Conquering the world from the Kaiser's driver

Wang Zhaoming asked him to wait a moment. The girl hurried to the kitchen and then hurried out again, holding a jar of pear candy in her arms.

"Shang Zhou, you should have finished the can I gave you before. I'll give you another one."

Wang Zhaoming handed the jar to Lin Shangzhou, calling his name affectionately. The change in her attitude made Lin Shangzhou feel a little uncomfortable. He was stunned for a moment before taking the jar.

"Oh... OK, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Wang Zhaoming smiled sweetly and watched Lin Shangzhou walk out of her room. Lin Shangzhou left, but Wang Zhaoming's heart could not calm down for a long time. She remembered clearly what Lin Shangzhou said to her, and it was these words that caused some changes in her heart.

Lin Shangzhou didn't know about Wang Zhaoming's change. He was now standing at the door of his house, taking out the key to go in. After opening the door and seeing the person in the inner room, Lin Shangzhou was dumbfounded.

Letitia and Noah were sitting on the sofa, one drinking tea and the other reading a novel. When they heard the door open, they turned their heads to look at him. Noah smiled and said, "Hey, you're back. How are you getting along with Miss Wang?"

Letitia also looked at him with a very calm smile.

After seeing these two people, Lin Shangzhou knew why he felt uneasy at that time. These two came over without saying a word, and it was probably Bode who told them that he went upstairs to find Wang Niang.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but blame Bode, but blaming that guy was useless. The important thing now was to slide the track quickly!

So Lin Shangzhou straightforwardly confessed to his two girlfriends what he had said to Wang Niang. After all, he didn't talk about any sensitive content with Wang Niang.

The two were very surprised when they learned about Wang Niang's identity. They never thought that Wang Niang was a Chinese from France. After knowing what Lin Shangzhou and Wang Niang talked about, the resentment in their hearts dissipated a lot, but they still retained the most basic vigilance.

The two of them just came to see Lin Shangzhou. After spending some time together, Letitia left in Catherine's car, while Noah stayed to collect his public rations.

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Chapter 239 Club Establishment

Although the strike in early September failed, it was not entirely a bad thing for Lin Shangzhou. He successfully improved his prestige among German workers by acting as a peacemaker and avoided excessive expenses. Now he has more marks to do what he wants.

For example, establishing a flying club in Germany and making small investments in aircraft designers such as Junkers.

A flying club was established in Berlin in late August, but a strike that broke out later forced Lin Shangzhou to put the matter on hold. It was not until the end of the strike that he started to prepare personnel for the club again. He approached Manfred hoping that he could lend some of his pilots to the flying club as coaches.

What Lin Shangzhou didn't expect was that the "Red Baron" not only agreed to his request but also directly retired all the members of the flying unit. His reason was very simple: "Instead of having nothing to do here, it's better to join your club to train talents for the future German Air Force."

Lin Shangzhou naturally welcomed this. With Manfred joining, he would not have to worry about the instructor problem in the future. Not to mention this group of elite pilots, the mere presence of the "Red Baron" in him would attract countless veterans of the flying unit to come to him spontaneously.

The collective retirement of Manfred's company surprised his superiors, but after the surprise they agreed to let them go. At the same time, Lin Shangzhou used his connections to buy the flying unit's airport from the military at a low price to use as a training ground for the club. As for the planes in the airport, the military gave them to Lin Shangzhou as gifts.

Now the club had instructors, an airport, and airplanes. All that remained was to recruit members from the extensive propaganda club in Germany.

On September 17, Berlin's "Forward" published an article about the flying club and encouraged people who were interested in airplanes to sign up. Lin Shangzhou himself was also staying in the club, and he was going to personally receive the club's first batch of members.

At two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, the club welcomed its first member, Marseille.

Lin Shangzhou was not surprised to see the little guy coming. After all, he had promised Marseille that he would let him join his flying club. But Lin Shangzhou was surprised about the person who brought him here. His father, Jikofrid, the major general of the magic force, personally brought his son to the club.

Gijkovrid was not wearing a military uniform. He walked into the club with his son in casual clothes. Manfred and others were surprised to see him. They did not expect Gijkovrid to come here.

Although it was surprising, the fact that the major general of the magic force walked in here in casual clothes explained his thoughts - he came here as a father with his children, not as a general of the magic force.

Marseille easily became the first member of the club. This result made him very happy. His father, Fico Frid, was also very happy. Looking at his son celebrating his joining with the former members of the flying unit, Fico Frid pulled Lin Shangzhou to the side.

Lin Shangzhou was quite puzzled by the major general's behavior. After a conversation, he learned that Marseille had longed for the sky since he was a child. When he grew up and knew his father's identity and his heroic deeds in World War I, he became very interested in the magic force and often asked him about the magic force.

Although German soldiers attached great importance to honor, Jikofried was well aware of the cruelty of the battlefield. As a father, he did not want his child to become a magic soldier and kill enemies on the battlefield, so when he asked someone to do a qualification test for Marseille, he used his connections to tamper with the inspection report and changed the "excellent ability" to "unsuitable".

Marseille was very disappointed when he knew that he could not join the magic corps. Facing the lost and sad child, Jikofried felt a little guilty. In order to make his son happy, he recommended the flying corps to Marseille and allowed him to go to the flying corps’ base to play. That’s why Lin Shangzhou met Marseille at the airport.

Jikovried believed that the flying corps would not be useful in the future, so he let his son go there with great confidence. Now there is a flying club. Although he didn't know why Lin Shangzhou set up such a flying club, in order to make his son happy, Jikovried took leave and went home to bring his son here.

After knowing this, Lin Shangzhou immediately felt a little envious of Marseille and missed his uncle, and then he felt guilty. The fundamental purpose of his establishing a flying club was to train excellent pilots for Germany. In peacetime, it was just an ordinary club, but once war came, these excellent club members would become elite pilots to fly fighter planes and fight.

In other words, Lin Shangzhou sent them to the battlefield personally.

This kind of guilt did not exist for too long. Lin Shangzhou knew that he would do more and more things that would make him feel guilty in the future. Such emotions can exist, but they cannot occupy too much.

Giacomo Frédéric hoped that Lin Shangzhou would try his best to satisfy Marseille's interests, and Lin Shangzhou agreed. He would not let go of Marseille, such a good talent.

Of course, the child is too young now. We have to wait a few more years before letting him fly a plane, at least until he is 17 or 18 years old.

During the afternoon, many people came to the club, mostly young people, and some veterans from the flying corps, and each of them joined the club.

After the club was established, Lin Shangzhou set off for Dessau to visit Junkers to see the progress of their research and development work.

On the evening of September 20th, Lin Shangzhou arrived in Dessau and was warmly received by Junkers. After staying in Dessau for one night, on the 21st of the next day, Lin Shangzhou followed Junkers to the company's research and development base.

In the hangar of Junkers' R&D base, Lin Shangzhou saw a transport plane parked in the middle of the hangar. From the appearance, it was obviously not a JU-52. He estimated that it should be an early model of the JU-52.

Junkers introduced this aircraft to Lin Shangzhou. Its model was JU-46. Lin Shangzhou vaguely remembered that this JU-46 seemed to be an early model of JU-52, and now it seems to be true.

However, Lin Shangzhou was not satisfied with the performance of JU-46, so he told Junkers some data of JU-52 in OTL. Lin Shangzhou didn't know much about JU-52, so he just gave a general idea. To put it simply, he needed a powerful and multi-functional transport aircraft.

Junkers wrote down all of Lin Shangzhou's requirements and promised to start the design immediately. After that, Lin Shangzhou stayed in Dessau for a day and then set off for the cities where the other two aircraft designers were located.

He did not intend to let Junkers take full charge of the aircraft design work. He chose Junkers at that time only because he needed a large transport aircraft and Junkers was just the right fit.

In addition to large aircraft, small aircraft are also necessary, and a monopoly is not good, there must be competitors.

Four days later he returned to Berlin. Lin Shangzhou was satisfied with what he had gained from this trip, but he felt a little disappointed when he thought that he would have to wait until at least next year to see the plane he wanted.

October arrived a few days after I returned to Berlin. Including October, there were still three months left until the end of 1931. The general election in 32 was in March, so in total it was almost half a year.

It is far from enough for him to have influence only among German workers. Lin Shangzhou needs to expand his influence to other groups in Germany.

He knew this very well, so he started preparing for this matter in October.

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Chapter 240: Farmers Are Different Too

Is it appropriate to have Erich attend the meeting?

Sitting in the car, Lin Shangzhou looked at the street outside the window. Next to him was Goebbels, and in the passenger seat was Louis. The driver was naturally Bode.

They were on the way to the SPD office. Lin Shangzhou informed the SPD's top leaders yesterday that they would hold a meeting today. The content of the meeting was related to the general election. He planned to discuss with the top leaders how to make a pie in the sky. This decisive election was different from the small elections in the city. If you don't make a pie in the sky to canvass votes, you will just have to wait for your voters to flock to other parties.

Today's meeting will decide the SPD's next measures to deal with the election, so he is wary of Erich Koch. Although Erich Koch has had less contact with the right wing in recent times, Lin Shangzhou still can't completely trust this man.

He was indeed scared by himself and turned to support himself, but no one knows what he is thinking except Koch himself. What if he sells out the SPD?

This is not completely impossible. However, after thinking about it for a while, Lin Shangzhou felt that Koch might not do this. He was scared by the rumors and changed from firmly opposing him to firmly supporting him. This shows that he is a guy who is afraid of death. For such a guy, life is the most important thing.

After thinking about it, Lin Shangzhou felt that there was no need to worry so much about Koch. After figuring this out, he was no longer worried and turned to think about the election.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a political party with a long history, although the current Social Democratic Party of Germany is the "Social People's Party" formed by the "Social Democratic Party" and the "Progressive People's Party" rather than a single "Social Democratic Party".

It is precisely because of this that the Social Democratic Party's voter group has undergone some changes. Generally speaking, it has increased, but Lin Shangzhou is not sure which specific group has increased, so from this point of view he also needs the Progressive People's Party to participate in the meeting.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at the office of the Social Democratic Party. On the way to the meeting room, Lin Shangzhou and others met Anton Eklenz who also came to the meeting. Lin Shangzhou had a good impression of this Progressive People's Party leader who had supported him from the beginning, and greeted him kindly.

After returning the greeting, Eklenz looked at Goebbels next to Lin Shangzhou in confusion. He had never seen such a person in the party.

"Mr. Hipper, is this your friend?"

Eklenz's doubts were within Lin Shangzhou's expectations. Although Goebbels was a member of the SPD, he spent most of his time working at a newspaper after arriving in Berlin and had hardly ever been to the SPD office. It was normal that Eklenz did not know him.

Lin Shangzhou nodded and then introduced to Eklenz: "Well, this is Paul Goebbels, the deputy editor-in-chief of Vorwärts, and he is also a member of the Social Democratic Party."

When Eklenz heard the deputy editor-in-chief of Vorwarts, his eyes lit up. He didn't know Goebbels, but he knew about Vorwarts. Since this person was the deputy editor-in-chief of Vorwarts and also a friend of Lin Shangzhou, he was also qualified to participate in this meeting. If he wanted to gain an advantage in votes, a publicity expert would be indispensable.

After bragging to Goebbels, Eklenz entered the conference room with Lin Shangzhou and others.

The others were already in the conference room, waiting for them to come. After entering the conference room, Lin Shangzhou and others also took their seats. As the party leader, he naturally sat in his seat.

After sitting down, Lin Shangzhou looked at the senior SPD officials sitting on his left and right. In the past, the SPD did not have a clear party leader, so meetings were held in that large conference room, with the leaders sitting on the podium. They came here after a clear party leader was found.

Although he was the party leader, Lin Shangzhou did not actually regard himself as the party leader. Anyone present was more suitable to be the leader of the SPD than him. The "New Berlin Declaration" was further improved through their joint efforts, and he was just taking advantage of the emperor's support.

Therefore, Lin Shangzhou was extremely respectful to the top leaders of the SPD except Louis and Koch.

He counted the number of people and announced the start of the meeting after confirming that everyone was present.

The main topic of discussion at this meeting was countermeasures before the election. After the meeting began, Lin Shangzhou was the first to raise his own question: Who are the specific voters who will be added after the merger of the two parties?

Erich Koch gave him the answer to this question. In short, some middle-class people chose to support them, but the merger of the two parties also caused some voters who originally belonged to the Progressive People's Party to leave and support other political parties.

After knowing the main voter groups, Lin Shangzhou began to discuss with the participants what to do specifically.

One of his personal ideas was to win over the German farmers - of course not the Junkers but the thorough farmers on German soil. However, when this idea was put forward, Louis frowned, and he directly opposed the idea and raised his own question: How to win over the farmers?

This problem stumped Lin Shangzhou. To win over the other party, he had to make them benefit. The way to make the farmers benefit was very simple: give them land or sell grain at a higher price, or both.

During the thinking process, Lin Shangzhou also found that he had made a mistake. When talking about farmers, he subconsciously thought that Chinese and German farmers were the same, but in fact there are huge differences between Chinese and German farmers.

He thought of the farmers he had met in Strasbourg in the past. The farmers there were similar to the Chinese farmers in that they were all self-sufficient small farmers. It was what he saw and heard there that caused Lin Shangzhou to reinforce this wrong idea.

Lin Shangzhou also shared his experiences in Strasbourg, and then Louis told him that the farmers in Strasbourg were very different from German farmers in other places.

After learning about these differences, Lin Shangzhou continued to think about the feasibility of winning over German farmers. He knew that it depended on the national conditions, but he still didn't believe it. After all, the development of CPC could not be separated from farmers.

German farmers do not lack land. Hundreds of years ago, German farmers would stand on your side if you promised them land, but today's German farmers will not do that, and this topic cannot be raised in Germany. Except for the Junkers in the army, other Junkers depend on land for their survival.

If we can’t start with the land, then we have to start with agriculture.

For farmers, the most direct way to make a profit is the price of grain. The higher the price of grain, the more direct benefits the farmers can get. If they can make money by following you, then farmers will naturally support you.

It is impossible to directly increase food prices in this regard. We must start with tariffs, increase tariffs and reduce imports. In this way, food prices will rise, and German farmers and even the Junkers will naturally profit. However, such behavior is ultimately wrong and can only bring temporary benefits but not long-term benefits.

In addition to being self-sufficient in food, Germany currently exploits the people of Africa and Ukraine. Africa doesn't matter because it is too far away, but Lin Shangzhou cannot ignore Ukraine.

When talking about Ukraine, we cannot fail to mention Russia. This big country in the East has irreconcilable contradictions with Germany.

Peace between Germany and France is theoretically possible, but peace between Germany and Russia is absolutely impossible. No matter which faction Russia belongs to or who comes to power, their foreign policy is to go to war with Germany. Even if Kerensky had not died, he would have accumulated strength and waited for revenge after escaping from German hegemony during Black Monday.

Lin Shangzhou knew that Germany would inevitably face a two-front war in the future. In the west, it bordered directly with the Commune, so there was no way around it. But in the east, the Kingdom of Ukraine, the Kingdom of White Ruthenia, the Kingdom of Lithuania, and the United Baltic Duchy were Germany's eastern wall to defend against Russia.

The Eastern Wall cannot be broken, and Ukraine, as the largest country in the Eastern Wall, cannot leave Germany.

Ukraine has an enviable scale of black soil, so it has developed agriculture and a large number of farmers, whose grain is mainly exported to countries within the Imperial Pact, the largest of which is Germany.

The history of OTL and KX both proves that Germany could not meet wartime needs relying solely on its own food production, so imports were necessary, and Ukraine was the best target for exploitation.

During the war, food shipped from Africa was at risk of being intercepted and sunk by the British Alliance, but Ukraine on land could transport food to Germany by rail without hindrance.

At the same time, Ukraine can serve as Germany's dog within the Imperial Pact and let the children of Ukrainian peasants die instead of the children of German peasants.

However, all of this is based on the fact that there will be no coup in Ukraine and that it will not leave the Reichstag. It would be fine if it remained neutral after leaving the Reichstag, but once it turned left or joined Moscow's camp, it would be disadvantageous to Germany.

A major condition for Ukraine's stability is that its farmers can survive. Implementing trade protection policies to reduce Ukraine's grain imports before Black Monday would not have much impact, because Ukraine can still sell to other countries in the Imperial Pact, but this would create huge hidden dangers, and these hidden dangers would completely erupt with Black Monday.

By then, the situation will no longer be under Lin Shangzhou's control.

After careful consideration, Lin Shangzhou realized that German farmers stood with Juncker and that they wanted to implement trade protection measures and would never stand with the Social Democratic Party.

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Chapter 241: Objects to be won over

After thinking so much, Lin Shangzhou finally had to accept the fact that he could not win over the German farmers. As farmers, they had already stood with the Junkers, and Lin Shangzhou was thankful that they did not oppose the SPD.

If we can’t win over the farmers, then which group of people should we win over next?

Lin Shangzhou asked the people present: "I already understand that we cannot win over the farmers. So, apart from the middle class, what other groups can we win over? Or what groups within the middle class can we win over?"

The middle class is the second group that Lin Shangzhou thought of that needs to be won over, besides the German farmers. This group is the main force of voting in the general election, and their range is also very wide. Most of this group have their own political parties to support, and the remaining small part are swing voters, and they will support whoever can bring them benefits.

With Goebbels around, Lin Shangzhou does not worry about not getting the support of the middle class, but relying solely on ordinary citizens in the middle class is not enough. The weight of other political parties in the hearts of their voters cannot be eliminated by Goebbels alone.

His hope was that in the future he would be able to rely on Goebbels to firmly grasp the SPD's own middle-class citizen voters, and then absorb the neutral middle class to the greatest extent possible.

Lin Shangzhou himself knew the answer to his own question. He could strive for the support of everyone except the big capitalists and farmers, but he was not sure who to strive for specifically. He could not strive for it blindly but had to proceed with a plan.

As for the lowest level of society, although Lin Shangzhou's fundamental goal is to change the current situation of the German people, especially the lives of the lowest level people, unfortunately they will support the SPD very much because of its manifesto, but because they have no property, they do not have full voting rights.

Not having the right to vote means that they cannot become the SPD's helper in the general election, unless Lin Shangzhou asks Alexandrine to force the parliament to amend the electoral system now, abolish Prussia's three-level voting system and replace it with a complete universal suffrage. But in fact this is impossible. The emperor can reject the chancellor and parliament's proposal. Similarly, if the emperor wants to do something, the chancellor and parliament can also restrict her.

The working class was undoubtedly the strong backing of the Social Democratic Party, but the German Empire was ultimately a right-wing country, and they restricted workers' voting rights, so workers could only provide limited help.

Lin Shangzhou also knew something more important. He remembered that in the game, after the German Social Democratic Party came to power, the party's support rate was only a pitifully low 26%.

Lin Shangzhou was not sure whether the 26 percent referred to the public support rate, the seats in parliament, or both, but one thing was certain: without the national will, the Social Democratic Party had no chance of coming to power.

In the game, there is national will. The political party that comes to power can just choose an event. Even if the SPD has only 26% support, it can still come to power. But that doesn't work in reality... Well... It is not ruled out that during the general election, other parties will compete for votes, resulting in the votes being divided equally among them. Every party will have votes, but not many. In the end, no party has as many as the SPD, so the SPD can become the majority party.