readx; According to Chen Jingyun's instructions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took the initiative to carry out active and intensive contacts with Germany, and the two sides talked about the so-called stability of the Far East from the railway to the strategic materials urgently needed by Germany, such as tungsten ore, antimony ore, pig bristles, tung oil, and so on. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The republican axe's proactive diplomacy surprised German diplomats a little for the simple reason that before and even at this time, Germany's dialogue policy was the same as that of the Xinhai period, that is, to safeguard Germany's fundamental interests in Qingdao and radiate to the whole of Shandong, and anyone who threatened Germany's interests in Shandong was Germany's enemy. The uprising that broke out in Shandong during the Xinhai period said that Qingdao would be recovered and the unequal treaty should be canceled, which made Germany rush to a great threat, and a large number of revolutionaries were hunted down and driven out within its strength, which caused an exclusionary attitude towards the revolutionaries in the south, which is also the reason why Germany supported Yuan Shikai at the beginning, you must know that Germany supported Yuan Shikai earlier than Britain, and when Yuan Shikai became the former Qing Cabinet Chancellor, the German minister in China even came to congratulate him.

In the past two years, Germany has also been a supporter of Yuan Shikai, and the relative relationship with many warlords in the south is naturally worse, at least there is no contact with Chen Jingyun, as for Chen Jingyun's purchase of a large number of German decommissioned ordnance in the Xinhai year, it is completely the commercial behavior of Lihe and foreign companies, just like the British consul in Fuzhou contacted British bankers to provide Chen Jingyun with private venture loans for personal interests, which is not directly related to the foreign policy of the whole country.

Therefore, the relationship between the Nationalist Army and Germany has always been very flat, not friendly, and of course it will not be the same as the previous British antipathy towards the Nationalist Army, but with a dispensable attitude, which has a lot to do with the concentration of Germany's interests in Shandong, as long as the Nationalist Army's troops do not set foot in Shandong, then Germany will not care too much. If it weren't for the railway bidding this time, it is estimated that the two sides would not be able to contact each other.

The republican government, which has always had a somewhat insipid relationship, is now actively contacting Germany, and in addition to talking about railways, it also talks about strategic materials such as rare minerals that Germany has always paid attention to. Germany lacks a lot of strategic resources, and it does not have colonies all over the world like Britain, so some strategic resources are very limited, and German merchants are almost rushing around the world to purchase various industrial raw materials.

And what does China want in this era? Rare minerals include tungsten ore, manganese ore, antimony ore, tin ore, etc. In addition, there is 'pig bristles', a strategic material that is a specialty of China, and tung oil, which is a traditional export material of China.

China in this era is a typical backward agricultural country, only a variety of industrial raw materials can be seen by the powers, foreign trade can only export these industrial raw materials, and then in exchange for the industrial products of the countries, but China casually said that thousands of years of land and resources, but in fact there are not many resources, iron ore, coal, oil are not much, rare minerals and unique crops are not much, if China has any more minerals, it can only be said to be tungsten ore.

In the Qing Dynasty, China's refined tungsten production ranked first in the world, accounting for more than half of the world's annual output. And this amount is only based on China's backward mining equipment, small-scale mining, if the investment in modern equipment, large-scale construction of tungsten mining area, the output soared several times to occupy more than ninety percent of the world's output is no problem. Speaking of the advantages of China's tungsten ore, almost from the pre-Qing era to the 21st century, such as the so-called Sino-German cooperation plan in the thirties, tungsten ore is the most important one, Germany in order to get enough tungsten ore from China, but spent a lot of money, if there is no tungsten ore those German mechanics will not appear at all, after World War II the Soviet Union imported the most important materials from China is also tungsten ore! There are also a lot of tungsten ore resources in the Soviet Union and many dependent countries, but it is still not enough compared with China's tungsten ore production. During the Cold War, due to the economic blockade, the US-led NATO could not get China's tungsten ore, and although the United States had many other resources, it was a lack of tungsten ore, and at that time, the United States did not know how many scientists were troubled in order to find alternatives to tungsten alloy, and finally had to develop and equip a large number of depleted uranium armor and depleted uranium armor-piercing shells.

Generally speaking, China's tungsten ore is extremely important in the world, and tungsten ore is an extremely important industrial raw material, which is also needed by Germany, Germany has been importing tungsten ore in China, and will import thousands of tons of tungsten concentrate every year, this situation has not changed after Dayu County, Jiangxi Province, the most important tungsten mineral area in China fell into the hands of the National Army.

In addition to tungsten ore, some other rare metals are also needed in Germany, but not as important as tungsten ore.

After talking about minerals, you have to talk about pig bristles, this thing is very simple and ordinary, that is, pig's hair, to be precise, it should refer to the bristles of more than five centimeters growing on the neck and back of the pig, and the purpose of this thing is also very single, that is, to make brushes, brushes, paint brushes, machine brushes, etc. So why is such an ordinary thing said to be a strategic material? It's very simple, because this thing is the only raw material for brushes today, and there are no other substitutes, and brushes don't look at it and are ordinary, and it will definitely not work without it in industrial production, especially for painting weapons. And more importantly, pig bristles are China's traditional export commodities, accounting for almost all of the world's production, accounting for more than 95 percent, in other words, if you don't want weapons to run naked on the battlefield, then you can't do without China's bristles, which were found in World War I and World War II.

Tungsten ore and pig bristles are one of the few strategic materials that China can control! For the southern republican political axe, the tungsten ore controlled is the most direct, because the Chinese tungsten concentrate in this era is basically in Dayu County, Jiangxi, except for this place, there is no other, so if you want to use the so-called industrial raw materials to trade with Germany, then Jiangxi Dayu County must be controlled, if you don't even take Jiangxi, you can talk about what to supply rare minerals to Germany is a fool's dream. As for the bristles, not only in the south, but also in the north, the Germans were able to get enough supply of bristles from Shandong and even Shanghai, so the bristles had some chips at most, but they could not absolutely control them.

In accordance with Chen Jingyun's instructions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China also focused on the supply of raw materials, and even offered to borrow from Germany for the construction of tungsten ore, antimony ore, manganese ore, tin ore and other rare minerals that Germany needs to import.

The attitude of the republican axe has made the German side change its previous contemptuous attitude, after all, it is also of great benefit to Germany to expand the source of industrial raw materials such as rare metals.

So this is a very interesting situation, although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republican Axe and Germany are talking about the Guangdong-Hankou Railway on the surface, they are secretly talking about the supply of strategic materials such as rare metals.

In order to cooperate with the negotiations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chen Jingyun quickly instructed the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to set up a resource department to be responsible for the unified acquisition, selling price and sale quota of rare strategic resources in China. In addition, Huaxia Bank also quickly established Jiangyu Mining Company according to Chen Jingyun's instructions to develop the production and exploration of tungsten ore and other rare metals.

When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not reached an agreement with Germany on the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, the two sides have reached an agreement on tungsten ore, and the German side will provide a low-interest commercial loan of up to 5 million marks, about 2.5 million Chinese yuan, to Jiangyu Mining, and this part of the loan will be used to purchase Germany-related mining industry equipment, and Jiangyu Mining will promise to sell a certain share of tungsten concentrate to Germany every year after receiving this investment, and provide 1,000 tons of tungsten concentrate this year, and it needs to be increased to 2,500 tons next year. In the following year, it will be increased to 4,000 tons, and the corresponding loan will also be offset with tungsten concentrate.

Maybe you think that the number of thousands of tons is very small, and if you ship by sea, you may be able to ship it out in one ship, but this is talking about tungsten concentrate after refining, and the annual output of tungsten concentrate in the world is only several thousand tons of tons, of which China accounts for more than half. Before World War I, the price of tungsten concentrate containing 65 percent tungsten acid in London and New York was about two or three thousand dollars a ton, and after the outbreak of World War I, the price of various mineral resources doubled, and then a ton of tungsten concentrate was more than five or six thousand dollars, and countries like Germany could not buy it if they still had the money to buy it.

In other words, the contract value of the supply of thousands of tons of tungsten concentrate this year has been in the millions of dollars!

If after the outbreak of World War I, the world's demand for various minerals increases, and China's tungsten ore production can also increase to supply 20,000 or 30,000 tons of tungsten concentrate to the world every year, and the annual income of tens of millions of dollars in foreign exchange is not a problem. Although it is not as good as the traditional foreign trade commodities such as raw silk, but there are a lot, and if the investment is enough, the output of tungsten ore will be more and more year by year, and the demand in the world is also increasing, and the development is also very fast.

With this tungsten ore contract at the bottom, the relationship between the Republican Axe and Germany eased a lot, and it played a positive role in the negotiations between the two sides on the Guangdong-Hanzhou railway. Although the tungsten mine contract is only a small contract of 5 million marks, it cannot be compared with the large contract of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, which has an investment of more than 100 million marks, but it has played a leading role.

Soon, the German side negotiated with the republican government to reach the relevant conditions, and Wu Tingfang of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also showed Chen Jingyun the loan treaty and asked Chen Jingyun to make a final decision.

Chen Jingyun looked at the heavy text of the treaty in his hand, looking carefully at them one by one, and at the same time, there were conditional contracts of several other countries on his desk, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries.

Chen Jingyun looked at the German contract in his hand and pondered secretly in his heart. To be honest, compared with the contracts of other countries, the German contract is not too superior, and even some conditions are more stringent.