Chapter 25 The Northern Expedition built with 30 million gold rubles

In Vladivostok in February 1920, on a dark and windy night, a carriage full of wooden boxes escorted by soldiers drove into the compound of the Vladivostok branch of HSBC Bank.The bank staff immediately moved the unloaded wooden boxes into the bank's vault with difficulty, and the branch manager Wood immediately opened the first box with two assistants to check the goods.Wood opened the lid of the box and saw that there were neatly stacked gold bricks inside, still shining faintly in the dark.So they reached in, and by the dim light of a candle, they groped for the gold nuggets and counted them. "The floor was full of boxes. We walked about on boxes, with candles in one hand and wax in the other, and opened each box, inspected the contents, sealed it with wax, and sent it for loading." [2] The batch The gold originally belonged to the Tsar, and it was quietly lying in the treasury of the Central Bank of Tsarist Russia two years ago, but now it has entered the treasury of HSBC as spoils of war.How is this going?

It turned out that after the October Revolution in Russia, the tsarist army entrenched in Siberia, led by Admiral Kolchak, marched towards Moscow, captured Kazan, the treasury of the central bank of the tsarist government, and seized 80 million pounds worth of money. gold reserves.After that, he was defeated in Moscow, and then fled eastward along the Siberian Railway with the gold.It was winter, and the severe cold in Siberia completely destroyed the morale of the defeated army, and they mutinied as soon as they reached Irkutsk.In order to survive, the mutineers reached an agreement with the Soviet government. They handed over Kolchak and the batch of gold to the Soviet government, and the Soviet government guaranteed their personal safety and let them go home.These mutinous soldiers were mainly European mercenaries. They wanted to return to Europe by boat from Vladivostok, so they secretly withheld part of the gold and sold it to the Vladivostok branch of HSBC Bank.

The Soviet Russian government, which was originally so poor, got the gold reserves left by Tsarist Russia, and its back became stiff all of a sudden.At that time, 1 British pound was equivalent to 10 taels of silver. The batch of gold at the bottom of the Tsarist Russian treasury was resold partly by European mercenaries to HSBC, and the remaining gold worth about 50 million pounds fell into the hands of the Soviet Russian government. A huge sum worth 500 million taels of silver!Back then, the Japanese extorted 230 million taels of silver from China through the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, and successfully established the gold-standard yen system after the British exchanged it for gold.The Bolshevik Politburo also had experts in financial currency, so they used this gold as a reserve to carry out the currency reform of the ruble and implement the gold standard.As a result, the Russian economy, which had been destroyed by the war, gradually stabilized and got back on track. 【3】The Soviet Russian government, which had a firm foothold, had just recovered, looked around with lingering fear, and found that the situation was really bad.The West is dominated by capitalist powers, while the East and South are colonies and semi-colonies under the control of imperialism. The powers can launch an assault at any point along Russia's long border at any time to overthrow the Soviet regime.

In this situation, it is useless to keep a low profile. The only option is to use offense as defense and build a buffer zone along the border to defend against imperialist aggression.However, China and Soviet Russia have a long border line. How to prevent imperialism from using China as a springboard to attack the soft underbelly of Soviet Russia has become a strategic issue of concern to the Soviets.Specifically, it is to achieve two basic strategic goals in China: first, promote the independence or self-government of Outer Mongolia, and establish a pro-Soviet regime as a buffer zone between China and the Soviet Union; second, maintain the Middle East Railway in Northeast China ( Manzhouli to Suifenhe via Harbin).

To achieve these two goals, it is difficult to achieve without the endorsement of the Chinese government.So the Soviet Russian government sent veteran diplomat Yue Fei to China to investigate the various factions.As soon as Yuefei took office, he immediately discussed cooperation with Wu Peifu, who was based in Beijing, but Wu Peifu, who was backed by Britain and the United States, ignored him at all, let alone selling Outer Mongolia and the Middle East Railway.I have been active in Beijing for more than half a year, except for the line of Feng Yuxiang, Wu Peifu's general, with no achievements.Just when Yuefei was at a loss, Sun Yat-sen of the Guangzhou government in the south came to him on his own initiative.

To survive, to revolutionize, and to unify the country, one must have money, and one must “pull venture capital.”The British were not optimistic about Sun Yat-sen, and they bet their treasure on Yuan Shikai when the Revolution of 1911 just won.The Morgan consortium in the United States once sent someone to talk, and Morgan's representative Lamont asked how to "achieve peace between the North and the South" in China.Sun Yat-sen said excitedly: "Peace between North and South? Yes, Mr. Lamont, as long as you give me 25 million US dollars, I can equip several legions, and we will soon have peace in the world." [4] Lamont secretly Shaking my head, I don't even have a stable site, and I don't have anything of value as collateral. Is it possible to have 25 million dollars in one mouth?

At this time, the representative of the Soviet Union Yue Fei went to China as an envoy.One was in urgent need of funds, and the other was urgently looking for a "project", so the two hit it off. At the beginning of 1923, Yue Fei rushed to Shanghai in the name of recuperating his illness. He stayed in Shanghai for 10 days and had long talks with Sun Yat-sen almost every day.On January 26, the "Sun Wenyuefei Declaration" was publicly released. The main points are as follows: China's Northeast Railway can only be jointly managed by China and the Soviet Union for the time being, and the Soviet Red Army stationed in Outer Mongolia does not need to retreat immediately; The national revolution is to complete national unification and national independence, rather than rushing to engage in communism; Sun Yat-sen "can rely on Russian aid" for the national revolution [5].

In March 1923, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union held a meeting and voted to assist Sun Yat-sen, providing financial assistance of 2 million gold rubles in the first batch. 【6】Of course, since the economy of the Soviet Union has just stabilized, it is impossible to spend so much money all at once. The 2 million gold rubles are purely empty hands.It turned out that after signing the contract with Sun Yat-sen, Yuefei went to Japan immediately and signed a fishery cooperation agreement with the Japanese. Japanese fishermen could go fishing in the coastal areas of the Soviet Union on the condition that they would pay a large amount of protection fees to the Soviets. Ren used this money to complete the first-phase financing of the Chinese project [7].Soon, the recovery of the Soviet Union’s economy began to take effect, and it carried out the second phase of financing, allocating 3 million gold rubles, 8,000 rifles, 15 machine guns, 4 artillery pieces, and 2 armored vehicles to assist China in establishing the Whampoa Military Academy. 【8】According to Wang Bailing, director of the Professor Department of Whampoa Military Academy, before the opening of the military academy, Sun Yat-sen approved 300 Guangdong-made mausers for the military academy.However, the arsenal at that time was all about currying favor with the warlords and not focusing on military academies. As a result, only 30 were issued at the beginning of school, which was barely enough for the guards.Liao Zhongkai's repeated negotiations were of no avail.At this moment, a ship from the Soviet Union arrived ashore and brought 8,000 rifles, all with bayonets, each with 500 rounds of ammunition, and 10 pistols. All the trainees cheered.Wang Boling recalled that this was "a great joyous event, and the whole school, from the officers to the students, was all in high spirits."

Not only the Whampoa Military Academy, but before the start of the Northern Expedition from 1923 to 1926, the Guangzhou Nationalist Government received arms from the Soviet Union worth about 3 million gold rubles, including 26,000 rifles, 16 million bullets, 90 machine guns, and 24 cannons.In addition, since November 1924, the Soviet government has provided the Kuomintang with 100,000 gold rubles in party affairs funds every month, and even gave the Kuomintang 10 million gold rubles for the establishment of the Central Bank of the National Government. [9] In the North, Soviet advisors also trained and equipped Feng Yuxiang's National Army.According to the receipt signed by Feng Yuxiang, from April 1925 to March 1926, the Soviet Union provided him with weapons and ammunition worth more than 6 million gold rubles. In March 1926, Feng Yuxiang visited the Soviet Union after leaving the field, and signed an arms loan agreement of about 11 million gold rubles. 【10】In this way, the total amount of arms and financial assistance provided by the Soviet Union to the Kuomintang in three years exceeded 30 million gold rubles.It was under the strong blood transfusion of the Soviet Union that the Kuomintang's Northern Expeditionary Army quickly grew into a decisive force in China's political territory. When Bo Luodin, a Soviet consultant who fled back to China after the "Ning-Han Confluence", passed through Zhengzhou, he sighed to Feng Yuxiang: "The Soviet Union spent more than 30 million yuan, and I personally spent a lot of effort to achieve today's success in the National Revolution. "

In November 1926, Chiang Kai-shek was indeed faced with a major choice. If he turned his back on the Soviet Union, he would lose huge financial support and military equipment supplies; but if he obeyed Borodin and went to Wuhan, he would ruin his power and political life. To go, or not to go, that is the question! Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to stall for time and patiently contact various venture capitalists.After various activities, the Shanghai Branch of the Bank of China provided him with 1 million silver dollars, and British American Tobacco provided him with a loan of 2 million silver dollars.If you want to make a big project, you can only get a huge and stable venture capital investment.So Chiang Kai-shek disclosed to the British Consul General in Guangzhou the information that he was about to break with the Communist Party through the foreign reporter Norman and the foreigner Cohen who had served him, and asked "whether the great powers can give Chiang some kind of guarantee of support." 【11】However, at this moment, a person rushed from Shanghai to Chiang Kai-shek's Nanchang Northern Expedition Army headquarters and asked for an interview. When the adjutant informed the person's name, Chiang Kai-shek was immediately overjoyed and swept away the many days of gloom on his face. , rushed to the gate to meet him in person.

It was Yu Qiaqing who came.