Chapter 897: Trade and Gold
readx; Here we have to say that the commander of the Ryukyu Campaign, Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru, did not set up too many garrisons on Ryukyu Island, because before China entered the war, the ground warfare between China and Britain and the United States focused on Australia, in addition to some islands in the South Pacific and the Central Pacific, and at the same time, due to the needs of the British and American wars, the army also deployed a lot of troops in Singapore, the Niassi Islands in India, Kaliman Island and the Philippines in Malaysia. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info
Therefore, in the entire South Pacific theater, the ground forces deployed by the Chinese army are nearly 3 million, and the vast majority of them are in Australia.
The rest of the army has left a large number of troops on the mainland, and the ground troops deployed on Kyushu Island and the western part of Honshu Island are nearly 500,000, naturally to guard against China, and this kind of defensive measure is necessary and effective, and if there is no such 500,000 troops to block it, China will land on the first day of the declaration of war.
He said that the total number of troops he has is also limited, but there are many places that need to be used, and the divisions are too extensive, and the strategic situation is even worse than that of China. Although China is also facing multi-front threats, and there are many places where it needs to deploy troops, such as Siberia, Central Asia, India, Burma, North Korea, Malaysia, etc., but China's current northwest threat is not big, and the Russians finally caught their breath in the attack between Germany and the Russian Republic, and with the support of China and the United States and other countries, they began to gradually counterattack Germany to regain lost territory, but victory is still far away.
As for Stalin's long-awaited Western European front, which has not yet been launched, there are two main directions: one is that 'my offensive in the Pacific is still very fierce, and that 'in addition to the naval and air forces fighting between Ben and Britain and the United States, both sides have also invested millions of troops in the Australian direction, and this is mainly relying on the US Army, so it has also contained a large number of American troops.
The second is the North African battlefield, although Italy is as rich as in history, but it was also reinforced by Germany's Rommel troops, and here we have to talk about China, because after China occupied Central Asia, and almost puppet control Iran, it took part of the materials directly through the Iranian railway to Turkey, and then imported Italy and Germany, including important rare minerals and a large amount of oil, in the past few years China's oil supply to Germany is more and more year by year, In 1941 there were only 200,000 tons, but after penetrating into Iran in 1942, up to 500,000 tons of oil were imported to Germany and other Axis countries through the railway network of the Central Asian Railway, the Iranian Railway, the Turkish Railway, and maritime transportation, and by 1943, the supply was further increased to 800,000 tons, and this year only in the first half of this year, up to 600,000 tons of oil were imported into the Axis alliance. In 1944 the supply of oil to the Axis countries would reach the scale of one million tons.
You must know that at that time, Germany's annual oil production was only four or five million tons, and the continuous bombing of Germany by Britain and the United States greatly reduced Germany's domestic coal-to-oil production, and the Roman oil fields were also bombed and reduced production on a large scale, and China's oil supply to Germany was very important at this time.
China's transfer of oil and other materials and even some military technology to Germany is naturally not a lot of money and nowhere to spend it, but Chen Jingyun needs Germany to hold on, according to Chen Jingyun's thoughts, it is best that the war in Europe can continue forever, of course, this is just a delusion, the war will always end, and now Chen Jingyun has to do to make the war in Europe last longer, at least not until China completely solves the Pacific issue, otherwise it will become very troublesome.
Once the war in Europe ends before China takes the capital, then Soviet Russia will be able to breathe, and then tens of millions of Soviet troops on the Western Front will immediately turn around and rush to Siberia, and Britain will also be able to breathe a sigh of relief to send a large number of troops to Asia, not to mention that the Americans will not be contained by Germany in Europe, and the tens of thousands of strategic bombers alone will make Chen Jingyun feel numb when he thinks about it.
Therefore, Chen Jingyun cannot let Germany fall too early!
In order to make Germany hold on longer, it also gave some help in the supply of resources and technology, of course, this help is not free, a large amount of gold from Germany from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries, and then used to buy oil and other strategic weapons, since the war, China has been exchanged for thousands of tons of gold from Germany.
The outbreak of World War II caused everyone to panic, even South American countries are a large number of arms expansion, and the arms market of these countries is also occupied by China that did not participate in the war at that time, Argentina, Chile, Brazil and other countries in South America, Finland and Sweden in Northern Europe, Spain in Western Europe, Portugal and then Turkey in the Middle East, these countries are China's major foreign traders. In addition to these normal trading countries, there are also large markets obtained from vassal countries such as Korea and Southeast Asian countries.
In fact, in the past few years, due to the huge trade surplus with China, China has almost emptied its gold reserves.
Because the trade of countries in World War II can only be paid for with real gold, whether it is their own paper money or other countries' paper money, it is not easy to use, either barter, or gold payment, and the huge trade surplus allowed China to fish a huge amount of gold.
Before the war, China's official gold reserves were only more than 2,000 tons, which was pitiful. However, on the eve of the declaration of war, the gold reserves of the Central Bank of China had reached more than 5,000 tons, and although it is not yet comparable with the data of more than 20,000 tons of the Americans, it can also be seen that China's gold reserves are increasing rapidly.
Although the wartime trade exchanged for a large amount of gold, but to be honest, this gold can not be eaten and cannot be used as a cannonball, even if it contains the value of monetary payment, but China has long adopted a comprehensive credit currency system, and the country's trade is all trade surplus, China does not necessarily need to import materials to the world, so this gold is of limited use to China during World War II. Aside from the virtual value of gold, gold is actually only a dispensable industrial raw material, and it is not even as important as copper.
To a certain extent, if it were not for the national strategic factor, China would not have exported a large number of various industrial materials in exchange for gold, because what was sold was real industrial products, which could be used to kill people and fight wars, but the gold returned in exchange would not have any effect except for staying in the central bank vault and getting dusty.
Therefore, China's foreign trade during World War II cannot be regarded as purely economic trade, because for Chen Jingyun, China's foreign trade is actually foreign aid.
Chen Jingyun did not sell millions of tons of oil to the Germans every year for the sake of a few thousand tons of gold, but because he wanted the Germans to last longer, he spent a lot of effort to supply oil to the Germans.
Whatever the purpose of China's trade with Germany, there is no doubt that it has greatly improved Germany's situation, especially since the various rare metals that keep German industry running, and the import of oil that allows Axis aircraft and tanks to continue fighting.
The Sino-German overland trade route through Iran and Turkey also caused Germany to invest more forces in the direction of southern Europe, and continued to reinforce troops in the direction of southern Europe and North Africa.
This led to a continued stalemate on the battlefield in North Africa, and Britain and the United States were unable to drive the German-Italian forces out of the continent for several years.
The stalemate and containment in the North African theater and the Pacific theater naturally made it impossible for the United States to draw up enough forces to launch a landing operation in the French area. And if the Americans do not land, then Germany will be able to hold out longer, and if Germany does not fall, Soviet Russia will not be able to pose any threat to China for a day.
When there is no threat in Siberia and Central Asia, China can calmly mobilize a large number of troops to participate in the war in the Pacific.
From the above perspectives, although China is facing the same situation of dispersion of forces as it says, China is more able to concentrate its forces than it says.
Specifically, in addition to gathering a large number of troops in Korea, China has also dispatched more than 100,000 troops from the Ryukyu Front, but it has the First Army in the direction of Malaysia, and the Second Army in Hainan, Guangdong, and other regions has also gathered more than 100,000 troops and is preparing to land in the Philippines.
In addition to these foreign combat units, in fact, there are many troops in China's coastal provinces, especially in the Yangtze River Delta, where more than 30 divisions have poured in, and there is also a large amount of air power; in order to protect the Yangtze River Delta, the industrial, economic, and political center of China, the Fifth Air Force has deployed nearly 1,000 combat planes in this small area. The plane dropped even one bomb on the Chinese mainland.
Compared with China's ease in terms of troops, the movement of my own troops is much more tense, because Australia and the mainland direction need a large number of troops, so before the war, there were only two second-line divisions of the Ryukyu Army and two mixed brigades of the Reading Force, namely the 78th Division, the 103rd Division, the 27th Brigade and the 43rd Brigade of Reading Force. These two divisions and two brigades were temporarily expanded after the outbreak of the Pacific War, and their combat effectiveness can only be regarded as average, and they cannot be compared with the original 30-odd standing divisions and regiments. However, after the declaration of war, it was said that "Ben urgently arrived from the country to reinforce a division, that is, the 29th Division." This division is one of the 30 standing divisions and regiments, and although it ranks second to last, the combat effectiveness of the 29th Division, which was established in 1923, is not weak.