After thinking for a while, Wang Guangyu said again: "I know that in order to be lightly armed during this long-distance attack, you only carried a heavy mortar battalion reinforced with two Japanese 150 heavy mortars. Facing twenty For a Japanese heavy-armed division like the Third Division, your firepower may be somewhat insufficient."
"In this case, don't you still have a batch of spare horses seized from the Mongolian army? I will give you three more 120mm mortars and six more from some of the weapons that Ren Guang collected from the Mongolian army warehouse. Men82 mortars, as for the artillery shells, as long as they don’t affect the movement of the troops, you can bring as many as you can.”
"Take all the spare horses with you, load as much ammunition as possible, and ask the chief of staff to allocate a sum of funds to you. If you encounter Mongolian herdsmen who have the best horses along the way, buy them. Although these horses have not been trained as war horses and cannot be used as war horses yet, they can still be used as pack horses or draft horses."
"This is a special case. I authorize you to violate discipline once. If you encounter a Mongolian herdsman's horse, you can buy or sell it by force. But remember, you have to keep the money. If you kid rob the Japanese and puppet troops, you can rob the common people." Don’t take your things seriously, buy a horse and don’t pay for it, don’t say I ripped off your skin.”
"Also, although Ren Guang told me that he did not take the light weapons from the Mongolian army warehouse, I know that this guy secretly hid ten Soviet-made Maxim water-cooled heavy machine guns in a car with a military blanket. He wanted to Strengthen the infantry firepower of their first division when necessary. Now that I know about it, I still want to hide something. There are such good things there."
"I also asked him to bring them to you. Although these machine guns are a bit bulkier, their performance is still good and their range is long. As long as the cooling water is ensured, they are still quite powerful. After strengthening these weapons, you The firepower density can be increased by about 30% compared to the original."
"Judging from the terrain there, as long as you deploy your firepower and troops appropriately and don't concentrate all the troops on a hilltop and let the Japanese artillery cover them, even if all the 23rd Division is dispatched, you will be able to hold on for eight hours. There shouldn’t be any big problems.”
"However, you are also a veteran. Although you are leading cavalry now, you have also graduated from the military region's senior commander training course. You still know the basic tactics of infantry. Although this kind of mountain warfare is not your strong point, but I don’t think you need me to teach you how to fight."
Having said this, Wang Guangyu looked at the cavalry brigade commander in front of him expressionlessly and said: "I'll give you what's yours, and it's yours if I shouldn't give it to you. I should approve your policies and approve you, but I shouldn't. The approved policy has been given to you, but if you can't arrive at the designated place on time and can't stick to the required eight hours, I will settle the score with you later."
In the last paragraph, Wang Guangyu said it very seriously. When the cavalry brigade commander heard what he said, he did not dare to say anything. He just nodded solemnly and turned back to his troops to deploy. The meaning of Wang Guangyu's words , he heard clearly that if he could not arrive at the designated place on time and affected the development of the battle, his superiors would not be able to forgive him.
Although long-distance raids are the strength of the cavalry, he was not daunted by this task. With a dissatisfied cavalry brigade facing the main force of a Japanese division, he had nothing to fear. Soldiers exist only to fight. Yes, he was afraid of fighting, so why should he be a soldier? But running such a long distance in such a short time made him somewhat feel sorry for his horse.
Although the distance from East Ujimqin Banner to the location designated by the commander is more than 200 kilometers even in a straight line, in this case, a long-distance attack without rest in the middle will cause great damage to the horses. After all, the horse power is not unlimited. Yes, just like people, they need to rest after running for a long time. People need to eat, and horses also need to drink water and feed.
The horses currently equipped by the cavalry brigade are not the simple Mongolian horses and horses native to the Northeast, nor are they the variegated horses used by the original resistance alliance. Although the Northeast itself produces horses, due to the strict blockade of the Japanese army, the original resistance horses The cavalry basically used whatever horses they caught.
For the Anti-Union cavalry, even the Oroqen horses produced only in the northern part of the Greater Khingan Mountains are good horses. However, the horses currently equipped by the military region's cavalry are all captured Japanese stallions used by the military region, as well as Soviet Don horses imported at a huge cost. It is a cross between Caucasian and Mongolian horses.
Whether it is long-distance maneuvering or short-distance sprinting, these war horses are very easy to control. The agility of these horses is also very good. Not only is their endurance during long-distance marches no less than that of Mongolian horses, but their ability to sprint short distances is also not as fast as that of Japan. War horses, in terms of height alone, are much taller than Mongolian horses, and even much better than the war horses that the Japanese spent a lot of money to train.
A long-distance attack like this with basically no rest time in between will do great damage to the horse power. A large part of the war horses will probably run out of action. Even non-cavalrymen know very well what it means once the war horses run out of action. , how could this kind of loss not make the cavalry brigade commander who loves horses very much feel heartbroken, but an order is an order, and military orders are like mountains, and no one can violate them.
In desperation, he could only order his troops to use captured Mongolian horses as much as possible during long-distance raids in order to save the physical strength of his own horses as much as possible. However, the number of captured Mongolian horses was limited and they had to carry heavy equipment. Next, he has made up his mind that whenever he encounters the best Mongolian horses along the way, he will buy them by force regardless of whether they sell them or not.
Anyway, the commander has given an order, allowing him to buy and sell by force. As long as he can save the physical strength of his own war horses, he can't control that much. Even if he is forced with a gun, he has to buy them. If too many of his war horses are used up at one time, Then you don't feel bad about yourself.
Although the Mongolian horses here have not been trained and can only be used for riding, they can at least save a lot of energy for their war horses. Moreover, although the Mongolian horses are a little shorter and their sprinting speed is not fast, they have good endurance. Strong, especially the endurance for long-distance marches, is absolutely first-class.
What's more, this place is located in the Xilin Gol Prairie, which has been the main producing area of Mongolian horses since ancient times. Especially the East Ujimqin Banner is rich in Ujimqin horses, the best breed of Mongolian horses. I heard that Genghis Khan, the ancestor of the Mongolians, The guards of the Qing Dynasty and the war horses of the Qing emperor were all selected from this kind of horse. Since the emperor chose this kind of horse as a war horse, there must be no difference.
Although it is shorter, it is still good for long-distance raids. Of course, it would be better if you can get a famous iron-hoofed horse that can march long distances without holding hands. Although the East and West Ujimqin Banner is not the origin of iron-hoofed horses, it is far away from here. The birthplace of the iron-hoofed horse, Keshiketeng Banner, is also very close. It is nothing compared to the war horse that I use now. When I was in the Anti-Alliance Third Route Army, I rode a shorter Oroqen horse.
As an old cavalryman, he knew the types of horses in the Northeast and even Inner Mongolia very well. He knew where the best horses were. When he was following the Anti-Alliance Army, the cavalry of the Sixth Army retreated into the Soviet Union, squatting with the Soviets. While in prison, he once drooled with envy at the tall Don horses and Caucasus horses of the Soviet cavalry.
Once upon a time, in the Anti-Japanese War, which mainly relied on horses native to the Northeast, anyone who could get an authentic Mongolian horse would definitely make others jealous, and a captured Japanese war horse would be regarded as a treasure. Likewise, now he looks down on those short Mongolian horses that are less capable of sprinting over short distances. The human environment has changed, and his appetite has grown.
What this horse-loving guy didn't expect was that during the long-distance attack on Linxi, he actually managed to steal a special weapon for the Puppet Mongolian Army and the Puppet Manchukuo Army in the West Ujimqin Banner. , as well as the military horse farm where the Japanese garrison in Mongolia used their war horses.
Let this guy capture more than 3,000 best Mongolian war horses in one fell swoop, and all of them were fine Ujimqin horses. Not only did his cavalry brigade become one man and two mounts, but among these war horses, Among them, he also discovered two famous iron-hoofed horses.
These two horses were originally intended to be given to the Emperor of Japan by the puppet Mongolian autonomous government as so-called national gifts. They were accepted by him without hesitation and became his mounts. These two horses were deeply loved by him, even the jeep assigned by their superiors. He later gave one of the horses he wanted to a cavalry regiment commander in the pass, and the remaining horse followed him all over the country, until he reached the northwest.
In fact, this guy who still dislikes the slow sprint speed of Mongolian horses in short distances doesn't know. If his idea is known to the troops out of the customs inside the customs, they don't scold him to death. Due to the restrictions of geography and the Japanese blockade, the troops inside the customs There are only a few cavalry regiments, and most of the horses equipped are variegated horses, except for a small number of captured Japanese war horses and smuggled Mongolian horses.
In other words, due to the lack of horses, whatever horses are available are used. Even many horses are not suitable as war horses in a strict sense. In addition to the source of horses, economic reasons also cause the cavalry of the Guan Nei Army to be used. One reason for the small number is that the cost of feeding one cavalry is enough to feed five infantry. For the poor Tubal Road, this cost is a bit too high.
This time, only one cavalry regiment from the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and the 129th Division came out to participate in the war, as well as two cavalry regiments formed by temporarily collecting horses. However, the only ones with real combat effectiveness were the original two old cavalry regiments. As for those The two new regiments barely managed to gather together horses and men.
Oh, in fact, even the most basic horses are not neat and tidy. There are a small number of horses. Because they cannot raise enough numbers, they are replaced by mules produced in the Jizhong Plain. In the eyes of the Japanese, horses are related to medicines and electronic equipment. The same strategy requires strict management of supplies. It is not easy to get enough horses.
Even so, in order to gather the horses for these two newly formed cavalry regiments, not only all the cavalry companies from each division were gathered, but also a lot of the war horses of the regiment-level commanders were collected and replaced with donkeys or mules. As soon as the two cavalry regiments were dispatched, the donkeys neighed and the horses brayed, which was quite lively.
It was not until the end of this battle that a large number of Mongolian horses from various Mongolian alliance flags in Rehe and Chahar were used to form several cavalry regiments. Now, for the cavalry units in the pass, authentic Mongolian horses can be obtained Being a war horse is the dream of almost every cavalry commander in the Guan Nei army. After joining forces with the Anti-Japanese Alliance, the horses of these different cavalry regiments were ridiculed by the Anti-Union cavalry.
Of course, these are all things for later. For the current cavalry brigade commander who has received enough missions to make people vomit blood due to the loss of horses, how to get enough Mongolian horses to ensure his own war horses during long marches as much as possible. Not losing too much is what I need to consider most besides fighting.