Chapter 8 The Exercise Begins

Now it is only half a month away from the drill. Although Zhao Dongyun also knows that it is impossible to train these people into elite machine gunners in just half a month, at least you have to practice something on the surface, at least you have to practice in front of those Beiyang bosses who come to watch the performance!

In addition, the reason why the Beiyang Army under Yuan Shikai's combat effectiveness has exploded other troops in China is that in addition to the army formation and training methods, there is another very important point, that is live ammunition training!

Overall the domestic armies, the only army that can carry out high-intensity live-fire training all year round is the Wuwei Right Army. The vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army and the Self-improvement Army are barely half. As for the other old armies in the country, they can't shoot a few bullets throughout the year.

For example, a live-fire drill half a month later can only be made by spending tens of thousands of silver. In the eyes of those old soldiers, if they spend tens of thousands of taels of silver to play live-fire drills, it is better to distribute cigarettes to every soldier!

The old army at the end of the Qing Dynasty can be described as smoking together and fleeing together!

Without Zhao Dongyun's own words, other officers around him also know the importance of live ammunition training. Lin Yongquan said, "We have found a lot of old bullets from several warehouses, which is enough for us to train for a long time!"

The bullets mentioned by Lin Yongquan refer specifically to the bullets used in the old Maxim machine gun. These bullets are still produced before the Jiawu, and can only be used on the old Maxim machine gun. The new Maxim can't use these old bullets.

The four new Maxims smuggled from Russian arms dealers in Zhao Dongyun's hands are actually four unlike. Although the gun frame is Russian, the gun body is German, that is, the body of MG99. The bullet fired is naturally a German standard bullet, that is, a 7.92 mm machine gun bullet. This There is no production line for domestic bullets, so they have to be imported from Germany.

In the next half month, Zhao Dongyun still focused on the second battalion. He didn't need to pay much attention to other training of the army. Everything just followed the usual training, but he paid a lot of attention to the machine gun team.

And he also guides the machine gun team to train according to his own memory. For example, he deploys two machine guns at both ends of the position, and finally shoots diagonally into the middle, forming a cross blockade line. This shooting effect is much stronger than frontal shooting.

However, Zhao Dongyun mostly put up an outline proposal, which also needs to be improved by Lin Yongquan and several other grassroots officers of the machine gun team. For example, the specific staffing of the machine gun was made by Lin Yongquan and others. A heavy machine gun team has a commander, a main shooter, a deputy shooter, and a gunner. ! However, this is only a superficial system. In fact, due to the heavy weight of the machine gun itself and the terrible consumption of ammunition, and the current military is only so much, and there is no shortage of people, there are three additional riflemen and gunners.

The above is still a front-line combat organization. In fact, in addition to the fighters of the above machine gun group, there is also a large part of the logistics personnel in the whole machine gun team, which is also the reason why the machine gun team with only eight Maxim machine guns has more than 150 people. Specifically, nearly 20 people serve one A heavy machine gun.

While paying attention to the machine gun, Zhao Dongyun also planned to get barbed wire, but he could not find a large amount of barbed wire in a short period of time, so he had to retreat and prepare to replace the barbed wire with a wooden refuse horse. Although the effect was not great, it was better than nothing.

In addition, there is also a very important point that he asked the troops to increase the training of digging trenches during daily training such as lining up, shooting, etc. The trenches are no stranger now. The right army of the armed guard was originally equipped with a large number of military shovels, but in the past, people knew that this The shovel is not used much, and the trenches are not paid much attention to.

After a month of Zhao Dongyun's intense preparations, on December 18, Guangxu 27th, the drills of the Wuwei Right Army and the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army finally began!

The Wuwei Right Army sent the second battalion of the right wing, a team of cavalry, a team of artillery, and half of the engineering troops to form a Northern Army of more than 2,300 people.

The vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army sent seven battalions on its left wing, as well as a cavalry battalion, an artillery battalion, and an engineering battalion, forming a southern army of more than 7,000.

In terms of troop strength, the Northern Army that participated in the exercise had a great disadvantage, but in the view of many generals at that time, the Northern Army was not very inferior.

First, this exercise is the main defense of the Northern Army and the main attack of the Southern Army. In the case of defense, the inferiority of the Northern Army can also be alleviated to a certain extent.

Second, the weapons and equipment of the Northern Army are much better than those of the Southern Army. Wuwei's right-arm rifle is a uniform Manlixia, and the artillery is also imported new Grusson artillery, while the equipment of the Southern Army is uneven. There are not only the new 7.92mm small-caliber Mauser rifle, but also some 11mm large-caliber Mauser single-arm guns. In addition, there are other messy single-shot rifles. Install a gun. In addition to rifles, although the number of artillery of the Southern Army is not small, they are also old-fashioned artillery.

Third, it is recognized that the quality of the soldiers and officers of the Wuwei Right Army is far better than the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army. The Wuwei Right Army is a new army newly established by Yuan Shikai based on the German army. Soldiers are all newly recruited good sons, and at the same time, they carry out year-round live ammunition training. In terms of the quality of officers, Wu In addition to some officers of Tianjin Military Academy, the Wei Right Army is more grass-roots officers trained by themselves through the camp school. In addition, the Right Guard Army also gathered a large number of officers who studied abroad and returned to China. Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun are two obvious examples.

Although the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army was established as the model, the foundation is still the old army in Shandong, not some of the bad habits of old-style officers.

Therefore, in everyone's view, the actual combat effectiveness of the two armies with an obvious gap of these four points is still relatively large, which is also the reason why the North Army has fewer troops and the Southern Army has more troops, because if the number of troops is the same, then it will have to fight, and the Southern Army will directly admit defeat.

For Zhao Dongyun, in addition to the above four points, the eight machine guns in Zhao Dongyun's hand are also his great victors.

In order to better simulate the actual combat atmosphere, this exercise site is set in a wasteland more than 20 miles south of Baoding. The Southern Army simulates the attacking side, while the Northern Army simulates the defensive side to block the Northern Steps of the Southern Army!

In this wilderness, Zhao Dongyun and other officers sat together. This time, Wu Changchun, the governor of the Northern Army, sat in the head position. This man was about 40 years old. This person's military experience was very rich. During the Xianrenwu Incident, he was in chaos in the dynasty and the First Sino-Japanese War. During the struggle, he fought in Lushun and Japan himself. After Yuan Shikai trained troops at a small station, he served as the commander of the second battalion of the right wing, that is, Zhao Dongyun's current position.

In the past two years, he had the opportunity to expand the Beiyang Army. He was promoted as quickly as others. A few years ago, he was just a battalion, but now it is divided. Moreover, this drill is another opportunity for Wu Changchun. If he plays well, he can be transferred to the Standing Army to serve as an auxiliary commander.

At this time, the meeting has been held for more than half an hour. Wu Changchun looked around and then turned his eyes on Zhao Dongyun: "The focus of this battle is to defend Ping Villa. As long as you can guard the master of the village, you can cut off the road of the southern army to the north. Dongyun, what do you think of this?"

After hearing this, Zhao Dongyun immediately said, "In the opinion of the Ministry, the focus of stopping the Southern Army from going north is on Ping Villa, and the rule of Ping Villa is in Hill 4 and Hill 5, as long as our army can hold these two hills and arrange artillery on this hill!"

As Zhao Dongyun spoke, he pointed to the huge map on the desktop and said, "Being condescending is enough to block this area and this area!"

In this way, although our number of guns is insufficient, it can still pose a sufficient threat to the enemy attacking Ping Villa. In this way, the enemy will not be able to open the passage to attack Ping Villa with superior forces. If they want to attack Ping Villa head-on, they must first capture Hill 4 and Hill 5!"

Speaking of this, Zhao Dongyun paused slightly and said, "If we can deploy artillery forces on Hill 4 and Hill 5, and deploy enough defensive forces at the same time, then our northern army will win this battle!"

After listening to Zhao Dongyun's words, many other officers nodded, but some showed obvious doubts. The people present were all professional officers. Zhao Dongyun could see the importance of Highlands 4 and 5, and others could not see that the reason why everyone had not proposed to stick to Heights 4 and 5 before. It is because these two highlands are said to be highlands, but the height is not high. The key is which side of the attack against the southern army is a gentle ramp, and the front is extremely wide. As long as the southern army gathers the main force to launch a concentrated attack, the defenders will easily be unsustainable and passive.

So someone immediately objected: "If my artillery venture out to these two places, how can Brother Zhao ensure the safety of my artillery position!"

This is talking about Qin Huiyun, the leader of the artillery team. Naturally, he can see that if he deploys his artillery to these two places, he can not only go forward to fight against the enemy, so that a small amount of artillery fire is enough to block the whole Ping Villa, but also rely on the reverse slope behind the two highlands to avoid the enemy's gunfire! But he can also see that these two places are not easy to guard.

At this time, Wu Changchun also showed doubt. He did not understand why Zhao Dongyun said this. He still knew a little about Zhao Dongyun. Knowing that Zhao Dongyun was admitted to Tianjin Military Academy and went to Germany to study. Speaking of the theoretical knowledge of the new army, Zhao Dongyun was in the whole Wuwei. The right army is also in the top of the platoon, otherwise this person would not have been in the fourth grade and climbed to the position of the infantry battalion in just one year after returning to China.

Such a person is a rising star of the Beiyang system! Wu Changchun also valued him, but he did not expect that Zhao Dongyun would guard the No. 4th and No. 5 highland, as if others did not know the importance of these two places. At this time, Wu Changchun had quietly given Zhao Dongyun a comment: so far away!

However, these comments in his heart will naturally not speak. He immediately said, "Oh, Dongyun, how do you want to guard these two places?"