Zhou Enlai sent Ye Ting thousands of miles, and Xiang Ying and Zhou Enlai were embarrassed to clink glasses.

On the eve of the Chinese New Year.

Macau.

Ye Ting's home.

"Xiyi, there's a telegram from Chongqing." On this day, Li Xiuwen, who is already a mother of seven children, is happily telling people to prepare more food for the New Year, because Ye Ting has not spent the Spring Festival with his children for several years, but at this moment, ......the doorbell rang urgently. At the door opened, a postman sent an urgent telegram. Li Xiuwen saw that it was sent from Chongqing, and knew that there must be something urgent, so he hurriedly called Ye Ting, who was reading in the hall.

Ye Ting took a look, the two thick eyebrows rose and fell, fell and rose again, and a "Sichuan" shaped gully between the eyebrows became deeper and deeper.

"Xiyi, it's ......" Li Xiuwen, who was holding the newborn Qizi Ye Zhengguang in his arms, was wearing a goose-yellow brocade cheongsam with a fish-shaped pattern, and a black gold-trimmed open-body thin sweater on his upper body.

"It was sent by Comrade Zhou Enlai and Comrade Ye Jianying." Ye Ting hurriedly told his wife, lest she be anxious for herself for no reason.

"Did they tell you to go to Chongqing?" Li Xiuwen asked further. "Yes." Ye Ting exhaled softly and replied calmly.

"What do you think will be the problem?" Li Xiuwen still asked uneasily.

"I guess it's to persuade me to go back to the New Fourth Army." Ye Ting's face was calm like water at this time, and his words were like microwave ripples.

Li Xiuwen sighed softly when he heard this: "Back to the New Fourth Army, will Xiang Ying change his attitude towards you?" ”

"Yes," Ye Ting listened to his wife's question, and his eyebrows, which had just stretched, were locked again, and the word "Sichuan" became more and more coarse, "The prejudice is too deep, Xiang Ying is stubborn and self-serving, pretentious, it's difficult!" He put down the book in his hand, took out a cigarette, put it on his mouth, squeaked the match, lit it, took a deep breath, and spit it out for a long time, a milky white cloud of smoke rolled and rushed, and immediately rose into a long trajectory in the hall, and the contemplative Ye Ting's face was dark, and he fell into infinite pain, worry, contradictions and longing memories for a while.

Since Ye Ting took office at the military headquarters of the New Fourth Army in Yansi Town, Shexian County, the assembly place of the New Fourth Army, Ye Ting has been in a mood of regret that has been difficult to reconcile for a long time, and has been bent on training the newly reorganized New Fourth Army into a mighty and victorious division under the instructions of the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao, so as to make up for the past mistakes of breaking away from the Communist Party and drifting abroad because he could not bear the grievances for a while. On the one hand, he showed the same vigor as he had in Zhaoqing to train the independent regiment, personally drew up the training program, went deep into the training grounds, personally presided over the drills, and personally taught military classes, so that the military quality of these Red Army guerrillas who had not received formal training in the past was rapidly improved. On the other hand, in view of the fact that the military equipment of the New Fourth Army was still very poor, he took advantage of his special status to continue to ask his old classmate Gu Zhutong, commander of the Third Theater, for guns and ammunition. To this end, Ye Ting can be said to have worked hard, painstakingly, and achieved remarkable results.

However, on the fundamental issue of the strategic tasks undertaken by the New Fourth Army and the principle of what policy should be adhered to in the united front of KMT-CPC cooperation, Ye Ting and Deputy Army Commander Xiang Ying had a major disagreement in principle. This major difference of principle is manifested in the irreconcilable division of labor between the two leading military and political leaders and the incompatibility of the personalities of the two people.

In the telegrams sent by the CPC Central Committee and Chairman Mao ** to the New Fourth Army Branch of the Central Military Commission, the CPC Central Committee and Chairman Mao pointed out unmistakably that the strategic task undertaken by the New Fourth Army is to unleash and organize the masses in the areas south of the Longhai Road, north of the Taihu Lake, along the Henan-Anhui border, northeast Anhui, and northern Jiangsu, to establish anti-Japanese base areas behind enemy lines, and to independently carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. However, Xiang Ying, as the political commissar and deputy commander of the New Fourth Army, supported the right-leaning capitulationist line of "everything through the united front" and "everything obeys the united front" and "everything obeys the united front" promoted by Wang Ming, then secretary of the Yangtze River Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

Although Ye Ting put forward Xiang Ying's erroneous proposition to Xiang Ying, it was to no avail.

Because Xiang Ying is the secretary of the New Fourth Army Branch of the Central Military Commission, the telegram sent by the Party Central Committee to the New Fourth Army Branch is an "intra-party secret"; Ye Ting is no longer a member of the Communist Party, but a "person outside the party" and a "united front object". "The party commands the gun", Ye Ting, as a non-party person, is not qualified to intervene in "problems within the party".

In addition, Xiang Ying is also an extraordinary husband and incompetent, and he is also a well-known figure, and he has also had a glorious history and proud achievements. He was elected a member of the Politburo and a ***** at the Sixth Party Congress in 1928, served as acting secretary of the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China in the Soviet District in 1931, and later rose to the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee. Not only that, Stalin also met Xiang Ying alone and personally gave him a pistol and a pen, becoming the first person among the CCP leaders to enjoy such an honor. In addition, Xiang Ying persisted in three years of extremely arduous guerrilla warfare in some areas of southern Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei and other provinces, preserved a part of the revolutionary armed forces, made the guerrillas one of the best anti-Japanese armies today, and accumulated a lot of valuable experience in waging guerrilla warfare.

It is true that you Ye Ting are the heroes of the Northern Expedition, but I, Xiang Ying, are also the heroes of the whole party who insist on guerrilla warfare. Your highest position Ye Ting was only to serve as the commander-in-chief of the former enemy during the "August 1 Nanchang Uprising", but I, Xiang Ying, served as the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee. Today's New Fourth Army is composed of the Red Army guerrillas in the eight southern provinces, and the guerrillas are from guerrilla backgrounds. And you know what it's like to persist in guerrilla warfare in the south? Besides, you have left the Communist Party and wandered abroad for 10 years, and these 10 years were the period when the country was engaged in a difficult agrarian revolutionary war. ……

Xiang Ying, who believed that he was an expert in guerrilla warfare and a pretentious person, although the Central Committee and Mao ** repeatedly stressed to him that "Ye Ting's status and role should be respected" and that "the military command asked Ye Ting to do it", how could he, with such an ideological foundation, allow Ye Ting to exercise supreme command over the troops?

Therefore, although the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chairman Mao repeatedly admonished Xiang Ying to "conduct education in the New Fourth Army to determine the correct relationship with Ye Ting, and the solution of Ye Ting's work problem will affect the future of the New Fourth Army, and the whole country's sympathy for me will also have a great relationship," he has always acted in defiance of the yang and the yin, and has gone his own way, and did not think so.

Therefore, Xiang Ying has always regarded himself as "Lao Tzu's No. 1 in the world" in the New Fourth Army, and has implemented "paternalistic" leadership within the party, acting arbitrarily and arbitrarily, and having the final say. Ye Ting was named army commander, but he was shut out of the door on the grounds that "people outside the party cannot participate in the New Fourth Army branch of the Central Military Commission," so he naturally had no opportunity to speak on the strategic deployment of the New Fourth Army and independently going behind enemy lines to carry out anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare.

What can a commander who does not have the power to decide talk about the command of the army? Doesn't a commander who loses command of his troops become a veritable deaf man's ears and puppet?

Also, Ye Ting and Xiang Ying are also very different in terms of life style and work style. Ye Ting felt that he was the lieutenant general of the National Revolutionary Army, and his every move had the prestige of a military commander. Therefore, he usually wears a general's uniform, an armed belt around his waist, long riding boots on his feet, and white gloves on his hands, and carries his exquisite and magical cane when he walks there. However, Xiang Ying wore a guerrilla's homespun cotton coat in winter and homespun clothes and trousers in summer, with cotton shoes on his feet in winter and straw sandals in summer. Therefore, in Xiang Ying's eyes, Ye Ting is full of the habits of being an official in the Kuomintang army: swaggering, paying attention to food and clothing.

Do you think that these two leaders, who are very different in terms of ideological line and style of life, have a common language? How can people who don't have a common language not go far from each other in action?

So, what was the fundamental reason for Ye Ting's decision to leave the New Fourth Army and run away? Originally, the Central Committee and Chairman Mao had made clear on many occasions the strategic tasks undertaken by the New Fourth Army, but Xiang Yingwei, who was quite conceited, could not be carried out for a long time. Later, after many senior party cadres such as Chen Yi, who served as deputy secretary of the New Fourth Army Branch of the Central Military Commission, argued with reason, Xiang Yingcai had no choice but to agree to allow the first detachment led by Chen Yi and the second detachment led by Zhang Dingcheng to march into southern Jiangsu and open up a vast anti-Japanese base area behind enemy lines. However, Xiang Ying stubbornly insisted on staying in southern Anhui with regard to the Third Detachment and other units of the New Fourth Army left in the vicinity of the military headquarters, and made an extreme mistake in setting the Third Detachment into a long and narrow zigzag snake formation stretching from Wuhu and Xuancheng in the east to Qingyang and Datong Town in the west, with the result that the Third Detachment faced the Japanese invaders and turned its back to the recalcitrant army, and was constantly threatened by the Japanese "sweeping" on the front, and on the back was restricted by the Kuomintang Third Theater troops not being allowed to go beyond the "thunder pool." Not only was their hands and feet tied to death, but they were also in danger of being annihilated by the Japanese and stubborn front and rear attacks at any time.

In this regard, Ye Ting said that this kind of deployment is a taboo for soldiers.

For this Ying, this is the decision of the military branch.

In this regard, Ye Ting also said that the Central Committee and Chairman Mao instructed the New Fourth Army to independently carry out anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare in the vast areas behind enemy lines.

In this regard, Xiang Ying also said that when the guerrillas went to the plains and lost their support in the mountains and forests, they were exposed to the enemy's nose and could hardly gain a foothold.

In the past, Chen Yi could also argue with Xiang Ying when he was there, and Ye Ting could also get the internal situation of some military branches and Xiang Ying's ideas through Chen Yi; But as soon as Chen Yi left, Ye Ting was almost completely excluded from the military branch by Xiang Ying's "closed-door doctrine", and not only did he have no right to read the telegrams sent by the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao to the military branch and Xiang Ying, but he also did not know the decision of the military branch.

Therefore, Ye Ting felt more and more that he, the army commander, had been greatly blasphemed and ridiculed. At first, he could also exercise restraint and patience to prevent him from disappointing the expectations of the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao because of his rashness; Later, however, in order to open up the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, the Japanese invaders colluded with the puppet army and the "Loyal and Righteous National Salvation Army" under the Kuomintang Third Theater to frantically "sweep" us, and our army was immediately in a situation of being passively beaten, exposing the shortcomings of Xiang Ying's failure to carry out Chairman Mao's instructions. However, at this time, Xiang Ying went to Yan'an to participate in the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which was tantamount to throwing this difficult and complex situation to Ye Ting.

Ye Ting felt that this kind of mistake was completely caused by Xiang Ying, but Xiang Ying left the military headquarters and did not return for a long time, so shouldn't he Ye Ting be responsible for the serious consequences caused by resisting the correct strategic policy of the Central Committee and Chairman Mao? This kind of serious responsibility is no child's play! At this time, Ye Ting learned that his hometown was going to form a guerrilla column on the Dongjiang River, and the responsible comrades of the local party expected him to return to serve as commander-in-chief.

As a result, Ye Ting, who was unwilling to work with Xiang Ying anymore, had the idea of "doing revolution wherever he went" and did not want to be humiliated in the New Fourth Army anymore, so he left the New Fourth Army angrily......

"Xiyi, are you going?" Li Xiuwen asked gently.

Ye Ting took another deep puff of cigarette, exhaled and spewed out, and then vigorously twisted the cigarette butt in the ashtray: "Zhou Enlai sent an urgent telegram, the situation must be urgent, let's go back." "When are you leaving?" Li Xiuwen still asked gently.

"Let's go." Ye Tingteng stood up with a horizontal sword and a prancing horse.

Ye Ting's eldest daughter and fourth son Hua Ming, who were playing in the courtyard, heard that their father was leaving, so they hurriedly ran into the hall, and one of them pulled Ye Ting's arm and shook it: "Dad, don't go, celebrate the New Year with us." Good father, don't go! ”

Ye Ting's nose was sour, he felt that he had really not had a reunion with the children. For many years, due to his stubbornness, he did not fulfill the task of a father to teach his children. He secretly blamed himself in his heart: Children, Dad is not a competent father, and Dad owes you too much fatherly love. But he immediately controlled his lingering emotions, bent over and stroked the head of his beloved daughter and beloved son: "Good boy, Dad left you to fight the world for the poor, if you don't go, you can't go, and when the revolution succeeds in the future, Dad will be with you every day." ”

The virtuous Li Xiuwen hurriedly said: "Meimei, Mingming, go play, dad has something to do, good child, obedient." ”

The sensible raised his eyebrows and Hua Ming had tears in their eyes, and reluctantly walked away.

Ye Ting stepped forward and stroked his wife Li Xiuwen's shoulder blade with his hand: "Xiuwen, I'm leaving, and the task of taking care of and educating the children will be undertaken by you again, I ......"

Li Xiuwen hurriedly stopped what Ye Ting was about to say with his gaze: "I know, you followed Mr. Sun Yat-sen in the past to defeat the Beiyang warlords, and now you are following the Communist Party to resist Japan, you can go with confidence, I can take care of the children." ”

At this moment, Ye Ting felt that it was superfluous to say anything to his heart-to-heart wife Li Xiuwen, so he just shook her shoulder blade with his hand, and a thousand words flowed into each other's hearts through his arms and shoulder blades.

In a few days, Ye Ting took a plane from **, passed through Guilin, and came to Chongqing, which has become the "accompanying capital" of the Kuomintang.

"Xiyi, I would like to express my gratitude to you on behalf of the Central Committee and the Southern Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for receiving the telegram so quickly." As soon as Zhou Enlai saw Ye Ting's face, he held his hand tightly and immediately told Ye Ting that the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao ** hoped that he would stay in Central China and stay in the New Fourth Army for the cooperation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party to jointly resist Japan. At the same time, Xiang Ying was seriously criticized by the Central Committee and Chairman Mao ** when he attended the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Yan'an, and Xiang Ying said that he would unite with Ye Ting in the future and pay attention to giving full play to Ye Ting's military command ability. Zhou Enlai also told Ye Ting that he would accompany him back to southern Anhui and make it clear to the commanders and fighters of the New Fourth Army that Ye Ting's position as the commander of the New Fourth Army must be established.

Ye Ting was both excited and uneasy after hearing this, and hurriedly said: "No, no, the road is so far, and the situation is very unstable, so I'll go back alone." ”

Zhou Enlai smiled heartily: "I am now the vice chairman of the Revolutionary Military Commission of the Communist Party of China and the secretary of the Southern Bureau, and the deputy director of the Political Department of the Kuomintang Military Commission, and accompanied by Huang Shaohong, chairman of Zhejiang Province, we will arrive safely all the way." ”

So, Zhou Enlai came to send Ye Ting thousands of miles.

In order to express his grand welcome to Zhou Enlai, Xiang Ying summoned many high-ranking generals such as Chen Yi, Zhang Dingcheng, Su Yu, and Tan Zhenlin to the military headquarters to set up a banquet for hospitality.

When Zhou Enlai was invited to the guest of honor, Ye Ting and Xiang Ying accompanied him, and after Chen Yi and Zhang Dingcheng sat down in turn, Xiang Ying first got up and toasted, spoke with a thick Hubei accent, and said with great interest: "On behalf of all the party members of the Southeast Bureau and all the commanders and fighters of the New Fourth Army, I toast to the representatives of the Central Committee." ”

However, when Xiang Ying sent a glass of wine to Zhou Enlai to clink glasses for him, Zhou Enlai had a gloomy face, his hands did not rise, his glass was not raised, and his body was motionless.

Zhou Enlai, who has always been amiable in life, has never been so unpopular in the past, but now he has to give Xiang Ying some color. You, Xiang Ying, are too arrogant, no wonder Ye Ting wants to leave the New Fourth Army. The Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao have just criticized you for disrespecting Ye Ting, not understanding Ye Ting's special status, and still treating yourself as a "parent" today, which shows that you have not taken the Central Committee seriously at all, and all your criticism of Chairman Mao has fallen on deaf ears. I, Zhou Enlai, accompanied Ye Ting from Chongqing to Yunling this time, on the one hand, to publicize and implement the spirit of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth CPC Central Committee in the New Fourth Army, and on the other hand, to establish Ye Ting's position as a military commander in the New Fourth Army, which was the instruction of the Central Committee and Chairman Mao. But you, Xiang Ying, clearly know the purpose of my visit this time, and you still blatantly disrespect Ye Ting like this, and still put on a posture that you are the only one in the top spot of the party and the New Fourth Army, and you are too "Lao Tzu is the best in the world"!

In this way, Xiang Ying's outstretched hand holding the wine glass was not stretched out, nor was it retracted, and he stood motionless as if his body was frozen for a while.

Embarrassed.

Embarrassing embarrassment.

At this moment, Xiang Ying's already dark square face was like a red-hot furnace, burning hot.

At this moment, Ye Ting, who was deeply disturbed, hurriedly stood up and raised a glass and proposed: "Comrade Xiang Ying and I, on behalf of the commanders and fighters of the New Fourth Army, welcome Comrade Zhou Enlai to come to guide the work, and cheers to your Zhejiang-Anhui inspection!" ”

Zhou Enlai immediately wiped away the displeasure on his face, stood up and raised his glass with a smile on his face: "For the New Fourth Army, under the leadership of Comrades Ye Ting and Xiang Ying, in the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, independently go deep behind enemy lines and open up a broader revolutionary base area, and toast to the elimination of the Japanese invaders!" ”

"Gotta get it!" Chen Yi shouted loudly in Sichuan dialect, "! ”

"!" The wine glasses of several high-ranking military generals clashed together.