kingnovel Chapter 1244 Too Much Internal Strife
Chapter 1244 Too Much Internal Strife
"I know you've had a tough time these past few days. I know dealing with these officials here is much more difficult than fighting the Russians in the north."
After getting into the car, Li Shaoyi patted Liu Xiaoshan on the shoulder. Liu Xiaoshan was almost in tears. In Hankou, because the Japanese were closing in, most of the time was spent on fighting. Liu Xiaoshan was able to handle it calmly, but things were different after returning to Chongqing. Now these guys were back to their old tricks from Nanjing, always trying to set traps for others.
Moreover, because so many officials had returned from various parts of Jiangnan, there was simply no way to arrange their placement. Therefore, those officials out of office were also creating obstacles for those in power, resulting in a very intense political atmosphere in the mountain city. Of course, this intense atmosphere was utterly useless for the overall war effort.
“My dear brother, please find out where I’ve been sent. This place seems safe, but Japanese spies are assassinating people every day, even killing them openly in the streets. I don’t know how the military police search, but they can’t find anyone. Secondly, those officials don’t do any real work; they’re just wasting their time on internal strife. All sorts of telegrams are coming back from the front, and these people are trying to avoid taking responsibility, getting this person to sign and that person to sign, they just don’t get any real work done.”
Liu Xiaoshan said with a bitter expression, then thought of the dances in the city these days and didn't know what to say. "Anyway, you can find an excuse to hold a dance. One dance you hold could feed a beggar on the street for several days. It's a pity these officials don't see it. Every time they hold a dance, they have to worry about the country and its people. But aren't those beggars outside your citizens too? Wouldn't it be better to save that money and give them some nice clothes?"
"I knew this even if you didn't tell me. I've lived in Nanjing before, and that's how people lived back then. I just didn't expect that now, with a major enemy at hand, although we're temporarily safe in Chongqing, we can't say we're completely safe. We're still in danger of losing territory. And these guys can still manage to play around under these circumstances. Sometimes I want to crack open their heads and see how their brains are structured, whether they're full of dog shit or not?"
Li Shaoyi was also quite frustrated. He hadn't been keeping a close eye on the situation in Chongqing lately, as most of his energy had been focused on Pujiang. Now that he knew Chongqing was back to this state, he really didn't know what to say to them. With the nation in peril, even ordinary citizens knew the Japanese were about to invade, yet these guys were still busy fighting amongst themselves, creating such a commotion internally. They should all be sent to the front lines to see how they would fight the Japanese.
"Who can argue with that? Some of these people were actually anti-Japanese generals on the front lines, fighting the Japanese to a standstill. After their own troops were wiped out, they could only come to the mountain city to see how to reorganize them. But they couldn't be reorganized. These people were a bit resentful, after all, they had actually fought the Japanese. Now, some of the officials in the mountain city had never even seen the Japanese, so they felt a bit unbalanced and immediately started fighting amongst themselves, determined to bring these people down. The officials in the mountain city were originally supposed to defend themselves, but the two sides fought back and forth, it was quite a spectacle."
When Liu Xiaoshan said this, Li Shaoyi burst out laughing. You see, Liu Xiaoshan was usually completely illiterate. Although he had learned quite a few characters in the army's literacy class, he couldn't speak classical Chinese. Now, it seemed he was truly furious.
"Brother, don't laugh. If you stay here long enough, you probably won't be able to stand them either. As the liaison officer for the 72nd Army, my goal is to unite us with the people here to fight the Japanese together. But every time I go to the Military and Political Department for a meeting, these people start arguing before the meeting even begins. They're either digging up each other's secrets. Every day is spent in meetings, but none of them solve anything of substance. Telegrams from the front keep coming back, and they keep coming back here too, all of it just nonsense."
When Liu Xiaoshan talked about these recent events, he felt like arresting all the officials and giving them a good beating. Don't they know that delaying matters at the front is equivalent to delaying the lives of thousands of people? We are currently at war with the Japanese, and every telegram could potentially affect the course of the battle.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of these officials, the lives of ordinary soldiers were not worth much. Li Shaoyi originally thought that Japanese officers didn't care about the lives of ordinary soldiers, but he didn't expect that our officials were the same.
Liu Xiaoshan was used to working in the 72nd Group Army. There, telegrams from commanders and above were extremely important, even those from outposts stationed on the frontier. We had to respond within five minutes, otherwise it would be a violation of regulations, and an investigation would be launched from top to bottom, with no one able to escape.
But for the Nationalist government, such efficiency was practically impossible. Everyone was just slacking off. Trying to find a solution to this was virtually impossible. Because these people were afraid to take responsibility, and even more afraid to give up the opportunity to sabotage their allies.
In an office with five people, there might be four or even six factions, each pulling in different directions. They eventually come to the conclusion that it's better not to do these things than to give their opponents an opportunity to attack them. So a lot of things are delayed, until the frontline workers are worn down.
Li Shaoyi patted Liu Xiaoshan on the shoulder. "These are the problems of the Nationalist government, and we can't control them for the time being." Li Shaoyi knew that the Nationalist government might collapse after the Battle of Hankou, but he didn't expect it to collapse to this extent.
Joint resistance against Japan sounds simple, but it was extremely difficult in practice. Previously, the Nationalist government had performed relatively well in major battles. However, after retreating to Chongqing, the sense of crisis disappeared, and each department immediately reverted to its old ways. As for the matter of joint resistance against Japan, everyone pushed the responsibility onto each other, and no one acknowledged anything.