Chapter 1037 1036 [Shipai Defense Battle]

"Because of learning Western culture, they unknowingly became slaves to foreign literature... The Chinese people turned from rejecting Western culture to surrendering, and turned from arrogance to inferiority in regard to their own culture. Submission turned into belief, believing in what is coming. , considers himself a true believer in a certain foreign doctrine; his inferiority complex turns into self-pity, and he cannot bear to insult China's inherent cultural heritage."

This passage is excerpted from "China's Destiny". Chang Kaishen's original intention was to discredit the Communist Party and democrats. The "certain doctrine" specifically refers to communism and liberalism. However, he also scolded all the new young people since the May Fourth Movement. It seems that as long as the Chinese people have learned Western culture, they are all bastards who have forgotten their ancestors and are all lackeys who believe in the West.

"These national humiliations go against the hopes of our people, undermine their self-confidence, and arouse our people's strong revolutionary demands. The May Fourth Movement is the most vivid manifestation of this demand. Under the strong revolutionary demands of the people, the politics of warlords and bureaucrats , there is only one path to decline.”

Here, Chang Kaishen turned into praising the May Fourth Movement and completely forgot about his belittling of the May Fourth spirit. His logic is the logic of double standards. He said that the New Culture Movement was about learning from Western culture and politics for self-improvement. The Communist Party and democrats forgot this starting point and became slaves to Western culture. The Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek kept their starting point in mind, so they were able to overthrow the Beiyang rule and become the great savior of the Chinese people.

When discussing the corruption of Chinese ethics and morals by unequal treaties, Chiang Kai-shek cited various ugly phenomena in the concessions to prove his point of view. He believed that the concession was a haven for prostitutes, gamblers and bandits, turning China into a country where everyone was greedy and shameless. This unhealthy culture spread from the concession to the whole country, corrupting the simple and hard-working Chinese people who abide by etiquette and morality.

Chang Kaishen also attacks Christianity in the book. He believes that Confucianism's teachings of Confucius and Mencius can stabilize society, educate the people, and nourish all things, while the introduction of Christianity has destroyed Chinese people's morality from the foundation.

It seems that without the concession, there would be no prostitution, gambling, and bandits in China. It seems that without Christianity, Confucianism could make China advocating respect for etiquette.

Extending from culture to politics, Chang Kaishen used Yuan Shikai's proclaimed emperor and Cao Kun's promulgation of a constitution to bribe elections to demonstrate that Western political theory is not suitable for China's actual conditions. He believed that any Western theory should take into account China's current situation and should not be copied blindly, but should be adjusted and improved based on China's local conditions. It seems reasonable, but in fact Chang Kaishen is saying very implicitly that those who believe in Marxism are all scum, the democratic parties that believe in Western constitutionalism are also scum, and those who believe in Western culture and education are still scum - China should have a dictatorship , China should be governed by Confucianism and virtue.

How can Zhou Hexuan help him wash the above?

The book "The Destiny of China" offended democratic parties, intellectuals, educators, Christians and Marxists at home and abroad.

Therefore, some people call the thoughts expressed by Chang Kaishen in the book "Boxer Thoughts." Just like the Boxer Rebellion back then, foreign things were all rubbish. Foreign oil, match fires, foreign lamps, and foreign cloth were all filth. It seemed that as long as the foreign demons were exterminated, China would soon be restored to strength.

As for why China fell behind in modern times and why China's traditional thought and culture led to the country's decline, Chiang Kai-shek put all the blame on the Manchu and Qing governments. He believes that there is no problem with Chinese traditional culture, but it has been distorted by the Manchus. As long as the Manchus' mistakes are corrected, China can develop based on its own inherent culture.

This view is very confusing, but he completely forgets that the cultural system of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was inherited from the Ming Dynasty, and Confucianism was distorted as early as the Song Dynasty.

At that time, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty only respected Confucianism, which had already distorted Confucianism. Confucianism had long been a miscellaneous school that integrated the thoughts of hundreds of schools of thought, but it was just cloaked in the skin of Confucianism. Even if the Confucian tradition is to be restored, Han Confucianism should be restored, with great unification and great revenge. Don’t be cowardly and be strong, rather than the Ming Confucianism that was highly praised by Chiang Kai-shek.

In Zhou Hexuan's view, Chang Kaishen's publication of "The Destiny of China" was nothing more than to strengthen cultural propaganda and set the tone for opposing the Communist Party and the democratic constitutionalists. But his attack was too broad. He didn't know how to win over one faction and attack another. He actually stood up and shouted: "I'm not targeting anyone, everyone here is rubbish!"

The most ridiculous thing is, what the hell is Chiang Kai-shek's attack on the westernization of education in his book? Even if some professors, including Southwest Associated University, offend you, there is no need to target all people in the education sector.

When Zhou Hexuan was reading this book, he suddenly found that he had also been scolded, and he had been scolded in many aspects such as academic, ideological, and educational aspects.

In fact, Chang Kaishen only very clearly cursed the Manchus, imperialism, Beiyang warlords, democratic parties and the Communist Party, and mentioned the rest in passing. Perhaps he really did not have any malicious intention to curse the world. But his thoughts and theories are too vague, his argumentation process is too vague, and his map cannons are fired too much, causing all readers to feel that they have been scolded - including Chang Kaishen and his wife Song Meiling.

As the saying goes, I went crazy and even cursed myself!

When "The Destiny of China" was disliked by readers, one month before the official publication of "The Fifteenth Year of Wanli", an Eastern Battle of Stalingrad - the Battle of Shipai - broke out in China.

It was when the money for the project was embezzled by corruption and bamboo poles and lime were used to build the river defense. Feng Yuxiang heard the news and shot the officer in charge to punish the ship.

On May 25, the Japanese army attacked Shipai Fortress with 100,000 troops, and China successively invested 150,000 troops to defend it.

Shipai is located in the Three Gorges area and is the only place to pass when entering Sichuan. Once the Japanese army captures Shipai, Sichuan will no longer have dangerous fortresses to defend. Japanese warships can easily sail upstream, and the accompanying capital Chongqing will also be seriously threatened.

The national army general in charge of the task of holding on was Hu Lian, a fourth-year graduate of Huangpu and a direct descendant of Chen Cheng.

Before the battle started, Hu Lian had already written two suicide notes.

One letter was written to his wife: "When you grow up, you still think it is better to be a soldier to avenge your father and serve your country... If you can be frugal at home, you should be able to have enough food and clothing. There is a clear lesson from the past when you are poor and happy... More than ten years of military career , I owe you a lot, and now I say goodbye with deep gratitude. I leave you a gold watch, a fountain pen, and a diary as a souvenir... In a hundred years of life, you will eventually die. If you die well, it is appropriate to be happy... …”

A letter written to his father: "...Having a son can kill the country, and the kindness of an adult is enough comfort..."

He said to his soldiers: "From tomorrow onwards, we will fight hand to hand with the enemy... fight to the last one, bury the enemy's bones here, and write our heroic names and flesh and blood on the rocks of the stone tablet."

In this battle, China's remaining air force and navy all participated in the battle, but there was no comparison at all in front of the Japanese air force and navy, and they could only play a small role in harassment and deterrence.

What we really relied on was the army. Every position was bombarded, bombed, bombed and bombed by Japanese aircraft and warships. The 1st platoon of soldiers of the 34th Division set up defenses and fought in the Jinglin forest. The Japanese invaders were unable to attack for a long time, so they called in aircraft for support, which actually blew up the forest into bare tree stumps.

Although the Chinese army resisted tenaciously, they were ultimately unable to withstand the Japanese aggressors' combined sea, land and air attacks, and were gradually attacked by the Japanese aggressors to the main position outside the Shipai Fortress. Fortunately, the mountains were steep and easy to defend but difficult to attack. The Japanese warships and tanks were useless, so they had to use mountain cannons in conjunction with aircraft bombing.

The national army could not withstand the powerful bombing firepower of the Japanese invaders, and the outer positions were quickly breached. At this time, General Hu Lian resolutely launched a hand-to-hand battle and ordered his soldiers to rush out and engage in a melee with the enemy, so that the Japanese aircraft did not dare to bomb indiscriminately.

Soldiers from both sides fought in a melee, and no gunshots were heard for three hours, because the hand-to-hand combat was so intense that they could not fire. This was the largest hand-to-hand combat in World War II.

After using hand-to-hand combat to drive the Japanese invaders out of their main peripheral positions, the Japanese invaders reorganized their attack the next day. The Chinese Air Force and the American Flying Tigers were frequently dispatched at this time. The Chinese Air Force bombed the Japanese supply lines and airports, while the Flying Tigers launched air battles with Japanese aircraft and shot down 6 enemy aircraft. The Chinese Navy withstood the bombing by Japanese aircraft and deployed drifting mines from upstream to prevent Japanese warships from cooperating with the army in operations.

After attacking for another day and night, the Japanese army finally wavered and turned around and fled eastward.

In this battle, our army wounded and killed more than 7,000 enemy soldiers.

General Hu Lian was promoted to deputy commander for his meritorious service and won the Medal of the Blue Sky and White Sun.