si-mexico Chapter 1101 Meeting of Giants
Chapter 1101 Meeting of Giants
"What merit do I, Cui, possess to deserve the Commander-in-Chief waiting for me here?"
When Chief of Staff Cui came down the airplane stairs, he quickly saluted Li Shaoyi. Li Shaoyi was being courteous and respectful, but you can't just accept it like that. There are so many people watching. If you really don't know how to behave properly, then rumors about you will probably start circulating in the army.
"Chief of Staff, you've worked hard in the rear. Your temples are already turning gray. If it weren't for your overall planning and mobilization of personnel in the rear, the frontline troops would not have been able to achieve such a victory. The people of the whole country should really thank you. Without you, the 72nd Army's combat effectiveness would not have reached its current level."
Seeing the white hair at his chief of staff's temples, Li Shaoyi felt a pang of sadness. The chief of staff was not yet forty, and according to his subordinates, he had less than five hours of rest time each day in the rear, due to the sheer number of tasks he had to handle.
According to some people, as long as they are not on the battlefield, no matter how difficult things are at home, they are safe. Compared with those on the battlefield, what merit do those at home have? They are just doing some auxiliary work. The ones who are really working hard are the brothers on the battlefield.
Li Shaoyi didn't know how to refute their words, but he knew that the work at the rear was piling up on his desk every day, and any delay could affect tens of thousands of troops at the front. Li Shaoyi knew this before, and now that the 72nd Army was so large, many things had to be reported to the General Staff Headquarters, which now had more than 190 operations staff officers.
It's not that these people sit in their offices all day and are passive and lazy in their work. Li Shaoyi isn't stupid either; naturally, he also has his own people in the General Staff Headquarters. These people are busy every day, and the battles on the front lines are related to the overall coordination and deployment in the rear. If anything goes wrong, the battles on the front lines will immediately show up.
Every time Li Shaoyi decided to send a particular army to the front lines, it involved the deployment of a massive force in the rear. Once that army left, a new one had to be immediately deployed to replace it. Moreover, the long march south meant many military weapons needed to be replaced with new ones, and the troops had to be tested en route; otherwise, their combat effectiveness would decline. This required coordination with local governments.
If you expect the roughnecks in the military to do this kind of thing, they'll probably attack in no time. They're already dissatisfied with the Nanjing Nationalist government, and now they're trying to obstruct them. Look at the pitiful defense forces there; if they don't fight their way through, it would be a waste of our weapons and equipment.
So these kinds of things are done by the chief of staff's men. We try our best not to have conflicts with the officials along the way. We're going south to fight the Japanese, not to work for the Japanese. If you were working for the Japanese and beat up all the people in the rear, that would be understandable, but under the premise of the War of Resistance, that would seriously affect unity.
"No matter how hard I work, I don't have to worry about being shot in the back every day. I can happily go out to do things in a car around me, without even needing a few guards. But it's different for the commander these days. The front line is full of dangers, and you might be ambushed if you're not careful. I'm on tenterhooks every day. To put it bluntly, our 72nd Army can't do without you."
Seeing Li Shaoyi's triumphant appearance, the chief of staff breathed a sigh of relief. He had thought that Li Shaoyi must be feeling uncomfortable after being tricked by the Nationalist government again after returning from the south. After all, Li Shaoyi had previously discussed the strategy of the Huangpu River with the chief of staff: we should proceed step by step, killing a hundred Japanese soldiers for every hundred meters we retreat, so that the Japanese would bleed clean as they went up the Yangtze River.
The chief of staff also strongly agreed with this strategy. We couldn't fight the Japanese head-on based on territory; doing so would result in too many losses for us. However, if we could eliminate their manpower during the retreat, it would be a very successful strategy. We had already proven this in North China and inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese.
Now we're just waiting to copy the homework again in East China. Who knew that as soon as we laid out the homework, the Nationalist government removed the table. If we were still in North China, we wouldn't need the help of the Nationalist government at all. But in East China, our strength is still too weak. Without the various armies of the Nationalist government, even if we want to resist step by step, we are in danger of being surrounded.
That's what the Nationalist government thought. They believed Li Shaoyi would display his stubbornness and refuse to retreat even after all the other troops had withdrawn, leading the elite of the 72nd Army to continue fighting in East China. At that time, regardless of who won or lost, it would be a great joy for the Nationalist government.
Of course, from a face-saving perspective, they also needed to issue a retreat order to the 72nd Army. If they withdrew all the other troops but not the 72nd Army, they probably wouldn't be able to quell public opinion, and doing so would be far too obvious.
But no matter how hard they racked their brains, they never expected that Li Shaoyi would actually lead his men to retreat. Of course, compared to theirs, Li Shaoyi's retreat was still very responsible. He cleared out the civilians in his jurisdiction and laid a large number of landmines and time bombs during the retreat. Even though the army has been gone for several days now, the Japanese are still killing people in Li Shaoyi's jurisdiction.
The thousands of remaining personnel were not idle either, taking advantage of the chaos to inflict considerable casualties on the Japanese. Today's reported number is over five hundred. Although this number is not significant, as long as they persist in their struggle, the number of Japanese casualties in Pujiang will continue to increase, which is also good for the civilians. Now, no Japanese soldier smaller than a squad dares to come out, because once they do, they will never be able to return.
Although they clamored to wipe out the remnants of the 72nd Army, this slogan had been chanted for more than ten days. However, the process of arresting people was not so smooth. In addition to the cooperation of the local people, there were also two concessions that could be used. The Japanese did not dare to turn against the European and American countries, so they could only endure it for the time being.
Li Shaoyi and his chief of staff got into the car first. In addition to formulating a new expansion strategy, the two also needed to think about what the next step should be for the 72nd Army. The war had been going on, so we didn't have the opportunity to think about it. Now we could finally calm down and think things through.