Zhuang Jihua shuddered a little when he thought of this, and he immediately accepted Du Yuming's suggestion, but the labor and military expenses must be brought, and rewards and pensions will be given according to the standards of the regular army.

Before Du Yuming left, He Yingqin's call arrived, Seckert's trip to Beiping alarmed the Kuomintang's military and political dignitaries in North China, Chiang Kai-shek's attention to Seckert made He Yingqin and others naturally dare not slack off, and Chiang Kai-shek also sent a telegram asking He Yingqin to entertain this distinguished guest, and at the same time designated Zhuang Jihua to accompany him throughout the process.

Zhuang Jihua put down the phone and went out with Song Yunfei, since the last assassination, his residence has changed, and he has moved to Almond Hutong, not far from Xinhuamen, in a house where he reads. This house was originally a down-and-out Beizi in the former Qing Dynasty, after the establishment of Puyi's Manchukuo, Beizi was ecstatic to go to his Emperor Majesty, and as soon as he appeared in the northeast, this property was confiscated as a reverse property, which had been vacant, and now it was allocated to Zhuang Jihua to live, and there was a squad of guards with him.

He Yingqin had a headache about how to receive Seckert, he didn't know Seckert's habits, but since Chiang Kai-shek appointed Zhuang Jihua to accompany him throughout the whole process, he simply brought Zhuang Jihua to discuss.

"There's no need to do anything special," Zhuang Jihua said in his heart after hearing what He Yingqin said, what is the big deal, just let the reception staff rent a house in the Liuguo Hotel, and then send a car; So he immediately replied: "I know him, General Seckert is a typical Prussian soldier, except for the army, he is not very enthusiastic about other things, so there is no need to prepare anything special, besides, he is visiting China in a private capacity this time, so it is too much fanfare, I am afraid it will backfire." ”

He Yingqin nodded yes, but he felt a little uncomfortable in his heart, listening to Zhuang Jihua's meaning, it seemed that he, the chairman of the committee, did not need to come forward to receive this general with a high reputation in the international military circles.

"This is not good, after all, the chairman has explained, and there are some things that still have to be done." He Yingqin glanced at Zhuang Jihua as if he didn't care.

Zhuang Jihua didn't pay attention and just nodded simply, He Yingqin was a little strange, today Zhuang Jihua was in a trance from the beginning of entering the door, as if he didn't take Seckert's arrival to heart, nor did he take Chiang Kai-shek's instructions to heart.

"Cultural Revolution, what are you thinking?" He Yingqin asked a little unhappily.

Zhuang Jihua still didn't pay attention, Xiong Bin touched him lightly, and Zhuang Jihua reacted. He looked up at Xiong Bin, and the other party made a gesture at him, and Zhuang Jihua found that He Yingqin's face was already full of anger.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Chairman He," Zhuang Jihua hurriedly said, "I've been thinking about something these days, and I'm a little distracted. ”

"Tell me, what are you thinking?" He Yingqin asked calmly.

"It's about the Battle of the Great Wall," Zhuang Jihua explained, "some have thought it through, and some have not." ”

"Let's talk about it." Xiong Binjian He Yingqin's face was not good, and he had the intention to relieve Zhuang Jihua. After the signing of the Rehe Armistice Treaty, Xiong Bin was greatly criticized by the people, but he was respected in the army. The senior generals in the army are different from the ordinary people, they are on the front line, and they have a very good understanding of the actual situation of the army, and more than half of the troops participating in the battle of Song Zheyuan's 29th Army have lost more than half, of which only one-third of Zhang Zizhong's 38th Division remains, and the other departments of Shang Zhen, Yu Xuezhong, He Zhuguo, and Wei Lihuang have all suffered heavy losses, and only the department of Rexi Fu Zuoyi is slightly better, but it has also lost a quarter.

The losses of Xu Tingyao's division and the 87th Division of the Central Army in the Gubeikou counteroffensive were particularly large, especially Xu Tingyao's division, the 25th Division and the 2nd Division were basically disabled, the battalion and company-level officers of the 2nd Division were basically replaced, the 25th Division was even more powerful, and even the division commander was changed twice, and now Dai Anlan, who led the troops, still went into battle with wounds, and most of the officers above the regimental level were wounded, and the whole division had more than 10,000 people before the war, and only about 3,000 people remained after the war, and almost all of them were wounded. Due to the heavy casualties of the 17th Army, He Yingqin transferred them to Huairou for repair, and the 25th Division was transferred to the Fengtai area.

It was such heavy casualties that made the senior generals highly praise Xiong Bin for being able to seize the opportunity in time to force him to sign a treaty, turn the favorable situation on the battlefield into the fruits of victory, sneer at the attacks of the people, and comfort him in various ways. But Xiong Bin himself knew that the peace agreement was negotiated by Lemi, and he thought that Zhuang Jihua would express his dissatisfaction, but he didn't expect that Zhuang Jihua didn't say a word at all, but instead defended him on different occasions, which made him very grateful, so he would relieve Zhuang Jihua of the siege.

"I'm just thinking about the weaknesses exposed by our army in this battle of the Great Wall, and how to rectify them." Zhuang Jihua smiled bitterly and said: "I have found the problem, but I don't know how to change it." ”

"What problems do you think," He Yingqin is interested now, Zhuang Jihua has a reputation for being good at summarizing in Huangpu, and after the Battle of Zhangmutou and the Battle of Niuxing, he has summarized a set of effective tactics, and Hu Zongnan and Xue Yue are still implementing this set of tactics in their troops.

What are the problems? Zhuang Jihua slowly told He Yingqin and Xiong Bin.

In the battle of the Great Wall, the [***] team exposed a lot of weaknesses, the most important is several aspects, first of all, the equipment of the troops is too poor, taking the 17th Army of the Central Army as an example, although Xu Tingyao has no experience in Whampoa, he is an old man in the first military department, during the Northern Expedition, he was the division commander, and most of his subordinates are Whampoa graduates, but in this way, the artillery of the whole army is not as much as a division of the 87th Division, but fortunately, everyone has a rifle, and each machine gun has a company, and the offensive firepower is very weak; Not to mention the other departments of the Central Army, one of the main reasons why the 29th Army had great big blades was that their rifles did not have bayonets, so they had to work hard to practice the big blades.

Secondly, the training of soldiers is insufficient. Some soldiers have not even done live ammunition shooting before going to the battlefield, and some have not even carried out grenade throwing training, Guan Lizheng was wounded as an example, he would not have been injured, when he led the troops to counterattack, he found an enemy fire point, he ordered to throw grenades, but several soldiers around him threw out without pulling the string, but were injured by the grenades thrown by the army. In addition to weapons training, soldiers lack basic tactical combination training, Zhuang Jihua especially incomprehensible to this, he sorted out the defensive and offensive tactics on the way to the Northern Expedition has long been handed over to Chiang Kai-shek, but why until now there is no tactical training program for the whole army, the attack only knows how to swarm upwards, the defense knows to fight hard, and there is almost no shadow of combined tactical training.

The most important thing is logistics, the logistics organization of the [***] team is very primitive, all the materials are concentrated in the military station in Beiping, and the front line is hundreds of miles away from the military station, the transportation can not keep up at all, the battle is fought to the back, the soldiers fighting on the front line can not even eat, the troops are forced to collect locally, so when the counteroffensive hits the Great Wall, the local people have already run out, unable to collect food, and finally the support association on the side of Beiping organized some carts to send a batch of food, and the soldiers barely did not stop cooking.

In the end, Zhuang Jihua saw that He Yingqin and Xiong Bin's faces were not good, and he reluctantly said a few good words, such as the soldiers' fighting spirit, high morale, etc., but everyone knew that it was just a few words.

He Yingqin and Xiong Bin were silent, they knew what the problem was, but if they really wanted to rectify it, there were too many stakeholders involved. Xiong Bin shook his head and said, "Cultural Revolution, it seems that you really don't know much about the army. Everyone knows what you're talking about, but no one can help it. Let's talk about training, do you know how much a bullet costs? ”

Zhuang Jihua shook his head, he looked at Xiong Bin very puzzled, how much does a bullet cost have to do with the training of the troops. Xiong Bin sighed and said: "Actually, the officers below don't know what you said, but they can't help it, a bullet is about five or six catties of white noodles, and the bullets sent are counted, and they can't be used casually, they are used in training, and there is no more on the battlefield." The Central Army doesn't know very well, but I know that the Northwest Army only fires four or five bullets in peacetime, and another ten to fifteen bullets before going to the battlefield, and the same is true for grenades. ”

Zhuang Jihua was deeply surprised when he heard this, he did not expect the poverty of the army to reach such a level. Before he could speak, He Yingqin also said with deep feelings: "In fact, the Central Army is not much better, only the German armor division is slightly stronger, I used to check the troops, Guan Lizheng asked me for ammunition, but I didn't give it to him, why?" Because there isn't. He Yingqin paused and said: "The timing of this armistice is good, and after half a month of fighting like this, there will be no ammunition in reserve north of the Yangtze River." ”

Zhuang Jihua's vest broke out in a cold sweat, he suddenly remembered something, and his face suddenly changed greatly: "Instructor He, I'm afraid that the situation on the Great Wall will still be repeated, and the army may not be willing to fail, we must also seize the time to prepare for war." ”

He Yingqin was stunned for a moment, he looked at Xiong Bin, who also looked at him in confusion.

"No, this armistice has not been signed for long." Xiong Bin couldn't help but say.

"This is by no means unfounded for me," Zhuang Jihua said solemnly: "I don't know if the commander has read the news from the recent news, and the people of the country are under great pressure, and there are many accusations against the Kwantung Army, which directly led to the replacement of Muto Nobuyoshi, Koiso Kuniaki, and Okamura Ninji of the Kwantung Army, and the replacements of Ryoshikari Takashi, Nishio Shouzo, and Itagaki Seishiro are all figures who advocate speeding up the pace of aggression against China; Secondly, Yuben has been preaching that Manchukuo is not three provinces but four provinces, and this fourth province is Rehe, so I think that the Yue army will never be reconciled, and will definitely provoke disputes again and fight for Rehe. ”

He Yingqin shuddered in his heart, not long before Zhuang Jihua came in, Chiang Kai-shek called him, to transfer the 14th Army south to join the Jiangxi battlefield, and the 87th Division to return to Nanjing.

(To be continued)