Expedition to Europe

It must be emphasized that the old Renault's recruitment behavior was really not instructed by Qin Zhiyuan.

Madagascar is indeed very good, and Qin Zhiyuan does intend to plot Madagascar, but it is certain that it will not be during Pierre's term of office.

Lan Fang currently has no strong demand for territorial expansion. Compared with the Lan Fang people, whose population is less than 50 million, Lan Fang's territory is large enough, and Qin Zhiyuan does not have too many territorial demands for the time being. If Qin Zhiyuan really chooses to expand, Australia will be a better choice.

In fact, Qin Zhiyuan is also immigrating to Australia on a large scale.

After Port Hedland obtained legal status, the population of Port Hedland has rapidly increased to more than 200,000. Lan Fang's decision to build an industrial base in the Pilbara region will definitely stimulate the rapid population growth in the Pilbara region. It is estimated that when the base is completed, the total population of the Pilbara region will exceed the one million mark. At that time, the largest city in Western Australia will no longer be Perth, but Port Hedland. And if these one million people can obtain legal status, then according to the principle of minority obeys majority, Western Australia will no longer be decided by Perth, but by Port Hedland.

Building an industrial base is not a big deal. The main issue is confidentiality. Once the population increases, confidentiality will become a top priority.

Fortunately, the Lan Fang government is not short of experience in this area. Under the instruction of Qin Zhiyuan, Lan Fang has carried out pilot projects in Wanghai Prefecture, such as the 104 factory built deep in the mountains. The workers in the factory work and live in the factory. Their children go to school in the factory-run school. The spouses of the workers will also be arranged in the same factory as much as possible. In this way, a factory will become a concentrated society. From birth to death, these workers don’t even have to leave the factory gate. This effectively guarantees the start of confidentiality work and is more conducive to the workers’ enthusiasm for work.

Of course, if the timeline is extended, this model will definitely have problems, such as the resulting idleness and the inevitable emergence of the big pot rice consciousness. However, at this stage, it is still okay to do so. When the enterprise needs to be pushed to the market, there will be no need for confidentiality.

In this context, the telegram sent by Pierre to Qin Zhiyuan had a taste of groundless accusation. Qin Zhiyuan certainly would not be polite to Pierre. Even if they were relatives, they could not say anything careless.

So the telegram went around and finally reached Old Renault.

Old Renault's reply to Pierre was even simpler: You don't want me to recruit workers from Lanfang? That's great. As long as you give me enough workers, I promise not to recruit workers from Lanfang.

This is asking too much. Although Pierre is the governor of Madagascar and has great power, he still has no ability to find enough workers for Old Renault. Otherwise, those bankers in Antananarivo would not be chasing Pierre around all day to complain.

Facing Old Renault's questioning, Pierre was not completely without countermeasures. Of course, Pierre would not say it so clearly, but proposed to Old Renault in a tactful way that he hoped Old Renault would hire more French people or French colonial people instead of Lanfang people.

Old Renault immediately sent a list of employees of Renault Aluminum Company to Pierre. It clearly showed that 70% of the workers employed by Renault Aluminum Company were from Annan, and less than 30% were from Lanfang.

Such a report is meaningless. Everyone knows that the relationship between Annan and Lanfang is much closer than the relationship with the French.

However, for old Renault, such a report is enough to report to Pierre.

The relationship between France and Lanfang is still in the honeymoon period. Pierre will definitely not tear his face with Qin Zhiyuan for this matter. It is not in line with the fundamental interests of France.

For France, continuously expanding colonies and expanding France's international influence is what Pierre and other colonial governors should do, and similarly, what Lyautey should do.

Since he and Qin Zhiyuan decided to plot against Siam, Lyautey began to expand his troops in order to play a greater role in the process of conquering Siam, and then take more initiative in the distribution of interests after the war.

Before Lyautey arrived in Saigon, the Governor-General's Office of French Indochina had only two understaffed infantry divisions, which were the same as the structure of the Lan Fang Foreign Legion. Ordinary soldiers came from Annam, and officers and technical officers came from France.

This structure seemed fine, but because of the French army's consistent tradition, the combat effectiveness of these two infantry divisions was indeed not very good.

The French army was also extremely particular about seniority, and the class consciousness in the army was very serious. The treatment of Annam soldiers was much worse than that of French soldiers. Even in the same position, the salary of Annam people was less than half of that of French people. This unfair treatment caused widespread dissatisfaction in the two divisions, which seriously affected the combat effectiveness of the troops.

In the French army, there was also serious racial discrimination. Although the severity was not as obvious as in the British army, it also put the troops on the verge of riots. In these two divisions, the privileges of French officers were eye-catching, and some officers even had slaves in the army. More Annam soldiers became slaves of French officers. The antagonism between officers and soldiers was serious. It was not easy for such troops to maintain the status quo without mutiny, let alone being pulled out to fight.

Lyautey was indeed the best colonial soldier in France. After taking over the army, Lyautey immediately carried out a certain degree of reform, including improving the treatment of Annanese soldiers, giving Annanese soldiers equal status, canceling the military privileges of French officers, etc.

This eased the contradictions between Annanese soldiers and French officers to a certain extent, appeased the emotions of Annanese soldiers, and improved the combat effectiveness of the troops.

After completing the transformation of the two divisions, Lyautey immediately formed two more divisions on the basis of these two divisions. In the two newly formed divisions, a certain proportion of officers were Annanese, which effectively improved the status of Annanese in the army, further improved the combat effectiveness of the troops, and even increased the loyalty of some officers and soldiers to France, which had never happened before.

It’s not that the former governor Bastien was incompetent, but that Bastien’s mind was not on running the colonies at all. Bastien had always planned to return to France and strive to climb higher and go further in the French military system, so when Bastien was in office, he didn’t pay attention to the construction of the colonial army at all.

After the reorganization of the four divisions was completed, it was already November. Traditionally speaking, November is already winter and not suitable for launching a war, but in Southeast Asia, this problem does not exist. Even in November, the temperature is generally above 20 degrees, and there is no weather problem at all.

In November, good news finally came from the Northern Xinjiang Region. Under the continuous attack of Kolchak's coalition government and Lan Fang's Northern Xinjiang Region, Red Russia finally couldn't hold on. In early November, the coalition forces broke through the capital of Red Russia, St. Petersburg, and announced the complete destruction of Red Russia.

When Qin Zhiyuan heard the news, although he had a premonition, he still felt sad. The former "comrade and brother" relationship is not so easy to forget. Although in this time and space, Red Russia did not show any goodwill to the Chinese, it was once a memory of a generation. Qin Zhiyuan was also influenced by his family when he was a child, and his feelings for Russians are also quite complicated.

In any case, in this time and space, Red Russia failed to establish that super empire. The whole of Russia is now torn apart. Denikin's Belarus and Kolchak's coalition government have become the representatives of the Russians. The existence of the Lanfang Northern Region will become an indelible painful memory in the hearts of the Russians for a long time.

The original text is available at Liu # 9 @Shu/Bar!

Although the battle is over, there is still more finishing work to be done. Therefore, Lu Zhengxiang and Qin Zhisheng came to Penglai Island together to report to Qin Zhiyuan the cost of this battle.

"Since the start of the campaign in May, we have sent out a total of six divisions, including one tank division, two semi-mechanized divisions, and finally two infantry divisions and an artillery division. During the entire campaign, 4,300 soldiers were killed or wounded, most of whom were due to weather reasons. The logistics department was not familiar with the logistics support for fighting in severe cold areas. The cotton-padded clothes of some units were not replenished in time, and a certain degree of frostbite occurred in the troops. At the same time, our tanks and cars also exposed some problems during use, and these problems need to be solved by the military industry department. The key issue now is the pension cost. Although the coalition government did not shirk its responsibility, they have no money now, so they cannot pay pensions to our soldiers--" Qin Zhisheng's report contained a gloating element, not for the casualties of Lan Fang soldiers, but for the predicament of the coalition government.

"Eugenevic came to me yesterday, hoping to get a loan from us. The coalition government will use minerals and timber to repay it. At the same time, Eugenevic hopes that we can provide certain assistance to the coalition government, including food and daily necessities." Lu Zhengxiang did not gloat over the misfortune, and his smug expression was still evident.

Think about how Lu Zhengxiang was still begging for help in Paris a few years ago, just because he did not have a strong motherland and had to kowtow everywhere. Think about Eugenevic's humility in front of Lu Zhengxiang, which is really sad.

Eugenevic is the plenipotentiary ambassador of the coalition government stationed in Lan Fang, and the coalition government is also the only country that Lan Fang has established diplomatic relations with in Northern Europe.

"They owed us a lot of money before, how much is it now?" Qin Zhiyuan still remembers the negotiations with Kolchak when he visited the coalition government.

The economic situation of the coalition government is not good, at least it is much worse than that of Lan Fang. The war launched by Kolchak was launched only when Lan Fang provided a series of assistance.

"Before the war, it was 400 million Lanfang yuan, and now it is about 1.6 billion. Eugenich wants to borrow another 400 million, so the total is about 2 billion." Lu Zhengxiang is proficient in numbers.

After the war, the debt has quadrupled. This war is really a waste of money.