Much to Chiang Kai-shek's annoyance, the Canton political axe was now no longer content with more than a war of words.

On September 2, under the supervision of Wang Jingwei, the Guangzhou political axe began to send troops north. Its operational policy was to take a defensive position against Jiangxi and an offensive against Hunan. The troops attacking Hunan were mainly based on the Gui Army, and the 3rd Army of Li Jingyang of the Guangdong Army cooperated, and took Hengyang first in 3 routes.

The former commander-in-chief of the Gui army was Bai Chongxi, who was known as Xiao Zhuge and arranged a plan for the Gui army to advance north from Guilin to Xing'an on September 5. On the 11th, the Guangzhou political axe appointed Chen Jitang as the commander of the Guangdong and Guizhou coalition armies, and unified the command of the Guangdong and Guizhou coalition armies to advance northward. The combined forces of Guangdong and Guizhou concentrated more than 50,000 people to approach Hengyang, and Tang Shengzhi also went with the army.

Most of the Hunan troops commanded by He Jian were Tang Shengzhi's old troops, and he was afraid that Tang Shengzhi would divide his troops, so he hurriedly carried out an action to unify the will in the Hunan army and transferred the original Tang Shengzhi's subordinates. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek was also worried that He Jian would reunite with the Gui family and Tang Shengzhi, so he had to temporarily give up the encirclement and suppression of the Zhumao Red Army in Jiangxi, and hurriedly sent Liu Wendao, Gu Zhutong, Zhou Fohai and others to Hunan to help preside over military and political affairs.

Fortunately, He Jian knew that if he fell to the Guangzhou political axe, no matter what the final result of the Guangzhou political axe, most of his Hunan army would definitely be pulled away by Tang Shengzhi, so he was very cooperative with the central government's arrangement.

On September 6, after Liu, Gu, and Zhou arrived in Changsha, they immediately held a military meeting with He Jian, and according to Chiang Kai-shek's will, it was decided that Gu Zhu's troops would stick to Hengyang, and if necessary, three divisions would be transferred from Jiangxi to Hunan to help in the war; He Jian's Hunan army was concentrated near Changsha, nominally to defend Changsha, but in fact it separated the combined forces of Gui and Guangdong from He Jian's Hunan army to prevent them from colluding, and detained the representatives sent by the Cantonese side to He Jian's department, and did not release them until the Guangdong issue was resolved.

On the 13th, Chiang Kai-shek ordered He Yingqin to lead a section of the Central Army into Hunan for reinforcements. He Jian had sensed Chiang Kai-shek's distrust of him, and in order to show his loyalty, He Jian sent a special telegram to Nanchang to welcome He Yingqin to lead his troops into Hunan.

If there is no "IX. 18" incident, Song Zhewu believed that the Guangzhou political axe organized by Wang Jingwei and others was definitely not Chiang Kai-shek's opponent, and it would soon disappear. Even a large number of dissatisfied forces in the Kuomintang against Chiang Kai-shek will gradually be disintegrated, conquered, and eliminated by Chiang Kai-shek one by one.

However, Song Zhewu knew that on 15 December this year, Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to go into the wilderness under the internal worries of the disgruntled forces in Guangzhou headed by Wang Ching-wei and the Kuomintang and the "18 September" incident, which caused the whole nation to grieve and indignation.

At present, the "September 18" incident has not yet happened, and this external threat is the war in North Mongolia. Soong did not want Chiang Kai-shek to be subjected to too much opposition pressure because of the war in Northern Mongolia, and if that were the case, Chiang Kai-shek would inevitably not be angry with him after his comeback.

If there is a victory at this time, and take this opportunity to publicize Chiang Kai-shek's support for Northern Mongolia in a high-profile or even exaggerated manner, it will make Chiang Kai-shek's words better, and it will also make Chiang Kai-shek grateful to himself.

And this situation will definitely be quite helpful to your own development in the future.

It's just that the victory reported by the mountain division through Li Wentian is too small, only more than 1,000 enemies have been annihilated, and such a small result makes Song Zhewu feel that he is really a little unable to take action, and it will not be of great help to Chiang Kai-shek.

Song Zhewu, who was very entangled, had no choice but to consult with Jia Jingde, Xiao Guodong, Tao Rong, He Qigong and others.

Song Zhewu now admires Jia Jingde more and more, even including He Qigong. These two people were not only handy in dealing with the cumbersome government affairs that caused Song Zhewu a headache, but also in dealing with the relationship with local forces and Nanjing, and their opinions and methods often made him confused.

After discussing with Jia Jingde, Xiao Guodong, Tao Rong, and He Qigong, in the war report that Song Zhewu reported to Chiang Kai-shek that night, in addition to making very exaggerated statements about Chiang Kai-shek's support for the War of Resistance against Japan, and even likely to make Chiang Kai-shek blush, the number of Soviet troops annihilated had changed from 1,000 to 5,000. In the burning of Soviet military supplies, the word "no calculation" was used to describe it.

Only a little more than an hour later, just when Song Zhewu was still a little uneasy about the results of the false report, and even the residual heat on his face had not completely disappeared, Chiang Kai-shek's call back arrived.

From the tone and content of Chiang Kai-shek's telegram, it can be clearly felt that Chiang Kai-shek was extremely happy about this victory in the snow and Song Zhewu's understanding!

In the telegram, Chiang Kai-shek not only praised Song Zhewu for his consistent and resolute obedience to the orders of the central authorities, but also congratulated Northern Mongolia on his "great victory" and generously rewarded 300,000 yuan to meritorious soldiers. He also said that he had instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Military Affairs to give full assistance to Song Zhewu in purchasing weapons from abroad. At the same time, 3 million oceans were again allocated for the anti-Soviet army.

To Song Zhewu's great shock, in Chiang Kai-shek's telegram, the number of people who annihilated the Soviet army had increased again, and the increase was not a small amount.

It was only under the repeated persuasion of Jia Jingde and others that Song Zhewu added 4,000 people with a blushing heartbeat, while Chiang Kai-shek even more simply added another one directly in front of the watery enemy number in Song Zhewu's newspaper, and the number of enemies destroyed by Wang Demin's regiment suddenly became more than 15,000 people.

Song Zhewu thought about it carefully, he also had to blame himself for this matter, the number of 5,000 enemies annihilated was really of little help to the much-criticized Chiang Kai-shek, and only more than 10,000 results had weight.

In the end, Chiang Kai-shek encouraged Song Zhewu, hoping that he could create another great victory in Manchuria and build another honor for the party-state.

This small victory also has an unknown significance, that is, Song Zhewu has absolute confidence in defeating the Soviet army.

Because Song Zhewu had memories of World War II in his previous life, he was quite jealous of the combat effectiveness of the Soviet army, but these two small battles still gave him confidence in his heart, and even gave the Northern Mongolian troops the confidence to defeat the Soviet army. The Soviet Red Army at this time was much worse than the Red Army in the late stage of World War II.

Although the attack of the Soviet army on the eastern route was very strong, under the intensive artillery fire and aerial bombardment, it caused great casualties to the blocking force of the Fourth Route Army commanded by Chu Xichun on the eastern front, but the Soviet infantry was blocked.

All this shows that the Soviet army at this time, whether in terms of weapons and equipment, or combat effectiveness, was far from reaching the formidable level of the late stage of World War II. Therefore, as long as he does not make mistakes in strategy and commands the battle well, he can completely defeat the Soviet army and crush the Soviet invasion of Northern Mongolia.

After the Soviet army launched an attack on Northern Mongolia on 10 September, public opinion throughout the country, not only Shanxi, Suiyuan, and Northern and Southern Mongolia, which was controlled by Song Zhewu, but also the whole country was in an uproar, and public opinion in various places angrily denounced the Soviet Union's shameless aggression. Students in Taiyuan, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Beiping, Tianjin, Jinan, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Chengdu, Nanchang, Changsha and other major cities took to the streets to protest and march in solidarity with the Fourth Route Army in resisting the Soviet aggression, demanding that the Kuomintang declare war with the Soviet Union, and mobilize the strength of the whole country to drive the Soviet invaders out of Northern Mongolia.

The Nationalist Axe also issued a statement on the same day, in addition to saying that the entire territory of Northern Mongolia, including the Tangnu-Ulianghai area, is the natural territory of the Republic of China, which has been proved by a treaty. It was also stated that all ethnic groups in Northern Mongolia are the subjects of the Republic of China, that no organization or individual there has the right to represent the Republic of China, that any agreement signed by the puppet Mongolian Republic and it is illegal, and that any invitation from it is null and void. The statement strongly demanded that the Soviet government should rein in the precipice and immediately stop its aggression against Northern Mongolia.

In addition, in addition to not declaring war on the Soviet Union, an appropriate official answer was given to the request for the political axe to resist the Soviet invasion with all its might.

At a Chinese and foreign news conference, Minister of Military Affairs He Yingqin announced in a high-profile manner that the Kuomintang has always been extremely concerned about the war in Northern Mongolia, and that the Ministry of Military Affairs is actively raising a large amount of weapons and ammunition for Northern Mongolia in accordance with the instructions of the chairman, and some of these weapons and ammunition have already been transported to Northern Mongolia for use.

In addition, the most elite unit of the Central Army, Hu Zongnan's First Division, which was ordered to encircle and suppress the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Red Bandits who had fled from the west of Dabie Mountain at Manchuan Pass, immediately left for Gansu after the encirclement and suppression, and was ready to enter Mongolia to participate in the war at any time; Ma Hongkui was appointed as the chairman of the Ningxia Provincial Political Axe, and the 31st Division of the Department went to Ningxia to actively prepare for war and prepare to enter Mongolia; ordered the 11th Division of Gao Guizi to be stationed in Yulin and stand by; Other follow-up units of the Central Army are also actively deploying and making preparations, just waiting for the situation in the south to stabilize and immediately go north to resist the enemy.

At the same time, he appealed, "At this critical juncture for the party and the state, I hope that all revolutionary comrades in the party who uphold the legacy of the former prime minister will sincerely unite and go to the national crisis together." We must not endanger the safety of the country and society by taking advantage of the selfish interests of personal success or failure. ”

He Yingqin's statement, in addition to telling Chinese and foreign public opinion circles that the central political axe did not fail to resist on the issue of North Mongolia, but that the situation in the south was unstable, so it was impossible to send troops north to Mongolia to fight against the Soviet Union.

He Yingqin's so-called instability in the south is, to put it bluntly, the Northern Expedition being prepared by the Jiangxi Zhumao Red Army and Wang Jingwei's Guangzhou political axe, that is, the Nanjing political axe put the responsibility for not being able to send powerful troops to fight north to the Red Army and Wang Jingwei.

However, the troops of Hu Zongnan and Ma Hongkui went to Gansu and Ningxia, and Gao Guizi's troops went to Yulin, not entirely because of the war in Northern Mongolia, but only because Chiang Kai-shek pushed the boat to blind public opinion.

Hu Zong's southern transfer to Gansu was due to Yang Hucheng's nomination of Sun Weiru as chairman of Gansu Province.

Just ended the Central Plains War, Chiang Kai-shek let the vast majority of local forces in the country bow down to him, at least on the surface he did not dare to contradict the central political axe in Nanjing, such a situation is really not easy to come by, how can Chiang Kai-shek let Yang Hucheng sit in the northwest again. If Yang Hucheng really wants to sit on the two provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu, it is not impossible for another Northwest Army to appear in the northwest.

Therefore, Hu Zongnan's transfer to Gansu was to squeeze Yang Hucheng's forces out of Gansu, not for the war in Northern Mongolia, and this was also something that had already been decided.

(To be continued)