novelraw #287 - Preparation
#287 - Preparation
The Advance Party.
"Alright, everyone is clear on the situation with the Eighth Route Army, and opinions have been voiced. Now, to summarize, there are essentially two opinions: one is against breaking up the brothers; we either do it together, or we don't do it at all.
The second opinion is that, no matter what, we must find a way to fight our way back home. The other opinions don't really matter. So, let's vote to decide which opinion to follow. Let's make it clear, the minority submits to the majority. There are 17 people here now. If two-thirds or more agree, then those who oppose cannot go back on their word."
"Alright, Vice Commander Yu, the brothers understand. Let's vote by raising our hands," someone said impatiently.
"Okay, now, those brothers who agree with the first opinion, raise your hands." Yu Zhenze didn't waste words and started the vote directly.
Five people present raised their hands without hesitation.
Another person hesitated for a moment, wanting to raise their hand, but ultimately didn't.
"One, two, three, four, five. Now, those who agree with the second opinion, raise your hands." Yu Zhenze finished counting and immediately started the second round.
"One, two, three, four, five... twelve! Now, two-thirds of the brothers have passed it by majority. It seems everyone wants to fight their way back home. Nothing else matters. So, that's the decision. Those who really don't want to follow along, just leave."
Yu Zhenze breathed a sigh of relief seeing that the majority agreed.
He had done a lot of persuading and mobilizing, and now seeing the result was good, he finally convinced most of the young men to act according to the Eighth Route Army's requirements. The first step was to join the Self-Governing Army.
In fact, after more than 4 hours of arguing and debating, everyone was very clear that it was too naive to think that they could maintain their independent status and still get guns and cannons from others. For them, the most important thing now was to fight their way back home; everything else was secondary.
If they didn't participate this time, they would forever be wandering stragglers. Although they felt a bit uncomfortable eating the Eighth Route Army's rations now, at least there was a hope of fighting their way back home.
They were all people whose blood hadn't cooled down, and they had deep-seated hatred for the Japanese devils. Even if they had to eat Eighth Route Army rations again, even if there was no possibility of promotion, they still had to fight back to avenge their fathers, elders, and fellow villagers!
Otherwise, they would live in remorse and regret for the rest of their lives. Some of them had fought the Japanese devils before, but they had lost miserably, and many comrades had died. After all, in the Kuomintang camp, they were treated like stepchildren, with poor weapons and supplies, used as cannon fodder.
In the Kuomintang, they had no support and no hope. So, when they were scattered, they were scattered. Crawling out of piles of corpses and seas of blood, all they felt was despair, and they had no energy to struggle.
But now, the Eighth Route Army was beating the Japanese devils like grandsons, not only recovering Jin Province but also twice hammering the Kwantung Army, burying hundreds of thousands of Kwantung Army soldiers in the soil of North China to fertilize the fields.
This suddenly rekindled everyone's hope.
However, before, the brothers had misunderstood, thinking that gathering their own people together would make them stronger and better able to seek revenge.
But Yu Zhenze was right. Why would people give you equipment, give you supplies, and even pave the way for you?
What could a thousand people do against the Kwantung Army?
Honestly, with their abilities and connections, it wasn't difficult for each person to get a rifle, but what could a thousand-odd rifle-wielding stragglers accomplish? Could they possibly start from scratch and rebuild a Northeast Army?
Stop dreaming.
Yu Zhenze dispelled the brothers' illusions and rekindled their fighting spirit. Anyway, they were all fighting the Japanese devils, so what was wrong with joining the Eighth Route Army?
It didn't matter if they didn't see it clearly or didn't like it before. The current Eighth Route Army was not what it used to be. Airplanes, tanks, artillery—they had everything, several times stronger than the Kuomintang's direct line!
Staff Officer Zuo was very satisfied with Yu Zhenze's work efficiency. Although they had now adopted an offensive posture.
The Seventh Route Army and the North China Military Region had already entered a part of it.
But the actual preparations were complicated and numerous. Moving a million-strong army was a huge undertaking. Not to mention anything else, just feeding them was no small matter.
Fortunately, the border region and Jin Province had a bumper summer harvest, and although the summer harvests in northern Henan and central Hebei were slightly delayed, they were rushed in time, barely enough for local needs.
The widespread use of rotary tillers greatly increased the efficiency of cultivation, significantly reducing the need for manual labor in planting. This meant that drawing hundreds of thousands of people from the guerrillas for expansion would not have too much impact. In addition, the use of fertilizers and organic fertilizers, as well as the construction of water conservancy projects, opened up a large number of irrigated land, raising the yield per mu to a new height. For example, the border region and Jiuquan started water conservancy projects early, forming millions of mu of irrigated high-yield land relying on the Yellow River, Yan River, and others.
After more than half a year of labor-intensive water conservancy construction in Jin Province, several million mu of irrigated high-yield land were also formed.
The food problem that had been plaguing the base areas was now temporarily not a concern.
For Staff Officer Zuo, these were all minor problems. Military problems were the big problems, and the guides and intelligence work for the advance were one of the most important links.
Fortunately, they had now figured it out themselves, which was good.
It was truly a timely rain.
"Commander Yu, since the brothers have no problems, I very much welcome everyone to join the People's Self-Governing Army to eliminate the Japanese devils and restore the Northeast. Of course, the Kwantung Army of the Japanese devils still has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and they are unwilling to fail. So, we still need to find ways to annihilate them.
In military operations, intelligence comes first. Although we don't need to completely understand the Japanese devils' deployment now, we still need to get a basic understanding. We can't go to Guanwai and be completely in the dark.
Therefore, for Commander Yu's brothers who are suitable for reconnaissance work, I hope Commander Yu can mobilize them to join the reconnaissance team. Now that our army's offensive is imminent, the frontline intelligence reconnaissance work must be done ahead of time.
We will use people according to their abilities. Those who can be reconnaissance squad leaders can be squad leaders, and those who can be reconnaissance platoon leaders can be platoon leaders."
Yu Zhenze didn't expect such a good thing. Forming an independent army originally had some selfish motives, thinking that with a designation, he could appoint his own cadres, giving him some positions.
He didn't expect that they didn't think so much at all and directly offered positions.
Although reconnaissance as a vanguard was indeed high-risk, there was no safety in being a soldier. Who didn't want to fight their way back home and also gain a future?
With Staff Officer Zuo's promise, Yu Zhenze's morale soared when he went back to work.
Those who were capable naturally volunteered, and everyone wanted to compete.
The soldiers who came to join this team were more or less more flexible in their thinking, or else they wouldn't have contacted and followed him to start an uprising together.
Now, everyone didn't need to consider internal competition within an independent army at all. People had already released the positions. As long as they had the ability, they could try it out.
This certainly wouldn't be whatever they said it was. Even if they didn't investigate, they would at least have to walk on the front lines to show their abilities before they could sit firmly.
But even so, it was still a highly sought-after commodity.
Being able to return home with an official position and in glory was much better than fleeing Guanwai in a disheveled manner.
After all, even if they had been wandering outside for many years, their roots were still in their hometown, and being able to return upright was of course the most ideal.
The Advance Party was enthusiastically selecting members to select a group of scouts for each column, and the First Attack Group was given priority!
To ensure that each infantry regiment and above had a reconnaissance platoon composed of local people, Li Yunlong and the others happened to be in Taiyuan, so they directly took away the members of the Advance Party who were willing to be scouts, brought them back to their columns, and after training, competition, and heartfelt ideological work, quickly turned these Northeast Army soldiers into members of the troops.
In the use of talent, Li Yunlong and the others certainly had no prejudice. After preliminary investigation, many people were flexible in their thinking and had outstanding individual combat capabilities, so Li Yunlong directly started them off as reconnaissance platoon leaders!
This was only possible in extraordinary times, to be able to promote peripheral soldiers to such a high position at once.
These people themselves were going to become the vanguard of the army's advance, and the reconnaissance mission ahead of Guanwai was arduous and extremely dangerous.
At this critical juncture, Li Yunlong and the others adhered to the view of 'trusting people without suspicion, using people without doubt' and boldly promoted them.
After a period of training and adaptation, the reconnaissance teams, carrying radios, continued to depart in advance, and began to secretly enter Guanwai. Their task was to travel day and night along the Q千里走廊 (Thousand Li Corridor) mountain area, carry out secret reconnaissance work, and send the Japanese devils' defense intelligence to the First Attack Group before the arrival of the main force.
As for Yu Zhenze's task, it was to lead an Advance Party filled with an understrength regiment from Taiyuan, sneak into the Suizhong and Xingcheng mountainous areas outside Guanwai to open up a base area, and contact the local resistance forces, preparing to serve as an internal response.
After being reorganized, the Advance Party became the vanguard of the First Attack Group and directly went north out of Guanwai through the Zhengtai Line, Pinghan Line, and Jingfeng Line.
The reorganization of the main force of the First Attack Group would still take some time. As the main force for attacking fortifications, the task undertaken by the First Attack Group was to open up the Liaodong Corridor and open up the main road for subsequent troops.
Therefore, Li Yunlong and the others were the second group to depart, mobilizing weapons to complete the reorganization while mobilizing trains to prepare to go north by rail.
From the Pinghan Line and the Jingfeng Line, they took trains to the Northeast this time with both people and weapons!
First update, asking for monthly tickets