Chapter 1654 War Breaks Out

June 8, 1937.

On the Loess Plateau in the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire, an East African research team was making contact with the local government when they met an American journalist who was equally curious about the Red areas; his surname was Snow.

Meeting an American in this mysterious place certainly piqued the research team's interest.

For most people in the world, the areas under the control of the government on the Loess Plateau are relatively unfamiliar and full of mystery.

Besides their remote geographical location, the deliberate blockade by the Nanjing government was also an important factor, and this was also a major reason why the American journalist came here alone.

He wanted to unveil the mystery surrounding the regime and reveal some of its actual circumstances to the public.

The head of the research team, Gladys, asked the American journalist, "Mr. Snow, it's quite a surprise to see you here. I don't think it would be so abrupt if it were a Soviet."

Snow said, “Mr. Gladden, I’m actually quite surprised to see you East Africans here, and judging from your appearance, you’re much more familiar with this place than I am.”

"Although I lived in the Far Eastern Empire for several years, I only recently came to this place."

Gladys laughed and said, "That's not surprising. We have a lot of normal trade and investment activities in the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire in East Africa."

"Therefore, the number of East Africans in the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire is not small, and among the foreigners covering the vast northwest region of the Far Eastern Empire, Soviets are probably more common."

It was inevitable that the Soviet Union had connections with the Northwest regime. In addition, the Soviet Union itself had a lot of economic activities in the Western Regions, after all, the Soviet Union was a neighboring country of the Far Eastern Empire.

Gladys continued, “But the Soviets were more active in the northwest, the Western Regions, and the north, as well as in the Guanzhong Plain and the northern plateau, and we East Africans were even more common.”

“In recent years, East Africa has increased its investment here significantly, after all, the coast and north of the Far Eastern Empire are not very peaceful now.”

This specifically refers to the transfer of East African assets to the Far Eastern empire.

Snow was somewhat aware of this, after all, East Africa's main economic activities in the Far East Empire used to be concentrated in the Huaihai region, but since the major floods in the Far East Empire in the early 1930s, East Africa's investment focus in the Far East Empire had changed dramatically.

Snow asked, "Mr. Gladden, East Africa is indeed quite active in the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire. When I was in Guanzhong, I saw one of your factories. It is said that East Africa is now the main country investing in Guanzhong."

Gladys shook his head and said, "I don't know about this matter. After all, we are not merchants, and the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire is inherently difficult to contact with the outside world due to its remote location inland and poor transportation."

"That's why it seems like we have more people! But in reality, other countries are more interested in investing in the relatively wealthy areas of the Far Eastern Empire's eastern region."

"Just like your United States, you have a large number of business people in the Far Eastern Empire, especially in the major cities of the Far Eastern Empire."

The United States' economic activities in its Far Eastern empire, both in scale and activity, far exceeded those in East Africa. After all, the United States' geographical location dictates that, under normal circumstances, the Far Eastern empire is an important market that it cannot ignore.

The United States is a Pacific nation, so for Americans, the Far Eastern imperial market is on par with the Americas and Europe.

East Africa's focus of activity in the Pacific region was indeed the Far Eastern Empire in the past, but now the South Pacific is more important to East Africa than the Far Eastern Empire.

Gladys said, "If American companies were willing to invest here, I think we could see quite a few Americans here, but that would obviously be a bad deal for the United States."

"Transportation to the local area is a huge challenge for the United States, while we in East Africa can at least communicate and trade with the local area through air transport."

Snow nodded in agreement. He knew very well that unless the transportation bottlenecks were resolved, American companies would not be able to make a major foray into the northwestern part of the Far Eastern Empire.

He changed the subject, saying, "Mr. Gladden, I wonder what your purpose is in coming to the red zone? I see you have quite a few people."

In response to Snow's question, Gladys explained, "We are an expedition team, mainly to learn about local customs and culture in order to provide authentic data for some academic research in the country."

This is the official explanation, but in reality, as the head of the research team, Gladys's main purpose was to conduct in-depth research on the institutional construction of the local government, especially the military's organizational model, discipline and regulations, training models, and so on.

These things certainly couldn't be said to this American, so Snow assumed that this so-called research team was similar in nature to him.

However, he was unaware of the significant difference between the two. Gladys's research team could be considered a semi-official group, capable of representing the East African government to some extent.

Even though Snow received a warm welcome from the local government leadership in the Northwest, it was still considered a private event and did not represent any organization or country.

Meanwhile, the local government in the northwest was very enthusiastic about this so-called research team from East Africa, and was not entirely unfamiliar with East Africa.

Because in the past few years, East African investment activities in the region, such as some mines and factories, are not far from here. Occasionally, conflicts between local armed groups and the Nanjing government could affect East African-invested industries in the region.

Of course, both the Nanjing government and the local authorities have a friendly attitude towards East African investors.

It is worth mentioning that although East Africans did have some connections with the regimes in the communist regions, this did not arouse suspicion from the Nanjing government, because many of the East African investments in the region predated the establishment of these regimes.

The Red base area was established in 1934, and it was only in the last year or two that its central government moved there with the army from the south, making it the center of its Far Eastern empire.

Large-scale investment by East African companies in the region occurred around 1931.

If, after 1935, East Africa suddenly increased its investment in the region and began to make contact with the communist regimes, the Nanjing government would certainly have suspected the motives of the East Africans.

The timing doesn't match up now; surely the Nanjing government doesn't believe East Africans can "tell fortunes"!

They couldn't find a reason to prevent East Africans from contacting the regional regime, since all business in East Africa was legal, and besides, the Nanjing government hadn't stopped the communist regime in the south.

Gladys told Snow, "There is a lot of investment in East Africa, so in order to avoid conflict between the two sides and damage to our legitimate interests, it is inevitable to deal with local armed groups."

"This survey map was created to assess the local business environment and investment risks, and to protect the rights and interests of East African businesses and legitimate merchants."

Snow believed Gladys's words, which was similar to some special regions and countries in his previous life. After regaining independence, other countries needed to assess the specific circumstances before deciding whether to engage in trade and exchanges with that country, in order to avoid suffering major risks.

We can also refer to the mutual probing between capitalist countries and the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union implemented the New Economic Policy.

Only after confirming the Soviet government's "sincerity" could businessmen and enterprises in other capitalist countries better decide whether to trade or invest with the Soviet Union.

In Snow's view, Gladys's research team should be considered such "pioneers".

The research team's contact with Snow was just a minor incident; the main reason was that they saw Americans being somewhat "uncommon" here, so they couldn't help but exchange a few words.

However, during their interactions with the regimes in the communist regions, the research team was not simply an inspection group as Snow had described.

Gladys did indeed approach them with a mission, and the two sides conducted commercial negotiations regarding a portion of the cooperation.

This part of the negotiations was commercial in nature, including the trade of goods such as weapons, medicines, cloth, coal, steel, and machinery, as well as the important project of building an airport in the area controlled by the Red regime.

Currently, the official government of the Far Eastern Empire is still the Nanjing government, so East Africa cannot provide it with free aid, not to mention that the local regime itself has huge ideological differences with East Africa.

Therefore, East Africa's "assistance" to the regimes in this region is at most limited to conducting normal trade activities.

Even so, this is a timely help for the current regimes in the red areas, because they lack everything, especially in the face of the Nanjing government's deliberate blockade and suppression. Many supplies are difficult to buy even with money.

Let alone a regional government, even the Nanjing government, East Africa cannot provide it with large-scale free support right now, because doing so would inevitably cause anxiety for the Japanese government.

The idea that East Africa hopes to change the landscape of Southeast Asia with the help of Japan will probably be difficult to realize. Therefore, East Africa must make some profit at the most at this stage, so as not to scare Japan into giving up its pawn.

The current situation is good; even if Japan notices the small actions in East Africa, they won't care.

If it's the latter, Japan will have to consider whether it needs to get involved in East Africa. In that case, let alone launching an invasion, the Japanese government will probably have to prepare for a war to defend its homeland.

At present, Japan is at most dissatisfied with the small actions of East Africa, but does not believe that East Africa will be deeply involved in Far Eastern affairs.

Once the Japanese navy sails south and removes East Africa's foothold in the South Pacific, preventing it from accessing the Pacific, Japan can not only eliminate its "worries about the rear" but also retaliate against these small actions by East Africa now.

So, on July 7, 1937...

After determining that countries such as East Africa, the United States, and the Soviet Union would not interfere in the affairs of the Far Eastern Empire, the Japanese government officially launched a full-scale war of aggression against the Far Eastern Empire.

This point in time was later identified by East Africa as the official start date of World War II, just as the West defined the start of World War II as the German invasion of Poland in the previous era.

East Africa has its own definition standards. After all, Japan itself was identified as the "prey" of East Africa, a war criminal, and the first country to wage war against East Africa in World War II.

However, that's a story for another time. For now, the war that Japan has launched has not yet involved East Africa.

...

The news that Japan fired the first shot of World War II was quickly transmitted to East Africa via undersea cables.

Rhine City.

Having just finished an inspection tour of places like Bulawayo, Ernst said to Crown Prince Friedrich at the Rhine Palace: "The Second World War has officially begun!"

"Now that Japan has taken the lead in launching a war against the Far Eastern Empire, once Germany's war machine starts turning, other countries on the Eurasian continent will certainly not be drawn into it in the next two or three years."

"I think Germany will declare war on the rest of Europe within the next two years."

"If my prediction is accurate, then we can now more boldly loosen restrictions on military production capacity and military expansion."

"In terms of the navy, we can also launch more projects. Next, everyone's attention will be focused on the war in Eurasia, which is the best time for us to strengthen our military and prepare for war."

Ernst's prediction that Germany would launch a war within two years was a rather conservative inference based on the timing of Germany's previous war.

In the previous life, Germany invaded Poland in 1939. In this timeline, if Germany were to launch a war, it would have to be earlier than that.

After all, Germany was already powerful enough, and Adolf did not need to completely rebuild a new army as he had in his previous life.

In this timeline, Germany was not emasculated after World War I, so its army has always maintained a world-class level, with a greater abundance of officers and reservists.

There are only three important factors that could delay Germany's war effort: Italy, a key ally, was not yet ready for war; the Spanish Civil War was not yet over; and the assimilation of Austria-Hungary was not yet complete.

Once these three issues are resolved, Germany will have no other worries. At that time, Germany will be a superpower, with two major European powers, namely Italy and Spain, as well as German vassals in Central and Eastern Europe.

With this powerful alliance, Adolf had no fear of any country on the European continent, including France and the Soviet Union.

Crown Prince Friedrich said, "Just as you said, Father, now that Japan has started the war, it is only a matter of time before Germany starts the war as well."

"Now, besides building up our own strength, we need to see the attitudes of other countries, especially the Soviet Union, Britain, and the United States."

"The Soviet Union has made it clear that it is befriending us, the United States, and other countries in order to counter Germany."

"Only Britain and the United States remain undecided. To be more precise, Britain is undecided. As for the United States, I think they are more like us, able to observe the development of the war on the Eurasian continent from the sidelines."

Since Joseph Joseph of the Soviet Union decided to ease relations with East Africa and the United States, the Soviet Union has now made its diplomatic stance completely public, and has even sent envoys to East Africa for negotiations.

The Soviet Union likely did something similar with the United States. Of course, East Africa has not yet obtained details of what the Soviet Union and the United States discussed.

However, it is clear that the Soviet Union offered considerable leverage in order to win over East Africa and the United States, such as the Central Asian Highway, for which the Soviet Union had already agreed to its construction.

This effectively allowed East Africa to extend its economic reach into Soviet territory and strengthened its influence in Central Asia and the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire. The expansion of East Africa's influence would naturally reduce the Soviet Union's original dominance in the region.

Besides this, the Soviet Union made many other concessions to East Africa, such as opening up the economic sphere to East Africa.

(End of this chapter)