"With a bag of dry food made of flour and one hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition, I can fight continuously in the mountains for a month!"
If it weren't for the fact that he had been in China for more than a year and had seen how poor the real Chinese army was, Gao Si almost thought that the other party was making fun of him, but he was still a little skeptical of Doolittle's words.
Suppressing the displeasure in his heart, he said with a stern face: "Jimmy, I know that the Chinese army is indeed very poor. Many soldiers can't even afford straw sandals, but this is not the reason for you to praise them."
"Believe it or not, I just expressed my opinion, that's all." Doolittle shrugged, not caring about Gao Si's attitude.
Now he is the hero of the air raid on Tokyo. So what if Gao Si is the U.S. ambassador to China? This status does not have any binding force on him. If he doesn't do it, he won't do it. What can you do to him?
Gao Si suppressed the anger in his heart and tried his best to lower his voice: "Jimmy, you have to know that I didn't come here on a whim, but on the order of President Roosevelt."
"Coming from President Roosevelt's order?"
Doolittle was slightly startled. If Goth came under Roosevelt's order, it would be different.
He sat up straight and his expression became solemn, "Mr. Ambassador, do you have a telegram or authorization order from the president? If so, please show it to me."
"No!" Gao Si waved his hand impatiently: "Listen carefully, this order is for me to conduct an investigation on the Liantai Militia and evaluate the true combat effectiveness of their ground forces in order to prepare for the next plan.
This plan requires your cooperation."
"Mr. Ambassador, can you explain in more detail?" Doolittle still didn't understand.
"Listen Jimmy."
Gao Si took a deep breath and explained patiently: "You should have heard that since our victory in the Battle of Midway, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided to attack the Japanese forces entrenched in the Pacific. Their first target
It was placed on Guadalcanal and Lieutenant General Gormley was appointed to take charge of the landing operation.
So just last month, we launched an attack on Guadalcanal, but encountered a strong counterattack by the Japanese. As you know, our army has not fought in a war for a long time, and even the charts used were nine
It was made by some missionaries ten years ago.
Moreover, the 1st Marine Division originally sent to Guadalcanal only had two regiments. After the strong request of Lieutenant General Gormley and Major General Vandergrift, the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division and other troops were
The three battalions were organized into the 1st Marine Division, barely forming a reinforced division with a total strength of approximately 18,000 troops.
But that's not the worst thing. The worst thing is that most of these people are new recruits and have not received much training at all, so you can imagine how chaotic this battle must be."
"Damn it, whoever made this plan should be shot!" Doolittle exclaimed.
Although he was born in the Air Force, this does not mean that Doolittle knew nothing about land warfare.
On the contrary, because he helped in the Liantai Militia during this period, he was exposed to many things about the army, and he understood very well how bad it would be for an army composed mostly of new recruits to attack an island where the enemy was firmly entrenched.
"These people must be crazy." Doolittle shook his head, "It's strange that you can win a war like this."
"Yes, they have paid the price for this." Gao Si sighed, "General Gormley said before the war that if the American people knew that our troops were going to fight like this, they would definitely rise up in rebellion!
In fact, we suffered casualties of one battalion on the first day, and countless soldiers were killed by Japanese machine guns like crowded sardines on the beach. In the following half a month, our number of casualties reached more than 3,000.
people, and more than 4,000 people were injured."
"God, this is terrible."
Doolittle shook his head helplessly. The total force was only 18,000, and nearly half of them were killed or wounded in more than half a month. No wonder it alarmed the White House.
However, he still looked at Gao Si with some doubts: "Mr. Ambassador, I am just an air force member, and I am far away in China. How can I help you?"
"sure."
Hearing this, Gao Si cheered up and said, "Jimmy, you have to know the characteristics of the people in the country. They can accept the US government wasting millions of military uniforms, but they can never accept too huge casualties.
Once the domestic people know that our army has killed and injured so many people on a tiny island in half a month, they will definitely fall out, and anti-war demonstrations may even break out, so we must find a way to reduce the
The casualty rate of our military.”
If Doolittle still didn't understand what Gao Si meant when he heard this, his life would be in vain, and he immediately blurted out: "So you are targeting the Chinese army, is that right?"
"Yes."
Gao Si looked at Doolittle, "I came here this time to find that General Gao, and to ask him to send a force of no less than five thousand people to Guadalcanal in the name of the coalition to fight together with us."
"Mr. Ambassador, I have to say that Mr. President's idea is really... really... too whimsical. General Gao will never agree..." Doolittle was a little bit dumbfounded by Gao Si's words.
"You may not know yet, but General Gao is uniting the armies of the other two factions in China and is planning to recapture the provincial capital city in Shanxi. Seeing that a large-scale battle involving more than 100,000 people is about to begin, how can they have any redundancy?
Our troops went to Guadalcanal, thousands of miles away, to work for us.”
"So this is also the purpose of my coming to Shanxi this time." Gao Si said seriously.
"With all due respect." Doolittle couldn't help but said: "As far as I know, the Chongqing government still has at least several million troops in its hands. Why don't you go to that Chairman Chiang? Thousands of troops are fighting against
It’s just a small thing for him.”
"Chairman Chiang's troops?" Gao Si snorted, with a particularly disdainful tone: "If his troops are transferred to Guadalcanal, given the combat effectiveness of his troops, it would be a good thing if he doesn't do any harm."
1942 was the most difficult year in the history of the Anti-Japanese War, with famine everywhere.
At that time, the price of a bucket of millet had risen to 130 to 145 yuan, which was simply unaffordable for ordinary people. This was not the most important thing. Even if you had money at that time, you could not buy rice at all.
.
The severe famine caused "man-cannibalism" tragedies to occur in many places in Henan. In Henan, where the disaster was most serious, almost all the bark and grass roots were dug up. Starved corpses and abandoned babies were everywhere along the road in Henan.
In order to survive, many people had no choice but to sell their sons and daughters. At that time, a few sesame seed cakes could be exchanged for a girl.
However, at this time of national crisis, there are still a large number of officials who are actually trying to make money from the national crisis. They put all the millet and flour used for disaster relief into their own pockets and sell them, but they turned a blind eye to the situation of the victims.
No wonder Gao Si despised the Chongqing government and its troops.