After the defeat at Shijiazhuang, the Japanese army accelerated the pace of counterattack.

On November 8, the Japanese Tenth Army and the Eleventh Army were officially loaded and ready one by one at each station, and the Fourth Division of the Japanese Army, which was originally under the command of the Kwantung Army, was also officially assigned to the North China Dispatch Army, while the Japanese Army in North China fully contracted the front to prevent the Chinese army in North China from counterattacking.

Even the battle-rampant Battle of Xinkou began to enter the stage of strategic stalemate.

The 6th Division, which had been damaged in strength, temporarily retreated to Baoding, Hebei, while the 10th Division withdrew from Dezhou and held the Cangzhou line.

At the same time, the 14th and 20th Divisions, which had been supplemented, were also included in the sequence of the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, and together with the 15th Division, the Taiwan Infantry Brigade, and the 1st Reserve Infantry Regiment, they formed the landing corps in Hangzhou Bay, and the commander was Prince Hatohiko of Asakanomiya.

The situation of the 15th Division was slightly different from that time and space, which was originally one of the permanent divisions of the Japanese army, but was dismantled during the Taisho (Emperor) period, and was supposed to be reorganized into an army in April 1938, and its rank was also downgraded by one notch, becoming the second division of the third wing.

However, due to the appearance of a certain little ant, the army in China has become a little stronger, so the formation time of the division has also been advanced by half a year, and it is still the permanent main division of the fourth wing, under the jurisdiction of the 17th and 29th brigades, and its division commander is concurrently served by Hatohiko of Asakamiya.

The 8th, 18th, and 114th Divisions, as well as the 1st Brigade of the Puppet Jing'an Army, the Puppet Li Chunshan Brigade, and the Puppet Yuzhishan Brigade, formed the 10th Army of the Japanese Army, and the commander was Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke.

The target of the army's attack was the flank and rear of the Songhu battlefield - Jinshanwei in Hangzhou Bay, and they would work with the Japanese troops at Wusongkou and Pudong to flank the Shanghai defenders in Huaxia, and strive to annihilate all the Chinese troops participating in the battle in Songhu, and then prepare for the occupation of the whole of China.

At this time, the Nanjing government was living like a year, and the Battle of Songhu was almost unable to last.

In the Republic of China in the 30s, many commonly used materials all rely on foreign imports, only take steel as an example, before the "77 Incident", China has to import 100,000 tons of steel every month, not only for railways, war fortifications, arsenals and other major projects, but also for housing construction, roads and bridges, as well as the people's daily foreign (iron) nails, foreign (iron) shovels, foreign (iron) bowls and so on.

After the full-scale war between China and Japan, Britain, France, Germany, the United States and other Western powers, in the name of avoiding the expansion of the Sino-Japanese war, advocated that European and American countries impose a "comprehensive embargo" on China and Japan.

Therefore, if China and Japan want to obtain strategic materials such as steel, oil, and munitions, they must pay several times the price, but Japanese imperialism has completed industrialization, and the embargo is only a slight trouble, but for backward China, it is a deadly noose.

By November 1937, all kinds of strategic materials of the Nanjing government in China, as well as excellent military resources, were close to exhaustion, on the surface of the Songhu battlefield, it seemed that it was still in a fierce battle of parity, but Lao Jiang and others knew that the general trend had gone, and it was time to prepare for a big retreat.

On the morning of 9 November, Chiang Kai-shek, Bai Chongxi, Jiang Baili, Chen Cheng, Wu Peifu, and other important generals held a special operations meeting of the Nanjing Military Commission in the secret military base of the small camp in Nanjing to discuss how to deal with the re-landing of the Japanese army and the fate of the entire Songhu battlefield.

In short, if you want to play, what is the way to play?

If you want to return, how to do it?

If so, where should it be evacuated?

Mr. Jiang Baili is Lao Chiang's chief staff and concurrently serves as the chief planner of the entire Chinese War of Resistance, so he has the most right to speak on how to fight and withdraw from the Songhu War.

Because Mr. Jiang worked hard day and night, his health was not very good, so he coughed a little and said, "If Shanghai is lost, Nanjing will definitely not be protected."

"Since Shanghai and Nanjing are not guaranteed, then Hangzhou will inevitably not be guaranteed, when we retreat against the Yangtze River to Wuhu, Jiujiang, and Wuhan, the Japanese army will inevitably follow all the way, so that the Japanese army wants to occupy all parts of China one by one, and there are not so many troops at all, so it is the limit to fight Wuhan."

Wu Peifu is a lieutenant general appointed by the old Jiang Xin, and he is a soldier, and he doesn't like crooked literati the most, so he simply stood up and retorted, "Brother Fang Zhen, as far as Wu knows, you are old, and you have never led the troops to fight independently, but have served as a staff officer for a long time."

"So, all these things you are talking about are taken for granted by yourself, right? These judgments of yours are purely on paper, and you are the modern Zhao Kuo."

Jiang Baili, who was about to continue to explain, couldn't help but be stunned, but his cultivation was better, and he had learned through the past and the present, and he had learned from China and abroad, and he had already known the war between China and Japan, and he would not be angry about some contrary words, but smiled very modestly, "Brother Ziyu is a great military strategist, and Fang Zhen listens to it."

Although Mr. Wu likes to shoot guns, he does have real skills.

This guy was not very polite, so he asked Liu Yun, who was listening on the sidelines, to come over and help, and opened three large maps in the conference room, a map of the provinces of China, a map of Japanese power, and a map of the distribution of world powers.

Wu Peifu took the baton, pointed to the world map and said, "Wu has been thinking about a question since the Great War in Europe (World War I), the rise of Europe and the United States and the weakening of China, and the prosperity of Japan and the decline of China. In the end, Wu came to a conclusion - it is still a matter of ideology and concept."

"The rise of the Japanese Empire is not because the Japanese are smart, but because they follow the trend of world development."

"Due to the advent of the Age of Discovery in Europe and the United States in the West, the world is increasingly connected, so Europe and the United States can spread their colonial networks all over the world, and can set up their military fortresses in various chokepoints in the world, so as to gather the wealth of the world to Europe and the United States."

"These riches are not only gold, silver, minerals, and grain, but also include advanced cultural knowledge and advanced technical talents, so in this day and age, to be enemies of Europe and the United States is to be enemies of the whole world - this is where the general trend of the whole world lies."

"The Meiji Restoration that Japan engaged in was actually based on Britain and France, hoping to follow behind Britain and France, as a small minion, just picking up some scraps and burning cold, and after 1871, with the rise of the German Empire in Europe, they saw new hope."

"They think - Japan can also be one of the great powers".

"Therefore, in the late 19th century, Japan changed to Britain and Germany as its division, to be precise, the navy was modeled after Britain, and the army was modeled after Germany, but in the economic field, it copied the British Empire, so Japan is the Asian version of Britain, and its development path must be a barbaric road of expansion."

Speaking of this, Wu Peifu secretly glanced at Lao Jiang, and then said with a little pride, "Wu someone, after returning to Beiping in 1932, the reason why he stayed and didn't leave was to figure out the specific routine of the Japanese devils' invasion of China, and the final ultimate goal."

"The so-called 'a fool thinks a thousand times, and there must be one', but today, Wu is a fool, and he has finally seen some doorways, that is-mercantilism."

Lao Jiang suddenly regretted a little, he knew that Mr. Wu was so capable, he should have let Song Ziwen or Kong Xiangxi attend the meeting, he himself was born as a gangster, and later relied on Qiu Ba's position, where do you know what "mercantilism" is, this Wu Xiucai likes to chew words too much.

As for Bai Chongxi and Chen Cheng, they are not much better, Jiang Baili may be very knowledgeable, but if they have good cultivation, how can they come out easily - debate with Wu Peifu one by one, by the way, and Liu Yun, a doctor of mechanics, seems to understand economics very well.

However, this guy is an expert in railways, not an economic material.

When Lao Jiang was trying to let Major General Liu come out and show his hand, Mr. Wu had already begun to explain to everyone what mercantilism was - "that is, through the way of doing business, the overall wealth of a country can be multiplied, in the past it was simply to obtain gold and silver, but now it includes raw materials, markets and talents."

"Looking at ancient and modern times, there are four ways to obtain wealth, one is self-production, one is exchange, one is robbery, and one is gifting."

"The first is the physiocratism advocated by the classical political economy of France during the 18th century, which is based on industry and agriculture, with the naturally formed market order as the supreme creed, and advocates free economic competition, so as to accumulate a large amount of wealth for the country."

Now Jiang Baili and Liu Yun and others are really convinced, Wu Peifu is Wu Peifu, known for his erudition since childhood, even if he was a soldier in the Beiyang Army, he was also called "Wu Xiucai", but after the fiasco of the Northern Expedition, he was a blessing in disguise, and he successfully jumped from the political and military field to the political and economic field.

Lao Jiang also secretly blamed himself, he really shouldn't have speculated about Mr. Wu with malice before.

"The second is mercantilism, which is also the core content of Western civilization advocated by the European and American powers, represented by Spain and Portugal in the early days, and now represented by Britain and the United States.

"Therefore, they demand that all countries in the world must follow the principle of civilized and equal exchange, which is the new international order that Europe and the United States are currently advocating."

"I won't talk about the fourth case, which is a matter between Western nobles, or between friends or relatives, and in Eastern civilization, it has not risen to the level of relations between countries, so only the third situation is the fundamental problem between China and Japan."

"The Japanese devils want to devour and rob China's wealth, so as to speed up their own wealth accumulation, while China wants to oppose annexation, robbery, and aggression."

"Because Japan started too late and is an island country, it is said that it can only take the road of heavy commerce, but after the 19th century, the Victorian era (Britain is the dominant pole) is gone, and the Western world gradually tends to be orderly, most of them have noticed commercial problems, even backward countries such as China, have noticed foreign trade problems, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty even invited foreigners to help take care of customs and trade."

"Therefore, the Japanese devils had no choice but to launch one war of aggression after another under the guise of mercantilism, and to rob the wealth of various neighboring countries in order to complete the primitive accumulation."

"To be precise, the Japanese devils are challenging the entire European and American civilization, or the entire international order, Japan in the 19th century was extremely weak, everyone thought it was a joke, and it was only a gesture to destroy it, and in the early 20th century, the great powers were busy with European wars, and they ushered in the spring of expansion."

"It is precisely the indulgence of Europe and the United States again and again that has caused Japan to become self-absorbed from top to bottom, and even think that it is the world's number one naval power, and wants to challenge the international order dominated by Europe and the United States in various fields, and the former European hegemons - Britain, France, Russia and other countries are the targets of their defeat."

"As for the United States and China, they are the stepping stones for the rise of the Great Japanese Empire, and when China is swallowed up, it should be a shy and isolated United States."

Lao Jiang and Liu Yun both smiled bitterly.

Chiang Weizuo has personally visited the United States, and how powerful the United States is, judging from his expert and critical eye, can naturally see at a glance.

Major General Liu is a traverser, how powerful the United States is in the 21st century, and he has a deep understanding that the Japanese devils actually treat the United States as a fish belly, and they can slaughter it as they want.

Wu Peifu's tirade has finally come to an end.

He pointed out with certainty that "the Japanese devils' plan to invade China can be divided into three levels, and the minimum goal is to occupy China's coastal areas and all major treaty ports."

"The strategic goal is to turn the whole of China into a Japanese colony, and the Japanese Empire will dominate the economic field of China, and in the future, whether it is imports and exports, or exchanges with the outside world, China will have to be approved by them, and they will directly earn taxes and fees from it."

"If this goes on for a long time, the Japanese devils will become stronger and stronger, and because they have dominated China's economic field for a long time, it will also have a subtle impact on China's ideological field, and in the end, even without a single shot, they can destroy the Chinese nation, establish the so-called Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, and then drive hundreds of millions of Chinese people to be cannon fodder and pawns for them to dominate the world."

When he said this, Mr. Wu was also stunned, and then said with some solemnity, "The advantage of this method is that it is gradual and gradual, and it was first proposed by Ishihara Waner himself, and it has been supported by many Japanese upper-class people."

"However, the spirit of bushido in Japan is a kind of quick success, and the history of Japan's modern development is itself a history of robbers."

"So Ishihara changed his plan."

"He advocated the importance of mercantilism at the same time, attached importance to the idea of heavy agriculture, heavy agriculture must own a large amount of land, and look at the surrounding of the Japanese Empire, in addition to China, there is only Soviet Russia, it is this change in guiding ideology, the outbreak of the 1931 September 18 Incident, but war is a beast of fierceness, once the reins are loosened, the consequences will be very serious, so that the Sino-Japanese war is getting more and more intense."

"Fortunately, the Japanese Navy is strong enough, so it will naturally be unscrupulous."

Wu Peifu turned his baton and pointed to the map of the whole country of China, and calmly crossed them one by one, "Pingjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other large coastal cities are places that the Japanese army must occupy, but occupation is not the ultimate goal, but the use of these places to make the Chinese government coerced by it, and then compromise is the goal."