As usual, news of the Beiyang Army quickly reached Chen Ke through the People's Party's intelligence system, and was then forwarded to Chai Qingguo at the front lines. Chai Qingguo felt extremely excited, so much so that he spent a full hour before the meeting barely managing to calm his mood.

Not long ago, they had annihilated a brigade of Wu Peifu's in Linzhang County, and another brigade of Wu Peifu's that had rashly advanced with light troops. In the engagement with Wu Peifu, they had repelled and pursued Wu Peifu's troops. Post-battle statistics showed they had wiped out over forty thousand men from various Beiyang units. Although they hadn't managed to encircle and annihilate the troops Wu Peifu sent out for field operations, such heavy damage was still a bitter pill for the Beiyang Army. The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army did not relentlessly pursue and attack Handan, where Wu Peifu was entrenched. Since the opportunity for a battle of annihilation had passed, there was absolutely no need to dwell on past events. Rather than halting troops under a fortified city with no intention of attacking, it was better not to approach the enemy at all.

Now, learning that the Beiyang Army claimed to be mobilizing a million troops to come and annihilate them, Chai Qingguo couldn't help but be incredibly excited. The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army still held the initiative in combat; they could fight if they wanted, and leave if they wanted. Whether to meet the enemy wasn't really a choice; the only thing to consider right now was *how* to meet them.

The comrades who received the news at the military meeting were also extremely excited, though most of this excitement contained negative emotions. The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army had about 300,000 troops in Hebei, among which the 18th Army, cutting off the connection between Handan and Xingtai, was still an engineering corps, and it wasn't yet time for this unit to conduct large-scale field operations. So, 200,000 men facing an attack by a million troops—no matter how you looked at it, this wasn't something to be optimistic about.

The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army's intelligence was very detailed, including accounts of the "Besieging Wei to Rescue Zhao" stratagem proposed by the Beiyang's Wu Peifu. The comrades present were all military academy graduates. Chai Qingguo, whose grades in the academy had been quite excellent, laughed: "It says very clearly in *Besieging Wei to Rescue Zhao*: 'It is better to divide the enemy than to attack them together; it is better to attack their passive force than their active force.' Attacking an enemy force that is concentrated and powerful is not as effective as attacking them after they have been dispersed and weakened. Attacking the enemy's strong points is not as effective as attacking their weak points. The Sixteen-Character Mantra talks about exactly this."

Everyone had studied these contents, but some still raised opinions. This statement even represented the worries of the majority of comrades. "The problem lies in the fact that the enemy is unpredictable. They will definitely launch multi-pronged attacks, but how will each prong react after being attacked by us? Right now, there is simply no way to predict correctly."

Chai Qingguo's answer was an extreme cliché. "It is inevitable that the enemy is unpredictable. That is why Chairman Chen repeatedly emphasizes: 'You fight your way, I fight mine.' Isn't the purpose of all that usual training for this war? If we fight our own battles well and accomplish our campaign and tactical objectives, the enemy is doomed."

Having said this, Chai Qingguo walked to the map and pointed at the Hebei war situation. "The Beiyang Army definitely hopes we will besiege Handan and fail to take it for a long time. This way, their million troops can leisurely surround us and execute a battle of annihilation. This is their way of fighting. Our way of fighting is to have a portion of the troops monitor Handan, while the other troops spread out to strike at Beiyang Army units, just like Sun Wukong drilling into the the Bull Demon King's belly."

"That is the tactic of interior line operations. In Hebei, we are fighting on exterior lines; the Beiyang Army is on the interior lines." The dissenters were still relentless.

Chai Qingguo knocked on the blackboard where the map hung. "Then we must take the initiative to attack even more, turning Beiyang's interior lines into exterior lines, and turning our exterior lines into our interior lines. With that wretched state of Beiyang, we don't even need to painstakingly manage the Hebei localities; we just need to be more accepted by the Hebei local masses than Beiyang is."

These words made the eyes of the political commissar and a portion of the senior members light up, but a commander still couldn't help asking: "Then what should be done?"

"What should be done? Of course, it is to thoroughly destroy Beiyang's grassroots in Hebei." Chai Qingguo answered crisply and neatly. "All the county government offices, all the councilors, *Baozhang*, tax collectors—as long as they are targets we can strike, catch them all. For small Beiyang units, resolutely implement annihilation. Strive to make Beiyang blind and deaf in the localities before they launch their large-scale deployment. Comrades, our troops' discipline is far superior to Beiyang's. If we can destroy Beiyang's grassroots organizations in the localities, the entire Hebei will be interior line operations for us. At least we will be more 'interior line' than Beiyang. That's called that... what was that term again?" Chai Qingguo suddenly couldn't remember the specialized term after saying it.

"Did you want to say, 'comparative advantage'?" Political Commissar Xiong Mingyang answered.

Chai Qingguo nodded repeatedly. "Right! It's comparative advantage! People die when compared to people, goods are thrown away when compared to goods! In such specific competition, right now we just need to surpass Beiyang!"

This was no longer a purely military issue. Chai Qingguo was pointing out one of the essential differences between the People's Party and Beiyang: whether they stood with the people, or stood on top of the people. The difference between the two could be said to be worlds apart.

Speaking to this extent, the senior commanders had nothing left to say. Even if the war still had many difficulties, the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army had absolute confidence in itself regarding uniting the masses.

"What follows will be high-intensity continuous combat. Whichever unit feels it needs rest and reorganization now, propose it. I can let those units be responsible for the work of monitoring Handan. But after the rest period, these units will definitely have to replace the units from the early-stage large-scale mobile warfare on the front lines. So everyone prepare yourselves mentally—the further we go, the harder the fighting will be!" Chai Qingguo gave his own prediction. "Of course, whether Beiyang can successfully deploy these million troops is another matter entirely."

Chai Qingguo's prediction triggered a burst of approving laughter.

The characteristic of the People's Party's intelligence network was paying special attention to the grassroots and to universal information. The danger of this information gathering work was very low, but because the volume of data was massive, collecting and summarizing it was extremely tedious. To maintain the reliability of grassroots data, continuous updates were also needed. The manpower and material resources the People's Party spent caused the Henan side quite a headache. If viewed from the angle of "creating employment," basic intelligence statistics solidly provided thousands of job opportunities. But before this data was truly used, the massive investment seemed to not be worth the cost.

After the combat objective was determined as clearing out Beiyang's local grassroots forces, the various units were soon distributed thick files. The names and locations of each county, the location of government offices, the lives, physical characteristics, and family backgrounds of government organization members, the situation of various local councilors, the situation of *Baozhang*... tens of thousands of pieces of intelligence were rapidly delivered to the hands of each unit. The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army's goal was to first eliminate the small Beiyang Army units in various places, and then temporarily arrest these people.

Once the goal was clear, the various units of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army in Hebei immediately moved out. Starting from Linzhang County, which was already liberated, and the local area of Handan which was under siege, a meticulous "great sweep" officially began. Among the many units, the first to set out was the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army Cavalry Brigade. Brigade Commander Pang Zi did not ride at the very front of the column as usual, but honestly commanded the entire march from within the formation. Although the target was his hometown of Nangong County, Pang Zi did not show his past impetuous manner.

This wasn't because Pang Zi had been secretly reprimanded by Chai Qingguo. During the study process at the cadre school, any comrade who could not truly achieve some realization would face the possibility of "indefinite reform." The means of reform was concentrated labor. The more a comrade desperately tried to show they had recognized their mistakes and desperately worked to reform, the less likely they were to pass the review.

Thought reform sounded quite terrifying, but when actually implemented, it was quite simple. There was only one core indicator: any comrade who believed that revolution "had an end," or believed that "once life reaches a certain height, one can sit in that position and issue orders"—if they couldn't withstand this kind of labor reform and thought brainwashing, they could request to withdraw themselves. Otherwise, they had to continuously accept labor reform.