Chapter 1213 Dont forget to hit the iron when marching!
In the end, the people of Jinxi County who came to see him off or watched on the spot donated more than 60,000 yuan worth of property!
This is definitely a huge sum of money for a mountainous county. After hearing Tang Dao report this amount, many recruits in the field began to figure out how much they could share, even if it was just one or two yuan, most of which came from
The farm children in Yushan Village are also very satisfied.
However, Tang Dao, as a military officer, refused the money. Instead, he donated his military salary for the next three years on the spot and asked the county magistrate to establish a foundation to support military families.
As long as people from Jinxi County join the 22nd Army, the 23rd Army, or other units, as long as they join the army and go out to fight against Japan, if their family members encounter difficulties in life, they can apply for living subsidies from the foundation.
And if there are war dead, their parents, wives, and children, regardless of poverty or wealth, can receive additional living allowances from the foundation every month according to the number of immediate family members.
In order to ensure that the fund has sufficient funds to pay, the fund will be commercially operated by the Tangjia and Jinxi County Chamber of Commerce to ensure that the fund is in and out. The county government will supervise fund operations, expenditures, etc.
As soon as the idea, which was considered novel in this era, came out, the recruits who were a little restless at the scene suddenly calmed down.
This was far better than what they had imagined before, and it basically solved all their worries. Even if they could never return to their hometown, their parents, wives, and children would still be able to make a living.
Eating will never lead to a homeless life.
County Magistrate Song, who was moved by Tang Dao's impassioned lecture, was now completely conquered by Tang Dao, and seeing that Tang Dao trusted him so much, he left such a big matter of the foundation to him to run.
, and even swore to the sky on the wooden platform in front of the recruits and the people.
"Song entered the officialdom as a junior official, experienced the dangers of officialdom, and became the head of a county in more than 20 years. The ups and downs of officialdom have long forgotten the dream of his youth. Fortunately, the soldiers and civilians in the audience are generous and high-spirited today, so that
Song Mou has regained his past memories!
Today, Chief Tang of the Si Xing Group has entrusted me with a great trust. Although Song has a humble official position, he hereby promises all the fellow villagers in the county: The Japanese pirates will not be exterminated, and the Song will not leave Jinxi.
I am a family member of the army of Jin Xi! If you violate this oath, Song will be exterminated from the world!" Magistrate Song, wearing a robe, stood on the stage, blue veins popped out on his forehead, and he pointed to the sky with three fingers.
"The war will be won!"
"Our Sichuan army will win!"
"My son will win!"
Amidst such chants, Tang Dao sat back on his horse and left with Lu Sanjiang and others with their heads held high.
Tang Dao promised the recruits that he would give them half an hour to say goodbye to their relatives. The rural road three miles away was where the entire recruit queue would gather again.
From here, this group of recruits will go with him to a market town thirty miles away, where hundreds of carts and 2,000 pack horses have gathered. The largest 'baggage team' in the history of Jinxi County will
It will cross 2,500 miles of thousands of mountains and arrive in southeastern Shanxi.
The slogans are loud, but the cries are also loud!
The mother is holding her son, the wife is holding her husband, and the son is holding his father. They are inseparable!
Half an hour is as short as seconds!
The gongs and drums suddenly sounded, the lion dancers shook their lion heads vigorously, and the time to say goodbye finally arrived.
The recruits wiped away the tears on their faces, broke open the arms tightly hugged by their relatives, found their squad leaders who had raised their own flags, and lined up to rush towards the five men and five horses standing in the distance.
In less than two months of training for new recruits, many of them may not have been able to hit the wooden target fifty meters away, but the veterans have told them countless times that military orders are like mountains, and anyone who does not respect military orders will be killed!
That word is definitely not used in vain. On the battlefield, the muzzles of the supervising team and the law enforcement team are equally hot!
At least you can get a pension if you die on the front line. It would be such an injustice if you die here.
Therefore, despite the fact that this group of soldiers who should be called peasants are relatively new, after nearly ten minutes of gathering, only about 200 people were still standing outside the queue, not because they were late, but because they were in a panic and couldn't find their squad.
In the platoon, they could only run over in a chaotic manner.
Tang Dao did not enforce military law on the spot, but ordered all the soldiers who were not included in the queue to form another team. With a wave of his hand, the army set off on the road.
After arriving at the market town to collect various supplies that needed to be transported, Tang Tuanzuo had ordered that the entire army, including himself, must march on foot.
It’s nothing. In this era when cars and horses are rare, hiking is as commonplace for mountain people as drinking water and eating.
Two-thirds of the new recruits have no rifles, and the old sleeves used in the previous training will be reserved for the training of the next batch of new recruits. In other words, the 1,500 people trained by Tang Jili have Hanyang-made rifles, but every
They were only issued 20 rounds of ammunition, and together with water bottles, small food bags, quilts, etc., the weight of an individual soldier was only about 10 kilograms.
Under such a light load-bearing condition, let alone walking for a month, as long as you ensure enough food and drink, even three months will not be a big problem.
But obviously, they thought too much.
It would be so easy to deliver hundreds of thousands of kilograms of grain to the front line.
The ordnance purchased by Tang Dao from Shancheng was transported in special carts, about 20 carts and 20 pack horses. Tang Dao handed it over to the 75 veteran instructors who led the team.
Everyone asked for a gun and kept grenades at their side. They were the only armed escort in an army of thousands of people.
But the remaining nearly 600,000 kilograms of polished rice, white flour, soybeans, etc. all depend on the recruits.
Based on the number of carriages and pack horses, Tang Dao required an infantry squad of 15 people to be responsible for one cart and seven pack horses.
There are 4,500 recruits, excluding the 75 veteran instructors who were required to escort the ordnance and the more than 180 soldiers who did not have time to return, there are a total of 280 infantry squads. The military order issued by the Tang regiment requires that after each recruit squad arrives at the destination, all
The weight of various grains transported shall not be less than 2,000 kilograms!
That means that if a large vehicle carries 1,200 kilograms, each of the seven pack horses will have to carry more than 100 kilograms of supplies to barely be enough.
That's all. The carts are reinforced with hard wood. Each cart has two pack horses. If it is just towed, it can carry more than 1,000 kilograms. Plus 15 people and 7 horses, the weight of 2,000 kilograms
Transportation volume is absolutely guaranteed.
But from Jinxi to the front line of the Second War Zone, it takes more than 2,000 miles at least. Calculated by marching 60 miles per day, it takes more than 30 days at least. Everyone has gone to transport supplies. In these 30 days, everyone
What do you eat and drink with 9 horses?
Tang Tuanzuo's military order also made it very clear that unless there is an attack or losses caused by extremely bad weather, those who fail to transport materials with a weight that meets the standards will be dealt with according to military law!
Moreover, Tang Tuanzuo also set an example. As the supreme commander, he brought an orderly and three second lieutenants, a total of five people. He did not have to be responsible for carts and horses, but he also had to transport 700 kilograms of grain. On average, he was the same as the new recruits.
They are pretty much the same.
The sturdy war horses under the five-person seat have actually become temporary pack horses. Including all weapons and equipment, each war horse has a load of more than 150 kilograms.
In order to ensure food consumption for the five horses and five people on the road, Tang Dao, Ming Xin, Long Yan, Lu Sanjiang, and Xia Dayu, in addition to carrying pistols close to their bodies, also made poles on site from hard tree trunks cut down and carried them on them.
Got the food bag.
Xia Dayu is the youngest and has not fully grown yet. The grain on both ends of a shoulder pole weighs 40 kilograms!
Ming Xin looked thin, but the grain bags on both ends of the pole were frightening to look at, and even a fierce man like Long Yan grinned when he picked them up.
That weight can be a full 100 kilograms. The thought of carrying so much supplies over mountains and ridges for a month would probably make anyone's head buzz.
But obviously, they didn't see Tang Tuanzuo. The weight of Tang Tuanzuo's burden was an almost abnormal 150 kilograms.
Lu Sanjiang and Long Yan estimated that they also carried 70 kilograms and 80 kilograms of grain respectively. The five people carried a total of 440 kilograms of grain, an average of 44 kilograms per person and horse. If they could arrive in 30 days, it would still be enough to support the troops.
Consumed.
With the commander taking the lead, the recruits in the infantry squad also came to their senses. Didn't the commander mean that in addition to the grain to be transported, the rest they could bring was their own rations for the past 30 days!
If you can bring more, then eat more; if you bring less, then you can barely make ends meet!
Sichuan people have always been hard-working, but what they want in life is to have enough food and then set up a dragon gate formation in a circle or something like that!
So, the recruits followed suit and chopped wood from the mountains to use as shoulder poles. Those who were strong could carry more, while those with weak bones could carry less. The average amount of food carried by one person was about 40 kilograms.
However, this is enough for people to eat, but what about horses?
Whether it is a cart or a single packhorse, it is the main force of transportation and the key to ensuring the transportation of 2,000 kilograms of grain. We would rather leave people hungry than ensure the physical strength of the horses.
Soybeans turned out to be the first choice of these infantry squad recruits who came from farmers. Many infantry squads carried as much as 400 kilograms of soybeans, far more than Sichuan people's favorite rice.
Moreover, every time you go to a campsite, you will see herdsmen all over the mountains and plains. The recruits, whose physical exhaustion has reached the critical point, never forget to replenish their companions with fresh forage.
Maintaining the physical strength and health of the packhorse is undoubtedly the greatest guarantee of transportation capacity. In this regard, the recruits have shown unprecedented excellence.
But their shortcomings are equally huge.
His physical fitness is so poor that it’s hard to look at him!
First of all, Sichuan people are originally short and thin, and are not as big as a northern man like Lu Sanjiang. As the saying goes, the body is strong and the body is strong. If you are shorter, you will naturally have less strength;
Secondly, in this era, materials are underdeveloped, nutrition is difficult to guarantee, and strength is naturally far inferior to that in the future;
Thirdly, he had just experienced ten years of internal war in Sichuan Province. The tobacco in Sichuan Province could almost be used as currency. Even in the war, he did not forget to bring his pipe. This physical condition can be imagined.
On the first day, we only marched a total of 50 miles, but most of the recruits collapsed on the ground as soon as they arrived at the camp and didn't even want to eat.
More than 180 "cooking soldiers" had to deliver all the prepared white rice and broth before I could barely finish the meal, and then fell asleep.
This means that in Sichuan Province, if it reaches a war zone, it looks like this. It is estimated that a Japanese infantry squadron can defeat this 'baggage train' with more than 4,000 troops. Xia Dayu even thinks that this is too much.
Already.
Let me talk about it here, let the more than 180 soldiers who were late to return to the army serve as cooks, and two people were responsible for the meals of the three infantry squads. This was Tang Dao's military treatment of them.
Each person has to carry an iron pot, oil, salt and other cooking equipment and materials, which weighs more than 40 kilograms. What's even worse is that after arriving at the campsite, others can rest, and they have to bury the pot to make rice.
Maybe the only good thing is that people who can’t cook can become a cook in just over a month.
Otherwise, if dozens of hungry men cursed at the same time, few of them would have such a strong psychological quality.
Of course, meat, eggs and other vegetables do not need to be carried by soldiers and cooks themselves. They are transported by special carriages. If they pass through a town, Tang Dao will also have people buy some fresh vegetables, and there will often be local people along the way.
Beat the gongs and drums to bring some food to the laborers.
Except for the basic survival rice and noodles that need to be carried by the soldiers themselves, vegetables such as meat and eggs are provided by the army.
This is actually the second training session Tang Tuanzuo gives to the new recruits, a physical training session.
A large amount of weight-bearing and long-distance marches drained the recruits' already insufficient physical energy, but they also ensured sufficient nutrition so as not to damage their still young bodies.
In the first three days, we marched 50 miles a day, and finally waited for the new recruits to get used to the load and distance. But on the fourth day, Tang Tuanzuo asked us to march 60 miles a day, but the distance was less than the prescribed distance, even though it was already dark.
, and camping is not allowed.
By the 8th day, the marching distance had reached 70 miles, and the marching time on the road every day was nearly 2 hours longer than before.
The condition of the recruits every day is almost the same as the first day. As soon as they arrive at the camp, they are exhausted after laying out their uniforms. They snore like thunder just after dinner. They sleep until six in the morning and then repeat the previous day's routine.
story.
This kind of pain that squeezes physical energy to the extreme caused the recruits to complain a lot in private, but no one dared to say it to their faces.
In fact, their top commander was just like them. Everyone could see that Tang Tuanzuo carried his two big food bags every day, marched on the mountain road like them, and also had to deal with various military affairs.
In terms of hard work, Tang Tuanzuo, as the supreme commander, had a much harder time than the rest of them.
No one has doubted whether Tang Tuanzuo's exaggerated-looking two large grain bags were real. During a break during the march, an infantry squad leader who sat with Tang Tuanzuo tried to approximate them.
Then, there are really not many people who can really carry a load of more than 100 kilograms and walk tens of meters.
Tang Tuanzuo can travel dozens of miles at a time.
With such a dedicated officer, and they did not treat them badly in terms of food on the road, each person had three meals a day, with meat, eggs and fresh vegetables for dinner. Even if the military order was a bit harsh, who could say anything?
"I understand, the regimental commander is like a blacksmith, and these scumbag recruits are the scrap metal. Use this to gradually turn them into fine steel!" On the fifth day, Long Yan finally looked like he had a sudden realization.
Lu Sanjiang rolled his eyes. Wasn't this obvious when the military order was issued? Do you still need to mention it specifically?
Yes, despite the fact that these Sichuan recruits have already been trained, and the so-called 'elite soldiers' Tang Jili specially prepared for his son have been trained for half a year, in Tang Dao's view, they are still too bad.
Even for recruits trained with the same training standards as the Four Lines Regiment, the probability of becoming veterans is only 50%, which means that the death rate of the recruits in their first three battles is nearly 50%.
That is a fact that Tang Dao cannot change!
From Tang Dao's perspective, the probability of these new recruits becoming veterans is only one in five, and if they want to survive until the end of the war, the probability is even despairingly small.
Facing the soldiers from his hometown, what Tang Dao can do is to squeeze their potential before they enter the battlefield. Otherwise, if they cannot become stronger quickly, they can run faster and jump higher.
As for another basic skill of soldiers - shooting, Tang Dao has its own methods.
It took ten days for the huge "baggage train" to cross the mountainous areas of western Sichuan, pass through the plains of central Sichuan, and enter the mountainous areas of northern Sichuan.
Many infantry squads' food supplies have been half consumed, and their burdens have been greatly reduced. However, the food shortage crisis hangs over the recruits' minds.
At this rate of consumption, even before we leave Sichuan and enter Shaanxi Province, everyone will have to eat three meals a day.
Tang Tuan Zuo stipulated that each person should be provided with three or two meters of rice or noodles and one or two pieces of meat and one egg. The cooking soldiers would receive it according to this rationing system. If the food was not enough, the meat and egg rations would also be reduced accordingly.
Then, as the load lightened and the march speed accelerated, the time to arrive at the camp was in the afternoon. There were still three full hours before dark. Tang Tuanzuo issued a military order to march in the mountainous areas. Each infantry squad could send out five people and two people every day.
Free hunting with 10 bullets for the gun to replenish military supplies.
As a result, all kinds of pheasants, rabbits, wild boars and other wild animals deep in the Qinling Mountains suffered. The recruits who were eager to replenish food even went more than ten miles away from the campsite to 'hunt wild'.
Fortunately, there are no enemies here. Even if there are bandits, they will run as far as they can against regular troops wearing military uniforms and carrying live ammunition.
If you don't run away, it will be miserable. Soldiers are not stupid people. Once they ask the mountain people and detect that there are armed guys with guns, knives and forks deep in the mountains, they will often unite dozens or hundreds of people together.
Surround.
In this era of extreme poverty, if bandits can have more than a dozen guns, it will be a big bandit den, most of them are carrying machetes. There are opponents of the regular army with dozens of guns, even a group of new soldiers!
Once a bandit's den is raided, that guy will have food and money!
Tang Dao's military order is very clear that as long as you are a bandit, all the harvest belongs to the infantry squad, as long as you can carry it.
With the first successful example, didn't the recruits look for local bandits with red eyes as soon as they arrived at the camp?
Tang Dao doesn't care about any tactics and only distributes firearms, all of which are left to the infantry squads themselves.
If there are gains, there will naturally be casualties, but those are within the range that Tang Dao can bear.
If they can't even defeat these low-class bandits, how can they fight the Japanese?
However, Tang Dao is still a man from the future after all. Before allowing the recruits to "fight in the wild", he also drew a special illustrated book. For example, black and white bears, monkeys with golden fur, birds with red heads, etc. cannot be beaten.
Otherwise, when these hungry and eager recruits cross the border, I am afraid that the 'national treasures' in this area will not even be qualified to be national treasures in the future.
On the twentieth day of the march, the army had arrived at Qingmuchuan Town at the junction of the three provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi. As soon as the field radio carried by Tang Dao was turned on, it suddenly received an emergency message from the theater headquarters.
Even Tang Tuanzuo, who was always aggressive and bold, couldn't help but take a breath after seeing the contents of the message translated by Xia Dayu.