The sedan slowly drove into a seemingly ordinary manor, without the luxurious decoration that the Slavic nobles scrambled to do, and without the servants standing around every corner. Wang Zhengting, who was sitting in the car, almost couldn't believe that this was the residence of the big man who could influence the Tsar in Lu Zhengxiang's mouth, if it weren't for a few listless guards standing at the door, maybe he would think that this was someone's private villa that someone had quietly bought from the Tibetan Mansion.

But as the car crossed a row of trees to the lawn, his eyes straightened! There was nothing, nothing but women, blonde, black, white, red, etc., and it seemed like there was an exhibition of beautiful women on the lawn, with different hair and skin tones, and sweet-looking women were frolicking and having snowball fights. God! It can't really be Nicholas II, right? Could this be the place where he hides his golden house? Otherwise, how could there be so many women? That's not right! It is said that the Tsar was a very fearful lord, so he put all his energy into collecting gold and diamonds, how could he hide in the outer room?

A series of questions rose from Wang Zhengting's mind. It is true that he was not very familiar with Russia, for soon after his arrival in St. Petersburg he visited Germany, France, and Austria-Hungary, and only a few days ago when he learned of the beginning of the Black Sea War that he hurried back to St. Petersburg, intending to try to conclude a satisfactory contract at the height of Russia's chaos.

The servant opened the car door, and Wang Zhengting recognized at first glance that he was wearing the outer robes of a clergyman. Turning his head, Lu Zhengxiang also walked out of the car, because he was not in good health, he was very afraid of the cold, and he was wrapped in a thick cotton robe in November. After entering the house with doubts, the warmth on the face made people feel much more relaxed, and the two of them walked up to the second floor under the guidance of the maid, and at the end of the passage was an unclosed bedroom door, through which two Western women could be clearly seen lazily lying on the bed defenseless.

This scene made Wang Zhengting's heart beat faster and quickly turned his head. Although he entered the Republic of China, the idea of male and female defense in the country is still very strong, even the most absurd characters will not let their women be exposed when the servants are all over the house, but the one who lives here seems to be unsuspecting, giving people the feeling that those women are just tools for venting.

What exactly is the character? How could such an unscrupulous man influence Nicholas II?

The doubts were solved as he walked into the study and living room. In the study, a bearded man with a white Orthodox priest's robe used as a nightgown, a cross on his chest, and a beard stood barefoot on the floor.

"Welcome, my Chinese friends." The man's voice was low, as if he had deliberately slowed down his speech in order to remain mysterious. This scene reminded Wang Zhengting of the missionaries and monks who were full of European aristocrats and royalty in the fifteenth century, in an era full of all kinds of strange ideas and mystical doctrines, the missionaries and monks who claimed to be the spokesmen of God were all over the continent, but now that it is the beginning of the twentieth century, can there still be such figures?

Lu Zhengxiang quickly confirmed his conjecture and bowed: "Respected Master Gragoli, this is my companion His Excellency Wang Zhengting. Today we have specially brought some gifts, I hope you will enjoy it. As soon as the word Gregory appeared, Wang Zhengting immediately remembered a joke he had heard at a German reception not long ago. German officials rumored that Nicholas II had an omniscient prophet by his side, and even the Tsar and his wife were his admirers, so a real captain wrote that he should be arrested and threatened to blackmail Russia into withdrawing from the war. Of course, Germany would not be so stupid, but the story spread, and he thought it was a joke at the time, so he didn't take it to heart, but he didn't expect such a character to really exist.

Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, one of Russia's most legendary and mysterious figures.

Rasputin took two steps closer and nodded slightly, and with his movements, a rancid smell mixed with perfume came to his nose, almost killing Wang Zhengting, who loved cleanliness. On the contrary, Lu Zhengxiang didn't seem to smell it, as if he hadn't taken a bath for hundreds of years, but sprinkled the strange smell covered by countless perfumes, and handed over the brocade box that he had been holding in his hand since he went out. Rasputin was also attracted by this gift after opening the brocade box, and his eyes full of bewitching blue light were straight.

In the brocade box, it is a pair of naked people carved from jade, the villain has a clear face and a different from men and women, the man is on top and the woman is below, what is surprising is that the man is jade white and the woman is emerald green without a trace of variegation, when Lu Zhengxiang opened the mechanism at the bottom, the villain actually made a series of actions that made people feel hot and hot.

There are many such things in China, but most of them are made of metal. Even Wang Zhengting and other figures have seen the Buddha of Joy carved from jade for the first time, and what is even more rare is that this pair of jade figures is actually made of a complete piece of white and green jade, so it is definitely a priceless treasure.

After trying the mechanism very curiously, Rasputin withdrew his gaze and put it on the coffee table, returning to the appearance of the magic stick just now. But the glances that swept his eyes from time to time still betrayed him. Lu Zhengxiang breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this, this thing was bought after he spent half his life savings and sent people all over the country, if he lost it, he didn't know what remorse would look like, but he was smooth-hearted, and he didn't ask the other party if he liked it or not, but turned to another topic: "Master Gregory, we heard that the despicable Ottomans suddenly attacked the Black Sea, I don't know what happened to the front line?" ”

Rasputin is not the kind of god who is completely uneducated, and to be able to mix with the nobles and the royal family, at least he must know the situation outside at all times, so he pretended to be angry and said: "Thank you two for your concern." The Ottomans are only clowns, His Majesty the Great Tsar has sent the most valiant generals to levy them, and I have seen the crucifixion of the heretics last night, and I believe that they will soon be punished. ”

The god stick is the god stick, and you have to make a prophecy when you say a little bit. Lu Zhengxiang smiled secretly in his heart. After pretending to be relieved, he suddenly lowered his voice: "Dear master, in fact, we came here today because we want to ask you for help. ”

"The two of you don't hesitate to be polite, and my hometown is also in the East, so I have always been willing to help guests from the East."

Lu Zhengxiang glanced at Wang Zhengting, who pretended to be extremely humble and explained his intentions: "That's right, recently we reached a trade agreement with Serbia to exchange machinery and equipment for weapons. However, after the Ottoman Empire entered the war, the shipping route to Serbia was no longer passable, so I hope that the master can help us think of a way, and we hope to complete the transaction through the railway line of your country, and if the matter is completed, the two of us will be grateful to repay the master. ”

Getting a few railway passes is easier for Rasputin than it is to play, but the word weapon makes the bewitching eyes light up, haven't the emperor and empress been worrying about weapons recently? So he immediately squinted his eyes and asked: "Serbia is our ally, and it is our responsibility to help our allies, but I don't know how many weapons have to go through the railway?" ”

Seeing that Rasputin finally took the bait, Wang Zhengting immediately took out the list that had been prepared a long time ago and said: "500,000 rifles, 650 cannons and 24 heavy artillery, 30 million rounds of ammunition, 1.3 million shells, and machine guns." "A huge number of numbers makes Rasputin gradually unable to sit still! So many weapons to Serbia? If he could stay, wouldn't His Majesty the Emperor believe in himself even more?! But he was a little strange, didn't he say that there was only gold and silver in the East and no steel? Where did they get so many weapons?

"Don't hide it, in recent years, my country has purchased several large arsenals and steel plants from Germany, and all of them have been put into operation. And I believe you should already know that many of the new submachine guns, mortars and light machine guns used by the German army are all designed and manufactured by our country. Our country is now able to produce 1,000 rifles, 200 machine guns, 300,000 rounds of ammunition and 100,000 shells of various types per day, and 500 cannons per month. Wang Zhengting's nonsense did not surprise Rasputin but frightened Lu Zhengxiang.

After a few years by Yuan Shikai's side, he also knew some details of the country. In that year, the Manchu Qing Dynasty imported about 1 million foreign guns of various types, and the first day of the Japanese Dynasty lost about 20 million, and later Hanyang, Jinling and other arsenals imitated foreign guns for a total of about 300,000, and the Beiyang small station trained until the fall and purchased 300,000 from various countries, which is not counting the number of domestic private and self-made by the National Defense Force in recent years, and it is still possible to take out more than 2 million at one time in China if it is added up. The same is true for cannons, 980 cannons of various types were built in Hanyang before 1911 alone, and there are about the same number in Gangnam. Although most of them are 57 guns, or old-fashioned steel cannons, a total of 1,500 guns can still be taken out.

Before Yang Qiu came to power, he developed Hanyang, Chongqing and Jiangnan, and after taking over all the national reserves and resources, he began to build several large factories such as Zhengzhou and Mawei. In addition, civilian guns have been confiscated several times in a row, so this batch of goods can be easily taken out. What really surprised him was how terrifying the numbers were self-made! Although Yang Qiu attaches great importance to industry and has worked hard for three years, as far as he knows, he can only make about 400 rifles a day, machine guns are even more unspectra, and the ammunition number must be reduced by 6 percent, and as for the 200 cannons per month, they must also include simple and easy-to-build small steel cannons (mortars)! What's more, even if the factory's production capacity can be reached, workers cannot be trained in a day or two, and weapons manufacturing requires a large number of high-level workers. So if there was this number in three years, he could barely believe it, but now he immediately glanced at Wang Zhengting, even if he wanted to do business, he couldn't talk nonsense!

In fact, Wang Zhengting was also weak when he said these words, but because Yang Qiu focused on insisting on these figures before he came out, he could only magnify the actual production capacity figure by two to three times to fool Rasputin. But that's no small feat! If Russia finally believes and places an order based on this output, it will be very troublesome if it cannot be completed at that time, and it may even lead to the relationship between China and Russia and the outbreak of war, so the more Lu Zhengxiang listens, the more confused and uneasy, but Rasputin's eyes are getting brighter and brighter.

It is no secret that there are Chinese weapons in the German army, and it has long been known that Britain and France have purchased patents from China during this time. Although the Russian army has also discussed buying patents to manufacture them themselves, firstly, the lack of domestic production capacity, and secondly, vanity makes those generals more willing to use French weapons.

But now it's different! The nightmare of Tannenberg was not far away, and the entry of the Ottomans into the war circle led to the need for Russia to fight on three fronts. In this case, let alone Mosingana, the generals can quarrel in the dark for an extra revolver. Now there are 500,000 rifles in stock in front of me, and it seems that there are more! If it weren't for the concerns about identity, Rasputin might have made the decision directly.

"It's a big deal." Rasputin pretended to be calm, his fingers kept waving the cross on his chest, and said: "I don't know how much Serbia has paid? ”

Hooked! Seeing his action of moving the cross, Lu Zhengxiang even temporarily forgot about the false report of production, and deliberately said with a sinking face: "Hey! Master, don't ask. This may be the last time you'll see us. ”

"Why?"

"It's not because of these weapons! Although they are somewhat old, they are all ready for immediate use, and we have replaced parts and maintained all weapons without any need to think about use, so they are worth at least $50 million. But the Serbs lied to us, they didn't have so much money to exchange for old machines, so our government asked the two of us to find a way to get the weapons and equipment back ourselves. Lu Zhengxiang said with tears in his eyes, as if he was about to be removed.

Rasputin didn't care about this, he didn't even want weapons, but the greatest trust of the tsars! So he immediately laughed, and the blue-eyed Xue Liang seemed to see the rich reward of Nicholas II, and said with a smile: "Don't worry, you two, I can give you a very satisfactory answer in three days at most." ”

Lu Zhengxiang and Wang Zhengting immediately exchanged a knowing look, and thanked Lin for leaving the manor.

Although Rasputin said yes, the two inevitably had apprehensions in their hearts. After all, even if there is no follow-up order, the value of this batch of weapons is more than 50 million US dollars, and this money is very important to China, because Wang Zhengting has reached an agreement with the Juncker consortium in Germany, they will sell all the machinery and equipment seized from Belgium and useless in Germany to China at an ultra-low price of 40 million US dollars.

Of course, Germany does not offer transport now.

Originally, the idea of the Ministry of Commerce and the General Staff was to go to Austria-Hungary and then transfer to Italy, because Italy is still neutral, and both sides are courting him, so even if Britain and France knew, they would turn a blind eye, but they didn't expect the Ottomans to fight. The probability of Italy entering the war is already very high, so whether it can take advantage of this opportunity to connect with Russia, using the European East Siberian Railway is particularly crucial. Although the line is extremely long and the train runs for a month, at least thousands of machines and equipment from 13 factories can be transported back to China.

While the two were anxiously waiting for news, guests were also welcomed to the Yang Mansion on the shores of Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, where Bernard and Sir Eston, the new British Minister to China, and his wife stepped into the renovated Western-style villa.

The charcoal in the fireplace crackled from time to time, and the coffee table was steaming hot instant coffee as always. Miao Luo and Rui Yao, who are fluent in English, served as guides, and under the protection of the guards, they took the British minister's wife to enjoy the beautiful scenery of Xuanwu Lake in early winter. Yang Qiu Bernard sat opposite him, and Sir Eston sat next to him with a cup of coffee, and the rich aroma wafted in the living room.

The purpose of the two of them was very simple, with the Ottoman Empire entering the war, the crucial Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal began to be threatened, and Russia, which was already very bad, had to face a three-front war, so the domestic telegrams urging the acceleration of Sino-Japanese negotiations were one after another, and the words were even more reprimanded. In this environment, Bernard and Eston did not want to waste a little time, and after the three women left, the former immediately went straight to the topic: "Your Excellency, Vice President, you have a magic key, but please forgive me for saying that your country's request this time is obviously a bit excessive. ”

"Excessive?" Yang Qiu picked up the coffee without hurrying or slowing: "Are you talking about the eight contracts of the people?" I don't know what is too much compared to the Treaty of Shimonoseki? ”

"The time, place, and outcome are all different, and the thinking cannot be constrained in the same way as before." Sir Eston, a former assistant to Zhu Erdian and the British consul in Shanghai, spoke in a crepe manner, his arms moving with the words as if he were a teacher reinforcing the tone of his pupils. said: "Please forgive me for saying that your country did not completely defeat Japan, and if it were not for our country to restrain their navy, I believe that Shanghai and Guangzhou would have been reduced to ruins by now!" Unless, of course, Your Excellency the Vice President, you think that in the vast sea, a fleet armed to the teeth can be dealt with with a few submarines. ”

Yang Qiu glanced at him, took note of the new minister, and said, "Yes, thank you for your outstanding contributions to peace in Asia, but I wonder if you have any new suggestions?" ”

"We can persuade the Japanese government to return all of your mainland that it occupies, but Taiwan needs to make an exception. In view of the fact that Japan's domestic food shortage has not yet passed, and that a stable source of food is needed, Taiwan will be gradually transferred to your country after five years of joint administration by the two countries, and your country must also ensure that all troops entering Korea are withdrawn. It is also impossible to pay reparations, and Japan's current economic situation simply cannot afford 300 million US dollars, not to mention that your country has already seized more than hundreds of millions of dollars this time, and we can persuade the Japanese government to give up these properties. As for the nullity of previously signed contracts, your country must also allow Japanese companies to conduct business normally. Eston said to himself that he directly changed the eight articles of the people beyond recognition, and the meaning of favoring Japan was obvious, especially the Japanese concession and Taiwan issues made Yang Qiu's heart angry.

Co-management of Taiwan for five years? I probably thought I would be able to fight back in five years, right? Yang Qiu snorted in his heart, and his voice became cold when he hugged the coffee cup with his hands: "There is no discussion between the concession and the Taiwan issue!" Otherwise, the unequal treaties that ended before the end are empty words! It is possible to withdraw from Korea, but the Ryukyus have been a protectorate of our country for thousands of years, and they should be handed over to our country for continued trusteeship. As for the indemnity. After a pause, he raised his eyebrows: "Shouldn't the victor be compensated?" If Japan has no money, then I can also take a step back, as long as they hand over the two Hanoi-class battleships to our navy to pay off their debts. ”

"It can't be." Bernard shook his head, Japan dared to put forward the disadvantage of Taiwan being under the joint management for five years because the submarine could not complete the protection of the army for cross-sea landing, so it would be fatal to ask them to hand over the two main battleships!

Yang Qiu was a little annoyed, put down the cup and got up and said, "Two of you! With all due respect, this war was not provoked by our country, but is entirely the responsibility of Japan! Millions of people are homeless, tens of thousands of soldiers are spilled on the battlefield, if the final situation is that they can neither get the compensation nor regain all the lost territory, how can Yang face them? If this is the final condition, then let alone me, 40,000,000 people will never agree! ”

"Cancel the indemnity, Taiwan will be under condominium for five years, and the British Empire can make a commitment to hand over all tariffs to your country, cancel all the indemnities and recognize the legal status of your country! On the contrary, our country will immediately withdraw from mediation! The anxious Bernard simply spread out his hole cards and offered a threat stick of force by the way.

Waiting left and right, is waiting for this sentence!

Tariff autonomy! The world recognizes! What a simple eight words, but a symbol of the independence of a government and a country and being accepted by the world. In particular, the former, in addition to bringing back hundreds of millions of yuan of income for the country every year, is an important barrier to protecting and promoting domestic industrial development. If the tariffs cannot be recovered, when British and American goods return to Asia at the end of World War I, the industrial base that they have built at great cost will be washed away by powerful world capital. It's a pity that this needs to be exchanged for five years of Taiwan's interests. ”

"The concession cannot be discussed! If there is no indemnity, then everything in the concession is not allowed to be taken away, and I must give an explanation to the people! Ryukyu we can put aside for the time being, Taiwan. Yang Qiu walked to the window, and the howling north wind made the words stop here Looking at the calendar on the wall, his heart was struggling a little painfully.

The time shown on the calendar is already November 15th, and there is still half a month before Spee is eliminated, and half a month later, all the Anglo-French Pacific forces will be released! It was impossible for the weak navy to block so many warships, so after a while, he finally nodded: "Five years of joint management, but during this period, our army must continue to control Sinuiju and establish a military buffer zone in Pyongan Province!" After five years, Taiwan will actually be returned to our country, and we will fully withdraw our troops from the DPRK. ”

In fact, they all knew that the Japanese concession could not be saved, and that the money and factories in the concession would be in someone's pocket sooner or later. Helping Japan retain control of Taiwan for five years will reduce the pressure on the Japanese government and the Diet to pass a treaty, and as for Sinuiju that is already under the actual control of the National Defense Forces, it is better for Japan to establish a so-called buffer zone to stabilize the situation in Korea first.

Therefore, the two couldn't wait to say goodbye and rush back to Shanghai on a warship, and issued an ultimatum to the Japanese envoy Takaaki Kato that night.

"Vice President, Russia has a letter!" As soon as the two left, Cai Gongshi threw himself into the living room and shouted excitedly: "Russia has agreed!" $50 million to buy all the arms, and an additional $420 million worth of large orders! He also promised to sign the Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty as soon as the signing of the peace treaty between us and Japan ended. ”

Cai Gongshi stopped his mouth, because he found that this largest industrial order in Chinese history did not move this young man, but frowned and the corners of his mouth were gloomy, and only after half a ring did he take the letter and take a deep breath: "Contact Hangel, my country hopes to order two large warships from the United States immediately!" ”

ps: There is no special reason, it is rare to go out and play for a day with the children. Tomorrow, if you have time, Hippo will try to make up for the chapter owed today, and if you don't have time, you will definitely make up for it next week.