The Iron-Blooded Army of Beacon Fire

Chapter 472 Headquarters Exercise and the Fat Comprador Returns

On May 1st, there was a commotion on the training ground of the Assault Corps.

Winter has passed and spring has come. The breeze is warm and gentle. Feeling the spring breeze blowing across his face, He Wei stood in the open space in front of the barracks of the headquarters of the corps, leaning on a long wooden baton, watching the recruits who were sweating profusely in intensive training on the playground, his expression became more and more satisfied.

The new recruits on the playground were either practicing marching formations, or doing equipment training such as the horizontal bar and wooden horse. Others were doing the most arduous 500-obstacle training consisting of uneven bars, climbing poles, board walls, high jumping platforms, trench jumping, single-plank bridges and low trip nets in several training grounds. The new recruits who were shouting and shouting, holding the Type 38 rifles captured from the Japanese army with bayonets on, and practicing bayonet techniques were also roaring and sweating.

At the entrance to the camp, there were teams of new recruits, shouting one, two, three, four, under the command of officers and sergeants, carrying bullets, grenades, and Type 38 rifles for training, and heading out of the gate in an endless stream, preparing for live-fire shooting training in the field.

The recruits are organized into different units, some inside the barracks and some outside the barracks. The content of their training is also different. However, the mental state, physical fitness and military temperament of each recruit are very different from when they first joined the army. They are stronger, more energetic, and have a stronger military temperament. They all have the basic qualities that a qualified soldier should possess.

Not only have the basic military qualities and mental states of the recruits undergone tremendous changes, but even the combat skills training and basic tactical training such as throwing grenades and shooting, which have just started, have also progressed very well.

Taking rifle shooting training as an example, the five recruit battalions, in accordance with He Wei's orders, used the mountains of captured items in the assault corps' warehouse - the Japanese Type 38 rifles - as shooting training guns for the recruits, and adopted the training principle of live-fire shooting as the main method during the shooting training. After the recruits received preliminary education on the basic knowledge of firearms and simple theoretical knowledge, they soon entered the live-fire shooting training state.

The Assault Corps also seized a large amount of Japanese ammunition in previous operations, and the vast majority of the seized ammunition were Japanese 6.5mm rifle bullets. These large amounts of seized ammunition were enough to ensure that the officers and soldiers who used the Type 38 rifle as a training gun could use the rain of bullets at will, improving and honing their shooting skills through rough and direct live-fire shooting.

The Japanese Army's Type 38 rifle is light in weight, has little recoil when shooting, is easy to operate and durable, making it extremely friendly to recruits who are using firearms and shooting for the first time. It is the best training weapon and a suitable training weapon. Coupled with He Wei's training principle of "live ammunition shooting", the progress of the recruits' rifle shooting technique training is very gratifying. The recruits' shooting technique training has achieved better results and progress than He Wei and the staff of the General Staff Office who formulated the training plan had expected.

The recruits have gradually developed the basic qualities of a qualified soldier, and their combat skills, combat techniques and basic tactical qualities have also been gradually improving. Such a momentum is naturally the result of more than two months of high-intensity training.

The daily training intensity and standards of the recruits are greatly improved compared to the original plan, and the overall training degree is extremely high. Except for the rest day once every ten days, the recruits only have six hours of rest and sleep time on the training day. This shows the pressure and high-intensity training that He Wei put on this group of recruits.

But the endurance and tolerance of these new recruits were good. After two months of training, not a single one deserted because they could not bear the training. It can be said that all the more than 3,000 new recruits persisted in the training intact. Only dozens of new recruits in the five recruit camps suffered temporary injuries and casualties due to excessive training intensity, but there was not a single recruit who deserted. This really satisfied He Wei.

Of course, there are also a very small number of recruits who are more cunning and deliberately pretend to be sick and lazy during training. However, how can such recruits hide their narrow-mindedness from the old squad leaders in the recruit camp?
Without exception, these lazy recruits were all severely punished. Of course, this punishment did not mean being beaten or scolded. After all, He Wei had repeatedly stressed that corporal punishment and beating of soldiers were strictly prohibited in his army. The sergeants and veteran squad leaders adopted a more deterrent method than corporal punishment and beating and scolding, which was to use training instead of punishment. They used running laps and climbing 500-meter obstacles to deal with those bad elements who were sneaky and cunning, and soon these guys were subdued.

Therefore, the phenomenon of feigning illness and being lazy in the five recruit camps disappeared in the recruit units shortly after it appeared. All the recruits understood that listening to the squad leader and superiors and training well was the right way to go, and that being cunning and lazy would never end well.

In short, in terms of the overall performance of the five recruit camps, the training results and outcomes in all aspects exceeded the expectations of He Wei and the General Staff Office, and the situation can be described as very good.

The reason for this is that these soldiers are all from rural areas and can endure hardships and fatigue.

Secondly, the assault corps offered generous treatment. During the two months of training, although these soldiers were still in the recruit stage and had not yet officially joined the army, and had not been awarded the second-class military pay after the recruits officially completed the enlistment, He Wei would give each recruit a recruit allowance of three yuan in legal currency every month. Although this amount of money was not much, it was a considerable sum for the recruits of peasant origin. In addition, the assault corps had excellent food and living conditions. All these benefits were enough to enable the recruits to overcome difficulties and hardships and strive to persevere in the hard training.

The most fundamental reason lies in He Wei's recruitment policy. He Wei is very sure that if the new recruits of these five battalions were not recruited but conscripted or captured, no matter how good the treatment of the army was, it would not be possible to achieve the current training effect, and there might even be a large number of deserters. It can be seen that his move of spending money to recruit soldiers was right. There is still a big difference between the soldiers who volunteered to join the army and the captured soldiers.

He Wei nodded slightly, with a look of satisfaction on his face. Suddenly, he heard the voice of Chief of Staff Wang Yuanling.

"Captain, we are ready. Today's Gaosi exercise can begin!"

He Wei smiled, waved the wooden baton in his hand, and said with a smile: "Okay, let's start the exercise. We have been doing this exercise for a month. I have to give two questions every day for the test. After such a long time, I am running out of questions in my head."

Wang Yuanling pointed at the sand table, and then at the section chief and the staff officers standing in a circle around the sand table, and said with a smile: "Captain, the situation of the army is unpredictable, and the shape of the water is unpredictable. The same applies to the questions. You may be more casual, please!"

He Wei nodded slightly and said loudly: "Okay!"

Then, He Wei paced silently, his eyes also turned to the front. At this time, in front of He Wei, on a huge map rack, there was a 1:50,000 military map of the war capital, a 1:25,000 artillery map, and a 100,000 and 1:200,000 scaled-down military map. In front of the map rack was a detailed and huge military sand table, covering an area of ​​more than 100 square meters. On the sand table, the mountains, terrain, rivers and hills were meticulously, colorfully, completely and finely presented on the sand table.

The combat troops of the assault corps were refining their combat skills day by day, and the training of the new recruits was progressing rapidly. Naturally, the corps headquarters could not fall behind, and He Wei, the commander-in-chief, also had to catch up. So he focused on improving the wartime operational capabilities of the assault corps headquarters, and conducted various drills and tactical operations with the corps headquarters staff every day. In military terminology, these are high-level headquarters exercises.

The senior headquarters, which can also be called the headquarters, is, in short, the headquarters of a unit and the command center in wartime. It plays the role of command, decision-making and staff for the troops in wartime.

In fact, He Wei has always attached great importance to this. If the combat troops of the assault corps determine the local victory or defeat and the gains and losses of several positions on the battlefield, then the headquarters responsible for command and staff decision-making determines the overall victory or defeat of the assault corps.

The core department of a command is the staff agency, so as early as when the assault corps was established, He Wei set up a staff office within the corps, and the staff office indeed played a crucial role in a series of operations thereafter. Now, the assault corps is thriving, and the size and structure of the troops will be expanded. Naturally, He Wei also put forward higher requirements for the operation of the assault corps headquarters.

Moreover, He Wei's own "ambition" and "desire" have been greatly inflated recently, so he is no longer satisfied with only ensuring that the command headquarters of the assault corps has the ability to efficiently and qualifiedly command the subordinate units within the current structure of the assault corps.

He hoped that his headquarters could assume the responsibility of commanding at least one field infantry division when operating at full speed and play the same role as a division headquarters. He Wei's requirement was actually very strict. He had also decided not only to improve the professional quality and ability of the staff of the assault corps' staff office, but also to expand the scale of this core command organization.

After the initial training of the new recruits is completed, a group of outstanding talents must be selected from the new batch of military academy graduates to serve as staff officers, further expanding the size of the assault corps headquarters staff office and expanding the business a little more. This can be regarded as laying the groundwork for future development in advance.

Therefore, He Wei naturally had extremely high requirements when conducting headquarters exercises with the core department of the headquarters - the General Staff Office. He Wei handed over all the specific staff business and the improvement of staff operational capabilities to Wang Yuanling, requiring him to constantly hone the basic staff operational skills of the staff officers in the General Staff Office. Wang Yuanling was worthy of being a top student in the regular class of the Army University. After receiving He Wei's order, he immediately organized a one-month short-term staff officer training course to improve the basic staff operational skills of the staff officers.

In fact, these staff officers have very good basic skills, and after actual combat training, their professional capabilities are naturally very high. After Wang Yuanling's recent supervision and improvement, after the end of the short-term training course, the professional quality of the assault team's staff officers has reached a higher level, and they have developed from qualified and accurate to fast and skilled.

This huge sand table was the final assignment given to Wang Yuanling and He Wei by the staff officers. The sand table is actually a miniature sand table replica of the terrain near the temporary capital, drawn by the staff officers based on various scale maps of the temporary capital.

The production process is also quite difficult. The staff need to convert the plane scale, direction signs, contour lines, saddles, rivers and other icon symbols on the military map into physical models on the sand table. Therefore, they must have strong military map reading capabilities to accurately and finely identify the various terrain features on the military map.

In addition, it also requires outstanding imagination, layout and planning skills, and hands-on ability to transform and compile various landforms on the map into the final sand table model. Making such a large sand table model is not only a test for the staff, but also an exercise of their professional capabilities in all aspects.

This huge sand table was divided into several small parts, and each staff officer of the General Staff Office was responsible for the production of a part, which was considered a piece-rate contract. After the entire sand table was completed, Chief of Staff Wang Yuanling and He Wei jointly inspected and accepted it. By comparing the map and the sand table one by one, if there was a problem with a part, they could immediately find the staff officer with the problem.

It is natural that the final training assignment handed in by the staff officers could not be without any problems. After all, this sand table was modeled on the terrain near the auxiliary capital, which is extremely complex. It is indeed very difficult to be 100% correct. The assignment proposed by He Wei and Wang Yuanling was actually very demanding. It took almost ten days just to make the sand table.

But only strict requirements in daily life can hone excellent staff business capabilities. He Wei and Wang Yuanling carefully corrected and commented on the errors found. After completing the correction of the entire sand table, this sand table, which can be called a work of art created by the group, immediately transformed into an examination room for He Wei to continue testing the staff.

After revising the sand table, He Wei would gather the staff of the General Staff Office every day to use the sand table to conduct tactical simulations. He would use the sand table to provide the staff with various offensive and defensive tactical test questions from platoon to company and battalion, and even regiment levels. He would ask the staff to answer them one by one and propose corresponding brief combat plans. After the staff finished answering, He Wei would comment on them. Of course, He Wei's comments were not criticisms, but after pointing out the shortcomings of the staff's plans, he would provide them with comprehensive, well-reasoned, and data-supported review and guidance.

He Wei's on-the-spot question-setting and on-the-spot answering method lasted for more than a month. He Wei's various tricky tactical questions made the staff officers rack their brains and even feel mentally tortured. It can be said that he gave the staff officers a brainstorming session every day, which made the staff officers "very sour and refreshed".

Of course, the professional and even command capabilities of the staff officers were further tempered and improved through this torture.

He Wei looked at the sand table, paced back and forth, and repeatedly pondered today's test questions. The staff officers who were answering the questions were very uncomfortable with the brain-burning tactical questions. He, as the question setter, also had to use up a lot of brain cells. Up to today, He Wei had already set the test questions for a month, so He Wei now had to spend a lot of effort to come up with any ideas.

Just as He Wei had made up his mind and was about to ask a question, suddenly, his orderly Tao Heiwa ran out from the barracks behind him, came up to He Wei, and whispered, "Captain, the sentry at the camp gate called and said that Director Ding Lunshi Ding is back."

(End of this chapter)