afterglow

Chapter 551 Contract Soldiers and Conscripted Soldiers; Zhou’s Military Training
"Advice? I'm here to train you from 'qualified' to 'good', not to teach you step by step how to practice according to the regulations!"

"Zhou Dai's instructions are correct..."

Zhou Changfeng was very angry and frowned: "What does the leader of your division do for a living? What do your subordinates look like and you don't know what to do?"

"Zhi is also having a hard time," Shen Xuesheng said with aggrievedness and helplessness. "Zhi was still teaching at Shuntian (Army College) last month. At the end of the month, the Ministry of War suddenly sent him here with a transfer order."

Hearing what he said, Zhou Changfeng closed his eyes and took a deep breath, "Who was responsible for the previous training? People from the training department come out!"

The division headquarters is divided into several departments - Combat and Training Section (combat and training), Pressure Section (military law and daily management), Experience Section (context and internal coordination), Munitions Section (logistics and supply), War Information Section (Reconnaissance and Intelligence Analysis), among which the combat training section is responsible for the important training.

A major with a grimace stepped forward and stood out, clasping his fists and saying: "This is a humble post, Liu Pu, the 107th Division is doing its training correctly."

"Give me an explanation."

"Well... I'm telling you, sir, that the quality of our division's soldiers is relatively poor, and some of the equipment arrived half a month late. We didn't even complete three major training sessions, so the governor issued a departure order."

"Is this the situation when recruiting troops? Oh my god, it's terrible." Zhou Changfeng was greatly surprised and couldn't help but feel frightened.

"Uh..." Xian Keke hesitated and replied: "We reported it and explained the situation clearly, but there was nothing we could do about the military preparation. We said that priority should be given to protecting the troops fighting abroad."

But under this system, even the most ordinary privates had to be paid, which put a lot of pressure on the finances of the Ming army.

Simply put, raising troops costs money.

He immediately ordered a message to be sent to the Ministry of War, and then began to carefully investigate the problem.

Zhou Changfeng and the officers returned to the Admiral's Mansion in the camp - it was said to be a mansion, but it was actually a house made of I-beam steel and corrugated boards.

In the past, he was either leading troops in combat or focusing on research and development projects of various weapons and equipment. He really had no time to cover everything. He never expected that the wartime mobilization system would have such omissions.

Because they join the army voluntarily, these people are all professional soldiers. The military contract they signed - that is, the contract often lasts for ten years. They have been rooted in the military camp for a long time. They are fully trained and there is no resentment of being forcibly recruited. They naturally have a considerable morale foundation. .

The Bingbei Road is affiliated to the Inspectorate and has nothing to do with the Guangdong Dusi (Military Region) and Lingnan Dudufu (War Zone). It is responsible for supervising local military affairs, regularly inspecting, inspecting, and rectifying local troops.

I don’t know, I’m scared.

This is roughly the difference between contract soldiers and conscripts in the Russian army in later generations.

Given the current situation, the Guangdong Regional Military Commissioner and several military governors all have unshirkable responsibilities.

"Didn't Bingbei Road take care of it?" he asked.

After a while, he waved his hand and ordered: "Take the troops back to camp!"

If you are ordered to go on an expedition, the additional combat allowance will be calculated in days from the date of departure. It is 1 yuan per day, which is basically equivalent to doubling. Therefore, this is also commonly known as "departure silver" and "double pay."

Due to national conditions, the Ming Dynasty usually adopted a voluntary military service system. Even so, there was no concern about the number of soldiers.

"As ordered."

A Ming army private who signed a military contract received a monthly salary of 32 yuan, a living allowance of 3 yuan, and a settling-in allowance of 6 yuan if he was married.

The most nerve-wracking thing came. Zhou Changfeng couldn't help but hit his head, "Why don't you go to this damn Europe? Clean up your own home first."

Therefore, the Ministry of War restarted the conscription system and widely recruited young people to serve in the army. These people are legally compulsory soldiers and only need to serve for two years, but they do not receive standard pay.

Two green signal flares were launched into the sky, and the crisp sound of gongs was particularly distant under the setting sun.

After the outbreak of the war, it was natural to expand the army. The imperial court wanted to avoid waste of military expenditures and use good steel on the blade - a population of 600 to 700 million people can be regarded as almost endless, and limited military expenditures should be saved for weapons and equipment.

Theoretically, recuperating from illness and injury should also be counted as being deployed, but this money is often withheld, and the Ministry of War has a very loose control over this situation, which is regarded as semi-tacit approval.

For comparison, a Ming army private who enlisted in the army had no salary and could only receive a living allowance of 3 yuan per month, a settling-in allowance of 6 yuan per month (if married), and a combat allowance of 1 yuan per day.

This is the difference between the two sources of soldiers.

At the same time, the wartime infantry divisions with designations starting from 100 all used a mix of two types of soldiers - two or three people in each infantry squad were volunteers, and the rest were conscripts.

For the officers of the Ming Army, there was a huge sense of gap. Their former subordinates were all volunteers - obedient, conscientious, highly motivated, and hard-working.

But now there are suddenly so many conscripts, and there are often cases of resentment and inactivity. There are even many cases of people who can't stand being insulted and bullied by veterans or officers and resort to blackmail in anger.

Ever since, invisible barriers have arisen.

Liu Pu complained about the poor quality of soldiers for another objective reason - lack of training time and insufficient training equipment.

After serving, a recruit will first be sent to the nearest training ground, where he will receive 30 days of basic training; then he will be divided into branches and receive 60 days of professional training; and finally, he will receive 30 days of field training.

After completing a total of about four months of training, the recruits will be dispersed to join front-line units or formed into new units.

If it is the latter, then after a new infantry division is formed, it will have to conduct three full-division contract trainings, which will take about one to two months. This is what Liu Pu calls "three major joint trainings."

However, due to multi-front operations, both replenishing and expanding the army, the demand for soldiers has increased sharply, so the original training time has been reduced a lot, and many new recruits will be qualified after three months of training.

The 107th Infantry Division and the 108th Infantry Division even had time to complete only one division-wide contract training before receiving orders to prepare to leave for Moresby.

"Alas!" Zhou Changfeng sighed, "Sooner or later, the unpaid tuition fees will have to be paid."

Obviously, the entire Ming Dynasty had no experience in organizing methods of conscripting troops during war, and there was no precedent to follow. To trace precedents, one can only look in history books.

Fortunately, it is not too late to discover it and it is not too late to remedy the situation.

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty relied on its well-trained standing army to achieve a series of brilliant victories in the early stages of the war. Now it is a strategic stalemate and there is sufficient time to solve the problem. Otherwise, if the current battle situation is urgent and there is no response, then poorly trained divisions will still have to be dragged onto the battlefield.

"Zhou Daizhao, shall we continue the supplementary training according to the regulations?" Shen Xuesheng asked. Zhou Changfeng raised his hand and glanced at his watch, nodded and said, "Well, let's continue practicing first and make up for the lessons. If you haven't mastered the basics, don't think about more advanced ones."

"Yes."

"Then you two pick a few familiar staff officers and we will play a war game."

Shen Xuesheng was a little surprised. He and Zeng Mu, the commander of the 107th Division, looked at each other.

Is this to test the abilities of senior generals? Then you have to behave well!

The default scenario of the war game is red attacking and blue defending. The red side is two Ming military divisions commanded by Shen Xuesheng and Zeng Mu, and the blue side is an American division commanded by Zhou.

After the preparations are completed, the deduction begins immediately.

Zhou Changfeng was worried about the average level of the senior generals of the Ming Army. These people often had good theoretical skills and performed well on paper and war games, but their performance in actual combat was mediocre.

Once affected by the ever-changing emergencies in actual combat, generals will feel uncomfortable and find it difficult to effectively control the actions of their subordinates.

Correspondingly, there are indeed a very few geniuses who are self-taught and can command large armies in battles with ease even if they have no previous experience.

But there are very few such people, and the vast majority of ordinary senior generals of the Ming Army belong to the "academic school."

The "academics" seriously lack actual combat experience. They often had military exploits in border conflicts when they were young, but battles involving dozens to hundreds of people are meaningless. It is difficult to command detachments and large corps. The difference is huge.

In terms of this crucial actual combat experience, 99% of the senior generals of the Ming army were not as good as Zhou.

Zhou commanded a complete battalion-level unit at the beginning, and then commanded a regiment-level unit in Spain, and then began to lead a brigade-level unit such as the 1st Marine Brigade.

"Okay, that's it, that's it."

After completing a crisp defensive counterattack, Zhou Changfeng, who was one against two, retreated calmly - one division of the blue side delayed the two divisions of the red side for six days, and finally retreated in an organized manner.

In fact, US infantry divisions are usually assigned an independent tank battalion, but this was not included in this war game.

Zhou Changfeng picked up the tea cup and drank it all in one gulp, wiped his mouth, and glanced at the two people opposite him, "Your theoretical skills are all passable, but in actual combat it is not that simple. One battalion may get lost, and another battalion may be bombed. After a while, another regiment lost contact... Don't focus on how to defeat the enemy, first be able to control your troops well. "

"What Zhou Daizhao said is absolutely true!"

"Yes, how can you defeat the enemy if you can't even control your subordinates? Zhou Daizhao couldn't be more right."

In the next five days, the 107th Division and the 108th Division were undergoing supplementary training to improve several problems exposed during the surprise inspection, and then completed the contract training for the entire division.

During this period, the equipment and ammunition requested by Zhou Changfeng and required for the joint training camp gradually arrived, and the weapons and equipment supplemented by the two divisions also followed.

In order to conduct more realistic infantry-artillery coordination and infantry-tank coordination training, tons of blank ammunition and smoke practice ammunition were transported to the Qiongya Joint Training Camp.

No tanks here? Then ship it immediately!
The large number of tanks that were backlogged at the Tianjin port terminal finally came into use. Fifty Type 37 light tanks were loaded on trains and traveled thousands of miles from north to south to Qiongya.

When receiving the goods, the soldiers discovered that these tanks had been shipped from the factory in April. Several months of exposure to the sun and rain had caused rust in some places, and there was even a faint musty smell inside the tanks.

The officers and soldiers of the repair shop took the time to prepare these old-looking tanks and give them a brand new look. Twenty of them were painted with large white five-pointed stars, pretending to be American tanks.

The actual combat intensive training regulations formulated by Zhou Changfeng have been printed. At the same time, he is taking time every day to write his own "book" - "Southern Operations Collection".

The officers of the 107th Division and the 108th Division were frightened by this charter.

Thirty days of physical strengthening? Fully armed and marching fifteen kilometers in the mountains? A thirty-kilometer forced march in the mountains with light equipment? Infantry techniques and tactics strengthened?

The most outrageous thing is the thrilling subject of infantry riding in tanks to launch an attack under the cover of artillery fire.

Shen Xuesheng felt a little short of breath. He felt that the physical training standards seemed too high, and there were many subjects that were unheard of.

In the inherent impression, blasting and clearing obstacles are the functions of engineering units, and infantry only need to handle some simple tasks. However, this charter requires every infantry to strengthen their practice of blasting operations.

And this is just one subject under the category of "infantry technical and tactical strengthening". In addition, there are infantry anti-tank vehicles, infantry anti-airborne and other subjects.

"You actually need to practice so much?" Zeng Mu, commander of the 107th Division, asked in surprise.

"Why?" Zhou Changfeng smiled slightly, "The battlefield is unpredictable. Engineers can't come at a moment's notice, and anti-aircraft artillery can also go awry. You can't have too many skills. The more skills an individual soldier has, the higher the team's combat efficiency will be."

In view of the different national conditions and backgrounds, Zhou Changfeng naturally did not apply mechanically.

The Ming Army has its own characteristics. It is different from any army in history. It is essentially an imperialist semi-heavy force. It has strong infantry and artillery firepower, average organizational efficiency, insufficient motorized equipment, both offense and defense, and is good at small and medium-sized forces. (Below division) fighting, inferior to large corps fighting.

At his request, banners, slogans and posters were hung up at the Qiongya Joint Training Camp.

Phrases such as "The enterprising spirit of infantry is the cornerstone of victory", "Artillery is the god of war to defeat the enemy", "Serve the country with loyalty and defeat the enemy", "Practice hard to kill the enemy", "Sweat more in peacetime and bleed less in war" can be seen everywhere. .

"It's almost time, let's start training!"

"Order!"

The training entered an unprecedented intense stage from the beginning - the ten-mile cross-country trip in the early morning with light equipment became fully armed, the one-mile obstacle-crossing assault trip changed from the original three to four, and the close combat training between the battalions was filled with loud shouts of killing. Heaven and earth move...

Even to add to the fun, the division's artillery was ordered to fire two rounds of live ammunition to celebrate the "opening of the Qiongya Joint Training Camp."

I saw hundreds of officers and soldiers attacking more than 20 tanks lined up in a row, with smoke billowing and dust flying!
The field artillery group was also firing at the same time. In order to control the advancing fire, the artillery group was divided into two groups and fired alternately. The impact point of the artillery bombs was always maintained 200 meters in front of the attacking infantry tank unit until the infantry tank unit broke into the enemy's position. Convert to deep arresting fire or hindering shooting.

"Not bad, it's a bit more presentable."

Zhou Changfeng, who was sitting behind the artillery mirror, suddenly thought that communication difficulties were common when tanks and infantry were advancing together. Perhaps some tanks should be equipped with an additional telephone set at the rear of the vehicle?
Just as he was thinking, a communications staff officer suddenly walked over quickly and reported to him: "Report! There is a call from the Ministry of War, calling you back to Beijing to report on your duties."

(End of this chapter)