Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 80: Sweep and Counter-sweep
With such treatment, it goes without saying that if the special cavalry company recruits people in the future, it will definitely be able to recruit the best soldiers.

Of course, although the most common soldiers in a cavalry company are at the deputy squad leader level, not every squad has a deputy squad leader.

You must know that after Wang Gensheng captured the Huting stronghold this time, he seized about 300 Type 38 rifles, so the New Second Regiment could naturally expand its army.

That’s right, the speed of the Eighth Route Army’s expansion does not depend on whether it has weapons or not, but on how many guns it has.

You have to know that the Eighth Route Army was located in an occupied area controlled by the Japanese devils. Therefore, except for those Japanese traitors, the vast majority of ordinary people were naturally the oppressed party.

Where there is oppression there will naturally be resistance, so naturally there are many people willing to join the Eighth Route Army to fight the Japanese.

Therefore, what the Eighth Route Army is worried about now is not the lack of soldiers, but the lack of guns.

As for the problem of guns, we can only rely on robbing them. We have to go to war, rob the Japanese, and rob the traitors. The industrial difficulty of manufacturing guns and the industrial difficulty of reloading bullets are simply not on the same level.

Smokeless gunpowder, explosives and the like can be made using traditional methods, but it is impossible to make guns without a large number of machine tools.

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However, when Wang Gensheng told the firepower team leader Baili Xiu and the reconnaissance team leader Li Xiu that all the soldiers in the cavalry company were deputy squad leaders, Baili Xiu was immediately surprised.

"What? Every soldier in the cavalry company is a deputy squad leader? What about the cavalry company? Is it going to be disbanded right here?"

Wang Gensheng shook his head at Baili Xiu's words.
"He's just acting deputy squad leader, holding a position. He'll remain in the cavalry company as before. The purpose of this is to boost the enthusiasm of our special cavalry company soldiers!"

After saying that, Wang Gensheng looked at Baili Xiu and Li Xiu again. Although they were the team leaders of the firepower team and the reconnaissance team, this was only the internal name of the special cavalry company. To the outside world, they were still the second and third platoon leaders of the cavalry company, which were platoon leader positions in the Eighth Route Army.

After seeing the two of them feeling somewhat uncomfortable, Wang Gensheng finally spoke:

"Although you are team leaders, this is only an internal title within our Special Cavalry Company. Externally, you two are platoon leaders, but what about the soldiers under you? They have followed us through life and death so many times. It can be said that most of the equipment of the New Second Regiment was captured by our Special Cavalry Company. If such achievements were placed in other teams, they would at least be deputy squad leaders, not just squad leaders!"

As expected, following Wang Gensheng's words, Baili Xiu and Li Xiu felt a little ashamed. Wang Gensheng looked at his two capable men and comforted them:

"Of course, I've seen both of your abilities. After a while, I'll apply to my superiors to have you two promoted to positions like deputy company commander!"

Sure enough, when Wang Gensheng said this, Li Xiu and Baili Xiu immediately became happy.

Facts have proved that Wang Gensheng's approach has a positive effect on the soldiers of the entire special cavalry company.

At least, after Wang Gensheng announced this order, the training enthusiasm of the soldiers of the entire special cavalry company increased significantly.

After the fighting enthusiasm increased, Wang Gensheng naturally did not hesitate and began to continue the outward expansion strategy.

He led the cavalry to continue sweeping the Japanese bunkers outside the base area and the towns where the Japanese invaders were stationed. Under such circumstances, Wang Gensheng expanded the New Second Regiment from 2,000 to more than 3,000 people in just half a year.

Although this scale cannot be compared with the later independent regiment, it is more than enough to compare with the main regiment such as the 772nd Regiment. The current independent regiment can no longer compare with the new 2nd Regiment in terms of number of people and weapons.

However, such good days had to come to an end with the Japanese invaders' large-scale mopping-up operations.

Fortunately, they were not completely unprepared. After all, the Japanese's large-scale sweep naturally required preparations in advance. Therefore, the news of this large-scale sweep was learned in advance by the Eighth Route Army, so they issued an order to break out in a dispersed manner.

"Wang Gensheng, don't disperse your special cavalry company this time. After all, you don't have many people, only one company..."

However, before Kong Jie could finish his words, Wang Gensheng interrupted him:

"Commander, I don't think we need to break out separately. We can rely on the fortifications in Wangjia Village to engage in positional warfare and street fighting with the Japanese! This will delay the Japanese mopping-up forces and buy time for the people in our base to retreat!"

But Wang Gensheng's words made Kong Jie hesitate:

"But, what we're doing is tantamount to disobeying orders!"

It was obvious that Kong Jie still had some resistance to disobeying orders. When Wang Gensheng heard this, he immediately shook his head and said:

"I don't think this counts as disobeying orders! Let's first fight a positional battle with the Japs to attract them, and then disperse after getting rid of them!
Besides, Commander, our regiment is different from other regiments! If we retreat, the twenty tons of ammunition and food in our regiment's warehouse will all be lost to the Japanese. Even if we blow up the ammunition and burn the food, it will be a waste! So it's better to have a big battle first to use up the ammunition! Moreover, even if the ammunition and food can be buried on the spot, our New Second Regiment's combat power will not have much chance of winning against the Japanese in the wild! "

Kong Jie listened to Wang Gensheng's analysis and found that it was indeed true. Not to mention the problems of ammunition and food, even a wild encounter would be difficult to deal with.

What's more, Kong Jie also understood why Wang Gensheng insisted on luring the Japanese to Wangjia Village. This was naturally because there was a very long underground passage in Wangjia Village, so even if they were surrounded by the Japanese, they could escape calmly.

So after just a little thought, Kong Jie agreed with Wang Gensheng's battle strategy, and then said with a smile:
"I think you've been waiting for this day! The trenches outside the village were dug just for this day!"

Wang Gensheng naturally smiled and agreed to this. After all, having traveled through the "Bright Sword", how could Wang Gensheng not know that the great sweep in 1942 had caused heavy losses to the Eighth Route Army!
You should know that in this mopping-up operation, the New Second Regiment suffered the heaviest losses, losing two-thirds of its troops, while the Independent Regiment was slightly better, losing half. As for Ding Wei's New First Regiment, it only lost one-third.

Because of this, since Wang Gensheng is in the New Second Regiment and is also the deputy commander of the New Second Regiment, he naturally has to consider how to reduce the losses of the New Second Regiment.

After much thought, the best way was to use the tunnel to escape the Japanese encirclement.

In order to maintain the safety, Wang Gensheng had to lengthen the underground escape passage of Wangjia Village from the original two or three miles to ten miles.

(End of this chapter)