On the eve of the fall of Liaodong, he led his troops in a remonstrance against the young marshal.

Night fell over Nanjing.

A US-made C-47 transport plane slowly descended under the dark sky, the roar of its propellers tearing apart the silence above Zijin Mountain.

Inside the cabin, the Chairman sat by the window with his hands crossed on his knees.

His gaze passed through the porthole and landed on the scattered lights of Nanjing.

The lights were much brighter than when he left, as if the whole city was celebrating.

The plane landed with a slight jolt, the gangway pushed forward, and the cabin door opened.

A cold wind blew in, carrying a faint smell of gunpowder.

The Chairman stood up, put on the black cloak handed to him by Gu Zhutong, and walked down the gangway expressionlessly.

A row of black cars was parked at the airport, and guards were already lined up along the runway.

But outside the guards' ranks, beyond the airport's barbed wire fence, he saw a sight that made his pupils shrink.

Countless people.

The area outside the barbed wire fence was packed with people, stretching from the airport entrance all the way to Zhongshan Avenue in the distance.

They held up banners of various sizes, and under the dim streetlights, the words on the banners were still clearly legible.

"Great victory in Northeast China! Long live China!"

"The two marshals are mighty, driving out the Japanese pirates!"

"It's been thirty years since the humiliation of Lushun was avenged!"

"Salute to the soldiers of the Northeast Army!"

Someone was setting off firecrackers; the crackling sounds exploded in the night sky, and red paper scraps flew through the air.

The chairman paused for a moment.

"Who gave them permission to come to the airport?"

He asked in a very soft voice, but Gu Zhutong could hear the suppressed anger in it.

"Chairman, this...this is spontaneous, our people can't stop it."

"Gu Zhutong answered cautiously, not daring to look at the Chairman's face.

The chairman did not speak again.

He bent down and climbed into the car. Just as the door closed, he heard a shout coming from outside the barbed wire fence, the voice sharp and piercing with excitement:

"Long live the Second Marshal! Long live the Northeast Army!"

The car door slammed shut, shutting out most of the noise outside.

But what cannot be isolated is the patriotic fervor, or rather, the hearts of the people, represented by those shouts.

It was an overwhelming force, a force that was spreading from the Northeast to the whole country, a force beyond his control.

The car drove out of the airport and headed into the city along Zhongshan Avenue.

The scenery along the way made the atmosphere inside the car increasingly oppressive.

The streets were lined with people marching, and students carrying torches formed a flowing fire dragon that stretched from the Drum Tower all the way to Xinjiekou.

All the shops along the street were lit up, and some people had hung up the Northeast Army flag in their windows. It was a crudely made replica, and no one knew where it came from.

But the way it fluttered in the wind in the darkness struck the Chairman as particularly jarring.

He Yingqin sat in the passenger seat and stole a glance at the Chairman in the back seat through the rearview mirror.

He saw the chairman's face, flickering in and out of the streetlights, his eyes expressionless, his lips pressed into a thin line.

This is the most terrifying state for the Chairman.

It's not scary when he's furious, it's not scary when he's cursing, it's not scary when he curses "Damn it" and smashes a cup.

What's terrifying is that when he's quiet, he's like a cold stone. You never know whether this stone will remain motionless or crash down and turn everyone into mincemeat.

The convoy continued on its way.

The crowd of protesters grew even denser as they passed the gate of Jinling University.

The student union of Jinling University organized a campus-wide parade, with the procession stretching from Hankou Road all the way to Guangzhou Road. Every student held up a banner with a variety of words on it.

"Japanese pirates, get out of China!"

"The Northeast has been liberated! Return our homeland!"

"The Second Marshal is the second Yue Fei!"

The chairman's gaze lingered on the banner for a fraction of a second before shifting away.

Gu Zhutong sat next to him, his palms sweaty.

He glanced at He Yingqin furtively, and He Yingqin was looking at him too. The two exchanged a knowing look, then simultaneously looked away, neither willing to speak first.

The silence inside the car was more suffocating than the noise outside.

The car finally drove into the Ministry of National Defense compound.

The large iron gate slowly closed behind them, shutting out the shouts of the marching crowd.

The Chairman got out of the car and walked into the building without saying a word. When the staff, secretaries and guards saw him, they all stood at attention and saluted, but no one dared to speak.

Everyone read the same message from his expression:

He was very unhappy today.

The chairman walked directly into the meeting room.

The conference room was already full of people.

Bai Chongxi, Li Zongren, He Yingqin, Gu Zhutong, Xue Yue, Zhang Zhizhong, Zhang Fakui, the Ministry of Military Affairs, the General Staff Headquarters, and the commanders-in-chief of each war zone.

Within two hours of receiving the urgent notice, all the prominent military figures in Nanjing had arrived.

The long conference table was filled with military uniforms gleaming with stars, each of them carrying at least two stars on their shoulders.

But at this moment, these usually imposing generals were all silent. No one whispered to each other, no one smoked, and they even deliberately sipped their tea in silence.

They all knew the reason for being summoned today.

northeast.

Zhang Xueming.

The Battle of Lushun and the Battle of Fengcheng resulted in the annihilation of 120,000 enemy troops.

When this news reached Nanjing, the entire Nationalist government building was in an uproar.

Some people were so excited that tears welled up in their eyes, and they slammed their fists on the table, saying, "This is a great victory that China has never won in a century."

Some people were worried, saying that Zhang Xueming had really messed things up and that the Japanese would definitely not let it go.

Some remained silent, unsure whether to be happy or worried.

The good news is that China finally has a capable army, but the bad news is that this army is not the Central Army.

The chairman sat down at the head of the oval conference table, placing his hands on the table with his fingers interlaced.

His gaze slowly swept across everyone's faces. The conference room lights were deathly white, shining on his face and making him look even more gloomy than usual.

He didn't exchange pleasantries, didn't make any opening remarks, and didn't say anything superfluous; he went straight to the question:

"What should be done with the Northeast Army now?"

Ten words, each one like an icicle, piercing into everyone's heart.

The meeting room was completely silent.

Bai Chongxi lowered his eyes, looking at the cup of tea in front of him that had gone completely cold.

He Yingqin flipped through a document in front of him, very slowly, taking several minutes to read each page, as if those pages held some life-saving secret.

Xue Yue crossed his arms over his chest, his back ramrod straight, but his lips were sealed shut like a welded iron gate.

Zhang Zhizhong wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Although the meeting room was not hot, a layer of fine sweat had appeared on his forehead.

Zhang Fakui lowered his head, his fingers tapping lightly on the table in a chaotic and irregular rhythm.

No one speaks.

This is a very big problem.

So much so that whoever speaks first is essentially gambling their political life on the table.

Was Zhang Xueming a hero or a scourge? Should the Northeast Army be rewarded or punished?

When it came to the reward, the chairman's expression clearly showed that he hadn't come to hear praise.

Speaking of punishment, the entire city was filled with parades, and the shouts of "Long live the Second Marshal" were deafening. Anyone who dared to stand up at this time and say that the meritorious soldiers of the Northeast Army should be punished would be drowned in the spittle of the people the next day.

The silence lasted for nearly two minutes.

Two minutes in the conference room felt like two centuries.

It was Li Zongren who finally broke the silence.

The leader of the Guangxi clique leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped on his stomach, speaking calmly and deliberately, yet his words were earth-shattering.

"In Delin's opinion, Zhang Xueming's performance in this battle was meritorious and without fault."

The air in the meeting room instantly became tense.

All eyes were on Li Zongren. Some looked surprised, some looked worried, and some even had a hint of barely perceptible schadenfreude in their eyes.

Finally, someone took the lead.

Li Zongren seemed completely oblivious to the stares he was receiving, and continued:

"The Japanese pirates plotted for months, launching a surprise attack on Fengtian with a large force, intending to swallow up the entire Northeast."

"Zhang Xueming remained calm in the face of battle and commanded decisively. He first used a detachment to lure the enemy deep into his territory, and then used the main force to encircle and annihilate them. His tactical application was textbook-worthy."

"In the Battle of Lushun, 12,000 Japanese pirates were annihilated, and in the Battle of Fengcheng, two Class A divisions of the Japanese pirates were completely decimated."

"These two battles shattered the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese invaders, greatly boosted the morale of the military and civilians across the country, and significantly reduced the fear of the Japanese invaders among the people."

"The Japanese devils are not three-headed, six-armed monsters. As long as our soldiers are commanded properly, we can defeat them just as well."

He paused for a moment, then added:

"This is an unprecedented victory for China against foreign powers in decades, and it should be encouraged and even commended."

After he finished speaking, the conference room became so quiet that you could hear the ticking of the second hand on the clock in the corner.

Someone gasped softly; it was Tang Shengzhi, sitting in the corner. He regretted it as soon as he took that breath, because the sound was particularly jarring in the quiet conference room.

He lowered his head even further.

All eyes quietly shifted back to the Chairman's face.

The chairman's face remained completely expressionless.

He looked at Li Zongren for about five seconds, then his lips twitched slightly.

"A commendation?"

He pondered those two words, then let out a heavy, cold snort, filled with suppressed anger.

"You make it sound so easy."

The Chairman's voice was sharp and grating, "Praise Zhang Xueming? And then what? Have you thought about the consequences?"

"Will the Japanese give up so easily? Their main naval force is still intact, and their domestic arsenals are still producing guns and cannons day and night."

"To commend Zhang Xueming is tantamount to declaring war on the Japanese. Are you prepared for a full-scale war with the Japanese?"

He stood up, placed his hands on the table, leaned slightly forward, and scanned each person's face:

"Do you know how strong the Japanese devils were?"

No one answered.

"I have lived in the Kingdom of Bhikkhu."

The Chairman's voice deepened, as if recalling the past, "When I served in the Takada Regiment, I saw with my own eyes what the Japanese army was like."

"Their soldiers can do push-ups shirtless in the snow, and their artillery can fire shells into a wooden barrel hundreds of meters away."

"Each of their regiments has a complete logistical supply system, from bullets to medicine to food, with each link connected and meticulously managed."

His voice began to rise, and with each sentence he spoke, he tapped his fingers heavily on the table.

"What's the Japanese steel production this year? 22 tons!"

"And us? 1.5 tons!"

"A tenfold difference!"

"What is their annual aircraft production? Three thousand!"

"And us? Less than a hundred!"

"What is the total tonnage of their warships? 1.2 million tons!"

"And what about us? Our combined displacement is less than 100,000 tons, less than a single one of their battleships!"

He became increasingly agitated as he spoke, and the veins on his forehead bulged faintly.

"How can such a gap be bridged? With Zhang Xueming's few hundred tanks? With his few dozen planes? Do they think they're invincible just because they won one battle?"

"The Qing Dynasty thought the same thing before the Sino-Japanese War! And what was the result? The Beiyang Fleet was completely annihilated, Lushun was massacred, and the Treaty of Shimonoseki ordered a war indemnity of 230 million taels of silver."

"Two hundred and thirty million taels! That's twenty years of the Qing Dynasty's fiscal revenue!"

"If another Sino-Japanese War were to happen, what assets would we have left to lose? Tell me, what would we have?"

His voice echoed in the conference room, causing everyone to lower their heads.

The teacup in front of Bai Chongxi had gone completely cold, with a thin layer of oil floating on the tea, but he still picked it up and took a sip, using this action to conceal his expression.

Li Zongren remained silent. He knew that what the Chairman said was true. He could recite the data on steel production, aircraft, and warships.

This is the predicament of China: it has the will to fight the enemy, but is powerless to reverse the tide due to the vast industrial gap.

The chairman sat back down in his chair, his emotions seemingly calmed down a bit.

He took a white handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped his mouth, and then put his hands back on the table.

"It's not that I don't support the resistance against Japan."

His tone softened, taking on a more earnest tone: "But resisting Japan requires strategy and methods."

"We cannot be like Empress Dowager Cixi, who impulsively declared war on all nations, ultimately resulting in the Boxer Indemnity and the loss of national sovereignty and dignity."

"We are currently impoverished and weak, and what we need most is time."

"We must be patient and accumulate strength. When our national power is strong, we can settle accounts with the great powers."

"Instead of going head-to-head with an industrial powerhouse now, when we can't even manufacture all the rifles we need."

He looked around:

"You are all men who lead troops into battle; you should understand this principle without me having to explain it."

Silence fell over the meeting room again.

This silence was even heavier than before.

Gu Zhutong put down the documents in his hand.

He knew that the figures the chairman mentioned were true, but he also knew that data was never the whole story of war.

The corpses of the 80,000 Japanese soldiers at Luofengpo were not piled up with steel production, but rather earned through an iron will and a ruthless, death-defying fighting spirit.

But he didn't say anything.

He can't say.

He knows the Chairman too well.

What he needs at this moment is not an objective analysis, but a mouth that can package his true intentions into a high-sounding plan.

After much deliberation, Gu Zhutong found an excellent solution.

"Chairman."

Gu Zhutong spoke up, "I believe that the current situation is not without room for maneuver."

The chairman turned his gaze to him, nodded slightly, and gestured for him to continue.