From the desert steppes of northern China to the vast forests and seas of northeast China, from the loess plateau with interlaced ravines to the water towns in the south of the Yangtze River with a network of water, the flames of war have mercilessly devoured people's lives.

As the conflict between the Soviet Union and Japan in the disputed area continued to escalate, the situation in the world became more treacherous. The United States, Britain, France, and other countries secretly rejoiced, thinking that Japan's chess piece was finally going to come in handy, and they connived at and even supported Japan's aggression against China, in order to let Japan harm the Red Soviet Union. Now that the situation is developing more and more in line with their design, how can this not make them ecstatic.

The Soviet Union was worried, and although Japan was a small country, the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army should not be underestimated. During the Russo-Japanese War, Tsarist Russia suffered a heavy loss at the hands of this little friend, lost part of its rights and interests in the Northeast, ceded South Sakhalin Island, and lost the only ice-free port in the Pacific Ocean that it had painstakingly operated for a long time, Lushun, and almost spit out the interests that Tsarist Russia had sought in the Far East for hundreds of years. Today's Japan is far from being comparable to the Japan of the Meiji period, and if you look at the Japanese who can fight on the battlefield in China, and the sword is invincible, you can know that the Japanese are no longer what they used to be, and Stalin has no bottom in his heart to fight against such a strong enemy.

More importantly, there was still a fierce enemy in the western part of the Soviet Union staring at the Soviet Union, and immediately after Hitler came to power, he abolished the Versailles Peace Treaty, rearmament, and regained the lost territory, and the German army, navy, and air force were quickly restored and rebuilt. At the end of the First World War, the armies of the German Empire were almost completely disbanded. The Treaty of Versailles imposed clear limits on the German military. Within 50 kilometers of the east and west banks of the Rhine, the Germans were not allowed to fortify. The army was limited to less than 100,000 and was not allowed to possess offensive weapons such as tanks or heavy artillery, and the German General Staff was abolished. It is not allowed to have a navy, and only 6 battleships with a displacement of 10,000 tons are allowed on the ship side, and submarines are not allowed. The Air Force must not be organized. Arms must not be imported or exported, and an additional 26 per cent fee will be levied on export commodities, and the production and stockpiling of chemical weapons will not be permitted.

In order to limit the number of people receiving military training, compulsory military service was abolished, and the length of service for non-commissioned officers and soldiers was extended to 12 years and 25 years for officers.

However, according to information collected by Soviet intelligence officers, as early as 1933-1934, then German Chancellor Adolf Murphy Adolf. Hitler secretly began the expansion of the Wehrmacht. And the expansion is quite large. And on October 15, 1935. Germany will officially change the name of the German Wehrmacht to the Wehrmacht.

After that, the Wehrmacht marched into the demilitarized zone of the Rhine and at the same time sent men to participate in the Spanish Civil War. Last year, the Wehrmacht occupied Austria strongly. Subsequently, the Wehrmacht occupied Czechoslovakia. Germany has gradually shown its sharp teeth and claws. The strength of the German Army frightened Stalin.

If it is said to be against one side alone. Then Stalin had nothing to worry about, the Soviet Red Army was not a vegetarian, and a few million troops could meet the invading enemy at any time. But if there is a two-front war. The Soviet Union was in danger.

What worried Stalin the most was the attitude of Britain, France, the United States and other countries, the rise of the people's revolution after World War I and the emergence of the socialist Soviet Union, which aroused fear and hatred among imperialism. In the struggle for hegemony in the world, they not only want to weaken and defeat their rivals, but also oppose socialism and suppress the people's revolution. Coupled with the shadow brought by the First World War to the people of Western European countries, war-phobia prevailed in most countries, including Britain and France.

Therefore, Britain and France were both worried and afraid of Germany, an old rival who had been completely emasculated in World War I, fearing that this strong neighbor would rise strongly again and bring irreparable heavy losses to Britain and France, and even more worried that it would repeat the mistakes of World War I. But neither Britain nor France were more afraid that sanctions against Germany would immediately trigger a war, which they did not want to see. Coupled with the fear and hatred of the Red Soviet Union, with the covert connivance and support of Britain, France, the United States and other countries, the defeated Germany and the strong rise of Japan became the bulwark against the Soviet Union and the thugs who suppressed the people's revolution.

This can be glimpsed from the Versailles system and the Washington system. In the Dawes Plan, the Younger Plan, and the Locarno Convention, it is more concrete. In particular, after the formation of the two wars, in the face of the serious challenge posed by the fascist countries of Germany, Italy, and Japan, the appeasementists in Britain, France, and the United States, represented by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, did not hesitate to compromise with the aggressors at the expense of the interests of other countries in order to safeguard their vested interests and seek temporary peace, in a vain attempt to divert the troubles to the Soviet Union and reap the benefits.

In 1931, the "918 Incident" tolerated Japan's invasion of Northeast China. March 1935 tolerated the rearmament of A. Hitler. In August 1935, the United States passed the Neutrality Act. In October 1935, he tolerated the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. In March 1936, Hitler was allowed to occupy the Rhine area. In August 1936, a policy of "non-intervention" was adopted in response to the armed intervention of Germany and Italy in Spain. In July 1937, he connived at Japan to launch a full-scale war of aggression against China, and then planned the Pacific International Conference, plotting to betray China and compromise with Japan. In March 1938, he acquiesced to Hitler's annexation of Austria. The Munich Conference of September 1938 and the Munich Agreement. Britain, France, and the United States, which they supported behind the scenes, tried in vain to achieve "general appeasement" in Europe at the expense of Czechoslovakia and seek "peace for a generation", in essence, pushing Germany to attack the Soviet Union.

Stalin knew in his heart that threats from both the East and the West had made the bearded man uneasy about the situation of the Soviet Union. Soon, Stalin convened a military meeting in the Kremlin at the level of the commander of the army group to find a solution.

The meeting lasted two whole days, but nothing came of it. Finally, Zhukov, deputy commander of the Belarusian Special Military District, made a suggestion, and Zhukov believed that everything that could be done internally to deal with the current crisis situation had already been done, and that the only way to deal with it was to start from the outside.

In his opinion, Germany had just annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, where its rule had not yet been fully established, and it should be impossible to launch an attack on the USSR for the time being. Moreover, Poland was sandwiched between the Soviet Union and Germany, and Poland performed very well in World War I, and the combat effectiveness of its cavalry shocked all the participating countries. In addition, Poland and Germany, as well as Prussia before it, were old enemies, and Poland and Britain and France were still allies, and it was impossible for Germany to cross Poland and attack the Soviet Union, at least not in a short time, unless Germany could defeat and occupy Poland in a short time.

Therefore, the greatest threat to the great Sulian now is still Japan to the east. The Soviet Union's main energy was contained in Europe, and there was only one front army in the Far East, while Japan's Kwantung Army alone had 400,000 troops, plus the puppet government of Manchukuo and Korea, its total strength was at least 800,000 or more, and the Red Army was at an absolute disadvantage in terms of strength.

Moreover, the conflict between the great Soviet Union and the Japanese and Manchurian armies is escalating day by day, and I am afraid that it will not be long before a major war breaks out, so the main thing for the great Soviet Union at the moment is to strengthen the forces in the Far East. Second, it is necessary to strengthen ties with the Chinese government, especially with Chen Feng, a warlord stationed in Chahar and Suiyuan provinces in northern China, in order to contain the Japanese forces in China.

Zhukov's proposal was approved by all the senior generals present, but some officers were still very skeptical about the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army. After all, they had also fought against the Northeast Army, which was the strongest and most well-equipped in the Chinese Army, and although the Northeast Army fought very bravely in the 1929 Middle East Road Incident, the bravery was only manifested in morale, and in fact the Northeast Army suffered heavy losses, which made many senior officers of the Soviet Union full of doubts about the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army, and doubted whether they could undertake the task of containing the Japanese army.

Zhukov had already made arrangements for this, and he took out a document entitled "Evaluation and Analysis of the Combat Effectiveness of the Chinese Army", which was written by Major General Ivan, commander-in-chief of the volunteer pilots to aid China, and was specifically analyzed and evaluated by the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army. The Eighteenth Group Army led by the Communist Party and the newly formed Fourth Army, the Jin Sui Army in Yan Xishan in Shanxi, the Northwest Army left behind by Yang Hucheng in Shaanxi, and the Northeast Army scattered in the sand, of course, there is also Chen Feng's subordinate who has only risen strongly in recent years.

In this analysis of combat effectiveness, Major General Ivan analyzed the number and quality of soldiers, the quality of officers, weapons and equipment, logistical support, and economic strength, and finally came to an astonishing conclusion. So far, among these Chinese troops, Chen Feng's unit has the strongest combat effectiveness. In terms of the number of soldiers, the Eighth Theater led by Chen Feng has a huge group second only to the Central Army of the Nationalist Government, and in terms of the quality of its soldiers, the Eighth Theater can be called the army with the highest quality in China.

Not to mention weapons and equipment, with his understanding of this Chinese army, it is not too much to call it armed to the teeth, the Eighth Theater has a huge army and air force, and it has even gone ahead of Britain, France, and the Soviet Union and other major powers in terms of the refinement of arms. In the battle sequence of all units in the Eighth Theater, there are formed infantry, artillery, cavalry, engineers, baggage troops, armored troops, special forces, air defense troops, airborne troops, medical corps, and so on.

In addition, the quality of the officers in the Eighth Theater is also very high, and they have their own secret military schools, which can train a large number of grassroots officers. Most importantly, the supreme commander of this army, Chen Feng, was a war genius who successfully commanded many large battles and dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army.

Coupled with the huge financial resources of the Chen family, the logistics support of Chen Feng's department is not a problem at all, and with penicillin, a super drug, no one can drag this army to death in terms of economy. Therefore, Major General Ivan believed that in the near future, this warlord force entrenched on the border of China would surely become a formidable force to dominate Chinese politics. (To be continued......)