Starting at nine o'clock in the morning, except for half an hour for lunch, until ten o'clock in the evening, Wang Zhenyu did not rest.

He met with twenty-eight people one after another, and many people were secretly surprised by such vigorous energy.

But the most surprising thing is that Wang Zhenyu did not meet with a general of the army. However, early in the morning, he asked the new secretary He Yingqin to convey an order to hold a small-scale meeting on the third floor of the administrative building tomorrow afternoon, which would be attended only by officers at and above the division commander level. This order, which left many people scratching their heads, was quickly and effectively executed. After receiving the telegram, many high-ranking generals who were still in Liuzhou chose to take a special train to Anjiang on the same day. At this time, the fastest speed of the railway was 60 kilometers per hour, and it took 18 hours from Liuzhou to Anjiang.

At three o'clock in the afternoon of May 24, Wang Zhenyu strode into the conference room.

The senior generals who were notified to attend the meeting all stood up and greeted each other, and Wang Zhenyu suddenly felt the liliang on his body when he saw these familiar and somewhat unfamiliar faces. He threw the cloak to Wang Chenhao, and then raised his hand to signal everyone to sit down.

Then he said with a smile: "I haven't seen you for a long time, so I will follow the rules of the army to name everyone, and if you arrive, you should arrive." Yang Wangui"

"Here." Yang Wangui hurriedly got up......

This meeting has a representative name in history, called the 524 Conference, and in the words of historians, it was this meeting that determined the direction of the history of the Republic of China.

The list of participants in the 524 meeting is as follows:

Marshal: Wang Zhenyu Chief of General Staff: Major General Yang Wangui; Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Director of the Training Department: Lieutenant General Wan Yaohuang; Minister of Armaments: Major General Ma Xicheng;

Major General Song Haomin, Minister of Armed Mobilization; Major General He Jian, Director of Military Intelligence; Major General Yu Zuobai, commander of the military police.

Major General Xu Yuanquan, commander of the First Army, Major General Liu Xing, commander of the Second Army, Major General Li Zongren, commander of the Third Army, Major General Zhao Dongsheng, deputy commander of the First Army and commander of the First Division; Major General Tao Zhiyue, Chief of Staff of the First Army and Commander of the Fifth Division;

Major General Li Hongkui, commander of the 6th Division.

Major General Dai Yue, Deputy Commander of the Second Army and Commander of the Second Division; Major General Liao Lei, Chief of Staff of the Second Army and Commander of the Fourth Division;

Major General Zhou Zhengming, commander of the 8th Division.

Major General Chen Yuxin, commander of the Third Division of the Third Army; Major General Bai Chongxi, Chief of Staff of the Third Army and Commander of the Seventh Division......

Wang Zhenyu opened his mouth with a solemn face: "All of you here are the core members of our Tiger Youth Army, and today's meeting is related to the life and death of our Tiger Youth Army. Therefore, I hope that everyone here will not be half surprised by the content of the next meeting, and at the same time carefully take notes and pay attention to confidentiality. ”

After saying this, Wang Zhenyu opened his notebook and asked very casually: "Before talking about the official content, I would like to ask all of you here, what are your views or opinions on the Beiyang Army, you can say it and listen to it, and you can talk about it if you don't listen to it." I won't call names, but from my left-hand side, stand up and say what you have an idea. ”

"Report to the marshal, except for the time in Hubei, we haven't had much deal with the Beiyang Army, but judging from the second revolution last year, their combat effectiveness is indeed amazing. You must know that the entire southern People's Army claims to be 500,000, and there are 200,000 at the worst, but in the face of the offensive of the Beiyang Army, it was unable to support it for even two months, and lost the territory of Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Hunan provinces in a row. Judging from the intelligence data provided by our Military Intelligence Bureau, throughout the course of the war, the Beiyang Army gave full play to its advantages of fierce firepower and well-trained training in almost every battle. Except for the effective resistance of the Southern People's Army in Anhui, Nanjing, and Hukou in Jiangxi, the other resistances were almost vulnerable. So in my opinion, the tiger of the Beiyang Army cannot be provoked by our youth army. As the chief of staff of the Youth Army, Yang Wangui, who was the first on Wang Zhenyu's left, naturally stood up and took the lead in speaking.

Xu Yuanquan and others, who spoke next, also meant the same thing, and Wan Yaohuang stood up and expressed a different point of view.

"I don't dare to agree with Chief of Staff Yang's point of view, what Beiyang Army is invincible, what Beiyang Army is like a tiger, in my opinion, they are all making excuses for their own failures. Everyone is a soldier who knows the soldiers, and I don't think much of the difference between the army's training methods and drill rules is. At the beginning, the Manchu Qing Dynasty ran and trained the new army according to a model, and the so-called six towns of Beiyang were just sufficient funds and advanced equipment. In fact, we all saw during the autumn exercise of Zhangde, and the eighth and ninth towns of the Southern Army were not inferior to the elite soldiers of the six towns of Beiyang in terms of combat effectiveness alone. In my opinion, last year's Second Revolution was a farce at all, and the revolutionary party headed by Sun Wen was not evenly matched in its own internal ranks, was not well prepared for armed struggle, had a clear combat goal, and was not firm in its will to fight, and even the supreme commander Huang Xing fought with the intention of defeat. In this case, their combat effectiveness is not even as good as the Changde Army and the Gui Army that we defeated last year, how can they possibly confront the Six Towns of Beiyang? On the contrary, I also read the information provided by the Military Intelligence Bureau and made a serious analysis, and the shortcomings of the Beiyang Army were completely placed in front of us. One of the biggest characteristics is that they are basically unable to leave railways, waterways and other convenient transportation areas. Their ferocious firepower requires a huge amount of ammunition to support, and once their logistical supply is interrupted, the combat troops will become panicked, and this is particularly evident in the war in Anhui, where the Ninth Division of the Southern People's Army successfully defeated a regiment of the Beiyang Army in Anhui and was pushed back by more than 30 kilometers on the entire front. What does this mean, it shows that the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Army is also very limited, and once the superiority in firepower cannot be guaranteed, their combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced immediately. So their victory, I don't think it's how strong they are, on the contrary, I think it's their opponents who are too bad. If the opponent is replaced by our youth army, the outcome of this war will definitely be very different, although our heavy firepower is not comparable to them, but the firepower of our grassroots combat units is beyond the reach of the entire Beiyang Army, so I insist that the Beiyang Army is absolutely not worth fearing, in the face of such an opponent, as long as we dare to fight with it, victory will inevitably belong to our invincible youth army. ”

After Wan Yaohuang finished speaking, the venue resounded with warm applause, Tao Zhiyue and other senior officers who had returned to the Xiangxi Military Academy naturally strongly supported Wan Yaohuang's views as the chief of education. In the following speeches, many people supported the view that Beiyang is inferior to their own.

Wang Zhenyu has been listening with a serious expression, but secretly observing and analyzing his subordinates.

Obviously, there are already mountains in their own youth army, that is, the well-known faction. And this mountain is obviously not one, after the whole meeting was spoken, three obvious mountains were placed in front of Wang Zhenyu.

Xu Yuanquan, Wan Yaohuang, and Li Zongren are already faintly self-contained. The emergence of this mountain is inevitable and does not depend on the will of the individual. Wang Zhenyu is not afraid of this, in his opinion, no matter how powerful he is, there are only 24 hours a day, if he wants his group to continue to grow and develop, he must learn to grasp the big and let go of the small, and acquiesce to the emergence and existence of the mountain, after all, there is no party outside the party, imperial thought, no faction in the party, and there are all kinds of strange things.

However, what interests Wang Zhenyu the most is that it is obvious that although Yang Wangui is in the position of chief of staff and has a certain network and prestige in the army, but because he really lacks the aura worthy of everyone's follow, and he lacks enough ambition and skill, he is as honest as Liu Xing and Song Haomin under his own name.

As for these three mountains, Wang Zhenyu also has a principle, allowing them to develop and grow, restraining each other, and it will be easy for him to control himself, and he can rely on these old subordinates to firmly control the whole army. And once the control is out of control and the contradictions between each other intensify, Wang Zhenyu also has a way to level these hills, after all, there is still a difference between his youth army and the warlord troops, middle and lower-level officers, recruits are firmly controlled by themselves through the staff and other departments, and it is not an easy task to pull the flag and rebel here.

Let's think back to the meeting, just when these mountains were busy arguing, Wang Zhenyu coughed:

"Do you want to know, what is the biggest gain from my trip to Beijing?"

As soon as these words came out, everyone stopped arguing and turned their eyes to Wang Zhenyu.

Wang Zhenyu smiled and continued: "I stayed in Beijing for half a year, and I didn't do anything serious, I only saw the process of a towering tree slowly decaying. Beiyang is such a towering tree, what Chief of Staff Yang said makes sense, Beiyang is indeed very strong, and no one needs to work hard to overthrow this. Arrogance is not a good thing, seeking truth from facts is what we who lead troops should strive to do. Our Lao Yuan has lost effective control over this huge armed group under his hands, don't believe Sun Dacang and their propaganda, in their mouths, Beiyang is about to become an iron plate, these fools will scare themselves. All the ministers are also right when they say that we have to strategically despise this opponent. You may not know how difficult it is for the central government to finance now, and in my opinion, it is even more difficult than before the Second Revolution, and many military forces are paid 30 percent and 40 percent. And those Beiyang generals who led the troops became uncontrollable after they arrived in the new place, and they all supported the troops and respected themselves, and the financial revenue was stunned and refused to pay a penny to Beijing. If this is in our Anjiang, it will be impossible to happen. But in Beiyang, not only did this happen, but Lao Yuan had no choice. Let me tell you, now Lao Yuan is busy with two things all day long, one is to respect Confucius retro, and the other is to restore the imperial system. In the final analysis, it is still the idea of using feudal theocracy to fool people, I don't know if this will succeed or not, but when things come to this point, I can only say that Lao Yuan has no tricks to revive their Beiyang, and I am here today to say a cruel word, whoever changes to Lao Yuan's position will not be able to play Beiyang. ”