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Chapter 55: The Steps of War

After the National Day in 2034, Mu Haoyang no longer cared about equipment construction.

At that time, the Marine Corps Command had been completed, and Mu Haoyang called Pang Yuelong back and asked him to be responsible for equipment construction. Pang Yuelong had similar work experience before, so he was able to replace Mu Haoyang. As for the Marine Corps, Mu Haoyang handed over to Cao Anguo, who was nearly 60 years old.

For Mu Haoyang, the most important task is to come up with a highly operational war plan as soon as possible.

By this time, the top leaders no longer have any illusions about peace.

During the negotiations on oil and gas resource extraction in the East China Sea, Japan's capricious performance made Yi Yuan and North Korea realize that Japan has no intention of living with the ****, but is just using negotiations to buy time, or paralyzing its opponents, allowing China to relax its vigilance, thus creating favorable conditions for the war.

What is more convincing is the verification of Japan.

After being entangled for nearly two years, the verification of Japan is still not explained. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency has conducted four verifications on Japan under China's strong request, each time it only checked the nuclear facilities designated by the Japanese authorities and did not conduct surprise inspections on suspicious facilities. This made Chinese leaders believe that Western countries, including the United States, have been favoring Japan, or using Japan.

For leaders such as Li Pingko, war is no longer a problem, and the problem is how to reduce the cost of war.

The most worrying thing is not whether you can defeat Japan, but how much price you need to pay for it.

The international situation is clear at a glance. The United States has been secretly promoting the fire, clearly showing the last value of trying to squeeze Japan out. To put it bluntly, it is to use the Sino-Japanese War to weaken China, so that China will not be able to pose a threat to the United States for a long time in the future.

In fact, what the United States needs is a total war related to China.

According to the statistical results released in early 2034, China's total economic output exceeded that of the United States in 2033, becoming the world's largest economy. In addition, China is also the world's largest trading country, the largest importer of resources and energy, the largest importer of grain, the largest exporter of industrial products and the largest exporter of expatriates. If we only count the army, China is still the number one military power.

However, the situation in the United States is not as bad as expected.

In many aspects, the United States is still ahead of the world. For example, in terms of financial strength, the United States is still far ahead of China. In terms of 184 categories (fields) cutting-edge technologies announced by the United Nations, the United States is leading in 127 categories, and has an absolute leading advantage in 88 categories, while China only has a leading advantage in 34 categories, and only twelve categories have an absolute leading advantage. In addition, in soft power such as education, culture, and public opinion, the United States has a clear leading advantage, with a leading margin ranging from five to fifteen years.

More importantly, the US economic development is also very rapid.

In 2033, the US economic growth rate reached 6.2%, while in the five years from 2029 to 2033, the average growth rate was 5.7%, which was the second peak of growth after World War II, second only to the early 1950s. Because the North American Free Trade Zone was expanded into the "American Free Trade Zone" and the Latin American countries such as Brazil were integrated into new economies, the US economic growth rate will not slow down in the next twenty years, and there will be some growth, and the US economy will inevitably be stronger.

Relatively speaking, the US economic growth rate is more valuable.

The reason is simple: the United States has the most reasonable population structure.

Judging from the proportion of national age distribution, the ideal nature of the U.S. population structure is second only to India, and it is the most dynamic among several major economies in the world.

In other words, the United States has no population burden.

Compared with this, China is not so lucky.

According to the national census conducted in 2030, China entered a stage of full aging in 2027, and it will last for more than 30 years.

Although China's economic growth rate was 7.4%, a little 2 percentage point higher than the United States in 2033, and the average growth rate in the past five years was also a little 3 percentage point higher than the United States, the contribution rate of social pension to economic growth was negative 2.6%, while the United States was only negative 1.1%. In other words, after deducting social pension, China's actual economic growth rate was 0.3 percentage points lower than that of the United States. As the aging of the population intensifies, this gap will expand in the next 30 years.

The result is that China's available social resources do not exceed that of the United States.

If the US economic growth rate continues, China's available social resources will be seriously lagging behind the US around 2045.

This means that in the era of comprehensive confrontation between China and the United States, China's capital is not as good as the United States.

To put it bluntly, both national defense construction and military investment must use social resources, and national defense construction is a purely consumed construction of "only input but not output" and can only be borne by available social resources. When the total amount is not as good as the United States, China's national defense construction speed is definitely not as fast as that of the United States.

From the standpoint of the United States, the full-scale war between China and Japan is likely to become the last straw that crushes China.

If China consumes all the accumulated wealth in this war, then China's economic development will encounter huge troubles in the next few decades. For the United States, it only takes twenty to thirty years. As long as it surpasses China in economic terms, the United States will have enough confidence to defeat China in the confrontation.

This scene has appeared in history.

In the 1970s, the United States was dragged down by the Vietnam War, coupled with the oil crisis triggered by the Third Middle East War, the US economy entered an ice age, while the former Soviet Union grew and grew stronger during this period. The scale of industrial production was once close to that of the United States, but in the 1980s, the eight-year war consumed all its social wealth, which directly led to the reformists coming to power in the late 1980s and eventually led to the disintegration of the former Soviet Union.

Perhaps, China will not disintegrate, but it will definitely lose the ability to challenge the United States.

At that time, China will have to accept the international order led by the United States and the fait accompli with the United States leading the global situation.

For China, this is a worse result.

You should know that if the rules of the game of the international order cannot be formulated, China will not be able to solve domestic problems and will sooner or later become a third-rate country due to internal turmoil.

Of course, the United States also has to pay the price for it.

No matter what the outcome of the war is, even if China is defeated, Japan will rise rapidly and become a new threat. However, for a long time in the future, China and Japan will first resolve the legacy of the war. It is impossible to challenge the United States and cannot pose a threat to the United States.

In fact, any result is good for the United States.

For example, if Japan is defeated, the United States can obtain immeasurable benefits by helping Japan to rebuild post-warly. When China helped North Korea to rebuild post-warly, it had achieved a golden development period of more than ten years. Japan's population is six times that of North Korea, and its national quality is much higher than that of North Korea. To help Japan to rebuild post-warly, the United States can ensure that there is a sufficiently solid economic growth point in the next twenty years.

To put it bluntly, before the war broke out, the United States was sure to win.

If you see this clearly, it is not difficult to understand why the United States is fueling the fire.

From another perspective, it is not difficult to understand why Yi Yuanchao and others firmly oppose the war against Japan, but insist on resolving national disputes in a peaceful manner.

The problem is that Yi Yuanchao only saw one side, but not the other side.

The contradiction between China and Japan has developed to the point where it cannot be resolved through peaceful means. Adhering to the peace proposition is equivalent to putting aside existing problems and making the contradiction unable to be resolved. There is no doubt that China will not be able to delay it because China needs a broader space for development.

If you drag on it, the result will be even more miserable.

It is precisely because of this understanding that from Fu Xiubo to Li Pingko, they all pursued tough diplomacy.

However, the situation Li Pingko faced was much more severe than Fu Xiubo back then.

Fortunately, Li Pingkoo also has much more resources than Fu Xiubo.

At the beginning, before deciding to send troops to North Korea, Fu Xiubo hesitated for a week, almost graying his head overnight, and had no confidence in the military struggle.

It’s not that Fu Xiubo doesn’t believe in the army, but that Chinese soldiers don’t have confidence.

Now, Li Pingkou basically doesn't have to worry about military issues.

There is no suspense to defeat Japan. For Li Pingko, the key is how much price it will cost and whether you can get more benefits from it.

Obviously, this is not a military issue, but a political issue.

In this political decision-making, military means can only be used as a reference.

There is no doubt that a comprehensive, complete, feasible war plan is the most important reference factor.

This important task fell on Mu Haoyang's shoulders.

Teng Yaohui fully fulfilled his promise. Not only did he not interfere with Mu Haoyang's war preparations, he also proposed at the beginning of the year that Mu Haoyang would be fully responsible for the war against Japan.

Like Lu Fenglie back then, Teng Yaohui was only responsible for the work in the rear and acted as Mu Haoyang's "logistics manager".

Thanks to this, Mu Haoyang began to formulate a war plan in July 2033, after Li Pingko became the head of state. It was only a year before the end of June 2034, because the equipment construction work was not fully implemented, it was limited to the strategic level.

As the equipment construction gradually became in place and the progress was expected, Mu Haoyang began to formulate a detailed battle plan.

For Mu Haoyang, this is quite familiar.

In October, after the Li Pingkou made a war decision, Mu Haoyang began to implement various battle plans.

After two months of hard work, in mid-December, Mu Haoyang first submitted a complete war plan to Teng Yaohui, and then submitted it to Li Pingko.

This is mainly to respect Teng Yaohui.

Given the situation at that time, Mu Haoyang could have directly handed over the war plan to Li Pingko.

However, Li Pingko had not made the final decision, or the political time for the war was not yet ripe, so the war plan formulated by Mu Haoyang still lacked the last necessary condition.
Chapter completed!