant ships and cargo ships, merchant ships should be leased from abroad as much as possible, especially from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Basically, in order to win this war, the empire must at least ensure a shipping fleet size of 600,000 tons, almost 20 10,000-ton cargo ships, nearly a hundred ordinary cargo ships of about 5,000 tons, and many more.

A large cruise ship was converted into a troop transport ship. The empire has four troop transport ships, all of which were converted from cruise ships leased from France. They are currently used in the European battlefield.

In addition, it is necessary to effectively defend the Ottoman Empire's navy. The problem of submarines is not big, because it is difficult for German submarines to enter the Mediterranean, and it is even impossible to cross the Suez Canal and enter the Indian Ocean. Song Biao chose to concentrate China's main forces on the Middle East line.

One of the most important factors was to avoid the German submarine force.

In the second half of 1916, the empire adopted a wall-mounted foreign policy of interest. It assumed that I was ready to send out large-scale troops for a long time. Now it depends on which of you gives me more benefits. This posture is actually

It is very disgusting and hateful to the international world.

As we all know, the Chinese Empire has the fourth-lowest troop contribution among the Allied Powers so far. It is only higher than Portugal and New Zealand. However, the benefits it gained during the war are much higher than any other country among the Allied Powers. Not only did it occupy Germany's territories in Asia and East Africa

A major colony, it also became the largest creditor of Britain and France from the arms trade of the Allied Powers.

In the words of Prime Minister Henry Asquith, We neither know what this new empire will need nor what they will fight for. But without justice, they may get nothing!

Everyone will use their own way to subtly threaten their opponents. Prime Minister Asquith hopes to make a subtle statement in the media, warning China that if it really joins the German-Austrian camp, it will lose everything.

But in any case, German emissaries have been operating within the new empire. In the cartoons drawn by the British with a discriminatory mood, Europeans wearing German Empire hats are holding gold coins marked with gold marks.

Bao Bao was walking under the Forbidden City, surrounded by Manchu officials in the style of the Qing Empire.

This shows that the vast majority of British people, or almost all Europeans, do not understand what kind of changes China has undergone and what changes have taken place.

In their minds, China is a concentration camp for poor lepers, a poor, backward, ignorant, thin, ignorant, and barbaric country. It is not worthy of respect at all. Even if such a country joins the Allies, it will be a shame for the glorious British Empire and France.

To put it bluntly, even those MPs don’t know what China actually means. Even when Prime Minister Asquith continues to emphasize the importance of China in Parliament, there will be a burst of noise in the seats as if he is talking about a talk show.

of laughter.

Even though the Chinese Army defeated the Japanese Army in 1911, it only used 200,000 troops to contain the attack of 35 Austro-Hungarian Army Infantry Divisions. It not only has a huge population and war potential, but it is also the most important armament of the Allied Powers.

Industrial supplier countries.

Among the firearms used by the Allied Forces, 1/4 were rifles, 1/3 were machine guns and submachine guns, 1/5 were rifles and grenades, 1/3 were artillery shells, and 1/10 were artillery and mortars.

More than 1/2 of the rubber products, gas masks, tents, and helmets came from China. The cheap materials made the Allied Powers' military expenditure 30% lower than expected.

Even in 1916, China's total industrial scale was only about 1/7 of that of the United States. However, in the military industry and related basic mining fields, with the support of the "Allied Mutual Insurance Treaty", China was actually larger than the United States.

There are more advantages. Currently, in the world's military industry, the United States, Britain and France sell machinery and equipment to China. Africa, South America, Southeast Asia and other countries and China itself supply a large amount of raw materials, which are produced and processed in China into weapons, ammunition and other products.

Military supplies.

If these materials are purchased from the United States, the Allied countries, including Britain and France, will have to pay for the precarious gold reserves of each country, not the national debt. Although there are still many problems in the quality of China's products, it is true that in addition to production capacity and low price

There are no advantages at all, but in this rapid consumption stage during war, production capacity and low cost are the most important key issues.

The Battle of the Somme inflicted heavy losses on the British and French coalition forces, and a general sense of war weariness in Europe was spreading. The situation forced the British and French war cabinets to delay the problem for a long time.

In October 1916, French Prime Minister Briand arrived in Beijing and held talks with Tang Shaoyi, the Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet. Together with Sir Lloyd George, the British Secretary of War, they signed the "Secret Treaty of the Middle East" on behalf of Britain, France and the Empire, that is, Britain and France supported China's sending troops to attack Iran.

Os

In order to share the pressure of Russia in the two-front war, the Empire continued to move to the Balkans after forcing the Ottoman Empire to withdraw, and joined forces with Italy and other Allied Powers to attack the Austro-Hungarian Army, forcing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to withdraw from the war and achieve a three-sided encirclement.

German strategy.

According to this secret agreement, Britain and France recognized that the Chinese Empire had the right to continue to station troops and protect the occupied territories in the Middle East. Britain would return Hong Kong to Hong Kong before the end of the war and recognized the empire's territorial sovereignty over Japan.

However, in this agreement, the United Kingdom did not agree to the demarcation line agreement between China, India, and China proposed by the empire, nor did it recognize that the Riau Islands were owned by China. This actually meant that the post-war Sino-British relations would never be the same.

Very smoothly, the disputes between the two countries are far greater than the cooperation.

Different from the British Empire's usual arrogance and arrogance, France pays more attention to the continuation and stability of the Sino-French alliance. In addition to signing the "Secret Treaty between China, Britain and France on the Middle East", it continued to sign the "Indochina Peace Agreement" with the Chinese Empire, which included Laos.

and Cambodia's protective rights were returned to the Chinese Empire, while the Empire recognized France's "permanent protective rights" over Vietnam and promised to transfer German colonies in West Africa to French protection "peacefully and friendly" after the war.

Of course, France is also a cheat. It assigned the protection rights of Laos and Cambodia to the Chinese Empire, which further intensified the competition between the Chinese Empire and Britain in Indochina. But even if it is a French trap, China must eat it.

In fact, both China and France knew very well at this time that France had suffered too much damage in the war. Not to mention that it had not yet seen the victory of the war, even after the victory it would be a tragic victory. France would have decades of recovery.

In this period, Britain will become the only powerful player in Europe and continue to maintain control over Asia and Africa.

This means that whether it is between wars or after the war, China and France must maintain closer cooperation. As for if everyone is defeated, then just drink cold water and sit back and watch Germany occupy Europe, Asia and Africa, China

If we don't continue to send troops, we may be able to form an alliance with Germany in the future. Once we continue to increase troops, we can only fight to the death.

Although Song Biao did not think that the "Secret Treaty in the Middle East" was meaningful based on the credibility of the British, especially with reference to the example of Britain playing with Italy, he was still willing to implement a new plan based on it and officially dispatched troops to Iran.

troops, embarking on larger-scale military mobilization and war preparations, striving to launch a large-scale military operation against the Ottoman Empire before March next year.

In fact, China is still in a difficult situation at this time. Politically and diplomatically, it does not have the status of a big country at all, nor does it have such a status militarily. Except for France, which has no choice but to unite with China, other countries, including Russia, do not recognize how big a country China is.

The strength is so great that even Japan looks down on China.

In the final analysis, it is still an issue of the navy and long-term historical discrimination. It is true that this kind of discrimination was not really broken until the period of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea. This is not a true breakthrough. It can only be said to have allowed other countries to recognize that China has stood up.

, as for China standing up and still being a 15-meter little man on the basketball court, that is another matter.

This is not only the European and American world's discrimination against China, but also the Anglo-Saxon race's discrimination against the entire Pan-Asian race. If Hitler hadn't made the world realize how terrible this kind of racial discrimination is, so that Europe and the United States would reflect on it, this kind of

Discrimination will continue for at least several hundred years.

If you want to break this inertia, it is very simple. Just like the People's Liberation Army challenging the US military, find a fight with a world-recognized powerful country. Even if your whole body bleeds, you will stand and die.

Might makes right.

The status of a country is always forged. Welcome to come and your support is my biggest motivation.m
Chapter completed!