Song Biao personally hosted a banquet to entertain Marshal Xiafei as the Emperor of China who seemed to be extremely noble in Europe, which not only gave enough favor to the French people, but also proved that the Sino-French alliance was solid and inseparable.

That afternoon, Song Biao and Marshal Xiafei went to the 1st Division of the Central Army stationed in the Central Military Department Defense Zone of Kyoto Prefecture for inspection. At this time, Zhao Tingzhu was already the commander of the Zhili Military Region. Both divisions were the first army divisions in the empire to fully implement mechanization, and are now regarded as the ace force of the imperial tank troops.

Although the empire's military expenditure was large, a large part of it was used for long-term scientific research projects. The army's equipment was generally maintained during the Sino-Soviet War period, and there was indeed no need to update it on a large scale. New equipment usually only accumulates experience after a few army divisions replaced.

After inspecting the elite divisions of the CSKA in these two empires, Marshal Xiafei was very surprised. He had never expected that the Chinese army would reach this level before, and it should be that this is indeed the future army that they had discussed countless times within the French Defense Council.

The conventional garrison of the 1st Division was Tongzhou County, and the garrison of the 2nd Division was Langfang County. In order to let Marshal Xiafei see the elites of the two continental armies of the Empire at one time, Zhao Tingzhu specially mobilized both divisions to Zhuozhou County for exercise. The empire arranged an airship to carry Emperor Song, Marshal Xiafei, Chief of Staff of the Central Military Department Jiang Fangzhen and Commander of the Zhili Military Region Zhao Tingzhu.

They inspected the frontal offensive exercises of the two divisions at a distance of 300 meters above the ground. Song Biao and the others had long been used to this method, and only Marshal Xiafei felt it was very strange.

For safety, this German airship is smaller in size and uses a safer multi-airbag design and more expensive ammonia.

Watching the two tank brigades rushing forward, the two mechanized infantry divisions quickly followed the battle, quickly captured the enemy's obstacle area, and directly crossed the defense line to attack the enemy's rear defensive positions. This made Marshal Xiafei sigh for a long time.

As the sky gradually became late, the airship landed safely on the ground after the exercise. Marshal Xiamao, who had just walked out of the airship, couldn't wait to praise Emperor Song: "Your Majesty, your army is well deserved to be the strongest army in the world, no doubt about it."

March in the north is still very cold.

Song Biao put his big troops tighter, locked his eyebrows and said to Marshal Xiafei: "Military expenditure is unprecedentedly amazing, but just like our military commander who has been through countless wars, we all know that war is a money-burning machine. If you don't burn enough, don't think of defeating your opponent. If we don't burn money, we will compensate for a more luxurious huge sum of money and be divided into the country's most valuable territory. This is a failure that we cannot bear.

Marshal Xiafei, who was big belly, seemed not to believe that there were problems with the imperial army expenditure, and smiled and said, "As far as I know, China's financial situation is simply the best among the world's powerful countries. Except for the United States and Britain, no country has more military expenditure than China."

Song Biao said: "No, the Soviet Union is higher than us, but their national economic system is different from ours, so we can't see clearly. If we always think that our military expenditure is very high, we will generally not be able to laugh. After the Ise incident, the relationship between the British and Japanese alliance was closer, and Japan continued to receive long-term support from Britain, which made their economy develop very quickly. In the past few years, we have always believed that Japan is the most profitable person in the international community. Compared with their navy, I think even if China and France combined cannot defeat them. Think about it, my Excellency Marshal Xiafei, how an embarrassing thing is."

Marshal Xiafei reluctantly carried a thick black belt, sighing as if holding his fat belly: "Yes, it's such an embarrassing thing, but our financial situation always makes people angry, and there is nothing worse than this. China is one of the largest countries in the world like the evil Soviet Union. This is destined that your country must focus more financial resources on the army, and we also know this very well. From now on, the thing we are most worried about is that if the Soviet Union adopts a policy of mutual peace, whether it is the Soviet Union attacking China or Germany attacking France, it will be difficult for us to restrain each other. Of course, what is more terrifying than this is the uniting of two evil countries."

Song Biao sneered in his heart, thinking that you, the marshal, would never think of what a truly evil Germany would look like. Germany is now simply harmless, so where is it evil? In other words, no matter how France looks at Germany, it just feels that this country hates the most.

Of course, Song Biao never expected that the empire's strength would expand and force the British Empire to gradually relax the opening of the colonial market to Japan, especially after the Ise incident, which was an unexpected ending.

In short, in order to restrain China and the United States, the British Empire was tightening its belt to support Japan. It would rather have its own industry be damaged and signed a new trade treaty similar to that with Japan, providing Japan with sufficient discounts and broad parasitic development space, just like a roundworm in the British Empire's body.

This did not cause much damage to the UK, because it is well known that after the gold standard was reimplemented, the local British industry suffered a severe blow. In addition, the prices of commodities and raw materials around the world gradually declined, and Japan imported raw materials from China and other places to supplement its domestic industrial inadequateness, and then exported cheap goods to the British market.

Another factor is that the economic and trade war between China and Japan has basically ended. During the Ouyang'an cabinet stage, China focuses more on expanding domestic demand and continuously increasing workers' wages year by year. As industrial technology gradually improves, China's industrial exports to the outside world have gradually developed towards machinery, electrical, automobile, ship, steel and other products. However, there is still a fierce competitive relationship with Japan in the textile industry. The decline in global cotton, wool and raw silk prices has attenuated China's advantages in the field of raw materials. The main gap between the two sides' weaving industry is that the size of the domestic demand market has roughly the same share in the foreign market.

The strong competitive situation between China and Japan is beneficial to both sides to some extent. Both sides are desperately trying to improve the industrial level and increase the scale of technological research and introduction. However, the empire has a greater advantage in the fields of machine tools, electricity and automobiles.

Judging from the total economic volume, the gap between China and Japan is widening. From the perspective of per capita, the gap between the two sides has not actually widened significantly.

In 1924, the Chinese Empire's GDP exceeded 75 billion yuan, close to 1 in the United States

2. Japan is close to 13 billion yen, with an increase of equally astonishing. Affected by the sharp decline in global agricultural and mining products, the advantages of China and the United States over Japan have been significantly narrowed. However, the economic development of China and the United States is more comprehensive, while the total output value of Japan's military industry and related industries account for 1 of the entire national GDP.

4.

Of course, national output does not represent the strength and potential of various countries. After all, the empire still has a broader room for development. At this stage, it no longer seeks speed but stability and the continuous expansion of domestic demand. If the world economy is in a Great Depression, as long as the policies are reasonable, the foundation established by the empire during the Ouyang Fei Cabinet period is enough to ensure that the empire can continue to develop steadily. Japan's current development based on the opening of British colonies is too much affected by external factors. Once it encounters a global Great Depression, it must maintain development through war.

It is precisely because of this that the empire will transfer a large amount of military expenses to the navy in the next few years and quickly expand the navy to prevent any incidents.

From the exercise site, Song Biao and his team returned to the exercise headquarters like this. They had been on an airship before, but now they are riding in this special military light vehicle. Marshal Xiafei, who is burly and fat, can't help but feel tired of this kind of vehicle with strong off-road performance.

Great Wall Heavy Industry is a company jointly operated by the Far East Consortium and the Jinshang Shangbang. Its main base is Shanxi, with military industry as the main body and also produces cars. It is currently the third largest automobile company in the empire. The imperial unit has four major suppliers of military vehicles, which happens to be the four major automobile companies each with 1m. Off-road vehicles are Great Wall Heavy Industry's advantageous project.

Although it is the first generation of light off-road vehicles, it is still very new to Marshal Xiafei, but it is also very new to Song Biao and others, because the first batch of off-road vehicles orders from the military headquarters were only in place at the end of last year.

Back at the exercise command headquarters, on the way to the guesthouse restaurant, Marshal Xiafei couldn't wait to sigh to Song Biao: "This kind of military vehicle with good power is a very good choice, and France should also produce such vehicles. Of course, this inspection in the empire is indeed of great significance to us. It seems that we must take a big step forward more bravely."

Song Biao suggested: "There is no need to take a big step now, but every small step is to take. In fact, there are not many troops that truly achieve mechanization in the Imperial Central Army. However, with limited military expenditure, our method is to first ensure the mechanization of elite troops, explore experience from it, spend the least money to experiment with various possibilities, summarize experience and data, continuously accumulate new improvements, slowly advance, and gradually improve the mechanized direction of the entire army, which can allow us to complete a major change in the smallest military expenditure."

Marshal Xiafei praised: "Yes, this is the best way, but as we know, technological progress is becoming increasingly difficult for us to cope with new military changes. Ah, this is the best era of military affairs and the worst era. If we are not careful, we will be eliminated by the times. If we always grasp the ever-changing changes of the world, that is impossible and expensive. In my military career, I have never encountered a more difficult and complex period than now, which makes it difficult for us to cope with. It seems that there are countless choices, but war will tell us that only one way of all choices is correct."

"yes!"

Song Biao exclaimed the same, saying: "But how to adopt the joint development method, our expenses will be greatly reduced. For example, the Hanyang rifle that we have already started to be officially equipped. This rifle has been in the past ten years from design to service. During this period, it has undergone three major improvements and improvements, and has been constantly tested by small-scale troops. Including in production, we have been constantly changing mechanical equipment and machine tools, and even the basic technology has changed many times. To sum up today, it will be our most perfect infantry weapon, with cheaper production prices and the ability to produce large-scale."

Marshal Xiafei sighed and said, "Then let's take a look at it."

Song Biao nodded slightly and signaled Zhao Tingzhu to come here in person with a Hanyang rifle.

Because the Army has officially started to change the U-Speed ​​25 Hanyang rifle on a large scale, this kind of rifle is already very common, especially the main elite troops full of honor. Zhao Tingzhu quickly borrowed a Hanyang rifle from a soldier, and in case of self-inspection, he handed it over to Marshal Xiafei.

Marshal Xiafei, who was born as an infantry lieutenant, was naturally very familiar with rifles. With a little operation, he became more and more aware that this was a very excellent semi-automatic rifle.

Everyone was a little itchy. Before dinner, they found a shooting range nearby to test the gun himself. Song Biao also shot six times in a row. Although he felt unfamiliar, he still hit four times in the bull's eye. Marshal Xiafei hit three times in ten times. Only Zhao Tingzhu hit the bull's eye with seven times in a row. He is worthy of being the commander who has been on the front line for many years and keeps his guns away.

If you can't hit the bull's eye, you can't be bad at the gun.

What's more, Hanyang rifle is really good. It has undergone three improvements since its service in 13 years. In particular, the modification in 1925 uses special machine tools and stamping technology, which greatly reduces manufacturing costs while maintaining data such as accuracy, range, and power, and further increases the efficiency of large-scale production. The m1925 model has not yet been popularized, and the one that Marshal Xiafei got is m1918

The 22 model is a slightly improved model in 1922 based on the old 13-year major modification model.

After personally testing the shooting speed, Marshal Xiafei was a little embarrassed. At first, China proposed that the French army directly use Shenyang rifles. For many reasons, the French army finally chose to absorb some of the designs of Shenyang rifles to improve the Betier rifles. As a result, many unsatisfactory situations occurred in the war and were forced to buy Shenyang rifles from China in large quantities.

Because the French army equipped the Shenyang rifle too many, the National Defense Committee had to completely abandon the Betier rifle after the war and named it Foch Rifle based on the introduction of Shenyang rifle patents.

Until today, Foch rifles still have very good advantages in performance and cost compared to the Li Yi Enfield rifles and Mauser rifles that are mainly equipped by surrounding countries. The National Defense Commission, which is not enterprising, no longer wants to waste an extra franc on a rifle, as if Foch rifles are the pinnacle of the world's rifles, and they do not have the enterprising aspirations of the French nation at all.

The advantage of Foch rifle is that it is very simple. It is cheaper and easier to use than Enfield, it operates simply, fast and smoothly. It is more accurate than Mauser rifle, loads faster, and is very reliable. It can adapt to various complex and dirty environments. The only disadvantage is that the rate of fire is a little slower than that of Enfield rifle.

Now in Marshal Xiafei's opinion, the Hanyang rifle is an advanced version of the Shenyang rifle, and it does not even have the only defect of the rate of fire. The speed of fire makes him stutter. There are no problems with the accuracy, power, or the smoothness of the operation, and there are many innovative designs.

Obviously, there is really no better rifle than this guy. The only thing that Marshal Xiafei worried was that the soldiers would consume ammunition speed a little too fast. If their psychological quality is not good, they would probably shoot all the ammunition as soon as they got up.

As for the ammunition, the ammunition of the two rifles, Hanyang and Shenyang, is the same, just replace the rifle directly.

In fact, it is different. The newly improved base fire formula is more efficient and reduces corrosion to a minimum. Because of this improvement, coupled with the retained dust cover design, the new Hanyang rifle can almost be claimed to be a rifle that does not need to be cleaned.

For this small improvement, the Army has invested a lot of military expenditures continuously.

Marshal Xiafei suddenly shrugged because he guessed that France would find it difficult to accept the fact that the French would continue to introduce Chinese firearm patent technology, and rifles were the pride of the French nation.

He thought carefully for a moment, and then praised Song Biao: "This is really a great rifle. If possible, we want to introduce its technology to make a little modification on this basis."

Song Biao knew what Marshal Xiafei meant, and waved his hand without caring about it, saying, "We are inseparable allies. This is not a big deal, and we are very supportive of France to replace the rifle. This is the most important thing, isn't it, Your Excellency Marshal?"

Marshal Xiafei immediately replied, "Yes, who said no?"

After a brief pause, he added: "I think this visit to China is really the right thing and I have gained a lot. I must sincerely sigh that His Majesty, as Emperor Napoleon emphasized, once China wakes up from its sleep, it will be the most terrifying nation and country in the world. China and France are the two world powers with the longest history and honor. Our alliance will effectively deter all enemies who dare to invade us. The close cooperation between France and the Chinese nation will tear all enemies apart. I have absolutely no doubts about such judgment. If anyone has such doubts, we will eventually prove this with real war."

Song Biao laughed and thought to himself, I had deep doubts. Marshal, you France will always be the best ally in the era of peace, and it is better than Italy in the era of war.

Because the Central Military Department had sufficient preparations, everyone knew that Marshal Xiafei was a well-known gourmet. Even in the exercise command post, the Military Department arranged a sumptuous meal of Chinese and French to entertain the world-renowned military commander.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the inner court also seized the opportunity to recommend the Yunnan Shangri-La brandy used by the imperial royal family.

The empire currently has three more well-known brandy, produced in Shan and Yantai, Manas, Xinjiang and Diqing brandy in Yunnan. Diqing brandy uses the Tibetan Chinese translation of Nimazong "Shangri-La".

Although Shangri-La brandy does not have the mellow quality that exceeds European brandy, its fragrance is unique and the wine tastes relatively mellow. Marshal Xiafei really praised it and thought it was the best brandy he had ever tasted.

OK, I'll just wait for your words, even if they're polite words.

After dinner, everyone continued to discuss Sino-French military cooperation at the table. At this time, some of the previous grudges between each other disappeared with the brandy. Everyone spoke freely. If we talked about technical cooperation, France did not have many new techniques worthy of the Empire's concern.

Therefore, this kind of cooperation is mainly about exchanges in military system and military ideas, as well as the reduction of military expenditure through joint development, absorbing each other's ready-made technologies and products, and continuing to save time.

Both countries adopt metric units in the standards of naval, army and air force, such as 75-cannon, 105-cannon, 120-cannon, and the design of tanks, aircraft, engines, and armor is metric units, which has always played a positive role in the major cooperation between the two sides.

The most troublesome military expenditure at this stage is the naval field, and it is also the direction that China and France need to seek breakthroughs. It just so happened that the Empire is designing a new Yuzhou-class battleship, which adopts a standard displacement of 00-ton and a 16-inch 50-diameter main gun, and its style is still a German warship. If the test of building two warships in this class is very successful, the Empire will continue to build two.

By then, the empire will have four Sonian-class, two Qingzhou-class and four Yuzhou-class battleships, with a total tonnage of tens of thousands of tons. After dismantling the two Joint Force-class battleships, they will just reach the upper limit of the Washington Treaty.

The main competition direction of navies in various countries is cruisers. The empire's financial situation is relatively good, and the competition situation is relatively strong. The empire's 10,000-ton cruisers are basically built using the standards of pocket battle cruisers or even pocket battleships, but the caliber of the main gun is kept at a limit of 1 inch.

The former is called a heavy cruiser in the empire, while the latter is called an armored cruiser. It is actually a small and scarce ship. Moreover, the empire has reservations in design. As long as the treaty is abolished, the Imperial Navy will immediately increase the caliber of most heavy cruisers and armored cruisers to 12 inches.

At the beginning, Britain and Japan refused to agree to limit the number and total tonnage of cruisers, but in fact they maintained their advantages based on naval spending. It is still a bit embarrassing now, because in most cases, heavy cruisers and light cruisers are used the most.

The French Navy really has no money.

France did not even develop a 16-inch naval main gun because it had no money. Especially when it occupied the Ruhr industrial zone in 1991, the economy suffered another heavy blow, and the empire was different.

If the colonies are not counted, the empire's economic scale is four times that of France, and the fiscal situation is much better. Of course, it does not mean that the empire is much stronger than France at this time. The current industrial output value of France accounts for 55% of the total output value, agriculture has basically returned to the pre-war level, and the urbanization rate has reached 99%.

Because of the average land policy during the Revolution, France's urbanization rate was relatively slowest among the British, French and German countries, even so, reaching 40%, while the imperial urbanization rate was around 31%, which was only equivalent to France's level in 1870.

There is indeed no way. The empire has too many populations and too vast territory. The land limit policy in Ouyang'an's cabinet slowed down the empire's urbanization process like the French Revolution.

The empire currently hopes to reach a town rate of 99% in 1950. At this stage, it is not very difficult unless there is a comprehensive large-scale crisis in the world economy.

An interesting place is that the urbanization of the empire was learning from Russia and France. This matter first starts with the Northeast period. At that time, the urbanization of the Northeast and urban construction planning were plagiarized by a large number of Russian and French plagiarized by Russia and France. At that time, the relationship with Russia and France was the best. As the empire rose from the Northeast and occupied the whole country, this trend spread to the whole country.

After officials from all over the country visited the Northeast, they all designed urban planning according to the Northeast framework when they came back. Many cities directly acquired land and developed new areas when the old city was difficult to develop, copying the framework of square cities like Paris.

History is a very interesting thing. Plagiarizing France a hundred years ago is trendy and classics... Plagiarizing France a hundred years later is lack of creativity and vulgarity.

Of course, one of the characteristics of reformism here is that it still retains some of the essence of tradition. For example, we also take the street roads of squares and cities, but in the street planning, it is a quadrangle, just south, north, east and west. On this basis, it absorbs the design of squares and parks in Europe, and in the main building complex, it generally adopts the regional reformist national architectural design framework recommended by the Central Architecture Society.

Anyway, in Song Biao's eyes, this era of empire is very interesting and cute.

The total economic scale of the empire is very high. Compared with Britain, France, the United States and Germany, the industrialization rate is not very high. This is very similar to the situation in the United States in 1800. The industry is very developed, but the scale of the agricultural and animal husbandry industry is indeed too large, which is precisely the foundation of the long-term development of the empire.

Economics determine politics, politics determines military.

The good financial situation of the Chinese Empire really made Marshal Xiafei envious. The Sino-French Alliance Treaty continued to renew, and the scope of this alliance cooperation was basically decided, because France had too little choice, and it had to form an alliance with China to maintain its special influence in the world and Europe.

Anyway, they all drank a lot of wine, including Song Biao, and everyone was the military generals of China and France sitting together for a chat.

When Song Biao talked about the issue of economy, he still suggested that China-France cooperation must be deepened, that France and France's colonies must be opened to China more significantly, allowing China to sell more goods and investment, and the Chinese market will also be opened to France on a larger scale, so that the two countries will become closer and united and take a path of common development.

China still needs France's talents and educational advantages very much. France also needs China's market. The two sides need more stable cooperation in technology exchanges and financial markets. Moreover, China now has a large-scale immigration demand. If France opens the colonial market and allows China to immigrate, China's population, funds, technology and equipment to build a colony in the past will be a very good result for France, and it is simply a profit.

Through this cooperation, China's fiscal situation is better and France's fiscal situation is improved. Both China and France can benefit from it. They can establish a strong army to ensure the common hegemony of China and France in the Eurasian continent.
To be continued...