Standing at the gate of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Professor Karl Haushofer watched as dark-skinned young men and women walked into the school grounds. The gate guard noticed Haushofer's gaze and, with a look of vigilance, asked, "Where are you from?"

Professor Haushofer's Chinese was not good enough to clearly distinguish the Henan dialect. Fortunately, the driver from the German Legation had been in China for a few years and immediately replied in the local dialect with a smile, "Old teacher, we are Germans. This is a professor here for an exchange visit."

Hearing that he was a visiting professor, the guard's expression relaxed slightly. However, he did not grant entry just based on the title. He replied, "Do you have a letter of introduction? If not, you cannot enter."

Professor Haushofer did not insist on entering; there were plenty of normal channels to find out exactly how many international students China had recruited. To reward Haushofer for his support of the Nazi Party, Hitler had appointed him President of the German Academy of Sciences. Through exchanges between the German and Chinese Ministries of Education, or between universities of both countries, Haushofer could easily obtain data on international students in China.

Just before leaving, Haushofer heard a burst of Russian from behind. Turning around, he saw several Russian youths walking toward the campus gate. As they passed Haushofer, they glanced at him with curiosity.

"Let's go," Haushofer ordered the driver. On the way back, Haushofer, having witnessed with his own eyes China's efforts to establish a new world order, felt a sense of emotion.

British and French universities accepted the children of indigenous colonial elites to more effectively utilize these local leaders to lower the cost of colonial administration. Chinese universities recruiting foreign students, especially those from colonies, undoubtedly shared the same purpose. In the present era, not only was Germany striving to build its own future, but elites across the world were exhausting their wits and going all out to realize their own national interests. Haushofer understood that Germany would have to work even harder to win its future in such a boiling world.

It took a day for Hitler's reply to arrive: "Please send the details of the conversation back to Germany as soon as possible, Professor."

Originally, Professor Haushofer had planned to return to Germany immediately, but he now changed his mind. The world was changing too drastically; he had to see these changes with his own eyes. He wired back to Hitler: "Please arrange a visit to Japan and Korea."

Germany was, after all, a great European power, and its cultural diplomacy was not weak. Haushofer's request was quickly fulfilled. Ribbentrop, who was in charge of handling the matter, reported the results to a very busy Hitler, sighing, "Führer, many people in Japan and Korea welcome Professor Haushofer very much."

Hitler was not surprised and said casually, "Professor Haushofer is the pride of Germany; naturally, he would have such influence."

This was not Hitler praising his own judgment of character. Professor Haushofer had served as an artillery instructor at the Imperial Japanese Army Staff College from 1908 to 1910 and had made friends with many Japanese. He later visited India, Burma, Siberia, Korea, and Northern China, teaching himself French, Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. In 1920, he received an invitation from the Northeast Government of China and went there to run a geopolitics training class. With China's resurgence, geopolitics came into the full view of the upper echelons of various countries along with the fame of He Rui, a scholar of geopolitics. As a representative figure of Western geopolitics, Professor Haushofer had maintained academic exchanges with scholars in East Asia.

Hearing Hitler's praise, Ribbentrop became more certain that Professor Haushofer was valued by Hitler not simply because of his relationship with Rudolf Hess. He was somewhat puzzled, however, that the Professor himself was not keen on participating in the Nazi Party's political activities.

At this moment, secretary Hess came in to report, "Führer, Mr. Schacht has arrived." Although Ribbentrop was curious, he had to take his leave.

Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, was responsible for formulating the economic recovery plan. As Schacht passed Ribbentrop, his mind was entirely occupied with this plan; he didn't even notice who had walked past him as he marched straight into Hitler's Chancellery office.

Since resolving Germany's hyperinflation starting in 1924, Schacht had been working with German economists to formulate a plan for Germany's resurgence. Every time a plan was produced, its execution was interrupted by unexpected circumstances. By the time the accidents cleared, Germany's economic situation had changed, and to deal with the current situation, they could only modify the plan based on the altered landscape.

Now, with the German economy having fallen to rock bottom, the plan had gone from complex to simple, shifting from trying to account for all interests to using unscrupulous means for a great purpose.

Upon seeing Hitler, Schacht heard him praise, "Mr. Schacht, your plan is admirable. This is exactly the economic program Germany needs right now."

Even though it was his own plan, Schacht wanted to remind Hitler once more that it was extremely radical. To date, only He Rui's government had adopted a similar scheme. Before Dr. Schacht could speak, Hitler continued, "Mr. Schacht, I believe that if this plan is to be executed, one must possess a will as firm as steel to overcome all problems encountered during the process. The history books I have read, and the war I personally experienced, have taught me one thing: many plans fail not because the plan itself is flawed, but because the executors retreat when they encounter difficulties."

Hearing this, Schacht naturally felt a bit of displeasure. As a scholar, Schacht strongly disliked Hitler's radical and violent style. However, he did not refute him. There were many scholar-type figures in power in Germany's upper echelons, but they had all failed without exception. Hitler was a politician who continued to forge ahead with determination even in such a difficult situation.

Hitler continued, "Mr. Schacht, I once encountered fifteen British soldiers alone on the battlefield. I had no comrades behind me, and the British soldiers opposite had lost contact with their unit under artillery fire. I was a messenger at the time, with only a rifle in my hand. So I walked up to those British soldiers and said to them, 'Gentlemen, my unit is arriving; surrender.' Mr. Schacht, can you guess what happened next?"

Schacht had no military experience and could not guess the specifics. But seeing Hitler sitting before him now, naturally, Hitler had won.

Sure enough, Hitler revealed the outcome himself. "Those British soldiers saw that I was fearless, just standing there with my rifle, not even aiming at them. So, they surrendered to me alone. Mr. Schacht, the weak instinctively yield to the strong. What makes the strong truly powerful is their inner heart. Your plan will definitely succeed because the one executing it is the Nazi Party under my leadership. I... will never retreat!"

Schacht looked at Hitler somewhat blankly, unable to say the words he had originally intended. Schacht had served in the Ministry of Economics during the Great War in Europe. From 1914 to 1915, he was a consultant to the treasury of the German occupation government in Brussels, and in 1916 he was appointed President of the Nationalbank für Deutschland (later merged into the Darmstädter und Nationalbank). Although he held a fierce opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, that opposition was merely the objection of an intellectual.

Hitler, in front of Schacht, was not roaring, merely speaking in a slightly serious tone. Yet Schacht felt a heavy pressure; he intuitively sensed that Hitler would disregard everything to execute Schacht's plan. Conversely, Schacht himself did not have the courage to sacrifice everything to implement this plan.

Unknowingly, Schacht was overwhelmed by Hitler's imposing manner. He swallowed and replied, "Führer, I will push for the execution of the plan with all my might!"

"No!" Hitler shook his head. "Mr. Schacht, you *will* execute this plan to the very end!"

Berlin in March was still not warm, but after leaving Hitler's office, Schacht found his back was cold and damp. At some point, Schacht had broken into a sweat under Hitler's pressure.

Meanwhile, Ribbentrop began packing his luggage; he had been ordered to visit the Soviet Union. Schacht's economic plan was not complicated; its main content included government investment to drive the economy, borrowing money from various countries to invest in Germany, and expanding Germany's exports. Ribbentrop knew he had no economic talent and could not execute the first two. Expanding German exports required diplomatic ability, and Ribbentrop had some confidence in himself.

Currently, Britain had created the Imperial Preference system and the Sterling bloc; France, basing itself on the Sino-French Alliance, had expanded investment in Central and Eastern Europe; and the United States had been hit even harder by the economic crisis than Germany, with its market shrinking dramatically. China was in the East of the World Island, ten thousand miles away from Germany. In Europe, the only market left that Germany could consider was the Soviet Union.

For this visit, Ribbentrop traveled by train. After arriving at the Soviet-Polish border, he got off the train and hired several horses to head to the border line. On the road toward the Soviet Union, there were many carriages and pedestrians, while there were few people coming from the Soviet Union toward Poland. Ribbentrop and his party rode their horses along the road, seeing more and more people as they went. Upon reaching the border line, they saw barbed wire fences stretching endlessly.

It had been twelve years since the end of the Polish-Soviet War in 1921. After both the Soviet Union and Poland built defensive lines in the border area, the border between the two countries was no longer on a hair-trigger alert. The news Ribbentrop received before his departure stated that the Soviet Union had controlled traffic on the Soviet-Polish border, and the scene before him proved the German intelligence services had not lied.

There were several entrances along the border defense line formed by barbed wire; the largest was the border control checkpoint. Rows of tables were manned by Soviet customs personnel in uniform. The Polish people were presenting not passports for inspection, but various proof documents and letters. After carefully examining these letters and documents, the Soviet customs officers would sign a document and hand it to the runners beside them.

Before long, some civilians would come over from the Soviet side of the barbed wire to welcome the people on the Polish side. Watching the way the two groups hugged each other, they were likely relatives. Afterward, both parties had to undergo questioning by customs personnel and sign more documents before Soviet customs allowed them to enter Soviet territory.

This process was very time-consuming. Even though the Soviet Union had deployed a great number of people, the clearance speed remained very slow. Ribbentrop and his entourage watched for a while before leaving for another crossing point in the distance. On the way, an attendant couldn't help but sigh, "I really didn't expect the standard of living in the Soviet Union to be higher than in Poland."

Ribbentrop said nothing, but he was truly moved emotionally. In the era when Poland did not exist, the German Second Reich bordered Tsarist Russia, and the economic situation of Russia could generally be described as getting poorer the further one went from Germany. Whether in the German-controlled Polish regions or the Russian-controlled Polish regions, the economic level had exceeded that of the ethnic Russian regions for the past few centuries. In the early days of the Soviet Union, the losses from the Russian Civil War had widened this economic gap even further.

Since the Great Stalin began the Five-Year Plan and called for building "Socialism in One Country," the Soviet Union—at least externally—claimed that the Five-Year Plan had led to rapid economic development. Propaganda always praised itself like a flower. Ribbentrop did not believe it. That was until he heard that in the border regions between the Soviet Union and Poland, the three Baltic states, and Romania, people of Russian descent were rushing en masse to the Soviet side to find work, and even those without Russian blood were running to the Soviet Union seeking better job opportunities. Ribbentrop had thought this must be a minority case. Seeing the crowds at the entry port with his own eyes, he was forced to believe it, and felt very surprised.

The group arrived at another entry and exit point where there were not too many people. Both sides displayed the flag of the Red Cross. On the Polish side were carriage after carriage, and a few trucks. Porters were moving large bundles from the Soviet side. The bundles were large but seemed not too heavy.

Ribbentrop did not want to get too close, so he watched from a distance. According to German intelligence, although the Soviet Union encountered natural disasters in 1932 and domestic grain production had dropped significantly, the Soviet Union still provided donations of clothing and daily necessities to Poland.

The German intelligence report stated that the Soviet Union required its people to donate clothing to Poland and other neighboring countries. To meet the Soviet government's demands, Soviet people donated their old, worn-out clothes. Since those clothes were quite tattered, the Soviet side had specially hired refugees on the border to screen them; overly tattered clothes were torn directly into cloth strips, while those barely wearable were patched up. After washing and disinfection, they were sent to neighboring countries. Presumably, these large bundles contained the clothing and daily necessities donated by the Soviet Union.

Judging by the economic situation of a dozen years ago, Ribbentrop believed the German intelligence report. Ordinary Russians were so poor they didn't have enough old clothes for themselves; how could they donate good clothes? However, the fact that the Soviet Union could donate a large amount of old clothing itself reversed Ribbentrop's impression of Soviet poverty.

Seeing that the border really matched the report, Ribbentrop returned to the border town. Sure enough, he saw people distributing old clothes. The clothes were similar to the descriptions in the report—patched garments. But the clothes worn by ordinary Germans now were also patches upon patches. Ribbentrop even saw some Poles acquiring these donated items at extremely low prices, presumably intending to resell them. Judging by their accents and appearance, Ribbentrop cursed inwardly, "Damned Jewish profiteers!" Given the purchase price and quality of the clothes, it was indeed profitable.

Having seen the state of the border, Ribbentrop had a profound personal realization about the Soviet Union. Only then did he lead the delegation to contact the waiting Soviet diplomats. Soon, both parties boarded the train and set off for the Soviet side.

The train stopped just after crossing the border into the Soviet Union. A team of uniformed Soviet personnel boarded the train to check the passengers' documents one by one. Ribbentrop saw the insignia worn by this team—they were actually KGB. The full name of the KGB was the "Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union," and among its many departments was the Border Guard Directorate. The people checking the train now likely belonged to this section.

Ribbentrop was a diplomat and accompanied by Soviet officials, so he was not too worried about the KGB robbing the German diplomatic team. He watched the KGB inspectors with interest, thinking they would ask passengers to open their cases for inspection. Such moments were opportunities to fish for oil—bribes.

But from start to finish, Ribbentrop discovered that the personnel from the KGB Border Guard Directorate did not open passengers' carry-on luggage at all, only carefully checking documents. Several travelers were found to have problematic papers and were dragged away by the KGB border guards, their luggage taken with them. Judging by their clothing and luggage size, none were rich—they couldn't even be called well-off. They could probably be classified as "poor."

Arresting only the poor was obviously not the way to fish for oil. Although Ribbentrop suspected his carriage might be receiving special treatment from the KGB, having seen the scene of large numbers of Poles trying to enter the Soviet Union at the border, he had to suspect that perhaps the Soviet Union was truly strictly guarding against stowaways and entrants who did not meet Soviet requirements.

To prepare for his future mission to China, Ribbentrop had spent some time learning Chinese. A Chinese idiom that had left a deep impression on him popped into his mind: "Heartless because one is rich" (Wei Fu Bu Ren). The Soviet Union had a bit of the flavor of being heartless due to its wealth.