Nine o'clock in the evening, Guangzhou, Chen Mansion.

Chen Jitang, who was very annoyed by the various telegrams that came one after another, personally ran out of the gate and welcomed Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, who had hurried to the Chen Mansion, into the hall, complaining as he walked and complaining that Feng Yuxiang was relying on the old and selling the old, and before the situation was clear, he sent telegrams from thousands of miles away to make false accusations, as if he Chen Jitang really did not have a sense of the overall situation, and was really stupid enough to send planes to cross the border to attack the local army in Jiangxi at this sensitive time.

Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi came for this matter, and after dinner, the two heard the report of their entourage, and specially listened to the news broadcast of the Central News Agency at eight o'clock sharp, and then immediately came to the Chen Mansion to inquire about the exact news.

At first, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi both agreed that this was Chiang Kai-shek's usual political propaganda trick, but the news in the news about the attack of the Cantonese army plane and its malfunction and fall was conclusive, as well as a specific description of the plot, and the name of the pilot who died after parachuting was announced.

The guests and hosts sat down separately, served fragrant tea, Chen Jitang waved away from the people in the hall, handed a wad of telegrams to Li Zongren, who was full of concern, and truthfully reported to the two of them what he had learned.

Li Zongren handed the finished telegram to Bai Chongxi, Bai Chongxi waved his hand humbly, listened attentively to Chen Jitang's narration, and learned that a reconnaissance plane had indeed fallen on the Guangdong-Jiangxi border, but he didn't know the specific reason for it, Bai Chongxi's eyes became fierce: "Could it be shot down?"

Chen Jitang rubbed his face: "It's possible, and we have repeatedly deduced it for this, but according to the information sent from the front, the newly formed 10th Brigade stationed in Xinfeng City is just a local security force that has just been reorganized, most of them speak with an accent from northeastern Jiangxi, and all of them add up to less than 4,000 people. ”

"The night before the incident, that is, last night, this new brigade drove two battalions of more than 1,000 people, and when they entered Xinfeng City, they ate and drank a lot of money, guessed the code, gambled money, and made a fuss until it was almost dawn, and the air force unanimously agreed after analysis that it was hard to imagine that the miscellaneous unit in Xinfeng City could shoot down our most advanced reconnaissance planes......

"Moreover, another escort plane came back and reported that the reconnaissance plane first exploded in the air before falling, and the escort plane repeatedly circled along the incident site for observation, and did not find any air defense positions on the ground, only seeing many local people running towards the crash site."

"In this case, the situation is complicated, since even our own people can't convince us, even if we say that it was the ground forces that brought it down, others won't believe it"

After Li Zongren finished speaking, he and Bai Chongxi glanced at each other, and both of them shook their heads.

Subsequently, Li Zongren immersed himself in reading the telegram carefully, and after a while, he handed the telegram to Bai Chongxi, and after Bai Chongxi finished reading the telegram and handed it back to Chen Jitang, he asked: "Do you have the specific number and the name of the chief officer of the new brigade stationed in Xinfeng City?" ”

As soon as Chen Jitang heard this, he immediately understood what Li Zongren meant, and said confidently: "After checking it out, on the second day after the department was stationed in Xinfeng, we found out their specific numbers through all aspects, it is indeed the new 10th Brigade of the Central Army from the Zhejiang-Jiangxi border, what is the name of the brigade commander?" It's called Wu ...... Wu Ming...... Yes, it's this name I've never heard of before, it's estimated that it's the local security force that Lao Jiang Xin has recruited, and this time I'm afraid it's sent this ragtag army to the front line to act as cannon fodder. ”

Li Zongren recalled for a long time and had no impression of this Wu Ming, so he had to look at Bai Chongxi, who had maintained correspondence with many old friends in the Central Army for several years.

Bai Chongxi seems to have a little impression of the name Wu Ming, but he can't remember it for a while, the Central Army has been annexing local armies in the past two years, and it has developed rapidly and there have been great personnel changes, during which hundreds of generals have been appointed after taking the lead, and countless veterans have retreated to the second line or disarmed and returned to hiding, who will pay attention to a miscellaneous brigade commander adapted from a local security force?

As a result, Wu Ming and his newly formed 10th Brigade were put aside for the time being, and the focus of their discussion shifted to how to deal with the aftermath, how to deal with possible reproaches from all sides, how to recover political influence, and other major issues related to the overall situation.

After Bai Chongxi returned, he went directly to the room of his friend Liu Fei, who had been staying in Guangzhou to instigate Chen Jitang's rebellion against Chiang.

Liu Fei used to be Bai Chongxi's chief of staff, and now he is a senior staff officer of the Gui army's base camp, and concurrently serves as the chief of education of the Guangxi People's League Yubu School, at this time he was reading his notes under the lamp, and when he saw Bai Chongxi coming in, he put down his pen and stood up, poured Bai Chongxi a cup of tea, and asked with a smile: "How is Chen Bonan going to deal with it?" ”

Bai Chongxi briefly briefed everyone on the specific political emergency strategy formulated after discussion, as well as Chen Jitang's plan to hold a Chinese and foreign press conference at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning to explain his position.

"For the chapter, the number of the army stationed in Xinfeng, Jiangxi has been clarified, it is the new 10th Brigade of the Central Army This unit was stationed on the Zhejiang-Jiangxi border before, and the brigade commander is called Wu Ming, I seem to have seen this name somewhere, but I can't remember it for a while, have you heard of this person

"Wu Ming? Jian Gong, you should have an impression of this person, have you forgotten a few military training textbooks sent to us by a friend at the Nanjing Central Military Academy at the beginning of the year? Three of them were written by this Wu Ming, and I have heard you praise this person for his unique path, intelligence and pragmatism...... Legend has it that this person also caused a death during the first training of the Lushan Officer Training Corps, but he was not punished in any way, and I don't know if it is true or not

Liu Fei's memory is very good, during the Northern Expedition, he formulated a number of strategic operational plans as a senior staff member of the General Headquarters of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and after returning from the Japanese Army University, he held an important position in the General Staff Headquarters.

"Is that him?"

Bai Chongxi finally remembered, knocked on the table and stood up: "No, it seems that I have to remind Chen Bonan that this Wu Ming is not an unknown person, but a person who is good at strategy, otherwise where can I write three extremely professional military textbooks?" If the Guangdong army does not pay attention to it, I am afraid that it will suffer a big loss. ”

"That's not right."

Liu Fei felt a little strange: "It stands to reason that with Lao Jiang's style, a talent like Wu Ming should have been promoted a long time ago, why is it that a few years have passed and he is still the brigade commander of a newly formed miscellaneous brigade?" Could it be that you are getting the wrong person? ”

Bai Chongxi was also puzzled by this, and after thinking for a while, he couldn't get an answer, waved his hand and said: "I don't want to think about this question for the time being, I always feel that this person is a huge threat, let's call Chen Bonan first." ”

Bai Chongxi's intuition was very correct, and Wu Ming's threat reached Guangzhou the next day, making Chen Jitang, who was holding a press conference to try to give a reasonable explanation for the attack of the Guangdong air force on the local troops in Jiangxi:

When a reporter asked Chen Jitang about the two pilots who were killed, Chen Jitang couldn't even remember the names of the two pilots of the Guangdong Army, or did he announce the names of the victims after the chief of staff on the side handed over the note, and another reporter asked Chen Jitang how to deal with the aftermath of the two pilots who were killed. Chen Jitang stood for a moment and publicly promoted the two victims to three levels in public to show his condolences.

The reporters who participated in the interview were in an uproar.

Just before Chen Jitang held a press conference in Guangzhou, the Chinese and foreign reporters waiting outside the venue received the latest news presented by their colleagues from the Central News Agency:

At 7:30 a.m. today, the Xinfeng garrison in Jiangxi Province held a solemn condolence ceremony attended by nearly 10,000 soldiers and civilians, and solemnly handed over two coffins containing the bodies of the two victims, as well as all the clothes of the victims, to the officers and men of the 39th Brigade of the 14th Division of the Guangdong Army facing each other. The Jiangxi garrison not only expressed its condolences to the officers and men of the Cantonese Army who came to pick up the coffin, but also presented a letter of proposal to all the officers and men of the Cantonese Army of "sincere unity and unity with the outside world."

Chen Jitang, who is the highest military and political chief in Guangdong, had no idea about such a major incident, and he could not even figure out the names of the two pilots who were unfortunately killed under his command. As a result, extremely sharp questions were thrown by the reporters to Chen Jitang, who was caught off guard, which made the "King of Southern Heaven" embarrassed, and he could only hurriedly announce the end of the press conference.

As a result, the reporters who had not been able to obtain any valuable news were completely annoyed, so they immediately sent the situation of today's press conference back to their respective newspapers after returning home, and launched merciless criticism of the inaction of Chen Jitang and the Guangdong army.

When the outside world was disturbing and arguing, Wu Ming in the west of Xinfeng City was extremely leisurely, and he did not need to do it personally in the formulation of the battle plan, and the officers and soldiers stationed in many places were rested except that they could not go out of the camp, except for the officers and soldiers of the two infantry regiments stationed at the southern foot of Zhangjiafeng and the city, they needed to go out to exercise every day, and after they were done, they had to go to the streets to clean up and help the local people build roads outside the city.

After spending a week of military life in Wu Ming's brigade, Kang Ze, who once served as the chief captain of the "Nanchang Xingying Beilu Mobilization Brigade," finally saw Wu Ming's strict military discipline and fierce style, and also saw the high degree of obedience and good military quality of officers at all levels.

Only Kang Ze regretted that only the brigade commander Wu Ming and the machine gun battalion commander Tian Zhenggang wore the "Zhongzheng Sword" around their waists among the more than 7,000 officers and soldiers of the New Tenth Brigade.