I'm playing whack-a-mole in Siberia

Chapter 130 Exclusive Channel
  In previous years, the Rivne exercise started in September, but this year it was moved forward to August.

This year's exercise is divided into two parts, the first part is confrontation and the second part is routine performance.

The confrontation part is not open to the public. Even Carol I was not invited. Observers from various countries will be invited during the routine performance stage to show the majesty of the Russian army to observers from various countries.

After the Rivno exercise last year, the Guards made adjustments to senior officers. Nicholas Jr. served as the commander of the 3st Cavalry Division and Brusinov served as the commander of the rd Infantry Division. These two divisions are the Oak Regiment for this exercise. opponent.

The trial held by George in the General Regiment has now been expanded to the entire Guards. The troops of Nicholas Jr. and Brusinov gathered the best officers and soldiers of the Guards. Nicholas Jr. vowed to defeat George. , Brusinov wanted to avenge his past humiliation.

If a division cannot defeat a regiment, it is really unjustifiable.

Brusinov, an infantryman, took a train from St. Petersburg and arrived in Rivne before Nicholas the Younger's cavalry.

George meets his old rival at the train station.

"George, are you ready? I will definitely defeat you this year!" Brusinov's troops have not yet changed their equipment, and are still equipped with Bodin rifles.

George's troops did not completely change their equipment. After arriving in Rivno, the Oak Regiment only received two batches of rifles, totaling 600.

There were ten heavy machine guns. George's 1883 successfully defeated Gatling and Maxim in the assessment organized by the Russian military and became the standard weapon of the Russian military.

This was originally a good thing, but because the equipment was not uniform, it put more pressure on the logistics work of the rubber group. Because of this, Mario lost a lot of hair and couldn't sleep all night.

George comforted Mario that this was just the beginning.

The current equipment of the Oak Group is only rifles and artillery, and Mario has begun to fail.

In the future, the weapons and equipment of the Oak Group will be more complex and the logistics requirements will be higher, making Mario's work more complicated.

"How was your life in the Guards?" George said without harsh words, Brusinov was indeed quite capable.

Brusinov was the best Russian officer George knew.

He runs the army in a strict manner and has strict requirements for the troops. He eats and sleeps in the military camp and trains with the soldiers. He is simply a replica of George.

"The Guards are great. If the support I get in the special regiment is the same as the Guards, you can't beat me." Brusinov thought he had seen through George, or got George's true biography.

The night he arrived in Rivne, Brusinov wanted to visit the Oak Group.

"Everyone in the Oak Group is undergoing wilderness survival training and we don't have time to play with you." George reminded Brusinov that he still had a lot to learn.

The Russian army relies very heavily on logistics and cannot fight alone without logistical support.

But Russia's logistics is already so bad that it cannot be changed in a short time, so it is particularly important to improve the independent combat capabilities of the troops.

George hoped that the officers and soldiers of the Oak Regiment could eat beef stew with potatoes and hare, and they had to be able to eat them raw.

During the war, it was often impossible to light a fire for cooking. Russia did not have self-heating food, so eating raw was one of the necessary skills.

If we were still fighting in large groups as before, we wouldn't need to be so harsh.

But in the next exercise, the rubber regiment will have to fight as a regiment against a division, which puts forward higher requirements for the quality of the officers and soldiers of the rubber regiment.

Little Nicholas won’t talk about it yet.

If Brusinov can get enough support, he can really train precision shooters in batches.

The soldiers under Brusinov were also Cossacks.

"What is wilderness survival training?" Brusinov's arrogance suddenly disappeared, and wilderness survival sounded very impressive.

"You don't want to know-" Alfred made a vomiting face. He actually vomited when he first learned about the content of wilderness survival training.

Brusinov was a man who had fought in the war, and he felt that Alfred's reaction was too exaggerated.

"Why?" Brusinov didn't understand why he couldn't bring food.

"Because we need to bring as many bullets as possible." George patiently explained that the food can be made from local materials, but the bullets cannot be rubbed out.

In the era of muskets, bullets could indeed be rubbed out.

The structure of fixed-loaded bullets is more complex, more precise, and has a higher technological content. It completely relies on logistics. It is impossible to seize it from the enemy unless you also snatch the enemy's rifle.

In the era of the Berdan rifle, Russian soldiers only carried 50 rounds of ammunition, which could be replenished as needed.

Magazine-type rifles consume more bullets. Each soldier carries 100 rounds with him. If the logistics cannot keep up and the bullets run out, the rifle will become a fire stick.

The Oak Regiment requires soldiers to carry at least 200 rounds of ammunition with them during combat.

The bullet used in the Yuriev rifle weighs 22 grams, and 200 rounds of bullets are already 4.4 kilograms.

Together with other supplies carried with them, the weight of the supplies carried by the soldiers of the Oak Regiment has exceeded 20 kilograms.

For other troops, the 20kg weight may be a bit high.

It's really not high for a rubber group.

The involution among the four battalions of the Oak Regiment has reached such an extent that even bullets have to be rolled up. The average amount of bullets carried by one battalion led by Ye Luoxin has reached 350 rounds.

This is not equipped with grenades yet.

"Is 50 rounds of ammunition enough?" Brusinov had never tried to fight without logistics.

However, it is understandable to use single-shot rifles. Russia also particularly emphasizes the role of bayonets. It can still fight bayonet without bullets.

Oak Tuan also practiced bayonet fighting, but George did not advocate bayonet fighting unless the bullets were exhausted.

Nicholas the Younger's troops arrived three days later, and Rivno gradually became lively. Some soldiers went to stay at the Cossack's house, but the Cossack refused.

It doesn't matter if it's just one or two people. It's not impossible to free up a house.

It's really difficult to accommodate an entire row, and it's not enough to put bunks in the living room.

George asked Little Nicholas and Brusinov to restrain the troops and not to harass the residents of Rivne at will.

Brusinov is okay.

Little Nicholas was very angry.

The Oak Regiment arrived in Rivne ahead of schedule. The barracks have been built and the soldiers of the Oak Regiment live in clean and tidy barracks.

Do the Guardsmen deserve to sleep on the streets?
  "No one lets you sleep on the street. Don't you have tents?" George hoped to establish a more harmonious military-civilian relationship. Why should the Cossacks embarrass the Cossacks?

"George, the soldiers of the Oak Regiment live in clean and tidy barracks, and my soldiers live in tents. What does this make my soldiers think?" Little Nicholas didn't want to cause trouble for George, but he couldn't do it.

"Okay, let's all live in tents!" George couldn't laugh or cry. He was worried not about the scarcity but about the inequality. The reality was so helpless.

The Tsar arrived in Rivne on August 8rd. As the influence of the Rivne exercise became more and more important, almost all Russian governors and commanders of major military regions came to Rivne, and Rivno suddenly gathered stars.

The Tsar had a palace in Rivne, but the governor and military district commanders did not.

Soldiers can live in tents, but it would be outrageous for governors and military commanders to live in tents.

Fortunately there is still the Oak Regiment Barracks.

George's office was snatched away by Sergei. He was the governor of Moscow and commander of the military district. No one could rob him.

Little Nikolai also wanted to rob George's dormitory, but he was almost thrown out by George. The rank of Guards Division Commander can be caught in large numbers in Rivno now, and he is not qualified to do anything special.

In the current Oak Regiment camp, lieutenants are not qualified to live in it, and only generals are qualified to have single rooms.

Milyutin must have, he just came back from the Far East.

When the Qing-France War broke out, Milyutin hoped that George would go to the Far East to serve as a military observer and experience the cruelty of the war up close.

Compared with these Russian generals, what George lacks most is actual combat experience.

Even if the generals don't have impressive records, they still have qualifications.

George had nothing.

You said that the Oak Regiment is powerful in combat. How many enemies have the Oak Regiment destroyed on the battlefield?
  No matter how good the performance is on the training field, it is useless, it is just talk on paper. Unless George can prove that the bullet is the hero and the bayonet is the fool, otherwise George's words will be unconvincing.

Russia will not initiate a foreign war in the short term, and George has no chance to prove it.

"The generals of the Qing Empire have no fighting spirit, their troops have poor military discipline, and their equipment is backward. Their abilities are no different from those of farmers who have just been recruited -" Milyutin finally understood why George said that the Qing Empire and France were noobs. Pecking each other, this war is nothing to watch.

George disagreed with Milyutin's words.

The soldiers recruited by the Guards are all Cossacks. They have received military training since childhood. They are not farmers who know nothing.

"The French army has completely degenerated since the Franco-Prussian War. Guba is a fool. He pinned his hopes of victory on intimidating the Qing Empire, hoping that the Qing Empire would accept France's blackmail. France was completely unprepared to conquer the Qing Empire, and Lack of strength to conquer the Qing Empire." Milyutin was also not optimistic about France, and France indeed performed very amateurishly in this war.

"Who won?" George didn't know the specific process of the Qing-France war, but he knew that the result was that the Qing Dynasty was defeated without defeat, and France was victorious.

"When I left, although the French army had not won the victory, the Qing Dynasty had no chance of winning." Milyutin still preferred the French army to win.

"Not necessarily -" George hoped that the Qing Empire could speak out and give the French some color.

The French were unable to send too many troops for the expedition, and logistics was a big problem. As long as the Qing Empire persisted through the most difficult stage, the final victory would definitely belong to the Qing Empire.

However, the situation of the Qing Empire is more complicated than that of Russia, and how long it can last is a big question.

"What about you, do you have the confidence to defeat little Nikolai and Alexey?" Milyutin returned to Rivne from the Far East just for the purpose of practice.

Alexei is Brusinov's first name.

"Even if they go together, I am confident that we will win the final victory." George is not targeting anyone. These Russian generals are no better than Guba.

Milyutin was very satisfied. Russia's Bismarck should be so confident.

Before the exercise began, the Tsar held a banquet in the palace as usual to cheer for the generals.

This is the first time George has been a protagonist.

To George's surprise, the governor and commanders were not very interested in the content of the exercise. They wanted George to open the back door for them and sell them holy water.

"Your sister-in-law said that if I can't bring back a carriage of holy water, I won't be allowed to enter the bedroom. It's up to you -" Sergey is not afraid of exposing his family scandal, and his wife is indeed a bit tough.

Sergey's wife was the one who was buried alive.

"I heard about the holy water in Odessa. You must help me, for the safety of the empire, otherwise I can't focus on official duties-" Odessa Governor Joseph Gurko exaggerated, last year He is also the acting governor.

"What is holy water?" Korff, the new Governor of Amur, was curious.

This year, Russia separated part of its territory, including the Kamchatka Peninsula, from the Siberian Governor-General and established the Amur Governor-General.

Korff was the first governor of the Amur Governorate.

After participating in the Rivne exercise, Korff will head to the Far East.

Vladivostok is also under the jurisdiction of the Amur Governor.

With this relationship, it is not surprising that George looks at Korff differently.

"Kolf, we are both pitiful -" George's title was much higher than Korff, who was just a baron.

"Dear——"

"Just call me George. I also hope that you will give Vladivostok more funding-" George took the initiative to show his kindness to Korv.

"This is too difficult for me. The Governor-General of Amur doesn't have much funding in total." Korff was very cooperative. George was not as difficult to deal with as the legend said.

Korff would not go to the Far East if he could.

But someone had to open up the territory for the empire.

Although Vladivostok is only a small city, with George's crazy investment, it may not take long for Vladivostok to become the largest city in the Amur Governorate.

"Korv, if you don't have money, go to George. George is the most profitable person in St. Petersburg." Sergey gloated that George's fiefdom was indeed not very good.

"Let's have a chat later -" George took the initiative to ask Korf out.

"Then I'll wait for good news." Korff is sensible. If George doesn't cooperate, he won't be a good governor.

Palace banquets are always full. In order to avoid going to the toilet, guests attending the banquet will not eat too much food before the banquet and eat after the banquet is over.

George and Korff chatted while eating.

"We have defeated the Ottoman Empire. Next, the empire's expansion direction will shift from Europe to East Asia. This is our opportunity." Korff was very excited. Going to the Far East to be the governor may not be a fat job, but it is definitely a good job.

In the past few decades, the territory that the Russian Empire ceded from the Qing Empire has exceeded one million square kilometers.

If Korff can also sign something similar to the "Treaty of Aihun", then Korff can at least be promoted to earl.

"It's not that easy. The Qing Empire is fighting France, and the Qing Empire's performance is not bad." George is now learning and selling, hoping that Milyutin's observation will make Korff more cautious.

"Didn't France win?" Korff didn't know the progress of the Qing-France war.

"When did it happen?" George actually didn't know, and thought Korff had an exclusive channel.

(End of this chapter)