Back to the Republic of China to be a editor

……

The armistice negotiations resumed in July lasted for three days. Harrison and Nam Il were at odds with each other. The two sides had a lengthy debate on the current military situation of China and the United States and who had the upper hand. " to "Strategic Discourse" are quoted over and over again.

"Although the Americans have been stubborn for three days, their bottom line and attitude in negotiations have indeed undergone major changes." Li Kenong, the volunteer army negotiator stationed in Huachuan City, analyzed the details of the three-day negotiations with Nan Ri, Chen Geng and others. "During these three days of negotiations, the Americans would raise their voices without saying a few words, but they have made a huge change: they no longer mention the Kansas Line or the Wyoming Line. Now the Americans' demands It is to return to the situation of both sides before the sixth battle, but still requires the volunteers to retreat from the first two lines of defense in Gwangam Mountain, saying that it is to ensure that Yangju will not be attacked suddenly.”

Qiao Guanhua: "The former chief negotiator of the United Nations Army, Turner Joey, looked like an old hooligan. He was originally rude, and deliberately made his words and deeds more vulgar during the negotiation, so as to disturb the emotions of our negotiators. This time The replaced William Harrison, Jr., is like a debate expert, he can mess up logically, and he is also good at talking, but he doesn't mess up negotiations with off-court rude behavior."

Nan Ri: "They don't even mention the 38th parallel."

The Kansas line draws the border between the two sides at the [-]th parallel and a little northerly to solve the problem that both sides are not conducive to defense in many places on the [-]th parallel.The U.S. military did not mention the [-]th parallel this time. In fact, Ridgway and Clark could not reach the [-]th parallel with their current military strength.

In Zhisi, after learning the summary of today's negotiations during the day, Mr. Peng and Ye Ting are also summarizing and discussing the next step.

"On the central line and the eastern line, it is appropriate for both sides to retreat 2 kilometers each as a demilitarized zone and as a buffer zone," Ye Ting said. If one side wants to break the armistice agreement, it will take a long time to cross the 4km mountain when attacking. There is no suddenness of the attack. But on the western front, the buffer zone of the Han River North Plain cannot be 4km. If we want to effectively isolate the two sides, we will stop fighting , at least 4 kilometers apart."

Mr. Peng: "Before the launch of the sixth battle, the distance between our army in Dongducheon and the United Nations army in Yangju was more than 4 kilometers. As a result, when the battle started, the rocket launchers of the 21st Artillery Division had finished firing one round and the second round hadn't been reloaded yet. Our heavy tanks are approaching their defense line. Before the sixth battle, we imagined that the bottom line of the negotiation was that our army occupied Dongducheon, and the United Nations army withdrew from the horizontal defense line in the north of Yangju, and retreated 3 kilometers. The farthest cannot go beyond the latitude line of Yangzhou City."

Ye Ting looked at the map carefully: "The result of the sixth battle is slightly better than expected, so now there are three possible outcomes for the truce negotiations: the worst and the bottom line is the previously envisaged armistice line; the medium result is that the United Nations retains Seoul. As a bridgehead, we retain a small amount of troops in Uijeongbu; the good result is that the United Nations troops withdraw from Seoul and only operate on the south bank of the Han River, and as a balance, our troops also withdraw from Uijeongbu and Seoul and return to the mountain fortifications in Dongducheon."

Mr. Peng: "This is basically the chairman's three strategies of top, middle and bottom, and three truces of top, middle, and bottom."

……

"Send an 8th division to North Korea? A total of 10 divisions in the Far East? No, no!"

The United States agreed to restart the armistice negotiations in July 1952, and on the second day after the negotiations resumed, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, five-star general Bradley, and Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett asked to see Truman.

Bradley got straight to the point, and not long after sitting down, he told Truman in the most straightforward words: The US military in North Korea is insufficient.

"The South Korean army suffered a devastating blow in the July Battle. Of the 11 divisions of the South Korean Army, three divisions suffered a devastating blow north of the Han River. Even more deadly, three South Koreans with American equipment and American training Division, lost two-thirds in this battle. Now, the South Korean Army can only serve as defensive missions in some secondary areas on the Eastern Front or to suppress rebellions in the rear, and can neither assist the US military in attacking nor assisting the US military in key areas. Regional defense. If we want to firmly hold the line and win the initiative in negotiations, the U.S. ground forces on the Korean peninsula must be increased to 3, and the size of the 8 divisions in Japan must remain unchanged.”

After Bradley finished speaking, Truman roared out the above sentence with a loud voice.

"The defense budget in 1952 increased by 1951% compared to 96," Truman said, "and the defense budget in 1951 increased by 1950% compared to 75. Are we fighting a world war? During the world war, the US defense budget also There are only over 800 billion US dollars, and now for a Korean peninsula, the US defense budget should reach 500 billion US dollars, which is ridiculous. General Bradley, you were also a senior general in World War II. You should know that in 1942 War bonds are 10-year..."

Bonds are now a bigger headache for Truman than Korea.

After the United States was involved in World War II, because of the huge scale of the war, no matter how much tax was raised, the fiscal revenue was not enough to pay for the military.Directly printing money and scraping money with inflation will cause a chain reaction, and it cannot be used unless it is a last resort.The method used by the United States to raise funds is to issue huge war bonds.

The denominations of bonds range from $25 to $1000. If you subscribe for a $25 war bond, you only need to pay $18.75. of fixed deposits.This interest rate is lower than that of investing in national debt or bank deposits. However, thanks to the patriotic enthusiasm of Americans and the propaganda of the military, the national debt of the United States has been sold out for several consecutive years.From May 10 to the end of 1941, the U.S. government issued a total of 5 billion U.S. dollars in war bonds, all of which were sold to ensure that the U.S. had enough military spending to win World War II and the domestic financial order was basically stable.

However, this also means that from 1951 to 1955, the U.S. government had to pay $2500 billion to creditors with principal and interest.

The peak of the amount of national debt was 1944 and 1945. In 1942, the issuance of US national debt was not particularly huge, but more than 200 billion yuan was still repaid. After nearly doubling the U.S. defense budget in 1952, Truman was in a tight spot. The defense budget in 1951 was added four times in a row, and it was added once in 4, and no more was added in the next five months.At the end of May 1952, because the finances were beyond the means, the various expenses and military expenses for maintaining the operation of the government were deducted from the account, and the remaining money was not enough to pay off the national debt.The U.S. government added $1 billion to its national debt following secret talks with the Federal Reserve.

It's almost like borrowing new debts to pay off old debts...

Robert Lovett also inquired: "The Chinese are willing to sit down and negotiate with the United States, and you are planning a new offensive. This is a military adventure. Shouldn't you ask the approval of me and the president in advance? ... If not With complete certainty, I am not in favor of adding troops to the Korean peninsula and expanding the war. We have little hope of moving forward. These are the exact words Mr. Marshall told me when I succeeded Marshall as Secretary of Defense last September. I believe It was true in 9, it was true in 1951."

Bradley: "The increase in troops on the Korean peninsula to eight divisions is not for offense, but just trying to maintain the current situation."

Robert Lovett: "I don't understand what you mean."

Bradley: "After the July campaign, we held Seoul on the western front, but in order to hold it under the noses of 7 Chinese divisions, two US divisions were defending Seoul and along the Han River; the flank of Seoul needed another US military along the Han River, we can only rely on the Commonwealth Division to provide support for the three divisions deployed by the US Army north of the Han River. If there is a frenzied attack, then the United Nations forces on both sides of the Han River are likely to collapse as they did near the 12th parallel in May 1951."

Truman: "The Chinese are not planning to attack now. They are negotiating an armistice with us."

Bradley: "What if the armistice negotiations break down or adjourn? The Chinese have occupied a favorable terrain on the front line. If they quietly complete the preparations for the battle, and then suddenly announce the adjournment and turn to the offensive, we will be very passive."

Robert Lovett: "Then my suggestion is that the Joint Chiefs of Staff prepare an adjustment plan that saves more defensive troops. As far as I know, the United Nations Army's current front is only 1951% of the length of April 4, when it was in North Korea. There are 75 U.S. divisions on the peninsula, and now there are 7 U.S. divisions. The density of your defense force has increased by 7% compared with a year ago, and there is no reason why you cannot defend.”

Bradley: "There is an adjustment and deployment plan that can solve the problem of insufficient troops. The US military withdraws from Seoul. In the south of the Han River, three US military divisions are more than enough. We can use the river as a natural barrier to calmly build a line of defense."

Robert Lovett immediately agreed: "That's a good idea."

Truman scratched his head in thought.After a while, he said: "It means giving up the capital of South Korea."

Robert Lovett: "What? Isn't Busan the capital of South Korea?"

Bradley, Truman: ...

Chapter 225, The Boring Life of Gui Family Apartment

Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett is a civilian in the United States government.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, etc. are all civilian positions.The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chiefs of staff of various services, this commander and that commander... are the officers.The two groups are also called the suit group and the uniform group.

Robert Lovett technically served in the army, in World War I.He served in the U.S. Navy as a pilot for HNA, and has performed missions in Europe with the highest rank of lieutenant.In fact, Lovett really likes airplanes, but the end of World War I forced him to retire, take off his military uniform with tears, and inherit the industry his father left him to practice——

Executive Director of Citibank.

After marriage, Lovett received part of the shares of the Brown Brothers Harriman Bank of his father-in-law, James Brown. After his father died, he provoked the positions of executive director of Western Union Bank left by his father, president and chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad Company.It can be said that since the end of World War I, Lovett has never been in the army, but has been running around for a living all day long.

However, when Truman formed his presidential team, Lovett, who only served as a lieutenant in the army and joined the army more than 20 years ago, was actually one of the team members with the richest military experience, so after Marshall made up his mind to retire, Lovett was dismissed. Truman and Marshall combined to become Secretary of Defense.

As the management, banker and investor of the three banks, the bank under Lovett’s name invested in more than a dozen military industrial companies and manufacturers, so when he was the Secretary of Defense, he liked the arms race the most, which meant that defense funding Increase, arms orders increase.But he is not very keen on the hot battle of white knife in and red knife out.

Back to the topic, Lovett subconsciously thought that the capital of South Korea was Busan, because since he took office in September last year, President Rhee seems to have been in Busan.

……

"The two regimes on the Korean peninsula seem to only like two ways of dealing with problems: all-out war or peace under deterrence." Lovett said, "It's like a faucet that can only be completely closed and open to the maximum. Think the role of the US in the Korean War should be a throttle. The peace brought by the forced separation of the two sides should not be sustainable. They should be kept in contact with each other, wary of each other and hostile, but not a full-scale war. Like the July battle Or the scale of those battles in 7 was a little out of control, and we had to control the flow of the tap. The best way to control the flow now is for the two sides to sit down and talk."

Marshall: "Sometimes, whether the tap is fully open or half open is not completely under the control of the United States."

Lovett: "I believe that China's top leaders also don't like the spigot fully open. If the Soviet Union itself was involved in the Korean War, maybe the spigot would be fully open, but China will definitely have reservations."

"Then, let me decide," Truman said, "to transfer another division from the mainland to the Korean peninsula and reject it. It is possible to add another division to the Korean peninsula to meet the standard of establishing a solid line of defense, but only within half a year. I remember you saying that there are three divisions in Korea who are doing full, uncompromising American training in Hokkaido, right?"

Bradley: "Exactly. I understand what you're thinking President. I will send a division from Japan's 1st Marine Division and 7th U.S. Army Division to the Korean peninsula to fill in the weak spots in the defense until the three Koreans Divisions complete their training, then send them to North Korea, and then withdraw a U.S. division from the Korean peninsula.”

……

Hong Kong, Argyle Street.

"At the beginning of the battle, the 2nd Meibu Division was in Xinxingdong. According to common sense, the 3 regiments of the US military should be arranged like this"

"The communist army attacking Xinxingdong is now said to be 2 divisions, and some say it is 3 divisions. I think it is 40 divisions of the 3th Army. They are all operating as an army in North Korea."

"There are more than 100 tanks in the US infantry division. The firepower of a division is at least twice that of the 40th Army. If it is fighting during the day, the 40th Army has no chance of winning. Only night attacks can contain and disrupt the US military. If I To command the 40th Army, it must first attack Sumin Cave, and then Yulong Cave.”

"From November 11th, the 25th and 8th Divisions of the US Army of the Eighth Army were pinned down, and the 24nd Division of the US Army was pinned down, so they could only be pinned down. By this time, the Eighth Army of the US Army did not actually have any serious problems. Loss. But then two South Korean divisions collapsed overnight. The United Nations still lost to the Koreans."

In an old apartment, a pool table with a map is temporarily used as a battlefield for war games.

The sporadic reports on the U.S. side in the second battle were edited into several books, and there were still many handwritten (brain supplemented) places on them.No way, the reports of the battle are all articles published by British, American, Japanese and Korean newspapers and written by half-hearted military reporters. You cannot expect these articles to be as detailed and clear-minded as the general staff's battle summary.

Bai Chongxi is using these fragmentary information to restore the process of the second battle between China and the United States.