Bright Sword's Bloody War of Resistance

Chapter 296 The Third Cavalry Regiment of the Eighth Route Army

Chen Feng left contentedly, Zhou Weihan looked at Zhu Dashan who was still in place.

"You're here to ask someone to come?" Zhou Weihan asked.

"Detachment Captain, you said back then that my cavalry battalion can have as many people as there are horses and equipment, and you also said that our independent detachment can afford it!" Zhu Dashan repeated the promise Zhou Weihan made before.

Zhou Weihan fiddled with Zhao Gang's tea mug, and snorted coldly: "Hmph, I said that, and it counts now!"

"Then let me report on the situation of the cavalry battalion. Before the war, the barracks consisted of four companies and one platoon. There were 465 horses alone. In addition to the mounted soldiers, there was also a platoon of 42 auxiliary soldiers. 507 people.

The last time we intercepted the Japanese cavalry, our cavalry battalion wiped out a total of 340 Japanese cavalry, seized a full set of Japanese horse equipment, 238 horse rifles, 4 Type 2 light machine guns, 42 heavy machine guns, 15 sacrificed and [-] wounded. people! "

After listening to Zhu Dashan's report, Zhou Weihan immediately said with a smile: "Zhu Dashan, you're giving credit to me!"

"Detachment Captain, that's not what I mean!" Zhu Dashan, who was born as a bandit, was an upright guy, and when Zhou Weihan said this, he hurriedly explained.

"Cavalry is not easy to train. In the past, there were too many people and few horses. The soldiers trained in turn. The current scale was achieved by capturing from the little devils. Now there are more than [-] horses. I can't just watch these horses. Margaret grows fat, isn't it a waste!"

"If new recruits are recruited, the training time will be too long. It is better to transfer some veterans from each regiment to train them in horsemanship and stabbing. This will save a lot of time!" Zhu Dashan finally revealed the purpose of this trip.

The independent detachment's cavalry unit can have the current strength, Zhou Weihan is the promoter behind the scenes, and Zhu Dashan is the one who puts effort into it on the surface.

Together, the two witnessed the creation of the cavalry from scratch.

The horses of the cavalry company started from the New Second Regiment were all captured from bandits on various hilltops, and they managed to collect more than a hundred horses to form the cavalry company.

At the beginning of its establishment, it didn't even have a complete set of sabers. Many soldiers trained with broadswords and long spears, and all the horses they used were Central Plains horses.

Compared with the Japanese army's Dongyang horses, the Central Plains horses looked thinner, and Zhu Dashan's cavalry battalion later captured the so-called Dongyang horses from the Japanese army step by step.

Cavalry is an ancient and fierce unit, known for its high mobility and impact.This type of arm often attacks in groups, and is caught off guard. If the infantry does not form a square formation to deal with it, it is difficult to have a chance of winning.

The advent of the Maxim heavy machine gun made the nomads sing and dance everywhere.

Entering the [-]th century, with the popularization of rapid-fire weapons and armored vehicles, cavalry gradually faded out of the battle order of European powers, and good horses were reduced to a means of transportation, becoming the core capacity for transporting materials and weapons.

But in fact, on the Asian battlefield, cavalry is still a very important arm. Because China's road construction was not comprehensive at that time, it was difficult for motorized troops to maneuver in a large range. In addition, the degree of mechanization of China and Japan was not perfect. The speed advantage makes them still have extremely high strategic value.

The Japanese army also had a deep understanding of this point, so during World War II, it invested a total of about [-] military horses on the battlefield.

During the Anti-Japanese War, Japan retained cavalry units as independent assault units.If our army sticks to the fortifications, the Japanese cavalry will detour to the two wings to cut off supplies or dismount and fight on foot.If our army is loose or resting and relaxes its vigilance, the Japanese cavalry will use the reverse slope as cover to launch a surprise attack while our army is slack.

Once the infantry is dragged into hand-to-hand combat by the cavalry, it will turn into a one-sided massacre.

Chinese soldiers love and hate the Eastern war horse. On the one hand, the Japanese army killed many of our compatriots on it;

Its long drive is as fast as lightning, and it is really a good horse that can bear life and death.

In ancient Japan, most of the war horses were native pony horses, some of which were only 1.3 meters high. These horses had very limited mobility and transportation capabilities, and could not adapt to large-scale cavalry maneuvers.

During the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese began to look around the world. They realized the importance of cavalry combat and saw the gap between Japanese native horses and other excellent horse breeds.

For this reason, the Meiji government began to specially breed horses. In order to make Japanese war horses reach the world's advanced level, they did not choose to import Mongolian horses from China, but targeted Western horses.

Crossbreeding Arabian war horses with native horses resulted in a significant drop in the height of the bred war horses, and the first breeding program failed.

After the Second Opium War, the Japanese government believed that Arabian horses were not the best war horses, so they spent a lot of money to buy excellent horse breeds such as Anglo-Norman war horses and Don horses from Western countries. They appeared when they first arrived in Japan. The phenomenon of acclimatization to the soil and water, so the breeding program has repeatedly suffered setbacks.

But the Japanese did not give up their breeding work. They crossed these war horses with the previous Arabian horses, and finally bred war horses adapted to the Japanese native environment.

The average height of these war horses can reach 1.6 meters, even higher than the height of Japanese soldiers, and they also have good carrying capacity. The Japanese government officially adopted this new type of war horse as the standard war horse for the army. This is what we know "Oriental Malaysia".

But in fact, although the cavalry retreated to the second line on the European battlefield of World War II, war horses are still very important strategic resources.

In the armies of European countries, a large number of horses are equipped. Although this kind of horse is not fast, it is very large and can help them transport heavy equipment, which is the key logistics support material.

On the Asian battlefield, the main role of horses is also to play an important role in transportation.During World War II, the Japanese army divided the army into Type A divisions and Type B divisions. The indicator was the number of horses.

Each of the Class A divisions can have more than [-] horses.Most of these horses were sent to the artillery unit to help the Japanese army transport artillery parts, and only a few were used to form cavalry units.

However, we still cannot underestimate the role of Japanese cavalry on the battlefield. During World War II, the degree of mechanization of the Japanese army was not high, and their front on the Asian battlefield was stretched very long, which made them need some mobile troops to support them at any time. On the battlefield, the highly mobile cavalry played this role.

Although there may be less than [-] cavalry in a Type A division, they can still divide the battlefield.

In positional warfare, the cavalry mostly played the role of scouts. The information they provided was very important to the Japanese army's tactical formulation, which also allowed the Japanese army to take the lead in battle many times.

As an opponent of the Japanese army, the Chinese army also attached great importance to the training of cavalry during the Anti-Japanese War. However, because most of northern China was occupied by the Japanese army at that time, this limited the source of war horses for the Chinese army.

Although people in the southern region also have horses in their homes, most of them are native horse breeds that are not suitable for combat. They can only be used to transport supplies and cannot play the role of war horses.

Moreover, there is a certain gap between these horses and Dongyang horses in terms of transportation capacity. They can only transport some smaller and lighter weapons.

Before the War of Resistance Against Japan, our country also had several cavalry units. Among them, the Majia Army and the Mongolian Cavalry Division in the northwest were the most powerful. They left brilliant records in the battle against the Japanese army, which caused the Japanese army a headache.

However, the war horses used by the Chinese cavalry at that time were traditional Mongolian war horses. Compared with the Oriental horses, this kind of horses were smaller and less durable. However, they still used their combat experience to deal with the Japanese army and made a lot of contributions to the War of Resistance Against Japan. contribution.

The Eighth Route Army currently has two regiment-level cavalry units, one is the 129th Division Cavalry Regiment, and the other is the Jizhong Cavalry Regiment, both of which are directly under the Grand Military Region.

"Have you heard of the Jizhong Cavalry Regiment?" Zhou Weihan asked suddenly.

"The cavalry unit that revolted from the national army at the beginning of the year? This is the cavalry regiment directly under the Jinchaji Military Region. I must have heard of it!" Zhu Dashan said excitedly.

"I plan to set up the third cavalry regiment of the Eighth Route Army. You are the commander of the cavalry regiment. As you said before, you can choose whoever you want, whether it is a soldier from our independent detachment or someone you find from outside. Make the decision, at the beginning I personally hoped that you would find some suitable personnel from outside to enrich the cavalry regiment!" Zhou Weihan thought for a long time, he was afraid of showing off at first, but now he finally made a decision on this matter.

Zhu Dashan heard the words, and said straightforwardly: "Yes, the detachment leader, I will try my best to look for it from outside, and I promise to bring out a unit that can come and go like the wind, can fight on horseback and on foot, and can fight tough battles!"

"Okay, don't get excited, first recruit all the personnel, hurry up and train, I will apply to my superiors, and send a few backbones from the Divisional Cavalry Regiment and the Jizhong Cavalry Regiment. Let's communicate with each other and make progress together!" Zhou Weihan Seeing Zhu Dashan's agitated look, he quickly stabilized him.

"In addition, I will give you another task. The Japanese army must have a horse farm in Tainan and Hebei. Bring some stallions back. Do you understand what I mean?"

"understand!"

The war horses of the Japanese army were all fanned, and the service life of ordinary war horses on the battlefield was no more than five years. Zhou Weihan thought that it must be sustainable. With the cavalry regiment already there, it would not be too much to set up a military horse farm!

Zhou Weihan is a hands-off shopkeeper, and the specific formation of the cavalry regiment still needs Zhu Dashan, the military chief, to worry about.

The regiments had been seriously downsizing. The cavalry regiment was short of nearly 80 men. On average, five regiments needed [-] men per regiment. Most of the soldiers from the company had gone out. How could the regiment leaders hand over so easily? Will not give up easily.

(End of this chapter)