Chapter 48 7. There is nothing to do

The Japanese army won the battle of Songhu and took advantage of the momentum to rush towards the Chinese capital. Li Zongren and other generals believed that Nanjing could not be defended. The reason was that Nanjing was easy to attack and difficult to defend. He advocated declaring Nanjing an undefended city to the whole world, so as to avoid the enemy's excuse of burning and killing. Chiang Kai-shek disagreed with Li Zongren and other generals that Nanjing is not a military issue. Although China is currently in a state of war and the military is above all else, Nanjing is an exception.Chiang Kai-shek believed that Li Zongren and other generals had a purely military point of view on the Nanjing issue. They were soldiers and did not understand politics.

Politics is more important than military affairs, especially in the capital of Nanjing. Chiang Kai-shek was right.If you declare Nanjing as an undefended city, the Japanese thieves will not massacre the citizens of Nanjing?Wild beasts like jackals, tigers and leopards, if you feed them two pieces of meat, don't they stop eating people?Nanjing must be fortified, not only because Nanjing is the capital of the country, but also because it is the location of the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen, the father of the country.If there is no defense, how will the national government explain to the people?The capital of a country is voluntarily abandoned, how does the whole world see you?

There is no unbreakable fortress in the world, not to mention the fact that the Chinese army has just lost a battle in Songhu, and its morale is low. Nanjing is bound to fall. This is an indisputable fact.But sticking to Nanjing is an attitude expressed by the national government to the Chinese people, and it is also a political attitude expressed to the world. The battle of Shanghai failed, Nanjing fell, and the Japanese invaders were extremely arrogant and murderous, and they were like wolves and tigers.However, the morale of the Chinese army was low, the commanding generals were downcast, and the whole country was in panic. The miserable situation cannot be expressed.It was against this background that Li Zongren's Xuzhou Fifth War Zone began to deploy troops.

At that time, the Supreme Command of the Nationalist Government did not have much hope for the fifth war zone. Chiang Kai-shek just wanted Li Zongren to block the Xuzhou area, even for a month or two, so that Wuhan could make a comprehensive defense deployment.Therefore, the troops transferred to Li Zongren's fifth war zone were all motley troops, with big knives and old guns in their hands.The national government really didn't want to spend a lot of material and financial resources in this place. Even Chiang Kai-shek didn't expect that Li Zongren used his unique method of governing the army and employing people to turn China's miscellaneous troops into mighty tigers and leopards. A miracle in the history of China's Anti-Japanese War.The victory in the fifth theater greatly inspired the fighting spirit of the army and civilians across the country, and ignited the fire of hope for the victory of the Chinese War of Resistance. The Chinese people saw the dawn of victory in the War of Resistance.

However, for Chiang Kai-shek, the victory of Xuzhou Fifth Theater was like a myth, which opened the wings of Chairman Chiang's imagination. If there is one Taierzhuang, there will be countless Taierzhuangs.Therefore, he dispatched troops to Xuzhou with all his strength. In a short period of time, hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers from China gathered in the Xuzhou area, and nearly half of them were directly descended from the central government. Chiang Kai-shek kept pondering in the Wuhan High Command why the miscellaneous army placed in the Xuzhou area could defeat Japan's trump card iron army?Is it based on their numbers or weapons?In the eyes of Chiang Kai-shek, these miscellaneous troops have nothing, perhaps it is the right time and place that created this opportunity for them.What makes people angry is the public opinion media. The first thing they talk about is some little-known miscellaneous troops, such as Zhang Zizhong and Pang Bingxun. Even Taierzhuang's glory is played by troops such as Sun Lianzhong, Chi Fengcheng, and Huang Qiaosong.And the 20th Legion, his direct descendant, only played a supporting role in the periphery. Although he had meritorious service, the big head was still carried on the shoulders of others.

The Taierzhuang victory made Li Zongren stole the limelight.This jackpot was snatched by Li Zongren, but it is a great honor!When the Chinese nation was in peril, at the most critical moment of China's war of resistance, under the eyes of the whole of China and the whole world, Li Zongren put the dazzling laurel crown on his own head.Chiang Kai-shek's body trembled for a moment, as if he had realized something. Only later did Chiang realize that he had created for himself an adversary, an adversary who could stand against him in the KMT faction.Chiang Kai-shek, who now lives in the headquarters of the Wuhan Command, thinks most about the Xuzhou battlefield in front of him. He wants to build a laurel crown to wear on his head.

What China's miscellaneous troops can do, why can't the central elite troops do it?Sure it can be done.Chiang Kai-shek was full of confidence, and like a gambler, he sent almost all of China's elite troops to the Xuzhou battlefield. Li Zongren saw the changes in the battle situation after he won the Taierzhuang victory, so he did not agree with Chiang Kai-shek's approach from the beginning.However, as the commander-in-chief of the fifth war zone, it is inconvenient for him to express this meaning, and it is inconvenient to express his views because of two concerns: one is that he has not really understood the policy of the Japanese base camp against China after the Taierzhuang War, The intelligence information is insufficient, and there is not enough factual basis and reason to persuade or reject Chairman Jiang's strategic deployment.The second is that he has doubts about the decision-making of the Supreme Military Council of the Nationalist Government, especially after he has made achievements. If he makes comments like this or that, what will Chairman Jiang think?What will others think?During this period, Li Zongren only used his own ideas or estimates of changes in the war situation to influence Bai Chongxi, who was the deputy chief of staff at the command headquarters, to let him gradually understand that this was beneficial to the development of the situation.

In order to expand the achievements of the victory in Taierzhuang, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to create conditions when necessary, so as to achieve one or two more victories like Taierzhuang.Even after the Japanese battalion formulated a new battle plan, Chiang Kai-shek still adopted the policy of tit-for-tat with the Japanese army and continued to dispatch troops from various theaters to Xuzhou. Only then did Li Zongren begin to put forward his opinions to the Supreme Command. However, some staff members of the Supreme Command of the Nationalist Government, in order to cater to Chairman Jiang's vision, ignored the objective facts in front of them and kept flattering them.The chairman's deployment is wise!The chairman's decisive battle strategy must inspire the fighting spirit of the army and civilians across the country. This grand strategy can only be conceived by our chairman.According to the chairman's conception, as long as the front-line troops fought bravely to kill the enemy, the problem of China's war of resistance could be solved.The battle of Xuzhou was completed in one battle.Therefore, Li Zongren's opinions and suggestions were rejected.

In order to implement the order of the Supreme Command of the Kuomintang Military Commission, Li Zongren, the commander of the fifth war zone, fought hard in the Xuzhou area.Now he is supposed to fight the battle smoothly, with so many elite troops in his hands.However, the situation on the Xuzhou battlefield did not depend on Chiang Kai-shek nor Li Zongren's will. The situation on the battlefield became unsatisfactory day by day.Li Zongren was in a hurry, and the battle was not as good as that of his former miscellaneous troops.It's not that the troops participating in the war did not work hard, but all the troops participating in the war did their best.It is because the Japanese army is too powerful, and their advantages are becoming more and more obvious.

Until mid-May, the tragic battle reports of the troops participating in the war from all over the Xuzhou area were piled up on Chairman Jiang's desk in thick piles.Chiang Kai-shek's dream of expanding the victory of Taierzhuang and recreating the great victory of Taierzhuang was shattered by the blood of frontline officers and soldiers.As if waking up from a big dream, he opened his eyes and looked around, but he didn't know what was going on and where the problem was.Chiang Kai-shek asked He Yingqin, why did the situation develop to this point? He Yingqin usually exaggerated a bit too much, but now he had nothing to say, so he had to keep his mouth shut.Liu Fei of the General Staff Department never advocated a decisive battle with the Japanese army in Xuzhou. Facts have proved that his views and judgments are correct, he said, retreat.Chiang Kai-shek didn't like to hear it, and said angrily, "Withdraw, withdraw, you will know how to withdraw."

The Xuzhou retreat is a top priority, and Chiang Kai-shek must be persuaded.Who will tell?He Yingqin couldn't say it, he wanted to avoid it.Among the staff and staff, only Bai Chongxi could speak out, because he always analyzed the situation for the Chairman from both positive and negative aspects of the Xuzhou Battle, and he did not say too much about the Xuzhou Battle.Bai Chongxi learned it from Li Zongren. He always believed that Chief Li's analysis of the Xuzhou battle was correct, so he held a neutral attitude between Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren. Chiang Kai-shek immersed himself in reading the front-line battle reports, stacks of death lists of officers and soldiers and a series of consumption figures made him angry.The people in the hall did not dare to breathe, they only looked at Bai Chongxi with their eyes.Bai Chongxi knew it well, he pretended not to know that the Chairman was angry, walked in front of the map and said to himself, the most urgent thing is not whether to withdraw or not, but how to withdraw.He turned to Liu Fei and said, withdrawal is just one word, easy to say.Have you considered how to withdraw? Bai Chongxi actually said this to Chiang Kai-shek, but he didn't take it so seriously, he just regarded it as a chat between a few staff members after tea and dinner, and his tone was very relaxed.He didn't want to create a tense atmosphere, if Chiang Kai-shek was unhappy, it would not be effective.Bai Chongxi pointed to the map and said, two days later, I am worried that the 500,000 elites will not be able to withdraw even if they want to.At that time, in accordance with the chairman's strategic policy, we will fight to the death with 300,000 elite Japanese troops, and let the world see the heroic spirit of our Chinese army. Chiang Kai-shek looked up at Bai Chongxi, then at the map, and suddenly calmed down.Bai Chongxi was stupid, Chiang Kai-shek thought to himself, the remaining 500,000 elite troops in Xuzhou must not follow Bai Chongxi's idea to fight the Japanese army to the death. Chiang Kai-shek asked someone to call Chen Cheng over. He got up and walked to the map and said that the Japanese army's intentions had been exposed. It seemed to me that it was unrealistic to stick to Xuzhou according to the previous plan. Now he decided to abandon Xuzhou.He pointed to He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi with his fingers, and began to dictate the 100,000 urgent telegram to Li Zongren, commander of the fifth theater: Li Zongren, Commander-in-Chief of the Fifth Theater: The Military Commission ordered your troops to avoid a decisive battle, withdraw from Xuzhou, and break through quickly. 1. Gu Zhutong's 24th Army was in northern Jiangsu, and the 69th Army and Marine Corps persisted in the war of resistance in central and southern Shandong. 2. Liu Ruming's 68th Army was the rear guard of the whole army, covering the transfer of the main force. 3. The remaining ministries of the fifth war zone should immediately break out of the encirclement towards the Henan-Anhui border area.