Chapter Fifty-Seven: To Scheme Is to Be Schemed Against

  In the past few days, the post office has been busy, with telegrams and letters of support pouring in from all over like snowflakes. In these days, train stations and highways have also been very busy, with anti-war materials and donations continuously being transported to the front lines.

  In front of the provincial government, there were even more crowds, with young students, workers and peasants from all over Jiang Province demanding to join the army to resist the enemy. They took up guns and marched towards the anti-Japanese battlefield to serve the country. What's more delightful is that a group of over 3,000 Northeastern students who had fled to Beiping formed the Northeastern Students' Anti-Japanese Dare-to-Die Corps and arrived in Heilongjiang, claiming they came to join the Northeastern Anti-Japanese Army. Zhao Xiao Feng immediately put down his work to meet with them and directly appointed four of the most outstanding ones - Gao Chongmin, Yan Baohang, Che Xiangchen and Lu Guangji - as regimental commanders, assigning all of them to his own anti-Japanese army corps.

  All soldiers in Jiang Province are fighting for the country, even if they die without regret. The enthusiasm of the people to join the army and fight is extremely high, and Heilongjiang City is boiling every day.

  People's organizations across the country are enthusiastically supporting the anti-Japanese movement. The North China Anti-Japanese National Salvation Association has proposed to the Kuomintang government: "We vow to sever economic ties with enemy countries"; "Never buy or sell enemy goods, and absolutely promote domestic products."

  The Labour Anti-Japanese National Salvation United Association demanded that Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Xueliang lead the troops to declare war on Japan, and sent a telegram to Ma Zhanshan and Zhao Xiaofeng to express their condolences. The Northeastern people who fled to the interior of China dispatched a large number of political workers to Heilongjiang Province to carry out active propaganda and mobilization for anti-Japanese activities, and contacted the masses, organizations, and groups in various parts of the country to support Ma Zhanshan and Zhao Xiaofeng's resistance against Japan. Donations poured in from overseas and all over China, with local organizations, young students standing on street corners asking passersby for donations, and piles of clothing, food, and other supplies stacked up like small mountains at the Anqing East Station.

  Ma Zhan-shan, the commander-in-chief of the provincial border defense army who was inspecting the front line, looked at and listened to this scene, his heart burning with excitement: "What virtue or ability do I, Ma Zhan-shan, have to receive such deep love from the people? Is it because my anti-Japanese stance has won the support of the people? This is all thanks to Zhao Xiao-feng!"

  Xie Ke, the chief of staff who stayed in the provincial capital, hastily came to Ma Zanshan and said: "Chairman Ma, two foreigners have come to the provincial capital. They claim to be reporters from The Daily Mail and The Manchester Guardian. Will you meet with them?"

  Ma Zanshan thought for a moment: "I must meet with them. I want to show the people of the world China's determination to fight against Japan to the end."

  Xie Ke immediately had his deputy call for a car and returned to the province with Ma Zhan Shan.

  Heilongjiang city's climate is cold, but everywhere is warm and cozy, excited crowds gather in threes and fives to discuss, talk and laugh.

  Someone shouted: "General Ma is back from the front line!"

  The crowd immediately surrounded Ma's car, and many people wanted to catch a glimpse of General Ma.

  The guards of Ma Zhan Mountain were afraid that there might be bad people in the crowd who would attack the provincial chairman, and they hastily got off the bus to disperse the people, but were stopped by Ma Zhan.

  Ma Zhan Shan sported a thick and black beard, his face showed signs of fatigue, but his eyes were bright and spirited. He got off the car, waved to the crowd, and with suppressed excitement in his heart, he said loudly: "Thank you, thank you fellow villagers!"

  Xie Ke, the chief advisor, bowed to everyone: "Fellow villagers have shown General Ma a deep affection, and the general and all soldiers are grateful. We will definitely defend our homeland with our lives and repay the kindness of our fellow provincials. The general has urgent business now, please forgive him."

  The crowd finally made way for a path, allowing Ma Zhan Shan's car to pass through and drive into the provincial capital.

  Two foreigners with high noses and blue eyes had been waiting for Ma Zanshan for a long time. Although they learned about the beginning and end of Jiangqiao's resistance from Xie Ke, they still insisted on meeting China's great national hero in person.

  When Ma Zanshan appeared before them wearing a black leather jacket, they stared at the small, thin national hero in front of them with wide eyes, but they were soon won over by Ma Zanshan's loud voice and military demeanor. They opened their notebooks, and camera lenses focused on him.

  "The Daily Mail" reporter asked first: "General, as the leader of a province, why mobilize all forces to fight against the Japanese?"

  Ma Zanshan did not hide his hatred for the Japanese: "Japan has bullied China too much, we really can't bear it anymore, so we must take action! My brother Zhao Xiaofeng has fired the first shot against Japan, and now he is by my side again, so we have fired the second shot! I hope all Chinese people will take action and fire millions of shots to drive Japanese invaders out of China!"

  A reporter from the Milwaukee Journal took a photo and also asked: "The Japanese army claims to be the world's elite, don't you think that without government support, you will definitely lose?"

  Ma Zhan Shan smiled slightly, his two small mustaches twitching upwards: "The people are supporting us. You may have seen the anti-Japanese sentiment of the people when you came to the provincial capital. No matter how strong and powerful Japan is, they are waging a war of aggression. Although they are strong now, in the end it will be them who fail. We have made up our minds that as long as we still have a breath left, we must resist them to the very end!"

  This oath that shook the mountains and rivers moved the big-nosed, blue-eyed reporter so much that he gave a thumbs up: The reporters had also been to the Japanese military zone for interviews, so one reporter asked: "For the peace of Jiang Province, can the provincial chairman be handed over to Zhang Haipeng?"

  Ma Zhan Shan clearly stated: "As for letting the chairman and Zhang Haipeng, it's not impossible, but only if there is a central order. However, I would rather abdicate in favor of my brother Zhao Xiaofeng!"

  Because Zhao Xiaofeng refused to accept any interviews, all things about Zhao Xiaofeng were spoken out from Ma Zhan's mouth.

  At this time, Zhao Xiaofeng was not only busy dealing with the upcoming war, but also entertaining a group of over 100 German military advisers led by Bauer, Kriebel, Weizs?cker, Seekt and Falkenhausen who had come from afar. Some of them had been in Chiang Kai-shek's military advisory team for some time, but now they all chose to come to Northeast China. A group of German arms dealers also arrived in Heilongjiang with them.

  Zhao Xiaofeng learned from a small booklet about the Anti-Japanese War that the biggest feature of international relations at this time is the law of the jungle, where there are no true friends, only pure exchanges of interests. Even the United States, which is relatively friendly to China, believes that it is unlikely for China to achieve modernization under the leadership of the National Government, and that Japan's rule over China would be most beneficial to the US, as well as to China itself.

  At the beginning, a US State Department official had asserted that "the settlement of Sino-Japanese disputes may be harmful to American interests. It is best to let Japan get bogged down in an indecisive struggle in an area where the United States has no vital interest." This would allow "the principles of our Far Eastern policy and peaceful ideals" to "suffer further minor damage". Thus, the US took "killing with a borrowed knife" as its guiding principle for its Far Eastern policy. On the one hand, it instigated Japan to make enemies of the Soviet Union and China, suppressing the big and small Bolsheviks in the Far East. On the other hand, it avoided conflict with Japan. This doomed the US to merely issue empty moral condemnations of Japan's invasion of China, without actually intervening. The US turned a deaf ear to Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist government's pleas for help.

  Even when on December 12, 1937, the invading Japanese army manufactured an extremely provocative incident, intentionally sinking the American "Panay" in the Nanjing River, resulting in the deaths of more than 70 Americans, the United States still showed amazing patience, calmly dealing with it, and continued to provide loans and sell strategic materials to Japan as usual.

  The Soviet Union was even more unscrupulous. The Soviet Union's greatest nightmare was to be attacked by both Germany and Japan. So, how could the pressure from the East, that is, from Japan, be alleviated? The Soviet Union's main countermeasure was to provoke conflicts between China and Japan and make the conflict escalate into a full-scale war, allowing Japan to wreak havoc in China at the expense of China to save the Soviet Union. The outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War was, of course, what the Soviet Union had wished for. In order to enable China to hold back Japan, the Soviet Union provided assistance to China, but this assistance was limited, that is, it must not offend Japan and must not involve the Soviet Union in the Sino-Japanese war. Therefore, no matter how hard the National Government begged at the time, the Soviet Union resolutely refused to send troops against Japan. While providing limited assistance to China, the Soviet Union secretly colluded with Japan until the signing of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact on April 13, 1941. This even showed tacit approval and connivance towards Japan's invasion of China. The Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration also stated: "The Soviet Union vows to respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of 'Manchukuo'; Japan vows to respect the territorial integrity and inviolability of the 'Mongolian People's Republic'." By using China's sacred territory as a gift for each other, the Soviet Union achieved its original intention of ensuring the security of its eastern border; and from then on, it cut off all assistance to China's resistance against Japan. This was undoubtedly a heartless betrayal for the Chinese people who were going through the most difficult times since the outbreak of the war. Other major countries were also unrighteous. When the Chinese nation faced a life-and-death crisis, the international community maintained a shameful silence. China had no choice but to face its powerful enemy in terror and loneliness.

  So, Zhao Xiaofeng now feels that Germans are more reliable than people from other countries. After all, the two countries are too far apart and have no major conflicts of interest. In his heart, he now has a faint desire, which is to hope that Germany will rapidly become stronger, so as to be able to restrain these "unreliable countries" and provide ample time for its own rapid development.

  Whether the development of society in the future can go as one wishes, Zhao Xiao Feng also has no grasp on it, but he still understands that "the planning is done by man, but the success depends on heaven!"

  But why are the Germans now abandoning Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government to support Zhao Xiaofeng, this fledgling "small character"? Of course, they also have their reasons. In Germany itself, the great ministers had long been paying attention to the war in Northeast China. Why have the Soviet Union and Japan repeatedly launched wars against Northeast China for hundreds of years? Because there are too many things they need here! Coal, steel, precious metals, rare metals, timber, grain, etc., etc.!

  But Germany wants to get a share of the pie here, they have to take a gamble! The current National Government is afraid of the Japanese, so they won't send troops to Northeast China at all. Zhang Xueliang is also a loyal follower of Chiang Kai-shek and is not enough to support him. After hearing about Zhao Xiaofeng's rise, the clever Germans discovered a new continent and immediately focused their attention on Zhao Xiaofeng. The government even put forward the slogan: "Fully support the Northeast Anti-Japanese Army! Assist them in establishing an independent government." And they are also preparing to send all the latest domestically-made weapons to the Northeast battlefield, which can test the performance of these weapons and obtain the materials they need from Zhao Xiaofeng's hands.