Although at this time, the Itagaki Wing was less than 2,000 men left under the encirclement and interception of the military and civilians in the border area and the repeated air raids of the 15 th Army Flying Regiment, the Japanese base camp, which was in dire need of a victory to boost the morale of the whole army, still touted Itagaki as a "contemporary military god"

And the 115th Division and even the entire Eighth Route Army have been greatly stimulated, this is simply a slap in the face, a naked slap in the face! Hu Weidong and other leaders of the 15 th Army and even the Red Party Central Committee were also extremely embarrassed, and they had just received a reward on the grounds of completing the task, but they immediately found out that they had not completed the task, which felt really inferior. What made the top echelons of the Red Party even more depressed was that the "legal" opportunity for expansion that had been obtained with great difficulty was blown up like this?

At this time, Hu Weidong told the Military Commission in his personal name that the reason why he let Itagaki and others escape but did not notice it was because of his carelessness of the enemy, so he decided to give up the opportunity for promotion in military rank. At this time, if Lao Chiang continues to hold on to it, not only will it appear that he has no tolerance for others, but it will also be easy for the Japanese to see the contradictions between the two parties. However, Lao Chiang was not a vegetarian either, and he immediately revoked the order to upgrade the 15th Army to a group army on the grounds that it was unconventional for the lieutenant general to become the commander of the group army, and took advantage of this opportunity to force the Red Party to make substantial concessions on the division of the recovered land.

Although the Zuihou Eighth Route Army was still upgraded to a group army with three armies under its jurisdiction, a considerable part of the land recovered by the Eighth Route Army and the 15th Army from the devils was forced to give up, including all large and medium-sized cities such as Taiyuan, Datong, and Zhangjiakou, as well as some important county seats. Fortunately, most of the villages were finally recognized and later merged into the jurisdiction of the two border regions, and the Jinsui border region and the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei border region, and between the Jin-Chahar-Hebei border region and the newly established anti-Japanese base area in central Hebei, have been integrated. Coupled with the two major base areas of Pingxi and eastern Hebei, which are almost connected, the area of the North China base area has more than doubled compared with the population and the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War.

As for the 15th Army, Lao Chiang once wanted to withdraw the permission to expand it to four integrated divisions, but soon after, the situation of the Anti-Japanese War in Central China took a sharp turn for the worse, and Hu Weidong's visit to the Soviet Union also helped a lot in the negotiations between the national government and the Soviet Union, and Lao Chiang finally approved the number of the 4th integrated division of the 15th Army, of course. That's all for later

In addition, it is worth mentioning that due to the failure to intercept the Itagaki Wing and the heavy casualties of his own, Chen Guang, deputy commander of the 115th Division, was held accountable after the war. And because of this, he faded out of the line earlier than in history, but for him personally, it is not necessarily a bad thing

Taiyuan after the war. Since the Central Committee had already decided to accept the invitation of the Soviet side to send Hu Weidong to visit the Soviet Union before the end of 37, he had no choice but to hand over all the work of summing up the work after the war to Su Yu, while he hurried back to Luoyang in order to prepare the industrial and scientific research development of the border areas for the coming year as soon as possible before visiting the Soviet Union

With the purchase of equipment to form production capacity, the industrial production in the Central Plains border area has developed at an unprecedented speed, but the lack of infrastructure has become increasingly prominent, especially the large amount of steel required for railway construction, which has caused Hu Weidong a headache. Although he had an insight into the direction of scientific and technological development from the beginning, and was quite targeted when purchasing equipment, it was precisely because of this that he did not introduce much steelmaking equipment. Because at that time, the foreign steelmaking was not as advanced as the newly developed oxygen top blowing converter steelmaking, but the industrial foundation in the border area was too thin, and although the production efficiency of the converter was high, the construction speed was never satisfactory to Hu Weidong, and it was even more troublesome. With the rapid development of major industrial sectors, the demand for steel has increased faster, and if only the border area itself Liliang develops the steel industry, I am afraid that until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, this gap will not be closed. Although it is possible to purchase emergency goods for the time being, the price is high and you have to pay for precious hard currency. As Japan continued to expand its aggression, it would only become more difficult to import goods into the Kokudoku, and even fewer would be able to transport them to the border areas. …,

What's more, it is not only the Central Plains border region that needs to be industrialized, the problem in the northwest is more serious, just the Lanxin railway in Jihua needs two or three million tons of qualified steel, plus some important industrial and mining projects to be built, it is estimated that at least 5 million tons of qualified steel are also needed, and there is basically no decent steel industry in the northwest, where can we solve this almost astronomical terrible gap by ourselves? Hu Weidong thought about it, and at present he was able and probably willing to provide this kind of help (Germany had no way to provide these large quantities of materials due to the problem of transportation routes, not to mention that Hitler did not seem to have completely offended the Japanese. However, the negotiations between Zhou Gong and Mao Zemin in the Soviet Union did not go well, and Stalin, fearing that it would cause dissatisfaction with the national government, kept prevaricating and delaying, refusing to provide substantial assistance to the Red Party. It was not until Hu Weidong wiped out 100,000 Japanese troops in one fell swoop with a blitzkrieg that Stalin, who was deeply shaken, was anxious to learn the details of this new tactic, and formally proposed to Zhou Gong that Hu Weidong would visit the Soviet Union and hinted that the negotiations on aid would be accelerated. Dimitrov was also very interested in the experience of the Central Plains border region in developing from an agricultural area into an industrial zone in just a few years, and also extended an invitation to Hu Weidong; considering the tremendous influence of this gentleman in the international communist movement and his long-term goodwill and help to the Chinese Red Party, although the central government was still somewhat worried about the Soviet side, after consulting Hu Weidong's personal opinion, it finally decided to send him to the Soviet Union.

Before leaving Lanzhou, the great man called Hu Weidong into his study and instructed him alone, "Weidong, go to the Soviet Union, don't forget to find someone." ”

"Ma Zhongying?" , Hu Weidong was surprised, he still knows a little bit about this strange man in history, but he didn't expect the great man to pay so much attention to him, after Ma Zhongying was defeated and went to the Soviet Union, the vast majority of people in China basically didn't know whether he was dead or alive, but the great man was so clear about Ma Zhongying's current situation, obviously he began to pay attention to him a long time ago.

"Weidong, if you are given 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 infantry, and twenty or thirty artillery pieces, and the other party has 10,000 infantry, 100 cannons, 20 tanks, and 20 aircraft, and there is sufficient ammunition, well-trained, and not afraid of death, can you take it down?" , Taizu asked with a smile.

Hu Weidong shook his head without thinking about it, "I can't win, unless I replace our army's 3,000 cavalry with fifty cannons, and then remove the opponent's planes" (Your support is my biggest motivation.) )