The brilliant autumn finally passed, and the white snow covered the entire capital again. On these cold days, Lieutenant General Chen Honglie was sweating profusely in Wenhua Hall as if he was questioned by those men in the guizhou Academy the previous month. The last time he was questioned was a scandal of the Chinese Navy, a main aircraft carrier was actually injured and sunk by the old cruiser of the Italian Navy. Although it was in the narrow Gulf of Aden at that time, the two sides were caught off guard, no matter how much they explained, it was impossible to cover up the fact that the aircraft carrier's armored firepower was poor. Because of this, the proposal to build two super battleships with a displacement of over 60,000 tons and a main gun caliber greater than 450mm would be discussed and prepared to pass the guizhou Academy, but this was not what he was willing to see.

Not only will this cause another arms race with the United States, such a huge battleship must have a speed of more than 30 knots to follow the entire fleet, and the output power of the main engine over 30 knots must be at least 18 horsepower. Not to mention that the cabin is filled with boilers, the cost of this power system will exceed 150 million Huayuan. The cost of two ships exceeds 300 million, which is almost the price of four aircraft carriers. It would be a pity to use it to build a battleship. But Chen Honglie could not convince the Prime Minister and the two general managers in front of him, so he could only be anxious.

"This is what the idea of ​​all the sceptics masters. I, the Prime Minister, can't tell whether the other end is good or the other end is bad. But since they want to build it, then build two." Facing the Chief of Staff General Xu Jingxi, who had a standard military manner in front of him, General Logistics Chief General Zhou Sixu, and Lieutenant General Chen Honglie of the Navy Office, Prime Minister Mu Xiangyue said with some regret.

Of course, he was not sorry that he did not build an aircraft carrier. What he regretted was that so much money had to be used as military expenses. According to the results of the joint research of the General Secretary and the Ministry of Revenue: for every additional 1 billion Chinese yuan of military expenses, the investment in 29.2 billion Chinese yuan would be reduced, and the income of 0.62 billion Chinese yuan would be reduced forever every year. [Note 155]. As the planner and commander who pulled the national economy out of the depression, Mu Xiangyue really did not want the economy to move into wartime, because this would not only stop the booming economic momentum, but also burn the billions of wealth accumulated by the people of the country for more than 20 years.

"Prime Minister, there is nothing to say if the navy's military needs to be strengthened. The men of the Jiyi Academy are not wrong," Zhou Sixu thought about the bastards in the Jiyi Academy, but he smiled. "Build two large battleships. One guards the capital, called "Tianjin Guard"; the other guards Jiangsu and Zhejiang, called "Shanghai Beach". I don't know what I think about it, but I don't want to build large ships, I just want to build a hundred torpedo boats. This is probably to save money. I have to say, this idea is good!"

Zhou Sixu laughed while talking. After saying that the idiots in the Scripture Academy, he became serious: "Prime Minister, if the Navy increases military expenditure, the Army and the Air Force must not be missing. Not to mention anything else, the Army's guns are all from twenty years ago. The new semi-automatic rifles are only equipped with Marines. The Army has not even seen a shadow. They can't let them take guns from twenty years ago to fight, right? Semi-automatic rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns, and general machine guns. These must be equipped at least one batch first, and they must be distributed to the reserve bureaus of counties across the country so that soldiers can familiarize themselves with the guns in advance..."

Zhou Sixu said something reasonable, but the more Mu Xiangyue listened, the more uncomfortable he felt. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyebrows. After Zhou Sixu finished speaking, he said, "Tell me, how much does it cost to reorganize the military this time? Give me a real number."

"The army's light weapons cost about 200 million yuan, which can basically meet the guns of 100 divisions. The armored division..." Zhou Sixu took out his notebook, and his appearance made Xu Jingxi laugh on the side. He felt more and more that Guangting was polished by the Academy of Reasons and was more and more like a merciless businessman, the best bargaining.

"One hundred divisions?" Mu Xiangyue was startled. The flesh on her body could make people feel obvious shaking even through thick clothes. "How can we have one hundred divisions? The guns cost 200 million, so if you count heavy weapons and armored divisions, wouldn't this cost 2 billion?! Not that much money! Not that much money! Guangting. You are a lion talking!"

Seeing Mu Xiangyue reacting so much, Zhou's thoughts were unmoved. He said: "Prime Minister, in the past sixteen years after the end of Europe, the country has even cut training ammunition in addition to providing food and clothing. Each soldier has less than 100 bullets for target shooting, and it is time to make up for the lessons. We don't have a hundred divisions, but there are reserves. Although each county cannot reach the scale of a regiment, there are always a battalion with more than 500 people, and more than 1,300 battalions are just one hundred divisions..."

This time, what Zhou Sixu said was the truth. After the military reform, the troops were organized by regional organizations: one township reserve quota was one platoon, one town was one company, one county was one regiment, and four counties were one standard division. Most of the usual training was in the county, and even the training at the division level or above was only in a few nearby counties. Before the war, the theater command would supplement artillery, communications soldiers and other technical troops, so that they were in full state. Because the conquered families were children of wealthy families, family affairs were innocent, military discipline was good, and the quality of soldiers was much higher than that of those peasant soldiers who came to join the army without enough food, and because they were from the same clan, villages, and fellow villagers, there was high internal cohesion.

Although the military was abolished in the past decade, each county still maintained a reserve service of more than one battalion, with four to six counties (counties with a small population in remote areas need six counties and one standard division; the young people have no obligation to serve, but the cap tax doubled) into one division. There are indeed one hundred divisions. But it is really too...

Thinking of this, Mu Xiangyue's head shook like a rattle, and he said, "Even if there are really a hundred divisions, there is no need to prepare all the guns at once. The guns used to be used. Besides, you only need 200 million light weapons, how many heavy weapons are needed? How many armored divisions are needed? Too many! Too many! Even if I agree, will the adults of the Jiyi Academy agree?"

"Prime Minister, now there are many representatives of inland provinces who are dissatisfied with the construction of ships in coastal provinces. They have no ships to build, and they can always replace the old guns of their soldiers." Xu Jingxi said. "Heavy weapons such as artillery and the new generation of chariots have not been finalized yet. If the finalization is done in the next two years, the light weapons will be installed first, so that the next two years, the next two years will be installed. When the chariots are separated, it will be easier for the CSKA to pass, and it is really more than ten or twenty billion to get together..."

Xu Jingxi was tactful, but after these ten or two billion were mentioned, Mu Xiangyue rubbed his eyebrows hard again. He looked at Shen Honglie, who had just tried his best to declare that the battleships could not be built, and said, "Apart from these two battleships, the Navy has no other money-seeking things, right?"

"Report to the Prime Minister, there is no such thing as yet." Chen Honglie replied. He emphasized again: "Prime Minister, I still have to say that spending more than 300 million to build two useless battleships is real, it is a loss-making deal!"

"Okay. I know what you mean." Mu Xiangyue said. "But the adults in the Academy of Sciences are afraid now! They think there is no safety without battleships, and there is no fear of the American fleet coming."

"But why do you need to build battleships? Just find some shallow water gunboats..." Chen Honglie still couldn't understand what the men of the Academy meant.

"Okay, let's go!" Xu Jingxi's voice was not loud but he interrupted his words without any doubt. "The people of the Jiyi Academy have the consideration of the people of the Jiyi Academy. Since they are willing to do it, why are you trying to do it!"

After all, Xu Jingxi was Chen Honglie's direct superior. After saying this, he had to bow his head. After interrupting Chen Honglie, Xu Jingxi said again: "Prime Minister, in addition to the military expenditure of all three armies, Taiwan, especially Tainan, also needs to keep up with the defense of Iwo Jima in the Pacific, and Japan has also transferred it to our jurisdiction. The fortifications in these two places will cost about 300 million..."

"So expensive!" Mu Xiangyue lost his voice. The navy is more than 300 million, the army is 200 million, and the air force is said to have 100 million, which is more than 600 million. Adding these 300 million, and adding military expenditures is definitely one billion. "Although France's Magino defense line is 5 billion francs, it is only more than 400 million Chinese yuan! But they defend such a large area, and you only have these two islands..."

"Prime Minister, France's Magino defense line did not cost only 5 billion francs, but totaled 100 billion." Seeing Mu Xiangyue compare the defense line between Taiwan and Iwo Jima and France's Magino defense line, Zhou Sixu immediately corrected it. Xu Jingxi next to him cooperated with him and followed him after he finished speaking: "Prime Minister. These two are secret projects. Because of the secret, it will naturally take a lot of effort to build. Taiwan mainly has highways that run through the entire island. There are also mountain fortifications."

"What about Iwo Jima? It's not our territory yet." Mu Xiangyue said.

"Prime Minister, if Iwo Jima is lost, Shanghai, coastal cities, and even Wuhan will be within the bombing radius of the enemy's heavy bombers. We originally wanted to ask the Japanese to ask Ogasawara and the two islands, but Japan said that Ogasawara was responsible for them." Xu Jingxi explained the situation in Iwo Jima. Because of its small area, Iwo Jima cannot use stock fuel to generate electricity like Saipan, Tenning and Rota in Mariana (once a chimney is discovered, US bombers can naturally destroy diesel engines).

The general thought that if you want to defend this island, you can only use geothermal power generation and build three-layer defense fortifications of ten meters shallow, fifty meters in the middle, and ninety meters in the bottom. This basically requires hollowing out the entire island, and the fortifications at the third 90 meters in the fortifications are no longer on the island, but on the seabed outside the island. This eliminates the possibility that the US engineers use cement and steel to pave every inch of land on the entire island to block the tunnel exit. Building fortifications in this way is naturally expensive, but Xu Jingxi continued: "In order to defend Mariana, the Japanese government will also allocate 600 million to 800 million for fortifications on the island..."

"The Japanese are famously stingy. They will throw money into the sea and not use it to build a ship?" Hearing that the Japanese paid more money than they did, Mu Xiangyue received a little comfort and was in the mood to make fun of her.

"We build one ship, and the Americans will build two. It's better not to build it. Of course, the Japanese government understands this logic. Besides, if we don't build ships, the war may not be fought." Xu Jingxi said, and afterwards, he emphasized: "Prime Minister, the fortifications of Taiwan and Iwo Jima are more important than the armament of the three armies. If we don't seize the time to build it at this time, it will be too late in the war. Please be sure to convince the Notice and the Notice and must pass it within this Notice."

"Okay, I understand." Mu Xiangyue nodded helplessly. This year is the year of the Jujian Academy's election. If it is not passed this year, the next Jujian Academy's vote will not start until the next year. That is indeed too late. Thinking of this, Mu Xiangyue thought of Yang Rui again. It is best to discuss such a major event with him, but he probably had just arrived in Moscow and would be closed after he came back according to his itinerary.

Beijing is covered with snow, and Moscow is naturally icy and snowy. After staying in Berlin for half a month, Yang Rui got up and headed north, headed to Petersburg by sea, and then headed to Moscow by railway.

As Stalin's confidant Molotov held a grand welcome ceremony for him in Petersburg, which was equivalent to the head of state. Looking at the people waving the Greater China flag all over the city and the Russian elementary school students who were flowers to him, he felt a little nostalgic: when he was studying, the school basically had this kind of behavior whenever the school came to the leader to do something about the inspection, and whenever those foreign leaders took out thick paper and coughed at the microphone, it would foreshadow that they would stay in the playground under the sun for a long time... It was such a vicious bureaucracy!

Although he thought so in his heart, Yang Rui smiled on his face and praised the achievements of socialist construction under Stalin's leadership, so that the Bolshevik officials who received him smiled and followed the previous article of Pravda. They knew that the visitor was a well-known bourgeois idealist philosopher who completely betrayed the promise of "liberating the oppressed people of the colonies" made by Comrade Lenin, and fought with the capitalist country in a passionate manner. Fortunately, this person is not hostile to the great Soviet Union, otherwise they really don't know how to unify the reception caliber.

It was not too far from Petersburg to Moscow. On the fourth day after Petersburg got off the boat, Yang Rui arrived in Moscow. After experiencing the warm welcome from the railway station again, he met Stalin in the Kremlin palace.

At this time, Stalin, wearing beige military uniform, was smiling, holding a pipe in his left hand. As Yang Rui imagined before, even though he smiled politely, his eyebrows and eyes were still solemn, serious, and unbright gazes had the coldness and persistence that ordinary people did not have. This was a strong man of steel, but if he turned his eyes back a few steps and turned his face to his whole body, he would feel from his slightly hunched back and his white temples that were deliberately shortened but could not be concealed: this was a person who was bearing the burden, a person who was not happy to live.

Yang Rui looked at Stalin, and Stalin also looked at Yang Rui. This Chinese man he had always wanted to see but had never seen was taller than all the Chinese people he had seen, and was dressed in Chinese style. Although strange, it was not much changed. What surprised Stalin the most was that his expression failed in the London Navy negotiations two months ago, and Sino-US relations suddenly became tense. Judging from the statement of Roosevelt's private envoy's visit to the Soviet Union, the diplomatic situation between the Soviet Union and China was reversed: the Soviet Union used to seek China, but then it should have been China for the Soviet Union. Under such circumstances, there was no point in his expression. He didn't see any pleasing meaning in his expression. Are you really not worried about fighting on both sides?

"I finally saw the above! General Secretary Stalin." Yang Rui smiled. Although he wanted to shake hands with Comrade Steel in his heart, this is really not a handshake when shaking hands, it is likely to be considered a kind of show of goodwill. Showing goodwill is basically equivalent to showing weakness. For the Bolsheviks, you can never show weakness!

"Hello, Mr. Yang Jingcheng!" Stalin's voice was not loud, but he paused every word, very clearly.

Because the Bolsheviks that Yang Rui was familiar with were being cleaned or under cleansing, only Stalin and Molotov met in this meeting. Yang Rui was Yang Du and the ambassador to the Soviet Union Wu Chaoshu. This was Yang Du's second visit to Russia. Yang Rui asked him to come mainly because he was worried that the situation between him and Stalin was too cold.

After greeting each other, the two sides stood together and asked the reporter to take photos. At this time, Yang Rui realized that Stalin was not short, but why?

"Please sit, Mr. Yang Jingcheng." Stalin, as the owner, greeted. The reception room was very simple, with a row of varnished chairs leaning against the wall, and there were small tables between the chairs. The Chinese and Soviet personnel took the statue of Ma En-Li Ning on the wall as the midpoint and sat on both sides. When everyone sat down, Stalin lit his pipe and said, "Is the journey pleasant? Mr. Yang Jingcheng?"

"Very good." Yang Rui also lit a cigarette, "Your country is very enthusiastic and feels at home."

"As a friendly country, I noticed that there have been rumors of war between China and the United States after the London Disarmament Conference..." Stalin did not act as cold as Yang Rui had estimated, but took the initiative to talk about the international situation.

"In capitalist countries, the economy determines war." Yang Rui replied after hearing the retelling of the news. "There are only three countries in the world who want to launch wars to the outside world and transfer domestic conflicts. Our two countries and other peace-loving countries have joined forces in East Africa to eliminate one of them. I believe the other two will definitely learn a lot of lessons from this."

"Haha..." Stalin wanted to test Yang Rui's reaction to the evil between China and the United States, but he didn't want to be pulled together, recalling the joint killing of Mussolini, Italy. He smiled slightly and asked, "Do you think the League of Nations can eliminate the threat of war?"

"The League of Nations is actually ourselves. If we cannot eliminate the war, the world will evolve into a very terrible situation. At that time, there will be only two types of **********, one is **** with Macth and Li Ningism as the core, and the other is... There are two possibilities here, one is Italian-German-style Nazism, and the other is revised capitalism." Yang Rui smiled, "If it really goes to that point, no matter which one is the latter, it will be a black or white world, which will be a disaster for both of us."

"Revised capitalism?" Stalin chewed the word. "What is this?" he asked.

"It is the Roosevelt New Deal that the United States is now implementing." Yang Rui said, "Use taxes and government bonds to confiscate the assets of the property to help the poor; learn your country's five-year plan, intervene and plan in the free economy in an holistic manner, and limit part of the profits of the enterprise; and let some backbone workers hold shares to confuse the boundaries between capitalists and workers, and so on..."

"This is really deceptive." Before Stalin could speak, Molotov said angrily.

"Deception is not the most terrifying thing. It is terrible that they will integrate the resources of the entire Europe and even the whole world." Yang Rui said, "To be honest, both of us are regarded as aliens by them. If the rest of the world is integrated, it will be extremely unfavorable to us. Maintaining the current chaotic and independent situation, we will surely achieve better development."

"Then do you think another kind of... will the Nazis win, or will the revised capitalism win?" Stalin wanted to broadcast the broadcast like an old operator, but his expression was full of doubt.

"This is unpredictable." Yang Rui said bluntly. "There are too many variables here. Both sides have opportunities, so maintaining the status quo, that is, maintaining the current world peace is the most important thing, and we all need time."

Yang Rui's final sentence "We all need time" made Stalin's eyes cold. It all took time and said that the time is not enough. The second five-year plan has just ended this year. Although this has achieved significant achievements, most projects have only built civilian industries because of assistance from other countries' technicians. The third five-year plan that will start next year focuses on military industries. The civilian factories that will be built in the early stage are gradually converted into military use. Yang Rui said, "We all need time." Is it because he knows the real purpose of the Soviet Union's third five-year plan to deal with the war?

Yang Rui did not see Stalin's changes, but Molotov saw them. He immediately smiled and drew his attention, and said, "Your Excellency, who will win if your country fights with the United States?"

"You can't win, and you can't lose," Yang Rui replied in a deep voice, "This kind of war will not win."

"But the United States has the most powerful industry in the world. China and Japan have more machine tools than the United States, and the number of weapons produced will be far inferior to that of the United States." Molotov continued to pressurize and expose the other party's scars or hidden pain, which made the other party anxious. If he was worried about it, he would reveal a real reaction. Molotov was well aware of this, but for the sake of Sino-Soviet friendship, he finally added: "Please forgive my outspokenness. I said so just because I was worried about your country."

"No need to be sorry." Yang Rui smiled. "Judge the victory or defeat of a war based on the number of machine tools should be suitable for standing on land rather than naval battles. As we all know, the combat effectiveness of the navy comes from warships, and warships are not made by machine tool factories, but by shipyards. If your country allocates 100 million rubles to expand the Red Navy today, it will definitely take two years to see the battleships launched. With training, it will be difficult for the fleet to form combat effectiveness in less than two and a half years. If it were an army, the war would have ended in two and a half years, so the number of machine tools cannot determine the victory or defeat of a naval battle..." (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!