When Fang Yongle returned with the mountain division, the strength of the Red 28th Army reached more than 80,000 people, and the quality of the soldiers was further improved. At the same time, because the current three leaders of the Red 28th Army had all worked hard together in Dabie Mountain, and they had a more tacit understanding in cooperation than when Zhang Dingcheng was an outsider, even if Lao Jiang later sent an unprecedented army of 5 or 600,000 to invade Dabie Mountain, the "trio" of the Red 28th Army still made him return with a feather

Hu Weidong did this in order to strengthen the Liliang in the Dabie Mountain Base Area and make it a solid barrier to the south of the Soviet District in Western Henan, but also to balance the strength of the two armies within the Red Eighth Army. The 15 th Red Army was a unit started by Hu Weidong, and it was much stronger than Gao Jingting's 28 th Red Army in terms of strength and combat effectiveness. It is not a good thing that such an extremely unbalanced situation continues for a long time, now that Fang Yongle has brought 30,000 elite soldiers over, the Red 28th Army with 3 divisions has half the strength of the Red 15th Army, and considering Gao Jingting's terrible ability to pull the team, the Red Eighth Army should be able to gradually move towards balance, right?

In fact, due to the short history, the mountain faction within the Red Eighth Army is not very obvious now, but the Red Eighth Army as a whole is more obvious when it comes to the outside world. After seizing Taiyuan, Hu Weidong sent a telegram to the central government and asked the army to go south to join the division, but many cadres were not very happy, they felt that Taiyuan was fought hard by themselves, and on the other hand, the army did not contribute, so why should they be allowed to take a piece of the pie? It was precisely because of this that Hu Weidong first noticed the signs of mountaineering in the military and began to adopt a series of methods to suppress and defuse them. When the main Red Army went south into Taiyuan, none of the machinery and equipment in the city that were ordered to be confiscated by Hu Weidong were gone, and even some of the unused ones were ordered by him to be dismantled into parts for backup, and he also did not want to hand over the massive wealth seized to the central government, because he felt that he would be better used than the central government if he knew the future history, especially the direction of scientific and technological development

On May 4, 1936, Taizu personally led more than 50,000 people of the main force of the First Army to Taiyuan to Taiyuan to meet more than 120,000 people of the Red 15th Army (the mountain division had already gone south to Dabie Mountain).

"You are Comrade Hu Weidong?" Although Taizu had been mentally prepared, he couldn't help but be a little surprised to see Hu Weidong so young.

"Chairman of the report, I'm twenty-two years old, but my face is tender," Hu Weidong defended as always, fortunately, because of his early development, he has basically stopped growing taller now, so this lie is not a goof, but he also deeply understands the difficulty of making a lie, and has become more and more cautious in his words and deeds since then.

Because Hu Weidong's temperament is very mature and heavy, a height of more than one meter and eight meters is considered tall among the Chinese who are generally malnourished today, even with the wisdom of Taizu, he has not been able to see the problem, but even if Hu Weidong is 22 years old, his contributions over the past year or so are still amazing.

Although they had been mentally prepared, after learning that the Red Eighth Army now had 250,000 regular Red Army, more than 100,000 standard rifles, more than 12,000 submachine guns, more than 2,000 light and heavy machine guns, more than 1,000 mortars and more than 300 barreled artillery, the central leaders still showed surprise, and Taizu, who had always been optimistic, smiled and praised, "Even I didn't expect that the Red Army, which was almost in a desperate situation a year ago, has now grown to 400,000 people, and the equipment is still so good, Comrade Hu Weidong, The party and the people will never forget your great contributions to the revolution! By the way, don't be stingy, tell everyone about your experience. ”…,

"Wherever and wherever I am, it is Comrade Su Yu who commands the war, and Comrade Mao Zetan who relies on the political work. Moreover, without the old Red Army and party members recruited along the way as the backbone, the Eighth Army Corps would never have developed to its current size. In addition, our luck has always been good, several gambling that may lead to the annihilation of the army have won a big victory, but luck cannot always favor us, and now that the family is big, we can't always 'seek wealth and danger' as before", Hu Weidong said honestly, "If you want to talk about experience, it is probably that I only care about what I am good at, and leave what I am not good at to people who are good at doing."

Hu Weidong's words caused Taizu to think deeply, the Red Party's employment thinking has always been deeply influenced by the Soviet Union, that is, party members and cadres as the screws of the revolution, where they are needed, where they are needed, loyalty and reliability, hard work and resentment are the first, ability and expertise have always been placed in the second place, this method of employing people is sometimes very advantageous, but for some more professional industries and positions, it is not just loyalty to the party can do haode. Although Taizu was a communist, he was also deeply influenced by traditional Chinese thought (not only Confucianism), and now Hu Weidong has gradually gained the upper hand in his heart with the concept of "only the right to be appointed" and "only to be the best in troubled times", which has had a profound impact on his later employment policy

Hu Weidong, who didn't want to be in the limelight, gave Su Yu a high evaluation again in the subsequent conversation, although Taizu had some impression of Su Yu for a long time, but he was still a little surprised after hearing such a high evaluation of Hu Weidong, and soon turned to talk to Su Yu. Hu Weidong did not forget to praise Mao Zetan, and by the way, he also made a gesture of goodwill to the political work system, "In fact, the Red Eighth Army can have the current scale, Comrade Mao Zetan has also made great contributions, without the excellent work of these political work cadres, the Red Eighth Army would not have snowballed and grown, and if it were not for the political workers to unify their thinking, mobilize the masses, and transform a large number of prisoners of war into our liberation fighters, the Red Army would not have been able to fight more and more." Political work is less visible than military command, but the contribution of political workers cannot be ignored in any way."

Hu Weidong's words made all the political cadres present have a good impression, and Taizu turned his eyes to his younger brother Mao Zetan for the first time, but he only patted his younger brother on the shoulder and said, "You did a good job." ”。 But just this simple compliment has made Mao Zetan almost can't help but shed tears, which shows how difficult it is for him to get a praise from his eldest brother since he was a child