Iron Cross

According to the work regulations, major letters should be reviewed by the organization before being forwarded to me. Although a Japanese reply cannot explain the problem, since I want to regard Kobayashi Mitsuhide as my comrade, I have to trust him. In the end, after a collective discussion at the Taiyue Military Region and with An Ziwen's approval, it was decided to break the convention and hand the reply letter directly to Kobayashi Mitsuhide without opening it for him to read before reporting to the organization.

"The officer in charge of the logistics and baggage of the North China Front is named Okaku Nakaei. He is an officer of the Tojo line. After the collapse of the Tojo cabinet, he was also implicated and became very depressed. Now he has only managed to maintain his position through large-scale activities in the country. With my current position, I don’t have to go to Nanyang to die. When I was working in the General Staff Department, I not only learned some secrets, but also learned that he had been involved in the black market trade of ordnance and baggage for a long time.” After reading the letter, Kobayashi Mitsuhide said with a smile, “The letter is. He wrote it. He is not from the anti-war alliance. He is more interested in money. He is just a representative of senior military officers in front of the stage. There is a huge black network behind him, so someone protects our relationship. "Relatively close - not only is he my senior, he is from the same county as me, and we have some indirect relatives, so I have some influence on him."

"You don't suspect him of snitching or implicating him?"

"Telling? What's there to tell? Someone in the anti-war alliance has become a traitor, and the organization has been severely damaged. My identity will be exposed soon, so I took the risk and took advantage of the raid to leave. Otherwise, I would definitely stay and do more. Work. So Da Jiao doesn’t have to correct me. As for the implication, as long as he doesn’t say it publicly, my superiors in the second section of the staff department will not be implicated,” Kobayashi Mitsuhide said with a smile. , "The reply said that they reported internally that I was captured after accidentally getting lost - not counting my surrender, the commander of the North China Front, General Okamura Neiji, is also a person who wants to save face."

"You said that the prime minister of the Japanese cabinet has changed, and then the new prime minister is purging the old prime minister's subordinates?"

"Although Tojo was prime minister for only one year, it is not a short period of time in Japan. It has been several years since the Japanese prime minister who decided to go to war with China left his post. This cabinet change is different from the previous ones. Now the prime minister has been completely sidelined. At present, It is a "nation-wide consensus" system for the army and navy. As long as the base camp approves any decision, the government departments must cooperate unconditionally. The top army officials who came to power this time are General Tada Shun and Lieutenant General Kanji Ishihara, who have been opponents of Hideki Tojo for many years. There is a large-scale purge of officers from the Tojo faction... So it should be said that one faction in the military is purging another faction, rather than the new prime minister purging the old prime minister. "

Others listened in confusion, but An Ziwen, who was deeply educated by the Party's command and gun, knew the power of it - now Japan is a gun-commanded government, and it is completely militaristic.

Kobayashi Mitsuhide handed over the reply letter and said calmly: "Okaku proposed in the letter that he wanted to do business with us and could sell arms to us."

"Selling arms?" An Ziwen couldn't believe his ears, "His personal behavior?"

"The organizational behavior of the North China Front Army, a group of officers are trying to make money - if things are like now, if the leadership of the base camp is changed and some people have to be purged, then these senior officers must leave a way out for themselves. Without money, they are "You can't survive." Kobayashi Mitsuhide said with a smile, "The Japanese army's system determines that officers can't get free pay, but they can use their brains on arms - this is the same as the warlords selling arms to us."

"What arms can we get?" Others asked eagerly.

"General arms are fine. To reassure us, he offered to receive and inspect the goods first before paying - they and Yan Xishan were also trading. Secretary An, in such a major operation, without a group of senior military officers getting involved, do you think What can a logistics officer do alone?"

An Ziwen believed this, and so did the news from other channels. The Japanese army was indeed in cahoots with Yan Xishan. The latter had always claimed to dance on three eggs, and his contacts with the Japanese side had been disconnected. Now it seems , the possibility of arms trade is very high.

The first batch of arms traded in the Taiyue Military Region were rifles. Dajiao offered a price of 1 medium-sized rifle with 300 rounds of ammunition, and 100 pieces. If you buy 100 pieces at a time, you can get a 10% discount. Japan will be responsible for the delivery, provided that the Eighth Route Army Ensure that the delivery person is safe and can pay after receiving the goods and being satisfied. Although some people suggested that the arms should be swallowed up, An Ziwen's vision was obviously much further - if the transaction could be stabilized, swallowing up this batch of guns would only be a small profit, and the most important thing was to obtain a steady supply of arms.

After receiving 100 rifles and corresponding bullets plus three Czech light machine guns, the Taiyue Military Region gritted its teeth and collected cash and gold worth 10,000 oceans and sent them over. After the first transaction was successful, the second and third transactions were quickly and logically concluded. Various weapons and equipment such as Chinese formal, Type 38, grenades, mortars, light and heavy machine guns, etc., as long as Taiyue When the military district opened its mouth, there was nothing that Dajiao couldn't do. Once, Dajiao even sent a bunch of broken guns, telling Taiyue that they were considered as free parts. The Eighth Route Army was so happy that everyone in the Eighth Route Army couldn't help but laugh - and with the broken guns in their hands, they pieced it all together. Minato can also produce a few good guns.

Several major leaders were also very relieved about this kind of transaction. Intelligence showed that Yan Xishan's transaction was more intensive. The Jinsui Army could not afford more precious metals, so they simply transported grain, cotton yarn, and coal to trade, and even changed it. Half of it is sold publicly.

But this transaction is obviously different. What Japan wants to sell is not arms, but counties and puppet troops.

"Sell?" An Ziwen asked doubtfully, "Didn't it say that the Japanese army will withdraw from some counties soon?"

"They want to withdraw, but they think it will be troublesome to move the puppet troops, so they don't plan to take them away together - without the Japanese army to suppress the formation, the puppet troops are afraid that they will surrender with just one charge." Kobayashi Mitsuhide explained, "For the Japanese army, withdrawing from the county It's very simple, but for us, who will occupy it is a big question. If Yan Xishan takes over the county and takes over the puppet army, can the Eighth Route Army take it again under the current united front system? "

"This..." An Ziwen hesitated, "What are Comrade Xiaolin's thoughts?"

"Yan Xishan is a native of Shanxi after all. He has a natural advantage after occupying the territory. Can we still act easily?"

Others laughed: "Even if the Japanese leave those places to Yan Xishan, can he be able to defend them?"

"Of course he can't defend the county seat that goes deep into our base area. What if it's at the junction of the two armies? In addition to Shanxi, there are also Hebei and Henan..."

Everyone's expressions became serious. It was still a small matter to hand over the Japanese army to Yan Xishan. Yan Laoxi's strength was not strong anyway. But if we take a longer view, what about handing over the Japanese army to the Kuomintang army?

"Could it be that the great victory that the Kuomintang boasted about some time ago is not without merit?" Since December, the Kuomintang newspapers have been claiming a great victory, claiming to have recovered more than 20 counties. If Dajiao's report is true, could it be that the Kuomintang has begun to do this? Already?

"We have no legal authority for such a big decision and must ask our superiors for instructions, but we can tactfully inform the central government of our opinions." An Ziwen thought for a moment, "Actually, you won't suffer a big loss by spending money to buy individual county towns. Only the baggage and puppet soldiers inside will be lost." The batch of arms in there is worth this price, and we don’t need to get them all - as long as we occupy a few key counties, the military region’s base areas in western and southern Shanxi can be connected together, and it will also be a powerful barrier to Yan’an. ”

While everyone was discussing, someone hurried in and said, "Secretary An, Director Xiaolin, we just received another letter." Kobayashi Mitsuhide's official position is the director of the Liaison Office of the Taiyue Military Region, so he is called this .

"For me?" Kobayashi Mitsuhide asked doubtfully, "Isn't there enough time to process the letter?"

"Yes. So it was not sent through a designated channel. It came through our emergency channel in Qinyuan County. It was marked as urgent."

Kobayashi Mitsuhide opened it and looked at it, his face changed slightly, and then handed it to An Ziwen: "It's a personal letter from Dajiao to me, saying that there is a batch of tanks to be disposed of, and asking us if we want to buy them? If not, he will dispose of them all to Yan Xishan , if we want, we can leave 5 cars.”

"Tanks are also sold?" All the senior officials of the Taiyue Military Region, including An Ziwen, felt that they could not keep up with the idea - are the Japanese crazy?

"Is it okay for them to sell this thing? This General Dajiao is so brave..."

"Simple...just create a big explosion in the arsenal." Kobayashi Mitsuhide said expressionlessly, "Otherwise, how do you think he can write off the accounts?"

"Quick, send power immediately and ask for instructions from your superiors."

While the Taiyue Military Region was having heated discussions, at the old site of Duan Qirui's ruling government in Iron Lion Alley, Peking, General Masaru Okamura, commander of the North China Front of the Japanese China Expeditionary Force, and Major General Nakanishi Sadaki, deputy chief of staff, were playing chess leisurely, while Okaku Major General Zhongrong watched the battle.

"Has the letter selling the chariot been sent out?"

"Yes." Dajiao responded, "Sir, I don't understand. It's just selling ordinary arms. Why are we also selling tanks? We don't have many tanks in the front army."

"The base camp has sent an order to prepare the tank troops to assemble to the Philippines - possibly to receive new tanks there."

"Nani?"

Okamura Neji said calmly: "Didn't you pay attention to the naval battle report?"

"This... I glanced at it briefly, but I didn't care."

"The Combined Fleet won a great victory in the Indian Ocean and acquired 1,400 tanks. Almost all of them are better than our current best 97 tanks. The base camp is preparing to re-equip the tank troops, and this time the Type 94 Bean tank is for sale. The base camp doesn’t like it at all, and it’s not good enough to be used as a training tank, so let’s just get rid of it.”

Dajiao was surprised: "So many? Sent by the Germans?"

"Most of them were donated, and a small part were captured by the combined fleet - I heard that the captured materials are worth 1 billion yen. In the words of the navy, it is equivalent to the equipment of 7 Yamato battleships or 20 first-class divisions."

"One billion." The two of them saw stars in their eyes, and the navy was getting rich.