On the afternoon of October 9th, at 19:00, Hu Xiushan, Commander of the 2nd Group Army, received a telegram from the General Staff.

"Northeast Army 2nd Group Army Headquarters / Northeast Army 2nd Group Army Staff Department / October 9, 1922 / Internal Document No. 00867 / Transmitted to all divisional headquarters of the Northeast Army 2nd Group Army /

The Lushun-Dalian Campaign has concluded successfully. Apart from the Kwantung Army's naval units, all Kwantung Army forces have been annihilated, and all campaign objectives have been achieved. Ammunition and transport units originally planned for a potential second phase of the Lushun-Dalian Campaign have now been diverted for use by the 2nd Group Army. Responsible units have received orders to coordinate with the 2nd Group Army Headquarters. In this phase of combat, the 2nd Group Army's objective is to inflict heavy casualties on or annihilate the Japanese Korea Army. It is hoped that the 2nd Group Army will utilize our army's tactical characteristics to complete this combat objective.

Cheng Ruofan, Chief of the General Staff, Northeast Army. October 9th, 18:00."

Upon hearing the document read out, even the most pessimistic members of the staff before the war were filled with fighting spirit. The victory in the Lushun-Dalian Campaign meant that the Northeast Army now occupied the northern end of the Bohai Strait and controlled Lushun, the most critical port city on this key waterway. The possibility of the Japanese army breaking into the Bohai Sea to conduct large-scale landings in the Northeast's Bohai region had been drastically reduced. The basic form of the Northeast Army's future defensive system was beginning to take shape.

As for those staff officers who, despite their lack of experience, possessed intense self-confidence, their morale soared even higher. The ammunition and, more importantly, the transport vehicles planned for the second phase of the Lushun-Dalian Campaign were being transferred to the 2nd Group Army, significantly increasing its combat power.

Regardless of their individual feelings, when the members of the headquarters looked at Commander Hu Xiushan, they could detect no emotional fluctuation whatsoever. Hu Xiushan spoke with this same unruffled demeanor, "The Japanese army's performance up to this point proves that their commanders have not advanced rashly due to Japan's political requirements. The Korea Army consists of two divisions, the 19th Division and the 20th Division. According to intelligence, the main forces of both divisions, four brigades in total, have already moved north. The troop strength is approximately 45,000 men. Basically all can be considered combat personnel. Our 2nd Group Army has four armies, with a total strength of 121,672 men. Excluding logistics and supply units, there are about 90,000 combat personnel. The ratio of our combat personnel to the Japanese army is 2:1. According to the newly drawn war zone maps, the advance routes for the outflanking forces have been finalized. On both the eastern and western lines, forces of at least two divisions will be dispatched to outflank the enemy facing our front. The objective is for at least one regiment to reach the destination by 12:00 tomorrow morning and cut off the Japanese army's retreat. Furthermore, when the Japanese army counterattacks, they are to delay the Japanese retreat to allow other units to arrive and implement the annihilation."

The 2nd Group Army actively entering Korea to attack the Japanese army was a top-secret pre-war plan. Three days ago, the participating units thought that at most they would cross the Yalu River and defend the bridges to block the Japanese Korea Army; only a minority thought they would go head-to-head with the Japanese. Even those who anticipated a direct confrontation thought they would employ ambush tactics.

Now, with the 2nd Group Army deployed inside Korea for a frontal mountain battle against the Japanese, no one had expected that Hu Xiushan, who had been calmly maneuvering troops, intended to fight a battle of encirclement and annihilation.

The 2nd Group Army commanded the 5th, 8th, 23rd, and 33rd Armies. One could tell their level of elite status just from their unit designators.

However, Colonel Li Luoyang, the liaison staff officer sent by the 33rd Army to headquarters, was the first to speak up. "Please, Headquarters, assign the outflanking mission to our 33rd Army. The 33rd Army has achieved very fruitful results in night march research; the manual lighting equipment for night marches was first developed by our army."

Although the various units had been established at different times, they all scored a zero in terms of actual combat experience. It had reached the point where experience in developing small gadgets was being brought out as an advantage.

But Hu Xiushan found that at the current stage, considering quantitative factors, the training content and completion rates of all units were identical; there really was no other basis for comparison. Even such small differences could affect the judgment values. If other units wanted to come up with more solid reasons, they really couldn't.

After the liaison officers from all four armies had expressed their views, Hu Xiushan ordered: "Eastern Line: The headquarters of the 5th Army and the 32nd Army plus one division will launch a frontal attack on the Japanese army. Two divisions of the 32nd Army will implement the outflanking maneuver. Western Line: The headquarters of the 8th Army and the 33rd Army plus one division will attack frontally, and two divisions will implement the outflanking maneuver. Staff Officer Zheng, the time!"

Every unit's staff department had a section responsible for time synchronization. Staff Officer Zheng's watch had been synchronized with the General Staff in Shenyang. He raised his wrist and looked, "The time is currently 18:39."

Hu Xiushan stood up and said decisively, "All units must dispatch their outflanking forces by 20:00 at the latest. All airship units are to ascend as conditions permit to provide aerial intelligence support to all units."

The liaison officers from each army stood up together and saluted, "Yes!"

After the ammonia blueprinting method appeared in the Northeast, the Northeast Army no longer lacked maps. Currently, each army carried specialized blueprint machines when on the march.

Before the war broke out, the Northeast Army had already done its utmost to map the region. Over the past two days or so, the Air Force had conducted high-intensity reconnaissance photography, coordinating with dispatched scouts to draw maps that were as detailed as possible.

When the telegrams reached each army, many officers at the divisional level were wearing protective goggles and masks sprinkled with citric acid to neutralize the ammonia smell, gathered around the latest batch of piping hot maps for analysis.

Mountain ridges, mountain roads, gullies, and small mountain paths that might allow troops to pass were all marked on these hot maps.

This 'hot' was hot in the physical sense. Blueprint paper is a special paper evenly coated with chemicals. It is stacked with drawings made on semi-transparent sulfuric acid paper and fed into a machine pulled by tightly arranged high-friction belts. Inside the machine, a special lamp shines on them; the ink lines on the semi-transparent sulfuric acid paper block the light, causing different chemical reactions in different places.

Afterward, these sheets are placed in an ammonia fumigation cabinet and heated to smoke them, causing another stage of chemical reaction within a few hours. They eventually become the blueprints used on a large scale. Because the war situation was urgent, the shortest process for treating the drawings was used. The smell of the drawings really subjected the unit staff officers to significant irritation.

But after the Group Army Headquarters' order arrived, the staff officers felt that their toil had finally been rewarded. The quickly confirmed relevant maps were sent to the army and division headquarters.

Xiong Shoudan, Chief of Staff of the 33rd Army, looked down with a slight frown, whether he was thinking, uncomfortable with the smell, or both.

Just as 33rd Army Commander Zhang Yu thought the Chief of Staff needed to think a while longer, Xiong Shoudan spoke. "Regarding the march routes for each regiment, what percentage of them are we allowing to get lost?"

This single sentence made it temporarily impossible for Commander Zhang Yu and others to accept this line of thought. However, Chief of Staff Xiong Shoudan continued to explain, "Although some roads can be considered passable based on the map, the actual conditions are not within our grasp. With a multi-route march, the problem of getting lost is inevitable. I believe the Group Army Headquarters' order has already considered such possibilities, which is why they requested dispatching two divisions but only requiring one regiment to arrive."

33rd Army Commander Zhang Yu understood Chief of Staff Xiong Shoudan's perspective and asked the logistics staff officer, "How many radios do we still have? Down to what level of unit can they be equipped?"

The logistics staff officer picked up his logbook, flipped to the page, and after a quick mental calculation replied, "Regimental-level units all have their own radios. If we only keep the minimum number of backup radios, equipping one battalion with two radios—one for use, one for backup—with 18 battalions, 9 battalions will lack backup radios."

Zhang Yu thought for a moment and quickly made a decision. "Notify all units to set out. Give two radios to the 9 battalions that move out first. Also, ask the airship unit if they can take off."

Airship units had been fully proven during World War I to be units with an extremely poor input-output ratio. The Northeast Air Force, targeting the equipment strength of the various armies in Northeast Asia, had positioned airships as equipment for limited use in restricted environments from the very beginning.

Therefore, the standards proposed when designing the Northeast Army's airships were: a rigid shell with an aluminum frame, an aluminum-framed gondola, filled with hydrogen. Powered by a radial engine and propeller, the flight speed reached a straight-line speed of 6 kilometers per hour under a high-altitude force 5 wind.

These parameters would make it a piece of junk on the plains, but in mountainous areas where 'seeing the mountain puts the horse to death' (a phrase meaning the destination looks close but is far to walk), it still had some value. However, in the biting night wind, the airship unit commander decisively told Zhang Yu over the phone, "Commander, according to data provided by anemometers set up on various hilltops, a north wind is currently blowing with high velocity. The probability that the airship unit will be unable to return on its own power is 42%."

Zhang Yu knew this number was variable; after all, no one knew when the wind would blow or how. Especially in the mountains, wind direction was even harder to determine. But at this moment, some aerial guidance was truly needed. Zhang Yu steeled his heart and asked within the headquarters, where departure orders were already being issued, "If you only need to make a round trip within a 20-kilometer range, what is the probability of safe travel?"

The airship unit commander on the other end of the phone was somewhat surprised. After a pause, he replied, "Let us calculate it. We'll call back in a moment."

"I'll give you at most 15 minutes. Report back as soon as possible," Army Commander Zhang Yu said, then hung up.

Putting down the phone, Zhang Yu ordered his staff: "When will the preparation plan for the 2nd Division, which is staying behind for frontal combat, to approach the Japanese positions at night be ready? When will it be communicated to the troops?"

At 19:29, the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment, 1st Division of the 33rd Army was the first to set out. Every platoon carried hand-cranked night marching lights. It was a hand-cranked generator that a single soldier could carry on his back, with a probe rod added at waist level that could bend in all directions. The head of the probe had a very low-wattage bulb with a hemispherical cover. When marching, cranking the generator handle would light up the bulb.

This was equipment developed by the 33rd Army during night marches. In addition to this backpack style, there was also a hand-pressed style. However, the soldiers didn't like the hand-pressed ones; although convenient, fingers would get sore after just a short while. Later, a type with a grip like pliers and a spring for self-opening was developed. That is to say, when generating power, the soldier only had to squeeze; the pliers' handle part would reset automatically by spring force. But this wasn't very popular either, because it required more force and it was hard to stabilize the position.

Only the battery-powered flashlights used by officers on the battlefield were widely welcomed. However, battery flashlights consumed batteries. They were only issued for officer use.

But regardless of the equipment, the troops geared up quickly and set out. With maps and a small number of scout guides, they began to intersperse toward the rear of the Japanese Korea Army in the mountains, where the October chill had already set in.

At this moment, the deep autumn night sky was clear, dotted with starlight in the darkness. Looking up from the mountains, the boundless night sky was so vast.

In the major cities within the pass at this time, the majority of ordinary people had not gone to sleep either. As for people of extraordinary status, sleeping was even less likely.

At 18:00 on October 9th, in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Nanjing, the *Northeast Daily* extra had already been released. Even in Guangzhou, some civil groups cooperating with the Northeast Government began to disseminate the latest war reports from the Northeast Government.

Starting from the morning of October 7th, people within the pass who learned that the Northeast Army had actively attacked the Japanese army fell into a strange state of speechlessness. It wasn't that these people didn't want to discuss it, but that everyone didn't know what to discuss.

Since the First Sino-Japanese War 28 years ago, China had suffered defeat after defeat against the Japanese army. Japan, on the other hand, had flourished over these 28 years, visibly surpassing China completely. Moreover, more and more Chinese students went to Japan, and understanding of Japan's current state increased. Compared to Japan's vigorous upward trajectory, China had experienced the Boxer Rebellion and the Eight-Nation Alliance invasion, the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and Yuan Shikai's proclamation as emperor. Anyone with even a little concern for current events generally began to believe that China was weaker than Japan.

Even when Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor and organized the Reorganization Loan, he said, 'Burry our heads in construction, and meet again in ten years.'

In 1922, only six years had passed since the failure of Yuan Shikai's imperial bid. Suddenly, He Rui, Chairman of the Northeast Government, informed all circles in China that the Northeast Army had gone to war with Japan. As for the reason for the war, it was a cause that not a single person in all of China could have imagined: 'On October 6th, a Northeast Army soldier went missing in front of the Japanese Kwantung Army Headquarters. The Northeast Army demanded that the Japanese Kwantung Army lay down their weapons by 9:00 AM on October 7th and accept the Northeast Army's entry into the Kwantung Army Headquarters for a search. The Japanese Kwantung Army refused. Therefore, the Northeast Army launched an attack on the Japanese Kwantung Army starting at 9:01 AM on October 7th.'

Even those who wanted to discuss it seriously didn't know where to begin.

Even so, what must be discussed had to be discussed. For instance, in Beijing, Zhou Shuren, a professor of the history of Chinese fiction at Peking University, was sitting in a faculty office with some colleagues. The Peking University teachers were all discussing He Rui. Zhou Shuren, however, was flipping through a Chinese edition of *Introduction to Geopolitics*.

Zhou Shuren didn't really want to continue joining the discussion about He Rui, but he didn't want to return to his residence either. He currently lived with his mother, his younger brother, and his sister-in-law. Zhou Shuren's sister-in-law was Japanese, the wife his brother had married while studying in Japan. Now his sister-in-law was completely bewildered, very worried about whether she would be arrested.

Zhou Shuren's brother was also somewhat worried. Ever since the news of Zhang Xiluan assuming the post of Minister of War was officially announced, anyone with an understanding of the upper echelons understood the Beiyang Government's attitude.

Who was Zhang Xiluan? The former Marshal of Outside the Pass, General Zhen'an. Outside the pass, the number of people who acknowledged Zhang Xiluan as their godfather was not small, and those who *wanted* to acknowledge Zhang Xiluan as their godfather were innumerable.

Yet it was this very man who, within less than a year of He Rui's arrival in the Northeast, had not only fully cultivated He Rui but also ceded the Northeast to him, enabling He Rui's reputation today.

After Zhang Xiluan took office, he published 'Inaugural Thoughts' specifically in the newspapers. When Beiyang high officials took office, the ones truly paid attention to were those holding great power. Zhang Xiluan was already 79 years old, with no soldiers or guns in hand. Everyone knew he had been pushed onto the position of Minister of War—a post previously mostly held concurrently by the Premier—for special reasons.

Major newspapers all reprinted these 'Inaugural Thoughts.' Throughout the entire piece, there was not a single word mentioning the war that had broken out between Japan and He Rui, nor even a mention of He Rui's name or Japan, as if the matter didn't exist at all. Zhang Xiluan merely stated that the government existed for the happiness and safety of the nationals and would exhaust all strength to safeguard national sovereignty and the people's happiness and safety.

To Zhou Shuren, these cloudy and misty words read as the Beiyang Government's support for He Rui.

When Peking University professors and lecturers talked about He Rui, many only made ambiguous judgments about military matters. Or they continued their previous evaluations of He Rui, adding some new assessments regarding his sudden launching of a war.

Zhou Shuren's view of He Rui was very conservative because he couldn't quite understand what He Rui had been doing over the past few years. To say He Rui was conservative: He Rui's land reform had swept away the landlords and gentry in the Northeast, and he had conducted an analysis of the existence of landlords and gentry on an economic level. This analysis was very unsparing, triggering strong opposition and disgust from the landlord and gentry class within the pass.

To say He Rui was radical: Regarding rural and urban development, He Rui proposed 'First promote the development of a small commodity economy to stimulate the economy. Create conditions for the operation of a larger market economy.'

Such statements returned to the impoverished common people, triggering ridicule from the faction of literati who advocated the concept of 'Saving the Nation through Industry.' These literati believed: He Rui is placing his strength on the poor, but do the poor have money? How can you engage in a market economy without money? Isn't this just buying popular support?

At that time, entrepreneurs represented by Fan Xudong were more like scholars; they loved reading in their spare time. Their rest time, especially at night, was often spent doing things related to the nation's destiny and culture, rather than entertainment.

When the "Cotton Yarn King" of his generation, Mu Ouchu, went to Beijing, he hung out with people like Jiang Menglin rather than associating with high officials and noble lords. They held a reverence for knowledge and spirit in their hearts.

While intellectuals and entrepreneurs were attempting "Saving the Nation through Education," "Saving the Nation through Science," and "Saving the Nation through Industry," Zhou Shuren was trying to awaken his countrymen with the pen in his hand.

In early 1919, the 38-year-old Zhou Shuren published the short story *Medicine*, revealing the ignorance and numbness of the petty bourgeoisie and lamenting the sacrifice of revolutionary martyrs. That year, Zhou Shuren was also busy moving house, moving from his hometown of Shaoxing to Beijing.

Zhou Shuren discovered that He Rui's policies seemed to accord with quite a few 'concepts,' yet they encountered opposition from the literati who held these concepts.

While the literati continued to comment on and oppose He Rui, Zhou Shuren became interested in He Rui's thoughts for the first time. He took up He Rui's writings and began to study them.