Chapter 44: Become the head of the regiment for me
As a graduate of the Imperial Army University, Kazuki Yamamoto has considerable qualifications. Many active generals in the Japanese army are his classmates. For example, Seishiro Itagaki, who currently serves as Minister of War in the cabinet, was a classmate of the same period as him at the University of China.
Not only that, most of his classmates have already been promoted to major general or even lieutenant general, and his military rank is the lowest among his classmates at the same time.
The reason for this is not that Yamamoto Kazuki has no ability. On the contrary, his ability is also very outstanding among his classmates. The reason why he is still only a colonel until now is because Yamamoto Kazuki is not interested in commanding large corps in combat.
Instead, he devoted himself to studying special operations.
In this era, special operations was an emerging military discipline that began to sprout during World War I, but it has not been taken seriously by the militaries of various countries.
Until the 1930s, some soldiers who were interested in special operations began to appear in the military academies of various military powers. Yamamoto Kazuki was one of them. In order to study special operations, he even went to the Berlin Special Forces School in Germany.
I studied for three years.
This is also why Yamamoto Kazuki cannot be promoted to a general officer like his classmates. The topics he studies are too biased, and he is not taken seriously by the top brass of the Japanese army. Being a colonel is already the limit.
Although his promotion rate was the slowest compared to his classmates at the same time, he never regretted it.
Yamamoto Kazuki was a proud man. He looked down upon the old, rigid-minded officials responsible for ordnance production. In his opinion, Japan's weapons and equipment lagged far behind the world.
Look at what weapons they equipped the Japanese Army. A five-round loaded Type 38 rifle. Every time a bullet is fired, you have to pull the bolt to eject the shell. There is only one light machine gun for each squad. And for example, in Germany,
The United Kingdom, the United States and other countries have already equipped light machine guns to the squad level.
Of course, the top brass of the Japanese military also have their own reasons. Japan's resources are too poor. If equipped with automatic weapons, it will greatly increase combat costs.
Based on the current 150 rounds of ammunition carried by each Japanese soldier, when using a Type 38 rifle, these bullets are enough to support soldiers in combat for a day. However, if automatic weapons are used, these bullets are not even enough to support soldiers in combat for an hour.
According to this calculation, Japan's existing productivity, transportation capacity and logistics support system must be expanded 10 times to ensure the military's continued combat capability. Japan cannot afford such high combat costs.
Kazuki Yamamoto sneered at this theory.
In his view, Japan's lack of resources is an objective fact, but this cannot be the reason for the Japanese army to use such backward single-shot weapons.
What's more, since the Manchurian Incident in 1931, the three northeastern provinces of China have become the main bases for the resource supply and arms production of the Japanese Empire. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937 and the "August 13" Incident in Shanghai, most of China
The land and resources have fallen into Japanese hands.
At this time, it would be a bit ulterior if you still say that Japan has poor resources, not to mention that the Soviets had already taught the Japanese army a good lesson in the Battle of Nomonkan last year.
Deep in the unobstructed Gobi Desert, on a front more than ten kilometers wide, flying dust swept across the earth. Thousands of T-34 Soviet tanks came overwhelmingly. The tracks of the tanks crushed the Japanese mercilessly.
The spirit and body of the soldiers buried the Japanese Empire's arrogant ambition to advance northward in the windy and sandy Mongolian Gobi.
In this battle, the Japanese army suffered more than 50,000 casualties, while the Soviet army suffered less than 3,000 casualties.
This slap from the Soviet Union stunned all Japanese high-level officials. From then on, no one in the Japanese base camp dared to shout the slogan of going north.
After the Battle of Nomonkan, Yamamoto Kazuki became more and more convinced of his ideas.
He believes that if Japan wants to dominate the world, it can only solve China as soon as possible and turn China into Japan's back garden. Only in this way can it obtain a steady stream of resources and nearly endless manpower from China, and compete with established powers such as the United States and Britain for the world's words.
right.
For this reason, Yamamoto Kazuki is also doing his best to assist Commander Yoshio Shinozuka in wiping out the resistance forces in Shanxi. Originally, the first target to be dealt with in his plan was the Eighth Route Army headquarters. As long as the Eighth Route Army headquarters was eliminated, Shanxi's
The Eighth Route Army, without a leader, would be quickly annihilated by the Imperial Japanese Army.
But what he never expected was that he was hit head-on with a stick in the first battle. Although his muscles and bones were not injured, there was a big bump on his head.
Just as he was angry, he felt a sense of fear in his heart: "Why does this team have German MG34 machine guns? There are also MP38 submachine guns and Mauser 98K rifles? Could it be the German weapon master of the Chinese people?"
In fact, Yamamoto Kazuki didn't know that Gao Hongming and his militia were using the MG42 general-purpose machine gun that was supposed to appear two years later and the MP40 submachine gun that was just released this year, because these two guns are improvements of the MG38 and MP38
In the darkness, Kazuki Yamamoto could only distinguish the gunshots, which led to the misunderstanding.
"When you go back, you must report this situation to General Shinozuka Yoshio and let the people from the Special High-Tech Department start investigating!"
Not to mention that Yamamoto Kazuki fled back to Taiyuan in embarrassment, the news that the independent regiment was attacked by the Japanese army quickly spread to the Eighth Route Army headquarters in Daxia Bay.
"Dang Cang..."
With a crisp sound, a porcelain bowl was thrown to the ground, and the angry voice of the deputy commander-in-chief came from the headquarters.
"What main force group... Shit... I think he is a fool, and he is a completely stupid-pig-like commander. A regiment was beaten to the ground by a small army of little devils. Such a regiment leader is only worthy of feeding animals...
…Go… I’ll remove that regiment leader!”
"yes!"
Looking at the deputy commander-in-chief who was still angry, Commander Liu of the 129th Division on the side advised: "Deputy commander-in-chief, the independent regiment was not completely beaten. They also seized some weapons and equipment and a few corpses of the Japanese army."
"Seized!"
It was okay if Commander Liu didn't say it, but when he mentioned it, the deputy commander became angry again: "If it weren't for the help of the local militia group passing by, I'm afraid the independent group wouldn't even be able to get a hair from the enemy, so I have the nerve to mention it."
The deputy commander bent down and looked at the map for a while, and then said to Commander Liu of the 129th Division: "We have to find someone to reorganize the 386th Brigade Independent Regiment. We cannot collapse like this."
"right!"
Commander Liu nodded, and then said: "If you want to manage the army, you must first choose generals."
After hearing this, the deputy commander was silent for a long time. After pacing back and forth for a while, he suddenly asked: "Where is Li Yunlong?"
A staff officer replied: "Chief, the headquarters' punishment of Li Yunlong has not ended yet. He is still the director of the quilt factory in the border area."
The deputy commander said impatiently: "Go... tell him, stop embroidering and pretending to be stupid, and join me immediately as the leader of the independent regiment!"