Chapter 238 Thousands of troops are easy to get, and one general is hard to find

The number of Russian troops hoarded in the two regions of Oskemen and Aledeka has reached 230,000, under the command of Zarubayev, the commander of the Northern Army Group, and Beard Green, the commander of the Southern Army Group, respectively.

Tursky Russia is a very strange country, which is different from the seemingly arrogant and domineering and diplomatic aggressive. The domestic media's propaganda is boiling, threatening to defend the national interests at the expense of bloodshed and occupy the Far East and Xinjiang. They are actually insufficient in military preparations.

Although Russia carried out two consecutive military conscription mobilizations in June and September 1900, adding 440,000 troops in the country, and transferred a number of main troops from the European front and the Balkans into the Oskemen to form a northern army, it was completely chaotic in the allocation of military equipment and materials. It's a lot of procrastination.

It has entered winter in Xinjiang Province. The northern army and the southern army are still applying for winter clothing, and nearly half of the temporarily formed southern army are still in a state of guns and bullets.

According to the statistics of the General Administration of Intelligence, even the main northern army has three armies and multiple reading regiments on the surface, with a total of 127,000 people. The actual heavy equipment has not been shipped from Europe so far. At present, there are only 134 75mm howitzers.

In terms of artillery power, the so-called main force of Russia is not as good as the Yeerqiang Khanate's reading army supported by France and Russia. Although the artillery of the Yeerqiang Khanate is relatively old, the total number is more than 300.

Intelligence proves everything. Russia is not ready for war. At present, it just wants to intimidate China with the so-called strong army force. They don't believe that China really dares to fight.

At least Nicholas II personally firmly believed that in front of the huge number and powerful Russian army, the army with a total of hundreds of thousands of "Qingzheng Axe" was not vulnerable at all, and he did not have the courage to go to war with the Russian Empire.

When Yang Zongli sent a telegram and Hu Chuyuan to inquire about the situation of the northwest front, Hu Chuyuan was secretly discussing this matter with Lu Guangzheng and Li Kaiye.

Hu Chuyuan's opinion is very clear. It is foolish to completely force Russia to break out all the potential of war now, but it is completely possible to defeat the so-called Yeerqiang Khanate before Russia is ready.

November 7, 1900, late.

The counterattack authorization order signed by Hu Chuyuan was issued to Li Kaiye. Since then, the military command of the Northwest Front will be officially controlled by Li Kaiye, and the divisions subordinate to the Northwest Front will be commanded on the spot.

Thousands of troops are easy to get, but one general is hard to find.

There is no doubt that Li Kaiye is the good general who was carefully selected by Hu Chuyuan and finally gave him full trust.

Hu Chuyuan even thought that if New China wanted to award the first army general... nine out of ten, it would be Li Kaiye, because this person was too powerful.

... The desert roared, and the yellow sand and white snow flew in the cold wind, pounced, sweeping away like a huge yellow and white wave.

It is the first time in Li Kaiye's life that he has seen such a cruel world.

He has been authorized by Hu Chuyuan and the General Staff of the Army. Now, he has become the commander-in-chief of the Northwest Front, with China's most elite Huguang Corps, as well as the Shaanxi-Ganning Corps and Xinjiang Provincial Corps.

Due to the lack of domestic reserve force, with the special approval of Hu Chuyuan, he began to transfer new troops directly from Hunan and Hubei provinces on a large scale in March to conduct training in Shanshan, Jiuquan and Lanzhou, expanding all eight divisions of the Huguang Corps to a wartime scale of 30,000 people per division.

The reserve of officers of the Shaanxi-Ganning Corps can certainly not compete with the most elite Huguang Corps in China. At present, it has only increased to 4 divisions and temporarily expanded to the scale of integrated divisions, with a total of 82,000.

The Xinjiang Provincial Corps has only one division for the time being, but there are more than 40,000 people, mainly local soldiers. The awareness of defending the mainland is very strong, and almost all of them join the army with their own horses.

However, the number of grass-roots officers in the Xinjiang Corps is seriously insufficient, and the actual combat strength and military execution ability are not very strong. In Li Kaiye's mind, this is only a second-line force.

With the secret expansion of his troops in the northwest to 370,000, and the expansion of the new barracks of the four major regiments of Huguang, Jianghuai, Qingxu and Zhili, the number of domestic firearms has bottomed out. Arsenals all over the country are urgently producing new Jiangnan rifles, while Laiwu Arsenal and Fuzhou Arsenal are producing Browning. Rifle.

Fortunately, the stock of 7.62mm pointed bullets is very sufficient.

The Oakland Arsenal and Colt Arsenal in the United States are stepping up the production of new Browning rifles, and many other firearms manufacturers... including the Springfield Arsenal in the United States have also been authorized to produce new Jiangnan M1894 rifles, and are producing rifles and bullets on a large scale to supply the needs of the Chinese market. Please.

Arsenals in Kuching, Beiyue Haiphong and the Philippines are also speeding up production.

Li Kaiye is still very confident in the pure competition for productivity.

Although the headquarters already has six reliable military off-road vehicles, Li Kaiye is still used to riding. In the heavy wind and snow, he rides a hippocampus with cypress bloodline, black hair and white hoofs, commonly known as stepping on snow.

He likes the name.

There are not many such war horses in China. The Shaanxi-Ganning Corps mainly uses Hequ horses and Mongolian horses, and the Xinjiang Provincial Corps mainly uses Yanqi horses, which are supplemented by Mongolian horses for those that are insufficient.

Li Kaiye feels that it doesn't matter. Mongolian horses also have the benefits of Mongolian horses, especially in such a harsh environment.

The snow swept the wind and sand. He took dozens of cavalry of the guard company all the way to Tokson County in the wind and snow. In the large Gobi Desert at the southernmost part of Tokson County, at the foot of Tianshan Mountain, the newly formed 33rd and 35th Divisions of the Huguang Corps were hidden.

The establishment scale of these two divisions is relatively small, with less than 20,000 people, but they are all elite soldiers transferred from the Huguang Corps, and hundreds of young non-commissioned officers from Huguang from the three army colleges of Changsha, Wuchang and Nanchang.

These people have only one goal, which is to cultivate China's first new mechanized corps.

A few miles away from the barracks, Li Kaiye had already seen dozens of armored vehicles galloping in the desert, followed by hundreds of soldiers.

Because the number of armored vehicles in active service is still too small, in order to train a sufficient number of drivers, each armored vehicle has to undertake four groups of internships. After service, these armored vehicles have hardly stopped running.

Hold the horse. Li Kaiye looked at it from a distance with a telescope. At a glance, more than 30 armored vehicles were divided into three groups according to different functions and models, followed by infantry columns of nearly two battalions.

The white armored car ahead is the car of Sun Daoyuan, the commander of the 33rd Division. He is the captain and onlooker himself, and he is also watching the surrounding terrain and the formation of the armored forces with binoculars.

The large-scale operation of the mechanical corps is a major issue that is being solved, involving personnel quality, tactical planning, logistics supply and maintenance and other aspects. Although the Army General Staff has given a set of systematic answers, it is still only on paper and needs to be passed. Large-scale practical testing.

Li Kaiye has no definite answer to this. Most of the time, he will silently infer in his mind.

At present, the infantry gun armored vehicle TZB-2 is the absolute main force and core of the mechanized corps. It has many advantages such as fast speed, good mobile surname, excellent off-road and obstacle-crossing, strong firepower, average armor protection and so on.

With TZB-2 as the core, it uses a wide range of circuitous operations of trucks and cavalry to raid the opponent's supply line, cut off the opponent's best retreat route, form an arched encirclement, use the slower self-propelled artillery units, cooperate with the artillery columns of each regiment to carry out fire cover attack, and finally organize a large-scale siege. Offensive, anniiry the opponent.

Or use TZB-2 to forcibly break through the opponent's blockade and trenches, divide the inside of the opponent's army into multiple small-scale troops, concentrate firepower to destroy the two-wing troops, and encroy on them one by one.

These are two more appropriate tactics in Li Kaiye's mind. He believes that this is also the most important way of combat for the mechanized Corps.

If TZA with more defensive armor and firepower is officially in service, it will take TZA as the main core force to carry out assault operations. TZP is responsible for cooperating with conventional artillery to carry out fast-moving concentrated fire artillery, and then TZB will complete the assault and cut-off attack.

At the same time, the army used trucks, off-road vehicles and armored transport vehicles to carry out rapid mobilization on a large scale to carry out lightning operations around the three systems of armored vehicles.

Of course, this is a more perfect mechanized tactic.

Quick!

Li Kaiye believes that the biggest feature of the mechanized regiment's tactics is not the strong attack and defense, but "fast" and lightning-like piercing through the opponent's most important defense points. The real large-scale combat is still to be determined by the regular troops.

The mechanized corps cannot be stopped. It must continue to march, cut, and outflank the opponents, and ensure the formation of mechanized troops, cavalry units and conventional troops.

The small-scale tactical cooperation exercise of the 33rd Division gradually came to an end, and Li Kaiye continued to ride his horse into the drill ground.

Seeing that he was coming, Sun Daoyuan immediately asked people to drive his TZB-2 infantry gun armored vehicle to meet him. More than ten meters away, Sun Daoyuan jumped down fiercely and ran to Li Kaiye in a few big steps.

Sun Daoyuan saluted and shouted loudly, "Sun Daoyuan, the commander of the 33rd Division, has met the officer!"

Thirty-seven-year-old Sun Daoyuan is a big-faced, rough-skinned and dark person. His surname is bold and resolute. He seems to be a rough man. In fact, he has read a lot of Chinese and foreign classics. He has studied mechanical and chemical engineering and other professional knowledge in Germany, which can be called a knowledge-based general.

Li Kaiye returned the gift with a whip and still rode on his horseback. He asked Sun Daoyuan, "How is the training?"

Sun Daoyuan replied: "Report to the governor, our 33rd Division plans to list 80 TA1, 420 TB2, 110 TP3, and 570 other auxiliary vehicles. At present, the replenishment rate of active vehicles is less than 30%. However, our drivers and maintenance personnel have been trained... Now If the planned vehicles can be replenished, our 33rd Division can go directly to the battlefield.

Li Kaiye nodded with satisfaction and said, "Don't worry about the auxiliary vehicle. It can be replenished next month. The production of Model T cars has been accelerated. I just confirmed with the Prime Minister yesterday that more than 300 new cars will be put into service at the end of the month. However, we are asking for it. Zhili Corps and Qingxu Corps are also asking for it. Don't worry.

The times created heroes. When he participated in the first Qing War, Sun Daoyuan was only 27 years old. He graduated from Fuzhou Art School, the predecessor of Fuzhou Army Academy. He studied at the Army Academy in Berlin in Germany for two years and was urgently transferred back to China to serve as the commander of the artillery column of the first battalion in Huguang.

After the war, Sun Daoyuan returned to the Army Academy in Berlin, Germany to continue his studies. At the instruction of Hu Chuyuan, he studied German [***] thought while tutoring mechanical expertise.

In 1895, Sun Daoyuan returned to China to serve as the brigade commander of the artillery brigade of the first division of the Huguang Corps. At that time, he was directly under the control of Li Kaiye.

Li Kaiye jumped off the horse and boarded a TZB-2 infantry cannon armored vehicle in person. He drove by himself. Sun Daoyuan also climbed into the cockpit. The two talked a little and discussed some necessary improvements and dissatisfaction.

Li Kaiye likes horse riding very much, but he knows in his heart that it won't be long before the whole Huguang Corps will begin to enter the process of mechanization. As the first commander of the Huguang Corps, he must be the most proficient in the characteristics of mechanization.

Therefore, he also worked hard in driving the locomotive. Every once in a while, he came to the training base to inspect, drive in person, and participate in training and tactical exercises.

TZB-2 simply can't compete with the speed of cavalry. At most, it is the speed of a small donkey, but they can drive non-stop for 24 hours... or even for several days and nights in a row. Coupled with the defense and firepower of armored vehicles, this group advantage is incomparable to the cavalry.

Only by sitting in the cockpit can Li Kaiye especially understand the changes and elimination of this era. He is particularly aware that as long as more than 100 new TZB-2 armored vehicles officially arrive at the base, he is fully confident that he will completely defeat the Yeerqiang Khanate forces and Russia stationed in Uskmen and Aledka. Army Group North.

Of course, like Hu Chuyuan, he is also very ambitious.

This result of the war can't satisfy him. He wants to continue to attract the main force of Russia to move to the northwest front, defeat the opponent at one time, and cut off the supplies of the entire northeast front.

At that time, no matter how Yang Zong Li fights, he must be the one who ranks first in the credit book.

He drove this armored car skillfully, but what he thought of was Yang Zong Li, the five tigers of the Philippines in the past. Except for Yang Zongyue, who was still in the Philippines, the other four had returned to the motherland.

He thought that it was time for the five tiger generals to be high and low.

He.

Li Kaiye is the first person.

This idea flashed by, and Li Kaiye did not continue to think about it. He focused on driving the armored vehicle and leading other vehicles back to the base together.

In the Gobi Desert base at the foot of Tianshan Mountain, the 33rd and 35th Divisions are concentrated here. Thousands of vehicles are scattered and stopped, and there are also many test vehicles specially used for dismantling and maintenance training. Soldiers and technicians gathered around the locomotives and followed the engineers appointed by the Fuguo Manufacturing Plant to learn maintenance technology.

On a farther and wider field, hundreds of vehicles conduct driving class training around various artificial obstacles.

In the valley on the west side, a large gasoline reserve base is being built, which can store 7,000 tons of gasoline. In Shanshan, there is a 100,000-ton reserve center to cope with the westward expansion of the entire mechanized regiment.

At that time, a large amount of gasoline was hoarded to Shanshan, and then transported all the way to Wusu and Huocheng through the railway through Shanshan. Through these two areas, it was transported to the divisions by trucks and oil tankers, accompanied by the whole mechanized regiment to the whole of Kazakhstan.

Hu Chuyuan's guaranteed target was to raid the occupation of Omsk, and the highest was to hit Tyu Ming.

Looking at this large base from afar, nearly 37,000 troops are concentrated here for intensive training. Li Kaiye can already imagine the future in his heart. In half a year, the two divisions will officially take shape.

At that time, he could really do a big job.

(to be continued)