Chapter 421 Reorganization and Expansion of the Army
After the establishment of Muwu Trading Company, Li Mu quickly sold a batch of goods, accounting for about a quarter of the total, and recovered 2.3 million French currency.
All the remaining goods are stored in the warehouse and are guarded day and night. The next task of Muwu Trading Company is to use a long-term method to ship in batches through small trading firms across the country and get rid of these goods one by one.
As a thoroughfare for nine provinces, transportation is accessible in all directions. Small merchants from all over the country come to buy goods everywhere. Since the goods are in such short supply, I believe it will not take long.
One month? Or two months?
At the same time, Muwu Trading Company also has two tasks. One is to entrust these small merchants to purchase bristles from all over the country, so as to save him from running away from place to place, which is troublesome!
Another mission is to send people to the southwest region to purchase tung oil.
During the Republic of China, in addition to pig bristles, tung oil was also a domestic monopoly on overseas markets.
As a raw material that has been used on a large scale in my country during the Sui and Tang Dynasties, tung oil still has great use in modern society.
In our country, tung oil was often used to paint furniture, doors and windows in ancient times to achieve protective effects. In fact, tung oil is also an indispensable machine maintenance agent in the modern military industry.
With its fast drying, strong adhesion, heat resistance, acid resistance, alkali resistance, anti-corrosion, anti-rust and conductive properties, tung oil became the most in-demand military supplies during the war.
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, transportation was difficult and there was an acute shortage of tung oil in the international market. In 1938, China and the United States reached a "tung oil loan" of up to 25 million US dollars. According to the terms of the treaty, China needed to use 220,000 tons of tung oil as repayment.
After this cooperation experience, China and the United States reached loan agreements twice in 1939 and 1940, and China received a total of US$45 million in loans from the United States.
However, the tung oil business will not last long for Li Mu. Next year, that is, in 2038, in order to ensure the continued supply of this important strategic material, after reaching a loan agreement with the United States, the government will adopt a unified purchase and sales policy for tung oil.
Centralized management.
By that time, private trading houses would be unable to get involved, except for relatives of the emperor. For Li Mu, the business of selling tung oil would be over.
However, there is still more than half a year left for him to make a lot of money.
In fact, tung oil can not only make extra money, but also has another important role. You must know that nowadays, domestic resources are in short supply, and gasoline, diesel and kerosene cannot be effectively replenished.
Therefore, smart Chinese people used their brains to further refine tung oil and produce a large number of alternative energy products.
It is reported that for every 3,000 tons of tung oil, more than 2,000 tons of oil can be extracted to replace gasoline, kerosene and diesel. These alternative energy sources can also be of great use at critical moments.
Naturally, as a unique crop in China, the United States has also introduced tung trees that produce tung oil and planted them on a large scale. However, until now, compared with the domestic planting scale, it is not worth mentioning.
At present, China can indeed be said to have a monopoly on the world's tung oil production.
The war in the past two months has had a great impact on the export of copper oil. There is a severe shortage overseas and the price has been soaring. However, more and more are being hoarded domestically. Only a small number of well-connected businessmen can sell part of it and obtain a profit.
Huge profits.
Li Mu obviously wants to join these people who are making huge profits.
Next, Li Mu stayed at the trading bank for a few more days, waiting for everything to go on track. He left 1 million legal currency in the trading bank's account, and took the remaining 1.3 million legal currency with him. Under the protection of the guards, he sat down
Return to Nanyang by airboat.
This time, he wants to expand and reorganize the army.
…
Yu Province has suffered from natural and man-made disasters since the Republic of China. Not to mention the man-made disasters next year and the natural disasters in five years. In normal years, there are many people fleeing to other places.
Nanyang Basin, with its fertile land and within the province, is one of the popular places to escape famine.
For these people fleeing famine, their only hope is to have food to eat and survive, or to prevent their entire family from starving to death.
Therefore, when Li Mu brought people to recruit soldiers from these people fleeing famine, when everyone heard that not only did they have enough to eat, but they also received five yuan a month, they almost broke their heads.
Not only can you have enough to eat, but if you are escaping famine with your family, you will have a salary of five oceans a month, and the whole family will not starve to death.
However, Li Mu was very strict in recruiting troops. He selected and screened them and recruited a total of 1,500 people. Next, he planned to recruit another 1,000 people in Nanyang to expand the size of the security group to 3,000 people.
Looking at the longing and desperate looks on the faces of the remaining people, Li Mu sighed. The world... has given them another way to survive. Next, he will start a series of projects, such as the construction of a new military camp for the security regiment and roads near the station.
leveling and renovating some docks and warehouses along the White River.
These projects will use a lot of labor, which can also give these people a way to survive. If they do well, they can also save a fortune.
…
Subsequently, the local recruitment operation in Nanyang went smoothly. The recent domestic situation is not very good, and it obviously has an impact on ordinary people, making it even worse. The first thing Li Mu did when he came back from Wuhan was to collect the security team’s salary
The increase from three silver dollars per month to five dollars is still attractive to young people from local families who are in difficulty. It is a way to survive after all.
Li Mu is recruiting troops and reorganizing at the same time, and Wuhan Muwu Commercial Bank is also fully cooperating to poach some military talents for the security team with high salaries.
After so many years of war and chaos in the country, there is no shortage of military talents.
In the early days of the Republic of China, there were four major military academies. The first one was naturally the Huangpu Military Academy, which is now the Central Military Academy.
Next there are the Baoding Army Officer School, the Northeast Army Military Lecture Hall, and the Yunnan Army Officer Lecture Hall.
These four major military academies have trained many military talents for the country.
However, the Whampoa Military Academy, which was the latest to be established, suddenly rose up and became the Central Military Academy, and it is the direct descendant of Baldhead. All good things come from this side.
Several other military academies gradually began to decline, and now they have even disappeared. Some of the teachers and students at the time were doing well, and some were serving as junior officers at the grassroots level of the motley army. It didn't matter that they were not direct descendants and could not be promoted.
There are also some people who have left the army, some are doing well, and some are doing quite miserably.
Among these people, a group of people have been recruited with high salaries, and they can still serve as instructors of the security team.
As time passed, 2,500 new recruits were recruited, and the instructors gradually invited more than 20 recruits through Muwu Trading Company.
There are more than 20 instructors, with the largest number being infantry instructors, followed by three engineering instructors, and two artillery instructors.
Li Mu doesn't care whether there are talents among these people, nor does he require them to train soldiers well or have high military quality. They just need to be able to train them into qualified soldiers.
While training new recruits, Li Mu was also adjusting and reorganizing the security regiment.
He plans to reorganize the security group into a reinforced group with up to 3,000 people.
The first is the infantry battalion, which has been expanded from the current three infantry battalions to five infantry battalions.
Then, under the regiment headquarters, seven directly affiliated companies were established: guard company, health company, machine gun company, cavalry company, engineer company, communications company, and reconnaissance company.
Needless to say, the guard company, as Li Mu's guard, is responsible for protecting his safety. Next, the original guard company will be removed and the vacancy will be filled after investigating the origins of life.
Health Company: Mainly the medical staff of the army, responsible for the medical and health safety issues of the entire regiment. However, this company is relatively professional. At present, Li Mu has asked Muwu Commercial Bank to recruit personnel in Wuhan, trying to recruit a group, train a group, and
The military medical system was established.
Machine gun company: This was established by Li Mu to strengthen firepower. A machine gun requires a shooter and an ammunition hand to be operated by two people. A machine gun company requires a total of forty-five machine guns.
This time, Li Mu purchased a total of 180 Czech light machine guns, leaving 135. Each infantry battalion can be allocated 27 machine guns. On average, each infantry company has nine Czech light machine guns.
Light machine gun.
On average, each infantry platoon can be divided into three columns, and each infantry squad can be divided into one column.
An infantry squad is equipped with a Czech light machine gun. In terms of firepower, it is no less than the direct descendants of Baldhead.
Next is the cavalry company: given the current domestic transportation level, especially in inland areas where trains are not accessible, the cavalry still plays a big role.
However, cavalry is also a professional unit and requires war horses. Currently, Li Mu has asked Muwu Trading Company to find cavalry instructors. As for the horses, he has also entrusted a specialized merchant to purchase them in the grasslands.
I believe that setting up a cavalry company is not a problem.
Then there is the engineer company: Engineers are still very important and are indispensable in current wars. Li Mu established the engineer company because he wanted to first cultivate a group of corresponding talents and lay the foundation for future expansion.
Fortunately, there are engineer instructors, so setting up an engineer company is not a problem.
There is also a communication link: it is mainly used for uploading and distributing, conveying Li Mu's orders, and also needs to be able to use the radio, which is the main way to transmit information.
In addition, in the future, you will also need to learn how to arrange telephones in the wild. This aspect requires more professionalism. Currently, Muwu Trading Company is recruiting vigorously, and they can recruit as many as they can. Li Mu does not expect the communication company to be fully staffed now, so he will take his time.
As for the reconnaissance company, it goes without saying.
In addition, for the thirty German-made Grw 34 medium-sized mortars purchased this time, Li Mu plans to divide the five infantry battalions into six units each and deploy them directly to the company level.
Each company is specially equipped with a directly affiliated mortar squad, equipped with two Grw 34 medium-sized mortars.
As a result, the firepower of the infantry battalion is quite powerful. Each squad has a light machine gun, and each company has two medium-sized mortars. And these are not domestic knock-offs of worrying quality, they are all original foreign products.
Goods, excellent quality.
In the domestic army, this configuration is considered rare.
According to this plan, with five infantry battalions, seven directly-affiliated companies, plus the professional talents to be recruited later, if fully staffed, the entire security group can reach more than 3,200 people.
After initially clarifying the structure of the army, Li Mu focused part of his energy on construction. The first was the military camp. With so many troops and different types of arms, it was impossible to all be stationed together.
Now, in a radius of dozens of miles, in addition to the headquarters, where the regiment is located, six or seven military camps have been built in other places.
In order to facilitate the march and the people, so that those fleeing the famine could have food to eat, Li Mu hired a large number of people to repair nearby roads.
In addition, if you want to run Nanyang well, the Baihe waterway is also very important. It is very convenient for transporting supplies and troops.
Moreover, both sides of the Baihe River are also nearby material distribution centers for hundreds of miles, and can even radiate to Shaanxi and Shanxi to the north, so the commercial value is not small.
Li Mu hired a large number of people, renovated the docks, and built many warehouses. In the future, some of the materials purchased from Singapore will be sold here.
In this way, with the security corps station as the center and a radius of dozens of miles, it became a huge construction site and training ground.
Countless migrant workers are busy here, and there are also teams of recruits who are being drilled tirelessly.
…
Things in Nanyang were straightened out and everything was on track. Li Mu took a motorboat to Wuhan again.
More than half a month has passed. Thanks to the efforts of small firms and merchants gathered in Wuhan from all over the country, half of the goods in the warehouse have been sold.
All the recovered money was used to purchase bristles and tung oil, and a large amount has been hoarded.
After sitting in Wuhan for a few days, Li Mu read the newspaper that day. In addition to the Battle of Songhu, a new hot spot emerged, which was the inward relocation of the university.
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the first to relocate were Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University.
As early as before the July 7th Incident, the situation in Peiping was becoming increasingly critical. In order to prevent unexpected adverse situations, Tsinghua University secretly prepared to transfer the school to Changsha. The school allocated a huge sum of money to build a campus in Zuojialong at the foot of Yuelu Mountain in Changsha, which is today's Central South China.
The university started construction of a complete set of campus buildings in preparation for the move.
After the July 7th Incident, Beiping and Tianjin fell one after another. Zhang Boling, president of Nankai University, Mei Yiqi, president of Tsinghua University, and Jiang Menglin, president of Peking University, merged in Changsha to form Changsha Temporary University.
After the fall of Nanjing, in February 1938, the school moved west again to Kunming, which is the famous Southwest Associated University.
Under the leadership of these three top universities, in the next two years, major domestic universities, as long as they have the ability, began to move westward.
There are also many colleges and universities and private universities that, due to their weak financial resources, are unable to move westward and cannot find a suitable place to stay. The schools cannot continue to operate, and many of them have no choice but to disband.
Li Mu sat there and thought for a long time. Talent has always been the first driving force for development. The westward migration of colleges and universities is a good opportunity. The famous domestic universities do not expect it and there is no shortage of places to accept them. Can we help those who are unable to move westward?
Help, help them move to Nanyang.
If there is no money, he can allocate funds; if there is no school building, he can build it.
Li Mu arranged for Muwu Commercial Bank to help him find several suitable universities. After contacting them first, Li Mu recruited a group of designers and architects in Wuhan and returned to Nanyang again.
Planting sycamore trees attracts golden phoenixes. Li Mu has read the information and found that the universities that moved westward were really miserable along the way. They just moved to a place, and within two months the booklet came, and they had to find another place to stay in a hurry.
place.
Many colleges and universities have moved several times before they found a suitable place to stay. Let alone the conditions, look at Fang Hongjian in the besieged city. Many times he didn't have enough to eat, and the school buildings were in tatters, so he made do with it.
.
Nanyang is not short of manpower, and he is not short of money. When Li Mu goes back this time, he will find a suitable place in Nanyang and build a suitable school building first.