At 9 a.m. on 1 May, the Nationalist Government of the South issued a nationwide telegram announcing the withdrawal of the customs of the nine southern provinces. On the same day, Wang Zhengting, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Southern Nationalist Government, signed the "Agreement on the Recovery of the Customs of the Nine Southern Provinces" with the British and French consuls in Shanghai on behalf of the Nationalist Government. According to the agreement, the customs of the nine southern provinces will be returned to the Nationalist Government from today, and the Nationalist Government can set its own tariffs, and at the same time, the Nationalist Government does not need to use the customs surplus to bear responsibilities such as Gengzi indemnity.

When the news came out, Shijie was in an uproar. In Fuzhou, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, the customs handover ceremonies in the three regions were underway, and the patriotic masses of onlookers were excited and tearful and applauded. The news media also wrote articles praising the Nationalist Government's feat of fighting for national power, describing the repossession of customs as a major diplomatic victory since the Opium War and a sign of China's progress toward prosperity and strength.

When the British Minister Jurdon saw the comments of these newspapers, he also became worried, and he said to the French Minister Immanuel Kant: "I hope we are not opening Pandora's box this time." ”

In fact, the negotiations on customs issues were previously in charge of Wang Zhenyu's personal representative, Yang Yongtai, who also included a series of transactions in steel and military supplies. But it doesn't matter, this does not prevent Wang Zhengting, the young foreign minister, from remaining in history textbooks with a positive image.

Labor issues were communicated directly by the Consul General of France in Shanghai and the President of the State Council of the Nationalist Government, Mr. Hu Hanmin. The French consul in Hankow, Yang Yongtai, who had just been appointed governor of Hubei Province, and Zhao Hengti, who had just been appointed head of the European Military Observer Mission, were secretly contacted.

A few families are happy and a few are sad, just when the national government and Britain and France are fighting hotly, some people are having a hard time.

The first is Japan, which, thanks to the Nationalist government's successful secrecy efforts, even learned from a British customs employee on the evening of April 30 that the Chinese would be withdrawn the next day. The reaction of the Imperial diplomats and spies in China to such a major event was so slow. As the first person responsible, the Japanese Minister to China, Nichi-to-yi, was recalled to Japan. At the same time, the secret intelligence agency in China was also ordered to reorganize, and Saihachiro Sakari was dismissed and recalled. Kenji Dohihara, who finally managed to sneak into the south under the pseudonym Wang Lewei, was also recalled to Beijing to participate in the reorganization, although he was unwilling, but Kenji Dohihara did not dare to disobey the orders of his superiors. Many years later, Kenji Dohihara pointed out at a symposium that the reorganization of the spy agency this time was completely meaningless, and even helped China to a large extent.

The most embarrassing of all was the central government in Beijing, where the Nationalist government, as its subordinate regional government, only made a circular on May 1. On the one hand, the sovereignty of the customs has been withdrawn, but on the other hand, even Shandong has not returned.

War Minister Duan Qirui instructed his cronies to openly build a campaign and demand that President Le Yuanhong and Premier Xiong Xiling punish this behavior for violating the North-South Armistice Agreement that diplomatic power belongs to the central government. Xiong Xiling said without showing weakness in this regard: patriotism is not guilty. Li Yuanhong didn't say anything, and the behavior of the two made Duan Qirui obviously feel that these two of his nominal bosses were difficult to deal with.

It should be said that the decision of Britain and France was a relief in disguise, and the Nationalist Government, which had just been established for a few days, took back the customs of the nine southern provinces, and the enormous political prestige generated here was extremely valuable.

Wang Zhenyu finally left for Wuhan after the customs took it back, and the bigwigs of the Nationalist Government came to see him off in person. After Wang Zhenyu shook hands with them one by one, he thought about it and shook hands with Hu Hanmin again: "Cousin Zhan, although you have different political views, you are all people who keep the interests of the country in your heart. ”

When Hu Hanmin heard this, he nodded and said: "I don't have anything else, I just hope that the chairman of the committee can take care of the people's power when making various decisions in the future." ”

Wang Zhenyu nodded, turned around and got on the boat......

After returning to Wuhan, there were several things that Wang Zhenyu needed to arrange.

The first is the issue of the military inspection team, the candidate for the head of the regiment has been determined, Zhao Hengti. For this righteous brother, Wang Zhenyu felt that he still owed a little debt, and he was only given the post of secretary general of a military committee. From the current point of view, this position is a position responsible for the daily internal work of the Military Commission, and strictly speaking, it does not have much power. Therefore, Wang Zhenyu thought about it again and again and decided that first of all, Zhao Hengti would be awarded the rank of general, and secondly, he would be awarded a deputy chief of general staff.

As for the selection of people for the military observation group, Wang Zhenyu's principle is that whoever wants to lead troops to fight in Europe in the future will go.

Thinking about it, Bai Chongxi is undoubtedly a must-choose, looking at the whole army, that is, this one can be regarded as a genius, and the commander of the future expeditionary force is no other than this son. Therefore, the other officers participating in the observation mission can be selected by Bai Chongxi according to his personal habits, anyway, these are the people who Zuihou will use when he goes to Europe.

The second thing is land reform, Wang Zhenyu identified only two provinces, Hunan and Hubei, and other provinces have been suspended. After all, this involves the problem of people eating, and if it is promoted all at once, it will be troublesome if there is a mess. However, now that the specific work has been taken over by the Nationalist Government and the National Socialist Party task force, and sufficient funds and policies have been allocated by themselves, it is not a big problem. It is worth mentioning that in order to ensure the smooth construction of the military reclamation farm, Wang Zhenyu established the Huguang Agricultural Construction Corps, and Jihua placed 100,000 demobilized soldiers.

The third thing is armed mobilization and recruit training, Wang Zhenyu Jihua recruited 200,000 young people, and then transferred 50,000 veterans and officers from 15 field divisions as the backbone, and then these 250,000 people will be formed into the 1st to 10th divisions of the expeditionary force. Due to the land enclosure movement caused by the land reform, it is believed that this force will be recruited by July. Then there will be a few months of training, and we will be able to board the ship for Europe in January next year. At the same time, the supporting requirement was that the French and British must transport 250,000 standard equipment by July, otherwise they would not be able to form an army.

What Wang Zhenyu didn't know was how controversial this expeditionary force Jihua had caused in Europe.

The British high-level said very skeptically: "We must be sure that these yellow-skinned monkeys from the East will not fight, if only the number is needed, we can completely recruit native soldiers from India, and we do not need to spend a greater price to recruit from China." ”

And the diplomatic attaché who returned from China argued: "Believe me, gentlemen. The combat effectiveness of these Chinese is definitely not comparable to those Indian Asan, who are lazy, full of beards, and have not bathed for several months. We observed them in China for four months, and their level of combat was not even braver than the soldiers of the British Empire, or even them. ”

"My dear, the war of civilization is not the same as the war of the natives, you should not be misled by the war of the show. And if we really arm so many Chinese without their command, will the Chinese with powerful armed forces recognize our interests in China when the damned Germans are eliminated? ”

This is also the most controversial point of everyone, and the British insist that since we have hired the army at our expense, the command will naturally belong to the noble British soldiers. But Wang Zhenyu doesn't think so, first, China will also be a participating country, and second, these expeditionary forces actually belong to the participating armies. The Entente, led by Britain and France, could issue tasks and orders, but how to carry them out and complete them should not be interfered with by people who do not know the army.

At this time, in Verdun, the war has entered a state of white heat, and a large number of young lives are ruthlessly devoured every day. The French are the first to be in a hurry, damn the British, and it's not your children who are dying, we need reinforcements, not some damn command.

In Wuhan, on 5 May, in the auditorium of the Wuhan Army University, Huang Xing, Sun Wen, Wang Longzhong, Zhang Taiyan, and Wang Zhenyu personally presided over the ceremony of awarding the titles and medals of the National Youth Army.

According to the recommendation of the preparatory group for the conferment of titles headed by Zhao Hengti, all members of the Standing Committee of the Military Commission will be awarded the rank of general, while Huang Xing, Wang Longzhong, and Wang Zhenyu will be awarded the rank of general, and specifically, Xu Chongzhi, Xu Yuanquan, Wan Yaohuang, Li Zongren, Li Liejun, Cheng Qian, Liu Xing, Chen Jiongming, and Zhao Hengti will be awarded the rank of general. Sa Zhenbing was awarded the rank of admiral and was known as the tenth admiral in history.

Yang Wangui, Ma Xicheng, Bai Chongxi, Tao Zhiyue, Zhu Zhixin, Song Xianfu, and Hao Bing will be awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and the chief of staff of the army, such as Yu Zuobai and Li Hongkui, will also be awarded the rank of lieutenant general.

The other division commanders, commanders of provincial military districts, and commanders of the security corps are uniformly awarded to major generals, and division chiefs of staff are awarded to colonels.

In addition, there were three people who were awarded the medal separately, Colonel Zhang Zizhong, Lieutenant Colonel Zhao Yong, and Colonel Wang Kewen, who were personally awarded the Order of Light by Huang Xing, and most of the senior generals present were only awarded the commemorative medal for participating in the Patriotic War.

It should be said that the results of this award of titles and medals have greatly promoted the regularization of the youth army. It is worth mentioning that Wang Zhenyu used the blue sky and white sun badge that is said to have been designed by Sun Yat-sen as the cap badge of the Youth Army, and the military flag still uses the tiger flag, but the respect represented by this move has made Sun Wen very satisfied.