General Wang Mingyuan, who took command of the huge expeditionary force in charge of nine armies, two other independent heavy artillery divisions, and two railway divisions, had no time to care about the disappearance of a lieutenant colonel. Now he had to think about the actions of the expeditionary force as a whole.

But he still asked Admiral Ye Yanbing about his return trip. From Vinnitsa to the Far East, the railway line along this route was basically in the hands of the Chinese army, and his safety was guaranteed, but he still issued an order asking the military stations in various places to report on General Ye's return to ensure his safety.

Ye Yanbing did not come to resign and returned to China directly, and he must have held his breath in his heart. This may be unfair to him, but Wang Mingyuan understands Long Qian's decision. The transfer back of Ye Yanbing will help repair the relationship with the Russians, the Russians are now in a hurry, the sharp turn of the war situation on the Polish front has caused the Russian army base camp to fall into a panic, and the telegrams from the Southwest Army of the Russian Army and the two general staff of China and Russia to Wang Mingyuan are as high as dozens of times a day, all of which talk about the complete deterioration of the Polish war situation. The main force of the expeditionary force is moving towards southern Poland, and it is facing the problem of coordination with the two fronts of the Russian army, the southwest and the west, and it will be much more troublesome if Ye Yanbing is not transferred.

Brusilov hated Ye Yanbing so much. It is believed that the responsibility for the collapse of the main front of the Southwest Front Army should be borne by General Ye Yanbing. Long Qian's categorical recall of Ye Yanbing could appease the anger of the Russians to the greatest extent and transform the political issue into a relatively purely military issue.

Ye Yanbing's "passive avoidance of war" should not be his personal responsibility, Wang Mingyuan knows this. The president's strategy for Russia is a huge plan, and Wang Mingyuan suspects that there are many next steps and arrangements that he does not know. It is not disadvantageous for Ye Yanbing to hold the main force of the expeditionary force in Ukraine, which Wang Mingyuan, who believes that he has a gap with Lu, Feng, Ye and other fathers of the same level militarily, also sees it very clearly.

If the Germans rushing into the heart of Poland from the direction of Krakow are compared to a bison. Now the sword of the expeditionary force is not aimed at the head of the ox, but at the relatively weak body of the ox. As the main German forces extended into central Poland, their rear became increasingly weak, giving the main forces of the Chinese army assembled west of Lviv more options.

This situation is extremely favorable to the Chinese army. Ye Yanbing, who caused this situation, was sacrificed.

Long Qian gave very clear instructions on the strategic policy of the expeditionary force, and even after he arrived in Russia, Long Qian mentioned this issue more than once in his telegrams to him. In addition to political considerations, Long Qian resolutely opposed positional warfare, and scoffed at the ideas of the battles of Ypres, Verdun, and the Somme. Even the expeditionary force that has been armed with all its might is still called Hanako compared to the old powers such as Germany, France, Britain, and Russia, so the kind of positional warfare that relies on money and human lives should be avoided as much as possible. The Eastern Front has a natural advantage in positional warfare. It is necessary to use the method of mobile warfare to embody the value of the expeditionary force. Ye Yanbing and Xiong Xun implemented the president's line of thought in Romania. Although the troops were exhausted from the march, they made unexpected achievements. One of the reasons why Ye Yanbing stopped the Xiong Xun group's attack on Bulgaria was that he was unwilling to fight positional warfare. After Ye Yanbing returned to Ukraine, all the arrangements were to continue to plan movement warfare, emphasize the movement of the troops, and spare no effort to solve the transportation problem. It is ready to continue the policy of movement warfare after the main forces are thrown into the battle in the Polish direction. Strive to create an opportunity to fight a war of annihilation.

Wang Mingyuan is now feeling a heavy pressure. When the expeditionary force team was formed, Long Qian asked for his opinion. He confessed that he lacked experience in commanding large corps operations. It is best to choose one of Feng and Ye to take command of the expedition. Feng Guozhu commanded the Shandong Campaign, and Ye Yanbing's command ability in the Founding Battle has been proven, and he is longer than the army management. Since the incident in Guangzhou, he has not fought a big battle in a solid manner.

Long Qian disagreed. Long Qian said, "Strictly speaking, all of us in this team lack the experience of fighting in large corps, including Lu Shan. The battles we fought were pediatric on the scale of the European wars. Feng Guozhu won the Shandong Campaign, but from the formulation of the plan and the specific command, the General Staff was deeply involved. Experience needs to be gained in real combat, there are no shortcuts, and there are no geniuses. This is not a problem, even Hindenburg and Ludendorff, they are afraid that they do not have the experience of commanding a million-strong army, right? It's been almost 20 years since you started from Mengshanzhai, right? If you have been engaged in the army, you may not be worse than those foreign commanders.

"However, the expeditionary force is fighting abroad, which is completely different from at home, this is the first battle of the Wehrmacht abroad, and it is related to the country's millennium plan, and the requirements for the commander-in-chief are even higher! First and foremost, it is necessary to understand and absolutely implement the instructions of the country, which of course are of principle. The second is to have a high prestige in the troops. You fit the bill. You are a prudent, honest, non-self-interested, and fair person, which is a well-known person. Your younger brother Tongyuan is also a veteran of the Mengshan Army, and he joined the army after forming the Fifth Town, right? But I have never been taken care of by you, and the title is only a colonel, which should be said to be a loss, and you are better than them. My choice of you as commander has been repeatedly considered, the expeditionary force units come from various hills, and you have been the defense minister for many years, so you can hold on. As for fighting, I can match you with the best team of assistants......"

These words are still in my ears.

Long Qian first formed the 1st Group Army of the Expeditionary Force, and several of the armies in its formation were selected by him (Wang Mingyuan), except for the commander, the rest of the senior officers were equipped according to his opinions, the deputy commander Xiong Xun was the heavy general of the northern army, and the chief of staff Xue Xiaocai was from the Shandong Army, and assisted Feng Guozhu to win a key battle with the Japanese. The commander is undoubtedly the most important, he recommended Shi Dashou after several considerations, in terms of seniority, Shi Dashou is an old man who has participated in the reorganization of the army in Mengshan, at that time he was the company commander of the only few companies under Long Qian, and now he is the commander of the Northern Military Region, and the 1st Army has the most troops from the Northern Military Region, and its 9th Army is one of the three trump cards of the National Defense Force.

However, Long Qian vetoed the commander he recommended, and instead used Ye Yanbing.

In his opinion, Ye Yanbing's actual status in the national defense army is not lower than himself and Feng Guozhu, Shi Dashou and a group of people, after Ning Shijun left the army, Ye Yanbing is the leader of the Shandong Army, and Chen Chao's son-in-law. There is no doubt that he has won Long Qian's trust. The reason why Ye Yanbing was chosen, he guessed that Long Qian borrowed Ye Yanbing's experience in defensive warfare, and there was a saying in the National Defense Army that it was called sealing and attacking Ye Shou. The difficulty of the Dezhou Battle was not small, but Ye Yanbing did not live up to Long Qian's trust and won the key battle that determined the direction of the country.

But this is inconsistent with Long Qian's idea of fighting sports warfare, is it inappropriate to let a general who is good at fighting tough battles and ending up in the village command sports warfare? But Ye Yanbing, who went to Russia in advance, made a stunning victory in Romania, which fully proved the sharpness of Long Qian's eyes and the plasticity of their generals who grew up with Long Qian. After the Romanian campaign. Situ Jun organized a campaign seminar. He was also invited to participate, and at the seminar, Situ Jun was full of praise for Ye Yanbing and Xiong Xun's command in the Romanian campaign, believing that the rhythm of several changes of attack and defense was excellent. It is fully proved that even in mountain warfare, where the terrain and people are completely unfamiliar. The same can be used to the strengths of the Wehrmacht's mobile warfare. It also proved that the president's policy of asking the expeditionary force to annihilate the enemy in a movement regardless of the gains and losses of one city or one place was completely correct.

With the victory of the Romanian campaign at the bottom, Wang Mingyuan handed over the military command to Ye Yanbing, and went to Petersburg to meet the top Russian military and political leader with confidence. Consultation on coordination and logistical aspects of the expeditionary force's operations. The tsar received him with the utmost courtesy, and the generals of the Russian high command did not hesitate to praise the Chinese expeditionary force, which came from the victory of Romania.

But it was at this time that Ye Yanbing had a problem, first of all, there was a serious disagreement with General Brusilov, the brightest star of the Russian army, in Bulgaria's strategy, and the Russians made concessions, and they were in charge of the Bulgarian strategy. At that time, he realized that it would take at least 20 days to withdraw the Chinese expeditionary force at the gate of Bulgaria and then transfer the Russian army there, and the fighters were afraid that they had already been lost, and he could not find such a deployment in the history of Chinese and foreign wars. In the secret telegram exchange with Ye Yanbing, Ye Yanbing clearly judged that the Russian army would not succeed, and he felt that Ye Yanbing was a little gloating, and sat back and watched the Russian army fail in Bulgaria due to insufficient firepower.

General Brusilov's report to Petersburg placed the blame for the Bulgarian defeat on Ye Yanbing. It is said that it was entirely because General Ye Yanbing's behavior in disregard of the overall situation led to the defeat of the battle, and if the southernmost two armies of the Chinese Expeditionary Force (the 5th and 9th) had been transferred to him, the Germans in Bulgaria would have been driven out long ago. His Majesty the Tsar, who seemed to him (Wang Mingyuan) to be generous and benevolent, suppressed Brusilov's report, only regretted it to him, and again appreciated the contribution of the expeditionary force. He was a little ashamed in his heart, knowing that the fundamental reason for Ye Yanbing's disobedience was that Long Qian did not want to send the expeditionary force to the battlefield in southeast Europe, not only because it was far away from the railway line controlled by the Chinese, but also because it was inconvenient to carry out the Russian strategy that had been determined. However, this kind of strategic mistake still made Wang Mingyuan feel a little sorry for the Russians, and at the same time, he also deeply felt the cruelty of politics, and there was no slightest warmth and affection on issues involving national interests, only cold interests.

But the president is right, and there is nothing wrong with Ye Yanbing. Giving the two elite armies to the Russians to fight Germany to the death will not bring any benefits, can China reap any benefits in that poor place in Bulgaria? He couldn't see it at all.

But mustard has already sprouted, and then on the Polish issue, Ye Yanbing's approach angered the Russians. They are unwilling to admit their strategic mistakes, but blame the failure of the southwest theater on the ulterior motives of the Chinese. The French were Russia's traditional strategic allies, and the French ambassador and head of the highest French military delegation to Russia approached him and accused the Chinese expeditionary force of inaction from the point of view of the highest interests of the Entente. If the severe defeat of the Russian army in Poland is unacceptable to the Entente, it will affect the entire strategy of the Entente and thus affect the support of the United States for China!

He didn't care about the threat from the French, but Long Qian's harshly worded telegram came, asking him to stay with Van der Ping in Petersburg to negotiate cooperation with the Russians, quickly return to Vinnitsa to take over the command of the expeditionary force, and use practical actions to save the impact. Immediately afterwards, Ye Yanbing's dismissal order was issued, and he lost his most trusted assistant in the military.

Now General Wang Mingyuan must face the complicated situation and assume the highest responsibility. Since yesterday, the Germans have stormed the defense line of the 21st Army in Lublin, and the battle has been fierce. Zhang Zuoxiang's latest telegram to Wang Mingyuan said that the Germans had broken through the defensive line of the 63rd Division and were organizing a counterattack. Zhang Zuoxiang's telegram did not mention reinforcements. But it was said that the Germans showed signs of a detour to the rear of Lublin.

According to Wang Mingyuan's order, Lieutenant General Xiong Xun, commander of the 1st Group Army, rushed back to the headquarters of the Vinnitsa Expeditionary Force to assist Wang Mingyuan in his work.

After Ye Yanbing adjusted the organization of the two armies according to the actual situation, the 1st Army currently only has jurisdiction over the 5th, 9th, 15th, and 16th armies, of which the 5th and 9th armies remain on the Chernivtsi line in order to prevent the deterioration of the situation in Romania and endanger the security of the expeditionary force's line of communication. The 15th and 16th armies had already moved westward and actually joined the 2nd Army under the command of Shi Dashou, so that in the southeast of Poland, the expeditionary force could devote seven armies and two independent heavy artillery divisions.

Xiong Xun, who rushed back to the Vinnitsa headquarters, spent four hours studying the situation. reported to Wang Mingyuan. "The Germans clearly wanted to put all the Western Front in the net. I don't quite believe the intelligence that the Russians gave us. Against the German army of the Russian 11th Army, there will never be 9 divisions or more, at most 5 divisions! Its main forces had to go north, not south. Now the Germans were divided into two large groups along the Vistula River, which coordinated with each other. The target of the German forces on the west bank of the Vistula River was Warsaw, and its strategic task was to cooperate with the German forces on the northern route to encircle the Russian Western Front. The Germans on the east bank of the Vistula were mainly directed against our troops. It was painful for the Germans. But without this route, the realization of the strategic intentions of the German army cannot be guaranteed. After all, it is impossible to hide the news of the build-up of our troops from the Germans......

"The commander was right to order the 21st Army to hold on to Lublin, which was a transportation hub in eastern Poland, and it would be difficult for the Germans to deploy their main corps to Warsaw without taking Lublin. Nor can it obtain a strategic support point facing our army. This way the German army came very violently, opened his flanks and ignored it, did the Germans feel that there was a problem with the cooperation between our army and the Russian army? It's interesting.

"Was the commander worried that the Germans would bypass Lublin and rush to Warsaw? I think it's unlikely. As long as Lublin is in the hands of our army, the German army will not be free to move. So the Germans had to occupy Lublin to feel safe. The 21st Army did not need to block the German detour in the direction of Warsaw, it only needed to hold on to this point. If the Germans are willing to take a detour, it will be better for him to take a detour, and it is now winter, which is conducive to the movement of the German army, and if they bypass Lublin and join the German army in the inner ring, it will not be detrimental to our army. My opinion is that the main forces should not move yet, but should see what the Germans are moving. ”

"I see what you mean...... Let me think about it......" Wang Mingyuan fell into a difficult choice.

Wang Mingyuan understood Xiong Xun's intentions. According to the information provided by the Russians, the German army that poured in from the entrance of Krakow was judged to be about 30 divisions, of which 9 divisions turned to the southeast to attack the Russian 11th Army and drive it to the southeast to ensure the safety of the German rear. The main forces were divided into two routes, launching a surprise attack along the banks of the Vistula River to the north, the German troops on the west bank broke through to Warsaw along the Kielce-Radom and engaged in fierce battles with the units of the Russian Western Front, and the other broke along the east bank of the Vistula River to Lublin through Starova Walla. This German force of about 10 divisions, its forward units had already engaged in fierce battles with the 21st Army, trying to occupy Lublin and form an outer ring facing the Chinese army.

The seven field armies thrown by the expeditionary forces to Poland were a force that was enough to turn the tide! If you immediately put into attack, you can cut off the German army on the east bank of the Vistula River and form a small encirclement between the breakthrough point and Lublin, and if you do it well, you will catch the Germans with 3~5 divisions. But the Germans could also have escaped, as there was no enemy to the west. When the expeditionary force crossed the Vistula, it was bound to engage the German forces in the inner ring, thus drawing the Germans to their side. In this way, the crisis on the southern route of the Russian Western Front was resolved, but the pressure of the campaign was likely to be borne by the Chinese Expeditionary Force.

Xiong Xun's plan is exactly the same as Ye Yanbing's. That is, let the Russians and Germans fight first, and then the Chinese expeditionary force will play the role of savior after the situation is clear.

But this will inevitably continue to deteriorate Sino-Russian relations...... The plans of the expeditionary force could not be concealed from anyone. If the Russian Western Front suffered heavy losses, even if the Chinese army regained Warsaw, it would be useless. Most of Poland would be occupied by the Germans, and the German eastern front would be shortened by more than 500 kilometers, saving a lot of troops.

Xiong Xun considered the problem from a military point of view, but Wang Mingyuan had to add the political factor.

That night, Wang Mingyuan personally drafted a top-secret telegram to Beijing, and personally went to the telegraph room to watch the telegraph operator send out the telegram. In this long telegram, he analyzed the situation of the expeditionary force, and launched an attack in advance to save the collapse of the Russian army. While waiting for the Supreme Commander to call back, Wang Mingyuan called Xiong Xun and Xue Xiaocai to explain the reasons for his decision. Xiong Xun understood Wang Mingyuan's decision, and Commander Ye had already made a sacrifice for this, "Commander Wang, even if you fight according to your plan, you need to wait for more troops of the German army to drill into the predetermined encirclement." What's the point of a rout? ”

"But Zhang Zuoxiang fought very hard. Reinforcements were not requested, but the meaning was clear. You've been in the Northern Military District, and you know this army better than I do, right? Will they be able to hold Lublin? Do you need reinforcements from the 3rd Army? ”

"I don't know as much about the 21st Army as you do. I have been leading the 5th Army in Outer Mongolia, and I only took over the 9th Army last year. If I didn't feel at ease, I flew to Lublin to supervise the battle. ”

"That's not necessary, I need you to go to Dashou to assist him in command," Wang Mingyuan pondered for a moment, "I decided to report to Beijing again, we will immediately attack to aid the Russian army, don't embarrass the commander." Xiaocai, you will record. Wang Mingyuan said a sentence before dictating the message, "The presidential election is about to be held, so let's use a great victory to congratulate the commander on his re-election." ”

Wang Mingyuan's second secret telegram was sent again, saying that he would take into account the overall situation and launch an offensive campaign in advance, and the goal of the first phase of the campaign was to defeat and strive to annihilate the German army on the east bank of the Vistula River and ensure that the road of the expeditionary force in the direction of Warsaw was unblocked. According to the results of the first stage, the campaign objectives of the second stage will be determined.

That night, Lieutenant General Artemyev, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army, arrived in Vinnytsia, and General Wang Mingyuan received the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Army, whose mission was basically the same as that of Lieutenant General Van Deping, informed him of his determination, and told him that he had given the battle order that the troops of the Expeditionary Force assembled west of Lviv would launch an operation to try to destroy the German army on the east bank of the Vistula River, and then continue to assault to the west.

General Artemiev breathed a long sigh of relief when he heard the news. That's good, the previous differences with the Chinese army have basically been eliminated. His mission was to urge Admiral Wang to act immediately, and now he could return to the command. When Wang Mingyuan asked about the current situation of the two major fronts of the Russian army, General Artemyev admitted that the situation was very bad, and the Western Front was caught in the German army on three sides, and had to try his best to turn east to deal with the threat behind him. He advised Wang Mingyuan to transfer at least one army to the direction of Lublin, and from there to Warsaw, Wang Mingyuan understood that the Russian army was worried about the threat from the north and tried to break up the expeditionary force to take into account the various battlefields, "Now all the forces must be used in the face of the battlefield." You're talking about the second phase, so let's solve the crisis at hand. It is a pity that due to the rapid collapse of the southwestern front of your army, we lost the opportunity to achieve greater results and had to make sacrifices. This is in line with the strategy of Petersburg, but it is not what we wanted. (To be continued......)