Chapter 378 Pre-war Preparation

When Zhao Dongyun took the Spring Festival garden party as the virtual head in Xiyuan, invited ministers from various countries to China for an informal meeting, promised that he would not harm the commercial interests of various countries in the Yangtze River Basin and other southern provinces, and promised that the war would never affect Shanghai and other concessions, he also talked about himself. Support the actions of industry and commerce.

said that after Yingkou Industrial Zone and Huludao Industrial Zone, the Republican government will organize a third industrial zone, that is, Tangshan Industrial Zone, and follow the example of the previous two industrial zones, the industry will not only support the infrastructure required for various factories, but also promise that foreign investors will enjoy the same tax of domestic capital investment. Receive preferential treatment.

and said that the Republican government has launched a series of investment attraction plans, including the development plans of Fushun Coal Mine, Zhangjiakou Iron Mine and other mines.

For the development of these mines, Zhao Dongyun said that he would also adopt a Sino-foreign joint venture plan, and foreign capital can be combined with enterprises designated by China for cooperative development.

What is interesting here is that the Soviet republican government under Zhao Dongyun is not very interested in official enterprises.

Unlike the foreign affairs faction in the pre-Qing Dynasty, which liked to run officials or supervise businesses, except for a few industries such as banks and railways, most of the industries, the Soviet system led by Zhao Dongyun prefers to run completely.

At present, there are very few official enterprises fully controlled by the Soviet republican government, and they are mainly concentrated in the two major industries of railway and banking.

In terms of railways, it is China Railway Corporation. The company currently owns and operates two major railways, Beijing-Feng Railway and Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, as well as several railway branch lines, including Huludao Railway Branch, Yingkou Railway Branch and Fushun Railway Branch.

At the same time, it is also borrowing money from foreign investors to build the Jinpu Railway and Longhai Railway. After completion, the company will also be responsible for the operation of the two railways, but the foreign investors will send personnel to supervise the operation.

In addition, it is the banking industry. In addition to the Central Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance wholly controls two state-owned commercial banks, namely the Industrial Bank of the Middle East and Huatong Industrial Bank.

In addition, a small number of enterprises own a certain number of shares, such as Luanzhou Mining Company, Fuyuan Machinery Factory, Shenyang Arsenal and Baoding Arsenal. The shares of these enterprises are not managed by the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, but are handed over to the state-owned office under the Statistics Section of the Secretariat of the Presidential Palace. In addition to these important enterprises that still hold some state-owned shares, most of the other small and small official enterprises established in the pre-Qing era have been commercialized.

Implement full commercial operation by selling shares directly or transferring them to the two major state-owned banks.

The reason why Zhao Dongyun strongly advocates business is not because he thinks how good those capitalists are, but that the official really can't afford to run an enterprise. His money is not enough to expand the army. He can casually take out hundreds or hundreds of millions to run a business. You know, those mines are casually. Millions are invested. To be honest, the government really doesn't have so much money and energy.

On the other hand, it is also out of the consideration of drawing in the domestic business community and foreign capitalists.

What does Zhao Dongyun rely on to compete for domestic hegemony?

It depends on the Soviet system, and strictly speaking, the Soviet system still belongs to the Beiyang. What is the system of Beiyang?

Generally speaking, it is an industrial and commercial interest group in the north.

During the war between the Soviets and Anhui, countless military expenses were spent. In addition to the salaries of soldiers, there were tens of millions of military purchase orders. Who took these arms purchase orders? Except for a small part of them for imports, most of them were divided up by various capitalists in the north.

Among them, the most representative is Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

In the past few years, the arms purchase orders received by Fuyuan Machinery Factory from Fengjun have almost never stopped. They have been expanding production and again, and its output value has increased several times.

After the Soviet system went south, it grabbed a large number of southern provinces and planned to build the Jinpu Railway and Longhai Railway. Who took the rail orders needed to build these two railways? It was taken by Tangshan Iron and Steel Company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

And who does Fuyuan Machinery Factory belong to? Although Zhao Dongyun occupies a certain stake in it and the government also owns a small number of shares in it, the majority belongs to the entire northern industrial and commercial sector.

Basically, in the northern business community, individuals or organizations with assets of more than one million basically own shares or indirectly own shares in Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

In addition to military purchase orders, as Fengjun went south, it was followed by countless merchants and products, such as Fuyuan Cigarette Factory. The previous market was still limited to the three eastern provinces and Zhili. However, as Fengjun went south, their cigarettes have gradually occupied Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Anhui and other cities on a large scale. It not only squeezed the market for imported cigarettes, but also Nanyang, another major domestic cigarette giant, gradually retreated.

So the south of the Soviet Feng army seems to be about Zhao Dongyun and a group of Soviet military and political dignitaries, but from the surface, this is a war launched by the northern industrial and commercial circles. Those businessmen are more supportive of the Feng army going south than Zhao Dongyun.

Presue that the Soviet Union is an interest group composed of industrial and commercial capital as the core, it is also powerless in supporting industry and commerce.

While supporting domestic industry and commerce, Zhao Dongyun did not forget to attract foreign capitalists!

To put it bluntly, the so-called governments of the great powers are just representatives of interests launched by capitalists of various countries. What is the national interest? To put it bluntly, it is just making money. As for ideology, territory, sovereignty and so on, it is just a superficial product, and the most essential thing is still one word: money!

Capital for profit, and Zhao Dongyun let them make money!

As long as these foreign capitalists make money, their government will naturally like Zhao Dongyun and support him to unify China.

Zhao Dongyun's attitude made the ministers of various countries who came to participate in the Spring Festival garden party, especially the American minister Rou Keyi, quite comfortable.

Americans came to China not to save the Chinese people, but to make money. Otherwise, you think they really care about the life and death of the Chinese people.

So when Zhao Dongyun said that he would vigorously support industry and commerce and welcome countries to invest in China, he laughed happily!

Maybe it's not far from the United States to completely open up the Chinese market!

And when Zhao Dongyun had an informal meeting with the ministers of various countries and won diplomatic support for the Soviet military move in the new year, the Soviet military was naturally not idle.

The military that got the aftermath loan showed a rare boldness!

Not only made a large number of military purchase orders to a large number of manufacturers, including Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but also paid a considerable part of the arrears. When Zhao Dongping waved checks for large-scale procurement, Feng Jun also accelerated the speed of armaments.

Taking advantage of the money, Fengjun also joined a number of non-main troops in the plan on the basis of the rest and supplementary plan at the end of last year. For example, Lu Yongxiang's First Division only added some personnel in the rest and supplementary plan at the end of last year, and now the command has decided to supplement the first division. The battalion's artillery, dozens of light and heavy machine guns and more than 40 mortars intend to build the First Division into a new main division and restore the combat effectiveness of the previous First Division.

Lu Yongxiang's first division, as Wang Yingkai's founding force, is also the cradle of the Beiyang Standing Army. Its combat effectiveness was the top in Yuan Shikai's era. Although it was severely damaged by a brigade in the Tangshan Campaign and the Beijing Division last year, it also made the Feng army suffer a lot. At the beginning, this first division was in Tang Dynasty. Shanzhi resisted the attack of tens of thousands of Feng's army with a division.

Wang Yingkai went down, and Lu Yongxiang led the remnants of the first division to join Zhao Dongyun. After the department defected to Zhao Dongyun, he was transferred to the south and fought on the front line. He successively transferred to the south of Zhili, Henan, northern Jiangsu, Anhui and other provinces, and the losses were still relatively large. If the command department had not been supplementing the losses to the department, Lu Yongxiang would have thought that Zhao Dongyun used himself as cannon fodder.

However, although the Ministry has been replenished with war losses, after arriving in Anhui, the Ministry has only had about 10,000 people left. In the past two months, it has only replenished more than 2,000 new recruits and recovered to about 13,000 troops and two artillery battalions. However, it is still much worse than several main teachers.

The total strength of those main divisions is generally more than 16,000, with not only three complete artillery battalions, but also a 120mm mortar battalion.

After Lu Yongxiang's first division is replenished this time, it is expected to reach more than 15,000 troops, and the artillery regiment can also be restored to 48 of three battalions.

In addition to strengthening several combat troops, it also accelerated the training speed of the 15th Division.

The 15th Division and the 14th Division are units trained in the same period, but the resources in the early stage are basically concentrated in the 14th Division. So far, the 15th Division has only trained an infantry brigade, not even the division commander.

However, although the 14th Division has not fought a large-scale war so far, in terms of its performance in public security operations in southern Henan, although its combat effectiveness cannot be compared with such a strong army as the 3rd Division, it also has great potential. Many senior generals believe that as long as the 14th Division fights several wars and hone it After that, it is not impossible to get the second third division.

At least this 14th Division is much better than the 11th Division, the 13th Division, the 9th Mixed Brigade, the 10th Mixed Brigade and the 11th Mixed Brigade.

Therefore, many senior generals of the Feng army are also concerned about the subsequent 15th Division. Even now that the division has not yet become an army, many senior generals in the army have been staring at the position of division commander, especially He Zonglian, the commander of the 8th Division, and Cao Kun, the division commander of the 11th Division, have been the same as Zhao. Dongyun hinted that he was interested in the position of the commander of the 15th Division, which had not yet become an army.

In addition to these two active division commanders, the other brigade commanders, department chiefs and other generals are staring at each other!

"Now the artillery of the 15th Artillery Regiment is still relatively short. There is only one battalion of mountain artillery, and the missing two battalions of artillery will not be ready until two months later!" Fang Biyong said, "Most of the other weapons are the same. In a short period of time, the supply of ordnance will be given priority to supplement the southbound troops!"

Zhao Dongyun said: "There is no way to wait for the shortage of heavy weapons such as artillery. Wait for two months, but people can wait for weapons, but weapons and so on. The personnel of this 15th Division should be prepared first, train with the existing weapons, and wait until the equipment is in place, so that the combat effectiveness can be formed in the shortest time!"

Fang Biyong said: "It's not a big problem with personnel. Now there are many new recruits from the Ministry of Education. Five or six thousand people should be drawn this month, so that the recruits needed by the 30th Brigade will be complete!"

Zhao Dongyun nodded and said, "That's it. We don't produce heavy weapons such as artillery and machine guns, and the procurement is not timely, but we can't relax the training of personnel!"

"In this case, the 15th Division should be able to form an army in April. Although it is a little late, it should be able to catch up!" Zhao Dongyun said to himself, "Well, after setting up the shelf of the 30th Brigade, let the 15th Division go south and go there early for adaptive training while waiting for the equipment to arrive."

Fang Bi always listened and naturally said respectfully, "The Ministry of Service takes the order!"

After saying that, he looked up at Zhao Dongyun again, and then asked tentatively, "If the 15th Division wants to go south, the division commander and the brigade commander of the 30th brigade can't be so empty, I don't know..."

He didn't finish saying this, but Zhao Dongyun understood what he meant when he heard it. There were many people in the position of division commander of the 15th Division. The square wall in front of him will never recommend himself, because Fang Biyong is very self-aspirable. He is a civilian general and let him be the chief of staff. It's not a big problem, but it's really difficult for him to lead the troops on the front line.

But looking at him like this, he should recommend others!

Zhao Dongyun immediately said, "Don't be hesitant. Say, who do you think is suitable?"