When they heard this, they all burst out laughing.

In fact, the banquet set up by Zhang Zhizhong is a round table, but according to traditional rules, the one sitting opposite the door is the head, that is, the more noble seat.

Zhang Zhizhong listened to Bai Fei's words, and had no choice but to sit on top with a smile. After he sat down, he pulled Bai Fei to sit down next to him. Others took their seats according to the size of their official positions.

Zhang Zhizhong picked up the wine glass, and after drinking a full glass with everyone, he greeted everyone to eat and drink. After three rounds of wine and five flavors, the atmosphere of the banquet became more warm. While everyone raised their glasses to persuade them to drink, they talked about current affairs all over the world.

Most of you here are military and political leaders of the Republic of China government, and the hottest, most urgent, and most concerned thing at the moment is the national war with the Japanese. Therefore, after chatting for a few words, the topic of discussion unconsciously returned to the war of resistance against Japan, and the content of the conversation was nothing more than the ongoing battle between China and Japan around Wuhan.

At first, Bai Fei just listened quietly to everyone's high-level comments on the sidelines, and did not interject. He hadn't eaten well for a day, and after listening to it a few times, he found that there was nothing new, so he simply focused on the sumptuous food in front of him.

But as he ate it, Bai Fei felt that something was not right. It turned out that in the process of chatting, I don't know who suddenly led the topic to the comparison of the national strength and military strength of China and Japan, so they saw Zhou Fohai and Mei Siping singing and harmonizing, constantly "analyzing" the gap between China and Japan. In the course of the discussion, although Zhou Fohai and Mei Siping's words did not say it explicitly, they made people clearly feel their lack of confidence in the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, and implicitly expressed their views to the public, rather than insisting on the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the destruction of the country and the extinction of species, it is better to compromises and seek perfection to adapt to the changes of the times.

To tell the truth, during China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Japan's industrialization had already developed to a considerable stage, and ordinary weapons such as airplanes, artillery, large ships, and tanks could be manufactured by itself. At that time, China was still a backward agricultural country, its industrial productivity was extremely low, and in terms of military industry, it could only manufacture a small number of infantry weapons, small-caliber mortars, small ships and other small weapons and equipment, which could not meet the needs of weapons and equipment for the war at all. Others, such as airplanes, large-caliber artillery, tanks, motor vehicles, and large ships, cannot be manufactured in-house, and are completely dependent on purchasing from foreign countries.

Let's talk about a well-known thing to compare: Japan has built dozens of aircraft carriers around 1940, while China did not buy an empty shell aircraft carrier from Ukraine until the 21st century and transformed it into China's first aircraft carrier. However, at that time, our industrial level had developed from poor and white to a considerable stage, and then we built our country's second and third aircraft carriers completely independently one after another...

Straight to the point.

Therefore, if we only talk about the industrial and military level, Japan during World War II can indeed throw away several streets of China at that time. China is not at all comparable with it. Therefore, after listening to the analysis of Zhou and Mei, many people nodded in agreement.

However, there are also a few people who can't listen to Zhou Mei's remarks, and their faces are a little unpleasant, including Zhang Zhizhong, Xi Chulin, Wen Chongfu and others.

Bai Fei couldn't rub the sand in his eyes, he didn't have a good impression of Zhou Fohai and Mei Siping, as soon as he thought of the traitorous behavior of these two people in the future, he couldn't wait to step forward and shoot them, but because these things hadn't happened yet, it was difficult to start for no reason. didn't expect these two people to peddle their traitorous remarks in front of him, which is really hateful.

So Bai Fei snorted coldly, threw down his chopsticks and asked: "According to what the two of you said, what kind of compromise should I, the 450 million compatriots in China, make to stop this war?" Mowing the land? Reparations? Or should you completely surrender and be obedient? ”

Zhou Fohai and Mei Siping were stunned by the question, and after exchanging glances with each other, Mei Siping coughed and said: "Well, we didn't say that we want to surrender, just talk about things, our country's military strength is indeed not as good as Japan's, if we just blindly fight hard, not only will our already weak own strength be hit hard, and the battle will be fought to the end, but it is still inevitable that the country will be defeated and destroyed. ”

Bai Fei sneered: "Yes, so didn't I ask you just now, how can the Japanese stop?" Don't say you don't know, I guess you've been in contact with the Japanese, and you should know some inside story, so why don't you tell it for everyone to hear, so that I can refer to it for you? ”

As soon as Zhou Mei and the others heard this, their faces immediately changed.

It turned out that since the July 7 Incident, Wang Zhaoming deeply felt the hardships of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and had no confidence in the victory of the War of Resistance, so he has been calling for peace with the Japanese dialect inside and outside the government. At first, there were quite a few people in the government who agreed with this kind of capitulation. However, with the passage of time, especially after the large-scale operations against Japan in Shanghai, Nanjing, Xuzhou, and other places, the wild rumors of the Japanese army's three-month occupation of China were shattered, and the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese army was shattered many times, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops were wiped out one after another, which not only re-established the national confidence of our army and people in winning the War of Resistance, but also unified the national front of the War of Resistance to the end.

At this time, although Wang Zhaoming was still promoting his "peace of words", there were not many people who ate his set. Out of the desire for personal rights, Zhou Fohai and Mei Siping have been actively campaigning for Wang Zhaoming, and before that, Mei Siping was ordered by Zhou Fohai to go to Hong Kong to negotiate with Matsumoto Shigeharu, the representative of the Japanese Prime Minister Konoe, in Hong Kong, and the Japanese side proposed "no territory, no compensation, and withdrawal of troops within two years" to support Wang Zhaoming's "peace" movement. The Japanese have been planning to invade China for decades, but when they arrive, they don't want anything, and they will take the initiative to withdraw their troops? Such a statement, when it comes out, even a three-year-old child does not believe it.

In addition, Zhou Fohai planned Gao Zongwu and Mei Siping to sign the "Chongguangtang Agreement" with Takeo Imai and Inuyang Ken of the Japanese side. Zhou Fohai had political ambitions, and was not satisfied with the posts of Kuomintang propaganda minister and deputy director of the chamberlain, and always wanted that one day "the central government would be formed in ten minutes." Therefore, he actively planned to descend to Japan and create "a new world of his own." In June 1938, Zhou Fohai secretly instructed Gao Zongwu to go to Japan to contact, and then urged Mei Siping to participate, and finally Zhou and Mei invited Wang to come out, and then after Gao Zongwu and Mei Siping ran around, the Japanese Imperial Council recognized Wang Zhaoming as a negotiating opponent, and Zhou Fohai was the "initiator" of the entire movement to surrender Japan.

However, there were some things that Zhou Fohai came into contact with the Japanese, which Wang Zhaoming did not know at first, but when Zhou and Mei expressed their merits to Wang Jingwei and Chen Bijun with a secret agreement that "Japan recognizes Wang Jingwei's leadership of the peace movement," Wang felt like a treasure and felt with peace of mind that it was better to seek peace and survive than to die in the War of Resistance.

There is another person who also played a role that cannot be underestimated on the road of Wang Jingwei becoming a traitor, this person is Wang Jingwei's wife Chen Bijun. Wang Jingwei has an indecisive personality, but his wife Chen Bijun is an assertive person, Chen Bijun is not satisfied with Wang living under Chiang Kai-shek for a long time and being sullen by Chiang, and he is full of enthusiasm for Wang's desire to "oppose Chiang's seizure of power", and he tries his best to encourage him, wanting to open up a new business and operate independently, but he is ignorant of the general righteousness. In order to curry favor with Japan, Chen even thought that "the five northeastern provinces are not at all a Chinese place" and that "Fengtian was originally a dowry brought by the Manchus, but now they are just bringing back their own dowry." In order to allow Wang to take power independently, Tian shamelessly expressed his renunciation of territorial sovereignty in Northeast China.

Some people say: "Mr. Wang can't succeed without Bijun, and he can't fail without Bijun." In a sense, Wang became a traitor, and it was also in the hands of Chen Bijun and Zhou Fohai. The cowardly and inferior character led to Wang's being overwhelmed by Japan's obscenity, failing to look at the War of Resistance Dialectically and seeing the prospect of victory for the Chinese nation; The "fear of the sun" made him surrender to the Lord. The indecisive character is easily swayed by others and pushed to the road of betraying the country and seeking glory.

At the end of 1938, the Japanese government issued three "Konoe Declarations" aimed at the destruction of China, openly inducing the Kuomintang government to surrender politically. However, at this time, there was a serious split within the ruling circles of the Kuomintang, and Wang Ching-wei, as vice president of the Kuomintang, left Chongqing and fled to Vietnam, and issued a telegram in response to Japan's Konoe's third statement, in which Wang Ching-wei put forward his own understanding of the war of resistance: "After more than a year of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the war was painful and painful, and if the war could still be ended with a peace that was in line with justice, then the country's survival and independence could be guaranteed, that is, the purpose of the War of Resistance had been achieved. ”

Chiang Kai-shek angrily denounced this: "(The Japanese) really have a mechanical blade hidden in their bones", "This is the general confession of all the delusional conspiracies of the enemy to swallow China as a whole, dominate East Asia, and then try to conquer the world; It is also the total exposure of all the contents of the enemy's plan to destroy our country and our nation."

Jingwei also defended this in the telegram: "The first is good neighborliness and friendship," "the second is joint defense against the Communist Party," and "the third is economic cooperation." Wang Jingwei concluded by saying, "Laying the foundation for permanent peace between the two countries is our due effort for the happiness of East Asia."

He once commented that Chiang Kai-shek may not be a good tactician, but he can be called a good strategist. Such a strategist's vision is not possessed by Wang Jingwei.

That's it. Wang Jingwei slipped into the abyss step by step on the road of betrayal, until he was finally ruined. Among them, Wang Jingwei's soft personality, lack of perseverance, lack of optimism and strategic vision are naturally one of the factors that cannot be ignored, but it is inseparable from being constantly bewitched by Zhou Mei and others.

Therefore, when Zhou Mei and the others heard Bai Fei tell Bai Fei about their secret contact with the Japanese, their faces suddenly changed color...