In the 1930s, forced by the oppression of the great crisis in the world economy, the German-Italian-Japanese fascist alliance headed by Germany pursued foreign expansion under the guidance of extreme expansionist ideas such as Nazism, fascism, and militarism, and launched unjust wars of aggression against other countries in order to plunder the land resources of other countries and expand the living space of their own people.
People who are unemployed during the economic crisis
In order to resist the German-Italian-Japanese fascist camp, other countries, such as the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France, united to resist the fascist aggression and expansion throughout the world, thus starting the Second World War. Among them, Japan, immersed in militarism, has become more and more eager to look at China's vast land, and taking advantage of the advent of World War II, Japan has intensified its aggression against our country and launched an uncountable war of aggression against China.
Invasion of China
In order to resist Japan's aggression, our country established an anti-Japanese national united front and waged fierce battles against these evil aggressors. At the same time, the war of aggression waged by the Japanese fascists against China also made China one of the main battlefields of the anti-fascist camp in World War II.
The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
However, during World War II, Due to the long-term turbulence, the development of armaments and weapons was backward and stagnant, and most of them could only rely on imported foreign equipment, but at that time, the whole world was in a chaotic war, the demand for military equipment was in short supply, and the number of equipment that China could import was extremely limited. Therefore, the War of Resistance Against Japan was initially fought with great difficulty.
The soldiers had a very difficult time during the War of Resistance
At this moment, Germany, which has a high level of military modernization, actually sold 400,000 sets of advanced armaments to China, and did not charge money, and the only price was China's three things. Why did Germany, which was in the same fascist camp as Japan, support China's equipment and specify which three things it wanted? Is Germany really aiding China in the spirit of internationalism?
Why is Germany "bartering"?
So, let's first understand why Germany supported China with 400,000 sets of advanced armaments barter, and what are those three things?
Germans
In fact, as early as the First World War, Germany had grown into a very powerful industrial empire, proud of its advanced industrial and military strength, and wantonly provoked various disputes. Even after encountering the blows of the First World War, Germany did not collapse from then on, the so-called "skinny camel is bigger than the horse", Germany's military industrial strength at that time still seemed very strong, so that there was enough capital and confidence to provoke the Second World War.
But embarrassingly, because of the impact of the pre-war world economic crisis, Germany lacked sufficient foreign exchange resources to implement international procurement. At the same time, looking at the global energy market, it has been divided up and occupied by the old capitalist industrial countries such as Britain and France, and there is not much that can be left for Germany. This has put some pressure on Germany, which already lacks mineral resources and basic energy.
With the gradual increase in the demand for war and the continuous consumption of arms, the problem of energy shortage in the German war machine became more and more serious: no matter how strong the tanks and aircraft, they could not run without fuel energy. No matter how advanced the gun and artillery design, there is no material for casting and can only be a blank piece of paper. In this way, Germany has set its sights on China, a vast land with rich resources and diverse products.
tank
At this time, China, because of the long-term turbulent environment, poor and weak for a long time, and unable to produce and develop, empty vast energy and mineral reserves but do not know how to use, in the face of a variety of mineral resources everywhere, the industrial base backward China does not have enough ability to excavate and process it, can only be sold as raw materials to other countries.
ammunition
On the other hand, Germany, with its advanced industrial and military technology level has been recognized by the world, at that time, the most sought-after munitions equipment, in addition to American ordnance, is a German ordnance. In this regard, the energy-scarce Germany regards the energy-rich China as a trade object, but they do not have enough foreign exchange reserves to trade with China, and can only use the "barter" method, and the capital used to exchange Chinese energy is exactly the ordnance equipment they are proud of.
Kuomintang German Mechanic
Before the outbreak of World War II, China, with its traditional arts as an agricultural country, mainly exchanged grain for German equipment. But since 1934, Germany, which has begun to brew a bad stomach to start a war, exchanged 400,000 sets of equipment and weapons for three things in our country, which are the three mineral resources that are indispensable in the raw materials for making ordnance: tungsten ore, antimony ore, and tin ore.
Why does Germany need these three things?
First of all, tungsten ore resources are widely distributed in China. Tungsten ore, on the other hand, was found by Germany to strengthen the number of bullets fired by the barrel, and if it is used in ordnance manufacturing, it can greatly enhance the combat effectiveness of the German army on the battlefield.
Not only that, tungsten ore can also be widely used to enhance armor plates, armored bullets and other high-temperature components to improve the defense capabilities of components, and once invented a tungsten core armor-piercing bullet, which gained a great strategic advantage for the German army. Since then, tungsten ore has also become a German center addicted to arms and war
Tungsten ore
Necessary strategic materials.
However, with the growing reputation of the "artifact" of tungsten ore, these industrial powers such as Britain, the United States and France will naturally not lag behind, and soon stepped up the mining and strategic deployment of tungsten ore resources. Therefore, as competitors with a strong technical and industrial base, Britain, the United States, France and other countries will certainly not sell the tungsten ore resources in their hands to Germany, and they are not short of Germany's little money and armaments.
Tungsten ore mining
In addition, Portugal and Spain, which are slightly weaker countries, are not honest, they see Germany's strong demand for tungsten ore, so they start on the spot, ask for prices, and take advantage of the opportunity to slaughter Germany fiercely. In the long run, Germany can not afford such high prices. It is precisely because of such a premise that Germany turned its target to China, which was "stupid in the mine" at that time, and added one on the basis of the grain trade: tungsten ore.
Antimony ore
So, what is the use of antimony ore? Antimony ore is a refractory material, through the smelting and combination of other elemental metals, can greatly improve the strength and resistance of the material, is an excellent material for the manufacture of gears, for industrial and military significance is also very significant.
In addition to antimony ore, the tin alloy made by tin ore is also widely used in tanks and armored vehicles, which can make these war machines have better load-bearing capacity and provide combat support for armored forces. Therefore, tin ore, antimony ore and tungsten ore are naturally of great significance to Germany, a military industrial power.
Tin
From 1933 to 1937, under the guidance of The Leader of the Nazi Party Hitler, Germany made the expansion of armaments open and carried out large-scale arms expansion wars for the launch of World War II, during which Time Germany's military expenditure increased by nearly ten times, and the three rare resources necessary for arms manufacturing, tungsten, tin and antimony, were in short supply, and ninety-nine percent relied on imports, so Germany would propose to China the "barter" of these three resources.
Hitler
Why China accepted German aid
So, why did China, as an anti-fascist, accept the equipment of the fascist camp Germany? Isn't Germany afraid of causing displeasure from the Allied Power, Japan?
In fact, as early as the early days of China's War of Resistance, Germany was still in the process of launching World War II, and did not reach an alliance with Japan. At this time, Japan had already launched an invasion against China, and Germany, which still did not have obvious tendencies and common interests with Japan, was beyond reproach for trading with China for resources.
At the same time, in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, due to the passive response of Britain, the United States, France, and other countries to the influence of the fascist "appeasement policy" and their cooperative relations with Japan, they turned a blind eye to the aggressive activities launched by Japan and refused to discuss the issue of aiding China. In addition, the United States only cares about selling arms and energy to make a windfall, but instead continues to provide Strategic Resources such as oil and steel to Japan, which makes Japan's aggressive activities more and more rampant.
The heavily armed Japanese army
At this time, the Chinese government, which had no way to turn to for help and was very weak, could only hope for Germany, which was also ostracized by the Anglo-French-American alliance in the Treaty of Versailles. Germany, which happens to be actively expanding its military readiness, is also very anxious due to the shortage of resources, and the two countries have a tacit agreement due to their interests, so they formally launched a cooperative trading relationship: China provides strategic resources for Germany, and Germany provides Advanced armaments for China to resist japanese aggression.
German ordnance
At the same time, the Kuomintang government, which was in power in China, also had inextricable historical ties with Germany, and this origin also indirectly promoted the intention of the Kuomintang to cooperate with Germany. As early as the 1920s, Sun Yat-sen had tried to cooperate with the German government and use Germany's powerful military industrial strength to strengthen the revolutionary strength of the Kuomintang, but because Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary force at that time was not strong enough, it did not arouse Germany's interest, and cooperation failed.
German Arsenal
However, this did not prevent the strong interest in the Nazi regime within the Kuomintang, especially Chiang Kai-shek, who once admired the german Nazi martial spirit and was deeply influenced by German Nazi thought. After he came to power, he imitated the dictatorial means of the fascists and the spirit of martial arts, established military unification, and strengthened the control of ideology and speech in China.
To this end, in the face of the extremely urgent situation of the civil war and the demand for barter put forward by Germany, Chiang Kai-shek's faction, which had this intention, was very happy, and just in order to solve the urgent need of insufficient armaments, it used German equipment to build a German ordnance army, which played a key role in the early stage of the War of Resistance.
German Mechanic Division of the Nationalist Army
However, with the full outbreak of World War II, eager to expand Germany and the "like-minded" Japan to establish allied relations, Japan gradually dissatisfied with Germany's behavior of trading equipment with China, coupled with Germany's need for Japan's suppression of the Soviet Union, under the trade-off, Germany gradually withdrew all military assistance to China, and China and Germany formally broke off diplomatic relations. Therefore, Sino-German military trade is actually a transaction of interest exchange, and there is no so-called good or bad evaluation.