Pang Zi refused to answer who had leaked the news, and Wu Xingchen was helpless. During this Rectification Movement, many cadres in the army had been removed from their posts precisely because of their warlord style of beating and cursing soldiers. As the Commander of the Military Region, Wu Xingchen could not take the lead in making this mistake himself. Moreover, he did not believe that beating and cursing would be effective.

Wu Xingchen said patiently, "Comrade Pang Zi, do you think we can't find out who came to see you? The time between the end of the meeting and when you went to speak to Chai Qingguo about this matter was very short. It wouldn't be difficult at all to find the leaker."

"Humph!" Pang Zi sneered, but did not reply.

Wu Xingchen's heart skipped a beat. Chen Ke had openly admitted that the leak most likely came from his side. The comrades at the meeting thought so too. Everyone felt that the best-case scenario was that someone had obtained intelligence while the meeting was in session, leading to the leak. While such an incident was serious, it wasn't really a big deal; it was purely a disciplinary issue and wouldn't involve too many people.

The tricky part was if someone had deduced the future strategic direction based on Chen Ke's actions, leading to the leak. This would not be as simple as just finding the "leaker". It would mean there was a problem with the entire organizational structure, and the entire structure would have to be rectified. Against the backdrop of the Rectification Movement, if a comprehensive rectification of intelligence and security work were to be added, the scope of the movement would become terrifyingly large. Wu Xingchen knew that some comrades could understand the Rectification Movement, but he also knew that even more comrades would misunderstand it.

Wu Xingchen understood Pang Zi very well. He could tell that Pang Zi's sneer was highly likely because the leaker hadn't obtained the intelligence at the meeting, but had deduced that the People's Party might use force against Henan through their own summary of intelligence.

"Pang Zi, do you really think the leak isn't important? That our intelligence security isn't important? If this intelligence is obtained by Yuan Shikai, and they make corresponding deployments in advance, our military operations against Henan will suffer many unnecessary losses. This isn't a matter of money or supplies; this will be the lives of many comrades! You mustn't be mistaken about this point."

"Yuan Shikai is nothing!" Pang Zi replied with a sneer. "Not to mention now, even the year before last when I led troops to Hebei, if we had really attacked from two sides, could Yuan Shikai have crossed the Yellow River and retreated to Beijing? Now we've even fought foreigners. In Qingdao, the Germans had plenty of cannons and continuous bunkers. Didn't we take it down all the same? If I said my cavalry division could annihilate the Beiyang Army, that would be bragging. But our single division could definitely sweep through Shandong or Henan. They simply can't withstand a fight."

Wu Xingchen had long known that Pang Zi would definitely say something like this. He sneered, "Humph! Comrade Pang Zi, hearing you speak, I feel like you're not leading the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. You're clearly leading your own bandits."

Mocked by Wu Xingchen like this, Pang Zi's face immediately flushed red. "I killed the Qing forces in Hebei so hard they didn't dare leave Beijing city. I also had war merits in the fight for Qingdao. Brother Wu, what do you mean by this?"

Wu Xingchen gave a huge sneer, and then his expression instantly became serious, even a bit ferocious. He shot to his feet and slammed his palm on the table. Pointing at Pang Zi's nose, Wu Xingchen asked, "Pang Zi, who the fuck do you think you are? Did you contribute a single cent to establishing the cavalry division? You've raised a force yourself before; don't you know how much it costs to establish a cavalry division of several thousand men? When you were raising a force in Nangong County with Comrade Tianhua, you monopolized the escort business for the whole of Nangong County, but how many men did you support? Was it five hundred?! Where did the chicken, duck, fish, and meat you ate come from? Did you, Pang Zi, buy it? Wasn't it all supplied to you by the farms Comrade Tianhua set up? Can you manufacture a single bullet yourself? Now you talk about how your cavalry division is this and that. Without the People's Party, without the base areas, would you still have a cavalry division? Are you still asleep?"

This criticism was like a knife; Pang Zi's face instantly turned white. If anyone else had said this, Pang Zi could have pretended not to care, but being rebuked so mercilessly by his own big brother, Wu Xingchen, was completely unacceptable to him.

Wu Xingchen was practically mad with anger. He no longer wanted to care about Pang Zi's "dignity". His chest was now filled with uncontrollable rage. While slamming the table, he shouted, "Pang Zi, you're a man too. Pat your chest and ask yourself, can the cavalry division not fight without you? I'm not even talking about if you wanted to take the team and leave alone—you couldn't take a single person with you. Even if your entire cavalry division went out, without the Staff Department, without the Logistics Department, what could you do out there besides being bandits? If you really think you, Pang Zi, are so amazing, fine! I can order the cavalry division to assemble right now. You, Pang Zi, can ride your high horse and tell the comrades that you want to start your own force and are no longer a member of the People's Party from now on. I, Wu Xingchen, can guarantee in the name of the Commander of the Huaihai Military Region that we will happily see off anyone who wants to leave."

Hearing these words, Pang Zi's face turned not just pale, but his whole body began to tremble.

This outburst from Wu Xingchen also served to calm his emotions somewhat. "Comrade Pang Zi, you explain this matter clearly to the comrades who will question you later today. Or you don't have to explain; you can just leave."

Ignoring Pang Zi's reaction, Wu Xingchen turned and left the cavalry division headquarters.

***

Chen Ke frowned slightly after hearing Wu Xingchen's report. Wu Xingchen lowered his head. "Chairman Chen, I've always felt that Pang Zi is a good brother, and he was very capable as a division commander. I was too lenient with him on this point. I am willing to accept responsibility."

Chen Ke waved his hand at Wu Xingchen. "No rush on that. I think the issue of good guys and bad guys raised by Comrade Pang Zi is very good."

For a young person from the 21st century, in that atmosphere of anti-tradition and youthful impetuousness, "good guys" and "bad guys" were no longer the standard for evaluating people. If someone said "So-and-so is a bad guy," they would often be considered to have poor insight. If someone patted their chest and said, "I am a bad guy," people wouldn't actually think he was a bad guy, but rather that he was being "too silly".

However, in China a hundred years ago, "good guy" and "bad guy" were still standards for evaluating a person, perhaps even the most important standards. The problem with this standard was that if a person was a recognized "bad guy", and if they were beaten to death... well, they were beaten to death. No one would care. Chen Ke had never been someone who focused on "criminal rights", but he also didn't believe that a "moral court" could arbitrarily decide matters of life and death.

Chen Ke asked Wu Xingchen to sit down before saying, "Comrade Wu Xingchen, hearing Comrade Pang Zi put it that way, I feel his mindset represents the thoughts of a portion of the comrades. They probably don't fear punishment, but they are completely unwilling to be 'bad guys'."

Wu Xingchen couldn't keep up with Chen Ke's train of thought for a moment. After pondering for a while, he asked in surprise, "Chairman Chen means, one thing is one thing? No implications involved?"

"A person's thoughts are not isolated. Any thought is a manifestation of their entire ideological system. However, we cannot completely resolve ideological problems right now. Because we lack many of the necessary material conditions. Divorced from material conditions, simply emphasizing ideological realms means that only a tiny minority of people can pass the test. Therefore, I think what Comrade Pang Zi said this time is very good. We must explain to the cadres and masses in the base areas that any matter has a beginning and an end. We will not seize on someone's minor mistakes and refuse to let go, nor will we dredge up old grievances, and we certainly won't settle scores after the harvest. We won't mention the terms 'good guy' or 'bad guy', because the masses currently believe that good guys don't make mistakes, and those who make mistakes are bad guys. Regardless of how they require themselves to act, this is how they require others. So, let's not get involved with good guys and bad guys. We only require that there must be an explanation and an accounting for the current matter. What do you think?"

Wu Xingchen couldn't digest Chen Ke's long speech immediately. This era was indeed an era of struggle between "good guys" and "bad guys". When counter-revolutionaries were killed in the base areas, besides explaining clearly according to regulations, many cadres also had to label these guys as "big villains" to prove that the base area was extremely justified in killing them. The masses were very satisfied with the People's Party's propaganda praising the laboring masses, because this propaganda acknowledged that the common people were "good guys", and the common people naturally liked that.

The reason many comrades were currently very resistant to the Rectification Movement, as Pang Zi's words hit the nail on the head, was because these mistakes might directly categorize them into the ranks of "bad guys". Good guys could kill bad guys; this was an axiom in this era. Even if just for their own sake, no one wanted to fall into the ranks of "bad guys" who could be "arbitrarily slaughtered by good guys".

"I think this is excellent!" Wu Xingchen nodded repeatedly after figuring out the key points. "But Chairman Chen, if we do this, what reasoning do we use to explain it to the comrades and the masses?"

The reasoning Wu Xingchen referred to was the basic concepts of the base area's political and social philosophy. Chen Ke smiled. "Explain it using socialist concepts. The driving force of human social progress is productive forces, and revolution is to liberate productive forces to the maximum extent. In the final analysis, it comes down to the word 'labor'."

The two talked for a good while on this topic. Wu Xingchen hadn't discussed philosophical issues so candidly with Chen Ke for a long time. As he listened, he felt that his own understanding of the socialist system had quite a few misconceptions.

Labor is the only way to create wealth. Viewed from this angle, society is naturally divided into two opposing classes: the exploiting class and the exploited class. The traditional Chinese method of dividing people into good guys and bad guys loses its basis for existence under such a clear-cut method of division.

In the People's Party, making a mistake—as long as one hasn't become part of the exploiting class and escalated the contradiction to a "contradiction between the enemy and us"—has nothing to do with being a good guy or a bad guy; it is a "contradiction among the people". It is stated clearly in "On Contradiction": contradictions between the masses and the feudal system are resolved using the methods of democratic revolution; contradictions within the Communist Party are resolved using the method of criticism and self-criticism. As long as a cadre does not directly degenerate into a "bad guy" or an "enemy", this contradiction can be accepted by a significant number of comrades who have been removed from their posts during the rectification.

After receiving clear instructions from Chen Ke, Wu Xingchen said excitedly, "I will go discuss this with Comrade Chen Tianhua right now."

"Good," Chen Ke replied. "But Comrade Wu Xingchen, I truly hope that in the future, comrades can first come up with their own views on issues, because it is not just the comrades who must follow basic political concepts; I must follow these basic political concepts as well."

Wu Xingchen suddenly felt an inexplicable emotion. He gave Chen Ke a serious military salute and answered loudly, "Yes!"