The Fourth Outstanding Person of Huangpu Military Academy

Zhou Shidi: “…”

After the Hunan-Guizhou Highway was opened to traffic, the general inspection team immediately went to western Hunan to conduct a military terrain survey of this new "Hunan-Guizhou Channel".

What Zhou Shidi saw was the winding mountain road in Yongsui County.

Due to a lack of technology and funding for tunneling, the Hunan-Guizhou Highway, when constructed, was largely winding, looping or repeatedly doubling its way uphill, and then downhill again. The entire highway, with a straight-line distance of 400 kilometers between its starting and ending points, actually spans over 800 kilometers.

The section of road in Guizhou is indeed more difficult and dangerous than the Hunan section. The old photo from the Anti-Japanese War, which is often used to represent the Burma Road, is actually the "Twenty-Four Bends" of the Guikun Highway in Guizhou.

Chen Tianheng: "In our military operations against Guizhou and Sichuan, it would be best if the enemy did not have heavy defenses along the roads. Otherwise, with this kind of terrain, it would be very difficult to break through the defenders' fortified areas, and the campaign would progress very slowly."

Liu Bocheng: "Then we must use a surprise attack."

Chen Tianheng: "The General Staff previously set a '24-day' deadline for a sudden response, which was aimed at the Nanjing government. The local warlords in Guizhou will react faster than this."

Zhou Shidi: "The Operations Department believes that the Guizhou local warlords have seven days to gather intelligence, make judgments, and make decisions."

"Hmm." Liu Bocheng was thinking.

"So, what about the time of the local Sichuan warlords?"

It turned out that Liu Bocheng was not just thinking about the Guizhou warlords, his thoughts had already jumped to Sichuan.

Chen Tianheng: "The worst-case scenario is also seven days, but the General Staff and the Central Committee will do their best to strategically confuse the enemy and gain the initiative on the battlefield."

The General Staff has now established a "Southwest Operations Planning Center", which is chaired by Deputy Chief of General Staff Liu Bocheng.

The biggest enemy in the southwest war was the terrain. Even with the Hunan-Guizhou Highway open to traffic and the Sichuan-Hunan Highway about to open to traffic, the General Staff still faced difficulties in formulating a battle plan.

However, there are also good aspects. Politically, the reasons for advancing into Sichuan and Guizhou already have basic logic, and this has been verified in recent events in Lu'an and Changnan:

To punish the people and punish them.

If you harm the people, impose heavy taxes and levies that incite civil unrest, or make the local governance a mess, I will have reason to beat you.

"To create a favorable situation for us within seven days, we must launch the offensive against Guizhou and Sichuan simultaneously."

Liu Bocheng worked out the first comprehensive plan.

"Our current plan is to advance the Corps from Hunan into Guizhou. This will achieve the goal of suddenness in the campaign. After capturing Zunyi, our army will seize Guizhou's second-largest city and a key distribution point for supplies. Victory in the Guizhou campaign can be said to be assured. However, before launching the attack on Zunyi, our army should advance with one to two divisions along the Hunan-Heijin-Sichuan Highway."

"Before the Sichuan Army mobilized, our offensive column quickly entered Sichuan, successively capturing Baxian, Jiangjin, Qijiangnan, and Qijiang," Liu Bocheng recited a string of place names, "and approached the city of Chongqing."

Wang Erzhuo: "Seven days is too tight. Our army will need seven days to march from northern Guizhou to Chongqing."

Liu Bocheng looked at Chen Tianheng and asked, "Is a motorized march feasible?"

After returning from further studies in Frunze, new terms often popped up in Liu Bocheng's mind.

Chen Tianheng: "The corps currently scheduled to be deployed in the Sichuan-Guizhou Campaign will be equipped with approximately 400 trucks, with mules and horses still the primary means of transportation. If we withdraw all available vehicles from the various units, we could potentially have 100 to 120 vehicles, ensuring that one infantry regiment can conduct a motorized march. So, Lao Liu, a motorized march is not impossible, but you must plan how to use one regiment as a vanguard to penetrate Baxian, Jiangjin, south of Qijiang, and Qijiang, and then advance all the way to the vicinity of Chongqing."

"A regiment..."

Liu Bocheng touched his chin in thought.

Chen Tianheng said: "Because automobile traction is far superior to mule and horse traction, this vanguard column entering Sichuan can be equipped with automobile-drawn mountain artillery. We can equip the vanguard with four, no, eight 75mm mountain artillery pieces."

Liu Bocheng: "In this case, I hope the battle for the Sichuan Pass can be supported by the Air Force dive bombers."

Chen Tianheng looked at Air Force Chief of Staff Feng Dafei, who had also come to Xiangxi for an inspection. Feng Dafei said, "The Air Force can deploy 12 dive bombers to Sangzhi Airport... We only have 24 total, and we also have to serve as reconnaissance aircraft. We can now perform precision ground strikes with dive bombers, but exercises in the first half of the year have shown that to effectively clear the way for bombing, we need direct radio communication between the bombers and the ground."

Liu Bocheng: "Since the Vanguard Column is equipped with vehicles, it is natural to install voice radios on them. However, the ground regiment must have experience in coordinating with the Air Force dive bombers. They must have received training in this area."

Chen Tianheng: "The only unit that has already undergone air-ground coordination training is the First Division of the First Army. Perhaps more will be added in six months... Let's make this a priority: troops from the First Division will be drawn to form a motorized regimental-level combat team. Using air-ground coordination, they will rapidly penetrate the Sichuan-Guizhou-Hunan Highway."

Zunyi.

Wang Jialie's official residence.

In May 1929, during the Guizhou Civil War, Zhou Xicheng, the former "King of Guizhou," was defeated and killed in the Battle of Western Guizhou. Mao Guangxiang and Wang Jialie emerged victorious. Mao Guangxiang subsequently became Governor of Guizhou Province and Commander of the 25th Army, while Wang Jialie became Deputy Commander of the 25th Army and Mayor of Zunyi.

From then on, cracks began to appear in the friendship between Mao Guangxiang and Wang Jialie, a pair of good friends.

Both men wanted to persuade Chiang Kai-shek to support them and eliminate their rivals, but Chiang Kai-shek never made a clear statement about who he would support. Mao Guangxiang was the governor, so he naturally wanted to win him over, but Wang Jialie would sometimes receive some praise and support from Chiang Kai-shek.

But now Wang Jialie felt that Chiang Kai-shek might very well take action against him.

Because last month, Zhou Yongtong, the special envoy sent by Chiang Kai-shek to Guiyang, was murdered in Zunyi!

"Wife, wife!" Wang Jialie shouted, "Commander-in-Chief Chiang's Party Affairs Investigation Section wants to send someone to investigate me. I am... am I willing to cooperate?"

Wang Jialie's wife, Wan Shukui, was no ordinary person. Her family had a long lineage of high-ranking officials during the Qing Dynasty, and she had been well-educated and intelligent. After marrying Wang Jialie, she had given him many useful suggestions.

Wan Shucai: "Did you do this to Zhou Yongtong?"

Wang Jialie: "I didn't do it, but I don't know if it was my men who did it." "You actually..." Wan Shucai said sadly: "Jialie, now that things have come to this, I don't think Chiang Kai-shek will support us anymore."

Wang Jialie: "What a bad year!"

Wan Shucai: "Jialie, how about this? Let's make it a done deal first. Then, who else can Chiang Kai-shek recognize besides you, the King of Guizhou? It's impossible to just grab some random guy and make him the Governor of Guizhou Province, right?"

Chapter 90: The Rise of Lin Biao

The revolutionary army had contact with Wang Jialie, the "second in command of Guizhou", but was completely unable to persuade him to do their job.

Later, at the suggestion of the Central Committee, the Secret Intelligence Service contacted Wang Jialie's wife Wan Shucai and reached a consensus on certain issues.

It was just "certain aspects." Wan Shucai had no pro-communist tendencies at all, and her family (the Tongzi gentry group) was basically notorious. At that time, a saying was circulating in Guizhou: "When the royal power falls to the ground, all evil will be rampant." Wang refers to Wang Jialie, and Wan refers to Wan Shukui.

However, Wan Shucai felt that Wang Jialie should cooperate with the Communist Party and use its power to overthrow Mao Guangxiang.

Besides, what the Communist Party is asking for now is just to build the Hunan-Guizhou Highway and the Sichuan-Hunan Highway, and ask Wang Jialie to cooperate. It has no intention of driving Wang Jialie out of office, nor does it say that it wants to eradicate the opium fields in Guizhou.

Wang Jialie listened to his wife and decided to cooperate with the Communist Party to build the Hunan-Guizhou Highway. But before starting the construction, Wang Jialie asked doubtfully:

"Wife, we're building a highway from Hunan all the way to Guizhou. What if the Communist army attacks us along the road?"

Wan Shucai raised her hand and swung a frying pan at him: "In Guizhou, there's no money, no food. What does the Communist Party want by attacking us?"

Therefore, in the past two years, the construction progress of the Hunan-Guizhou Highway has been normal, and the road construction speed in Guizhou is not much slower than that in Hunan.

"Zhang Jingjiang's Hangzhou-Jiangxi Railway section has recently run into some problems. It seems the project is over budget. For this reason, Zhang Jingjiang sold his shares in the Hangzhou Power Plant."

Chen Wangdao is now the Secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, but he is from Zhejiang and is more familiar with the affairs there.

Chen Tianheng: "The Zhangjingjiang section of the Hangzhou River must be completed, no matter what. Besides, the project is already more than halfway done. However, raising funds for the Yushan section is likely to be difficult. There's no definite date in Nanjing for when the railway will run directly from Hangzhou to Nanchang."

Chen Wangdao said, "Another factor cannot be ignored. The revolutionary army is now approaching Changnan. The originally planned route for the railway from Yushan to Nanchang is almost within the autonomous rural area under our control..."

Chen Tianheng: "Zhang Jingjiang, well, he probably wouldn't care about these little issues."

Zhang Jingjiang now has a stake in a bank in Guangdong.

The Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway is not just a railway line built between Hangzhou and Nanchang. Its planning blueprint is actually the Zhejiang-Jiangxi-Hunan Railway. After reaching Nanchang, it will continue westward to Pingxiang and connect with the Zhuping Railway, which is also connected with the Yuehan Railway. This will greatly improve the railway network in the south.

"I still have a question I can't understand."

Chen Wangdao said, "The 300,000-ton blast furnace was lit today. The Zhuzhou Steel Plant started operations two months ahead of schedule. I think it's fast enough to complete a steel plant in less than three years, the original schedule. Yet, these Americans say it's too slow?"

Chen Tianheng returned from Xiangxi and is now in Zhuzhou. Coincidentally, today, November 25, 1931, is the day when the Zhuzhou Iron and Steel Plant was completed and put into operation.

"Old Chen, regarding this matter, I think if there's an opportunity, we should arrange for you and a few comrades from Jiangxi to visit the United States."

Chen Wangdao said, "Are you saying that the industrial construction efficiency in the United States is so high that American engineers think China's speed is too slow?"

Chen Tianheng: "Yes. The world's factory, you should have heard of it a long time ago. Whether it's steel mills, car factories, or any other factory, they're built quickly, they're producing quickly, and in the past two years... they've also been closing down quickly."

"Haha, the Great Depression."

Chen Tianheng: "Factories that close can reopen just as quickly. The pace of this world has always been faster and faster, with each century faster than the last. The pastoral era is gone forever."

The first phase of the Zhuzhou Iron and Steel Plant includes a blast furnace with a capacity of more than 1400 cubic meters, a steelmaking converter, a rolling mill for producing steel bars for construction, a silver steel workshop for producing steel plates, and an ingot casting workshop.

To keep Zhuzhou Iron and Steel running, the Pingxiang coal mine ships 400,000 tons of coal annually to Zhuzhou, where it's refined into coke at the Zhuzhou coking plant. Two iron mines and a beneficiation plant near Hengyang ship 500,000 tons of refined iron ore to Pingxiang annually. Oh, and 20,000 tons of scrap steel also needs to be delivered to Zhuzhou via the Yangtze River, Dongting Lake, and Xiangjiang River shipping routes.

The initial planned annual output was 300,000 tons, exceeding the total steel production in the current coalition government's jurisdiction (including various small steel mills in Guangdong and Hunan). However, this still could not meet the coalition government's demand for steel. In the first ten months of 1931, the coalition government imported over 300,000 tons of carbon steel bars for construction.

Zhuzhou Iron and Steel is now in production, but the coalition government in 1932 predicted that the demand for construction steel would continue to grow rapidly, and that 20 to 30 tons of steel bars would have to be imported next year.

Therefore, the second phase of the Zhuzhou Iron and Steel Plant, another 30-ton blast furnace next to the first phase, has also started construction and is expected to be ignited and put into production in the second half of 1933.

The construction speed was described as "too slow" by the American engineers and consultants hired.

Chen Wangdao found it hard to accept, but Chen Tianheng told him that it could actually be faster and should be faster.

At this rate, it would take two and a half years to build a 300,000-ton blast furnace, and it would take 25 years for steel production to catch up with Japan...

Zhuzhou Shitang Training Center.

This was originally a section of the Xiangtan-Zhuzhou defense line built by Nanjing. After the revolutionary army captured Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan in 1929, the bunkers and trenches in this section were preserved as a positional warfare training ground for the revolutionary army.

Over the past two years, the Shitang Training Center has been expanded. There are more bunkers and more trenches than in 1929. In addition, dozens of bare-board houses have been built. Since 1931, the Shitang Training Center has been upgraded to a training ground for urban warfare and field position attack and defense.

The troops currently training here are from the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Division of the 1st Army, and the division commander Lin Biao is also here.

"Group One, Action!"

At the command of the participating infantry company commander, more than a dozen soldiers leaped out of their trenches and divided into six combat teams, charging forward. Two fire support teams charged several dozen meters before immediately lying down and setting up their light machine guns, firing "tat-tat-tat" at targets in the target area.

After that, two light machine guns took turns to cover the advance, and the blasting team approached the target - two bunkers under the cover of the light machine guns. The demolition team put down the explosive pack, turned around and rolled out a few meters.

"Bang! Bang!"

The bomb pack was a fake one, but it was also filled with some explosives. It was as powerful as a big firecracker and made a loud "bang! bang!" sound when it exploded.

"The fire cover team performed very well just now, but the performance of the demolition team was a bit problematic."

The instructor at the training center had been observing the infiltration teams from the bunker. After this round of attack was complete, the instructor emerged from the bunker to teach the assault team:

"Which group is this? Group 2, right?"

"During your charge, you charged from a semi-standing position three times, and that stance lasted for several seconds. If this were a real battlefield, your entire team would have been killed or wounded."

"Team One also has a problem! When you were approaching the bunker, how did you climb over the trench in front of it?"

"Lin Biao, how many of these soldiers are conscripts recruited by the conscription office?" Chen Tianheng asked Lin Biao.

"There are 16 people, 5 of whom are conscripts. It shouldn't be such a high ratio, but a lot of people were withdrawn from the Third Division in August."

Chen Tianheng: "Oh."

The newly formed Marine Corps of the Revolutionary Army was composed of three battalions in the first batch, with nearly two thousand people. For this purpose, some key personnel were drawn from various armies.

Chen Tianheng: "Speed ​​up the training of new recruits. It would be best if new recruits and veteran NCOs could form a technical and tactical study group to pass on combat skills."

Lin Biao: "The quality of battalion and company commanders, and battalion NCOs, is more important than that of ordinary soldiers. Today's company's performance was mediocre, and the main problem lies with the company commander."

Wang Erzhuo stated, "The battalion and company commanders of the Third Division have essentially all experienced actual combat. Combat experience isn't a problem. The problem is likely a lack of understanding of the tactics and principles of warfare, or a failure to incorporate them into daily training. However, the tactics and principles were actually compiled by many commanders and then collated by General Chen. They aren't individual experiences, but rather the collective experience of the troops."

Lin Biao: "Speaking of this, my opinion is that, General Chen, the article 'Combat Decision-Making' that you wrote for middle and senior commanders should also be studied by junior commanders."

"Combat decision-making can be divided into four steps: observation, assessment, decision-making, and execution. I believe this is the same four-step process for all levels of combat. And not just combat, but any hostile conflict, the essence of decision-making is this four-step process. A company commander, upon entering the battlefield, must similarly observe and ascertain the situation, assessing the enemy's troop deployment and combat intent. Once he understands the enemy situation, he must make a decision, and after that, execute. This holds true for troops over a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand."

Chen Tianheng: "This is an excellent proposal. From now on, the 'Combat Decision-Making Manual' will be distributed to all officers, and the training departments will implement it. But I want to ask you a question, Lin Biao. The four steps of combat decision-making are simply a description of actual combat decision-making, dividing the entire process into four stages, but I haven't precisely defined what to do within each. So, what do you think is the core significance of the four steps of combat decision-making?"

Lin Biao: "The four steps of combat decision-making tell us that if we want to win, we must be quick." The combat staff officers Wang Erzhuo and Cai Qingchuan present both looked at Chen Tianheng, wanting him to comment on whether what he said was right.

Chen Tianheng: "Lin Biao, please continue. Wang Erzhuo and Cai Qingchuan, you two should also join the discussion."

Lin Biao: "The combat decision-making process is a four-step cycle. Every time we encounter a new situation, we must observe, judge, decide, and execute. After the troops have executed, the commander will naturally encounter new situations. Based on these new situations, we must once again observe, judge, decide, and execute."

"But our commanders are following the cycle of observation, judgment, decision-making, and execution, and the other side's commanders are also doing the same. Isn't that right?"

Cai Qingchuan: "Indeed. Although the enemy commanders may not have read 'Operational Decision-Making,' their decision-making process also follows these four steps."

Lin Biao: "I would like to use the battle in October 1926, when the First Regiment annihilated the Soviet Fourth Division of the Five Provinces Allied Forces on the Nanxun Line, as an example. General Chen's command during the battle was a typical example of a cycle of suppression in combat decision-making."

"At the time, the 4th Soviet Division was on the march, and we attacked the rear of the 4th Soviet Division. Xie Hongxun, the commander of the 4th Soviet Division, noticed the rear of the division was being attacked, and he made a judgment, a decision, and then executed it: he ordered the 2nd Battalion of the 14th Regiment to go back and rescue the 3rd Battalion."

"But our response was faster than that of the Soviet Fourth Division. When Xie Hongxun ordered the Second Battalion of the 14th Regiment to go back and rescue the Third Battalion, we had already completed one combat decision cycle and started a new combat decision cycle: to destroy his Second Battalion of the 14th Regiment."

"Thus, Xie Hongxun's decision became ineffective and even counterproductive. He was forced to re-collect battlefield information and restart the cycle of observation, judgment, decision-making, and execution. Xie Hongxun then made a second decision: the 14th Regiment would reunite with the artillery regiment for a concentrated defense."

"Similarly, this decision was rendered meaningless due to our swifter response. The artillery regiment was annihilated as soon as Xie Hongxun's messenger reached it."

"Xie Hongxun and his troops were slower than the First Regiment at each of the four stages of observation, judgment, decision-making, and execution."

"Therefore, I believe that General Chen wanted to use the four steps summarized in 'Combat Decision-Making' to inspire all of our commanders and help them understand the essence of combat."

Now Wang Erzhuo and Cai Qingchuan both looked at Lin Biao.

Lin Biao: "In battle, if our side makes decisions more quickly, the enemy's decisions will not be effectively implemented, and we will always have the initiative in the battle. And vice versa."

Chapter 91, Shaoguan Tank Factory