After learning that his vice president, Alexander, had reached a new cooperation agreement with the Chinese, and that New Orleans was expected to be returned, President Davis finally breathed a sigh of relief and was no longer as frightened as before.

Actually, to Joseph. Johnston's repression was strictly not the intention of the majority of the Confederate government, or even President Davis himself, but the private actions of Pemberton, who was stationed in Vicksburg, and Davis was only forced to admit it afterwards.

Because although Davis hates Joseph more. Johnston, but after all, the Johnston family's influence in the Union government is not small, President Davis can be appropriately suppressed, but it is absolutely impossible to easily brand him as a rebel, in that case, not to mention that the Johnston family people can't say it, and his own political allies won't agree.

So say before dismissing Joseph. Johnston's order as commander-in-chief of the Western Theater was more of a last resort on the part of President Davis, who was forcibly kidnapped by General Pemberton's private actions.

Although Davis is the president, he is theoretically the commander-in-chief of the Confederate forces and is in charge of all military affairs of the Confederate forces, while the commander-in-chief of the Western Theater is a military position and does not need congressional approval, so President Davis can theoretically directly issue an order to dismiss the other party from his military post and then push his henchman Hood up.

But in the final analysis, this kind of thing cannot be discussed openly, and once it is openly discussed, although the Congress cannot interfere in military affairs, it can question the president's decision, and if it arouses public anger and starts to impeach the president and let Davis step down early, it will be more than worth the loss.

In other words, contact with Joseph. Johnston's military position was a risky move for Davis, and the reason why he was willing to do so was because he could dictate military affairs, while it was not so easy for Congress to impeach him as president. Generally speaking, they will not initiate impeachment for the sake of this matter, and waste their political energy.

In addition, the successful transfer is also because Johnston does not have too strong team strength in the Western Theater, and he originally belongs to the airborne commander, plus Johnston's foundation is basically in Virginia, and his health is not very good, and he has been injured before, so Davis relieved of his position as commander-in-chief, and the original intention is also to balance all parties.

After all, at the time. Pemberton sent several telegrams to Richmond saying that Joseph. Johnston's bad words showed a serious disagreement, and Joseph already had the intention of cultivating his personal power, so Davis dismissed him as commander-in-chief and asked him to come back to recuperate, and then let Hood become commander-in-chief in the past, which can be said to be both his own ploy and the punishment of Joseph. Johnston's Love.

However. The intervention of the Chinese, or rather, the total annihilation of Hood's Pemberton Legion, plus the defeat of the rebels. As a result, President Davis is quite passive, after all, this matter is easy to do and hard to say, and it is just a fait accompli in private, but if it is destroyed by others. Davis really couldn't say anything.

The biggest problem here is that Joseph. Johnston was not overtly rebellious. Although there were no major successes in the previous wars, there were no major failures, and the Mississippi River Army rebuilt by Joseph has never openly rebelled against the Confederate government, and has always acted in the name of the Confederate army.

If it was a small person, it would be okay to give Ann a betrayal hat, but Joseph. Johnston was obviously not a small person, and it was quite difficult to slander him casually.

As a result, Davis never really gave the so-called counterinsurgency order, nor did he publicly announce Joseph. Johnston was a traitor, and he didn't even think so.

The so-called counterinsurgency action, or the fight against Joseph. Johnston's fight as a traitor was actually a private action by General Pemberton, a move-in, and a prelude to the later report!

His purpose is also easy to guess, that is, to seize the military leadership of the Mississippi River Corps, and then to seize regional control of the Mississippi River Valley, to put it bluntly, it is to grab people and territory.

As for President Davis, although he is the president, because the central government of the Union State is not strong, he is currently unable to really control Pemberton and the Pemberton Army he leads, and he is beyond the reach of the whip.

However, Hood is the new commander-in-chief of the Western Theater sent by President Davis, representing the authority of the central government, and nominally, it can also be said that he is the supreme commander of the entire Western Theater, with great power.

Therefore, as long as Hood is dealt with, it is basically equivalent to obtaining the concession of the headquarters of the Central Alliance Army.

Obviously, General Hood was the commander-in-chief of the airborne, and in some ways inferior to Joseph, who had been airborne in the first place. Johnston, so he was more eager to gain power.

After that, things were simple, Pemberton had soldiers, but there was no righteousness, although the eyes of Joseph. Johnston's soldiers and horses and turf, but they did not dare to attack at will; John. Bel. As for Hood, he didn't have a single soldier under him, but he had the righteousness of the central government and represented the authority of the Union Army Headquarters, so the two could just complement each other.

Very early, Pemberton and Hood led their troops outside Memphis, but because there was no reason to attack at will, they just took the presidential order of the so-called Union government to urge Joseph in Memphis. Johnston hurried back to Richmond to resume his life.

It is clear that their purpose was to put Joseph first. Johnston was transferred out and then with the help of John. Bel. Hood's seizure of the Mississippi River Corps and the capture of Memphis City were the best outcome.

However, Joseph. Johnston didn't buy it, relying on the army and territory, plus the righteousness of the commander-in-chief of the Western Theater of Operations, he directly became unwell and refused to leave Memphis and his own legion.

In this way, John, who was anxious to seize power. Bel. Hood, as well as Pemberton, who was anxious to fight for turf, were quite embarrassed because Joseph. If the Johnstonians don't go, many of their methods won't work.

Originally, Pemberton wanted to do it directly, but the risk of doing it was too great, after all, the other party was still an alliance army, and it was difficult to explain without a proper excuse; Second, everyone knows that the Chinese are with Joseph. Johnston had a good relationship, and there was a Chinese army stationed in the port of Memphis, so if it didn't get rid of the Chinese, the situation would be difficult to clean up.

From this, we can see many shortcomings of the Union Army, that is, the central authority of the Union State is very weak. The command of the local warlords depends more on the general righteousness, on the pressure brought about by the common enemy, and also on the consciousness of the local warlords.

In fact, whether it is another time and space or this time and space, looking at the performance of the Southern Army during the American Civil War, it is not only inferior to the Northern Army in terms of the total number of soldiers, mobilization capacity, and logistical ability, but even the organizational form of the army is completely inferior to that of the Northern Army.

The Northern Army, that is, the Federal Army of the United States, has a political and military heritage, and the authority of the Federal Government is very large, and the Federal Army recruited during the war can basically obey the command of the Federal Government. No army dares to disobey orders, at most ordinary people refuse to join the army and refuse compulsory military service.

The reason for this is not how strong the federal government is and how strong its ability to restrain is that the political tradition of the United States of America is very good, and local politicians basically have a sense of the overall situation and obedience inertia, and can strictly implement the orders of the federal government.

To put it more simply, the federal government of the Northern Army has perfectly inherited the political legacy of the United States of America. The channel of uploading and distributing is very smooth, and the inertia of local obedience to the central government is still strong, and the matter of disobedience to the central government is not yet the mainstream, which can make the federal government like an arm. It can quickly mobilize national resources to fight the Southern Army and foreign Chinese, British and French.

And this is the so-called political tradition, and there is a good political tradition. The state power is stable enough, and the state power is stable enough, and the control over the state is strong enough. The authority of the central government will not be weakened.

On the other hand, if the prestige of the central government is greatly weakened and the local governments begin to disobey the central government on a large scale, then the authority of the central government will also be lost, and the local power will be greater than that of the central government, and this kind of thing is not only popular in China, but also in the Western world.

For example, the United States of America was originally a local colony of the United Kingdom, but later declared its independence because of the protest against the British tax.

But strictly speaking, the reason why the thirteen North American states dared to become independent at that time was mainly because Britain was in confrontation with the flourishing Kingdom of France, which led to a great weakening of the authority of the British government.

Therefore, the fact that the Northern Army was so fierce and Lincoln was able to succeed in dictatorship was, in the final analysis, inherited the excellent political tradition of the United States of America, coupled with the fact that he had mastered the general righteousness and faced the invasion of foreign enemies, which led to the strong authority of the central government, which could strictly restrain the localities and mobilize national resources to enter the war.

Conversely, the governments of the Union States in the South are completely incomparable in this respect.

The so-called government of the Confederate States of America was nothing more than a new political organization formed by politicians from the southern states, who withdrew from the United States in order to resist Lincoln's so-called abolitionist policy.

However, after the representatives of the southern states established the Union State, everyone's opinions were quite different, and some thought that it would be good to establish another country in this way, so as not to have more conflicts with the northern army, which was dominated by the abolitionist states, and hoped that it would truly be able to establish an independent state.

But the other side disagreed, they did not want to divide the original United States, but hoped to use the Confederates as a platform to attack the Northern Army, and then defeat the Northern Army, reunite the North, and then spread serfdom to the whole United States.

It was because of this that after the Southern Army established the Confederate States of America, it did not take long to take the initiative to provoke the Northern Army, which opened the prelude to the Civil War.

Therefore, the Confederate State of the South is a loose organization that has been temporarily gathered, and the power of the local states is greater than that of the central government of the Confederate State, which also leads to the low central authority of the Confederate government, after all, it lacks sufficient political background, and many things have to be discussed by negotiation.

Obviously, such a loose alliance is definitely not as good as the federal government in the north in terms of centralization, and it is naturally much inferior in terms of military efficiency, but because it was more prepared in the early stage, it caught the Northern Army by surprise, and Lincoln had not completely made up his mind about a full-scale war at that time, and his preparation was insufficient, which allowed the Southern Army to occupy the opening advantage for a while.

But soon, with its huge foundation and higher administrative efficiency, the Northern Army began to slowly turn back the situation, changing from passive to active, and began to press the South to fight.

If it were not for the sudden action of the Chinese, through a series of amazing military victories, the situation in the Western Theater was changed, and the British and French were also invited, and then the United States of America fell into a total passivity in the military field. Then in less than two years, the Union Army will completely defeat the Southern Army and reunite the North and the South.

Unfortunately, the Chinese intervened, allowing the Northern Army to defeat the South and regain reunification, and the Southern Alliance was unable to continue to defeat the North, so both sides actually had the intention of a temporary truce, but it was not easy to open their mouths for a while.

But on the other hand, because of the intervention of the Chinese. The military pressure on the governments of the Confederate States of the Southern States was greatly reduced, and in the absence of sufficient external pressure, their own ills began to manifest themselves again, and the authority of the central government was increasingly valued at the local level.

If the eastern region is a little better, then the western region, which was once swept away by the Grant Regiment of the Union Army and later occupied by the Chinese, is a power vacuum.

In the western part of the Confederate States of America, to be more precise in the lower reaches of the Mississippi River, the authority of the Confederate government was very low, and it was the Chinese who had the final say in the early days. Later, it was the locals who had the final say, and this locals mainly referred to the two military forces.

One of them, of course, was the surviving Vicksburg Front, which was also the early Mississippi River Army. But then Pemberton recruited troops for his own convenience. Reducing the constraints of the Confederate government, he resigned as commander of the Mississippi River Corps and formed a private armed force independent of the Confederate Army, namely the Pemberton Corps.

Other words. At that time, the Pemberton Legion did not belong to the regular army of the Union Army, but only belonged to the nature of a private volunteer army, which gave the Pemberton Legion a great deal of autonomy.

Except for the Pemberton Legion. Another force in the lower Mississippi River was Joseph. Johnston led the regular army of the Confederate Army, led by the Mississippi River Corps.

Joseph. Johnston originally recruited troops in the name of the Union Army, in order to easily ask the Union government for funding. Johnston was the commander of the airborne, and in terms of strength, he was far inferior to Pemberton, the head snake of the land.

But then, Joseph. Johnston caught up with the Chinese and obtained Li Yongji's personal support, especially after obtaining loans and weapons support from the Chinese, he immediately trembled and did not listen to the orders of the central government.

That is to say, there was a power vacuum in the control of the lower Mississippi River after the departure of the Chinese, and the only person who could rob the power vacuum in this western region was Joseph. Johnston and Pemberton were chosen one of the two.

This was the fundamental contradiction between Joseph and Pemberton, and Hood's intervention was nothing more than Davis of the Union government.

Joseph. Johnston occupies the righteousness, and the biggest shortcoming is that the strength in his hands is relatively weak, but over time, when his soldiers and horses are trained, then Pemberton will really be out of play, so time is on Joseph's side, the longer it drags on, the more disadvantageous Pemberton will be, after all, Joseph. Johnston was well aware of his aggressive recruitment.

Because of this, Pemberton couldn't wait, didn't listen to Hood's persuasion, and directly took action against Pemberton in the name of counterinsurgency.

In this case, Davis can only admit it, after all, he is actually powerless to control Pemberton.

The same is true now of Joseph. Johnston became the only local victor through World War I, and has become the de facto king of the West, although it is not quite in line with Davis's balancing policy, but he finally gives an explanation to outsiders and temporarily maintains his face and prestige.

"In any case, it is still acceptable to hand over the western region back to Joseph." Come to think of it, Jefferson. President Davis stroked his goatee on his chin, "Although he has ambitions, at least he still has enough sanity, and it is better to give it to that madman from Pemberton." ”

Speaking of this, Davis sighed again: "Forget it, let him be, anyway, Joseph is also a member of the alliance, if he can really appease those greedy and hateful Chinese because of this, it is not a bad thing." As for the negotiations with the Northern Army, well, so be it, anyway, I'm tired, presumably that damn Lincoln should be very tired, and by the coercion of the Chinese to reach an agreement, I can always explain to those old recalcitrant members of Congress. (To be continued......)