Anti-Japanese War: I have unlimited assistance

Chapter 121 Joining the Army and Night School!
It was reprinted by domestic newspapers and media such as the Xinhua Daily and Central Daily News.

The news of the Guangyang victory swept across the country like a hurricane, and even caused an uproar internationally.

The victory of the Guangyang ambush once again broke the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese army, shattered the "Japanophobia" and "national destruction theory" of some people in the country in the fight against Japan, greatly inspired people's hearts, and strengthened the confidence and determination of the people across the country and various patriotic armed forces to persist in the war of resistance.

It enhanced the prestige of the Communist Party of China and the Eighth Route Army, created favorable conditions for the Eighth Route Army to establish anti-Japanese bases in North China and carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, and laid a broad mass foundation.

After the Guangyang victory, the Eighth Route Army was warmly welcomed by the masses wherever it went when it was opening up bases behind enemy lines, and a large number of young people actively signed up to join the Eighth Route Army.

Inspired by the Eighth Route Army's great victory in Guangyang, the national army defending Taiyuan also strengthened its fighting spirit.

Internationally, the Guangyang victory inspired patriotic overseas Chinese in Southeast Asian countries, who donated money and materials to support the motherland's war of resistance.

The arrogant Japanese army had to adjust its deployment and urgently promoted Yamashita Tomoyuki to be the acting commander of the 20th Division. The old devil was afraid of being ambushed by the Eighth Route Army again on the Guangyang Highway. Yamashita Tomoyuki had to lead the troops of the 20th Division and attack Taiyuan from the direction of Xialongquan only after the troops were replenished and the combat supplies were in place.

It delayed the Japanese attack on Taiyuan for a week, and assisted and covered the safe retreat of the friendly National Army forces in the Taiyuan area.

……

Southeastern Shanxi.

Shangzhuang Village.

The new regiment headquarters.

Political Commissar Zhong Zhicheng walked into the regiment headquarters with a bitter look on his face.

"What's wrong, Old Zhong?" Li Yunlong looked surprised. "Are you having trouble recruiting soldiers?"

Following Zhong Zhicheng were combat staff officer Zhao Gang and guard platoon leader Zhang Dabiao.

In the Guangyang victory, the Eighth Route Army achieved the fruitful results of killing and wounding 3000 Japanese soldiers and killing the Japanese division commander.

However, the Eighth Route Army also suffered about 3000 casualties, with an average of more than 300 casualties for each regiment involved in the battle.

The casualty ratio is about 1 to 1, but there is nothing that can be done about it.

The Japanese had much better weapons and equipment, and they also deployed air support and even shamelessly used poison gas bombs.

However, because it was an ambush and annihilation war, the Japanese death rate was much higher, and at least more than 2000 Japanese were killed.

On the other hand, only more than a thousand Eighth Route Army soldiers were killed, and the rest were all wounded, many of whom were hit by the Japanese's poison gas bombs.

Fortunately, many of the poison gas bombs fired by the Japanese were tear gas bombs, so the casualties were not great.

As long as the injuries are not serious, the lightly injured soldiers can basically recover and return to the team after treatment.

Not only did they annihilate 3000 enemies and kill the commander of the Japanese 20th Division, but they also seized dozens of tons of combat supplies.

Overall, this battle was a win, and a big win.

After the ambush, all the troops retreated quickly with the wounded, and the New 1st Regiment also retreated to the area of ​​Shangzhuang Village.

The New 310st Regiment also suffered more than casualties, and the wounded were all sent to the field hospital at the headquarters.

There were only about 800 people left in the entire New 2000st Regiment. According to the organization of the Chinese army, a fully staffed infantry regiment must have at least people.

At present, all the troops have suffered losses, and Li Yunlong is embarrassed to ask the headquarters for veterans, so he decided to recruit soldiers himself.

but.

The current financial situation of the New 400st Regiment only allows Li Yunlong to recruit another new soldiers.

When recruiting new soldiers, we must not only consider the issue of weapons and ammunition, but also the issue of food.

It is easy to recruit 10,000 new soldiers, but you need so many weapons and ammunition to equip these new soldiers, and you also need a lot of food to support so many new soldiers.

In addition, the new regiment now has dozens of Japanese horses. These military horses are also big consumers of food, and they have to eat fine grains.

The more than 300 big mules of the New st Regiment were much more docile and easier to raise. They ate grass normally and only needed to be fed a little concentrated feed during wartime.

Zhong Zhicheng sat down on the combat stool and sighed.

Li Yunlong looked at the combat staff officer Zhao Gang standing beside him.

Zhao Gang said, "The news of our regiment's recruitment just spread yesterday, and this morning all the young and strong men who are suitable for military service from the surrounding villages and towns came here. There are more than 1500 people in total, including some militia and village self-defense forces. These are all qualified soldiers who insist on joining our new regiment."

The main source of food for the New 2st Regiment was still the 5 silver dollars given by Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan, which were used to buy food for the soldiers and provide relief to the common people.

However, the harvest in southeastern Shanxi was not good last year, and part of the harvest had to be handed over to Yan Laoxi's Shanxi government, which made life difficult for the people.

Fortunately, in the two ambushes at Wangdongbao and Guangyang, the Eighth Route Army captured a large amount of combat supplies, much of which was food. Otherwise, the Eighth Route Army would have had a very difficult winter.

The New 1st Regiment was a basic regiment, and had to provide its own food, manpower, weapons and ammunition.

If you do a good job, you can drink and eat meat every day during the New Year. If you don’t do a good job, you can only starve.

"I've shouted myself hoarse, and no matter how hard I try to persuade them, they just won't leave."

Political Commissar Zhong sighed:
"I'm out of options. I'm afraid you, Old Li, will have to take action yourself."

"If the commander goes in person, those young and strong men will probably not leave." Zhang Dabiao suddenly said.

"What's the matter?" Li Yunlong raised his eyebrows.

Zhang Dabiao said, "I've learned that these young men are coming for you, Commander. I don't know who chopped off the head of the Japanese division commander. The news has spread far and wide, and more young men are coming."

"I, Zhang Dabiao, have been a soldier for six years, and I've never seen a scene like this. Next to our recruitment office is the National Army's recruitment office, and they haven't recruited a single soldier."

Zhang Dabiao said with emotion that when he was a platoon leader in the 29th Army, he was also ordered to recruit soldiers in North China.

Because the 29th Army won victories in battles such as the Battle of Xifengkou, the people of North China were quite active in joining the 29th Army to fight against the Japanese army. However, their enthusiasm was far less than that of the people of southeastern Shanxi who joined the New 1st Regiment of the Eighth Route Army.

Zhao Gang said, "Besides, since you, Regimental Commander, chopped off Sakata Nobutsu's head and invented the code telegraph to mock Itagaki Seishirō, you've already become famous. Everyone in the village knows you. In folk storytelling, you're even described as a knight who can scale walls and climb rooftops, wield a rifle with both hands, and single-handedly kill hundreds of Japanese soldiers."

"Damn it!" Li Yunlong said with a rare wry smile, "People are afraid of being famous, just like pigs are afraid of being fat. It seems that being too famous isn't necessarily a good thing."

Zhang Dabiao asked: "What should we do now?"

"What should we do?" Li Yunlong said, "Let it go! Our current family wealth can only support 1300 people and a few dozen horses. The rest of us will have to starve."

"That's right!" Political Commissar Zhong nodded. "Recruiting too many new soldiers at once will also affect our regiment's combat effectiveness."

"However," Li Yunlong continued to think carefully, tapping his fingers on the table. "We can't let down our fellow villagers' enthusiasm... Let's add 400 more people to the original plan. I'll figure out the food issue."

Now the New 1st Regiment is well-equipped, so it’s not difficult to get food. All they have to do is rob those damn Japanese devils.

But at present, we can only increase the number by 800. If there are more new recruits, it will really affect the combat effectiveness of the new regiment.

"I agree." Zhong Zhicheng nodded in agreement. "For this first batch of recruits, we can select the young and strong ones with relatively good qualities. The rest can be organized into militia. They can train during normal times and farm during busy farming seasons. This will not delay training or farming, and they can also serve as reserve troops."

The headquarters had already planned to establish a base in southeastern Shanxi. Each main and core regiment was divided into territories and a local government led by the Eighth Route Army was established. In the past, the grain grown by the common people had to be shared with Yan Laoxi's provincial government and the landlords in a 30:70 ratio.

Seventy percent belonged to Old Man Yan and the landlords.

After the Eighth Route Army arrived, it decided to continue implementing rent and interest reduction as the basic policy to solve the farmers' land problems.

During the Red Army period, our army used rent and interest reduction and rent and interest resistance as strategic means to mobilize peasants to carry out the land revolution.

Under this policy, the people handed over much less grain and naturally supported the Eighth Route Army.

After the meeting, Zhong Zhicheng and Zhang Dabiao continued to go to the recruitment office to recruit soldiers, while Zhao Gang stayed at the regiment headquarters to teach Li Yunlong cultural knowledge.

Zhao Gang first developed a series of study plans for Li Yunlong, and then said: "Commander, I would like to make a suggestion for the cultural education of our new regiment's soldiers."

"Xiao Zhao, do you have any suggestions?" Li Yunlong looked up at Zhao Gang.

Zhao Gang said, "When our troops are not fighting, I don't have much to do. Considering the relatively low cultural level of our regiment's officers and soldiers, in order to improve their overall cultural and military skills, I plan to set up a night school in the regiment. It will mainly target soldiers with strong learning abilities, as well as a group of young soldiers, and teach them cultural knowledge, military knowledge, tactical command and coordination, map knowledge, international current affairs, and military history and case studies."

Li Yunlong asked, "You also know military knowledge and map knowledge?"

"I'm still learning. Military command and map knowledge aren't my strong points," Zhao Gang said. "I can teach cultural knowledge, international current affairs, and military history and case studies. Commanders at the battalion level and above in the regiment can be responsible for teaching military command and map knowledge."

"Not bad, Xiao Zhao!" Li Yunlong just thought about it for a moment and felt that Zhao Gang's suggestion was very good!

Although our army has a fine tradition of learning, the soldiers usually eat poorly, and most of their energy and physical strength are consumed by military training during the day, so the learning of cultural knowledge is mainly based on simple literacy.

But some people are born with better physical fitness, energy, and learning ability than others.

Possessing cultural knowledge and military command ability is a necessary condition for soldiers to be promoted to officers.

As for the grassroots officers and backbone soldiers of the new regiment, Li Yunlong could not always rely on his superiors and headquarters, but had to find ways to train them himself.

The night school proposed by Zhao Gang is a very good situation. It is equivalent to the New 1st Regiment setting up its own small military academy.

"That's a great suggestion!" Li Yunlong nodded. "Your night school can start tonight."

"Oh, right, Commander." Zhao Gang was delighted to see the Commander agree. He smiled and said, "I've taught you quite a few new characters these past few days. Headquarters sent me here to learn from you. When will you teach me some military knowledge?"

(End of this chapter)