Chapter 251 Why are your four regiments not short of supplies? "Political Commissar, is the military region short of money now?" Qin Yangming glanced at Li Yunlong who was being scolded, shrank his neck, and thought it was good for him to chat with the political commissar. The political commissar exhaled a puff of smoke and nodded. "Of course we are short of money. The Taihang Military Region has just been established and we need money in all aspects. The lighters you gave to me and the brigade commander have all been sold. Good boy, those lighters you gave us are quite valuable. We sold them for three hundred dollars. It's because our 386th Brigade has a strong foundation, otherwise we wouldn't be able to withstand the division commander's setting up of two sub-military regions at once. In other words, our 386th Brigade has sufficient foundation. Relying on the foundation of the 386th Brigade, we can establish and sustain the Taihang Military Region. However, it is not easy for the 385th Brigade to support the Taiyue Military Region. Their foundation is not as strong as our 386th Brigade, and the division headquarters is also trying to establish the Shangdang Military Region, so they cannot provide too much support.
A while ago, the commander of the 385th Brigade approached our commander and borrowed 5,000 silver dollars and 2,000 guns. "That is to say, you built so many fortifications on Baihu Ridge so that the 385th Brigade could directly use Baihu Ridge as its headquarters. Otherwise, it would be difficult for the 385th Brigade to choose a place for its headquarters." Qin Yangming was somewhat confused after listening to the political commissar's words. "Political Commissar, weren't we in Taiyue before? Logically speaking, we have developed many places in Taiyue. Is the 385th Brigade in such a difficult situation? Do you still want to come to our brigade to borrow money and guns?" Qin Yangming was a little confused. Logically speaking, the Taiyue Military Region had been developed by the 386th Brigade for such a long time that it should have all kinds of foundations. When the 385th Brigade arrived, it directly took over an existing military region. Logically, its development should not have been so difficult. Unlike the Taihang Military Region, although the division headquarters has developed a part of it, this area is generally located at the junction of Shanxi and Hebei, surrounded by the Japanese on both sides, and development is relatively difficult. Otherwise, there would not have been a plan to ask the 386th Brigade to abandon Taiyue Mountain and come to Taihang Mountain to form the Taihang Military Region. Listening to Qin Yangming's words, the political commissar glanced at Qin Yangming and said. "You don't know how expensive firewood, rice, oil and salt are until you run a household. The landlords are used to the easy life and have no idea how difficult it is for other troops. Your Vanguard Corps is a large and powerful organization. Even if you transfer a thousand guns from the Vanguard Corps now, it will not have any impact on the Vanguard Corps. But it's different for other troops. Although we have seized a lot of weapons and equipment over the past year. But at the same time, each unit also recruited a lot of new soldiers. Relatively speaking, the weapons are still somewhat insufficient. The entire Eighth Route Army, that is, our 386th Brigade, was able to equip all combatants with a rifle, and each soldier could be issued at least 40 rounds of bullets during battle. A platoon can have two light machine guns. A company can be equipped with two grenade launchers.
A battalion can be equipped with a tactical machine gun platoon consisting of one or two 60mm or 75mm mortars and a heavy machine gun. A regiment should have at least one machine gun platoon equipped with 82mm mortars, Type 92 infantry guns, mountain guns and heavy machine guns. Most of the troops in our 386th Brigade have been equipped with heavy machine guns at the battalion level. A regiment has at least four heavy machine guns, four to five mortars, and one or two direct-fire artillery pieces. Then the second one is the 385th Brigade. The 385th Brigade can basically provide 30 rounds of bullets to the soldiers. They are able to do it, but not like us, which can provide at least 40 rounds of bullets. As for light machine guns, a company has only four. Heavy machine guns were equipped at the regimental level, with two to four heavy machine guns in one regiment. Then in terms of artillery, basically a regiment will have two to three mortars or one direct-fire artillery. The artillery battalion directly under the brigade headquarters of the 385th Brigade is a mountain artillery battalion formed by the Shanghai-made Ke-type mountain cannons that you handed over and sent over from our 386th Brigade. And they only have eight mountain cannons." "Unlike our 386th Brigade's artillery battalion, which has a total of 16 Type 94 mountain cannons obtained from you. If the headquarters didn't have those 105mm howitzers, our brigade's direct artillery battalion could be said to be more powerful than the headquarters' heavy artillery regiment. Sixteen mountain guns, in the past, I wouldn't even dare to think of it." Listening to what the political commissar said, Qin Yangming couldn't hear anything wrong. He felt that the 386th Brigade was quite wealthy now. Although the 385th Brigade was a little worse, it was not that bad. Besides, the 385th Brigade is located on the border with the Luliang Military Region, so it only needs to face the Japanese invaders in Shanxi. Its weapons and equipment are already quite good. Although the 386th Brigade was well-equipped, that was because the Brigade not only had to face the Japanese in Shanxi, but also the Japanese in Hebei. The 385th Brigade only had to resist the Japanese invaders. The 386th Brigade directly protruded out and penetrated into the Japanese occupied area, facing the Japanese from three directions. "Didn't you hear anything difficult?" Seeing Qin Yangming was a little puzzled. The political commissar's party membership made it clear that Qin Yangming had not heard of any difficulties the 386th and 385th Brigades were facing. Listening to the political commissar's words, Qin Yangming nodded truthfully. “Well, I really don’t hear any difficulties. I think our two brigades are developing very well. Any questions? " “That’s because you seem to be doing pretty well now. A telegram came from the division headquarters that young and strong people in the entire Shangdang area had signed up to join the army enthusiastically, and that young and strong people from various regions continued to pass through the blockade areas of the Japanese and the Kuomintang and come to the areas controlled by our Eighth Route Army to request to join the army. Now the number of new recruits in our Shangdang area alone has reached 30,000. These 30,000 are good soldiers who can be directly sent to various main forces after completing training in the Shangdang Military Region, and they do not include full-time and part-time militiamen recruited by various local forces.
We have recruited so many new soldiers, 30,000 new soldiers, so we need to prepare at least 30,000 rifles. Now the total number of our entire 386th Brigade is only 30,000. Don't tell anyone about this, keep it a secret, just keep it to yourself, don't tell that big mouth Li Yunlong. For 30,000 people, in addition to weapons and equipment, each person must at least prepare a new uniform and a set of bedding. We have to provide them with food and give them some allowance. Think about it, how much food and cloth is needed to feed 30,000 people? I'm not afraid of you laughing at me, I asked the logistics department to dismantle all the Japanese uniforms for me. Three sets of Japanese uniforms plus some other cloth can directly make four sets. As for the beddings, I asked the logistics department to make them smaller so that we can save some materials. Clothes and other things are easy to deal with, the most important thing is food. A large area of Shangdang was plundered by the Japanese, and there was not much food left. There are so many young and strong people all of a sudden. Thirty thousand young and strong people are just in the initial stage. By then, our 386th Brigade will be able to get at least 20,000 new recruits. I don’t know how to get food for them later. Even now the logistics supply of the 386th Brigade is just barely maintaining its operation. If there were 20,000 more people, with the current reserves of the 386th Brigade, it could only last for half a year at most. It will be winter in half a year, and by then...the troops’ wintering will also be a big problem. So the brigade commander and I sold everything we could, exchanged it for money, and asked our comrades to go to Hebei to buy food. The brother troops in Hebei were being besieged by the Japanese and were no longer able to provide us with food support. Everything from now on had to rely on ourselves. Do you understand what I mean?" The political commissar saw Qin Yangming looking at his nose with his eyes and his heart with his nose, so he stood up and asked. Qin Yangming certainly didn't understand what the political commissar meant. It turns out that the political commissar was not trying to help him get rid of the brigade commander and prevent him from being scolded, but was trying to complain to him and take food out of his hands! "Well, Political Commissar, my vanguard group is also short of food. Zhangye is so anxious that his hair has turned white. The brigade is short of food, and there is nothing I can do about it." "Oh? Is the Vanguard also short of food?" "Why shouldn't I think so? Last time I led the guard battalion to your place, the food was not provided by the Vanguard Regiment. As a result, when we came back, half of the soldiers had diarrhea. I asked the doctor to take a look and he said that the soldiers in the guard battalion had eaten a large amount of meat in a short period of time and their stomachs couldn't adapt to it, so they had diarrhea. " As soon as Qin Yangming finished speaking, the brigade commander walked around Li Yunlong, walked to the side of the political commissar, looked at Qin Yangming with a smile and spoke. "I heard that the four of you regiment commanders can ensure that every recruit can eat half an egg or two taels of meat every day. When I went there, I saw that the veterans from your four regiments all had ruddy complexions, and some even had almost two chins. Tell me the truth, how did you four regiments manage to have so much meat and so much food?" The brigade commander originally planned to wait until the four regiments finished this battle before asking the four regiments what was going on. Why were they able to replenish so much meat and food to the troops? This was really strange. Other troops were short of food, except for their four regiments, and even at the beginning when there were only two regiments, the New 1st Regiment and the Independent Regiment, they never asked their superiors for food support. That is to say, Ding Wei later requested the brigade headquarters to allocate a batch of fodder to the new regiment for emergency use.
At first, the brigade commander didn't notice anything was wrong. Until the political commissar found him and said that all the troops had been complaining about the lack of food recently, and mentioned that the number of new recruits had increased significantly recently, and they needed to prepare food reserves for the winter in advance. Then he took the guard battalion to Fu'an County as a referee. After returning, half of the soldiers in the guard battalion had diarrhea. After asking the military doctor, we found out that it was because the food provided by the independent regiment was so good that we could eat as much braised pork and white facial mask as we wanted. The soldiers who had just joined the Guard Battalion ate meat desperately. The independent regiment’s kitchen staff thought that it was because of the high consumption due to training, so they increased the portion of the second meal. The Guard Battalion’s table was full of fat meat. As a result, the soldiers in the guard battalion ate so much that their stomachs couldn't take it anymore. After all, the brigade only eats meat once every three days. After the brigade commander made inquiries, he found out that the four regiments had meat every day. Especially for the soldiers in the new recruit camp, each soldier can get an extra half egg every day. In addition, a soldier even has three sets of uniforms, specifically distinguishing between training uniforms and combat uniforms. After a deeper understanding, the brigade commander originally thought that these four regiments were already wealthy landlords in terms of equipment. I didn't expect that he was even more generous than the landlords in treating the soldiers. Even the landlords and rich people dare not eat meat every day, nor can they afford to eat meat every day. And what about Qin Yangming and others? Soldiers from the guard battalion reported that some soldiers in the independent regiment had become picky and said they no longer liked eating the fat meat, saying it was too greasy. I hope the kitchen staff can extract the oil from the fat. My goodness, they are so rich that the soldiers even start to dislike the greasy fat. The brigade commander had initially considered that perhaps it was because the four regiments were about to engage in a battle, or a major one, and because they had just defeated the 4th Brigade, so the food had not changed and was intended to be available until the end of the battle. After all, it is a tradition to have a good meal before a battle. But judging from the situation of the four regiments, it is obvious that it is not as simple as just eating something good before the battle. So the brigade commander felt very strange, wondering where the four regiments got so much food and meat to provide for the soldiers. Moreover, most of the spoils of the four regiments were handed over, especially in terms of money, as the four regiments did not have that much money to buy food. Fighting against the landlord is not something that only four groups can do. There is a special team in charge of the big landlord, and the four groups did not violate any rules. "Tell me your methods honestly. I don't want your food. Just tell me your methods." Listening to the brigade commander's question, Qin Yangming and Li Yunlong looked at each other. "You didn't tell the brigade commander?" "You didn't tell the brigade commander?" "I thought you had reported it." "What are you two doing? Explain everything to me quickly. Where do you get all the food and meat?"
The brigade commander interrupted the exchange of glances between Li Yunlong and Qin Yangming, and directly pressed Qin Yangming to ask how the two of them got so much food. "No, Commander, I thought you knew about this, so I never told you. In addition to the combat troops, our four regiments also have special mule and horse teams. Did you know this?" "Of course I know that. The four regiments, especially the New 1st Regiment, the Independent Regiment, and the Vanguard Regiment, have a lot of mules and horses." "Yes, especially Qi Tao, the captain of the cavalry company of the independent regiment, who used to be a herdsman. So the four of us have done breeding ourselves.” Seeing that the brigade commander didn't know where the four regiments got so much food, Qin Yangming immediately explained to the brigade commander why the four regiments had no shortage of food supplies. (End of this chapter)