With this batch of arms as a meeting gift, the Northeast Army's attitude toward this small German delegation was completely different!
Although they don't know why the German arms are transported by Eagle transport ships, they don't care about this issue. They are more concerned about what else the German army can provide them besides these weapons.
"Our country has a large population, but its food production is relatively limited. In addition, all overseas colonies have been lost, so it is necessary to purchase food and minerals from abroad. The iron ore reserves in the Northeast are very rich, and our country is willing to provide equipment to develop with your army. Iron mines in Northeast China!"
After hearing Mainz's request, everyone in the Northeast Army breathed a sigh of relief.
To be honest, this gift from the German army is very valuable, 50 fighter jets, 50 Renault tanks, 1,000 Maxim heavy machine guns, 500 MP14 submachine guns, 100 Krupp cannons, 20,000 Mauser rifles, plus 5 million rounds of ammunition and 10,000 rounds of artillery shells, this batch of arms was worth at least 50 million silver dollars in 1918, last year!
, Zhang Zuolin once sent troops to rob a batch of weapons that Feng Guozhang purchased from the footbath.
The weapons in that batch only had 27,000 rifles, and the price was as high as 18 million silver dollars.
It was precisely with this batch of arms that Zhang Zuolin's Northeast Army was able to quickly The number of small warlords with tens of thousands of people in the past suddenly expanded to 200,000, becoming a presence that can compete with the Zhili clique warlords and Anhui clique warlords!
And this time, Mainz donated not only 20,000 arms! A Mauser rifle, a large number of submachine guns, heavy machine guns, and even aircraft and tanks. The value of this batch of arms is much more expensive than what they grabbed last year!
Zhang Zuolin and others are not fools, of course they understand the world. There is no free lunch. The Hans people gave such an expensive gift, naturally they wanted to get some other benefits from them.
Before, they were still guessing, not knowing what the German army wanted, but now they heard the beauty. After Intz's words, the generals of the Northeastern Army suddenly felt relieved.
Food and minerals were not a big deal to the Northeastern Army.
The Northeastern Plain covers 350,000 square kilometers.
Such a vast area can feed hundreds of millions of people.
, and the population of Northeast China was less than 20 million at this time.
When all parts of the country were worried about the large number of people and the lack of land, there was still a large amount of wasteland that had not been reclaimed.
The land problem was almost non-existent in the Northeast.
It is precisely because the land in the Northeast is rich that a large wave of population migration into Guandong has begun to occur in recent years.
Since the conditions proposed by the other party are not excessive, the Northeast Army has no objection to cooperation with Hans.
The two sides quickly signed an agreement secretly, and after settling the matter, Colonel Mainz did not continue to stay in China and immediately took a ship to North America.
In this trip, North America was the most important part. The layout of North America determines the source of funds for their future activities!
...
Just when Mainz arrived in North America, the Tower City Peace Conference, which lasted more than half a year, finally came to an end.
There are huge differences in the positions of the three main members of the Entente on the German issue:
Gaul's idea is to severely punish and weaken Hans as much as possible; the sun never sets out of traditional continental balance policy considerations, hoping to maintain a relatively strong And Hans, who is economically self-reliant, wants to maintain the balance of power on the continent and prevent the Gallic family from becoming dominant; while Eagle Sauce hopes to establish a system that can guarantee long-term peace as soon as possible and benefit from this system.
They want as much as possible In order to obtain benefits, but also do not want to get involved in the war, so it is necessary to appease Hans and avoid Hans' revenge for this failure in the future.
If the problems in Europe cannot be properly solved, the people of Yingjiang believe that the war in Europe has just been postponed, but it will come again sooner or later.
Although the interests are inconsistent, the three countries have one thing in common, that is, they also advocate that Hans needs to pay compensation for the war.
After discussions among the three countries, based on the decision of the Allied Compensation Commission, they believed that the Weimar Republic needed to compensate the Allied Powers a total of 226 billion marks. However, in view of the continuous depreciation of Hans' currency, they required the Weimar Republic government to use gold to pay war compensation, and this After the war reparations were converted into gold, it became a jaw-dropping astronomical figure!
The Weimar Republic needs to compensate the Allies for 96,000 tons of gold within 99 years!!!
You know, the total gold in the world at this time is only about 80,000 tons. In other words, even if all the gold in the world belongs to Hans, it will not be enough for them to compensate the Allies!
The war compensation demands of the Allied Powers were really outrageous, but there were even more outrageous ones. After private discussions, Britain and France decided to jointly send troops to block Hans's seaport to control Hans's foreign trade. If there was a problem that the Weimar Republic was unable to repay its war debts, then they would directly send troops to seize Hans' goods or even ships as compensation!
This action was strongly opposed by Eagle Sauce, because Eagle Sauce had always hoped to get a share of Hans's post-war reconstruction work, and this move by Britain and France undoubtedly sent Eagle Sauce out of the Weimar Republic's trade. Let Eagle Sauce be unacceptable.
Therefore, after the Iron Tower City Peace Conference ended and the Treaty of Versailles was released, President Yingjiang refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles and instead signed a contract with Hans alone.
This incident aroused heated discussions around the world at that time. Some people were just watching the fun and did not mind the trouble, some were malicious and intended to laugh at the hawk sauce, and there were also some who were worried that Britain and France would take war measures against the hawk sauce.
However, few people care about and sympathize with the country that lost the war and has to bear such heavy war compensation.
Like Yingjiang, representatives of another country that refused to sign the treaty, the Chinese, also came to the capital of the Weimar Republic after Yingjiang, and signed a treaty with Hans alone for the Jiaodong Peninsula of China.
In this treaty, the Weimar Republic recognized China's sovereignty over the Jiaodong Peninsula and expressed its willingness to pay compensation for past crimes. Of course, given the current financial situation of the Weimar Republic, the amount of compensation will not be too large, approximately There is only 1 million pounds, which is almost a symbolic compensation.
However, when the news spread back to China, the attitude of the Chinese people toward the Weimar Republic changed drastically. Since the Opium War, this was the first time that a foreign country compensated China, instead of China indemnifying foreign countries. When I think of the Weimar Republic, With the heavy war compensation burden on the Republic, the people generally had a good impression and even sympathy for this poor new country.