"China believes that the current colonial system in the world must be destroyed." Wu Xiangyu finally spoke about this core issue of China's strategy. As two countries both challenging Britain, China was not afraid of Little Mustache passing this on to the British. The British wouldn't believe it even if they heard it. For China, the benefits of overthrowing the colonial system were immense. The era of globalization was not only emphasized by Marx in the *Communist Manifesto*, but thirty years of revolutionary practice had proven that China could gain immense benefits from globalization. No member of the People's Party would refuse globalization.

Hitler was somewhat surprised by China's attitude. His ideal Germany was a continental power dominating Europe. Destroying the colonial system was a line of thought for maritime powers, and Germany's reach was currently not that long. China's declaration proved that their relationship with Britain was absolutely one of "fight until one of us dies." Hitler, however, had no such intention; he believed it was necessary for Germany to make peace with Britain.

Since Wu Xiangyu mentioned this matter, Hitler could only ask about China's future strategy.

"Excavating the Kra Canal is a strategic measure that China must complete." Wu Xiangyu revealed China's recent strategic action to Hitler. "Germany has experience in excavating modern canals, and we hope Germany can provide certain engineers in this regard."

Hitler never put on airs. It was the first time he had heard of the Kra Canal, so he asked Wu Xiangyu to explain it to him on the map. After seeing the location of the Kra Canal, Hitler understood China's thinking. The strategic location of the Kra Canal indicated that China prepared to weaken the Strait of Malacca. Anyone with a slight strategic vision would reach this conclusion. Germany naturally would be happy to see a move of this magnitude succeed. Little Mustache immediately expressed his willingness to provide engineering personnel from the Kiel Canal to participate in China's Kra Canal construction project.

The conversation lasted for more than four hours. Wu Xiangyu confirmed two things. First, Germany's strategy and China's strategy had no overlap. Second, Germany's main direction in the near future was still domestic German issues. It was not yet time to probe Germany's future strategy.

What Wu Xiangyu cared about most was that Hitler did not actively mention the Soviet Union. Since Hitler didn't mention it, China wouldn't ask either. Chen Ke had explicitly stated that they would not ally with Germany, so Hitler doing this actually saved Wu Xiangyu a lot of trouble.

After visiting Germany, Wu Xiangyu headed to Moscow. This was rather a polite visit. If the Chinese envoy visited Germany but not Moscow, it would be politically unjustifiable. The Soviet Union would definitely suspect whether China had reached some secret agreement with Germany.

Uncle Iron was very practical; he bluntly asked Wu Xiangyu this question. Did China have other secret cooperation with Germany?

"We are excavating the Kra Canal, so we are seeking Germany's technical support in this regard." Wu Xiangyu replied frankly.

Like Little Mustache, Uncle Iron immediately asked China to point out the location of this canal. After watching it, Uncle Iron questioned, "Does the Chinese side think this can shake off British control over the shipping lanes?"

Wu Xiangyu felt a burst of relief in his heart. Excavating the Kra Canal was a very interesting statement. On the surface, China was unceremoniously challenging Britain, but this challenge was quite similar to the "Berlin-Baghdad Railway" Germany wanted to build before WWI. It seemed like shaking off British control over key waterways, but in reality, it was also a sign of weakness. At least strategically, if China really wanted to solve the shipping lane problem once and for all, it would be better to send troops to attack Singapore and completely control the Strait of Malacca. In terms of cost, the cost of attacking Singapore was even lower than building a canal.

China was playing schemes and plots, forcibly building the Kra Canal. Strategically, it was merely to let China avoid the Strait of Malacca which was completely controlled by the British. After Chinese ships sailed into the Indian Ocean, they would face British-controlled Burma frontally. The British Indian Ocean Fleet was not without means to tamper with Chinese shipping.

Since Uncle Iron saw the "real" statement inside this, Wu Xiangyu readily admitted, "Only with this canal in hand can we have the possibility of gaming with Britain."

This kind of high-sounding nonsense was hidden within the open scheme. If the world situation changed, China might not necessarily refrain from waving its army south to complete the strategy of occupying Australia and New Zealand. Precisely because of this, China had to make a strategic statement to let other countries think that China would rather spend such huge strength to build the Kra Canal because China wanted to avoid British containment. China was not completely "deceiving" Siam either. The Chinese side was indeed building a railway across the Kra Isthmus to transport oil drums filled with petroleum.

Attempting to avoid the British presence in Singapore was easily understood as not wanting to go south. It seemed that first Little Mustache, and now Uncle Iron, had also made the judgment that China was satisfied with its recent interests in the Netherlands, only wanted to improve China's situation to a limited extent, and did not want to go south to fight to the death with Britain.

Wu Xiangyu was very clear that if Britain insisted on trying every means to block the excavation of the Kra Canal, then China could only meet them in battle. This was a very interesting matter; if China wanted to fight, it must first avoid fighting. The deeper reason was that China had the ability to wage war, and had the ability to win the war. But now the whole world simply did not realize how great China's ability actually was. Therefore, Wu Xiangyu's answers to Little Mustache and Uncle Iron were all speaking along the lines of the other party's speculation about China's true strength. China's true strength was China's trump card, and it was far from the time to reveal all the cards.

The Chinese and Soviet sides exchanged their recent situations and thoughts. They also exchanged views on Germany, and the meeting ended.

Comrade Stalin did not invite Wu Xiangyu to dinner. As soon as Wu Xiangyu left the Kremlin, Comrade Belkov, who was responsible for trade with China, picked Wu Xiangyu up by car to go to Comrade Belkov's home for dinner.

The dish was Siberian salmon, semi-raw frozen fish, cut into small pieces like cheese, eaten with garlic. It was fresh, tender, and very delicious. It was said to be a way of eating brought back by those Soviet comrades who had been exiled to Siberia. The wine was authentic Russian vodka. After eating and drinking for a while, Comrade Belkov said with a look of regret, "We hope to be able to delay delivery."

Without specific explanation, Wu Xiangyu knew exactly what the Soviet comrades wanted to delay delivery of. China's Second Industrial Revolution, that is, the electrical age, started later than Tsarist Russia, but the progress was much faster than Tsarist Russia. This directly led to China's technical level in the electrical age being higher than that of the Soviet Union.

The scientific research methods of the two sides were also vastly different. China had sufficient manpower, and the People's Party never stinted on investment in science and technology. The "Technology Tree Plan" spent huge manpower and material resources to repeat the experiments done by Europe and the United States over the last hundred years several times or even a dozen times. Only after doing these basic experiments would one know what one's own deficiencies were. What China desperately imported during the Great Depression were highly targeted technologies and experimental data.

In comparison, the Soviet comrades were more straightforward. They directly imported a large amount of equipment, especially large sets of equipment. The import of this equipment required massive amounts of funds. The Soviet population was only a little over 100 million, and they simply did not have that many workers available. Seeing that the Soviet Union couldn't even repay its debts with raw materials. It wasn't that the Soviet Union didn't want to do it, but that they really didn't have the strength to do it.

Uncle Iron was a man who didn't talk about human feelings; he wouldn't feel he owed the Chinese a favor. Theoretically, this was correct. If China didn't force the Soviet Union to repay immediately, then the matter of "materials that need to be repaid immediately" having already expired would naturally be considered over. Selling favors was a big taboo; that was blackmail.

Wu Xiangyu asked, "Then when can you repay? Let's sign a new contract."

Although he spoke lightly, Wu Xiangyu's heart was not so calm. Chen Ke had long set the tone for trade with the Soviet Union internally: expecting the Soviet Union to repay on time, on schedule, and with guaranteed quality and quantity was unrealistic. The Chinese industrial sector shouldn't count on the Soviet comrades' credit. Believing in the Soviet Union's credit for debt repayment was destined to lead to heartbreak.

Facts proved that Chen Ke did not misjudge the Soviet comrades. Even though Wu Xiangyu showed such sincerity, Comrade Belkov still had a face full of regret, "I really cannot determine this."

"Does 'cannot determine' mean that the Soviet Union's work schedule is already full?" Wu Xiangyu asked.

"The schedule for the next two years is already full!" Comrade Belkov replied.

"There has to be a time, right? Three years? Five years?" Wu Xiangyu asked. As soon as the words left his mouth, Wu Xiangyu understood one thing, and he became truly dissatisfied in his heart.

"We want to import a batch of Chinese mechanical equipment," Comrade Belkov said with a bitter face.

Old debts repaid indefinitely, and starting to borrow new debts. Wu Xiangyu looked at the bitterness on Comrade Belkov's face and could probably imagine how depressed he must have been when he received this task. Wu Xiangyu could only answer very seriously, "Comrade Belkov, I think we should talk about this matter when we get to Zhengzhou."

The Great Depression had not passed, and the major powers of the world were all desperately accumulating strength. The Soviet comrades, under the leadership of Uncle Iron, were exceptionally working hard. Even knowing that this matter was extremely difficult to deal with, Wu Xiangyu could understand how urgent the Soviet comrades' needs were.

By the time Wu Xiangyu returned to Zhengzhou, it was already mid-September of 1936. After listening to Wu Xiangyu's report, Chen Ke asked, "Did the Soviet comrades mention the matter regarding Spain?"

"Is it the Spanish Civil War?" Wu Xiangyu had heard the news from the international news on the radio on his way back to China. He replied, "The Soviet comrades did not mention it."

Chen Ke nodded, "Now there is a new task for you. We have reached an agreement with Japan to sell them a batch of old mechanical equipment. Comrade Li Runshi and you will be responsible for matters including transportation and handover. After this matter is done, the two of you will go to Lanfang Province to take up your posts. The Organization Department will talk to you in detail about the work in this regard."

The amount of information in these words was relatively large, and Wu Xiangyu didn't completely understand it for the time being. Li Runshi was the Acting Minister of Propaganda and also one of the people who could attend the Standing Committee meetings of the Politburo. Wu Xiangyu was the Vice Premier. Now these two people were going to China's overseas province to work together. This arrangement by the organization was really quite intriguing.

While considering the organization's arrangement, Qi Huishen and Li Runshi arrived. Chen Ke asked everyone to sit down and then said, "Japan has now reached a critical moment. Either the civil government overwhelms the military department, or the military department overwhelms the civil government. This time, Takahashi Korekiyo is betting his chips on importing old Chinese equipment, which can be considered a desperate move."

Lathes, milling machines, planers, grinders, and fitter's equipment were the most main types of machine tools in mechanical production departments. High-quality machine tools had a market at any time. Because these equipment had high technical content to manufacture and long cycles. This wasn't pouring molten steel out of a steelmaking furnace, solidifying it into steel ingots, and then starting to manufacture equipment.

Steel ingots and the metal used must first be placed for several years to eliminate internal stress, and then after these machine tools are manufactured, they have to be left for another few years to eliminate the stress generated during the processing. Chen Ke had seen his parents' mechanical processing units leave many machine tools outside exposed to the wind and rain since he was a child. When he was young, he wondered why they didn't sell these "scrap" iron guys as scrap metal. Later, after going to university, he learned that it wasn't like that at all.

Why manufacture large hydraulic presses? The purpose is to treat metal materials weighing several tons or even more than ten tons like kneading dough through such huge pressure, solving the problem of internal stress in metal through external force. The materials needed by precision machine tool factories were often prepared several years ago. Don't look at ordinary machine tools; the production cycle can often reach nearly ten years. If stress is not eliminated, the metal parts themselves will deform when heated and cooled during the production process, and the machine tools will have to be repeatedly maintained and debugged during normal use. These are all high-tech jobs. "A broken family is worth ten thousand strings of cash" is by no means a metaphor in the machinery industry.

The People's Party also took more than twenty years to accumulate its current family belongings, because machine tool equipment simply wouldn't work without such a long time. Now the People's Party had finally broken through many new technologies including transistors and lasers, and new-style machine tools with higher precision began to be available. These old-style machine tools also needed to be disposed of. The object of disposal was Japan.

Japan had been imitating China's Technology Tree Plan in industrial planning in recent years. Industrial planning was easy to do on paper. When theory and mathematics were combined, any magnificent and atmospheric plan could be achieved. However, the vast majority of enterprises in Japan were small enterprises. It was unrealistic for them to spend huge sums of money to purchase equipment. For many Japanese family factories, the ruler was calculated in millimeters. Control precision relied entirely on workers' experience and handwork.

A large batch of People's Party machine tools with excessively low precision went directly back to the furnace. The remaining batch of machine tools with precision at least above 0.2 millimeters were useless to keep but a pity to discard. They were prepared to be sold to Japan.

The reason for selling to Japan and not "giving" to the Soviet Union was not that Chen Ke felt distressed about that bit of money. Major industrial countries all had this kind of boldness. For example, the current British Chancellor of the Exchequer Chamberlain came up with a "Rationalization Policy". The British government funded the purchase of obsolete factories and mines, and then the government directly scrapped these factories and mines. Only in this way could factories and mines adopting new equipment have a way out. Relying on this policy, British industry began to shake off its obsolete and backward appearance and began to see large-scale upgrading.

Chen Ke felt it was necessary to use his brains on Japan. The development of productive forces was definitely not a warm and tender thing. When New China made the noise of "Better to have socialist weeds than capitalist seedlings", to put it bluntly, there was still a fierce political line struggle internally. If it was just importing some equipment and purchasing some new technologies, there simply wouldn't be such a commotion.

When there was fierce confrontation within Japan, the measures that could promote the progress of Japan's productive forces might not bring about an immediate improvement in Japan's economy, but a bloody political struggle.

Chen Ke knew that he was already walking in the twilight of his life. Since China had already changed, Chen Ke hoped to let domestic and foreign enemies stage a play of seeking their own dead end, and then profoundly educate the comrades within the Party, and even the people of the whole country. Although this approach could be called devoid of conscience, Chen Ke's conscience did not feel any condemnation.

"What might happen is my own imagination. What will truly happen requires comrades to go and see, to record. This is precious material for China to perfect social sciences." Chen Ke said finally.