(The movie "The Great Cause of Building the Army")
After the separation of Ninghan and Han, the Wuhan government faced great difficulties in finance and economy. At that time, the three towns of Wuhan were concentrated in almost all the National Revolutionary Army and political organizations except for Chiang Kai-shek, and the logistical needs were enormous. Originally, the Wuhan government sent Finance Minister Song Ziwen to Shanghai to take over the finances of Shanghai, Nanjing and other places, but was blocked by Chiang Kai-shek. After April 12, the lower Yangtze River region controlled by Chiang Kai-shek imposed an economic blockade on Wuhan.
Guangzhou was once the rear and base camp of the Northern Expedition, but in the process of "qinging the party", Li Jishen reorganized the Guangdong provincial government, which directly led to the Central Bank of Guangzhou, which had eight million silver dollar reserves, no longer supporting the Wuhan government.
Faced with a series of containments, the Wuhan government had to issue "cash concentration regulations" and embarked on the path of issuing paper money to sustain expenditures. However, the road was also difficult, and a few days later, the banking circles in Beijing and Shanghai jointly announced that they would cut off contact with the banks in Hankou, and the Nanjing government banned the circulation of central currency in Wuhan.
In this way, it is like worse, the banknotes of the Central Bank of Wuhan have become less and less valuable every day, and a person will have more than ten yuan to eat a meal, while with the banknotes of other banks, even if you eat a good meal, one dollar is enough. It can be said that the entire economic situation in Wuhan has reached the point of almost suffocation.
Obviously, only by taking the initiative to break through and dealing a strong blow to Chiang Kai-shek can the situation in Wuhan be improved, but the mainstream opinion within the Kuomintang is to hold the Northern Expedition first.
According to his analysis, there were three major forces in China at that time, namely Zhang Zuolin in Beijing, Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing, and the Wuhan camp. Judging from the perspective of ordinary people, Zhang Zuolin's strength is the strongest, followed by Chiang Kai-shek, and Wuhan is the weakest. Zhang Zuolin, taking advantage of the prosperity of his troops, is increasing his troops in Henan and preparing to go south, if the Wuhan camp can eliminate Zhang Zuolin first, then his own strength position can jump to the first, and he can win among the three strong.
Gallen was a military man, and his arguments were mainly focused on battlefield games. For example, he believes that Wuhan is a "small fish", Jiang is a "medium fish", and Zhang is a "big fish". If the "small fish" wants to stand in an invincible position, it is best to find an opportunity to eat the "big fish" first, fatten themselves and then duel with the "middle fish".
Unlike Gallon, Soviet General Counsel Borodin was a supporter of the Crusades. Borodin said that any revolution in history must first be purged internally, and now that a second Chen Jiongming (referring to Chiang Kai-shek) has been produced inside, how can we talk about the Northern Expedition? He advocated taking advantage of Chiang Kai-shek's unstable foothold to quickly carry out the Crusade. In his view, only by removing Chiang Kai-shek, who was a confidant, could the Wuhan government gain a foothold and calmly carry out the Northern Expedition.
The CCP's position is relatively more subtle, and Zhang Guotao is in favor of Gallen's views, on the grounds that it is not a small fish eating a big fish, but that he found that the Crusade could not be organized at all!