157 Great Change (16)

Chen Ke felt that the Soviet Union's attitude was not quite normal, while Uncle Iron Man felt that the Soviet Union's practice of remaining temporarily silent was very normal.

When China and the Soviet Union were founded almost simultaneously, the CPSU, including Comrade Lenin, believed that the Soviet Union was finally liberated from the predicament of being surrounded by enemies on all sides. Even though China took quite a bit of advantage on the territorial issue, the Soviet comrades grit their teeth and endured it at the time.

Facts proved that the CPSU's judgment at the time was very correct. Nearly twenty years of true peace between China and the Soviet Union allowed the Soviet Union to avoid being under siege by enemies on all fronts. In the Far East, the only thing the Soviet Union had a headache about was that Soviet citizens preferred to run over to the Chinese side of the border to live and work. This trouble was the entirety of the trouble. On the Sino-Soviet border where there were fundamentally no troops stationed, the Soviet Union finally reduced its troops to five divisions in 1935. These five divisions were mainly to guard against a surprise attack on the Bering Sea region by Japan or the United States.

In the Central Asian Caspian region, the Soviet Union only had to guard against Iran and the British colonial troops in the Middle East, which were all very, very weak opponents. The Caucasus region faced Turkey, and the current Turkey was fundamentally not that Ottoman Turkish Empire that waged a long war with Tsarist Russia, but a weak country. When there were still Poland and the three Baltic states in Central and Northern Europe, the Soviet Union's strategic situation could even be called not bad. The surrounding countries were all very weak and were not the Soviet Union's match.

In Uncle Iron Man's strategic view, a new world war would start sooner or later. Trade between the Soviet Union and China, as well as the aid received from China, allowed the Soviet Union to survive the initial hardships. The Great Depression gave the Soviet Union the opportunity to comprehensively import advanced equipment from Europe and America, and the Soviet Union's industrial strength advanced by leaps and bounds accordingly.

In 1940, the Soviet Union's steel output reached 22 million tons, comparable to Germany's level. Although the Soviet-Finnish War was not fought well, the Soviet Union still, from 1939 to 1940, through various means, partitioned Poland and regained control of the three Baltic states. The road to Europe was once again open to the Soviet Union. Strategically, the Soviet Union had already shifted from a defensive posture to an offensive one.

At this stage, two things exceeded Uncle Iron Man's expectations. First was that Germany settled France cleanly and efficiently. In Uncle Iron Man's plan, there should have been a war between Germany and France with mountains of corpses and seas of blood, just like World War I.

The other issue was that China's performance was truly too astonishing. China, heading south with all its might, swallowed Australia and New Zealand, as well as a series of islands in the Central Pacific. With China's help, the entire Western Pacific colonies gained independent status. These regions had all been incorporated into the Western Pacific system led by China.

Recently, China's hand had even extended to the United States. Chen Ke's public speech in the United States clearly expressed China's anti-colonialist stance. The Yankees' tough attitude towards China actually had a strong meaning of forcing recognition. This made Uncle Iron Man feel extremely surprised. The United States only recognized the Soviet government in the 1930s and formally established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. But the relationship between China and the United States had already reached the point of strategic communication.

China's national power also made Uncle Iron Man feel very uncomfortable. According to data published by China itself, China's steel output reached as much as 45 million tons. This figure was the sum of the Soviet Union and Germany combined. China had nearly 800 million people, and the world basically acknowledged this fact. 800 million people plus 45 million tons of steel, this was a destructive force. The most bullshit thing was that in conversations with Chinese comrades, the Chinese comrades believed that by 1942, China's steel output might reach the level of 60 million tons. Relying on announcing powerful industrial production capacity to intimidate other countries could also be considered a kind of strategy. But this output of 60 million tons was also a bit too outrageous. Uncle Iron Man now thought that perhaps there was also a lot of water in the 45 million tons of steel output announced by China in 1940.

Overall, Uncle Iron Man found that his judgment of Europe was probably accurate. It was just that regarding other regions outside of Europe, especially the two powerful countries of China and the United States, his judgment seemed to have lost its accuracy. Uncle Iron Man's judgment of strategy had a not-so-small deviation.

First, with the support of the United States, Britain might still have the ability to wage war against Germany. However, Britain fundamentally had no intention of reaching a compromise with the Soviet Union.

Uncle Iron Man contacted Britain several times, hoping that Britain could agree to a joint pincer attack on Germany by the Soviet Union and Britain. Originally there was a lot of content that could be discussed, but now it had turned into mutual deception. The Soviet Union hoped Britain would land in Europe first to fight Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union would coordinate with Britain to attack Nazi Germany together. Britain naturally completely opposed this; they demanded the Soviet Union send troops to attack Germany first, and Britain would think of ways to coordinate with the Soviet Union's war. Both countries hoped the other would strike a life-risking blow, while they themselves picked the fruit in the back.

Of course, theoretically, Britain was now being blockaded by German submarines to a miserable state. In order to obtain anti-submarine equipment, Britain transferred its military bases in many regions of the world to the United States in exchange for 50 broken destroyers. At the present stage, Britain was indeed powerless to fight on the European continent. But Britain's attitude was very firm; they first demanded that the Soviet Union could not enter Western Europe, and moreover demanded that the Soviet Union could not join any alliance opposing colonies.

This could not help but make Uncle Iron Man start to seriously calculate the future strategic process.

The Soviet Union promised to act alone in Europe. If it waged war against Germany now, while also explicitly supporting China's anti-colonialist actions, there was no guarantee that Germany and Britain would not join hands to oppose the Soviet Union together. Standing behind Britain was also the United States. As far as the US and Soviet Union went, there wasn't any friendly relationship to speak of; the Soviet Union might very well have to oppose these three countries with the power of one country.

If the situation turned into this, the Soviet Union could only unite with China, using an alliance of the two countries of China and the Soviet Union to oppose the other industrial countries in the world. This was a huge gamble. First, the Soviet Union could not guarantee whether China was willing to participate in such a war. Moreover, from intelligence obtained from the Chinese side, China was desperately digesting the Western Pacific region it had most recently obtained. Uncle Iron Man could completely understand China's current approach. But the opportunity for war was fleeting. If China were given a few years to allow China to finish digesting the Western Pacific, God knows what stage the strategic situation in Europe would have developed to by then.

Not only were the Soviet Union and Britain colluding, but Germany was also ceaselessly raising demands to make peace with Britain. Britain's wartime Prime Minister Fatty Qiu actually neither wanted to make peace with Germany nor wanted to unite with the Soviet Union. What he truly hoped for was to unite with the United States to counterattack the European continent.

In this sense, Chen Ke had also clearly perceived this fact. Otherwise, why would Chen Ke travel ten thousand *li* to personally go to the United States to negotiate with Roosevelt?

After rectification and purges, the Soviet Army resolved the factionalism in the troops. Regardless of the quantity of troops or equipment, they surpassed the German army. Uncle Iron Man was not afraid of the German army. The thing to be done right now was instead to reach an agreement with Britain, and exclude the United States as much as possible. Once the Soviet army defeated the German army, Eastern Europe, which had been desired since the time of Tsarist Russia, would fall completely into Soviet hands. Even Western Europe would very likely open its doors to the Soviet Union.

Thinking of the victories China had obtained, Uncle Iron Man felt very regretful. Before the war, no one could have imagined that China could fight all the way to ten thousand *li* away. From the current Sino-Soviet border fighting all the way to Spain, which was currently still in a fierce civil war, was at most a distance of only 2000 kilometers. Now that France had fallen, Britain could not even fend for itself, and the United States was not yet fully armed, the Soviet Union had the confidence to completely defeat Germany. Taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to complete the liberation of Europe.

Since it was like this, the Soviet Union had to temporarily distance itself from China. At least it had to fool Britain first. If the Soviet Union, like China, used colonial liberation as a banner and openly wanted to completely wipe out Britain, then this short-term Soviet-British military alliance could not be reached at all.

After determining the recent strategy, Uncle Iron Man also began to consider what to do. Since he could not raise the banner of anti-colonialism now, the only banner left was anti-fascism.

The benefit of having a common ideology was that when both sides faced other ideological countries in war, it was very convenient to communicate with people in one's own camp. Uncle Iron Man did not want to hide anything from Chen Ke, and directly told Chen Ke his own judgment of the timing.

Although Chen Ke was relatively unsure in his heart about the combat effectiveness between the Soviet Union and Germany, Uncle Iron Man was truly an independent and autonomous person, and also a person who did not listen to advice. Besides, on what basis could China capture cities and seize territory overseas, and then say that the Soviet comrades would perform poorly in war? The Soviet comrades were not people who trifled with things either; they deeply knew the terror of war and would also strive to try to fight every battle well. Current history was not the history of Chen Ke's time; Chen Ke also had no bottom line regarding what things would happen in such a history.

So Chen Ke ultimately expressed that he respected the Soviet comrades' opinion. He only suggested that the Soviet Union should not be cheated by the British. After all, the craftiness of the British Yankees was very famous.

Of course, Chen Ke also had some egoistic thoughts. If a total war broke out in Europe again, the pressure China faced would also be greatly reduced. As long as he could support India in obtaining independence on its own, with Britain's current strength, the tricks they could play were very limited.

On independence and autonomy, Chen Ke was a firm believer in Grandpa Mao. Having a father or mother is not as good as having it yourself. In the history Chen Ke had seen, China could rely on no one; the only one it could rely on was itself. As long as the Soviet Union was not stupid enough to join the ranks of the whole world besieging China, it was not that rare of a thing for China to face the combined siege of Europe and America now. The purpose of China heading south was to attempt to establish a system that could oppose the siege of Europe and America on its own. Perhaps because Chen Ke was too accustomed to a Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a Russia that could help China guard the north was a responsible great power, a strategic cooperative partner that could be called the most excellent.

For the current China, this was enough.