A Staff Officer's Mission

The eastern front was more important, but the northern front could not be left unguarded. That was Zhu Shiqing's instinctive reaction. The Songhu region on the eastern front served as the primary window for international trade, acting as a crucial economic pillar for the Nationalist government while holding the throat of the Yangtze River's outlet to the sea. More importantly, it lay dangerously close to the capital, Nanjing. If the Japanese took Shanghai, they could close in on Nanjing in short order. On the northern front, the Japanese were pressing in step by step, having steadily swallowed four provinces before sweeping through Shanhaiguan and along the Great Wall. With the bulk of their military forces deployed in the north, they clearly harbored ambitions to overrun the Central Plains, making that front impossible to ignore. China's predicament was enough to keep any staff officer awake all night. The topic immediately ignited the eager young men gathered in the room. Before long, someone stood up to speak. "Reporting, Sir! In my humble opinion, once hostilities commence, we ought to hold the Yellow River defense line at all costs. I have two reasons. First, the Northeast has already fallen into enemy hands, and the Japanese have established comprehensive supply depots there. At the same time, transportation in the north is open and unobstructed, allowing the Japanese to advance with great speed. It would be far better to pull back and defend the Yellow River—" "Bullshit!" Before he could finish, another man on the far side cut him off harshly. "Handing the Beiping line over to the little bastards on a silver platter—are you a fucking traitor sent by the Japs? For five goddamn years, whenever the Japs hit Shanghai, we carved off Shanghai, and when they hit North China, we carved off North China! Retreat, retreat, retreat—if you retreat to the Yellow River, are you going to retreat past the Yangtze next?" Zhu Shiqing followed the voice and saw a burly man with a face full of whiskers, his round eyes glaring wide. He looked remarkably like Zhang Fei. "I don't think either of you is right. If you ask me, we should fight a decisive battle in Shanghai," Zhong Yifeng suddenly chimed in. "Shanghai is far from the northern cities and a great distance from the main Japanese forces. It would take time for Japanese reinforcements to arrive. Meanwhile, most of our reorganized divisions are garrisoned around Jiangsu and Shanghai, allowing us to concentrate superior firepower when the fighting starts." These words improved Zhu Shiqing's opinion of him slightly. Zhong Yifeng was truly no incompetent; his arrogance was likely just on the surface, and his family seemed to have invested real effort into cultivating his military acumen. Ming Quan quietly watched the trainees spar. This was precisely the outcome he had hoped for. Formal theoretical instruction had not yet begun. This discussion was merely a prelude to future studies, meant to help everyone ease into the right mindset. He had not anticipated how passionate they would be about national affairs, nor how well-reasoned their ideas would prove. "Shanghai? Young Master Zhong, you just want to make it convenient to go home and hold your wife!" No one knew who blurted out the remark, but it immediately brought down the house in laughter. Thinking about it, it was actually true—Zhong Yifeng's family lived in Shanghai. If fighting broke out there, slipping home for a visit now and then would indeed be easy. "Fuck off!" Zhong Yifeng cursed. He couldn't tell who had spoken, but the accent sounded vaguely northern, distinctly different from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang dialect. He instantly sneered with sarcasm, "Why pick Shanghai? Because that ragtag bunch of local troops in the north can't be trusted! Because those northerners have no backbone!" Zhu Shiqing frowned. Even to a southerner's ears, those words sounded jarring. Wasn't that an outright regional attack? Every syllable dripped with a sense of class superiority. Predictably, an entire faction in the room immediately bristled. "What's wrong with northerners? General Ma Zhanshan fought the Defense of the Jiangqiao, and General Fu Zuoyi won the Great Victory at Bailingsi! That's a hell of a lot better than signing armistices in Shanghai and surrendering on bended knee!" "Damn right! Exactly!" Zhong Yifeng instantly became the target of public fury, and the room descended into chaos. Voices rose from every quarter, as each trainee possessed a different perspective and held different insider knowledge. "Do you even know why there was a truce in Shanghai? Because years ago, the permanent national defense fortifications the Nationalist government planned were completely hollowed out by the Jiangsu-Zhejiang financial cliques! How do you fight a war without fortifications?" Hearing this, Lai Tianyou lowered his head even before Zhong Yifeng did; his father was a typical Zhejiang merchant. The argument spiraled from operational planning to corruption, and from poor governance to the depleted state treasury. In short, everyone harbored their own convictions on every facet of the issue. Seeing that the exercise had run its course, Ming Quan immediately called an end to the debate and stepped forward to speak. "I believe today's discussion was a fine start. Before receiving any formal military education, you were able to draw upon your own assessments of our national conditions and your professional experience to offer insights and counterstrategies regarding the current situation. That is commendable. "As for whether we should fortify the northern front or the eastern front, General Staff Headquarters is still debating the matter. In reality, there is no definitive answer. What that gentleman said about falling back to the Yellow River has merit, and what Zhong Yifeng said about contesting every inch of ground is equally valid. "How forces are deployed in practice depends on formulating plans suited to the timing and reality of each phase. Where to engage the Japanese military and to what degree the battle should be fought is not a simple military question." Growing animated, Ming Quan stood up, retrieved the pointer he had used before class, and directed it once more toward the large map of China. "Deploying troops and arranging formations is not a matter of getting hotheaded and barking orders at a map." Ming Quan turned his back to the room, facing the wide map, and tapped the location of Tianjin. "Look here, gentlemen. This is Tianjin, the starting point of the Tianjin-Pukou Railway. And here is Nanjing's Pukou, its terminus. "The Japanese army is a mechanized force. In past clashes, their doctrine showed one glaring characteristic: they advance along transportation corridors. Whether a location holds strategic value must be judged comprehensively, weighing transport, economic, and political factors. "Just now, Zhong Yifeng proposed a decisive battle in Shanghai. There is nothing wrong with that premise, but the justification certainly does not lie in dividing troops between the Central Army and local forces. Shanghai is China's industrial lifeblood, the bedrock that enables our continued survival. "War is not waged by launching an attack on a whim. Take a decisive engagement in Shanghai as an example. If we are truly to fight in Shanghai, plans must first be drawn up for the westward evacuation of Shanghai's industry. "You are staff officers. What is a staff officer's job? Above all else, it is to draft plans and blueprints!" Ming Quan emphasized today's core theme, his tone hardening. "In the midst of chaos, you must have the clarity of mind to determine: If we evacuate westward, how do we evacuate? If we fight, how do we fight? "If we fight in Shanghai, what is the terrain, and where are the chokepoints? If the decisive battle is fought in North China, what is the situation there? As qualified staff officers, you must be more rational and more mindful of the bigger picture than the field commanders leading the armies! "You have many things to consider: troop supplies, morale, combat terrain, tactical formations, troop deployments, firepower allocations, and responses to enemy actions. Under any circumstance, whether you are called upon to direct forces or not, as a staff officer you must possess your own calculated judgment. That will be the primary focus of your studies over the next three months." Ming Quan's address concluded, and the room fell dead silent, devoid of any further banter. A staff officer was not merely a rank, but a skill. Most of them had previously subscribed to the common joke that unless a staff officer was chief of staff, his words carried no weight at all. Only now did they truly understand that a staff officer required a far broader reservoir of knowledge, along with cooler contemplation and judgment. After all, for a staff officer, the essence lay in strategy.