1890 King of Southeast Asia

After considering many factors, Zheng Shangqing and Huang Zhengfang agreed to this operation, and the two sides completed the transaction very smoothly.

In the following November, the number of transactions between the two sides increased rapidly. By the end of November, the two sides had conducted 20 transactions, with a total of nearly 200,000 tons of materials transported.

Among them, about 100,000 tons of grain, the rest of the bulk of which were raw materials such as petroleum and rubber, and finally a batch of medicines.

The transaction amount reached 53 tons of gold! Including the previous transactions, the Huaxia Empire has taken 80 tons of gold from Germany.

Xu Hui judged that Germany’s national gold reserves should have been almost gone. It sounds a bit outrageous. Germany has so many countries, but its gold reserves are so little?

This is the fact. Germany is a relatively pure industrial processing country. Economic growth mainly comes from industrial exports, not the British and French plunder of colonies.

At the moment before the war began, Germany was still conducting normal trade, and a large amount of foreign exchange was spent on purchasing raw materials.

After the end of November, Huang Zhengfang was relieved, thinking that winter was coming soon and the Germans would be quieter.

In this way, he also has time to further eliminate the hidden dangers of possible information leakage. In this October, the frequent material transfer has attracted the attention of many people.

These people may be kind-hearted, such as Zheng Shangqing once suspected that Huang Zhengfang was reselling military supplies, suspected that the materials were embezzled and resold, and then conducted an investigation.

Good intentions are good, but the more people know, the more risk of leakage. Huang Zhengfang dare not gamble, this is an act that will cause international shock.

Zheng Lei told him from the beginning that if the matter was revealed, Huang Zhengfang would be charged with "reselling military supplies" and live under a different identity.

Although the death row prisoner has been prepared and his identity has been replaced, Huang Zhengfang still wants to live with his identity if possible.

At the end of October, Germany increased its order demand again. This time, the Germans even tried to directly order military supplies such as artillery shells, detonators, and explosives, but were rejected.

Zheng Lei was afraid that these weapons would be kept by the Ottomans and used against him, so he was only willing to sell the corresponding raw materials.

Therefore, the Germans ordered 100 tons of gold, or 66,660,000 yuan worth of military raw materials, and hoped to speed up delivery.

This was a big order, Zheng Lei did not dare to decide, and finally handed it to Xu Hui and Liu Ming. Liu Ming looked at the battlefield situation, agreed to the deal, and was willing to provide semi-finished raw materials.

"The Germans probably want to take advantage of the winter when the Russians can't move, launch an attack, and hope to take this opportunity to change the situation." Liu Ming quickly figured out the joints after receiving the report.

Winter is here, and the Russians are trapped by General Winter and it is difficult to launch an attack, but Western Europe is not too cold at present, and it will not freeze even at night, and it is still about ten degrees during the day.

Under normal circumstances, France will not be too cold in the next month, with more than 3 degrees at night and more than 10 degrees during the day, which will not affect the combat effectiveness of the army.

And what about the Russians? Warsaw has begun to frost, and in St. Petersburg, it started snowing in mid-October. Even if the army can move, the logistics can't keep up.

"Is there a risk of triggering a large-scale rout of Britain and France? Do we need to remind our allies?" Xu Hui tapped his fingers on the table.

"No, the British and French cannot afford to lose. Even if Paris is occupied by the Germans, they will continue to resist."

"The Germans have already failed, and they are still holding on, but they are unwilling to admit defeat. At the same time, some people are trying to get enough benefits."

Liu Ming shook his head. The German attack may be successful to a certain extent, so what?

The entire Western Front is trenches, and half of France is fortifications. How many kilometers can the Germans advance the front line? 20? 50? Or 100 kilometers?

Ludendorff is indeed talented, but in this kind of direct confrontation between national strengths, the commander's command talent can only guarantee the lower limit, and can gain a certain advantage, and then it's gone.

"Strengthen the Germans and increase the losses of the British. This will increase our importance and will only benefit us."

"In addition, once the Germans start to attack, Britain and France will definitely urge the Russians to act. We must be prepared. I have a hunch that the opportunity we are waiting for is coming."

Liu Ming looked at the planned railway on the map. There were signs of construction at both ends of the railway, but in the middle of the Caspian Sea to Yili, there was a big exclamation mark.

His eyes continued to move to the right. The total number of the four field armies in the three border defense war zones exceeded 400,000, and they were deployed along the Western Regions, grasslands, and three provinces.

From the number point of view, the 1st Mechanized Field Corps, the 1st Field Army, the 6th Army Independent Self-Propelled Artillery Brigade, the 1st to 10th Imperial Cavalry Divisions, etc., the essence of the 6th Army of the Chinese Empire, are all within this range.

Among them, the 1st Mechanized Corps is the strongest iron fist on the ground in the world. It has two tank divisions, two motorized infantry divisions, and one artillery division. The number of people is not large, but the name tells you that the equipment is luxurious.

However, mechanized troops are too logistically demanding, and after a certain period of training, they were eventually transferred to three provinces.

The 3rd Army, which consisted of cavalry divisions, field armies, self-propelled artillery brigades, etc., was placed in the Western Regions.

Originally, a mobile unit was placed in Mesopotamia, but as the battle line became longer and longer, this unit was assigned to the 2nd Army as a supplement.

Overall, the military preparations of the Huaxia Empire have been completed, and the material preparations have also been completed. In order to reduce the demand for supplies and material consumption, a large number of mules and horses have been introduced, and even cavalry has been formed.

It is worth mentioning that among the cavalry of the Huaxia Empire, Mongolian cavalry accounts for one-third, Central Asian cavalry accounts for another one-third, and the remaining one-third of Han people are mostly logistics and technical arms.

In this era, cavalry is not a pure cavalry unit.

"Huh~ I know." Whenever Xu Hui mentioned this plan, he was a little flustered.

Will such a huge empire really collapse like this? If not, then the investment of the Huaxia Empire will all go down the drain!

Although these losses can be passed on to the UK and let the British pay for it, the operation is not difficult. Just tinker with the material consumption and then transfer the army over...

It is precisely because of the British guarantee that Xu Hui dared to participate in this gamble.

…………

"Lucas, what good things did you bring me this time?" Steve was catching fleas, and Lucas came to him again.

"A letter from Aunt Maria, air-dried beef, this is real beef, not rat meat."

"There are also canned meat and canned tuna, Chinese goods." Lucas found an empty ammunition box and sat down, and took out a pile of things from his bag.

"Why is it so rich? They don't have... huh?" Steve's eyes widened.

"The marshal came to the front a few days ago, two lieutenant colonels were shot, and a brigadier general was sent back to the mainland. Thanks to them, the supplies for the past few days have been doubled." Lucas said excitedly.

"Wow~ This is something worth celebrating, Daniel, bring me my bottle of rum, today is a day worth celebrating, I want to drink two glasses to celebrate!" Steve said, and put out several canned boxes and prepared to cook.

In general, the soldiers' meals are prepared by logistics, but Steve's machine gun group is located in a remote area, and there is a shortage of manpower, so Steve cooks it himself.

The lack of manpower can be traced back to George Lloyd. He did not want the war to be won by the French, so he had been planning other plans and reduced his support for Haig.

Haig had no choice but to reduce the size of the troops due to the lack of manpower, and all the troops were reduced by one-quarter.

This is also why Steve's heavy machine gun group has only three people, and their company has less than 100 people.

However, their company is in a good position. There have been only small-scale attacks from the German army, and even large-scale artillery bombardments.

"Steve, has there been any change recently?" Lucas poured himself a lid of rum with a kettle cap without hesitation. On the front line, wine is a very precious thing.

Looking at the Chinese and English on the wine, Lucas knew that Steve had been to the black market.

"No, what changes can there be in this rotten place? Every day we just shoot and repel the German scouts, or shoot to cover our scouts."

"It has always been like this, there is no change."

"The only change is that the Germans launched four probing attacks last week. Normally, there are 3 to 4 times a week, but this week is only Friday, and there have been 5 times."

"And the scale of the probing is much smaller. After the probing, there was no shelling, which made me run around with the machine gun in vain."

"But I killed at least ten Germans this week, I should be rewarded, but I haven't..."

Steve drank a kettle cap of rum in one gulp and said with great enjoyment.

"Don't dream, sergeant, the reward is for those officers, unless you can kill an officer." Lucas drank two bottles in a row and said comfortably.

Dongdongdongdong...

The sound of machine guns rang in their ears.

"Gunshot?!" Lucas got up.

"Don't worry, I guess it's another German scout, we're used to it." Steve chuckled and shook his head.

After a while, the gunfire stopped, and then Daniel ran over and said that a few Germans came, but he had driven them away.

"I told you! Come on, Daniel, celebrate that we drove the Germans away." Steve handed the "wine glass" to Daniel.

Daniel licked his lips, took it and drank it in two sips.

"This is what people eat, those beans, I swear, I don't want to see them again in my life." Steve used a fork to divide the canned meat into three portions, one for each of them, and finally divided his portion into two halves, and Lucas and one half each.

"Thank you... what's that sound?" Lucas took the canned meat and heard a sound like someone crying.

Woohoo~~

"It's artillery fire! Heavy artillery! The target is not here, but I guess it will be soon. The Germans may attack."

"Lucas, it's not safe outside. Find a place to hide in the trench. Go!"

Steve stuffed the bottle of wine to Lucas and said nervously.

If the target of the artillery fire is them, when you hear the woohoo sound, you should hear the explosion.

boo!

Just like this.

"Shit, these bitch Germans, fortunately, it's not heavy artillery, go and hide." The shell exploded a few dozen meters to their left. Steve knew that they were in danger.

"What about you? It's dangerous outside now." Lucas canned the cooked canned meat and handed it to Steve.

If nothing unexpected happens, this will be their only 11 hot meals in the next day.

"I have to operate the machine gun. Daniel is not skilled enough in handling malfunctions. As for the new guy, he is too stupid and has been an ammunition handler all his life."

"You are different. You are a logistics person and don't have to go to the front line. Leave here now and find a place to hide. The first time is a tentative attack. There will be at least a few minutes of space after that. Seize the opportunity to leave."

"If I die, tell my mother that I love her." Steve said, and even rolled and crawled towards the machine gun fortress.

At this time, the machine gun must be moved. It is too dangerous near this exposed firepower point.

If someone looked down from the sky at this time, they could see that the British were responsible for the 100-kilometer-long front line.

However, unlike the previous full-line bombing, the German bombing this time was more concentrated and more fierce.

Influenced by the Brusilov Offensive, Ludendorff changed his combat methods. This attack was intended to achieve a breakthrough and to experiment with the role of new tactics.

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