Chapter 23: The Great Men

“Comrade Khrushchev! Bringing our German friends here was an order from Comrade General Tukhachevsky! What do you have to question?” Vasilevsky said, turning to look at his subordinate with some displeasure.

“Even without the help of those capitalists, we can still produce our own tanks! Produce our own cannons!” Khrushchev retorted loudly.

Khrushchev? This was the famous Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev? Akado felt his mind struggling to keep up.

A couple of days ago, his office was only a hundred meters away from Lenin’s and Stalin’s. Yesterday, he had sat at the same negotiating table as the famous Soviet military strategist, General Tukhachevsky. Today, he had met another Soviet leader, Khrushchev. In a few days, he would be heading to China to meet another historical giant in Guangzhou. Was this a grand banquet of historical figures? The cast was a bit too star-studded; it felt very much like a blockbuster movie.

“Hello, Mr. Khrushchev. No one questions the wisdom and ability of the Soviet people. However, with Germany’s assistance, you will save a great deal of time, won’t you? And whether it’s you or us, we all need time! Plenty of time!” Akado said with a smile.

“Hmph!” Clearly, the 29-year-old Mr. Khrushchev, who had not yet entered the Moscow Industrial Academy to study, did not yet possess the mature political skills he would have after 1929. All he had now was a fiery passion for the Bolshevik cause. “Don’t try to get friendly! You are all just watchdogs for the capitalists!”

Akado really wanted to say to Khrushchev: And you are nothing but a watchdog for Bolshevism! And the unlucky thing is, you’re a watchdog who is destined to be abandoned in the future!

But he didn’t say it. He just cracked a smile at his translator, Block, not taking this reckless young man seriously at all. In truth, Akado himself was just a little over 23 years old, not even as old as Khrushchev was now.

“Comrade Khrushchev! Shut your mouth! Lieutenant Colonel Akado is an important guest of Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin! If you sabotage the revolutionary cause, how will you answer to the people?” Lieutenant Colonel Borov rebuked him with a frown. “Get back to your post! Or I will write a letter to Comrade Stalin and have him send you to Siberia to be a miner!”

Vasilevsky also chimed in from the side, “You’ve gone too far, Khrushchev! Go back and write a self-criticism report! Hand it in to the Party organization before the end of work tomorrow! I want to see your deep remorse in that report!”

“Alright! Let’s not scare our master worker here,” Akado interjected to smooth things over. “I believe I now have a deep understanding of the Soviet Union’s industrial base. I still have important matters to attend to, so I won’t delay any further. I will take the train and leave Moscow tomorrow morning.”

Khrushchev still wanted to say something, but he was already being pulled away by two colleagues, only able to look back and glare fiercely at Akado.

The next day, Akado packed his luggage and prepared to leave the Kremlin for the train station on the outskirts of Moscow.

On the train, in the private compartment shared by Akado, Block, and Gehr, Akado opened his special briefcase with a combination lock and looked through the cooperation agreements signed within. His trip to the Soviet Union had not been in vain. He was taking away a full twelve agreements in various fields, including the Soviet Union providing Germany with 400 million kilograms of rice, 200,000 head of cattle, five million barrels of fuel oil, and a joint venture to build a railway between Moscow and Berlin.

Although Britain was somewhat displeased that the Soviet Union was getting a piece of the action, the thought that Germany was the one brokering the deal meant they didn’t lose face. Plus, it curbed Japan’s arrogance in the Far East and they received a bonus of 250,000 barrels of fuel oil. So, they tacitly approved of this cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union, largely because the British were kept in the dark about most of the German Reichswehr’s cooperative activities.

Britain did not know about Germany secretly training its airmen and armored troops in the Soviet Union. They did not know that Germany was secretly assisting the Soviet Union in building its own heavy industry. And they certainly did not know that the German Reichswehr was secretly building factories in the Soviet Union to produce artillery shells and cannons.

Finally leaving the Soviet Union, Akado saw the steppes from the train, saw the yellow-skinned Asian people herding sheep on both sides of the railway.

Akado also noticed that as the train made its stops, the passengers on board changed. The train, which was originally full of Cossack white people, gradually had more and more yellow-skinned people. After the most recent stop, it was clear that yellow-skinned people were now the majority on the train.

And accompanied by the clatter of the train wheels hitting the rail joints, Akado heard them all communicating in Chinese.

Akado nudged his bodyguard, Gehr, who was sleeping soundly beside him, and motioned for him to wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth. Before Akado could send Gehr to ask where the train was, his translator for the trip, Block from the Reichswehr logistics department, walked over from nearby, sat back down in his seat, and said to Akado, “Sir, we’ve arrived in China.”

“And this is?” Akado vaguely felt that the handsome, bald, yellow-skinned man before him looked very familiar, but he did not venture a guess.

“This is the representative of the real power in the Chinese government, the special personal advisor to Mr. Sun Yat-sen, Mr. Chiang Kai-shek,” the translator introduced respectfully.

“Oh! Jyo-yang da-ming (A garbled ‘I’ve long heard your great name’)!” Akado blurted out a line of Chinese in a roguish, off-key voice. “Jyang syen-shen, wo heng hwan-ying ni-dee dao-lye (A garbled ‘Mr. Chiang, I very much welcome your arrival’. The original text adds: guess for yourself, I’m not translating it).”

Chiang Kai-shek extended his hand to shake Akado’s and then said with a smile, “I didn’t expect Lieutenant Colonel Akado’s Chinese to be so good. You must know China very well. I warmly welcome you to China, Lieutenant Colonel.”

Akado smiled and switched back to German. “You flatter me, Mr. Chiang. I just randomly flipped through a dictionary and learned a few sentences on the spot.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Akado is a friend of the Chinese people, and a friend of mine, Chiang. At the very least, my party is very grateful for the excellent weapons you have provided,” Chiang Kai-shek said very politely, accompanying Akado to the meeting room with a smile.

“Mr. Chiang, I believe our interest in curbing Japan’s development in the Far East is aligned, and our economic and trade interests in the Far East are also aligned. Since our core interests are aligned, then we are friends, are we not?” Akado said with a smile.

The translator, Block, conveyed the words to the listening Chiang Kai-shek.

After listening, Chiang Kai-shek nodded. “Lieutenant Colonel Akado, let’s not beat around the bush. Germany is willing to support the Kuomintang government, open up the international situation for our party, and deliver the most urgently needed military supplies. We are endlessly grateful and are willing to secretly pay the price you have named. However, could you possibly give us a more favorable price?”

“On the official price, I can give another ten percent discount! But the secret fees cannot be reduced any further! You know what I’m working for, don’t you?” Akado said after deliberating for a moment.

“You are a truly generous man, Lieutenant Colonel Akado! I believe your trip to China will certainly not be in vain! Men, transfer the funds to the bank account designated by Lieutenant Colonel Akado,” Chiang Kai-shek said, having achieved his goal. He laughed heartily and invited Akado for a drink.

Akado was counting on a slightly strengthened China to bog down the Japanese, and China was counting on Germany’s help to resist Japanese oppression. The two sides hit it off immediately.

First meeting a future great man like Khrushchev, and then meeting the formidable leader of a generation in China, Chiang Kai-shek, Akado truly felt he had gained a lot. Of course, if it were possible, Akado would have even liked to see Mao Zedong and shake the hand of this legendary figure who went from being a teacher to the leader of a nation.

Of course, this wish was perhaps a bit unrealistic, because at this time, this middle school teacher had only just finished his meeting on a tour boat, and the newly born Communist Party of China was still, so to speak, in its infancy, not yet possessing the power to command the winds and rain as it would in the future.

The British government was aware of Akado’s trip to Asia this time. What they didn’t know was that Akado not only brought back a 10-million-dollar arms deal for Britain and a 40-million-dollar arms deal for Germany’s military-industrial enterprises, but he also secretly received nearly 17 million US dollars in “bribes” from the Chinese and the Americans.

So Akado concluded his journey and, with a look of smug satisfaction, boarded a ship bound for India. From there, he would pass through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea, and then return to Germany.

The journey was not very short, but it wasn’t very long either. To avoid the Japanese spies who were ubiquitous in China, Akado deliberately did not go to the German consulate in China. Instead, he traveled lightly and secretly boarded a ship from British-occupied Hong Kong, like a soft feather that didn’t stir any dust.

But in the calm of early 1922, he had used his flimsy wings to stir up a world-destroying international storm. On New Year’s Day, January 1, 1922, the first batch of German-made arms was loaded onto ships in the port of Hamburg and, under the escort of British destroyers, sailed out of the harbor. What even the British didn’t know was that at the same time, 300 large-caliber howitzers left over from the Great War, which Akado had hidden in the southern mountains, along with 90,000 accompanying large-caliber shells, were secretly loaded onto trains in East Prussia and transported via rail through the Soviet Union to the warlord-torn, ancient land of China.

And the small tank design that Germany had borrowed from the British was ordered by Akado to begin secret production. These mini-tanks, equipped with only two machine guns, were sold as commodities directly to Mr. Chiang Kai-shek, who was secretly building up his forces. And this Mr. Chiang’s financial source was the American tycoons who were making money on the same economic front as Akado.

Because of Akado, Chiang Kai-shek received American support earlier and obtained more financial aid. He would become a super-general under Sun Yat-sen earlier and replace the “Father of the Nation” Sun to become the hot-shot, formidable leader of China even sooner.