Chapter 415 Long War

25 kilometers east of Dangtu County, Fang Qingkun frowned: "What's going on with the second battalion? It's okay to lose Chenzhuang before, but it's only been withdrawn to Lijia Village for a long time. Why can't you keep it?"

The adjutant beside him whispered, "The second battalion suffered great losses in the early battle of crossing the river. Although it added new recruits, its combat effectiveness is still very different from the past!"

However, Fang Qingkun said, "You don't know these, but even if our state is worse than before crossing the river, this is not the time to talk about difficulties. What I want is for them to keep it!"

As the first force to cross the river in the battle of crossing the river, the 33rd Regiment has been fighting on the front line since crossing the river, especially in the first three days as the main force against the counterattack of the 7th Division of the two rivers. Although it successfully defended its position, it suffered great losses, and the losses of soldiers and weapons and equipment were not small.

Although after the Fourth Army successfully crossed the river, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Munitions added a large number of soldiers, weapons and ammunition to the regiment, but the weapons and ammunition were not good, but the large number of new recruits were still difficult to completely dissolve in the 33rd Regiment for a while.

A force, especially a unit that has been in service for a long time and has experienced many wars, usually has its own unique style or atmosphere, which is more serious on those veterans.

In a class, the soldiers in a platoon often go through a long period of running-in training. After the test of war and blood, soldiers often have deep feelings between soldiers, which is the so-called friendship.

After a battle, the comrades-in-arms who had been together day and night fell down, and the surviving veterans quickly added a few strangers to take over their positions before they could be sad.

In addition to emotional rejection, most veterans have a quite bad attitude towards new recruits. In most cases, they are reluctant to pay attention to new recruits, because those veterans know that these newly added recruits rarely survive three fierce battles.

Among the thousands of recruits added to the Ninth Division in the past two years, in fact, most of them failed to survive three battles, and more than half were killed or injured in the first battle of their lives. Only a small number of people can survive the previous battles and become a veteran.

Only these surviving recruits can be accepted by the veterans and completely integrate into this unit and become the backbone soldiers of the Ninth Division.

Another data can show how big the gap is between veterans and recruits, and how much it costs for recruits to grow into veterans.

Of the nearly 16,000 troops in active service of the Ninth Division, about 12,000 are veterans who joined the army before 1905. In addition, there are about 1,000 soldiers who have been added and survived in the past two years. Of course, they have now grown into veterans. In addition, 3,000 people have just been added.

However, in the past two years, the Ninth Division has lost about 6,000 people (deaths, injuries, etc.), of which only about 1,000 are veterans, and the remaining 5,000 are all newly recruited recruits.

It can be seen that the proportion of casualties among veterans and recruits in this era is huge!

Why can the ninth division become one of the three main divisions of the Feng army? It's not because of its good equipment level. In fact, the equipment level of the Feng army's troops are relatively similar. The 9th Division has a 48-gun artillery regiment, but deployed in Henan. As the 13th Division of the second-line force, it also has a 48-gun artillery regiment, and the light and heavy machine guns are not much worse. Distance.

But who dares to say that the combat effectiveness of the 13th Division can be comparable to that of the 9th Division?

The reason why the three units of the 3rd Division, the 9th Division and the 10th Division can surpass other Feng army forces and become the absolute main force is that these three units are all the troops of the old standing army era. For example, the soldiers of the 3rd Division began to join the army in 1901, and the 9th Division and 10th Divisions were also common in 1903. He joined the army in 1904.

Most of their soldiers have been trained for three years or five or six years, and the tactical quality in all aspects is unmatched by those recruits who have just completed the training of the new barracks.

As a unit of the 9th Division, the 33rd Regiment originally had a large number of veterans from the standing army era. However, it suffered great losses in the battle of crossing the river. Many old key soldiers were killed or injured in the battle. Although the Ministry of Education has added a large number of new recruits, so that the current 33rd Regiment has a considerable number of troops. There are more than 2,100, but only one-third of them are new recruits.

Even after more than ten days of running-in training, it is certain that the combat effectiveness of the 33rd Regiment has declined a lot compared to the crossing of the river.

However, Fang Qingkun himself knows this, and he also believes that division commander Lin Yongquan also knows this, but the war does not mean that he can do whatever he wants. Whether the battle of the 33rd Regiment declines or not, it has to resist the offensive of the second mixed brigade of the Anhui army.

With no excuse or reason, Fang Qingkun must cooperate with the fourth mixed brigade to block the second mixed brigade of the Anhui army.

The 33rd Regiment fell into a hard battle, and the fourth mixed brigade next to it did not go well. Compared with the 33rd Regiment, in fact, the pressure of the 4th mixed brigade was greater, because the mixed brigade was the main force to resist the offensive of the second mixed brigade.

When the Feng army in the direction of Tu fell into a bitter battle, and there was even a danger that could not be defended, other troops of the Feng army launched a larger offensive towards Jinling.

Lin Yongquan just arrived at the periphery of Jinling with the Ninth Division. After a night's rest, the troops of the Ninth Division threw themselves into the attack on the periphery of Jinling.

With the reinforcement of Feng's troops, the Jinling Campaign, which was originally in a stalemate, also slowly changed.

"According to the war reports of various departments on the front line, our army is currently in the direction of Jinling and brings together four troops of the 3rd Division, 9th Division, 14th Division and 1st Mixed Brigade. The above departments have a total of about 150 75mm artillery, and there is also a heavy artillery battalion to provide long-range artillery support."

"As of noon today, our army has captured more than 20 positions on the outer defense line of the enemy's Jinling, killed and injured at least 2,000 enemy troops, and destroyed more than ten enemy artillery pieces!"

Listening to Fang Biyong's report, Zhao Dongyun did not feel any joy. He had invested heavily in the direction of Jinling. The troops participating in the war were all solid main forces of the Feng army, with a total strength of more than 50,000.

However, it is still difficult to gather heavy troops to attack a Jinling, which is only defended by the enemy's fourth division and several provincial military divisions. A week after launching a large-scale attack, it has not hit the city of Jinling, which makes Zhao Dongyun happy.

Not to mention that the troops in the direction of Dangtu were pulled out in order to support the direction of Jinling, resulting in the current Dangtu defense line being precarious.

Zhao Dongyun carefully looked at the battle reports of the troops on the front line. Half a day later, he did not say anything and waved directly to let Fang Bi go out forever.

At this point in the Battle of Jinling, Zhao Dongyun's own opinion is no longer important. Whether he is happy or angry, it is difficult to directly affect the development of the Jinling War. Nowadays, he is like a gambler who puts most of his value on the gambling table, waiting for the flop, whether he wins or loses. I can't control myself anymore.

After Fang Biyong went out, Zhao Dongyun did not stay alone on the map for long. He soon met another important military general.

The person who came is Major General Qin Linjun, who has a weak sense of existence in the Feng army. He is currently the director of the General Staff Department of the Commander's Department.

Qin Linjun, who graduated from the Third Mixed Association Camp School in his early years, and was then selected by Zhao Dongyun to study in Germany. After returning to China, like many German students, he served as a teacher at Fengtian Military Academy and served in the headquarters. In his early years, he served as a combat staff officer of the Operations Department. Later, he became the head of the Establishment Section and established After the command department, the establishment department was upgraded to the establishment department. He is still the director, and his military rank is also accumulated to the current rank of major general.

This person is different from most of the senior generals in the Feng army. In fact, he has no experience in field troops. He has been working in the headquarters and has been specializing in some pure theoretical problems all year round.

This person has been responsible for the establishment office for more than two years and has participated in and been responsible for many improvements in the establishment of Fengjun.

Today, he found Zhao Dongyun for the compilation problem.

As soon as he sat down, Qin Linjun, who didn't even drink tea, took out a thick pile of reports and said, "According to many battle reports of our army in the past six months, the Ministry of Staff deeply feels that there are some problems with the existing establishment of our army, which greatly affects the combat of the front-line troops!"

For Qin Linjun, a person who has been in the command department all year round, Zhao Dongyun has actually seen him more times. He knows that this person likes to point directly to the core of the problem and will not talk about it like other generals and officials before saying all kinds of worries.

"In the previous battle of crossing the river, the Ninth Division continued to suffer from the problem of insufficient supplies. This problem is not only in the stage of ammunition transportation across the river, but also after the ammunition is transported across the river, the Ninth Division lacks the ability to transport these ammunition to the front line several kilometers away."

Zhao Dongyun did not interrupt him, but continued to listen.

Qin Linjun continued: "Since our army's large-scale installation of mortars and light machine guns, ammunition consumption has further increased. Although our army added a small number of heavy troops in some troops last year, it is still far from enough on the whole."

"Therefore, the Ministry of Service recommends that the number of heavy troops in the army should be further increased in the future to effectively complete the supply task of the army!"

At this time, Zhao Dongyun said, "Oh, what do you think of the Office!"

Qin Linjun immediately handed in a report: "This is the new establishment of our army jointly formulated by our colleagues in the establishment office. Please also ask the president to have a look!"

Zhao Dongyun took over and opened it. He hasn't read the details below, but he saw this sentence at the beginning: If we want to give full play to the effectiveness of our army's existing weapons and equipment, and at the same time do not change our army's basic infantry tactics, then our military division-level troops need to increase to at least 18,000 in the future. Thousands of people, in this way, can fully exert the firepower of our army and improve the combat effectiveness of our army!

Seeing this sentence, Zhao Dongyun didn't read the following details and said directly, "18,000 people? Isn't this step a little big? Last year, we just increased the strength of division-level troops to 16,000!"