Bright Sword: From Northwest Shanxi to Shangganling

Chapter 48 Big training

"Lao Luo, Lao Luo!"

Chen Chengxing shouted and walked to the west room of the regiment headquarters, where Luo Ping worked.

"What's wrong, Captain?" Luo Ping asked curiously.

"I suddenly remembered something, that is the food problem." Chen Chengxing sat down at the table and poured himself a glass of water.

"Food? We have enough food." Luo Ping was a little confused.

"It's not that simple." Chen Chengxing waved his hand.

"With the current output of Dayun Mountain, even the new Second Regiment cannot be maintained. If the troops continue to grow and develop, food will inevitably be in short supply," said Chen Chengxing.

Now the arable land in Dayun Mountain is mainly used to supply the troops directly under the New Second Regiment and the logistics arsenal. The three main battalions all eat in the guerrilla zone outside the mountain. Therefore, Luo Ping feels that the New Second Regiment has sufficient food.

However, once the troops are reduced, the New Second Regiment may not be able to maintain daily consumption.

After hearing Chen Chengxing's words, Luo Ping's expression gradually became serious.

Dayun Mountain has a large population, but more than 60% of the population is concentrated in the hilly areas on the south and west sides. The south side of these two areas is close to Luyang and the west side is close to Ping'an County. The remaining more than 80% of the area is home to less than 40% of the population.

If we exclude the Jiaozi Mountain area on the east side, the actual population in the base is only 25%, or a maximum of 5 people.

Under normal circumstances, 5 people can only provide 2500 full-time soldiers. Any more will have an adverse effect.

"Captain, what do you think?" Luo Ping asked.

"I have several ideas. One is to reclaim land and build terraces on the relatively flat hillsides. The other is to develop northward along the Zhongyun Mountains," said Chen Chengxing.

Now, suitable land in the base has already been developed into arable land. If the New Second Regiment wants to reclaim wasteland, it can only go up the mountain.

Fortunately, the growing conditions for potatoes are not that harsh. They can be grown even if the soil is not fertile. The most that can be achieved is a low yield.

Development to the north will allow the New Second Regiment to gain more space. The population of the entire Zhongyun Mountains exceeds one million, which is sufficient to support the development of the New Second Regiment.

"Reclaiming wasteland?" Luo Ping frowned.

It is easy to develop northwards by sending out a small force, but opening up new land is not that simple. The New Second Regiment does not have extra manpower to do this.

Chen Chengxing knew what Luo Ping meant as soon as he heard it: "I have thought about it. The 12 infantry companies of the New Second Regiment are basically full. Although the remaining machine gun companies of the battalions are short of weapons, the personnel have been recruited."

"Now there are many young and strong people joining the army every day. I decided to organize another supplementary battalion of recruits. The supplementary battalion will carry out land reclamation work during the training intervals, and at the same time, it can also recruit people with no land or little land to participate."

Anyway, the system requires 1 acres of land to be reclaimed, but it does not say that this land must be reclaimed by the New Second Regiment.

As long as Chen Chengxing says that the wasteland reclaimed by the people will be owned by individuals, the people can turn all the mountains into terraces.

The reason why Chen Chengxing wanted to supplement the camp and participate in the land reclamation was not only to be self-sufficient, but more importantly, high-yield potatoes also needed an experimental field.

Otherwise, even if I take out potatoes, no one will easily change the farming plan.

If you take the risk of planting crops you don't understand, you may end up with nothing at all, which would be a disaster for the entire family.

As long as the output of the experimental field comes out, people will naturally come uninvited when they see the real thing, and then the work will be easier to carry out.

Luo Ping thought about it and agreed with Chen Chengxing's idea.

Previously, in order to complete full staffing as quickly as possible, each company directly filled the troops with new recruits, which inevitably led to a decline in the combat effectiveness of the troops.

Now that there is a supplementary battalion, it is just right for the new recruits to recuperate during training, and when the troops are short of personnel, they can be supplemented from the supplementary battalion to the various companies. This can at least avoid the training of new recruits and veterans being out of sync. After Chen Chengxing and Luo Ping made the decision, the supplementary battalion was immediately established.

Because it is not a main combat force and the supplementary battalion is composed of new recruits, ideological and political education is essential. Therefore, the battalion commander of the supplementary battalion is a political cadre selected from the Political Department.

Kong Hanwen was a political cadre brought back from the brigade by Chen Chengxing. He was an old Red Army soldier and was quite good at ideological education.

After setting up the supplementary battalion, the new Second Regiment also launched a large-scale military training. Chen Chengxing also put forward the slogan of "sweat more in peacetime and bleed less in war."

Each unit gets up at 6 o'clock every day for training, and the first thing they do is fully armed marching training.

You know, in the history of world wars, speed is the key to creating miracles.

Normally, the fully armed marches of various countries are at least 5 kilometers per hour, and 40-50 kilometers per day.

Chen Chengxing proposed that they should be fully armed, march 7 kilometers per hour, and march 25 kilometers continuously without stopping.

The speed of the march should be even faster, reaching over 15 kilometers per hour.

Even though the new second group is currently lacking in food, with the support of Chen Chengxing's characteristics, this is not difficult to accomplish.

In addition to fully armed marching training, the troops must conduct fighting and bayonet training that is more practical.

Of course, the ideological and cultural studies of each unit cannot be left behind. What Chen Chengxing wants is an invincible army that is fully armed from the ideological to the physical.

For this reason, Chen Chengxing also organized cultural examinations from time to time. If any company dared to fail, the battalion commander and company commander would have to stand at the gate of the regiment for a day.

During the large-scale military training, Chen Chengxing also considered whether to implement the three-three system tactics, which is after all the pinnacle tactic of light infantry.

But after thinking about it, Chen Chengxing gave up this plan.

The three-three system came into being because the troops' weapons were backward and there were not enough light machine guns, resulting in the entire squad being composed of riflemen.

Therefore, a combat team of three people is formed, and three combat teams form an infantry squad, which attacks and assists in defense in a triangle.

The team members have clear division of labor, one person is responsible for the attack, and the other two are responsible for cover and fire support.

The three-three system has many advantages, such as reducing casualties and strengthening the offensive force through layer-by-layer advancement and alternating cover.

However, its shortcomings are equally obvious. Not to mention the extensive training required, this tactic cannot be implemented by anyone other than the elite.

The biggest problem with the three-three system is that it is very flexible, but lacks sufficient attack strength. After all, the troops are dispersed in time and space.

This makes it difficult for the attacking force to inject more troops into the battle in a short period of time in order to consolidate and expand the results of the battle.

If the defenders have enough willpower and dare to organize automatic firearms or even close-range bayonet combat, it will immediately turn into a positional meat grinder war, which happened many times during the War of Liberation.

For example, there are classic confrontations such as the Battle of the Water Distribution Tank and the Tiger Regiment vs. the Night Tiger Regiment, and the cost was heavy casualties on both sides.

To solve this problem, we have to increase firepower, but with strong firepower there is no need to use the three-three system.

This makes a stubborn attitude become a double-edged sword.

The direction of the war is still to attack, support and cover with light machine guns as the core of the team.

The most crucial thing is that in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Eighth Route Army was still mainly relying on guerrilla warfare and sneak attacks, and real positional offensive and defensive battles were rare.

Therefore, Chen Chengxing simply gave up this plan. If he couldn't shout "Bomb it for me!" when the Liberation War came, wouldn't it be a waste of time?
(End of this chapter)