The next day, just after lunch time, a shocking news spread throughout Rio de Janeiro. For a moment, the whole of Rio de Janeiro began to panic. As the highest authority of the Brazilian military, the Ministry of National Defense was in chaos.
All the main leaders of the Ministry of National Defense gathered in the large conference room of the Ministry of National Defense.
"Where did this army that suddenly appeared and occupied the train station come from? Have their identities been investigated?"
General Crook was furious in the conference room. The officers in the conference room had different expressions. Most of them were angry and anxious. But some of them seemed to be gloating!
After hearing General Crook's question, General Leta, the Chief of General Staff, slowly stood up, coughed twice and said:
"Mr. Deputy Minister, according to the information we received, the troops that suddenly appeared at the train station belong to the 113th Division of the Brazilian Army. They are the last batch of army troops withdrawn from the Argentine border. According to the instructions we gave them, they should have withdrawn directly to their original station.
Now, for some unknown reason, they suddenly appeared at the Rio de Janeiro train station and directly occupied the train station.”
Hearing this, General Crook's face turned pale and he spoke directly:
“Since they disobeyed military orders, suddenly appeared at the Rio de Janeiro train station, and completely occupied the train station, that was a rebellion.
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From now on, we will treat them as rebels. Pass the order down, Rio de Janeiro will be under full martial law around the train station from now on. No one is allowed to approach the train station without permission.
At the same time, the capital garrison was ordered to enter a first-level combat readiness state, ready to enter Rio de Janeiro to quell the rebellion at any time.
Hearing this, General Leta was about to stand up to receive the order. The Minister of the Army stood up quickly and spoke before General Leta could answer:
"Mr. Deputy Minister, is it inappropriate to directly notify the garrison troops to enter the first level of combat readiness? The 113th Division has only occupied the railway station and has not taken any other radical actions.
I think we should be more cautious and avoid sending troops directly to avoid causing an overreaction from the other side. If the 113th Division rebels directly, we will be in big trouble."
Upon hearing this, General Crook glared at the Minister of the Army, who had always had a low presence, and said bluntly:
"Disobeying orders to change the transfer destination and occupying the train station, what else can this behavior be except rebellion? They have already taken such actions. Do you still have any other illusions about them?
Or do you, as the Secretary of the Army, know what their purpose is?"
In the face of General Crook's questioning, the Minister of War did not give up, but continued to speak in a dignified manner:
"I think that after they occupied the train station, they did not take any further action, which obviously left us room for negotiation. We should send representatives to have a good talk with them and find out what their purpose is.
Instead of sending troops to surround them without caring about anything and going to war directly. "
"From what you said, you are preparing to negotiate with these rebels? Why do you think they are leaving us time for negotiation instead of waiting for reinforcements?
What if they are deliberately delaying to buy time for their rebels to gather? "
General Crook's words made the Minister of War at a loss for words. He could only bite the bullet and say:
"Even so, we should send someone to talk to them first. At least we should find out their purpose before we respond!"
After hearing what the two said, everyone in the conference room began to talk, expressing their opinions one after another.
I don't know if it was because he saw the Minister of the Army contradicting General Crook or what, an Army officer who had been very close to General Crook couldn't help but speak up:
"I think General Crook is right. Since they have already occupied the train station, they are rebels. What else can we say to rebels? Just wipe them out."
Hearing this, General Crook looked at the other party calmly and nodded as if satisfied.
Seeing this, several people stood up to support General Crook's opinion, and expressed their willingness to send troops to directly wipe out the rebels.
Of course, there were also some people, whether out of rationality or ulterior motives, who said that they should send people to communicate with the rebels occupying the train station to find out what their purpose was.
Fang Lang, who was sitting on the side, quietly watched everything happening in front of him, his eyes occasionally sliding across the faces of those who expressed their opinions, trying to judge their true inner thoughts from their words.
However, he also knew that it would be difficult for him to tell the loyalty and treachery of these people based on the current situation. Those who supported General Crook to go to war directly might be rebels. Those who wanted to negotiate with the rebels might not necessarily want to contact them or test their true intentions.
Therefore, it is actually very difficult to find the hidden rebels directly from this meeting.
After almost everyone expressed their attitudes, General Leta, the Chief of the General Staff, slowly spoke:
"Mr. Deputy Minister, I see that many people have expressed their desire to talk to the rebels occupying the train station first. Why don't we send someone from the General Staff to go over and test their attitude first? See if we can figure out what their purpose is!"
Seeing General Leta speak, even General Crook seemed a little surprised, but the other party was the Chief of General Staff after all, so he should give him some face.
At this time, General Humberto Olde, who was the official Minister of Defense, also stepped forward and said:
"Yes! General Crook, since everyone is suggesting that we send someone to test the rebels' situation first, why don't we send someone over to talk to them?
Of course, while we send people over to negotiate, we don't have to stop our preparations to quell the rebellion. It will take time for us to mobilize the garrison troops to the train station anyway."
Although this statement may seem like an attempt to smooth things over, it does make a lot of sense. It will take some time for them to mobilize the troops to quell the rebellion, so it may not be a bad idea to send someone over during this time to communicate with the rebels.
Seeing that the Minister of Defense had already spoken, General Crook could not continue to insist, and immediately took advantage of the situation and said:
"Since the Minister also thinks this is a safer approach, let's follow his advice! General Leta, have your General Staff arrange for an officer to go into the train station and communicate with the rebels to see what they want to do."
Upon hearing this, General Leta stood up and saluted:
"Yes, Your Excellency the Minister!"
Then General Crook continued:
"At the same time, in the name of the General Staff, an assembly order was issued to the four divisions guarding the capital, requiring them to take the lead in entering the vicinity of the railway station and encircling the railway station.
In addition, the two motorized infantry divisions and the armored division must also be prepared for contingency. The entire army will immediately enter a level one combat readiness state and be ready to launch a crackdown on the rebels at any time!"
This time, everyone in the conference room stood up and said in unison:
"Yes, General."
It has to be said that General Crook's control over the Ministry of Defense has been very tight in the past two years. Although there are still some officers who are not willing to get close to him, most people have already stood with him.
On the surface, everyone treated him as the Minister of Defense.
This so-called Ministry of Defense meeting was, of course, a show. Whether it was General Crook, the Deputy Minister of Defense, General Letta, the Chief of Staff, or even General Humberto Olde, the nominal Minister of Defense, they were all just acting.
As for the purpose, it is naturally to lure out the rebels hiding in the Ministry of National Defense and surrounding garrisons.
According to the plan, those responsible for occupying the railway station were not from the disarmed 113th Army Division. The reason why they arranged people to take the initiative to negotiate with the rebels was just a show for the people in hiding.
After all, the fake rebels at the train station didn't know what the real rebels' plan was. The rebel leader, Chiz Whiteman, also said that there was no complete plan, and they would launch an attack on the presidential palace based on actual conditions after arriving in Rio de Janeiro.
From this we can see that in this operation, the rebels he led were actually bait to attract attention, and the real rebels were among the several troops responsible for defending the capital.
Since they were fake rebels, General Crook would not send too many people. It was not that he did not want to send more people, but that he could not actually send more people at this time.
Because many troops in the south of Rio de Janeiro were mobilized by them to suppress the real rebels. Therefore, at this time he had to follow Fang Lang's plan and only arrange one regiment of troops to occupy the train station, pretending to hold on and wait for help.
Although this was a choice they had no choice but to make, what they didn't know was that this move of theirs happened to confuse the hidden rebels.
In fact, the real rebels were much more powerful than they expected. As early as last night when the National Defense Forces in the south of Rio de Janeiro began to mobilize frequently, the rebels had already discovered something unusual. Originally, they thought that the rebels used as bait had lost their effectiveness.
But they didn't expect that a rebel army broke through the blockade and successfully occupied the Rio de Janeiro train station. As for why the government army had already intercepted the rebels, but now it was pretending that nothing had happened and starting to make new arrangements, in their view, this was just a cover-up for the failure of the senior officials of the Ministry of Defense.
After all, compared to being known that they had discovered the rebels' actions first and launched an interception, but failed to intercept them, the pressure they faced was much lower when they had obviously just discovered the rebels' actions.
More importantly, they could never have imagined that there would be someone crazy enough to use their own people to pretend to be rebels in order to lure out the hidden rebels.
Everyone knows that once the rebels occupied the capital's railway station, regardless of whether the rebellion was successful or not, it would have immeasurable adverse effects on Brazil's military and politics. Therefore, they never thought that the rebels' occupation of the railway station would be fake.
But now many people proposed to go to the train station to negotiate with the rebels, which made the hidden rebels nervous. They were very worried that the rebels occupying the train station would abandon the rebellion because they were isolated and helpless after knowing that their large forces had no chance to enter Rio de Janeiro.
This was completely different from what General Crook and his team had expected. In other words, they had directed and acted in this meeting, which was actually like throwing a wink to a blind man. Unlike what everyone expected, they did not send anyone to participate in contacting the rebels who occupied the train station.
On the contrary, when they learned that General Crook and his men were going to send people to negotiate with the rebels occupying the train station, they immediately decided to advance the planned rebellion.
Therefore, when the Ministry of National Defense had just transferred the garrison division into Rio de Janeiro to encircle the rebels occupying the train station, it received intelligence from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency that there were abnormalities with the armored division stationed on the western front of Rio de Janeiro and the motorized infantry division stationed on the southern front.
The Ministry of National Defense ordered them to enter a first-level combat readiness state, but they directly began to assemble in the city fully armed. However, the motorized infantry division located on the northern line of Rio de Janeiro did not show any abnormality, but just entered a first-level combat readiness state according to the order of the Ministry of National Defense.
When the Ministry of National Defense's counter-insurgency command center received this news, most of the officers were in a mess, but the leader, General Crook, seemed still calm.
"Except for the abnormalities of the 1st Armored Division on the western front and the 102nd Motorized Infantry Division on the southern front, are you sure that there are no abnormalities in the 101st Motorized Infantry Division on the northern front?"
"Yes, General. So far, we have not found any abnormalities in the 101st Motorized Infantry Division. Although a colonel from the Army Department entered the 101st Motorized Infantry Division's barracks and tried to persuade their commander to join their rebellion, their commander did not agree to participate in the rebellion."
The director of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, Blackwell, reported to General Crook in a serious tone.
Hearing this, General Crook was not happy at all. Instead, he frowned and said:
"But I haven't received any proactive reports from this division, which means that the 101st Division is actually unreliable. Although they did not choose to join the rebels, they did not choose to stand firmly with us either."
After hearing what General Crook said, Blackwell nodded with a somewhat grim expression:
"Yes, I think this guy is prepared to remain neutral and wait for the outcome of this rebellion."
After hearing his answer, General Crook could no longer bear it and slammed his palm on the big table in front of him.
"These damn bastards, is this how they are loyal to their country?"
After hearing his roar, the people around him were all silent, and for a moment, one could hear a pin drop in the command center. Everyone felt like the sky was about to fall. After all, there were only four divisions nearby, two of which rebelled, and the other chose to stand aside and watch.
The remaining one is just an ordinary garrison division. Their main job is to protect the headquarters and important military institutions. They don't have any heavy weapons to show off.
It was obviously beyond their ability to confront a tank armored division and a motorized infantry division head-on. Therefore, everyone present was a little panicked.
Even the Chief of General Staff General Leta regretted very much at this moment. He should not have followed Fang Lang's plan to lure the hidden rebels out, because the hidden rebels were too powerful.
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