Chapter 639 Good News (I)

On the horizon of the East. A red sun has risen in the sky, and it is now 7:45 a.m.

The streets of the city are becoming more and more pedestrians, and the new day is so bustling.

Beijing, Presidential Palace.

It's still that two-story building, although the prescribed working time is eight o'clock in the morning, but in fact, the electric lights in the underground war room of this two-story small building have been on for several hours, and the light bulbs are still on, and Zhao Bei is in this war room.

President Zhao Da was standing in front of the conference table in the middle of the war room at the moment, leaning over to study a military map spread on the conference table, and behind him, there was a row of sofas, Cai Ye and Zhang Xiaozhun were sitting on the sofa, playing chess across a coffee table.

The war room was very quiet, Zhao Bei hadn't spoken for a long time, Cai Ye and Zhang Xiaozhun were also quietly playing chess, and the adjutants and staff officers who were guarding the 'door' of the war room were also silent.

According to the contents of the telegram, the air force task force has successfully completed the air raid mission on Lushun and Dalian, and the aircraft group is on its way back. According to the preliminary estimate of the Air Force General Staff, the air raid was very successful, and the losses of its own troops were extremely small.

After receiving this joint telegram from the Air Force Staff Department and the Air Force Operations Department, Zhao Bei did not express any special excitement, after all, this was only a preliminary estimate of the results of the battle, and before the Air Force sent the reconnaissance photos to the Commander's Hall, Zhao Bei's heart was actually still hanging.

As a traverser, Zhao Bei knows very well when the plane really dominated the sea, and the era of "no air supremacy, no sea supremacy" seems to be relatively far away from 1914, so he has a very cautious attitude towards the results of the Air Force Task Force, and it is of course best to be able to achieve a brilliant victory, even if he does not achieve the kind of decisive 'sexual' victory as he imagined, he will not be too disappointed, after all, the technology ' Although Zhao Bei's attention to the aviation industry has indeed promoted the development of the aviation industry and aviation technology to a large extent, the epoch-making technological progress has not yet arrived.

However, this air force attack was indeed a quite successful tactical attack, and what made Zhao Bei a little complacent was that this air assault by the Chinese air force was not only the first large-scale air campaign in the history of Chinese warfare. Moreover, it was also the first large-scale air campaign in the history of world warfare, and in order to prepare for this air campaign, the General Staff mobilized a total of more than 400 fighters and bombers, and half of the troops and weapons were used in the first 'wave' attack.

On the other hand, the attack of the air force only kicked off the war, and the submarine forces of the Navy will also launch an attack later, and what kind of results will be achieved in this brigade battle still needs to wait for the telegram from the Navy.

It is precisely under the effect of this mentality that Zhao Bei maintained that kind of 'wave' expression, and after the telegram from the air force unit came, he only said "oh".

Cai Ye and Zhang Xiaozhun were more excited, the two of them were convinced of the content of the telegram at the air base, they did not believe that at this time the senior officers of the air force would falsely report the results of the war, perhaps the optimistic estimate of the results of the battle existed, but presumably it would not be too exaggerated than the actual results of the war, after this war, the great powers' perception of China's military strength will certainly be very different, in the past few years the great powers only thought that China had made great progress in military construction, and the great powers did not think that China was qualified to wage a war with Japan. But now, the battles in Lushun and Dalian have shown that the Chinese military personnel are fully confident that they have the strength to deal a heavy blow to Japan's military strength, and this is conducive to improving China's strategic environment; after all, what the great powers value is strength, especially military strength, and the more powerful you are, the less others will dare to provoke you easily, and this reason is very simple.

However, since the president expressed a surprising calmness about the contents of this telegram, it was not easy for Cai Ye and Zhang Xiaozhun to continue to be excited, so they simply continued to fight on the chessboard, if before the telegram from the air force unit came, the two of them played chess just to kill time, then now, the purpose of their chess play is to calm their emotions, and by the way, I also pondered how to wording this newsletter to the press, although this is the job of the propaganda officer, but they do not mind' After all, this is good news, how many years, the Chinese have not heard such good news, the country's military strength needs to be displayed, and the people's "spirit" needs to be excited.

"Report! Jinzhou call! The First Army in the direction of Xiuyan has entered the sortie position, and the ground battle is about to begin! ”

A staff officer walked into the war room, held a copy of the telegram in his hand, stood upright, saluted, and presented the copy to the president.

Zhao Bei didn't raise his head. He just waved his hand and said, "Call back: Got it." ”

"Yes!"

The staff officer put the transcript of the telegram on the conference table, then turned and exited the war room.

Zhang Xiaozhun hurriedly got up from the sofa, walked to the conference table, picked up the telegram from the Jinzhou Army General Staff, looked at it carefully, and then 'handed over' the telegram to Cai Yi, who came with him.

Both of them were a little nervous, after all, this army combat is not better than the air force, the air force is high, fast, the plane is good, you can come by surprise, but the army can't do lightning speed marching, plus the local terrain, so, the two basically have the same opinion, that is, the army will be far more difficult than the air force.

"Commander-in-chief, do you want to call again and tell Lan Xiuhao to strengthen the front-line troops?" Zhang Xiaozhun reminded.

Zhao Bei still waved his hand and said, "No need, just now we have notified Lan Tianwei of the battles in Lushun and Dalian." He knows how to adjust the deployment of forces. However, in my opinion, the Japanese army may not be concentrated in the area of Lushun and Dalian, because China is not as good as Japan, and China's navy is insufficient to launch a large-scale amphibious landing operation like in the Russo-Japanese War, so if I were the commander of the Japanese Kwantung Army, I would still place the main army forces in the north of the Liaodong Peninsula, so it is unrealistic to expect to concentrate first-line forces to defeat the Japanese defense line in one fell swoop, and the northern part of the Liaodong Peninsula is dominated by hilly terrain. It is not conducive to the assault of armored forces, so the General Staff must be prepared for slow progress in the initial phase of the battle on land. ”

"The army is deadlocked, so let the air force respond, Jinzhou Airport is not for nothing. By the way, when will the Air Force wash out the reconnaissance photos? ”

Cai Ye glanced at the wall clock on the wall, the time was only eight o'clock, according to the time calculation, now the reconnaissance plane may have just landed in Dengzhou, it seems that you have to wait patiently.

At this time, the telephone on the table rang, Zhang Xiaozhun picked up the microphone, listened for a while, then pressed the microphone back, and then said: "Commander-in-chief, just now the Minister General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Wu called and said that the Japanese Minister to China, Yukichi Kohata, had rushed to the presidential palace with him, and was about to formally hand over the declaration of war to the center. ”

Zhao Bei stood up straight, looked at the wall clock with his hands behind his back, pondered for a moment, and said, "Let's meet the Japanese minister in the reception room of the Commander's Hall." By the way, you told the adjutant to hang the picture of the tiger in the reception room. ”

The adjutant brought a basin of cold water, Zhao Bei wiped his face with a 'hairy' towel, he didn't close his eyes almost overnight, his eyes were red, although he was not directly commanding the battle on the front line, but as the head of state sitting in the rear, he had to 'worry' about no less things than the generals on the front line, the Sino-Japanese war was China's first foreign war after he became president, only allowed to win, not allowed to lose, otherwise the consequences were unimaginable, this "spirit" pressure can be imagined.

I drank a cup of strong coffee and refreshed myself. Zhao Bei took Cai Ye to the reception room.

When he arrived at the reception room, the adjutant had already hung the picture of the tiger in the reception room, which was specially sent by Zhao Bei to ask Xu Shichang to paint it before the establishment of the commander's hall, and it has been hanging in his No. 1 office since then, so his office is also called "tiger's den".

Not long after, Wu Tingfang led the Japanese minister to China, Kohata Youkichi, to the reception room, and Kohata Youkichi did not talk nonsense, nor did he have any courtesy, and directly handed over the declaration of war to the president of the Republic of China.

"For the despicable act of your country in undeclared war, the Japanese Empire will certainly be very colorful! I am authorized by the Imperial Government to lodge a serious protest with your national government and officially announce to your national government that from now on, the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China have officially entered a state of 'belligerence'! At the same time, all Chinese foreign 'diplomatic personnel' in Japan will be expelled, and all Chinese nationals must leave Japan within 48 hours and not stay! At the same time, in response to the sneak attack of the Chinese Air Force on peaceful areas such as Lushun and Dalian, the Imperial Government of Japan reserves the right to lodge a complaint with the Hague International Peace Conference! ”

Kohata Yukichi protested with an expressionless face, and of course Zhao Bei fought back.

"Mr. Minister, I accept your country's declaration of war, but I can't accept your country's protest, because it's slander! As early as 4 o'clock this morning, the Chinese Central Government authorized the minister stationed in Japan to hand over to the Japanese prime minister a letter of declaration of war from our side, so the war between China and Japan had officially broken out at 4 o'clock today, and the envoys of Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria-Hungary, and other countries in China can testify to this, so the attack of the Chinese Air Force on the Japanese Navy was completely in line with the relevant international conventions, and this was not a sneak attack, but a surprise attack! The attack was launched at seven o'clock, and we gave the Japanese government three hours to prepare for the battle. As for Lushun and Dalian, which were originally Chinese territory, they had been declared war zones at the time of the war, and since then, they have not been peaceful or neutral areas. ”

In the face of Zhao Bei's "quibble", Kohata Yukichi did not argue, looked up at the tiger picture, and then turned around arrogantly and annoyed, strode out of the reception room, and there was a kind reminder from Mr. President behind him.

"Don't forget, Mr. Minister, that you were expelled three hours ago, and you have less than seventy hours to prepare to leave our country."

……

Sending the menacing Kohata Youji out of the Commander's Hall, Wu Tingfang hurriedly returned to the Commander's Hall and asked to see the president again.

Zhao Bei met with the foreign minister in his old age in the president's office, and the person accompanying him was still Cai Yi.

"President Junjian. The British, French, and Russian envoys said that they did not want to see China and Japan drawn into war in any case, and that the United States also hoped that the Far East would maintain peace, and that only Germany and Austria-Hungary supported China's position, while the Italian government had an ambiguous attitude. At present, among the ministers of various countries in China, except for the ministers of Germany and Austria-Hungary, all other ministers are willing to intercede, and the British minister, Mr. Zhu Erdian, told me that the British government is very dissatisfied with our country's decision to declare war, and the British House of Lords has convened an emergency meeting, and some members of the parliament have said that in the event of a war causing turmoil in the international situation, Britain will not rule out activating certain military obligations under the "Anglo-Japanese Treaty" to assist Japan in the war. ”

"Chief Wu, what do you think?" Zhao Bei smiled faintly and asked Wu Tingfang.

"I think that since the great powers are willing to intervene in mediation, it may not be impossible to give it a try, but now that Japan has officially decided to go to war with our country, it is impossible to talk about this tie without a few victories."

In fact, he heard from the Japanese minister that the Japanese fleets in Lushun and Dalian had been raided by the Chinese air force, and now that the battle had already begun, and looking at the posture of the Japanese minister, he was afraid that the Japanese fleet would suffer a lot of losses in the air raids, so he simply followed the president's intentions and said, anyway, fighting a war is a soldier's business, and he, as a foreign 'handover' officer, is just cooperating with the center to beat the side drum.

"Your opinion is very correct, since war has been declared, if you don't fight and talk about peace, what prestige does the center have at all? In this way, the central command of the war, your foreign ministry continues to 'negotiate' with the foreign powers, especially Britain and the United States, these two countries do not want a great 'chaos' in the Far East, and as for the Russian side, they must also be appeased, and they will not hesitate to give Russia some more interests from the outside world, and they will not let Russia and Japan wear the same 'trousers'. By the way, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can ask Tang Shaoyi, minister to Russia, to handle the matter of 'dealings' with Russia, who has been stationed in Russia for several years, and relations in all aspects are relatively good. ”

Zhao Bei set the tone for the next step of the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Wu Tingfang understood in his heart, for the president's foresight, he once again saw that Tang Shaoyi was dismissed from the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs and was "assigned" to Russia by the center, but now it seems that it is probably not a "distribution", there is such a flexible figure operating in Russia, perhaps there is no need for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to come forward to settle the insatiable aristocrats in Russia.