While Tohoku was intervening behind the scenes for the domestic situation, the situation in the world had also changed dramatically.

In World War I, the limelight of the United States' entry into the war is becoming more and more obvious, and the US Congress has already opened hearings on this, and it is very likely that the United States will declare war on Germany in the near future. This was a good thing for the Entente countries such as Britain and France, but it was a great bad thing for the Central powers such as Germany. After several years of war, the industrial base of the West was severely damaged, and the original industrial center was in ruins. On the contrary, the United States, which is not threatened by war, has developed extremely rapidly with its liberal democratic system of government and the huge market of world wars, and the goods made in the United States have flooded the Western Allies and Entente countries. If the United States is completely like an Entente power, if nothing else, it will be difficult for Germany and other Allied powers to purchase those advanced military supplies from the United States. Coupled with the collapse of the internal system of the ally Austria-Hungary, millions of troops died on the battlefield, so that the Austro-Hungarian royal family was about to lose control of the country, if it were not for Germany behind the suppression, I am afraid that the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have collapsed long ago. Under these circumstances, Germany urgently needed a new supplier of military supplies to restore Germany's decline. And looking around the world, it turns out that most of the industrial countries are allies of the British. It was extremely difficult for Germany to find one that had nothing to do with Britain.

At this time, the German ambassador to the Far East brought good news, and the rise of China gave the Kaiser a glimmer of opportunity. Although China is weak in national strength, it has a large population, a vast territory, and abundant resources, and it may not be impossible to become another source of military supplies for the German Empire.

It's just that the Germans, who are strict by nature, really don't look down on the Type 16 rifles produced in China. Although the Type 16 rifle is inferior to the Japanese Type 38 in terms of range and accuracy, its 7.92 mm caliber results in much stronger lethality than the Japanese Type 38. Moreover, the Chinese Type 16 rifle is also compatible with German rifles in terms of ammunition caliber. For Germany, the Type 16 rifle is really not good, which also reflects the weakness of the military industrial capacity in Northeast China. The fact that the Northeast was able to defeat Japan shows that their troops are still very strong in combat effectiveness. Therefore, the German ambassador has always wanted to try to get China to join the Allies. Then in the Far East, the two thorny countries of Japan and Russia were contained.

Unfortunately, Feng Yong, who knows history, knows that Germany will eventually fail. Although his butterfly effect has changed some things in the world, at most it has changed the small trend of history, and under the inertia of history, the general trend is still difficult to change. After all, the balance of power between the Central Powers and the Entente has been formed, and the Allies have no chance of turning the tables. Even if China joins the Allies, it will only be one more defeated country. Therefore, in any case, Feng Yong will not join the side of the Allies. Although he will not join the Allies, this cannot prevent Feng Yong from beating the attention of the Germans, the German technology is world-class, especially in the war, the German technology is updated very quickly, if it is not for the British to bring too many allies and beat the master to death, I am afraid that Germany has now become the king and hegemon in Europe.

After the establishment of the Beijing government, the German ambassador began to contact the top level of the Beijing government, and Feng Delin and Li Jun both met with him, but unfortunately the general direction of the Beijing government's policy toward Germany has already been set, and it is difficult to change it no matter how the German ambassador lobbied. After a long period of negotiations without results, Germany also extinguished the idea of enlisting China as a military ally. Now that Germany is facing increasingly tense situations, China has given up on unifying the country, settled down, and concentrated its efforts to regain its strength. The German emperor began to consider the feasibility of trading with China. After all, although Germany is now at a disadvantage on the battlefield, it is not surrounded by Britain and France. Moreover, the Entente advantage was fully established only after the United States entered the war, and now it has only a slight advantage.

There is a popular saying in later generations, if you are not afraid of a god-like opponent, you are afraid of a pig-like teammate. Germany are awesome, but he is so poor at choosing his teammates. Italy, not long after the fight, defected. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was already in a tense relationship and already had a tendency to split, so to speak, it could not protect itself. Turkey, itself just emerging from turmoil and political instability, has limited support for Germany.

As for the olive branch extended by Germany, the Northeast of course firmly grasps it. The government in the northeast began negotiations with the German ambassador, with Germany contributing technology and China contributing capital and manpower to build a military industry in China. Of course, these are secret treaties. After all, the German side had limited forces at sea and poor escort capabilities. If they do business with China for military supplies with great fanfare, they cannot guarantee that China's supplies will be safely transported to Germany.

At a time when Germany was providing technical support to the Northeast for the supply of supplies, the situation in Russia was becoming more and more difficult. The struggle between the tsar's favored vassals and the serf nobles in the country had reached its final stage, and the two sides had shifted from the struggle for government power to the rule of the army, and the tsarist rule became more and more turbulent, and more and more ordinary people were displaced. The country's finances are extremely tight, factories are shut down, and the market is on the verge of being paralyzed. In this state, the tsarist government not only did not stop the war, but intensified its efforts and constantly strengthened its forces at the front. This policy of reckless militarism has already intensified Russia's internal contradictions, and major turmoil may break out at any time.

Japan, the war with the Northeast did affect his reputation, but Japan's status as a great power has been established, not to mention that Japan is an island country like Britain, for an island country. The Army, no matter how important, is always inferior to the Navy. From its establishment to the present, the Japanese Combined Fleet has not been defeated. Therefore, Western countries did not look down on Japan because of this war. Entente orders continued to be sent to Japan. After all, there is always a price to be paid for letting Japan send a fleet to escort the ship, and an order for this kind of military supplies is a good choice. This has greatly revived Japan's economy.

Prime Minister's Office of Japan.

Masaki in the temple did not look very good. Since the armistice with Tohoku, he, as a military prime minister, has not been very much in the interests of the Great Japanese Empire. After all, the economic power was directly taken into the hands of the emperor, so that the prime minister, his influence in other aspects was much smaller, after all, the military has a military department independent of the government, the prime minister has no decision-making power, and it is difficult to interfere in economic construction because of the limited solution. When he became prime minister, he was not as free as he was when he was the governor of North Korea.

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, we have just received a document from the Ministry of War, and the people of the Special High Division have successfully contacted the Beiyang Governor's Mansion in China. Beiyang Feng Guozhang has agreed to accept the emperor's aid, and at the same time hire the emperor's ** people as instructors to train the new army. The attendant handed him the document in his hand.

"What do you mean, Your Excellency?" Masaki said in a deep voice.

"Your Excellency the Field Marshal hopes that Your Excellency the Prime Minister will be able to deal with this matter personally. The marshal believed that the turmoil in the south of China had a lot to do with the government in Beijing, and that there must be a conspiracy in it. His Excellency the Marshal hopes that His Excellency the Prime Minister will stir up the situation in China and disrupt the conspiracy of the Beijing government in China. ”

"Yo Xi!" The temple is Zhengyi's brows furrowed, and his mood became cheerful. Terauchi Masayi can be valued and regarded as the successor of Yama Prefecture Aritomo, in addition to his own military ability, his militarist ideology inherited from Yama Prefecture Aritomo is naturally the reason why Yamaguchi Aritomo values him, after all, he hopes that his successor can smoothly implement his policy and let the Japanese army develop according to the blueprint he formulated. Because of the war with the Northeast, Japan lost nearly 200,000 troops, almost half of which were the most elite troops. After the end of the war, although the Northeast also asked the Japanese to redeem the captured soldiers, it was not that simple. Tohoku has a very high price for those soldiers, and only delivers a little at a time, which makes Japan very angry but helpless. After all, it is not in the interests of the imperial empire to go to war with the Beijing government again for the sake of prisoners of war. Moreover, the Northeast proposed a policy of redeeming prisoners, which was higher than the fact that they would retrain a new recruit, and in this case, the Japanese Imperial Army's idea of redeeming soldiers was weakening. But Japan will not give up those officers, and a number of officers have already been ransomed and bought back to China. China has not thought about how long to imprison those officers, these Japanese officers are destined to be difficult for China to use, and what remains is only some ordinary labor, which can be sold for a large amount of money, and these money can hire a lot of labor, and this transaction will of course be counted in Northeast China. What's more, Japan has a complete military service system, there are many military schools, and it is quite easy to replenish officers. This invisibly reduces the value of the officers here.

Now that China is struggling to develop its basic economy, the demand for labor has increased dramatically, the war in the south has caused a large number of people to flow to the north, and the Beijing government is secretly operating, more and more people are choosing to flee the war.

Beiyang Feng Guozhang reacted quickly, and he ordered a ban on the migration of people to Beijing, after all, population loss is equal to power loss.

With the support of the Japanese, the direct line of Beiyang became much more emboldened, and originally just wanted to eliminate Zhao Qi and Zhang Xun, and the idea of suppressing Xu Shuzheng and Yan Xishan also became a one-time solution to all the warlords in Beiyang. After all, only by unifying the entire Beiyang will the power of the direct line really swell to the point where it can confront the Northeast. Moreover, the elimination of internal hidden dangers can make Beiyang's strength more concentrated and used. As the saying goes, if you go outside, you must first settle inside.

Zhao Wei's Yu army plus Yang Aiyuan's Jin army, with a total strength of nearly 50,000 people, and occupied the power of the terrain, but they were still beaten by Wu Peifu and had no power to fight back. Zhang Xun's situation is worse than Zhao Qi's, almost the entire southern Anhui has changed hands, and Beiyang Zhang Xiaozhun has once again come to Hefei City. Unlike last time, last time it was a straight line attack, with a clear goal, and he wanted to capture the thief and capture the king first, but this time he swept most of Anhui and came to the city again. With Beiyang as logistics, Zhang Xiaozhun has no pressure, just thinking about the war, and the natural effect is extraordinary.

Although Zhang Xun got in touch with arms smugglers in Northeast China. But after all, it is in the name of smuggling, and the speed is naturally not fast. In addition, in this era, the road is much slower than the sea. After all, the railway is not developed in the first place, and the Anhui and Shandong railways have been cut off. This made the military supplies that Zhang Xun was looking forward to delayed, and he naturally lacked the courage to fight on the battlefield.

(To be continued)