An Yi returned to the Xiaguan camp. Late at night on the day of the secret meeting with Chen Cheng, Cai Zhonghu, Gu Zhenglun, Li Xianzhou, and other teachers and friends, he secretly returned to the brothers by car.

Gong Qian supported An Yi all the way to inspect every barracks full of wounded and sick soldiers, the scene in front of her made her burst into tears, but she was extremely proud, she learned for the first time that her younger brother has such a high prestige, such a strong appeal, and he has become a spiritual pillar in the hearts of all soldiers at a young age.

In the following two days, An Yi was half dead of exhaustion, and he had to thank the people from all walks of life who came one by one, and accompanied the representatives of schools and social organizations who came to visit the barracks and visit the wounded. The propaganda offensive launched by friends Ye Qing, Zhou Chongan and He Jing was wave after wave, especially after He Jing obtained An Yi's consent, he quickly sorted out more than 200,000 words of interview scripts and began to write the book "Iron-blooded Lion", faithfully recording the whole process from the beginning of An Yi's reading division to the beginning of the Northern Expedition to the return of the feathers. Among them, An Yi only put forward two requirements:

First, we must not make public the reasons behind the beginning of the division's northward blockade, so as to avoid intensifying the contradictions with Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and He Yingqin. Second, we must not write about the burning and looting of the Reading Force Master in Shaji Town and the burning, killing, and plundering of Taiping Town, and make a few downstrokes and say that it is enough to suppress a small number of reactionary forces that prevent the troops from returning south, otherwise it will damage the good reputation of An Yishi's consistent success.

Although He Jing was very reluctant to this, he still agreed at An Yi's insistence, after all, An Yi's department was in a weak position at the moment, and if he openly quarreled with Li, Bai, and He, who were in charge of Nanjing's political axe, it would definitely be An Yi who lost his support. At the same time, the actions in Shaji Town and Taiping Town are certainly out of anger, but they are indeed too much, and once they are made public, the impact will be very bad.

Hans, an old friend, is very interesting, on the afternoon of the second day after An Yi left the church, he hurried to Nanjing, and after a secret meeting with An Yi in St. Paul's Church, he immediately decided to load and ship more than 4 million manufacturing equipment, special steel, weapon parts, steel helmet production lines and molds, more than 40 trucks and cars produced by Mercedes-Benz Company in Guangzhou and Hong Kong to Lao Nanchang, and according to An Yi's request, arranged two foreign ships to rush to Nanjing urgently. Prepare to send An Yi, who made an important choice and decided to disarm and engage in business, and his more than 1,000 brothers back to Lao Nanchang.

After all this, Hans and his assistant Raute joined the volunteer care team of more than 200 European and American countries, and stayed in the camp in Shimonoseki to do what they could for An Yi's brothers. In fact, Hans has already made up his mind, this time he has to accompany An Yi to Lao Nanchang to see it with his own eyes, enhance each other's feelings, and at the same time, have an in-depth understanding of An Yi's production and business environment and development potential, so as to formulate the direction and scope of future cooperation.

The next morning, An Yi made his rounds as usual, and after meeting with Pastor Kreuzer and Ger, he walked to the office in front of the barracks, and saw the seven-year-old pillar sitting alone under the tree, drawing a small figure on the ground with a dagger. An Yi smiled, walked over and pulled up the pillar, patted his dusty clothes, and then picked him up:

"Pillar, it's been stuffy these days, right? When you return to Nanchang, you won't feel lonely, there are many children who are the same age as you, and my Ermao is about the same age as you, go back to play with him, go to school and study together. ”

Zhuzi touched the scar on An Yi's face that had just healed, and said in a low voice: "Uncle An, my sister ignores me, every time she sees me looking for her, she lets me play by myself, and she hasn't spoken to me seriously for several days." ”

An Yi smiled when he heard this, and his cheek was affectionately attached to the little face of the pillar, and then said: "Pillar, that's your sister has a good heart, and she devotes herself to taking care of the injured uncle, and when the uncles stand up vigorously, your sister will have time to talk to you, you know?" ”

The pillar blinked wide-eyed and nodded vigorously.

At this time, Cui'er, who was dressed in a white nurse's outfit, came out of the ward, gathered the hair of her sideburns, and saw the pillar chatting affectionately in An Yi's arms, her face changed, and she hurriedly rushed over to take the pillar from An Yi's arms and put it on the ground, pointed her finger on the pillar's forehead, and reproached:

"How can you let the general hold you? General An is not well yet, do you know? Let's have fun! ”

"Cui'er, this nurse's uniform borrowed from a foreigner suits you quite well, have you been tired these days?" Gong Qian, who had been by An Yi's side, walked over, took Cui'er's hand and whispered: "Don't work all night, pay more attention to rest, otherwise you won't be able to stay up." ”

Cui'er shook her head shyly: "It's okay, it's much easier than working at home." Sister Qian, I want to ...... I wanted to study medicine, but Xiaowang said that he couldn't be the master, so I asked the general to talk to him, but I ...... I...... I can't read. ”

An Yi smiled and said, "What's wrong with being illiterate? Who was born literate? You are young, you can learn anything quickly, go back and tell your family Sun Xiaowang, I agreed, when you get to the old Nanchang, you will go to the hospital to become a nurse, learn by doing, and become a female doctor in the future. ”

"Really?"

Cui'er looked at An Yi in surprise.

An Yi smiled and nodded, just wanted to encourage a few more words, Ding Zhicheng trotted all the way to him and whispered, An Yi frowned, said hello to Gong Qian and followed Ding Zhicheng to the gate of the camp, senior brother Fang Tian greeted him, and whispered with a worried face:

"Xiao Yi, something is wrong, Chief He has been back to Nanjing for four days, and today he thought of coming to inspect the barracks and comfort the wounded and sick, I'm afraid the inside story is not simple!

I have heard that our First Army is undergoing an unprecedented readjustment and will soon be expanded into three corps, and the instructor has already divided four regiments to supplement each division, and I have just received an order to lead my troops to Changzhou to wait for reorganization, and I am afraid that it will also be assigned to a certain division. ”

"That's a good thing! It's much better than being left here and forgotten now, senior brother don't worry too much, the first army is our Huangpu territory, no matter which division you go to, you have your own brothers, and you have a care for each other. However, the senior brother must be mentally prepared, if the younger brother's estimate is good, within this month, a big battle is coming, Sun Chuanfang is dispatching a large army to gather on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and is in full swing to prepare to cross the river. An Yi replied in a low voice.

Fang Tian smiled helplessly, pointed to An Yi's soldier's uniform, and suggested:

"It's a pity that I don't have a general's uniform here, so I can only make do with preparing a set of school officer uniforms for you, and change it before Chief He arrives, you don't even wear a hat, and you don't have a brochure or a name tag on your chest, in case Chief He, who has strict military discipline, blames it, it's hard to speak, you wait......"

An Yi grabbed Fang Tian, who turned around and walked towards the communication room, and said solemnly: "Senior brother, you don't have to bother, the junior brother has made up his mind, and from now on he will disarm himself and engage in business, and will no longer continue his military service, this dress is enough." ”

"Huh!? What did you say? Xiao Yi, you ......"

Fang Tian looked at An Yi in surprise, seeing An Yi nodding firmly, he felt very uncomfortable, and was about to persuade a few words, when he suddenly heard the roar of the car motor, so he had to smile bitterly and shook his head, and then ran to a brother who was gathered at the door and waited to greet him.

The convoy drove into the camp gate, and after two troop carriers that served as guides and were fully loaded with guns and live ammunition guards, a swarthy and shiny French Citroen sedan stopped in front of An Yi.

He Yingqin, who got out of the car door, was neatly dressed, wearing a beautiful general's dress that attracted people's attention, and walked towards An Yi surrounded by adjutants and entourage, and saw that An Yi did not salute but bowed to himself, he was very surprised, and raised his hand to return a military salute without thinking about it, stepped forward to hold An Yi's hand and sighed loudly:

"Xiao Yi, I'm very busy with work during this time, and I can't spare extra time to visit you and your subordinates, I'm really wronged! Wronged! ”

"Thank you for the general's care, An Yi is grateful!" An Yi replied politely.

He Yingqin took a step back, looked An Yi up and down with great sadness, and nodded in approval for a while: "It's good to recover!" It's good to recover! Wait a while, I will let people send your general's uniform and the clothes and hats of all the soldiers, the battle along the river is imminent, I need you and your subordinates very much!

If Sun Chuanfang knew that An Yi, who made them scared, returned to the command post, he must not even be able to sleep well, haha! Come, and come with me to see the brethren. ”

He Yingqin's chief of staff Xiao Suyi, An Yi's old commander Liu Zhi and others came up to shake hands with An Yi one after another, comforting him as much as possible, An Yi thanked him politely and humbly, and his attitude was low-key and sincere.

Liu Zhi was secretly surprised when he saw all this, he had never seen An Yi so indifferent and calm, seemingly polite and peaceful, but he seemed to reject people thousands of miles away.

Liu Zhi secretly screamed badly, seeing that He Yingqin was holding his glasses and seemed unwilling to wait, he hurriedly pulled An Yi's arm forward together, accompanied He Yingqin to the barracks where the wounded soldiers were placed, and inspected and condoled one ward after another.

Like every post-war inspection of the wounded soldiers' camp, He Yingqin and a group of generals and his entourage stopped from time to time to talk with the wounded brothers, who knew that this group of wounded brothers who had died all their lives and were full of resentment did not show any flattery, and their reactions were extremely flat, which made He Yingqin and his entourage, who lacked echoes, feel deeply bored, so the speed of the inspection unconsciously accelerated.

To the surprise of He Yingqin, Liu Zhi and others, there were so many foreign doctors and missionaries taking care of the wounded in this place, and the various medical equipment they saw were extremely sophisticated, and the medicines were the best and extremely expensive special medicines.

However, everyone thought that this was a foreigner inspired by An Yi to move all the things at the bottom of the box in the hospital, where did they understand that all these were urgently transferred from Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou by the church and the two major German firms, and they all did not receive a penny because of An Yi's face, and they did not know that President Ji Mengji, who was planning to build St. Paul's Church, immediately sent an urgent telegram from the United States after receiving a telegram from Pastor Gehr, telling Gehr to go all out to help.

In addition to An Yi's good reputation, the more important reason is that President Ji Mengji built St. Paul's Church in Nanjing to commemorate his son who died in the world war ten years ago.

After He Yingqin walked around, he thanked Pastor Gehr and other international friends very gentlemanly, and then instructed An Yi to lead his party to the office.

Walking into the simple barracks, He Yingqin sat down and took a sip of the teacup handed by An Yi's guards to moisten his throat, and then kindly introduced the grim military situation he was currently facing and the ongoing expansion procedures of the First Army, and finally looked at An Yi with appreciation, and said with a smile:

"After several meetings of the military department, it has been decided that you will be appointed chief of staff of the lieutenant general of the First Army, and all the surviving officers and men of the Reading Division will be promoted to the rank of one rank and the first level, and those who have recovered will go to all divisions of the First Army to serve in front-line military posts, and the wounded and sick will continue to recuperate, and the military department will give them the best care."

An Yi shook his head slightly apologetically, and under the stunned gaze of a group of generals, he said sincerely:

"Thank you for the cultivation and trust of the commander, An Yi is a general of the defeated army, his ability is really limited, and the soldiers who have survived nearly 10,000 battles have been unrestrained in Jiangbei so far, and An Yi, as the commander of a division, cannot escape the blame.

Whenever he thinks that he has escaped a catastrophe and survived the world, An Yi feels deeply guilty, his heart is like a knife, and every night in his dreams he is awakened by the questions and grievances of the brothers who died tragically, An Yi can no longer face it, and when he woke up from a coma, he has made up his mind to disarm and return to the field, strive to earn money, find the families and children of the sacrificed soldiers under his command, and try his best to raise them, so as to relieve the huge sins on his body.

As for the surviving soldiers in this battalion, as long as they are willing, they can obey the call of the commander at any time, please forgive An Yi for being difficult to take on a big responsibility, and he is worthy of the expectations of the commander and the division commanders. ”

"Huh? You're ......."

He Yingqin looked at An Yi in surprise, he never thought that the prominent position of a military-level lieutenant general chief of staff would not be able to retain this military genius, before coming here, he had guaranteed Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, confident that he could completely control An Yi and dismantle An Yi's division, but he didn't expect that he would run into An Yi's soft nail as soon as he opened his mouth with confidence, and the purpose of expecting An Yi to take on the heavy task of fighting on the East Road was completely frustrated.

Liu Zhi stood up excitedly: "Xiao Yi, calm down!" Seeing that the enemy's army is pressing the border and the revolutionary cause is in danger, but you lightly talk about disarming and returning to the field, ignoring the whole army and the officers and soldiers under your command, this is not your surname An Yi, are you unwilling to lead the officers and men of our army to avenge the sacrifices of your brothers? Why are you so confused! ”

An Yi slowly stood up, bowed deeply to Liu Zhi, and then bowed frequently to He Yingqin and the surrounding generals, raised his head and said apologetically:

"Thank you to all the commanders and teachers for your long-term care and teachings to An Yi, An Yi will remember it in his heart, and it will be unforgettable! It's just that An Yi is mentally and physically exhausted, his talents are exhausted, and he has no face to live in the army anymore, please forgive me!

At this time, there are many wounded soldiers, most of the doctors do not understand the language and are difficult to communicate, An Yi has to help, forgive An Yi is not far away, tomorrow An Yi will leave Nanjing and return to Jiangxi in the afternoon, I wish the revolutionary army a victory, and I am sorry! Good bye! ”

An Yi bowed deeply and turned to leave, and the handsome generals in the room looked at each other in shock.

He Yingqin looked at An Yi's tall back and was angry and angry, his face instantly turned red, he stood up and took off his white gloves and threw them at the corner, and strode away without saying a word.

(To be continued)