The Anti-Japanese War Begins with the Northeast Army

After finishing his report at Hai Pingchuan, Huang Yongan laughed, "Everyone can see that Master Jiang, you still haven't killed him yet."

Jiang Cheng leaned his elbows on the armrests and smiled, but Guo Songling, who was standing in front of him, turned around and said, "You think too highly of him—"

"If he really had such tact, he wouldn't have fought this rotten battle at all."

After saying this, he turned his slightly arrogant gaze towards Jiang Cheng, "Everyone can see that Wu Peifu is actually trying to show his strength to the Zhi army and prove that if Feng Guozhang has any changes, he can take on the responsibility."

Jiang Cheng nodded approvingly with a smile: "Mao Chen is the one who hit the point!"

"So the factors that influence this war are not only us, but also those outside the battlefield."

As he spoke, he raised his hand and patted the telegram papers in front of him.

Jiang Cheng understood that if the capital could send a telegram to him, the actual controller of Jinan, it could also send one to the other party that came to "intervene by force."

Moreover, this was definitely not the first time that Cao Kun had acted as a "peacemaker" - but this peacemaker, as a superior, had so far been no different from a fart;
Jiang Cheng had already planned to sow discord between them... and with this incident, and a few resentful aides instigating a few words, there would be no worries about leading public opinion to be unilaterally in favor of Wu Peifu!
Once people's hearts and minds are truly changed, he would be courting death if he dared to continue to provoke Jiang Cheng.

If that day really comes and he is completely crushed to death in Shandong, I believe Cao Kun and others will not say anything.

"With his example, the Fengtian Army has the final say in Shandong."

Jiang Cheng slammed the table and stood up, "Unicom Beijing immediately--"

"The gist is as follows: The previous exchange of fire was caused by accidental firing by both sides. In order to maintain stability in Shandong and avoid causing more casualties to the military and civilians, I, Jiang Cheng, have decided to avoid the battle."

"But if anyone comes to provoke me, I will mobilize my entire army to completely eliminate these conspirators who are disrupting the situation!"

As soon as this joint telegram came out, both Wu Peifu and Xu Shuzheng, who had to withdraw in a hurry, were furious.

It was you who supported Duan Zhigui in taking over Shandong, right?

They occupied Shandong, seized our land, and drove our people and forces out of the vicinity... and you were the first to take action. How could you shamelessly say such words as "maintaining stability"?

Were those shells and bombs you dropped carelessly?

Which one of these wasn't murder and arson that you deliberately planned? ?

Xu Shuzheng knew he couldn't do it, and although he was angry, he could only retreat helplessly - he still wanted to save his life;
When Wu Peifu received this long "joint telegram" which was as long as a lazy woman's foot binding, he was furious at the ulterior motive hidden in the eloquent words.

He was shaking all over as he held the telegram in his hand, and he almost burst into curses in front of his staff.

He endured it again and again before throwing the pile of papers aside, intending to continue to deduce his tactics... However, his staff carefully suggested: "Master Yu, should we retreat first?"

Wu Peifu turned his red eyes away suddenly: "What are you talking about?"

The subordinate was trembling with fear and answered carefully: No matter whether it is the capital or the Third Master, they all said to avoid further fighting... After all, the areas demarcated by the peace conference are beyond the control of even the higher-ups. They,

Unexpectedly, these "earnest words" directly angered Wu Peifu.

The anger that he had been holding back for a long time suddenly burst out, and he almost slapped him, but he pointed at his nose and cursed at him first, then said that he was only trying to boost other people's morale and was not worthy of being a general of the Zhi army, and told him to get out right away.

After driving away his subordinates, Wu Peifu suppressed his anger and continued to arrange tactics with his men. However, the trouble that came before the direct battle was their food and grass problem.

The warehouse that was set on fire by Guo Songling was the most important granary for their army.

In addition to large quantities of rations for the front-line troops, there was also horse grass.

In many people's impressions, if military horses have nothing to eat, the worst that can happen is that they are let out to graze... This is possible in theory, but letting a large number of military horses "graze" is simply a fantasy.

An important granary had been burned down, so they had to mobilize grain and grass from Luoyang, the rear base, to the front line. Including the transportation time, it would only take two or three days at most.

But the front army command forgot one very important thing.

That is the great famine that occurred this year due to drought.

Thousands of miles of barren land were left in Zhili, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan and other places... A large number of farmers died, fled, and others followed the "preferential policy" outside the Great Wall and moved collectively to the Northeast.

A lot of arable land that should have been used for planting became idle; and what was even more terrible was that many warlords, in order to make money from opium, deceived, forced, and even imposed heavy taxes on grain to force farmers to grow poppies instead.

Now, we have to recruit civilians to transport food for the war.

The people do not produce food, but they still have to eat food... This has to a certain extent aggravated the already acute food problem.

The front-line command of the Zhi army was shocked to find that the food they could transfer from the rear of Luoyang was not enough to satisfy even one-third of the soldiers on the front line.

Seeing that the food and grass were running out, Wu Peifu did not panic, but a large number of officers under his command panicked first.

If there is no military pay, we can still find ways to delay it, but if we don’t have enough food, something big will definitely happen.

The troops who were the first to run out of food actually went to nearby houses to burn, kill and loot without their superiors knowing.

But this year, drought also broke out in Shandong, and civilians had no surplus food at all.

But it didn’t matter. Since they couldn’t snatch it from civilians, they went to rob nearby counties.

If we were to ask who the richest people in Shandong are, it would definitely be the Japanese who have always been pursuing "pioneering and colonizing".

They opened factories, ran shops, had their own transport teams and ticket offices, etc. Naturally, they were all very rich.

The hungry soldiers didn't care about anything and just rushed in to rob. Some of them were so unkind that when they saw the tender Japanese women, they got so angry that they took a few of them back.

As a result, Wu Peifu's troops did not fight with Jiang Cheng's subordinates, but instead violated the Japanese's taboo.

The Japanese troops active along the coast had long been angry at the Young Marshal and Guo Songling for their restless behavior. So they saw an opportunity and rushed out from Qingdao along the railway, giving a brutal beating to the Zhi troops who were still looting everywhere!
Before Wu Peifu even had time to react, his two regiments were wiped out by the Japanese.

The capital was even more shocked. The two sides had just signed a treaty on the situation in Shandong, demarcating the respective spheres of influence of Japan and China. Why are you Japanese coming to attack us?

The devils, however, said righteously, "You are causing trouble by letting your troops harm the interests of our overseas Chinese, so we will naturally send troops to fight back." (End of this chapter)