The protest in Shanghai shook the already numb hearts of the Chinese people, Guangzhou took the lead in launching a movement to support the workers and students in Shanghai, under the leadership of the Guangdong District Committee, the factories in Guangzhou launched a movement to support the workers in Shanghai and boycott British products, and students from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou Normal School, Guangzhou University of Political Science and Law and other schools took to the streets to hold demonstrations.

The boycott of British goods and the strike of the British-owned factories made the British side very angry, and sent a diplomatic note to the base camp, demanding that the base camp stop the current anti-British behavior in Canton, otherwise the British Empire would not tolerate the spread of such incidents. Along with the diplomatic note came more than 20 British, French, and American warships, which were anchored at Baietan, and their guns were pointed directly at the city of Guangzhou.

The British note was sent to Chen Youren, who was in charge of diplomacy at the base camp, and it was common sense that such a note should be decided by the supreme person in charge, but now Hu Hanmin did not know what to do.

The development of the situation made the Kuomintang Central Committee somewhat unprepared, thinking that what happened thousands of miles away in Shanghai would cause some reaction in Guangzhou, but unexpectedly, the scale of the protests became larger and larger, and the number of people taking to the streets became more and more, and some merchants even took the initiative to join forces with each other to prepare for a strike.

In the face of such a situation, Hu Hanmin would never dare to easily order to accept the British demand, but the warship in Baietan, which was a real threat, did not dare to easily refuse.

"Youren, you are in charge of diplomacy, what do you think of this note?" Hu Hanmin felt that it was difficult to handle after thinking about it, so he first consulted Chen Youren's opinion.

"Threats, blackmail; This is British threats and blackmail and should be rejected. Chen Youren replied unequivocally that he only began to follow Sun Yat-sen in 1918, but because of his familiarity with international affairs, he soon became an important assistant to Sun Yat-sen, not only representing Sun Yat-sen at the Paris Peace Conference, but also participating in the Sun-Yue talks, becoming Sun Yat-sen's important assistant in diplomacy, and Sun Yat-sen's suicide note to Soviet Russia was also drafted by him.

In his previous life, after Sun Yat-sen's death, Chen Youren stayed in Yanjing for a period of time, but you have changed slightly, and Chen Youren's life journey has also changed slightly. After Sun Yat-sen's death, he published several articles in Yanjing's "Republic of China Newspaper" against the flattery of the Feng family and the reckless use of military force, which made Zhang Zuolin very angry and forced to return to Guangzhou, where he was unanimously elected as the head of foreign affairs.

"Do you think they're going to actually open fire?" Threats, blackmail, of course Hu Hanmin knows. But that's not the point, the point is whether the British will go on the offensive or not.

"It's hard to say, but whether they fire or not, we should reject this note, which involves the most basic power of the state." Chen Youren replied.

Hu Hanmin was disappointed, he was unfamiliar with diplomacy, and even more so with international law.

Seeing Hu Hanmin's appearance, Chen Youren felt that he had to explain what the basic power of the state was.

"The fundamental power of the state is to ensure the security of its citizens, and to conduct its internal affairs; This incident was caused by the shooting of Chinese nationals by patrols in Shanghai, so whether or not it can be resolved depends entirely on the resolution of the Shanghai incident. ”

"And how do you reply?"

"Refusal, of course."

Hu Hanmin shook his head, feeling that it was inappropriate to reply like this, he thought that it was better not to just listen to Chen Youren's opinion, so he called in the secretary and asked Wang Jingwei, Liao Zhongkai, Zou Lu, Wu Chaoshu, and Tan Pingshan to hold a meeting in the afternoon to discuss how to reply to the British note; After hesitating for a moment, he added the Minister of Military Affairs Xu Chongzhi and the commander of the garrison, Chiang Kai-shek, what would the soldiers say if they really fought.

Zhuang Jihua and Xiong Kewu, Yu Peidi, Yu Jitang and his party just returned to Guangzhou, and when they entered the city, they met a group of processions, and Zhuang Jihua found some familiar friends in the crowd of the parade, such as Huang Mingcheng, Gong Xiuhua, Peng Fentian, Li Haoyi and others who had not been seen for a long time. They also saw him, but when they saw the people around him, they knew that he had official business, so they signaled from a distance and said hello.

Xiong Kewu and the others also stood on the side of the road to observe, and saw Zhuang Jihua signaling to the people in the march from time to time, knowing that it was his friend. For more than ten days, Xiong Kewu has admired this young man very much. When he first entered Lianshan, the senior officers of the Sichuan army were very annoyed by the contempt of the base camp, and some of them were armed with guns and sticks in their words, and even one officer wanted to teach Zhuang Jihua a lesson, but in the face of the provocation of the Sichuan army, Zhuang Jihua was never humble or arrogant, nor angry. Of course, Zhuang Jihua did not go to meet Xiong Kewu empty-handed, he carried 50,000 oceans with him, he handed over 50,000 oceans to Xiong Kewu on the spot, and also told the Sichuan army officers very carefully, pay attention to those things in Guangzhou, especially the language, Sichuan people can't understand Cantonese at all, he suggested that some soldiers who understand Sichuan and Cantonese from Zhu Peide's troops of the Yunnan army come to the Sichuan army as interpreters, and the low-level officers don't understand, Xiong Kewu and his senior officers know, When he infiltrated Guangzhou to prepare for the Guangzhou Uprising (i.e., the Huanghuagang Uprising) in Guangzhou, he suffered a lot of losses due to language barriers, and after failure, he was almost caught because of language barriers.

Zhuang Jihua also explained why he was sent as a major to meet the Sichuan army, he admitted that his military rank was low, and Xiong Kewu's worst qualifications should be a major general, and even the military minister Xu Chongzhi came to greet him, but Liu Yang's rebellion was initially decided, and the affairs of Guangzhou were complicated, so he could not get out, so he had to send him to represent. Zhuang Jihua's "low three and four low" made the Sichuan army officers lose a lot of anger.

Later, on the wine table, Zhuang Jihua took out the amount of wine he had cultivated in his previous life and drank it with the officers, of course, he was "heroic" on the spot and was helped back to the hostel by two entourage, but what happened afterwards made Xiong Kewu begin to pay attention to Zhuang Jihua. After the banquet, it was one of Zhuang Jihua's entourage who paid the bill, and the soldier surnamed Zhao said that Zhuang Jihua had ordered him before he drank, and if he was drunk, he would pay the bill, and the generals must be drunk. This made Xiong Kewu unexpected, who was already ready to pay money to dissipate his anger, and then learned from the soldiers surnamed Zhao that Zhuang Jihua was the director of Commander Jiang's liaison office.

Hearing that it was the director of the liaison office, Xiong Kewu was a little unimpressed, thinking that he was another gentleman, and he didn't pay attention to Zhao soldiers anymore. But the soldier did not leave after paying the bill, but accompanied them all the time, and whatever they did, he preemptively paid the bill. This made Xiong Kewu curious, so he sent his words again, but only showed that Zhuang Jihua was transferred from the field army, and the others didn't know, Zhao soldiers were very honest, I didn't know if I didn't know, and when I was in a hurry, I blushed and admitted that I was a rough person, and I didn't listen to the words of the company commander, and I was literate.

The cliché's personal guard later told Xiong Kewu that this soldier had been on the battlefield, and it was the kind of battle that did not live or die. Xiong Kewu believed in the words of the guard, this kind of battle guard had already fought several times, and only those who had experienced this kind of battle could recognize such a person. Since there is this kind of soldier, it means that Zhuang Jihua is not the kind of person who is a gentleman and a fool, but specially promoted, which shows that he came to meet the Sichuan army on purpose. Despite this judgment, Xiong Kewu still didn't care and didn't take Zhuang Jihua to heart, and then he immediately tasted Zhuang Jihua's power.

In the following days, Zhuang Jihua visited the Sichuan army, but did not urge Xiong Kewu to go to Guangzhou as soon as possible, although after the Sichuan army entered Guangdong, there were still many things that needed to be resolved by the high-level in Guangzhou, such as the stationing of troops, military salaries, ammunition supplies, etc., which needed to be decided in Guangzhou. The day after he woke up, Zhuang Jihua came to the headquarters and asked Xiong Kewu when he would go to Guangzhou, but Xiong Kewu had just arrived with his troops and had not yet been settled.

The reason why Xiong Kewu didn't ask was to see the next actions of the base camp first, that is, whether he would send a heavier person to meet him, not because Zhuang Jihua's military rank was low, but because he had a deeper intention.

If the base camp is sent, then it means that the Guangzhou base camp needs its own team very much, and the Sichuan army can naturally offer a high price in terms of treatment; If not....

Zhuang Jihua didn't mention it because he had already seen Xiong Kewu's thoughts, since you are not in a hurry for me to do anything, he sneered in his heart, he was at the end of the road, and he still wanted to make a comeback; So his report to Chiang Kai-shek read: "..., Xiong Kewu wants to ask for a high price, whether to give a high price, the principal should consider according to the situation in Guangzhou." ”

In the report, he did not mention the Minister of Military Affairs Xu Chongzhi and the Acting Marshal Hu Hanmin, nor did he consider that Chiang Kai-shek was only the commander of the garrison in Guangzhou and did not have the power to decide the future of the Sichuan army.

After a few days of standing, Xiong Kewu felt that something was wrong, but Zhuang Jihua never asked, and only came to his headquarters to report respectfully every day, and then went down to the troops, of course, Xiong Kewu also sent his adjutant to accompany him, and at the same time ordered the commanders of the departments not to easily let people from Guangzhou find out the reality of the troops.

However, the report of the accompanying adjutant was that Zhuang Jihua talked with the soldiers in the army about life problems, and did not care about anything else, whether he ate enough, whether he slept well at night, whether he adapted to the weather, and so on; He didn't ask a word about military matters, and in the end, Zhuang Jihua even went to the medical team, and then asked the medical team for a batch of medicines, which made the Sichuan officers and soldiers grateful.

After holding each other like this for more than ten days, Xiong Kewu finally understood that he had underestimated this young man, this young man may not be very old, but he is absolutely old-fashioned, and his mind of sitting firmly in Diaoyutai has been seen through, and he also used this time to visit the troops, although he does not talk about the military, but the economic embarrassment of the troops is not completely clear. As for the military, there have been repeated defeats, and even if the troops that have been marching for a long time do not look at it, those who have come out of the combat units will know it.

After Xiong Kewu figured this out, he decided to go to Guangzhou immediately, and he didn't go alone, most of the senior officers went.

(To be continued)