Chapter 393 Yoshio Shinozuka: Give them two more fires
"Chief, Commander Kong of the Independent Regiment has an urgent message..." The operator suddenly rushed to them to report.
"Kong Jie's telegram, could it be that he already has a solution to the food problem? Give it to me quickly!" the brigade commander ordered urgently.
After reading ten lines at a glance, I was confused after reading the telegram. Then I showed an incredible expression of shock. While handing the telegram to the chief of staff, I sighed: "If the contents of the telegram are true, then Yoshio Shinozuka is targeting the economy of the northern Shanxi base area."
The blockade exists in name only..."
"How is this possible?" the chief of staff asked directly after reading the telegram.
"A chicken farm that only eats earthworms and vegetable leaves..."
"Place your own people into the Imperial Alliance Army, secretly control the Japanese and puppet army strongholds on the blockade, and transport food to the base areas from under the noses of the Japanese and puppet troops..."
"This is simply unheard of. I think both of these things are a little bit suspense no matter how I look at them!"
After listening to the chief of staff's analysis, a suspicion flashed in the brigade commander's mind, but it was quickly replaced by joy. He shook his head and said, "Do you think Kong Jie would joke with us on such a big matter?"
"Call Kong Jie right away and ask him to report in more detail..."
"Forward this telegram to the general headquarters... The leader is also paying attention to the difficulties faced by the base area in northern Shanxi... With this telegram, he should be able to sleep peacefully.
At the Japanese military headquarters in Taiyuan, Yoshio Shinozuka did not know that the blockade he had planned for a long time had been infiltrated by the Eighth Route Army, nor did he know that the Eighth Route Army in North Shanxi was continuously obtaining food and other supplies from the outside world through the blockade.
Still following the original combat plan, the Eighth Route Army in North Shanxi Province was gradually depleting its combat potential, restricting their further development and growth, and confounding them.
"Your Excellency, Commander... intelligence shows that... the rations provided by the Eighth Route Army in North Shanxi Province to relieve the victims have begun to decrease!"
"In order to save military rations, many Eighth Route Army troops began to go into the mountains to dig wild vegetables, hunt, and fish..."
“But this small amount of food is like a drop in the bucket in front of hundreds of thousands of victims!”
"According to the current consumption rate, the Northwestern Shanxi Eighth Route Army will be completely out of food for more than two months at most!"
Shinozuka Yoshio was very satisfied and asked: "Is there no problem with the blockade?"
"The key to whether we can trap the Northwestern Shanxi Eighth Route Army, restrict their development, and consume their war potential lies in the blockade!"
"As long as nothing happens to them and they are not defeated by the Eighth Route Army... no matter how powerful the Eighth Route Army in North Shanxi is, they can't save it!"
The chief of staff smiled and reported: "Commander, please rest assured... More than a hundred strongholds on the blockade are all safe!"
"The Eighth Route Army wanted to attack in the east and west to distract our troops stationed on the blockade...but we were not fooled!"
"They also sent many people to bypass the strongholds on the blockade, trying to smuggle supplies to their base areas on a small scale... but they were all discovered and eliminated by us..."
"Even if there is food that luckily flows into the Eighth Route Army base area, it will only amount to several thousand kilograms, which is a drop in the bucket!"
The smile on Yoshio Shinozuka's face grew wider and he continued: "As long as the food problem is not solved, the war potential of the Eighth Route Army in Northwestern Shanxi will sooner or later be exhausted by us!"
"But we can't sit still and wait for death. We must find ways to add another fire to the Eighth Route Army and further speed up their food consumption. It is best to make their base areas become chaotic and lose the support of the people!"
The chief of staff immediately answered: "The commander is wise..."
"We have started as planned..."
"The humble position mobilized more than 280 elites of the Imperial Army from the whole army, plus more than 40 Imperial Alliance Army members who were familiar with the terrain of northwest Shanxi, and formed ten 33-person action teams!"
"They all wore Eighth Route Army uniforms and communicated in Chinese..."
"Each action team is equipped with a radio, three light machine guns, 27 rifles, and three pistols... equivalent to an infantry platoon of the Eighth Route Army..."
"I plan to let them set off after another ten days of training, and sneak into their base area as the Eighth Route Army to carry out sabotage..."
"If an important target is discovered during the operation, immediately use the radio to contact the aviation force to carry out precision strikes!"
"As long as one action team destroys the headquarters of ten battalions and companies of the Eighth Route Army and the local government, the various Eighth Route Army units operating in northwestern Shanxi will fall into chaos because they are leaderless!"
"Our intelligence officers lurking among the victims took the opportunity to spread rumors and instigate them to rob and cause destruction everywhere... The Eighth Route Army base area in northwestern Shanxi will definitely become a mess!"
"Their war potential will be exhausted in civil strife!"
At the Dingjiazhuang assault camp station, Huang Yu was taking Kong Jie to visit the chicken farm...
"Captain... these are the earthworms we feed the chickens..." Huang Yu introduced, pointing to the earthworms that had been beaten into powder in the frame.
"The cultured earthworms are first cleaned...then cooked in boiling water, sterilized...then dried...and finally ground into powder..."
"When feeding, stir it together with vegetable leaves...not only can it increase the hen's egg production, but it can also gain weight..."
"How did you come up with this idea!" Kong Jie became more and more shocked as he looked at it, and he immediately asked the question he had been thinking about.
It is impossible for Huang Yu to tell everyone that this idea came from later generations.
I could only repeat the excuse I had already thought of: "When I was a kid, I saw chickens eating earthworms..."
"After joining the Red Army, I asked the political commissar and he told me that the protein content of earthworms is higher than that of grain, and chickens definitely prefer eating earthworms..."
"I figured out everything else myself!"
The old political commissar is the most knowledgeable intellectual in the Independent Group and knows a little bit about everything.
As soon as Huang Yu mentioned the old political commissar, Kong Jie chose to believe him.
As for the reason why later generations rarely hear about raising chickens with earthworms, a very important reason is the cost.
Breeding earthworms requires a lot of manpower and space. In these troubled times, the most valuable thing is manpower and land. As a result, the cost for villagers to breed earthworms is almost zero. Eating earthworms is definitely more cost-effective than eating food.
The cost of labor and land in future generations far exceeds that of food. Chicken farms are definitely more willing to use low-cost food to feed chickens.
Kong Jie didn't know what Huang Yu was thinking, so he expressed admiration and said: "I don't care how you figured out the chicken farm... You can't escape the credit for establishing the chicken farm!"
"If I hadn't seen a chicken farm that doesn't eat food with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it even to death!"
"If our Eighth Route Army builds several chicken farms in each base area, it will not only save food and increase the nutrition of the soldiers, but also make money by selling eggs and chicken... It is a well-deserved killing of three birds with one stone!"
"I promise to give you credit as soon as I return to the regiment headquarters!"
"The battalion commander... came out... we really hatched the eggs into chicks..." A cry of surprise suddenly sounded in the room dozens of meters away.
Huang Yu was so excited that he almost jumped up from the ground.
He only knew that eggs could hatch naturally at a constant temperature, but he didn't know the specific temperature.
If you want to expand the scale of a chicken farm, relying solely on hens to hatch chicks is too slow. It would take years and months to expand the chicken farm to 3,000 chickens.
The only way is to carry out large-scale artificial incubation at constant temperature.
In order to find the appropriate incubation temperature, Huang Yu prepared twenty constant-temperature incubators with fixed temperatures and fixed lighting. He then checked how many eggs in the boxes could hatch smoothly, and then determined the incubation temperature of the eggs.
The hard work paid off, after more than half a month of waiting, the chicks finally hatched.
During the entire incubation process, each incubator has special recording notes. Through the notes, the most suitable incubation method can be found, so as to hatch chicks on a large scale.
Kong Jie looked puzzled. Before he could ask any questions, Huang Yu reported excitedly: "Captain... we can artificially hatch chicks on a large scale!"
"You don't need a hen, as long as you control the light and temperature, you can directly hatch the eggs into chicks!"
"With this technology... as long as we have suitable eggs, we can hatch as many chicks as we want..."
"You can artificially hatch chicks without relying on hens... You can also hatch chicks on a large scale... Xiao Huang, did I hear you right?" Faced with this unheard of news, Kong Jie's first reaction was still doubt.
But soon he saw determination on Huang Yu's smiling face, and quickly ordered: "Take me to see quickly..."
"I've never seen an egg hatch into a chick..."
Twenty incubators were placed in the room, and several soldiers gathered around one incubator. They were discussing something animatedly and were in a very good mood.
Seeing Huang Yu and Kong Jie walking in, he immediately got out of the way of the incubator: "Regiment commander, battalion commander..."
"The eggs in this box hatched successfully..."
"Ten eggs have already produced two chicks..."
"There are still several chicks that are hatching... they will come out soon..."
Kong Jie walked over quickly, took one look and exclaimed to Li Wensheng: "Chief of Staff, this is simply unheard of..."
"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes... I would never have believed that an egg could hatch into a chick..."
"In this way, the base can hatch as many chicks as it wants... It's so shocking!"
In the incubator, a chick hatched out of its shell just under their gaze.
Li Wensheng was stunned and opened his mouth. It took him a while to realize: "Incredible, simply incredible!"
"I only know that hens hatch chicks... I have never seen eggs hatch chicks on their own..."
"Xiao Huang, how did you come up with this idea?"
"It's all figured out blindly!" Huang Yu said with embarrassment.
"The hen did nothing to incubate the chicks, and the eggs turned into chicks... I thought it must be related to the temperature, so I prepared twenty incubators for experiments..."
"If it works, we can raise chickens on a large scale..."
"Even if it fails, we will only lose a few hundred eggs..."
"I didn't expect it to actually work out in the end... It should be considered an unexpected surprise!"
Kong Jie shook his head and said: "No, this is not an unexpected surprise for you. Without your research and elusiveness, without your painstaking experiments, do you think artificial hatching of chicks can be successful? You are equally successful in this matter.
