Eventually, the Chinese government agreed to repay the $1.2 billion in principal that the Soviet Union had lent to China in advance. And even the interest in the past few years (a total of about 150 million US dollars) was given to the Soviet Union, so that it could be used to buy more military supplies from the United States, in other words, although the aid promised by the US government could not be given for the time being, but it was still no problem to spend money on things, and because of the opening of the Arctic Ocean route, even if the United States lost the sea and air supremacy in most parts of the Pacific Ocean, it was not difficult for American goods to be transported to the Soviet Union

The Chinese government is so "good people to the end", obviously beyond the expectations of the Soviets, and the Chinese side only asked the Soviet government to issue a public statement of thanks before accepting this huge amount of money, the Soviet government thought that this was just a tradition of good face for the Chinese, so it agreed, but some of the Japanese who know more about Chinese culture can see the intentions of the Chinese government, but for Japan, China and the Soviet Union turned their faces exactly what they wanted, naturally they would not break it, but just sit back and watch the mouthpiece of the Soviet government "TASS" He published an enthusiastic editorial thanking China for extending a helping hand despite the catastrophe this year, and the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union unconsciously gave birth to the opinion that "China no longer owes the Soviet Union anything, but the Soviet Union owes China a favor."

Historically, New China had paid a huge price for "fighting for a breath" to repay its debts early, but the situation in this time and space was relatively much better, because of the reparations paid by Japan after the defeat (although the proportion of hard currency was not large. But there are some. In addition to the advance payments received for arms orders from Japan and other countries, and the rapid growth of precious metal production in China, the current Chinese government is not short of hard currencies such as foreign exchange and precious metals, and even a huge sum of $1.35 billion can barely make up for it, without having to use life-saving food to offset it, as in history.

Moreover, if we analyze it carefully, we will find that it is difficult to use the hard currency in China's hands today to exchange it for the advanced machinery and equipment it needs from Western countries, because the sea is currently controlled by Japan, and the transportation in Tibet's Nathula Pass is very inconvenient, and if the United States and Britain buy Chinese goods there. It is still difficult to safely transport it back home. Therefore, the only way to do this was through the Soviet Union, but with Maozi's virtue of "plucking the feathers of the goose", this trade route was not so reliable, so the Chinese government only took out money that could not be used in the first place. The actual price paid is much smaller than it seems. But he succeeded in unloading the heavy debt of favor that he had on his back at the beginning. In the long run, the gains outweigh the losses.

After all, although the Soviet Union, which was badly damaged by Germany, is no longer so terrible, if it beats the Soviet Union, it will leave a bad reputation of "revenge for kindness" and thus give the Americans an excuse to interfere. Zuihou became a public enemy like Germany, which was unbearable for the new China, so it was better to let the Soviet Union be sorry for China, but not for China to be sorry for the Soviet Union, and to establish the trustworthy image of the new Chinese government, which would also be very helpful for China's development and even war in the future. To Hu Weidong's surprise, the ordinary people in China all supported this approach of the central government, and it turned out that most of the Chinese in this period still maintained the simple idea of "being debt-free and light", unlike later generations, when those who owed debts became grandfathers, and creditors became grandsons

Moreover, Hu Weidong soon realized that the Soviets obtained this huge amount of money to buy a large amount of military supplies, and because they were relieved, they transferred a large number of troops from the Far East and Central Asia to the Western Front, which may not be able to turn the tide of the Soviet-German war, and may even suffer even worse losses. Because the Soviet Union's painful defeat in the early stage of the war was not because the strength of the army was inferior to that of the enemy, but because of the problems in strategy and tactics and the improper use of personnel, as long as these two problems were not solved, no matter how many troops and advanced weapons were invested, it would only be convenient for the German army to brush up its achievements and increase the spoils of war, and the trend after the Soviet-German war also confirmed Hu Weidong's view

Although the $1.35 billion received from China would take time to convert it into military supplies and send them to the front, it was a shot in the arm for the Soviet high command as well as the millions of troops drawn from the Far East and Central Asia, which decided to launch a major offensive to regain some of the lost territory before the onset of winter. Although the Soviet high command incredibly quickly squeezed out more than 700,000 troops from various theaters of war, and there were more than 3,000 aircraft and more than 1,000 tanks to help the battle, it was not able to quickly defeat the stubborn resistance of the German army to regain Kiev, the history of the "Second Battle of Kiev" The battle inevitably dragged into the cold winter, and the two sides invested more and more troops, by the middle of December 1943, At its peak, the Axis side had more than 1.8 million troops, of which the Germans were about 1.1 million, while the Soviet Army was fought by three armies, with a total of no less than 2 million troops

Although they were quite dissatisfied with the disadvantage of the offensive, it was not a bad thing for the Soviets to drag the battle into winter, but they forgot one thing, the winter in northern Germany was not warm, although it was far inferior to the northern cities such as Moscow and Leningrad in the Soviet Union, but compared with Ukraine in the south, the gap was not very large, and although the German army was in the enemy's territory, the logistics support was stronger than that of the Soviet army, so even if the winter of 1942 was extremely cold, the German army still maintained a fairly strong combat effectiveness.

What's even worse is that with the arrival of midwinter, all the rivers in Poland are frozen, so that even if some bridges are still not repaired, German reinforcements and supply convoys can go directly to the Eastern Front battlefield from the frozen river

Perhaps because of the relationship of "eating a trench and growing wise", the Soviet high command issued an order to retreat on the whole line in time, but under the rapid pursuit of the German millions of German troops, the Soviet army still suffered huge casualties, including the losses in the stalemate stage, the Soviet Union killed and missing more than 300,000 people, and more than 400,000 people were captured, and the German army that pursued the victory swept the land of Ukraine and occupied the largest granary of the Soviet Union before the arrival of 1943 (to be continued......