U.S. Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson was a middle-aged man with a somewhat distressed appearance. This wasn't because he had a pessimistic personality, but simply how he looked. Looking up from the data on China's recent naval development, Stimson asked the advisor from the State Department's Division of Far Eastern Affairs with a slightly pained expression, "Has China really completely rejected all suggestions regarding naval equipment?"

"Yes, sir. According to our intelligence, China has rejected all proposals for naval technical assistance from Britain, France, the United States, and Italy. Intelligence collected by the Division of Far Eastern Affairs indicates that China's Qingdao Naval Academy has hired Japanese Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku as its superintendent. Lieutenant General Zhou Yinshan, the former dean of China's Northeast Army Academy, has been appointed as the vice-superintendent of his alma mater, the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. Former Chinese Minister of Defense Xu Chengfeng has been appointed as the superintendent of the Army War College in Japan. This means that China and Japan have already integrated militarily..."

Stimson's distressed expression grew even more serious. After the advisor finished, Stimson asked, "The judgment given by the Navy—is that their genuine view?"

The advisor was somewhat taken aback but nodded. "Yes, sir. That is indeed the Navy's genuine view, and it was the consensus of everyone who participated in the discussion at the time."

Stimson remained silent, merely recalling that conclusion: "...Given Japan's weak industrial capacity, maintaining a fleet of that scale will only impose a heavy burden on Japan's finances, ultimately plunging the Japanese government into a predicament..."

During the First World War, all naval powers designed battleships with greater scale and firepower, with main gun calibers rising to 16 to 18 inches. Because the construction and maintenance costs of battleships were extremely high, this expensive arms race obviously became a heavy financial burden after the war ended. During the Washington Conference of 1922, the five naval powers—the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy—signed the *Five-Power Treaty* (Washington Naval Treaty) to limit the tonnage of capital ships (35,000 tons) and main gun caliber (not exceeding 16 inches). It also stipulated the total tonnage ratio for capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers) among the US, UK, Japan, France, and Italy at 5.25 : 5.25 : 3.15 : 1.75 : 1.75. Additionally, it set limits on the total tonnage, standard displacement, and gun caliber for the signatories' aircraft carriers.

The United States' industrial scale was more than ten times that of Japan; some views even held that it was over thirty times larger. The US capital ship tonnage ratio was 5.25, while Japan, a small country, had a ratio of 3.15. The burden of military expenditure on Japan's national power was ten times that of the United States. From any normal economic perspective, the Japanese government was insane.

But the current situation was completely different. The exchange rate between the US dollar and the Chinese yuan was 1:15. China's current GDP (excluding total industrial and agricultural output value) was 80 billion US dollars, which was roughly slightly higher than the United States' total industrial and agricultural output value in 1931. Adding Japan's total industrial and agricultural output, the total for the East Asian region would not be much lower than that of the United States. With such a total output value, the scale of the fleet being maintained became very reasonable.

Secretary of State Stimson believed this was extremely dangerous. It meant that the United States' opponent was in no way inferior in terms of sustainability. And the United States would have to confront such a powerful opponent, or even face suppression by such a powerful opponent!

But these words meant little right now. As the US Secretary of State, Stimson had come to China to attend the Four-Power Conference (China, US, UK, France) beginning on January 13, 1932. Originally, only the Netherlands was to be an observer nation. However, at the request of European and even South American countries, China stated, "There is absolutely no need to hide such matters." The number of observer nations quickly expanded to include Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Hungary.

Due to opposition from France and Italy, Germany and Austria were unable to become observers. However, China surprisingly invited Saudi Arabia to attend the conference as an observer as well.

With things having developed to this point, Stimson felt he couldn't quite understand what He Rui intended to do. According to the current US assessment of He Rui, he was a world-class leader. This was by no means the US inflating He Rui to boost its own image; enabling a country of China's scale to become a Great Power and restore its rightful status was undoubtedly an achievement only a world-class leader could accomplish.

Wearing his distressed expression, Stimson didn't actually feel that sad inside. He was forced to consider what exactly the He Rui administration sought from this.

If He Rui had heard this question, he would likely have scoffed that Secretary Stimson was overthinking things. Involving the Netherlands and Italy was primarily to signal goodwill to all of Europe. Making Hungary an observer was for the sake of a certain 'United Front.' After all, Europeans considered Hungarians to be descendants of Huns from Asia; as distant relatives, China had no reason not to bring Hungary along.

As for Saudi Arabia becoming an observer, the reason was even simpler. China needed petroleum energy, and since Saudi Arabia was a Middle Eastern country recognized by Britain and France, giving Saudi Arabia a hand now would be very beneficial for future cooperation.

After all, it was only early 1932. With the Rockefeller Company's oil drilling capabilities, they would likely strike oil by the end of 1932. Saudi oil was of excellent quality; with just slight refining, it could produce very high-quality diesel and gasoline. China had no reason to refuse such energy right now.

Therefore, He Rui was currently listening to comrades from the Department of Petroleum under the Ministry of Land and Resources present the latest progress in China's oil exploration. The comrade from the Department of Petroleum, looking serious, presented methodically: "...The oil produced at Daqing Oilfield and Zhongyuan Oilfield is suitable for catalytic cracking refining. However, this requires a massive amount of hydrogen."

He Rui couldn't help but sigh. He raised his hand to pause the comrade from the Department of Petroleum, then stood up with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and walked to the window. In the courtyard of No. 7 Renmin Road outside, there was still plenty of remaining snow. However, in this timeline, the climate belonged to a relatively warm period within the decades. So there wasn't much snow left, mostly remnants from when it had been shoveled earlier.

Thinking of his original timeline, where China could produce hydrogen in large quantities using new energy sources like photovoltaics, and use coal chemical technology routes to process low-quality coal and oil into methane and methanol using almost inexhaustible hydrogen, He Rui felt truly melancholy.

But before long, He Rui suppressed his melancholy and sat back down. "Continue."

The comrade from the Department of Petroleum didn't know which sentence had triggered He Rui's train of thought, and he had no way to discern it, so he could only describe the current situation even more carefully. "Domestically, we are currently seeking cheaper hydrogen production technologies. Recently, Japanese engineers who came to China have achieved very good results using water-gas shift reaction technology to produce hydrogen. Using high-quality coal from Vietnam, very high-purity hydrogen can be prepared. This provides excellent raw materials for China's synthetic ammonia and petroleum cracking.

"Based on current oil supply, domestic crude oil processing capacity has steadily increased from 6 million tons and will reach the level of 10 million tons within the next two years."

He Rui was running out of patience and asked, "What about imported oil?"

"And within two years, imported oil will increase from 3 million tons to 11 million tons. Mainly from the Soviet Union and the Dutch East Indies..."

He Rui really couldn't listen anymore and said, "I understand. Leave the report here, that's all for today."

After sending away the comrade from the Department of Petroleum, who was clearly apprehensive, He Rui stood by the window again. His unhappiness was indeed the problem; He Rui was well aware of this. However, this also confirmed for He Rui that he was indeed not a very meticulous and patient person, but rather someone who hadn't yet shaken off the desire for quick success.

Even after criticizing himself, He Rui still couldn't do much about his current emotions. After all, the achievements of New China in his original timeline were too dazzling; he couldn't forget them even if he wanted to. When new energy became the source of over 80% of China's energy, millions of water-scarce areas in central and northern China received ample freshwater supplies. The Northwest and North, which had always been stereotyped as water-deficient, developed over a billion *mu* of fertile farmland. The entire country thus gained sufficient stamina for continued effective economic development.

But for He Rui, all of this was just a dream from another timeline. China's current reality was that national industrialization had to be built on the foundation of going all-out to build subcritical thermal power plants and frantically polluting the environment.

For the current comrades in the Central Committee, this pollution was proof of China's rapid development. But for He Rui, the guilt brought by this development made him feel he was failing the people. Even though he knew he couldn't really be blamed, He Rui still couldn't easily extricate himself from this emotion.

He stood for a long time before finally suppressing his emotions and dialing Premier Wu Youping. Half an hour later, one of Wu Youping's secretaries arrived to report to He Rui on recent power plant work. "The Soviet Union has already delivered the components for 39 sets of power plant equipment to China according to the plan, and installation has begun. At this stage, many such American companies have submitted requests through the Morgan and Rockefeller consortiums to help our country build more thermal power plants. Moreover, the quotes from the corresponding American companies are lower than the price of equipment we import from the Soviet Union..."

He Rui listened to the report with patience, feeling only a sense of resignation. As for whether to replace the Soviet power plant components, which had lower technical content, with American equipment, He Rui felt Wu Youping could certainly figure it out. Cooperation with the United States was a seemingly very favorable choice in the short term, but cooperation with the Soviet Union was a long-term process.

If domestic demand was particularly large, the State Council led by Wu Youping would certainly send someone over. Just as He Rui expected, as soon as the secretary finished reporting, Wu Youping arrived in person and directly handed He Rui a budget report.

After reading the report, He Rui asked, "Is this the State Council's plan for economic cooperation?"

Wu Youping showed no fear at this moment and nodded immediately. "Yes. Through calculations, we hope to obtain a 1 billion USD interest-free loan quota from the United States. And a 300 million GBP interest-free loan quota from Britain. Furthermore, this money will all be used for purchasing power generation and other technology imports."

He Rui felt helpless and could only ask, "Have you investigated clearly? Is there anything from Britain that we absolutely have to spend money to buy?"

"Britain's situation is rather special. We have discussed it with economic experts on Britain. This 300 million pounds is not to purchase Britain's most advanced technology, but to be used to boost the confidence of British enterprises. Only by completing such a large order can the British economy allow some factories to resume operations, thereby restoring British economic confidence."

He Rui wanted to curse those damn Brits a few times, but only let his lips move for a moment. This was the damn economy; if they wanted the Brits to pause their insatiable probing, they had to do Britain a favor first. And these favors had to involve purchasing large amounts of equipment from Britain to drive the British stock market.

He Rui was extremely dissatisfied with this kind of subsidy inside, but the China of today had to shoulder it! Capital was such an extravagant and wasteful thing; only when it saw orders flooding in, and this situation had to be maintained for quite some time, would it drive investment. Because Britain was a capitalist economy—although He Rui didn't think much of this assessment. After all, Britain had deep feudal traditions domestically; the operation of commerce was subordinate to power, and a large part of that power was controlled by the aristocracy. Therefore, in He Rui's classification, Britain was not a true capitalist country that had shaken off utopian capitalism.

Just as He Rui was trying to calm his mood, Wu Youping said, "Chairman, the State Council has indeed considered Britain's particularities, but while the current British domestic market is large, it isn't large enough. So this time we are preparing to have a more profound discussion with the British side. We absolutely cannot let the list provided by the British side become reality!"

"Very good!" He Rui let out a long breath, expelling the stifling air from his chest. If it were a true capitalist system, or the scientific capitalist mode defined by Marx, then capital operations would necessarily be completely rational behavior. All projects would have to be graded first, followed by open and honest negotiations with investors. And the negotiating partner would necessarily be a cool, ruthless, rational capitalist system.

But the capitalist system in reality, as He Rui had explained to comrades within the Party, naturally developed towards pursuing privilege in order to transfer one's own risks to others. He Rui could accept cold and ruthless rational capitalism, but he absolutely could not accept this so-called capitalism that talked about freedom while actually practicing privilege.

So He Rui pressed, "Have we talked to Britain about these aspects? What exactly is our bottom line!"

Wu Youping gave a bitter smile. "It was only after talking that we could determine that the British side seems to be under enormous pressure. Quite a few enterprises run by powerful figures want to make a profit from this. Moreover, the British side initially very naively thought that we would seem to accept Britain's conditions. So the negotiation with Britain is the most troublesome!"

Hearing this, He Rui sighed deeply. "Sigh... if only the capitalism in the world were all such trash, that would be great. We would just need to raise our swords and chop off their dog heads one by one!"

"Haha!" Wu Youping was made to laugh loudly by He Rui. These words were truly satisfying. After reading the report from the Ministry of Commerce responsible for the negotiations, Wu Youping also really wanted to chop off the dog heads of that group of powerful figures—capitalists in name but aristocrats in reality—in that dogshit country of Britain! Compared to British power-holders, a purely evil capitalist like Rockefeller who frantically suppressed coal miners seemed somewhat refreshingly straightforward.

He Rui also threw the heavy burden to the State Council, merely instructing, "Absolutely do not let those privileged individuals fish in troubled waters!"

Wu Youping nodded vigorously. "Rest assured, I have already spoken with Minister Li Chenggang. For this kind of thing, let the British government bear the risk; we can't help them!"

He Rui immediately switched topics. "So, how are the delegates from Saudi Arabia doing now?"

Hearing this question, Wu Youping's expression immediately became kindly. "They are very frank. They proposed that after extracting oil, they will only collect an export tax. And a fixed tax at that."

He Rui smiled. Saudi Arabia was a very interesting country; knowing how to make such a wise choice, he didn't know how to analyze it. Since Saudi Arabia was being so supportive, China had to cooperate. "Then don't say anything else. In the execution process, try to satisfy Saudi Arabia's needs."