"Look at the newspaper! Newspaper! See the latest news from the Pingjin front! **Surround Gu'an, the Japanese are rampant and counterattack! ”

"Look at the newspaper! Look at today's martial saint war Pingjin! The Japanese suffered heavy casualties and retreated to Gu'an Langfang! ”

The Ford sedan honked its horn as it passed under the Spirit Fortress, whose towering pedestal hung a huge map of North China, clearly marked in red and blue as the progress of the battle on the front line. \\。 Ｑb⑸.cOM\\

From the beginning of the Battle of Nanjing, whenever there was an important battle, a large map would be hung in the spiritual fortress, and the battle progress reported by the news reports would be marked on it.

This method has spread from Chongqing to Chengdu, Kunming, Guiyang, Wuhan, Xi'an, Guangzhou and other important cities, and even Zhengzhou, Jinan, which has just been recovered, has hung large maps in the downtown area. Every day, a large number of citizens wait anxiously under the map for the staff to mark the new progress, and cheers will ring out whenever there is any progress. The "Yuzhou Evening News" carried continuous reports on the theme of the decisive battle of Pingjin, publishing news from the front line every day and analyzing military experts. The "Central Daily" took the final decisive battle against the Japanese invaders as the axis and continuously reported the news from the front, and all newspapers and periodicals such as "Xinhua Daily", "Lion Awakening Weekly", and "Xinmin Daily" published war reports from the Pingjin front on the front page every day.

The Pingjin front has attracted the attention of the whole country, and every action on the front line has touched the hearts of all strata of the country.

The sedan made its way through the crowd, people looked at the Stars and Stripes on the front of the car and consciously moved out of the way, and Stilwell, who had returned from Myanmar last week, looked out the window with a blank expression. Myanmar is now described by journalists as a quiet battlefield, this front is too quiet, the Japanese are on the east bank of the Salween River, the British are on the west bank of the Salween River, and the Chinese are near Rangoon, and neither side wants to shoot for fear of retaliation.

The most combative person in the entire Burmese battlefield is probably only Stilwell's vinegar Joe, vinegar Joe, this is the nickname given to Stilwell by reporters. Stilwell tried his best to get the Chinese and British to agree to the attack.

Intimidation, inducement, but all means are ineffective. In a hurry, the Chinese pushed it to the British, and the British put forward various demands, which in turn caused the Chinese to refute, so the two sides began to fall into endless bickering.

Stilwell's report to Marshall said that the only enemy here was the humid climate of Burma, that he had done nothing in Burma, that both the Chinese and the British in Burma wanted the Chinese domestic battlefield to decide the outcome of the war, and then to receive the surrender of the Japanese in Indochina, and that the only purpose of the Chinese and British soldiers in Burma was to flirt with Burmese women.

But to Stilwell's disappointment, Marshall, who had always supported him, did not support him this time, and Marshall clearly told him in his reply that the current progress in China is very smooth, the Chinese have recovered Shandong, which is closer to Tokyo, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes that the supplies provided by the United States to the Far East should first ensure the North China war, and as for Indochina, let the apples ripen and fall on their own.

Frustrated, Stilwell proposed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff to leave China, but after a few weeks, his transfer came, and with it came a decision. After a detailed inspection of the squadron and the military industry, the new chief of staff of the Chinese theater, Lieutenant General Weidemeyer, believes that the United States has underestimated China's military strength from the very beginning. After five years of development, China's industrial capacity has been greatly enhanced, and although it cannot meet the needs of all the troops, it has been able to meet the needs of 1.8 million to 2 million troops, and the Chinese will soon no longer need the United States, and they alone will be able to defeat Japan on the mainland. In order to maintain the post-war U.S. influence on China, the United States should strengthen military and political cooperation with China, and this cooperation should begin now. After consultation with Chiang Kai-shek, it was decided to set up a chief of staff of the US Army in each theater.

Roosevelt readily agreed to Weidemeyer's suggestion, and Marshall decided to transfer Stilwell to North China as chief of staff in the North China Theater. The only combat unit of the United States in South Asia, the Merrill Commando, which was a joint force of the United States and Britain, with a total strength of more than 3,000 people, but the British were unwilling to leave Burma, and Merrill could only take the Americans to the Chinese battlefield, and the strength was less than 2,000 people.

Stilwell was very depressed, he was not very willing to go to the North China Theater, in his opinion, the Japanese army in Jiangnan was weak, and the Kuomintang army had more than a million troops around Jiangnan, if he took the opportunity to launch an attack in Jiangnan, it would be easy to recover Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

Secondly, Zhuang Jihua, the commander of the North China Theater, is a very difficult guy to get along with, he drove him away at the beginning, and now he has gone to the North China Theater to be his chief of staff and become his subordinate, can he listen to himself?

Weidemeyer glanced at Stilwell and sighed slightly in his heart, Stilwell made a big mistake on the issue of Zhuang Jihua, strictly speaking, Stilwell made a mistake in strategy. In his previous reports to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President, all the accusations against the squadron and the Chinese generals have been proven wrong in the last two years of war. The squadron and its generals not only did not flinch, on the contrary, they were brave and resourceful.

In two years, they defeated the Japanese army twice in northern Burma, recovering large swathes of the country, eliminating hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops, and advancing the front to the area where the war broke out seven years earlier.

The more victories the squadron won, the lower the prestige of Stilwell's military and political leadership in Washington, according to his judgment, Stilwell will soon be transferred out of the Chinese theater of operations, possibly to Europe, England is now in large numbers, Eisenhower urgently needs a large number of experienced generals.

The chief of staff of the North China Theater recommended by Weide to Washington was Brian, the former adviser to the Fifth Theater, but Marshall transferred Stilwell to the North China Theater out of personal friendship, and Weidemeyer guessed that this was Marshall's efforts to save Stilwell's military career. "The war situation in North China is very fierce, and the situation of the Chinese is good at the moment," Weidemeyer opened his mouth to break the silence in the car: "The Chinese have their own ideas, and they have always fought according to their own ideas. ”

Stilwell withdrew his gaze from the car window and replied sullenly: "In the North China Theater, the possibility of me playing a role is very small, I would rather go to the Jiangnan Theater, or go to the Jianghuai Theater." ”

Weidemeyer shook his head in his heart, he raised this question to Chiang Kai-shek, but Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng both resolutely refused, Chiang Kai-shek did not even want him to go to the North China Theater, and told him euphemistically that he thought Stilwell was a decisive general, and it was better to lead one aspect alone.

It was obviously impossible to achieve a separate leadership in the Chinese theater of operations, and Lord Mountbatten in India would not have agreed, and China and Britain were now tacitly joining forces to suppress Stilwell, believing that he was now a nuisance.

"The Jiangnan Theater has not had any combat missions recently, and the squadron has carried out defensive operations." Wedemeyer patiently explained that this question had been expressed by Stilwell before, and that Wedemeyer had explained it once.

"Why? The war has to pay a price, and when the war is over, it can be rebuilt. Stilwell still could not understand, Weidemeyer explained China's strategy, and why it did not attack Jiangnan, but Stilwell could not accept such an explanation, he believed that if an attack was launched in the Jiangnan theater, the Jiangnan theater and the Jianghuai theater could be attacked from the north and south, and the main force of the Japanese army in Jiangnan could be eliminated and Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou could be recovered.

Wedemeyer was a little disappointed, Stilwell obviously did not understand the meaning of his words, and his purpose was to remind Stilwell that when making decisions, we should consider the ideas of the Chinese, rather than blindly doing things according to our own ideas.

"The chairman told me that China's finances are very difficult, and that the Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou region is the main source of China's fiscal and tax revenues, and that once this area is destroyed, China will fall into civil strife without funds for post-war reconstruction."

This is almost what Chiang Kai-shek told him, Weidemeyer did not understand it very well at first, and later understood it under the reminder of Gauss, Chiang Kai-shek was worried that once this place of finance and taxation was destroyed, the Nationalist government would not have the strength to rebuild, and it would be unable to help a large number of refugees, which would produce serious social problems, and Yan'an would inevitably use these problems to challenge the Kuomintang.

Weidemeyer understood Chiang Kai-shek's decision, besides, defeating Japan, as long as the decisive battle in North China was won, it was not so important whether to conquer Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, and if Tokyo was conquered, the war would be over. He Yingqin said more directly, attacking Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou is not strategically necessary. Stilwell sneered: "This is the way Peanuts act, just want to get something for nothing." ”

"Joe, they're fighting in North China." Weidemeyer was very helpless with the stubborn Stilwell, so he could only shake his head and smile bitterly.

The sedan crossed the Yangtze River and drove into Nanping, but instead of going to the Huangshan residence, it drove straight into the newly established General Staff, a new unit, which was a result of Wei Demai's arrival in China.

Chiang Kai-shek took over the military and political power through the chamber of the Military Commission, and with the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the democratic parties called for political and military reform, especially accusing the Military Commission of being the second government, and the Nationalist Government led by Yang Yongtai as his puppet.

In addition, members of the Military Commission also called for reform of the Military Commission, and Vice Chairman Feng Yuxiang openly claimed that the Military Commission was bloated, staffed, and inefficient, and that it must be reformed. In this way, under internal and external pressure, Chiang Kai-shek had to agree to reform the Military Commission.

Reform is always difficult, and the Military Council has put forward seven or eight plans one after another, each of which is based on its own department and cuts the others, which is naturally difficult to convince the public. Chiang Kai-shek, in order to show fairness and at the same time show goodwill to Weidemeyer, who had just entered China, asked Weidemeyer to help.

Wedemeyer seized the opportunity to propose that the Military Council should be set up altogether, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff, and at the same time draw up an organizational structure modeled on the Pentagon's organizational structure, which Chiang Kai-shek accepted with some modifications, two years before the real history.

In terms of specific implementation, Chiang Kai-shek was very direct, and he directly transferred the head of the corresponding department of the base camp and the Military Commission to the Ministry of National Defense in a different capacity. For example, the Military Command Department, which was originally in charge of operations, and the Logistics Department, which was originally directly under the base camp, are now included in the General Staff; The Ministry of Military Affairs was then transferred to the Ministry of National Defense, and the following departments were also divided into various departments. In terms of command authority, the Chief of the General Staff is directly under the command of the Chairman of the Military Council and is at the same level as the Minister of Defence.

After the establishment of the General Staff, it was located in the office building of the former Tongyuan Bureau in Nanping, which was the factory where Liu Xiang was in charge of Chongqing when he printed banknotes and made silver dollars, and after Zhuang Jihua seized Chongqing, this factory was naturally abandoned, and the machine was pulled to Chengdu by Liu Xiang.

The office building of the Tongyuan Bureau, also known as the big flower hall, is built in imitation of the former Qing Daotai Yamen, and is a quadrangle courtyard of the front and rear courtyards, where the newly established General Staff Headquarters works.

When Weidemeyer and Stilwell entered the Great Flower Hall, they felt that the atmosphere was not right, in the past, when they were coming, someone had already come to greet them, but today they did not, and the officers they saw looked nervous and hurried.

Weidemeyer and Stilwell looked at each other, and each could see worry in each other's eyes, could it be that something was wrong on the Pingjin front? The two of them also quickened their pace, and when they were about to arrive at Chen Cheng's office, they met Major General Jones, an adviser to the US military in the General Staff.

"Jones, what's wrong?" Weidemeyer asked.

"Is it North China?" Stilwell asked.

Jones shook his head: "It's a big incident, I just received a report that there is a rebellion in Xinjiang." ”！ ~！

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