By September, the ranks of generals, lieutenant generals, and major generals in the country's military had basically been awarded. Liu Lang, who had been rejected twice by the Ministry of Military Affairs and Political Affairs, had no hope of being promoted to major general.
Liu Xiang, a veteran warlord, naturally knew very well that it was not that the Ministry of Military Affairs did not give him face as the chairman of Sichuan Province, but that the bald man did not want him to firmly control the power in Sichuan and at the same time put Liu Lang, the Liu family, at the top.
Naturally, there is a huge difference between an army major general who can command a brigade and an army colonel who can only lead a regiment.
However, Liu Xiang, who survived the civil war in Sichuan Province for ten years, was naturally not an honest boy who could be manipulated by others. His plan to promote Liu Lang to consolidate his power failed, so he tried another way and wrote a letter to form a security regiment in northern Sichuan.
The telegram was sent directly from the Seventh Route Army Headquarters to the Military and Government Department of the National Government.
The big bosses of the Military and Political Department, who had already refuted General Liu's face several times, naturally had to give him face this time, not to mention that General Liu's reasons were very convincing. He was doing it for the plan of "suppressing bandits" and to help the Chairman.
Sharing worries and solving problems is for the long-term stability of the country. Anyway, there is absolutely no selfish intention.
This is not the nonsense of General Liu who presided over the great cause of "suppressing bandits" in Sichuan, but this is indeed the current situation in Sichuan.
The threat to Sichuan's safety was not the main force of the Red Army's central force, led by Taizu, who was marching toward western Sichuan, but another force, the Fourth Front, which was several times stronger than the main force of the Red Army's central force.
This main force of the Red Army, which numbered 60,000, had numerous interactions with Liu Xiang in Sichuan in the past few years. Liu Xiang suffered a huge loss without winning a single victory and was beaten almost every time.
Since entering from the Shaanxi border into the northern Sichuan border in June 1932, the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army has been overwhelming and has conquered several county towns. It only stopped advancing when it reached the Guangyuan border because of the existence of the independent regiment.
In October 1933, the territory occupied by the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army started from the suburbs of the city entrance in the east, reached the coast of the Jialing River in the west, started from Yingshan and Daxian in the south, and ended in Ba and Ningqiang, Zhennan, Shaanxi Province in the north, with a length of more than 400 miles and a horizontal area of
It covers more than 500 miles, with a total area of more than 42,000 square kilometers, and controls eight counties in Sichuan and Shaanxi including Tongjiang, Nanjiang, Xuanhan, Daxian, and Wanyuan.
Liu Cunhou's troops, who originally had deep roots in northern Sichuan, were beaten so hard by the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army that they almost lost all their territory. That is, Guangyuan, an important channel at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi, was still strong because of the existence of the powerful independent regiment.
It is firmly in the hands of the Sichuan Army.
In fact, if Liu Lang, a little butterfly, hadn't appeared out of nowhere, the land in Guangyuan would have belonged to the Red Army.
In August 1934, the Sixth Route Army organized by Liu Xiang was defeated and returned from the siege. The Liu Lang Independent Regiment was unable to go out to fight because it needed to garrison the Guangyuan Base and Fortress to ensure the safety of the oil fields 200 miles away. The Red Army's troops were at their peak. By 1935
In March, the increasingly powerful Fourth Front Army of the Red Army launched a campaign to forcibly cross the Jialing River. It lasted for nearly a month and defeated Liu Xiang and Liu Cunhou's twelve regiments. They controlled the Jialing River in the east, Beichuan in the west, Zitong in the south, and Zitong in the north.
Lower Qingchuan, an area of 300 miles each, and nine counties in northern Sichuan including Jiange, Beichuan, Qingchuan, and Pingwu fell into the hands of the red troops.
In other words, in the first half of 1935, most of northern Sichuan, with the exception of Guangyuan, where the Independent Regiment was located, had turned red, and Liu Cunhou, the veteran warlord in northern Sichuan, was driven out of his home base. As the leader of Sichuan, Liu Xiang was certainly worried.
The soldiers will guard the Mianyang area to prevent the oil fields from being lost, and the bald boss also has veins popping out of his forehead.
If Liu Xiang hadn't promised that he would never let the Red troops advance any further, he would have sent the Central Army into Sichuan. Fortunately, Liu Xiang breathed a sigh of relief that the Red troops stayed in northern Sichuan for less than two months.
Just head to that barren land in western Sichuan.
Of course Liu Lang knew that the Fourth Front of the Red Army was rushing to western Sichuan to join the main force of the Central Red Army led by Taizu. At the end of June 1935, they successfully met in Xiaojin County.
The red troops entered the Western Sichuan Plateau, which was not only a relief for Sichuan warlords large and small, but also the bald boss was very happy. The barren land of the Western Sichuan Plateau simply did not have the ability to support tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops. He only wanted to
By locking the gate of western Sichuan, in his opinion, the remaining red troops will be swallowed up by the cruel natural environment there.
The bald man may not be qualified as a military strategist, but as a leader of a country, he still has some strategic vision. The red troops, who were planning to use the Western Sichuan Plateau as a red base to gradually strengthen their own strength, also discovered Western Sichuan.
The plateau is poor in materials, has no human habitation for dozens of miles, and has insufficient military resources. It is not suitable for development, but they are still confused about where to go. It was not until late September that they accidentally discovered the "Ta Kung Pao" article in Hadapu Town.
Only after reporting on the Red Army in northern Shaanxi did they know that there was a red base area about the same size as Jiangxi, and then they decided to go north to northern Shaanxi.
Of course, in order to prevent the rut of history from deviating, Liu Lang had already used his connections to let the "Declaration" and "Beiping People's Daily" spend a lot of money to report the news of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi, and the Gansu Branch of the Huashang Group would report it in July and August.
He was responsible for plastering newspapers all over the towns where the red troops might pass by. In the famous Hadapu town, it was plastered on almost every wall.
Naturally, the national government strongly supports this kind of anti-"Red" propaganda, and it also highly approves of Huashang Group Company's behavior of following the national government's footsteps.
No one would know that Liu Tuanzuo was using this method to inform the Red Army. Although Liu Lang also believed that even without those old newspapers, the Red Army would still find its most correct direction, but Liu Lang still
I hope that the casualties of that army that has fought hundreds of battles will be less. They are not only the founders of the future republic, but also one of the main forces resisting the Japanese invaders. The more of them there are, the more casualties the Japanese invaders will have.
But what troubled Liu Xiangren was that the elite red troops who had left northern Sichuan and entered western Sichuan showed signs of turning around and returning. Just before he sent a message to the Ministry of Military Affairs, the intelligence report from the front line had clearly stated that,
The tens of thousands of "old friends" who once occupied northern Sichuan turned around north of Aba and headed south, entering the Songpan Prairie again. The peak of the army only refers to the Matang and Songgang areas.
"Fight back to Chengdu and eat rice", the slogan they shouted made Liu Xiang and the officials of the Military and Political Department frightened. Liu Xiang, who sent a message saying that he needed to set up a security regiment in northern Sichuan, had already sent a message to the two brigades of the 24th Army on the front line in western Sichuan.
Defenses were deployed along the Dajinchuan River, and four brigades of the 20th Army were deployed in the Xiaojinchuan area. At the same time, troops were gathered in famous mountains and other places to ensure the safety of the plains in central Sichuan.
You know, if this red army with more than 60,000 people conquers Central Sichuan and then invades Chengdu, with the fertile Central Sichuan Plain and the huge population, then this place will really become the second largest city in Shu.
Both the government and Liu Xiang were working hard to defend central Sichuan this time.
Liu Xiang's slightly abrupt but reasonable request to form a new defense regiment in Northern Sichuan is naturally nothing. Northern Sichuan, which has just been taken back and has not yet had time to stabilize people's hearts, also needs a combatable army to defend and appease. Although Liu Xiang's urgent shouting
The new army in northern Sichuan was established in a roaring manner, showing off its face of grabbing territory.
They are all veterans who have been in the army for a long time. Who can't see through Admiral Liu's thoughts? But what can he do even if he knows? He has already refuted Admiral Liu's face twice, and he must approve it this time.
As for the veteran warlord Liu Cunhou who has been entrenched in northern Sichuan, the Ministry of Military Affairs naturally ignored him. Who would care about someone who can't even defend his home base?
In this way, a security regiment in northern Sichuan with a strength of up to 3,000 people under the Seventh Route Army was born. However, the regiment was organized but not provided with any ordnance and personnel. All supplies and personnel were borne by Liu Xiang's Sichuan Provincial Government.
To put it bluntly, the government recognizes the existence of this army, but you can’t use it to get money from the treasury. If you want to increase your strength, you have to pay for it yourself. Besides, the rats in the treasury are starving to death.
The central government and local warlords in this era are more like businessmen than soldiers. They have to bargain for their own interests in everything they do. You are on guard against me, and I am on guard against you. Anyway, we are all on guard against each other.
Live life.
Presumably this is also an important reason why China and the Japanese invaders have been fighting for more than ten years.
However, if China is monolithic, it may be unknown whether the Japanese invaders would have the courage to launch an all-out war with China.
In the early morning of the first weekend of September, Liu Lang received a telegram ordering him to go to Chengdu to discuss military affairs.
Liu Lang, who was hurried to Chengdu in a foreign girl's car, didn't know that the defense group was Liu Xiang's compensation for not being promoted this time.