Cai Guodong took out a brocade box and a certificate from the drawer and walked over to Zeng Chuang and said: "This time you are a lieutenant colonel and a lieutenant colonel and the troops he leads to support you and directly obey your orders, and you are really a lieutenant colonel now, in view of your past performance and merits, as well as to solve the problem of command, I hereby apply to the president and the military council to give you a promotion to the rank of first-class, Zeng Chuang, on behalf of the president and the Supreme Military Council, I promote you to the rank of colonel, I hope you can live up to the high expectations of the president and me, Successfully complete the task! ”

"Yes, thank you to the president and general, the humble position will definitely live up to the president and general!" Zeng Chuang stood up and saluted.

Cai Guodong changed him into an epaulette with the rank of colonel, and handed him a small blue notebook: "This is your new position!" ”

Zeng Chuang took it and opened it, only to see that the position column on the certificate read: "Senior Military Adviser of the Japanese Anguo Army", he knew that he could not serve as a military officer in the Anguo Army in his previous capacity, and he had to enter the Anguo Army in a new capacity and control that army.

Within a minute, there was a knock on the office door, and Cai Guodong shouted, "Come in!" ”

The adjutant walked in with a young lieutenant colonel in his twenties, who looked like he was only twenty-five or sixteen years old, "General, Commander Li has arrived!" ”

"Okay, you get out!"

After the adjutant withdrew, the young regiment commander Li walked over and saluted Cai Guodong and said loudly: "Report to General Cai, Li Zongren, the commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 37th Division of the 13th Army, has been ordered to come to report, please instruct!" ”

Cai Guodong returned the salute and introduced Zeng Chuang: "This is Li Zongren and Commander Li who cooperate with your mission, from now on he and his regiment will directly obey you!" After speaking, he shouted: "Li Zongren! ”

"Here!"

"This former colonel, he's going to be on a special mission. You will cooperate and obey him directly until you receive a new order from the upper peak. During this time, his command was the supreme command. You must obey unconditionally and absolutely! ”

Li Zongren immediately said: "Yes, General!" ”

He saluted Zeng Chuang again: "Report to the chief, Li Zongren has come to report, please instruct the chief!" ”

Zeng Chuang returned the salute and said: "Commander Li doesn't have to be polite, we will be partners in the future, whether this task can be completed depends on the cooperation between the two of us, after completing the task, we will all be rewarded by the peak, if we can't complete the task, then the two of us may be miserable." I hope we can work closely together without reservation! ”

Of course, Li Zongren knew how to speak at this time, and he immediately said: "Li is a rough man, and only the chief is the head of the horse!" ”

In the next few days, the Bay Island garrison commanded by Anton Sadami was defeated and retreated, and Anton Sadami's headquarters had to retreat again, with Hsinchu to the south, but Hsinchu was now being attacked by the 38th Division and could not retreat to Hsinchu, and his headquarters could only retreat to Yilan in the east.

March 10th. Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Miaosu, Hsinchu, and Chiayi were taken successively, but the Japanese soldiers did not lose much, once the Chinese army came, they barely resisted for a while and then a small number of people chose to retreat. Most of them surrendered with their weapons, and the Chinese army occupied these areas with little effort.

A military camp was erected on the southeastern outskirts of Taipei, and next to the barracks there was a prisoner camp. The camp was square, with tall wooden watchtowers built on the gates and four corners. There were soldiers with machine guns, and rows of improvised tents were neatly erected in the prisoner camp. It was divided into several zones, which were separated by a high, barbed wire fence, and captives in each zone were confined to fixed areas.

In the barracks next to the prisoner camp, Li Zongren walked into Zeng Chuang's office with a text clip in his left hand, "Sir, more than 1,600 people have been sent in the past few days, and now the number of prisoners has reached 2,700 people, this is the list of soldiers and the list of officers above the rank of captain, please take a look!" ”

Zeng Chuang flipped through a notebook handed over by Li Zongren, and he directly skipped the list of ordinary prisoners, and looked at the list of officers, the first thing he looked at was, of course, the list of senior officers.

After reading it, Zeng Chuang said to Li Zongren: "Commander Li, you go to the Governor's Mansion to see if there are no information files of these Japanese officers in the Governor's Palace, if there is any, bring them to me!" ”

"Yes, sir!"

After Li Zongren agreed, he took two soldiers and drove an off-road jeep to the presidential palace, handed over his documents, and was allowed to go to the archives to consult the papers.

The archives room is not small, the Japanese army retreated too late to destroy the files here, all of them were captured by the Chinese army, here not only the personnel files of the garrison, but also all the information records about the Bay Island under the jurisdiction of the Governor's Office.

Under the leadership of the administrator, Li Zongren easily found the location of the files of the garrison officers, he took the list and checked them one by one, and took out the files of all the surrendered Japanese officers with the rank of captain and above on the list, but when he asked to take these materials away, the administrator asked him to take Cai Guodong's approval slip, and Li Zongren then went to Cai Guodong to get the approval slip before he was allowed to take those files away, but he had to send them back within three days.

"Sir, the file has been brought back, but the file management office has asked for it to be sent back within three days!" Li Zongren walked into Zeng Chuang's office with two soldiers, each holding a large file bag, and said.

"Here, put it here!" Zeng Chuang got up and greeted, and said to Li Zongren: "In the past two days, you have often gone to the prisoner camp to go around, don't let the prisoners make any trouble!" ”

Li Zongren put down the file bag and said: "Sir, don't worry, I'm staring at it 24 hours a day, these Japanese can't afford to make big waves!" ”

After a few days of the two, Zeng Chuang raised his head from the mountain of files on the table, leaned back on the back of the chair, frowned and reached out to rub his neck and shoulders, after a short rest, he began to put these messy files back into the files, after sorting, he divided all the files into two parts and piled them up, a small part on the left and a large part on the right.

After spending some time tidying up, Zeng Chuang sat back in his chair and picked up the phone and dialed a number, and after the phone was connected, he said: "Head Li, come to me, yes, immediately!" ”

Putting down the phone, Zeng Chuang took out a cigarette and lit it and smoked, the small pile of files on the left of his desktop The Japanese soldiers are all from civilian backgrounds, with no background, these people all rely on their own skills to get up, and the pile of files on the right are all recorded in the Japanese army officers from aristocratic families, these Japanese officers have more or less backgrounds in their families, and the promotion is relatively easier than that of civilian Japanese officers, and some of the immediate family members of Japanese officers are even major generals or lieutenant generals, and they have quite a status in the Japanese military circles.

It didn't take long for Li Zongren to strode to the door of the office to shout a report, and Zeng Chuang beckoned to him: "Come in!" ”

"Sir, Li Zongren is here to report!" Li Zongren walked in and stood up and saluted.

"Alright, Commander Li, bring these Japanese prisoners over to see me separately!" Zeng Chuang took out three copies from a pile of file bags on the left, handed them to Li Zongren and commanded.

Li Zongren took the three file bags and saw a name written in the name column on the top, and involuntarily read out: "Kumamoto Taro? ”

Zeng Chuang introduced: "This Kumamoto Taro is one of the civilian-born officers among the surrendered Japanese officers, and one of the highest-ranking people among these people, it is Nakasa, it can be seen that he still has some ability, and his family members and environment meet my requirements, but I still have to meet and talk to this person in person!" ”

Li Zongren was a little puzzled when he heard this, he already knew that his and Zeng Chuang's task was to collect these prisoners and master this army, and now Zeng Chuang was to find an obedient, capable, and charged person from among the Japanese officers with these avatars as the commander, but he still didn't understand: "Sir, I don't understand, why do you only look for people from civilian backgrounds, can't you not be from noble people?" ”

Zeng Chuang shook his head: "No, they are all proud of themselves, nobles have their own glory, and they will not serve us lightly, and they have families in Japan, and they have too many scruples, and civilian-born officers are different, you must know that in the Japanese military circles, generals who are not from Mossafan rarely can be promoted to general, and noble-born soldiers have much more opportunities to be promoted than civilian-born soldiers, civilian-born soldiers have no background, and rely entirely on their own ability, These people have become prisoners, it can be said that their future is over, it is already good if they don't die, if they return to Japan, they don't expect to be promoted at all, maybe they will be sent to a military court, if they want to have a good way out, it is a good choice to join us, but we can't completely trust them! ”

"I see!" Li Zongren muttered and said, "Okay, I'll go and bring them here!" ”

"Wait, bring them one by one, not all together, I don't want these people to meet with me until we find out if they meet the requirements!"

"Understood!" Li Zongren agreed, turned around and left.

After coming out of Zeng Chuang's office, Li Zongren called the commander of the guard company and ordered: "Take a few people to the prisoner camp and bring a Japanese soldier named Kumamoto Taro over, Commander Zeng wants to see him, go!" ”

"Yes, Tuanza!"

Soon a jeep and a large truck full of soldiers from a squad drove up to the gate of the prisoner camp, and the commander of the guard company jumped out of the jeep and showed the guards the pass and the prisoner's papers, and the gate of the prisoner camp was immediately opened, and the soldiers of a squad entered the camp in full armor.

"Kumamoto Taro Nakasa, come out!" (To be continued......)