Ishiwara Kanji and the others had to be carried back to their quarters; the Japanese capacity for alcohol was truly lacking. When Ishiwara woke from his drunken stupor, the sun was already high in the sky the next day.

The wine was good enough that he had no hangover or headache. Ishiwara only remembered that he had nearly gotten into a fight with Colonel Satō at the end, before being pulled away. After thinking carefully for a while, Ishiwara recalled that the conflict had started when an officer raised an issue he had seen in the rural villages around Fengtian.

Just as he was thinking, footsteps sounded, the door opened, and Yamagami Tomoya walked in. Seeing the bruises on his face, the events of the previous night suddenly came back to Ishiwara with clarity.

After He Rui left, the Japanese soldiers had discussed what they had seen in the Chinese countryside over the past few days. In Ishiwara's view, it had been a very meaningful grassroots visit. The villages around Fengtian had completed land reform. The leading figures in the villages were no longer landlords and gentry, nor were they the clan elders. Instead, capable young men with prestige, elected by the government, had become village heads and militia captains.

The militia captain's job was to strike at bad elements and maintain public order. The village head's work, aside from organizing tax collection, enforcing compulsory education, and eliminating illiteracy, mostly involved helping to organize production during the busy farming season, and building water conservancy projects and roads during the slack season. There was also the task of fighting for production projects contracted out by the government and organizing villagers to work for wages. In short, it was about organizing production.

Grasping security with one hand and production with the other. The vitality displayed by the Northeast's countryside commanded the utmost admiration from Ishiwara and the others.

However, the conflict was triggered by something else. When He Rui was in the countryside, his attitude toward ordinary villagers was extremely natural. He could always pull some candy out of his pocket for the children. When facing the farmers, He Rui's attitude was completely devoid of condescending commands; instead, he encouraged the children to attend school and encouraged everyone to produce well.

Such approachability led a Japanese officer to sigh, "He-kun is too kind to the lower classes!"

Hearing this, Yamagami Tomoya had immediately exploded in anger. "I come from a tenant farming background, I am a 'lower class' person. Does that mean we deserve to be looked down upon?"

Once these words were spoken, the Japanese officers instantly polarized. Fueled by alcohol, the young men broke into a brawl, and the scene turned into chaos.

"Yamagami-kun? How was the fight resolved?" Ishiwara asked.

Hearing this question, Yamagami Tomoya couldn't help but smile, though his face twitched, evidently pulling at a painful spot on the corner of his mouth. Rubbing his cheek, Yamagami said, "Ishiwara-kun, you were drunk. In the end, the guards rushed in and took people away."

"I actually didn't know?" Ishiwara hadn't expected he had been that drunk.

Yamagami Tomoya vaguely remembered that Ishiwara had been punched in the head by someone and then collapsed. As for who hit him, he had absolutely no impression.

But this wasn't important. After fighting this fight, Yamagami felt very relieved. He had figured out some things by now, so he lowered his voice and asked, "Ishiwara-kun, is the Emperor also in league with those powerful elites?"

Ishiwara sighed. For him personally, this was a fact that no longer needed discussion. But facing his comrade's question, Ishiwara answered, "Yamagami-kun, in all of Japan, fewer than one in fifty ordinary people dare to think this. And fewer than one in five hundred can firmly recognize this point."

Yamagami's eyes lit up. "With our Japanese population of fifty million, that means a hundred thousand people know this!"

Seeing Yamagami's excitement, Ishiwara poured a bucket of cold water over him. "But the majority of those hundred thousand are the upper class!"

Yamagami Tomoya was stunned. The 'Japanese people' in his heart did not include the upper class. Reminded by Ishiwara now, he realized the number of enemies was massive!

Just then, Ishiwara stood up and began tidying his uniform. "It's time to return to our country. Yamagami-kun, wait and see the situation that follows. He-kun has already given the Japanese upper class a solution to the problems two years in advance, but the upper class will absolutely not accept it. Events will continue to unfold like this. No one can change it."

Yamagami quickly stood up. "I will find ways to propagate our ideals to the soldiers in the army."

Ishiwara nodded. "You must be careful. Especially when things happen, those people will be extremely vigilant."

Hearing the news that the Japanese officer delegation had left Fengtian, the comrades responsible for security all breathed a sigh of relief. Xu Chengfeng and others, upon receiving the news, immediately made a report to He Rui regarding the new rifles.

After finishing the report, Xu Chengfeng saw that He Rui didn't seem to mind at all, and determined that He Rui already had a complete line of thought regarding the weapons of future warfare. Since He Rui was already like this, Xu Chengfeng asked, "Chairman, are there any other requirements for the weapons?"

He Rui appreciated such questions. "If there are, it would be adjusting the semi-automatic assault rifle to a fully automatic assault rifle. But this is not an immediate issue. Our enemies' rifles are already completely insufficient to cope with our army's current firepower. Their advantage lies only in artillery and air force; these are the parts we need to fill in."

Zhong Yifu had more expectations for the rifles and hadn't expected He Rui to be so confident. Seeing that the rifles might be fixed at the current level, he quickly asked, "Does the Military Governor think our light weapons have already surpassed foreign armies?"

He Rui knew the comrades lacked confidence and explained patiently, "I can be certain that our light weapons already possess an overwhelming advantage over foreign weapons. You are all soldiers; how many soldiers can see the number of enemies clearly with the naked eye at two hundred meters? Relying on the naked eye, let alone accurately hitting an enemy at three hundred meters, even accurately hitting a tank..."

Speaking of this, He Rui remembered that the comrades didn't have a precise concept of tanks. Even if they did, it was of those wooden-shelled samples. So he changed his phrasing. "How many soldiers can accurately hit a horse at three hundred meters? Everyone should be very clear on this! In such times, equipping the marksmen in the units with telescopic sights as much as possible is the way to solve the problem, not pursuing some so-called rifle with a range exceeding one kilometer. Our semi-automatic rifle has an effective range of 500 meters, which is enough. Facing enemies at other distances, we must rely on the proactive tactics of the squad and platoon, on artillery, on aircraft, rather than making completely inefficient demands on the soldiers' shooting standards."

Zhong Yifu knew He Rui's personality was extremely resolute, so he gave up on persuading He Rui to invest more in rifles. "But when will we be able to fully prepare the necessary artillery?"

"Yifu, you are doing staff work now. First, raise the level of staff paperwork for aircraft, artillery, and infantry assault tactics. People can wait for weapons, but weapons cannot wait for people. This is the setup I've prepared; take it with you when you go back." After speaking, He Rui had his secretary bring over a stack of documents and placed them in front of Zhong Yifu.

He Rui actually thought very highly of Zhong Yifu, so he advised, "Yifu, the next war will definitely not look like the current European war. We must look at development issues using methodology. The 'Kaiserschlacht' the Germans are currently conducting uses relatively rough infantry assault tactics. You've seen those translated operational manuals, right?"

At the mention of those manuals, not only Zhong Yifu but other senior officers also became interested. The manuals were quite amusing: one was a French manual in French, and the other was a German manual in German.

In Russia's Brusilov Offensive of 1916, they defeated the German-Austrian coalition and crippled the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After a French staff officer learned about the Russian tactics in detail, he proposed a French version of the operational method, and the French Ministry of Defense wrote a manual and issued it to the French frontline.

However, in 1917, the French troops mutinied on a large scale. Although the French Ministry of Defense forcefully executed the ringleaders, they still reached a compromise with the vast number of French soldiers to no longer conduct offensive campaigns. Thus, this manual for active offense ended up being useless, and was then captured by the Germans during battle.

Afterwards, German staff officers developed 'Stormtrooper' tactics based on the tactical ideas in this French manual and popularized them throughout the army. In the 'Emperor Offensive' launched at the end of March 1918, the German army used the new tactics to achieve great results, and it looked as if they were approaching Paris again.

When these two operational manuals were brought up, the expressions of Zhong Yifu and the others unconsciously turned serious. Because since they started army building with He Rui in 1915, the troops had begun writing operational manuals, with He Rui taking the lead to complete the content.

Initially, everyone was just shocked by the operational system full of offensive ideology, which was completely different from traditional warfare. But after a few years of bloody fighting in the European theater, the latest operational concepts derived from continuously accumulating tactical progress were becoming more and more like the plan He Rui proposed in 1915. Although everyone didn't say it out loud, they were incredibly impressed in their hearts.

At this moment, although He Rui proposing to do the paperwork first was still relatively hard to accept, no one objected. They began discussing the 'combined arms tactics' of the new era with He Rui.

The so-called combined arms tactics did not aim to throw planes and cannons onto the battlefield all at once. Instead, it was to effectively weaken the enemy's firepower and troop deployment by utilizing different attack ranges and different firepower delivery, allowing our side to gain an advantage in the direction of attack.

Taking aircraft as an example, what aircraft needed to provide included reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and bombing to interdict the enemy's troop deployment. Now that the Northeast had hired domestic aviation technical personnel, they also had planes that could fly into the sky. But making those incredibly crude planes achieve the operational goals He Rui proposed was completely impossible at this stage.

Precisely because of this, everyone's thinking became clearer. Zhong Yifu asked, "Chairman, should we ignore aircraft production and only consider what kind of combat capabilities aircraft can essentially provide?"

He Rui nodded. "That's about it. But, Comrades, you must also pay attention to one thing: you must formulate different operational system arrangements according to different needs. Because aircraft are not omnipotent; the combat capabilities they can provide are limited."

Zhong Yifu had long had his own considerations, so he continued to ask based on He Rui's line of thought, "Chairman, there will be different operational needs in different regions. Will so many types of aircraft be thrown into battle?"

He Rui was very pleased in his heart, but he didn't praise Zhong Yifu, only nodding in reply. "Every operational environment requires combat methods suitable for that environment. War is just like that."

Zhong Yifu had obtained the answer he wanted, so he asked no more questions. Cheng Ruofan, whose thinking was more active, raised his question. "Chairman, if Japan attacks Russia, what kind of operational mode will it be?"

He Rui looked at Cheng Ruofan, whose thinking was the most erratic, and smiled. "Regular army versus guerrillas; this is also a very good subject for operational research. Ruofan, do you want to try leading some people to study it?"

Cheng Ruofan rejected it immediately. "Chairman, let someone else study it. I'm just curious about the battle between Russia and Japan, I don't have other ideas."

If it was just curiosity, everyone had it; He Rui himself had been a 'curiosity baby' for many years. Seeing that Cheng Ruofan could no longer be led by the nose by his own curiosity, He Rui was also very happy. Cheng Ruofan, like the other comrades, had made very significant progress.

When the meeting ended, He Rui prepared to go to the countryside for an inspection. Just as he was looking at the inspection list brought from Xu Jia, the secretary came in and said, "Chairman, Russia has sent a telegram. They have sent a representative and want to meet with us."

He Rui put down the document and asked, "Which Russia?"

The secretary answered decisively, "Soviet Russia."