Rebirth: I am in Jin-Cha-Ji

The two highest-ranking cadres transferred from local central bureaus were Chen Shuai, the first secretary of the East China Bureau, and Deng Zihui, the first secretary of the Central South Bureau. Both were alternate members of the Politburo.

Chen Shuai has such extensive experience in the party and the military that his first step in being promoted to the central government this time is to serve as vice premier of the State Council.

At the same time, the Prime Minister recommended Chen Shuai as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

At the Eighth National Congress, Chen Shuai was also on the list of candidates for the Politburo. He lost out to General He at the last minute. This was mainly due to the need to balance the relationship between the military and the local governments.

Many people believe that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the status of local cadres was too high, and military cadres were suppressed. The status of the military in the new China has been declining.

Currently, there are many cadres in the central government who hailed from the military. However, despite their military origins, many have moved to local government positions and no longer represent the military. For example, Gao Gang, Wei Hongjun, Deng Xixian, and Xi Zhongxun were all military cadres, but have now become local officials. Among the entire Politburo, there are no cadres who remain in the military and represent its strength. The only cadre who represents the military is General Peng.

Therefore, in this election of Politburo members, the Chairman also supported the addition of several military cadres who were still in the army and could represent the army. This is why, at this meeting, Marshal Lin, Marshal Luo, and General He, three pure military cadres who had not transferred to the local level, were elected to the Politburo.

It was for this reason that General Chen lost to General He. General He had previously served as Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, co-chairing the work of the Central Military Commission alongside General Peng. Now, after the establishment of the Central Military Commission, he was also a member of the Central Military Commission, co-chairing its work alongside General Peng. In comparison, although General Chen also held a military rank, his primary role after his promotion to the central government would be within the State Council, similar to Wei Hongjun and his colleagues.

After Chen Shuai was transferred to the central government, Shu Tong, the former second secretary of the East China Bureau, became the secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, and Ke Qingshi was transferred to serve as the mayor of Shanghai.

Although Ke Qingshi had serious historical problems, he was favored by many central leaders because his suggestion to Wei Hongjun to develop the economy of coastal provinces was very consistent with the actual situation.

With the support of the central government, coastal provinces could boldly invest, develop industry, and grow the economy, and all aspects of development were very good. Therefore, although there were some objections to the transfer of Ke Qingshi to Shanghai as mayor, it was generally smooth.

Then there is Deng Zhihui.

Deng Zhihui is also a senior cadre with extensive experience and high rank. He was a candidate for Politburo membership at the Eighth National Congress, but his situation was similar to that of General Secretary Chen, so he was not selected.

When Deng Zhihui was promoted to the central government, Wei Hongjun was the first to take action.

Deng Zhihui was recommended as the first deputy secretary of the Central Rural Work Committee, overseeing its daily work. This was because the Rural Work Committee had a lot of work to do, but neither Deng Xixian nor Xi Zhongxun, two members of the Standing Committee, focused on it.

Especially as the First Five-Year Plan progressed, Deng Xixian's work was entirely focused on the Planning Commission. Xi Zhongxun also increasingly emphasized the Propaganda Department and devoted more energy to the work of the Secretariat. Therefore, during this reorganization of the Central Rural Work Committee, both Deng Xixian and Xi Zhongxun left the Rural Work Committee.

The cadres Wei Hongjun wants to recruit this time must be familiar with rural work and work full-time in the Rural Work Committee. They cannot be like Deng Xixian and Xi Zhongxun, who were just figures in the Rural Work Committee but did not work there.

Therefore, Wei Hongjun arrested Deng Zhihui first.

Deng Zhihui was a cadre Wei Hongjun greatly admired. He was capable, familiar with rural work, down-to-earth, and a man of noble character. Even though he and Wei Hongjun had some differences of opinion on the cooperative, it didn't affect their collaboration.

The Politburo had no objection to Wei Hongjun's proposal. It wasn't easy to find a position for a cadre of Deng Zihui's caliber when he arrived in Beijing. After all, this wasn't the time of liberation, and the central government had plenty of positions.

Moreover, Deng Zhihui was originally a member of the Standing Committee of the Rural Work Committee. His appointment as the first deputy secretary this time was completely justified.

Wei Hongjun recommended Minister of Agriculture Li Shaocheng as Second Deputy Secretary and Shanxi Provincial Party Secretary Lai Ruoyu as Third Deputy Secretary of the Rural Work Committee. Lai Ruoyu was a cadre from the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan region, and Wei Hongjun's acquaintance with him was relatively late, first meeting him in 1946. But the two of them definitely hit it off immediately.

The two people have not actually met many times in recent years.

But whenever they met to discuss rural issues, the two of them were able to have a very enjoyable conversation. Wei Hongjun's friendship with Lai Ruozi, Tao Lujia and other southern Shanxi cadres was entirely due to their similar political ideologies.

Lai Ruoyu is a good cadre who seeks truth from facts.

That's why Wei Hongjun transferred Lai Ruoyu to Beijing.

Then, Zhao Dezun, Secretary General of the Northeast Bureau and Minister of Rural Work, was appointed as the Fourth Deputy Secretary of the National Rural Work Committee. Wei Hongjun and the other four formed the Standing Committee of the National Rural Work Committee.

It was rather unfair for Zhao Dezun to become one of Gao Gang's "Five Tiger Generals" in history.

Zhao Dezun was a key figure in Gao Gang's land reform in Northeast China, and was therefore implicated as one of Gao Gang's "Five Tiger Generals." However, the two men had little to do with each other. Wei Hongjun had several discussions with Zhao Dezun regarding land reclamation and greatly admired his abilities. He was a well-educated cadre with a highly active mind, familiar not only with rural work but also with industry and commerce. However, he was a relatively "naive" Party cadre, lacking experience in intra-Party struggle and only knowing how to work.

A Tsinghua University graduate, he was a student leader in the December 9th Movement. Consequently, he was highly regarded by Peng Zhen, then in charge of the Northern Bureau. However, upon arriving in Northeast China, he supported Gao Gang and Zhang Wentian's early strategic choices regarding rural development, opposing Peng Zhen's urban development approach.

So Peng Zhen was very angry about Zhao Dezun's choice.

After all, it was Peng Zhen who had single-handedly promoted Zhao Dezun, transforming him from a student activist into a local official. Yet, at the most crucial moment for Northeast China, Zhao Dezun unexpectedly became a "traitor."

In fact, given Zhao Dezun's situation at the time, even if he opposed Peng Zhen's urban theory, he didn't need to express his position so clearly. But that was his personality, and despite working for many years, he hadn't changed.

He and Gao Gang had not been working together for long.

After completing land reform and bandit suppression in North Manchuria, Gao Gang quickly moved to the Northeast Bureau to oversee daily operations. Given Gao Gang's close relationship with Zhao Dezun, if a central leader had spoken up for him when things got tough, his problems would have been solved. After all, among the cadres in Gao Gang's faction, Zhao Dezun wouldn't have gotten a chance. But no one from the central leadership spoke up for him.

But it's understandable.

Chen Yun would not intervene in such a matter. Gao Gang had already gotten into trouble, and Zhao Dezun had offended Peng Zhen. How could anyone possibly speak for him?

That's why Wei Hongjun allowed him to join the Rural Work Committee.

As long as he worked honestly here in the future, it didn't matter if he wasn't very politically savvy. Wei Hongjun would protect him. Wei Hongjun didn't want a knowledgeable and capable cadre like Zhao Dezun to be affected by the political turmoil.

They were all local cadres. Besides them, Ye Shuai, Second Secretary of the Central-Southern Branch, Wang Zhi, First Secretary of the Southeastern Branch, and Song Renqiong, First Deputy Secretary of the Southwestern Bureau, were all scheduled to be transferred to the central government. However, they were to work in the Military Commission, and their specific work arrangements would need to be discussed by the Military Commission.

Seventh: Adjust the administrative divisions of the country.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the country's administrative divisions were in disarray. This was primarily due to the sheer number of provinces, with over 40 provinces scattered across the country. For example, in Northeast China, the current administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China largely continued those of the puppet Manchukuo era, with a total of nine provinces.

The same is true in North China.

Suiyuan, Chahar, Rehe, and Pingyuan, especially Suiyuan, Chahar, and Rehe, are places with poor economies and small populations. In the past, these northern provinces existed to defend against the grasslands.

But that danger has now disappeared.

It is impossible for the central government to keep some provinces with sparse populations and which have lost their previous strategic positions.

Some provinces are currently divided. For example, Anhui previously had the Northern Anhui Administrative Office and the Southern Anhui Administrative Office. Administratively, one province has two administrative offices.

This is all due to the artificial addition of administrative departments during the war years.

These outstanding issues will be resolved at this Politburo meeting.

There are also many cities that are directly under the jurisdiction of local regions and do not belong to any province.

This type of city is most common in Northeast China.

Currently, cities like Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, and Anshan are directly subordinate to local regions and directly under the leadership of local central bureaus. However, with the complete abolition of local central bureaus and local regions, the affiliation of these cities must also be clarified.

After discussion, the Politburo decided to reduce the nine northeastern provinces to three: Harbin would be assigned to Heilongjiang, Changchun to Jilin, and Shenyang and surrounding cities to Liaoning.

In North China, Chahar, Rehe and Pingyuan provinces were abolished, and Pingyuan Province was mainly divided into Henan and Shandong.

The situation in the three northern provinces is that the western and northern areas of Chahar were incorporated into Suiyuan, the Datong area in the southwest of Chahar was incorporated into Shanxi, the rest of Chahar including Zhangjiakou and the western area of ​​Rehe and Chengde were incorporated into Hebei, and the Chifeng area of ​​Rehe was incorporated into Inner Mongolia.

Thus, the original six provinces of North China were reduced to three: Suiyuan, Shanxi, and Hebei, plus Beijing and Tianjin. With this administrative change, Suiyuan Province cut right through what was historically Inner Mongolia. A line was drawn northward from Zhangjiakou, with the east designated Inner Mongolia and the west designated Suiyuan Province. Inner Mongolia could only have Chifeng as its provincial capital.

After three days of meetings, the Politburo finally decided on these seven topics. While these seven topics were important, there were also some minor issues that were addressed simultaneously.

After the three-day meeting of the Political Bureau, the Chairman convened the first working meeting of the Central Military Commission.

The Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, abolished at the founding of the People's Republic of China, was reinstated four years later. At the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Party still had many concerns. Public opinion nationwide was cheering the overthrow of Chiang Kai-shek's party-state, which caused some confusion among the central leadership.

I don't know how to handle the relationship between the "Party and the government" and the "Party and the army."

But now the CCP has firmly established its rule over the world.

The victory in the Korean War, in particular, dramatically increased the CCP's influence across the country. Those democrats who previously loved to gossip were now powerless to speak out. The CCP, under the leadership of the People's Liberation Army, had erased a century of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers.

What else can you democrats say?

Of course, this also reflects the fact that, after four years of practice, the Central Committee has gradually come to realize that the principle of Party leadership in military construction is unchangeable. In particular, Yang Quanwu's recent uproar at the Military Commission only served to reinforce the urgency of this matter. After all, only a few years after liberation, the Military Commission, the highest leadership body in the military, was actually discussing the "absurd" idea of ​​removing political cadres from the military.

Is this the military's move to break away from the Party's command?

How is this possible?

Although Yang Quanwu himself left the General Staff after his outburst at the Military Commission meeting, this didn't mean the Central Committee supported General Peng's proposal. Ultimately, General Peng did reflect on his views, believing they didn't align with the PLA's circumstances and that the PLA must adhere to the principle of the Party commanding the gun. However, this incident still deeply shocked the Chairman and his colleagues. Consequently, the Eighth National Congress repeatedly emphasized the Party's command.

The meeting mainly discussed three issues: one was the adjustment of the various departments of the Central Military Commission, one was how to arrange the military cadres who were promoted to the central government, and the other was the adjustment of the national military regions.

There were four headquarters before the Central Revolutionary Military Commission.

They are the General Staff Headquarters, the General Political Department, the General Cadre Department, and the General Logistics Department.

However, Soviet military advisers believed that China's four-headquarters model had serious problems. The biggest problem was the unclear responsibilities between the departments and the serious drawbacks of multiple management.

For example, the development of military equipment is currently managed by the General Logistics Department. However, both the General Staff and the General Political Department have the power to interfere in these tasks. Regarding troop training, the responsibilities and powers of the General Staff and the General Political Department are also unclear, and both have the power to interfere.

This situation is the worst.

Because every department can intervene, the end result is that everyone takes credit when there is merit, and no one is responsible when there are mistakes.

Faced with this situation, Soviet military advisors suggested that each department should have a detailed division of labor and clear responsibilities. They should assign responsibilities to their respective departments, and other departments should not interfere. This was what a modern military required. Therefore, they proposed to the Military Commission that the four headquarters be expanded to eight.

Although the eight headquarters were reduced to three headquarters due to various reasons in history, the Soviet advisers' suggestions were not bad ideas at all. On the contrary, their overall thinking was correct.

The responsibilities of each department of the Central Military Commission should be clearly defined.

Of course, the central government had another consideration. They were going to stop fighting and reduce the military, but the military had so many cadres. Especially with so many units at the corps level and above, you had to assign them positions. If you didn't assign jobs to so many cadres, conflicts would arise. By expanding the four headquarters into eight, we could reassign these high-ranking cadres in large numbers.

Therefore, General Peng, General He, Marshal Luo, Su Yu and other major leaders of the Military Commission jointly wrote a report to the Chairman.

It is required that the four headquarters of the Central Military Commission be changed to eight headquarters.

This was the main focus of the meeting. There were few setbacks, as everyone was generally in favor. Expanding the four headquarters into eight would create dozens of new high-level positions alone, and hundreds of subordinate positions. Everyone was not alone; they had a large cadre of officials watching over them. Having positions would be a good thing for everyone. Furthermore, this was the Soviet advisor's suggestion.

Apart from some issues of principle, everyone still attaches great importance to the opinions of Soviet advisers.

After all, China is still learning how to modernize its military. Following the meeting's approval, the "four headquarters" became the "eight headquarters" system consisting of the General Staff, General Political Department, General Logistics Department, General Personnel Department, General Training Directorate, Armed Forces Supervision Department, General Finance Department, and General Armament Department.

Among them, the General Training Department is responsible for the military training and academy work of the entire army; the Armed Forces Supervision Department conducts various inspections on various services, arms and agencies at all levels, such as training, discipline, administrative management, financial management, etc.; the General Finance Department organizes and leads the financial and economic work of the entire army; the General Armament Department is responsible for the ordnance service work of the entire army, and is responsible for establishing a complete set of unified ordnance work systems, improving the system of military representatives stationed in factories, strengthening the construction of ordnance academies, establishing ordnance scientific research institutions, etc.

Of course, the Military Commission’s decision must be submitted to the Politburo for approval.

But this is just a procedure.

Currently, ten members of the Politburo are present in CMC meetings. The Politburo has only 17 members in total, so anything approved by the CMC is inevitably approved by the Politburo. However, the central government remains concerned about the topic of "Party-military relations."

After all, the CCP's slogan back then was to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek's "Chiang Family Rule" and the Kuomintang's "Party-State Rule." The Kuomintang army was referred to as "Chiang's Army" or "Party Army." Therefore, the Military Commission decided that the newly established Eighth General Staff would no longer be referred to as the Eighth General Staff of the Central Military Commission. Instead, they would be known as the Eighth General Staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and this would be the name used externally from now on.

Then there is the issue of arrangements for the transfer of military cadres from the central government.

With the abolition of the local central bureaus, many military cadres were transferred to the central government.

The leaders were six people: Ye Shuai, the second secretary of the Central South Bureau and commander of the Central South Military Region; Tan Zheng, the third secretary of the Central South Bureau and second political commissar of the Central South Military Region; Wang Zhi, the first secretary of the Southeast Branch Bureau and first political commissar of the Southeast Military Region; Song Renqiong, the first deputy secretary of the Southwest Bureau and first deputy political commissar of the Southwest Military Region; Zuo Quan, acting commander of the Northwest Military Region; and He Nianfen, acting commander of the Northeast Military Region.

The six of them are the highest level.

So the first thing to discuss is their arrangements.

Marshal Ye was a senior member of the Central Military Commission, held a high rank, and was therefore appointed Minister of the Armed Forces Supervision Department. Zhou Chunquan, Deputy Commander of Logistics of the Central South Military Region, was appointed First Deputy Minister, Chen Zaifang was appointed Second Deputy Minister, Han Weiguo, Political Commissar of the Hunan Military Region, was appointed Third Deputy Minister, and Yan Kuiyao, Chief of Staff of the First Field Army, was appointed Fourth Deputy Minister.

The Armed Forces Supervision Department shows how difficult the work of the Central Military Commission is now.

The selection of a deputy minister also required consideration of various factions. Zhou Chunquan was a cadre from Shandong and the Fourth Field Army, Chen Zaifang was a cadre from the Second Field Army of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, Han Weiguo was a cadre from both the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei and Fourth Field Army, and Yan Kuiyao was a cadre from the First Field Army.

Tan Zheng was the Deputy Political Commissar and Director of the Political Department of the Fourth Field Army, and the Second Political Commissar of the Central-South Military Region. He was one of the most outstanding political cadres in the People's Liberation Army. Therefore, even before he was transferred to Beijing, Marshal Luo had already designated a position for him: First Deputy Director of the General Political Department.

The most important thing for Coach Luo to do next is to award titles.

Luo Shuai was already in poor health, and now he was being held concurrently as Director of the General Political Department and Head of the General Cadre Department, while also being responsible for awarding military titles. His health was already strained. Therefore, he needed a cadre to take charge of the General Political Department. The person Luo Shuai named was Tan Zheng.

Tan Zheng came to the General Political Department and was said to be the first deputy director, but in fact he was in charge of the overall work of the General Political Department.