Bright Sword: The Flowers of War

Chapter 151 Important Person
Su Yaoyang helplessly spread his hands at Lu Shaobin: "Hey Lu, now it's just me and Chief of Staff Pi left in the command post."

We have no manpower, but we have two lives. You might as well take us all and see what positions you can assign us.

These past few days, not only you, but also Lao Li and Lao Huang have been constantly asking me for people. But I'm not Sun Wukong, I can't just pull out a hair and conjure up a person. What am I supposed to do?
Chief of Staff Pi has already started an accelerated officer training program, can't you wait a little longer?

"I can't wait, my sir!" Lu Shaobin said with a bitter face, "You only gave us three months. If we still can't complete the training mission by the time the time is up, will you and Chief of Staff Pi be so merciful as to let the department off the hook?"

Besides, I've heard that the Japanese troops in Meng County, Xiangding County, and even Datong and Taiyuan have been frequently moving around today. They might be targeting us. We could be at war at any moment. How can I not be anxious?"

"Eh……"

Upon hearing this, Su Yaoyang and Pi Ruoyu exchanged a glance, both seeing the worry in each other's eyes.

Finally, Su Yaoyang bowed helplessly to the water and said, "You can go now. Let me discuss this matter with Chief of Staff Pi."

After Lu Shaobin left, Su Yaoyang pondered for a while before saying to Pi Ruoyu, "Old Pi... this can't go on like this. The army is currently lacking a large number of junior officers, especially squad and platoon leaders with combat experience."

"It's too slow for us to train them all on our own; we need to find a solution."

Pi Ruoyu said helplessly, "What can we do? This isn't Xuzhou; there aren't many places here where we can take advantage of others."

Su Yaoyang gritted his teeth and said, "Damn it, I don't believe a living person can be killed by holding in their pee."

"Okay... I'll send a telegram to Commander Li Zongren, asking him to send one or two hundred of our officers. In a couple of days, I'll visit Commander Yan at Kenanpo to see if I can squeeze anything out of him."

Upon hearing this, Pi Ruoyu couldn't help but laugh out loud: "Commander Yan is the kind of person who weighs even a sip of vinegar. Do you think you can get anything out of him?"

"It's all about human effort," Su Yaoyang laughed. "Anyway, it's a cloudy day for beating the kids, and we're just killing time. Even if we don't get the kids back, we won't lose anything, right?"

"To Kenanpo?"

Pi Ruoyu shook his head repeatedly without hesitation: "It's not that the Ministry is stopping you, but our Wutai County is more than a thousand miles away from Kenanpo, and we don't know how many war zones we will have to pass through along the way."

You are the backbone of our militia; if anything happens to you, our militia will fall apart.

"This……"

Su Yaoyang thought about it for a moment and realized that he had been a bit hasty.

Kenanpo is located at the southernmost tip of Shanxi, while Wutai County is located at the northernmost tip of Shanxi. To get to Kenanpo, one would have to pass through countless territories of power. One cannot possibly fight one's way through; how many troops would be needed?

Having finally managed to travel through time, if anything goes wrong, there won't be another big-headed doll to save me, and I might really have to see my great-grandmother again.

"Ok."

He thought for a moment and said, "How about this, I will personally send a telegram to Commander Yan to explain our situation. I'm sure he will understand."

Besides, isn't our Commander Yan fond of doing business? It shouldn't be unreasonable for us to cooperate with him under the guise of business and borrow some manpower from him while we're at it, right?

"Hmm...that's a good idea." Pi Ruoyu agreed with the idea after hearing it.

Kenanpo is located 30 kilometers northwest of Jixian County. It was originally just a loess hill with six households.

It consists of five ridges running parallel from west to east and sloping from north to south. Each ridge has an alluvial flat area, where crops are grown or peach trees are planted. Because it is a gourd-shaped independent mountain ridge surrounded by ditches and rivers on three sides and connected to the plateau on one side, its terrain is treacherous and easy to defend.

Therefore, after the Japanese army captured major cities such as Datong and Taiyuan, Yan Xishan led celebrities from all walks of life in Shanxi, as well as military and political personnel from the Second World War zone, to move here.

After nearly a year of construction, it was transformed into a small mountain town capable of accommodating more than 20,000 people, and for a time became a military stronghold of the Second War Zone and the political, economic, and cultural center of SX Province.

In an inconspicuous cave dwelling in Kenanpo, Yan Xishan, dressed in pajamas and wearing reading glasses, sat on the earthen kang (a heated brick bed) reviewing documents that had just been delivered.

At this moment, a gentle-looking woman dressed in a black dress and blue shirt walked in with a folder and placed the folder on the small table on the kang (a heated brick bed).

"Old man... this was just delivered from the confidential office. Section Chief Ma said there's a telegram that's quite important and you need to check it yourself."

"Oh... what telegram that you actually had Wu Xianzi personally deliver?"

Yan Xishan chuckled, then put down his pen, opened the folder, and began to browse through it.

As he looked at him, his brows began to furrow, and he remained silent for a long time.

The woman whom Yan Xishan called "Fifth Fresh Child" was named Yan Huiqing. She was the daughter of one of Yan Xishan's uncles. Because she was the fifth child in her family, Yan Xishan jokingly called her "Fifth Fresh Child".

Because Yan Huiqing was good at reading people and knew how to take care of them, she was assigned to Yan Xishan's side to take care of him.

Seeing that he remained silent for a long time, the observant man asked curiously, "Old man... who sent you this telegram? Was it from Chongqing?"

"No."

Yan Xishan smiled, then shook his head: "It was a telegram from a young man who said he wanted to do business with me."

"Doing business?"

Yan Huiqing couldn't help but chuckle. She had been serving Yan Xishan for a year or two, and this was the first time she had ever heard of someone wanting to do business with him. They were truly fearless young people.

Seeing Yan Huiqing laugh, Yan Xishan said in a serious tone, "Do you know what kind of business this young man wants to do with me?"

Seeing Yan Huiqing shake his head, Yan Xishan couldn't help but laugh and said, "He said that because his troops have just expanded, he wants to borrow two hundred junior officers from me to strengthen his troops. He really dares to think that way."

"Is there still this?"

Yan Huiqing had stopped laughing and was now staring wide-eyed in disbelief.

Even if she didn't understand military affairs, she still knew some basic common sense after spending so many years by Yan Xishan's side.

Whether a unit can be combat-ready depends not only on the commander's command ability and the level of weaponry and equipment, but most importantly on the quality of the unit's junior officers.

If we compare the military to a person, then the soldiers are the flesh, and the junior officers are the skeleton.

A stable physique indicates a person's combat effectiveness and ability to fight. Conversely, an unstable or even frail physique renders such a person useless. This underscores the importance of junior officers.

(End of this chapter)