"If not for Chairman Chen!" This was no longer a flattery of the People's Party, but a solid belief. After the Second Counter-Encirclement Campaign, the People's Party's confidence reached an unprecedented height. Comrades simply didn't think the Manchu Qing or Beiyang had anything left to fear. It wasn't until Chen Ke went to the Dabie Mountain area to start grassroots work and handed over the entire work of the Base Area to the Party Central Committee that the comrades personally leading the Base Area—almost every Politburo member or Standing Committee member—discovered something they should have discovered long ago: even if Anhui was only a small piece on the map, this small piece was still an unknown world to them.

When Chen Ke presided over the work at the center, everyone could ask Chen Ke various questions. Although Chen Ke often had to work all night to solve problems or come up with answers that could convince the comrades, Chen Ke working all night alone could at least solve the problems. The comrades of the Party Central Committee working all night often couldn't solve the problems.

In the early stage of the revolution, comrades thought Chen Ke was a thorough returned student; many even thought Chen Ke was born and raised overseas. By mid-July 1908, this view had undergone a major change. Comrades in the center believed that Chen Ke likely only went abroad for an extremely short time, and the rest of the time was spent traveling throughout the country. Otherwise, how could Chen Ke have such a profound understanding of China?

Yuan Shikai was about to command the forces of three Beiyang divisions to go south and attack the Base Area. Adding other troops, the total force would reach fifty thousand. The People's Party's original twenty thousand troops had ten thousand demobilized. Only ten thousand remained. At this critical period, Chen Ke led a large force of thirty thousand new recruits back to the Fengtai County Base Area from the Dabie Mountain area. The regular field army was instantly organized from ten thousand into a force of two divisions totaling forty thousand men. And the more than ten thousand demobilized personnel, as the main force of militia units everywhere, were quickly organized into a transport force of sixty thousand militiamen.

The military strength of the Base Area turned into an establishment of one hundred thousand men in a short time, double the sum of the Beiyang troops that would invade the Base Area in the future. The original panic vanished like smoke; the cognition of thoroughly overwhelming the Beiyang Army and winning the Third Counter-Encirclement Campaign became the mainstream thought of the center.

However, after Chen Ke returned, a "rumor" appeared in the Base Area that made most party members extremely angry. The rumor said that the purpose of Chen Ke bringing troops back was to see his wife give birth. This was a difficult issue to defend against; not long after Chen Ke returned, on July 27, Chen Ke's daughter was born. The "rumor" was also quite capable of advancing with the times; the circulated content immediately changed to "Chairman Chen saw it was a daughter, so he continued to work."

Chen Ke repeatedly said within the Party, "Don't be afraid of being scolded; our People's Party grew up amidst scolding!" But the one being attacked like this was the respected Chairman Chen Ke within the Party. Saying Chen Ke prioritized private matters was clearly not "scolding" but a rumor full of malice. Even comrades with relatively broad minds couldn't help burning with anger upon hearing such news.

Although the People's Party couldn't be said to "preserve heavenly principles and extinguish human desires", it wouldn't allow cadres to run home to see their wives without asking for leave either. And in the People's Party's policies, liberating women and protecting the legal interests of women and children were key. Female infants and girls were quite protected. These two rumors, especially the latter one, were felt by many keen comrades to be a vigorous attack on the "Protection of Women and Children Act" recently promoted in the Base Area.

In this era, infanticide was common in every place. Old Commander Zhu clearly recorded in his article "Recalling My Mother": "Mother gave birth to thirteen children in total. Because the family was poor and couldn't raise them all, only eight were left; those born later were forced to be drowned. What a painful, sorrowful, and helpless thing this was in Mother's heart! Mother raised eight children to adulthood single-handedly. But most of her time was occupied by housework and farming; she couldn't take much care of the children and had to let them crawl in the fields."

As a poor place, Anhui naturally couldn't be different from others. Before the People's Party's management entered the grassroots, the problem of infanticide was very common. In the early stage of work, People's Party comrades lacked experience; they decided to pay money to buy newborn infants prepared to be drowned from the masses. The young comrades, including Chen Ke, immediately encountered a result that confused them extremely. It was rumored everywhere that the People's Party was "acquiring infants", so the market price of infants and young children in Anhui skyrocketed to an astonishing level for a time.

With "supply and demand", many people immediately turned the nature of having children into a "transaction". In the case where the buyer was the People's Party government with seemingly unlimited financial power, as the seller, they naturally had to raise the price to a sufficient height.

This "infant trafficking" disturbance, which gave young revolutionaries a profound lesson, finally ended with the People's Party strictly banning human trafficking and conducting large-scale executions of various human traffickers. After executing all found traffickers, the People's Party notified the Base Area that if there were children they didn't want to raise, send them to the government; the government had the obligation to raise children without labor ability.

The compassion of the People's Party's young comrades, detached from the actual situation, met with a shameful failure. This was one of the few things where Chen Ke announced that the People's Party's train of thought was wrong. A considerable part of the people would rather drown the children or let the children starve to death than let the government get custody of the children, to prove that they were unqualified parents.

The indignant young cadres supported the implementation of the "Protection of Women and Children Act" with redoubled enthusiasm. In this law, the government had the right to intervene in people's family life. It had the right to adopt necessary measures to deprive parents of custody. Especially regarding the protection of female infants and girls, Chen Ke even said publicly at the Party Committee meeting: "If I have to choose whom to save between an adult and a child, I will definitely choose to save the child. If choosing between a boy and a girl, I will definitely choose the girl."

In the movement of forcefully promoting the liberation of productive forces in the Base Area, female labor force was naturally the most potential part. This also encountered opposition from the populace for the first time. So the rumors targeting Chen Ke made the young comrades, who already had strong antagonistic psychology in these aspects, even more vigilant.

However, with a formidable enemy ahead, comrades with work experience all believed not to artificially intensify conflicts. Just enduring this breath for now would be fine. But quite a few comrades kept a black account in their hearts, preparing to settle this account properly after dealing with the Beiyang Army.

As the initiator, Chen Ke wasn't that excited. In the life circle of this 21st-century urban youth, having a girl was not a sorrowful thing at all. The brothers and sisters around Chen Ke generally thought, "You have two daughters, you are dying of happiness." Because the key point of the revolution faced in 1908 was liberating women, Chen Ke had never dared to speak his true thoughts.

The matriarchal system was maintained for tens of thousands of years. Even with the development of productive forces and technology, in the thousands of years of the patriarchal system establishment, women's say in the upper strata of the ruling class was still very large. The existence of Cixi now was one of the proofs. As for after the productive forces continued to develop, under the Party's promotion, women obtained complete labor rights and financial rights. Women relied on their innate characteristics of enduring patience and their instinctive pursuit of family, leading to the internal power of the family being mastered in women's hands. Although the restoration of matriarchal society was unlikely for the time being, the trend of women gaining family dominance was almost irreversible.

This future-based view wasn't suitable for propaganda right now, so Chen Ke could only remain silent about it.

War couldn't be started with just a command; the People's Party placed the most importance on preparatory work. Two years of revolutionary work experience was "As long as preparation is insufficient, the chain can drop at any time." Military organization, training, and political work were all absolutely indispensable.

After the youths from the Dabie Mountain area joined the revolutionary army, special arrangements had to be made for them due to their numbers. First of all, organization completely mixing up the sources couldn't be implemented. The ultimate goal of the People's Party's military work was "enlisting from different places, scattering the organization." Relatives were not allowed to exist in a unit as much as possible. No matter how advanced the revolutionary theory was, this was a summary from later days. For the creature called human, pursuing a familiar environment and being with familiar people as much as possible was a universal instinct.

Therefore, various units were first divided by region; for example, youths from one village were prioritized to be arranged together. Reliable personnel selected from them served as deputy commanders. The principal positions and political commissars were served by members of the old units that had finished reorganization. In this way, while ensuring no problems in combat command, new soldiers could also familiarize themselves with the organizational system of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army as soon as possible.

One veteran leading three recruits; this was also a relatively reasonable method. Dealing with the Beiyang Army, especially the large number of Beiyang troops, actually didn't require such elite warriors. As long as the People's Army's operations had no problems, Beiyang's quantity was actually Beiyang's disadvantage.

Starting from July 18, the People's Party's large-scale new recruit formation and training began to be executed. Since Chen Ke was sitting in the center, even actions of sharpening the spear before battle still made the comrades very reassured.

And Yuan Shikai finally obtained a new official position on July 22. He was removed from the position of Grand Council Minister and transferred to the post of Governor of Henan. At the same time, he served as the supreme commander of the punitive army. Cixi didn't give Yuan Shikai the power to intervene in Jiangsu. Since he was the Governor of Henan, Yuan Shikai naturally used the Beijing-Hankou Railway to transport troops and launched the attack on the People's Party from the Henan direction.

Yuan Shikai didn't shrink back either. After arriving in Zhengzhou first on August 10, he summoned Duan Qirui and Wang Shizhen to Zhengzhou for a meeting. A new command center was quickly established.

"Lord Yuan, are you really prepared to fight to the death with Chen Ke?" Wang Shizhen asked Yuan Shikai privately.

"It's not that I want to fight to the death with Chen Ke, but Chen Ke wants to fight to the death with me," Yuan Shikai replied.

Such a meaningful answer left Wang Shizhen speechless for the moment. Yuan Shikai writing a will and even arranging funeral affairs before dispatching troops had spread widely in official circles. Wang Shizhen once thought Yuan Shikai was really too rash. After such a simple dialogue, Wang Shizhen realized that Yuan Shikai had very effectively deceived everyone.