The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 489: Military orders have not yet arrived, but preparations for war have already begun

Recalling the whole process of meeting Minister Xu with the strategic proposal that day, He Wei still has lingering fears. He Wei's original plan was to pass this extremely audacious proposal to the Chairman's Secretariat through Minister He.

After all, although He was now in the limelight and had received a commendation order signed by the Chairman himself, as a colonel of a field army, he had no right to directly contact the Chairman's secretariat, let alone submit any strategic proposals, so he had to turn to Minister Xu for help.

Minister Xu was also a kind person. After reading the strategic proposal submitted by He Wei, he greatly agreed with He Wei's strategic judgment that the Japanese army might deploy troops in the direction of Guangxi. He Wei's brilliant and rigorous analysis in this strategic proposal can be said to have changed Minister Xu's mind on the spot.

However, because He Wei had ulterior motives in his strategic proposal, including his arrogant remarks about taking advantage of the opportunity to deal with the Guangxi clique, Minister Xu still severely scolded He Wei.

Minister Xu is actually not a direct descendant of Whampoa. He is the same age as President Chiang Kai-shek and is over 50 years old this year. When the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China, he joined the Qing army under Song Qing's command and later was admitted to the Officers Training Institute. Since then, he has been serving in the army. After several twists and turns, he led his troops to join the Shanxi clique under Yan Laoxier.

After joining forces with Yan Laoxi, in order to reassure Yan Laoxi and avoid his suspicion, Minister Xu relinquished his military power and voluntarily handed over his troops to Yan Laoxi. Later, he simply left the Jin faction and joined the National Government. It can be said that Minister Xu was a politically sensitive old fox and veteran officer who was well aware of the cruelty of factional struggles.

After witnessing He Wei's leadership ability and strategic vision, Minister Xu also had a great deal of admiration for He Wei. Therefore, after seeing He Wei acting so arbitrarily in engaging in internal strife in the strategic proposal and threatening to deal with the Guangxi clique, he naturally criticized He Wei and angrily accused He Wei of acting willfully and without knowing his place.

The several reasons that Minister Xu analyzed to He Wei when he scolded him made He Wei feel that it was really reckless for him to include his own agenda in the strategic proposal this time.

If He Wei's strategic proposal was accidentally leaked, and the content about dealing with the Guangxi clique fell into the ears of Li, Bai and other high-ranking officials of the Guangxi government, then He Wei would obviously not end up well. Even if the people of the Guangxi clique did not know about it, the danger would still be great.

He Wei's assault corps is now quite famous. Although it did not achieve an excellent ranking on paper in the nationwide inspection organized by the Military Commission, it is like an uncrowned king, with strong soldiers and excellent officers and soldiers. Its actual strength is almost equivalent to that of an understaffed infantry division. I don't know how many people are jealous of this unit, and how many people are staring at He Wei.

You know, even within the National Government's Central Army there were factional struggles and struggles to annex each other's troops. A typical example was Chen Cheng, the leader of the Civil Engineering Department. In He Wei's opinion, this man's military command ability was hard to describe, but He Wei was fully convinced of his ability to annex other troops, expand them, and expand the power of his Civil Engineering Department troops.

If it was really as Minister Xu said, if this strategic proposal caused someone like Chen Cheng to attack He Wei, and he would seize on the part of the proposal that dealt with the Guangxi clique, make a big fuss about it, and accuse He Wei of "internal strife and feud between brothers during wartime", and try to use this as an excuse to swallow up He Wei's assault corps, then even if He Wei had the support of Minister He Jingzhi of the Ministry of Military and Political Affairs, it would be enough to make He Wei suffer.

In short, after listening to Minister Xu's scolding and analysis, He Wei had to admit that his handling of the matter was somewhat reckless, or too radical.

Of course, Minister Xu also had a love for talent. After repeatedly reading He Wei's strategic proposal, he not only agreed with the strategic suggestions put forward by He Wei, but also knew that if the National Government wanted to make some adjustments to the strategic policy based on He Wei's strategic proposal, it would have to be approved by Chairman Chang.

Therefore, considering the overall situation of the War of Resistance, he agreed to He Wei's request to hand over the strategic proposal to the Chairman's Secretariat on his behalf. However, Minister Xu still asked He Wei to delete and modify the contents of the strategic proposal and prepare a "green version" before handing it over to the Secretariat.

He Wei naturally did not agree to Minister Xu's request. He mentioned in the strategic proposal that he would deal with the Guangxi clique, naturally to attract attention and prompt the strategic decision-makers who saw this strategic proposal to adjust their strategy as soon as possible and send more troops to Guangxi based on the dual starting points of resisting Japan externally and solving the problem of the Guangxi clique internally.

Now if the eye-catching parts were deleted and the "drastic measures" in the strategic proposal were removed, wouldn't the quality of this strategic proposal be greatly reduced, and Mr. He's goal would be difficult to achieve?

In response to this, He Wei argued with Minister Xu and stated directly that he added the content of dealing with the Guangxi clique in the strategic proposal in the hope that the Chairman would send reinforcements to Guangxi as soon as possible after reading it. He also stated that the reason why he proposed in the strategic proposal that the Japanese army would not attack the temporary capital by airborne troops was actually because he hoped that his assault corps would be relieved of the anti-airborne combat readiness mission of the temporary capital when the central government sent reinforcements to Guangxi, and act as a vanguard to go to Guangxi to compete with the Japanese invaders.

When Minister Xu learned of He Wei's "good intentions", he immediately understood He Wei's true intentions.

Minister Xu is a very smart man, and he knows Principal Chang's thoughts very well. In Principal Chang's view, the Japanese army is the number one enemy, but these local powerful groups in the country are also a problem that must be solved sooner or later. The strategic opinion put forward by He Wei in the strategic proposal to send additional elite troops of the Central Army to Guangxi is obviously extremely attractive to Principal Chang.

In this way, once Principal Chang is attracted by He Wei's strategic proposal, there is a high probability that the Central Army troops will enter Guangxi and increase the strength of the Guangxi garrison. In short, no matter what the motive is, as long as more troops can be sent to Guangxi, it will be good for the anti-Japanese war situation in Guangxi.

Therefore, Minister Xu no longer asked He Wei to revise the strategic proposal. However, he did not dare to hand over this strategic proposal with dangerous content directly to the Secretariat.

After all, the more people this thing passes through, the greater the probability that the content will be leaked. Once the relevant content about dealing with the Guangxi clique is leaked, not only will He Wei be in trouble, but Minister Xu, as the person who handed it over, will also inevitably suffer. This is also the reason why Minister Xu originally asked He Wei to come up with a green version of the strategic proposal plan.

Under the premise that He Wei did not modify the strategic proposal, Minister Xu had to meet with the Standing Committee Chairman in person and hand the strategic proposal to him in person to prevent it from being handled by others and causing mistakes. He Wei was overjoyed. Minister Xu's personal submission to the Standing Committee Chairman could not only fully convey his strategic opinions to the Chairman, but also ensure that the content of the strategic proposal would not be leaked to the greatest extent, so as to protect He Wei from any trouble, and also attract the attention of the Standing Committee Chairman. It was really a win-win situation.

After Minister Xu agreed to this matter, He Wei returned to the Assault Corps to continue training his troops and waited for good news.

Before he knew it, it was already September of the 28th year of the Republic of China (1939), and He Wei had already done what he was supposed to do regarding the layout in Guangxi.

All he did was to make advance arrangements in Guangxi, so that the National Government could gain the upper hand in future wars in Guangxi. As for the senior officials of the National Government, He Wei naturally hoped that his efforts could change the National Government's original strategic layout in Guangxi. As for the troops under his command, He Wei also began a series of adjustments and arrangements.

After all, in his expectation, once the National Government began to adjust its strategic layout in Guangxi and prepared to send reinforcements to Guangxi, He Wei hoped very much that his assault corps could be pulled up as soon as possible, sent to Guangxi to deploy defenses and prepare for war, and fight the Japanese army with real swords and guns. Therefore, although the National Government's strategic adjustment in the direction of Guangxi was still at a standstill, and sending the assault corps to Guangxi for reinforcement was even more uncertain, He Wei, the warmonger, was already very excited and could not wait to begin intensified training and various war preparations before the war.

First of all, naturally, the Assault Corps and the First Supplementary Soldier Training Department under his command strengthened their combat readiness and training. Among them, the First Supplementary Soldier Training Department continued to focus on various basic training and basic tactical training for new recruits, but the intensity of the training was slightly improved compared with before. During this period, the five supplementary soldier battalions of the First Supplementary Soldier Training Department recruited about one thousand new recruits in the counties of Ba County and Fuling County to make up for the shortage of new recruits caused by the previous replenishment of the Assault Corps' combat forces. The number of new recruits in the five battalions has reached full staffing.

As for the vacancies in the five recruit camps, they were also filled. In August, the military academy students of the Second Corps of the Fourteenth Class of the Whampoa Military Academy at the Central Military Academy in Chengdu completed their studies and began to graduate and be assigned. He Wei again applied to his superiors for additional vacancies, requesting sixty graduates from the infantry, artillery, engineering, communications, and logistics departments.

In He Wei's original plan, these graduates were to be trained in the Officers' Education Battalion, just like the first batch of graduates from the 13th and 14th classes of the Whampoa Military Academy who were assigned to the Assault Corps. After the training, they would be assigned to five recruit replenishment battalions to serve as grassroots platoon leaders for training. When the main combat forces of the Assault Corps needed to supplement officers, they would be selected to join the Assault Corps. However, the previous Officers' Education Battalion and Sergeant's Education Battalion had long been disbanded, and it was impossible to set up a temporary organization now.

According to He Wei's recent idea, the training and operation mode of the First Replacement Soldier Training Department should be further improved and optimized. In addition to the five recruit replenishment battalions and other new recruit units, the Officer Education Battalion and the Sergeant Education Battalion should be set up as regular organized units. In the future, those officers assigned to the Assault Corps after graduating from military academies, as well as new officers promoted from the ranks of sergeants in the Assault Corps' combat units, should go to the Officer Education Battalion of the First Replacement Soldier Training Department for training.

The newly promoted sergeants in the combat units of the Assault Corps will go to the Sergeant Education Battalion of the First Retraining Department for education. After the education is completed, all officers will go to the recruit camp of the First Retraining Department to serve as grassroots platoon leaders. Some of the sergeants who have graduated from the Sergeant Education Battalion will go to the recruit camp to serve as squad leaders and deputy squad leaders, while the others will return to the combat units of the Assault Corps to serve.

As for the several recruit camps of the First Recruitment Department, when the Assault Corps needs to recruit officers and soldiers, outstanding officers, sergeants and soldiers will be selected from among them to fill in. This is the best model that He Wei envisioned. However, the regular institutions such as the Officers' Education Battalion and the Sergeants' Education Battalion have not been established at all, and cannot be established at this critical juncture.

In the final analysis, the troops under He Wei's command are too large and have expanded too rapidly. In particular, the units at all levels of the assault corps are extremely large, so it is impossible to free up enough officers and soldiers, especially those with excellent comprehensive qualities and rich combat experience, to go to the first training department in the rear.

He Wei had no way to deal with this. It was his fault for expanding his troops too aggressively and acting too arrogantly.
Therefore, the newly assigned military academy graduates can only be directly assigned to the five recruit replenishment battalions as platoon leaders. As for the intensive education that these military academy graduates should have received in the officer education corps, it can only be taught by the existing officers in the recruit replenishment battalions.

At present, He Wei’s primary task is to strengthen preparations for war in the Guangxi direction. These problems existing in the First Supplementary Soldier Training Department can only be solved later.

As for the Assault Corps itself, there is no need to say much. They will certainly continue to strengthen their training, especially the live-fire shooting training of various firearms and the live-grenade throwing training, and the ammunition consumption will be further increased. He Wei stipulated that the frequency of live-fire shooting training of various firearms for the infantry units of the corps should be increased to once every three days, and the frequency of live-fire shooting training for artillery units should be increased to once every five days.

He Wei spared no expense to strengthen the training of the troops in order to improve the technical and tactical levels of the officers and soldiers as much as possible before they were possibly transferred to Guangxi to participate in the war. If they worked harder and trained more with real guns and live ammunition in peacetime, they would be more confident and shed less blood when fighting the Japanese army with real guns in wartime.

While the troops under He Wei were training intensively and vigorously, his rear-line industries were also not idle and gradually began to operate in full swing in accordance with combat readiness requirements.

Under He Wei's order, the General Affairs Office, headed by Ding Lunshi, which was responsible for managing these rear-line industries, also made corresponding preparations for war. The clothing factory, which had already been put into operation, began to produce standard winter uniforms, cotton coats, cotton socks and cold-proof military blankets for the assault corps.

Under the operation of Ding Lunshi, some scarce and in-demand medicines and various sanitary equipment that could not be produced domestically were transported to the warehouse of the General Affairs Office through various smuggling and black market channels in preparation for wartime needs.

As for the medical personnel of the rear-line wounded soldiers' hospital under the General Affairs Office, they were also actively preparing for war. Under the coordination of Ling Zhi, director of the Military Medical Department of the Assault Corps and director of the front field hospital, a group of nurses trained by the Army Medical School, who originally served in the wounded soldiers' hospital, were assigned to the Assault Corps after temporary assault training. According to the principle of allocating one person per company, they were added to various companies of the Assault Corps as medical workers to strengthen the health service capabilities of the grassroots companies of the Assault Corps. The front field hospital also began to strengthen training in various wartime health service operations.

It can be said that the Assault Corps, the First Supplementary Soldier Training Department and the General Affairs Department under He Wei were all in a state of "no orders yet, but preparations for war already started", and were intensively carrying out various pre-war preparations.

(End of this chapter)