Stilwell immediately reported to Marshall, who was at the Second Quebec Conference, on the situation in the Chinese theaters, and he believed that the situation in the Chinese theaters was very bad, which was caused by Chiang Kai-shek's incompetence in command, and if Chiang Kai-shek continued to command the army, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Stunned, Marshall immediately connected to Roosevelt's office. While briefing the president on the situation in the Chinese theater, Marshall expressed the opinion of the War Department: Stilwell has been promoted to general, and he can command the Chinese army as the commander of the Chinese theater of operations to prevent the rout of the Chinese theater.

When Roosevelt heard the news, he was also shocked. Everything is going according to plan on the Yunnan-Burma-India battlefield, the Allied victory is already in sight, and as long as China, the United States, and Britain work together, the Japanese army will soon hoist the white flag in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. He would not allow the destruction of the Allied plans.

The president immediately agreed with Marshall. The president was so excited that he didn't even care about diplomatic etiquette, and was busy sending a telegram directly to Chiang Kai-shek on September 18:

"In order to prevent the Japanese from achieving their goals in China, the only thing you can do at the moment is to immediately reinforce the Chinese troops on the Nu River and ask them to launch an offensive, and at the same time give General Stilwell the authority to command your entire army at once, without restrictions. The actions I am asking of you now will facilitate our decision to pledge and increase aid to China...... If I delay any longer, all the efforts we have made to save China will be in vain. ”

Stilwell's ecstasy was palpable when he heard the news, and he wrote in his diary that day: "Peanut shot the little man in the temple and penetrated him. It was so clean and neat, he couldn't say a word except for his blue face, and his eyes didn't blink. ”

Stilwell was a professional soldier, outspoken about things he was not used to, and disliked bureaucratic red tape and posturing; Chiang Kai-shek, on the other hand, loved vanity, paid attention to subtlety, emphasized superiority and inferiority, and had a strong "sense of identity". Thus, the contradiction between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek inevitably occurred. Soon after he went to work in China, Stilwell regarded Chiang Kai-shek as "an ignorant, imperious, and stubborn man" and contemptuously called Chiang "peanut" (meaning stupid, little man) among his friends. At the same time, he was not accustomed to the corruption and dictatorship of the Kuomintang government, saying that the dictatorship of the Kuomintang government, like the dictatorship of the Nazis in Germany, was an "act of banditry." Of course, Chiang Kai-shek also hated this American.

In addition to the differences in personality, the two also have fundamentally different work goals. Stilwell was concerned about military issues and was responsible for "the effectiveness of US government aid to China," and at the same time he wanted to enhance the combat effectiveness of the Chinese armed forces in order to promote victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan. He believed that the Kuomintang army was in a desperate state, so he proposed to disarm half of it, remove incompetent officers, and have the United States train and equip the first 30 divisions, eventually reaching the size of 100 elite divisions. He also suggested changing the situation in which the transportation of military supplies relied only on the Hump route, believing that only by opening a land transportation route through Burma could the sufficiency of military supplies be guaranteed to defeat the Japanese army.

But in Chiang Kai-shek's view, Stilwell's suggestion was very annoying. This is because the reorganization of the army will upset the balance of political forces in China and will not be conducive to the "rule" of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang government. If Stilwell had followed, it would have been possible for military power to fall into the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's political enemies, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi. In addition, in the stage of the stalemate in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Kuomintang government has been passively resisting Japan, because Chiang Kai-shek believed that after the Allies entered the war, China's victory over Japan was certain, but the competition between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was still undecided, so his first task was to preserve military strength and strengthen his own power.

The cooperation between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek was unpleasant, the plan to reorganize the army was put on hold, and the combat effectiveness of the Kuomintang army was not effectively improved. In 1944, the Battle of Henan-Xianggui broke out, and the Kuomintang army was crushed for thousands of miles, which completely exposed military incompetence and corruption, and at the same time exposed the Kuomintang government's idea of passively avoiding war. At this time, Stilwell believed that "the cure for China's stubborn disease was to get rid of Chiang Kai-shek", and he even expressed his dissatisfaction with Chiang Kai-shek with a curse.

Of course, at this time, Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly interpreted this telegram, and he felt the smell of gunpowder, and the core was that the US president wanted him to hand over military power.

Chiang Kai-shek relied on the United States for the sake of American aid and materials, and even more so to consolidate his rule with American support. He never dreamed of asking him to surrender his military power. He was never right that it was impossible for Stilwell, a pro-Communist element, to control his army. In order to firmly grasp the military power in his hands, Chiang Kai-shek was determined to not hesitate to damage relations with the United States, but also to compete with Roosevelt, and the United States must recall Stilwell.

Chiang Kai-shek, a veteran of the complicated political struggle, immediately called Roosevelt back, and in a memorandum to the president he angrily accused Stilwell, saying that Stilwell had no "willingness to cooperate" with him, and hoped that the president would consider sending another collaborator. With regard to the surrender of military power, he made it clear that this was a major matter of national sovereignty: "President Roosevelt has the virtue of wholeheartedly assisting China, so he has no respect for President Roosevelt's propositions on weekdays, but this matter involves statehood, nationalism, and personality, and cannot be accommodated. ”

It was clear that Chiang Kai-shek could not hand over military power.

Considering the post-war interests of the two countries, there should be a shortcut to resolving the crisis.

The high-level accusations between China and the United States have become the focus of each other's efforts. Chiang Kai-shek, in order to excuse his command mistakes, made Song Xilian a scapegoat, and at the same time demanded that Roosevelt recall Stilwell.

Roosevelt weighed the interests of China and the United States in the postwar period against the appointment of Stilwell, and in the end, he also threw Stilwell.

On September 22, Song Xilian handed over his military power.

On October 19, Roosevelt also made an official telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, deciding to recall Stilwell and send Hurley to China.

On October 21, Stilwell stepped down from his post as commander of the Chinese Theater in Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek, and returned to the United States via Kunming, Baoshan, and India.

This ambitious American general, who contributed to the reorganization and equipment of the Chinese army and made meritorious achievements in the China-Burma-India theater of operations, reluctantly withdrew from the battlefield of the anti-fascist China theater in which he had devoted a lot of effort in this political struggle. As the chief of staff of the Chinese theater of operations, Stilwell is still like this, let alone Song Xilian, who is only a pawn of Chiang Kai-shek?