In Yang Hucheng's view, Song Zhewu's rise in military affairs is still somewhat traceable.

Song Zhewu was first attached to Shang Zhen, and with the help of Shang Zhen, he had a place to settle in Taihang Mountain. And because of the contradiction between Shang Zhen and Yan Xishan, he gained a firm foothold in Taihang Mountain. Then somehow got in touch with the celebrities Lin Wei and Zhang Zhizhong around Lao Jiang, and attracted Lao Jiang's attention, so that he came to the fore openly from then on.

Taking advantage of the crusade against Li Zongren, Lao Jiang was anxious to find a helper, Song Zhewu officially got the number of the Fourth Route Army, and became famous in one fell swoop when he attacked Wuhan, not only won Lao Jiang's appreciation, but also increased the establishment and expanded the team.

Of course, although Yang Hucheng is arrogant, he doesn't think that everything Song Zhewu has done so far has been obtained by luck, at least Song Zhewu and his Fourth Route Army dare to fight with the Soviet army in Manchuria, which is by no means something ordinary people dare to do.

Yang Hucheng believes that not to say that he Yang Hucheng will not, even any local force in China will not take this risk. The Soviet Army is not the Central Army, their weapons and equipment are far stronger than any of the Central Army, and they dare to compete with the armies of any Western power.

Although the combat effectiveness of the Northeast Army made Yang Hucheng not cold, the Northwest Army only had a slight advantage in momentum when fighting against the Northeast Army, and the Northwest Army did not have an absolute overwhelming advantage compared with the Northeast Army. However, the fact that the well-equipped Northeast Army, which was hundreds of thousands of troops in the Northeast Army, was defeated by tens of thousands of Soviet troops and was completely defeated, and the strength of the Soviet Army can be seen.

As for the recovery of Outer Mongolia, Yang Hucheng believes that this is because Song Zhewu has a unique vision and picked up a big advantage from the Soviets, not only won the title of national hero, but also further strengthened the strength of the Fourth Route Army, which is really a double gain of fame and fortune.

Song Zhewu participated in the Central Plains War, and at the critical moment when Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang and Lao Jiang Zheng were fighting to the death, he suddenly fought back and captured Taiyuan, which reflected Song Zhewu's wisdom.

Yang Hucheng sometimes compares him with Song Zhewu in his heart, Yang Hucheng, who thinks highly of himself, is confident, Song Zhewu has taken this step by step for him Yang Hucheng to go, although he dare not say that he can reach Song Zhewu's current level, at least he Yang Hucheng will not just be the chairman of Shaanxi Province who lacks food and clothing, and has to rack his brains every day for money.

If there are traces of Song Zhewu's rise in military affairs, then his approach in other aspects gives people a sense of imagination, which is not at all something that ordinary people can figure out.

What surprised Yang Hucheng the most was Song Zhewu's unbelievable means of making money and his practice of recruiting talents.

For his powerful neighbor, and even a person who is likely to become a friend and partner, Yang Hucheng has been paying careful attention to it since he became the owner of Shaanxi. Yang Hucheng knew very well all the public matters of Song Zhewu in Shanxi and the big and small things that happened in the Taiyuan Administration.

However, the more carefully he paid attention, the more surprised Yang Hucheng was!

With his own strength, he not only restored the depreciation of hundreds of millions of yuan in Jin banknotes, but also squeezed all the large and small silver accounts and banks in Shanxi.

According to the businessmen who returned from the Taiyuan Administration, the Taiyuan Administration is like a big construction site at the moment, where railways and highways are being built, new factories and schools are being built.

In particular, the news that Song Zhewu was going to build the Taiku Railway surprised Yang Hucheng even more, such a long railway, it is estimated that the Nanjing Central Political Axe Railway Department will build it, and such a large amount of money may not be easy to raise, and it is basically necessary to borrow money from foreign banks to build it.

Although the military value of the Taiku Railway is extremely great, such a long railway, this is not something that can be achieved just by daring to think, it requires strength, Yang Hucheng is very sweaty for Song Zhewu.

However, the subsequent development of events surprised Yang Hucheng, Yang Hucheng was also impressed by Song Zhewu's methods, and at the same time, he was also amazed by the wealth of Shanxi merchants!

The auction of the assets of Shanxi Provincial Political Axe Enterprises and the compulsory implementation of land reform and the implementation of the Second Five-Year Rent Reduction made Yang Hucheng admire Song Zhewu even more.

Whether it is admiration or sighing, it is a pity that everything Song Zhewu did was not done by him Yang Hucheng, and these are all supported by huge funds. Shaanxi is a poor place, and now there is nothing that can be exchanged for money except for a few small coal mines.

In peacetime, although the meager financial income of Shaanxi Provincial Political Axe is not very much, in addition to supplementing his salary of the 17th Route Army, he can also secretly buy some weapons. But the key problem is that he now has to give relief to the victims, stabilize the locality, and restore production, all of which require money, and all the financial revenue of the Shaanxi Provincial Political Axe is not enough to be used on this, and the central government also needs additional appropriations. In a word, he Yang Hucheng is very poor now.

Another point is that Song Zhewu did all this not just because he had money, such as the implementation of land reform and rent reduction in the second five-year period, which requires guts.

When Zhang Jingjiang, a veteran of the Kuomintang, was the chairman of Zhejiang Province, he was the first to promote a 25-year rent reduction in China, but from the very beginning he was strongly opposed by the landlords, bureaucrats, and gentry.

Dong Songxi and others wrote in the name of representatives of the citizens of Zhejiang Province, accusing the party and government of Zhejiang Province of "sitting in a dignified position and ignorant of the people's situation," that "from the party headquarters to the organs dealing with the tenant industry, and the peasant associations, they are all occupied by deteriorating, corrupt, and proletarian mobs," and that "those who have lived a life of great hardships, have coarse clothes and bad food, and have accumulated flies' heads, and have purchased several acres or dozens of acres of thin fields to make a family of several or dozens of people healthy. ”

Some people also accused, "Recently, the peasant movement has entered a class [***] situation, and the poison has arrived, and the middle family has immediately overturned." "The Second Five-Year Plan rent reduction was originally intended to mediate labor conflicts and implement class reconciliation and people's livelihood, which should be considered in the interests of the whole people. The people and other weak and small owners, as if they were being oppressed illegally by tenant farmers, how can they be willing."

Hundreds of gentry from Jiangsu and Zhejiang jointly wrote to Nanjing Political Axe: "Oppressed by tenant farmers, they can't survive or die, and they can't realize the good image of people's livelihood during the period of government training!"

The most eye-catching thing in those years was the joint letter signed by Qu Yingguang, Zhang Zaiyang, Lu Gongwang, and Zhou Fengqi, who attacked Zhejiang's rent-paying regulations as "not yet fair" and that "the Communist Party seized the opportunity to make trouble, colluded with bandits and hooligans, and wantonly robbed and abducted the businessmen under the pretext of the rent reduction issue, killed people and burned houses. ”

Among these four people, Qu Yingguang was a big bureaucrat of Beiyang Political Axe, and Zhang Zaiyang was the governor of Zhejiang Province and an army general during the Beiyang Political Axe period; Lu Gongwang was originally a member of the Restoration Association and served as the chief of staff of the Guangzhou Military and Political Axe; Zhou Fengqi was originally the division commander of Sun Chuanfang's department, and was appointed as the army commander after surrendering to the Northern Expeditionary Army, and served as the temporary chairman of the Zhejiang Provincial Political Branch of the Kuomintang. Their joint petition reflects the strong dissatisfaction of the landlords, bureaucrats, and gentry in Zhejiang's urban and rural areas with the "Second Five-Year Plan Rent Reduction" and its related regulations. This also made Chiang Kai-shek's attitude towards the rent reduction in the Second Five-Year Plan change sharply.

In the end, Zhang Jingjiang, the "revolutionary strange man", chairman of Zhejiang Provincial Political Axe, was disheartened and lived a semi-retired life from then on. No one in the provinces of the country dares to follow in the footsteps.

However, Song Zhewu not only dared to do it, but even the land reform was far more radical than Zhang Jingjiang's limited rent reduction in the second five-year period, and the means were quite tough, and it was really done.

However, what interested Yang Hucheng the most was not Song Zhewu's style of acting, nor his rent reduction and land reform during the Second Five-Year Plan, nor his way of making money, but Song Zhewu's practice of attracting and recruiting talents and absorbing refugees from all over the world, which greatly attracted Yang Hucheng's attention.

Recruiting talents has been done by many local forces before Song Zhewu, but those local powerful factions have recruited political, economic, and even a small number of humanities talents, and no one has recruited professional and technical experts and scholars. Because, to recruit these experts and scholars, it is necessary to provide them with scientific research funds and facilities, and these are not things that can be benefited in a short period of time, which is also the main and even the only reason why these local forces are eager for quick success and quick profits.

However, Song Zhewu did the opposite, not only recruiting all kinds of talents, but also seems to have a special preference for recruiting professional and technical experts, and even set up a research institute in his Fourth Route Army. And he didn't just do it himself, he was trying to encourage other private entrepreneurs to do the same.

The most valuable thing is that Song Zhewu has really made a name for himself, refrigerators and air conditioners, he has seen it in the home of the richest man in Xi'an, the owner of the Atlantic watch store, such a magical thing that even foreigners have not made, it was actually made by Song Zhewu's Xinghua Company! Now you can build cars again!

If it is said that Song Zhewu recruited technical talents to make money, this is easy to explain, but Song Zhewu wantonly took in the victims from all over the country, and it is impossible to say that Song Zhewu is selling his reputation and reputation. According to the information he received, Song Zhewu has taken in at least millions of refugees in the past few years, and the money and food spent on rehousing such victims is not a small amount. If Song Zhewu is just trying to gain fame, the price is too great.

Especially since June, most of the country's floods have been serious, and the provinces with light disasters are afraid that a large number of victims will pour into their provinces and increase their burdens, but Song Zhewu actually sent people to various places to take the initiative to contact and help the victims to come to Taiyuan Administration, and the number is still very large, how did Song Zhewu settle these victims? This made Yang Hucheng, who was worried about restoring the livelihood of the people in Shaanxi, very curious.

Therefore, Yang Hucheng decided to come to Taiyuan to take a look in person. First, let's see if Song Zhewu's method is useful for Shaanxi; Second, Song Zhewu helped him a lot, and he should indeed express his gratitude to Song Zhewu in person, so that they can get closer in the future.

After Yang Hucheng put down Lei Zhongtian's rebellion, he promised Chiang Kai-shek that his confidant Sun Weiru was the chairman of Gansu Province, and wanted to include Shaanxi and Gansu provinces in one fell swoop. And Chiang Kai-shek only appointed Sun Weiru as the Gansu propaganda envoy, which made Yang Hucheng understand that Chiang Kai-shek was still not at ease with him, and it was absolutely necessary to have Song Zhewu, a strong supporter, as a friend at this time.

However, the delicate Yang Hucheng did not inform Song Zhewu, but brought his Du Bincheng, General Staff of the 17th Route Army, Sun Weiru, commander of the 17th Division, Nan Hanchen, Secretary General of the Shaanxi Provincial Political Axe, Yan Jiming, adjutant, Wang Ziyuan, director of the preparation of the Northwest Agriculture and Forestry College and Peihua Women's Dyeing and Weaving Vocational School, and Li Yixi, director of the Shaanxi Construction Department and Water Conservancy Department, and other people.

(To be continued)