The fact that over a hundred cadres requested to leave seemed to have no impact on Wu Xingchen. At least when he appeared before Chen Ke and Chen Tianhua, he showed no sign of regret or disappointment. He said to Chen Ke, "Chairman Chen, Comrade Pang Zi wants to see you. He says he knows he was wrong and accepts whatever punishment the organization hands down. He only requests to see Chairman Chen once, hoping that Chairman Chen can forgive him."

Chen Ke couldn't help but laugh upon hearing Wu Xingchen's words. "Commander Wu, I was never angry with Comrade Pang Zi, so there's no question of forgiveness. He just needs to study seriously in the Party School for now."

Wu Xingchen also laughed, "That is true, but Pang Zi is a narrow-minded person. If you don't personally tell him that the matter is over after the punishment, he won't be able to let it go. If you feel it's inappropriate to see him alone, then meet with the comrades who are willing to stay in the Party and have a collective talk with them. I think this is necessary."

Chen Ke understood Wu Xingchen's thinking. These punished comrades were worried they wouldn't receive fair treatment in the future. If Chen Ke could talk to them, at least the comrades wouldn't continue to live in fear. Thinking of this, Chen Ke replied, "That works."

Hearing Wu Xingchen's words, Chen Tianhua sighed with emotion. Wu Xingchen's request was very similar to what Zhou Zhentao had said, but the two were clearly talking about different things. Wu Xingchen only wanted Chen Ke to assure the comrades that they wouldn't receive unfair treatment after the conflict over the rectification line ended; this was an excellent suggestion. Zhou Zhentao's request for Chen Ke to guarantee that the comrades' positions wouldn't be affected was ridiculously wrong. No wonder Wu Xingchen had once left the organization but could still become a Military Region Commander after returning. Zhou Zhentao, despite following Chen Ke from the start, was only a division commander now. This was definitely not just because Wu Xingchen joined the Party a few days earlier than Zhou Zhentao. The difference in breadth of mind between the two was too great. After such a comparison, Chen Tianhua felt a sudden sense of enlightenment.

"In this winter recruitment drive, Huaihai Province has completed the target of 50,000 recruits. Should we start establishing the Engineering Corps and Railway Corps?" Wu Xingchen asked next.

"The Engineering Corps and Railway Corps are technical branches; given the current situation, we can't recruit directly from new recruits. After resuming military training this time, we should mobilize some comrades who aren't quite suitable for the field army to join the Engineering and Railway units. At this stage, we need to consider the work of recruiting outstanding comrades to become volunteer soldiers after their conscription service. We should try our best to keep the backbone elements after their service ends."

Wu Xingchen nodded repeatedly with a smile; keeping the backbone was a major issue for any unit. But he was only happy for a moment before he put away his smile and said seriously, "Chairman Chen, I want to clarify first, I don't mean to chase you away. But how long do you plan to stay in Huaihai Province?"

Chen Tianhua admired Wu Xingchen in his heart for hitting the point with every sentence. Given the situation revealed in the Huaihai Province army rectification, if other provinces conducted rectification on their own, they would definitely cause chaos that the local Party committees couldn't handle. If they didn't want such a result, it was necessary for Chen Ke to go to other provinces to lead the situation, just as before.

"I have to wait until there are results from the rectification in Huaihai Province. If I drop the burden halfway and go to other provinces, I won't be at ease," Chen Ke replied.

Wu Xingchen had finished asking his main questions. He hesitated for a while before asking, "If the comrades who left feel they made a mistake and ask to come back, what are Chairman Chen's thoughts?"

Chen Tianhua immediately perked up to hear Chen Ke's answer, but Chen Ke didn't seem to care much. "It's normal for them to want to come back. If they come back, they can continue to work, but they shouldn't dream of being reinstated to their original posts. If these comrades take the initiative to ask, we must make this clear to them."

Wu Xingchen and Chen Ke answered each other quickly. Seeing they were about to jump to the next topic, Chen Tianhua hurriedly asked, "Will these comrades who left really choose to come back?"

Wu Xingchen smiled bitterly, "I am also someone who left and came back. I felt wronged in the army, but outside was even worse than in the army. These comrades all feel they are somebody. Even if they stayed in the base area, they wouldn't honestly farm and labor. Once they leave the base area, you know how hard life is outside, Comrade Tianhua. Someone will definitely not be able to muddle through and will want to come back. Actually, having been together for so long, I hope they suffer some hardships and realize they thought too highly of themselves. It would be best if they came back honestly. The world outside is not easy to get by in."

Chen Tianhua felt a bit awkward about Wu Xingchen's words. Since they clearly stated they wanted to leave, what was the point of shamelessly coming back? If it were Chen Tianhua himself, he would rather die outside than choose to return. But seeing that there was not a trace of mockery in the bitter smiles of Chen Ke and Wu Xingchen, Chen Tianhua didn't know whether to praise them for their broad-mindedness or feel that they were really "Mr. Nice Guys." At least Chen Ke, who always emphasized distinguishing "who are our friends and who are our enemies," was being too lenient.

If Chen Tianhua could hear Zhou Zhentao's inner voice right now, he might think Chen Ke and Wu Xingchen had foresight. Zhou Zhentao carried a simple bundle, walking on the road back to Shaanxi. Although he restrained himself from looking back, he truly felt waves of loss in his heart. Zhou Zhentao was 27 years old this year. Although his six years in the People's Party were less than a quarter of his life, Zhou Zhentao felt as if he had spent his entire life in this organization.

If it were a collective march, Zhou Zhentao wouldn't have to consider luggage and accommodation issues at all. Long before departure, the Staff Department would have set the marching and combat plans, and the advance troops would have prepared camping spots on the road. Zhou Zhentao only needed to complete the command work according to the plan. Although the work was extremely hard, everything had a clear purpose and complete planning. In such a powerful organization, Zhou Zhentao felt exceptionally strong.

Now that he was alone, there was no need to mention commanding thousands of troops and horses. Just how to walk back to his hometown in Shaanxi was an extremely arduous task. Which road to take, how far to walk each day, whether there were places to rest. Leading a division of more than 20,000 troops to Shaanxi would actually be easier than Zhou Zhentao returning to Shaanxi alone.

At the beginning, because he was holding a breath of anger and felt he had suffered a huge grievance, Zhou Zhentao could still hold on. He could show no weakness when facing the Military Region Party Committee. Now that no one was "oppressing" Zhou Zhentao anymore and Zhou Zhentao was free, he had to suppress himself with great willpower to prevent the thought "Should I go back and admit my mistake to the comrades?" from becoming an option in his mind.

But human subconsciousness is not so easily suppressed. This thought of wanting to return was active in Zhou Zhentao's mind in another form: "If they catch up to me halfway and ask me to go back, I definitely won't go back!"

Until the fifth day of leaving, Zhou Zhentao still believed that the people chasing him would set off. For this reason, Zhou Zhentao even quickened his pace. After all, he had received a fairly formal education in the army, plus the Liberation Shoes were indeed convenient for traveling. He had already left the boundary of Huaihai Province and was almost at Kaifeng. The "pursuers" chasing Zhou Zhentao still hadn't appeared.

However, reality always exists objectively. Zhou Zhentao also had to face his real situation first. When he was in the Huaihai base area, he had nothing to fear. Bandits and robbers had long been swept away; the base area had always held an attitude of thorough strikes against these gangs that disrupted production order. The junction of the three provinces had always been a "lawless" area with chaotic order and rampant bandits. The People's Party fully utilized the chaotic order of these lawless areas, constantly sending troops to strike at bandits and rogue bandits. Of course, the strikes weren't for nothing; the People's Party formally "existed" in these areas. Starting from maintaining order, next was seizing the power to collect taxes, then land reform and establishing grassroots organizations. At the junction with the base area, such as Lankao and other places, except for a few officials in the county seat who were still locals of Henan, most of Lankao County paid taxes to the People's Party, not to the Beiyang Henan government.

There was a huge characteristic under the rule of the People's Party, which was that there was finally investment in public utilities. Even if the roads weren't renovated, at least there were road signs at every intersection. Every town along the way had public facilities like state-run inns, post offices, schools, and clinics. One could even see newspapers, things that were already quite common inside the base area but only appeared in big cities outside.

It was spring now. The land by the roadside that had been leveled was divided quite neatly. Farmers were working in the fields holding farm tools manufactured in the base area. There was a row of trees every few hundred meters between fields, and two rows of trees were neatly planted on both sides of the road. The orderly layout, although somewhat monotonous, proved that this was the People's Party's territory. After leaving the People's Party's territory, or more bluntly, after walking until the two rows of trees by the roadside suddenly no longer continued, the scenery displayed before Zhou Zhentao's eyes was vastly different.

As if a spell had been cast, the originally neat square fields were immediately replaced by crooked and messy ridges. The large thatched huts for rest during busy farming seasons that appeared every so often turned into various small shacks. In some places, there weren't even shacks. Peasant couples went down to the fields together, rolling their bedding into a roll, and the children brought out by the adults played beside the bedding rolls. Older children led younger children, all dressed in tatters and dirty.

If this were in the base area, the young children would have been sent to kindergarten, and the older children would be in school. The adults would be liberated from these household chores and would naturally be happy. Not to mention children going to school, adults would also learn culture and technology. Every large thatched hut for rest during busy farming seasons had a blackboard. While working, farmers would write the characters to be learned that day on paper and stick one on everyone's back. They could see it when they looked up to catch their breath. There would also definitely be comrades from the rural technical work teams working with the farmers, consulting farmers about agricultural issues during breaks, and also explaining agricultural technology issues to the farmers.

A few years of work experience made Zhou Zhentao think this was only natural and right. But once he left the base area, Zhou Zhentao discovered that this could only be natural and right in a society like the base area. Leaving the base area by just one *li*, this kind of society disappeared.

He only needed to turn his head to see, from a distance, the cooperative's large livestock pulling iron plows, with farmers pushing hard behind the plows, tilling the land together. But close at hand, farmers were waving wooden farm tools with all their might, busy with farm work at extremely low efficiency.

Unlike the People's Party's labor teams which were almost entirely adults, the laborers outside the base area were even more numerous than the People's Party's in terms of numbers alone. Old people, middle-aged people, youths, teenagers, and children were mixed together, working hard in the spring fields for a year's livelihood. But the tools and production organization were really too poor. Without even needing to look much, Zhou Zhentao, who had participated in farm construction, knew that when the work in the base area was finished in two days, the farmers outside the base area still wouldn't be done with the urgent farm work.

As for the base area's policy of centralizing living facilities in each village, a major benefit was the convenience of collecting various manure and then centrally producing farmyard manure. Outside the base area, farmers would urinate on their own field edges; there was no concept of large-scale manure collection at all. Spring plowing was a race against time with the heavens. Tilling the land a day earlier meant sowing a day earlier. Sowing a day earlier meant the crops grew one day longer before harvest. This one extra day of growth could very likely result in a few more *jin* of grain, allowing a family to eat for a few more days before the next sowing.

Zhou Zhentao had understood this simple principle very well when he was at home. But in the base area, because the base area turned individual family production into whole-society socialized production, much of the work originally borne by families was taken up by the agricultural department, the cooperatives, and even basic water conservancy projects participated in by the troops. For example, the irrigation networks built by the troops turned large areas of dry land that originally depended on the heavens into irrigated land. Large-scale manure collection, although not much when distributed to each *mu* of land, was always better than nothing. Countless works condensed into not just those seemingly massive projects or the monotonously scenic neat farmland. Everything the People's Party had done over the years was to make every effort to turn all land into top-grade fertile fields that could be watered during droughts and drained during floods, which previously only existed in a few places.

The countryside was still the countryside, but the new countryside was completely different.

Zhou Zhentao finally stopped his steps. At this point, Zhou Zhentao had to admit that if he continued walking like this, he would truly break away from the base area and the People's Party. At this moment, that arrogance and strong unhappiness were overwhelmed by everything he saw in reality. Without needing to see it with his own eyes, Zhou Zhentao could imagine that his hometown in Shaanxi was definitely still the same scene as when he left.

The revolutionaries could overthrow the Qing Dynasty, and could even kill all the Manchus, but without the hard work of millions or tens of millions of people, this vast countryside could never become like the People's Party base area. Without implementing comprehensive land reform, it was impossible to gather millions or tens of millions of laborers to engage in such arduous work.

Standing on the spot, Zhou Zhentao felt intense fear for the first time. If he didn't turn back now, he would return to the world of the past. And that world was what Zhou Zhentao had tried his best to escape.

Just as Zhou Zhentao was feeling uneasy, a group of men and horses appeared in the distance. Judging by their attire, they were Beiyang Army soldiers. Zhou Zhentao almost subconsciously became alert. All soldiers leaving the army had to hand over their guns; Zhou Zhentao was no exception even as a division commander. However, Military Region Commander Wu Xingchen had given Zhou Zhentao a base-area-manufactured Mauser 20-round select-fire pistol. Zhou Zhentao's hand had already reached into his bosom and gripped the handle of the gun.

"Is that Division Commander Zhou Zhentao of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army ahead?" The cavalry's speed wasn't very fast; the road surface was really too bad for horses to run. The leading cavalryman saw Zhou Zhentao had the intention of drawing his gun and hurriedly shouted loudly.

Knowing that these Beiyang soldiers were indeed coming for him, Zhou Zhentao felt a burst of tension.

The cavalry didn't draw guns or swing sabers, and didn't even speed up. The leading cavalryman even slowed down and shouted, "Division Commander Zhou, don't misunderstand. We have no malicious intent. We just heard that Division Commander Zhou wants to return to Shaanxi. We were ordered by the Military Governor of Henan to specially come and welcome Division Commander Zhou and escort you to Kaifeng."

Although he didn't know what these Beiyang soldiers meant, Zhou Zhentao wasn't too nervous anymore. Having broken away from the base area, he could only be under Beiyang's rule. Zhou Zhentao had some psychological preparation for this. Now Beiyang had practically reached a ceasefire agreement with the People's Party. The possibility of arbitrary killing wasn't non-existent, but it wasn't that high. Moreover, Zhou Zhentao only had to run back less than one *li* to return to the base area's territory.

Zhou Zhentao pulled his hand out from his bosom and laughed, "No need to go to such trouble."

The Beiyang cavalry had arrived in front of Zhou Zhentao by now. The leader jumped off his warhorse. After saluting Zhou Zhentao first, the man said, "Division Commander Zhou, before we came, the Military Governor of Henan repeatedly instructed us. Coming to welcome Division Commander Zhou this time is just to fulfill our duties as hosts, not to detain you, and certainly not to harm you. You are also a renowned figure nowadays. Henan is not peaceful right now, and there are many bandits on the road. Although Division Commander Zhou is a hero and small horse bandits are nothing to you, it would delay your journey. And if someone talks nonsense and fabricates news that Division Commander Zhou was murdered in our Henan, our Beiyang Army would lose face. So, Division Commander Zhou, if you don't trust us, we'll give you a horse and you can go back to Xuzhou. If you insist on leaving, then let us accompany you. What do you think, Division Commander Zhou?"

Zhou Zhentao felt quite smug in his heart. This Beiyang soldier said so much, but the core point was still fear of the People's Party. If something happened to Zhou Zhentao and the People's Party used it as an excuse, Zhou Zhentao's single division could sweep away the Beiyang 2nd Division and other local troops currently stationed in Henan.

However, this smugness only lasted for a moment. When the base area arranged for someone to accompany Zhou Zhentao back to his hometown, Zhou Zhentao had sternly refused. Now, as long as he left with these Beiyang soldiers, he would fall into others' hands. Don't look at how nice the Beiyang soldiers were speaking right now; that was because this was less than one *li* from the People's Party's territory. As long as Zhou Zhentao went with these people, God knows what would happen.

Seeing Zhou Zhentao hesitating, the leader whispered with a smile, "We've also heard some things. It seems Division Commander Zhou has left the People's Party. Our Governor said that a great talent like Mr. Zhou cannot be tolerated by the People's Party, but our Beiyang is thirsty for talent. Now the People's Party is strong and our Beiyang is weak. If Division Commander Zhou is willing to give us this face, we would be too happy, how could we harm you?"

This Beiyang soldier's words made great sense. From Beiyang's interest, treating Zhou Zhentao with respect was the best policy right now. Zhou Zhentao had also considered this point before deciding to take the land route. Of course, taking the train from Kaifeng via Zhengzhou to Luoyang, then from Luoyang through Sanmenxia, crossing Tongguan into Shaanxi, was also the shortest route.

Zhou Zhentao turned around and looked at the base area. No one had come to chase him. Sighing, Zhou Zhentao turned back and said, "Then thank you very much."

"It's great that Division Commander Zhou is willing to grace us with his presence. Will you ride a horse or take a sedan chair? If taking a sedan chair, please wait a moment, the sedan chair is slow and hasn't caught up yet."

Beiyang was so attentive that Zhou Zhentao felt much less hostility in his heart. He laughed, "We soldiers don't take sedan chairs. Riding a horse will do."

Taking the reins attentively handed over by the Beiyang soldier, Zhou Zhentao mounted the horse. He glanced once more in the direction of the People's Party base area, then spurred the horse towards Kaifeng.

At this moment, he felt only a strong sense of melancholy in his heart.