Chapter Twenty-One: Night Banquet

  Back at the provincial government, Song Zhe-wu called in the logistics department head of the traveling department and Wang Xing-gang who had come to Beiping with him. The logistics department head was in Beiping to procure medicine and daily necessities for the troops. Upon meeting Song Zhe-wu, he immediately gave a detailed report on the procurement situation. This time, the procurement of materials went relatively smoothly. Medicines were always purchased through Peking Union Medical College Hospital, ensuring quality and quantity. On the other hand, the procurement of daily necessities was more complicated. It wasn't that they couldn't be bought, but rather that the quantities needed were too large - 1-2 million units at a time. Many merchants didn't have such large quantities in stock, so it often took several trips to different stores to complete the purchase of one item.

  Wang Xinggang's main task this time was to recruit people. Since he took over as the head of the Political Training Department, Song Zhiwu has been very supportive of him. Not only did he agree to let Wang manage the political training and education of the troops, but he also gave him an additional task: establishing a military police squadron under the Political Training Department to oversee military discipline inspections. Although the departments of political training and military police do not go into battle, they play a very important role in the army and have great authority. Wang Xinggang was deeply grateful that Song Zhiwu had entrusted these two important departments to him, a newcomer to the Security Regiment. Even though he felt somewhat uneasy due to his identity, he wanted to wholeheartedly help Song Zhiwu and do a good job before receiving further instructions.

  The Garrison's people were easy to talk to, and the team was quickly formed. However, the political training personnel at the Training Department gave him a headache. He selected 40 people from all the high school graduates or above in the entire Security Regiment provided by Xiao Guodong, and these people wrote political training materials and conducted political training education for soldiers without any problems. At first, the soldiers were very willing to attend political training classes, and they listened with great interest to stories about Yue Fei, Wen Tianxiang, Shi Kefa, and Qi Jiguang. However, as time went on, a major drawback became apparent: the soldiers found the political training classes dry and boring. Wang Xinggang thought for a long time and finally came up with an idea. He found Song Zhiwu and told him about the situation with the political training, but Song Zhiwu didn't have any good solutions either. Wang Xinggang told Song Zhiwu that 99% of the Security Regiment's personnel were from peasant backgrounds, and using refined language would definitely not be effective for them. The only way was to use colloquialisms, specifically by making political training enjoyable. Song Zhiwu listened with great enthusiasm and thought: "He's indeed a GCD member! He does propaganda work so well!" He immediately gave his full support, giving Wang Xinggang the authority to find all the necessary personnel, who would report back to the General Staff Department for filing. If money was needed, he could go find the Chief of Staff, with just one requirement: political training and propaganda must absolutely not stray from the realm of patriotism. Therefore, over the past half month, Wang Xinggang had made three trips to Beiping, conducting extensive publicity and recruiting talent at various universities, especially at the Beiping Art College.

  Wang Xing knew that Song Zhe Wu was concerned about this matter, and immediately told him: "88 people of various talents have been recruited, including blowing, pulling, playing, singing, and writing." They have all been notified and can set off to Luyuanyuan at any time. "Are these people all from Beiping? If so, give them more resettlement fees, after all, they are going with us to dig mountains and gullies." Wang Xing nodded in agreement and went out to make arrangements.

  As Song Zhiwu was to return to Taiyuan the next day, Shang Zhen invited him to a dinner party in his living room at the rear garden of the provincial government that evening. Liu Pei and Yang Xiaoou, commander of the 35th Division under Shang Zhen's command, also attended. During the dinner, Shang Zhen again recounted the details of the military school's confrontation exercise. In the afternoon, Shang Zhen had already told Liu Pei about the matter, and he brought it up again mainly for Yang Xiaoou to hear.

  Yang Xiaoe, like Shang Zhen, was not from Shanxi Province but from Suizhou, Hubei Province. After graduating from the Baoding Military Academy, he had always followed Shang Zhen and was his absolute confidant. Yang Xiaoe listened very carefully and occasionally asked for details during the conversation. As a military academy student, he had seen them before and was familiar with their strength. Half a month ago, Shang Zhen ordered him to send troops to conduct confrontation exercises with the military academy, specifically instructing him to dispatch his strongest unit and lead it personally. As Shang Zhen's confidant, Yang naturally understood his superior's thoughts - Shang wanted to truly test the military academy's training level. After several rounds of confrontation exercises, Yang couldn't help but feel ashamed. Except for a tie in tactical confrontation exercises, the 35th Division lost all other matches. What he didn't expect was that the military academy students were defeated by the Security Brigade, led by a young man seven or eight years his junior. In just two years, this young man had trained a group of peasants into such a well-trained unit, and Yang acknowledged that he couldn't have done it himself. Over the past half year, he had initially disagreed with Shang's strong support for the Security Brigade, but now it seemed that Shang's vision was truly unique.

  "Yang Xiang, the training of the 35th Division still needs to be strengthened! You have always had high standards, and you personally witnessed the confrontation exercises between the 35th Division and the Military Academy. The abilities of the military academy students should be said to be very strong already. I also thought so, but today I saw Wen Ge's team and it really made us old soldiers feel ashamed!" Today, everyone present was a confidant of Shang Zhen, and what Shang Zhen said were all sincere words. On the one hand, he reminded Yang Xiang that there is always room for improvement, and the 35th Division still needs to strengthen its training, without any blame; on the other hand, he also sincerely praised Song Zhe Wu.

  Song Zhe-wu saw Yang Xiao-ou being cornered by Shang Zhen's words, wanting to help Yang Xiao-ou out of the situation, but couldn't find suitable words for a moment. Just as he was hesitating, Yang Xiao-ou had already stood up: "Xiao-ou didn't lead the troops well and let down his superior." "Sit, sit, sit down and talk." Shang Zhen knew that what he said earlier was a bit too much, and Yang Xiao-ou couldn't take it, also feeling somewhat apologetic.

  "Haha." Liu Pei understood Shang Zhen's meaning and said with a smile: "Effort, the combat effectiveness of the 35th Division is not only the best in our 32nd Army, but also among all the troops in the Pingjin area. In October, Bai Chongxi organized a large-scale exercise for the Fourth Group Army in North China, we all saw it. There's one thing you don't know, today I can reveal a secret to you, when Qi Yu came back, he told me that if the 35th Division went, they would definitely be the first. This is something Qi Yu has a good grasp of. You don't have to blame yourself, it's not that your training of the troops was bad, but the Security Brigade was too strong, Wen Ge is simply a genius at training soldiers." As he spoke, he raised his wine cup: "Let us toast to Qi Yu's keen eye for talent, discovering Wen Ge this fine horse; and also to our Hebei having Wen Ge and Effort such outstanding military leaders, let's drink a cup!"

  "Good, good!" Shang Zhen knew that Liu Pei's words were both to comfort Yang Xiao and to help himself win over Song Zhe Wu. By only mentioning Hebei and not mentioning the Shanxi army, it meant that they were all under Shang Zhen's command. Shang Zhen raised his wine cup: "As I said, come on, let's drink a toast to our two great generals in Hebei." After finishing speaking, he drank the whole cup in one gulp. Song Zhe Wu originally wanted to be modest for a while, but seeing Shang Zhen finish his wine, he could only do the same.

  Then, Liu Pei again brought the conversation to Song Zhe Wu's military training methods. Song Zhe Wu did not hide anything and told them the truth one by one. After listening, Shang Zhen and the other two were shocked by the large amount of physical training required for the security troops' big exercise, and they felt helpless about Song Zhe Wu's military pay rewards and massive live ammunition training. All these require money, a lot of money. Looking at the various factions in the country, none of them have such financial resources. The central government does have this financial capacity, but the problem is that the central government has many places to spend its money, and it won't all be spent on the military.

  Song Zhe-wu knew that Shang Zhen would leave Hebei in August 1929 to become the provincial chairman of Shanxi. Due to Shang Zhen's influence, the weapons and ammunition purchased by the Security Brigade from Tianjin were often obstructed by Fu Zuoyi and Zhang Yunyi's troops, but they still had to consider Shang Zhen's relationship. Each time, without Shang Zhen's intervention, it was usually resolved with just a phone call from Liu Pei to the chiefs of staff of the two armies. However, once Shang Zhen left Hebei, it would not be so easy to purchase such large quantities of weapons. Therefore, over the past six months, Song Zhe-wu had been stockpiling large amounts of weapons and ammunition, trying to store enough before Shang Zhen's departure. Currently, apart from military expenses, all profits from several factories were sent to Xiao Gezi, and even some money was borrowed from his elder brother Song Zhe-wen.

  Song Zhe-wu mentioned the recent difficulties in purchasing weapons, which Shang Zhen had already heard from Liu Pei. He knew that only Fu Zuoyi and Zhang Yingwu's subordinates, the regimental and division commanders, did not have the guts to move against Shang Zhen, and even Fu and Zhang themselves would not do so. There must be a shadow of Shanxi behind this, because they did not want their own strength to become too powerful. Therefore, as soon as Song Zhe-wu mentioned this matter, Shang Zhen instructed Liu Pei to set up a logistics department for the 32nd Army in Tianjin, using the name of the 32nd Army to assist the Security Brigade in purchasing and transporting weapons and ammunition. At the same time, Yang Xieou was asked to arrange for troops stationed along the way to be responsible for protection.

  Before the banquet ended, Shang Zhen casually said: "Wen Ge, your cavalry regiment has been making a lot of noise in Kouwai and Jibei recently. Xu Yongchang from Suiyuan sent me two telegrams within two months of taking office, saying that they didn't even greet us before crossing the border to suppress bandits." Song Zhe Wu knew that Wei Guanghui was trying to quickly improve the combat effectiveness of his newly recruited cavalry regiment by searching for horse bandits everywhere. The horse bandits in Jibei were wiped out in a short period, so he set his sights on Kouwai and Suiyuan's horse bandits. In Suiyuan, he was more careful, but within Inner Mongolia, he didn't have as many concerns. Once, he even chased a group of horse bandits to the so-called border line of Inner Mongolia. Shang Zhen didn't wait for Song Zhe Wu to respond and continued: "You give them a heads up, don't bother with things in Suiyuan anymore, and within Inner Mongolia, as long as you don't cross that so-called border line, you can be more lenient. Not only the horse bandits but also the royal nobles who secretly collude with the Outer Mongolian old Maozi should be dealt with."

  Shang Zhen thought for a moment and said, "Wen Ge, I think Bai Chongxi is in a precarious situation this time. There are many rumors circulating, even some saying that some warlords want to kidnap him. What do you think we should do? E's idea is that we also need to make some moves and take advantage of the situation." Song Zhiwu had considered this before, but after weighing the pros and cons, he had dismissed the idea.

  "This muddy water we can't stir up, participating will only bring harm and no benefit. Firstly, Tang Shengzhi doesn't have the support of Chairman Chiang, he absolutely won't come back. It's certain that Chairman Chiang is about to start dealing with the Guangxi clique now. If we help Bai Chongxi, it will inevitably make Chairman Chiang dissatisfied. If we deal with Bai Chongxi, Shanxi also won't be satisfied. The 2nd and 3rd Army Groups, although not openly supporting the 4th Army Group, absolutely don't want to see Chairman Chiang easily resolve the Guangxi clique. This matter, no matter how we do it, will bring a hundred harms and no benefits. Therefore, my view is that we should not participate." Song Zhewu said calmly.

  Shang Zhen thought for a moment: "Alright, we won't participate for now. From now on, the Chief of Staff will send you a weekly telegram to report on the situation in Beiping. If you have any thoughts, please respond promptly."