After hearing what Xu Rui said, Lu Han said: "Captain, I have no problem with you leaving me here. There is revolution everywhere. It's just that I only have more than fifty people under my command, but they are running the banner of an independent battalion. I am
The battalion commander has a bit of a reputation and a bad reputation."
Xu Rui said: "So, you must recruit troops in the shortest possible time and expand the troops to the battalion level. By then, you will be a truly independent battalion commander."
Lu Han said: "Since the regiment commander trusts me so much, then I will be the battalion commander."
"Well, Lu Han, we will leave in the afternoon, and I will leave the entire Dongning Fortress to you. Remember my words, if you want to be a real battalion commander, you must expand your troops to the size of a battalion in the shortest possible time.
"
"Captain, I will do my best," Lu Han said.
"It's not about trying your best, it's about completing the task." Xu Rui corrected.
"Yes, I will definitely complete the task." Lu Han said loudly.
With the main force of the Japs withdrawing from the Xingkai Lake area, a rare development opportunity was provided for Xu Rui. Xu Rui decided to strike while the iron was hot and occupy the Sunwu Shengshan Fortress.
A few days later, Xu Rui led Langya to occupy the Sun Wu Shengshan Fortress, and after recruiting troops and horses, he established the Shengshan Independent Battalion. The temporary size of this battalion was only forty or fifty people.
Xu Rui discovered a problem, that is, recruiting troops in the Northeast is really a headache. Not only is the Northeast a vast area with few people, but most importantly, after ten years of Japanese enslavement education in the Northeast, many people
People have lost their spirit of resistance. For example, many schools in the Northeast have to worship in the direction of the Japanese Emperor's Palace every day. As a result, many Chinese in the Northeast have gradually become numb to Japanese rule and do not dare to rebel.
The living standard of the Chinese in the Northeast is far inferior to that of the Japanese. The Japanese eat rice, while the Chinese eat corn. Large tracts of fertile land are occupied by Japanese groups for almost free, while the Chinese can only go to barren land to reclaim wasteland, and even so
, they had to pay heavy taxes to the Japanese and Manchu government on the wasteland they reclaimed, and their life was very miserable.
However, the Japanese army implemented communist rule in Northeast China and sent a large number of spies. Almost everyone's daily life was monitored. Anyone who showed the slightest sign of being anti-Japanese would be ruthlessly suppressed by the Japanese.
The consequence of this is that Japan's rule is becoming increasingly consolidated, and fewer and fewer people are participating in anti-Japanese activities. The situation in the early days of September 18th when volunteer armies rose up and tens of thousands of people gathered at every turn is gone forever.
However, Xu Rui was not discouraged. He believed that the little fire he had sown would surely take root and sooner or later turn into a raging flame that would burn across the entire Northeast and drive the Japanese out of China!
In Harbin, in Yamashita Fengwen's office at the Japanese Far East Front Command Headquarters, Yamashita Fengwen was leaning on the back of the chair on a nanmu chair with his eyes closed, looking as if he was asleep.
After returning to Harbin, Yamashita Fengwen rested for half a month. His body gradually recovered and he could work normally. At this time, Yamashita Fengwen was thinking about his next plan.
The disastrous defeat at the Battle of Xingkai Lake damaged the vitality of Yamashita Fengfumi's Far Eastern Front Army, especially the veterans who were capable of fighting. Yamashita Fengfumi had to consider applying to mobilize reserve troops from the country to make up for the losses in this battle.
At this moment, Inoue Haruyuki walked in from outside the door. When he saw Yamashita Fengwen closed his eyes, Inoue Haruyuki thought that Yamashita Fengwen had fallen asleep and hurriedly prepared to go out.
"Inoue-kun, what's the matter?" Yamashita Fengfumi slowly opened his eyes and looked at Inoue Haruyuki.
Inoue Haruyuki whispered: "Marshal Yamashita, the news just came from the country, the domestic public opinion's response to the battle of Xingkai Lake is very dull."
"Oh?" Yamashita Fengwen's eyes lit up. After thinking about it carefully, he understood the reason, and a helpless smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
This is no longer the era of September 18th or the July 7th Incident. In that era, the Japanese army was invincible in China and had almost no opponents. However, in recent years, as the war has entered a stalemate, Japan has begun to lose more and more battles.
The Japanese people have become somewhat numb to the news of the failure. In addition, the propaganda agencies deliberately minimized the losses. Therefore, this failure did not cause much reaction.
"Inoue-kun, how big is our loss this time?" Yamashita Fengwen asked.
"A total of 807 people were killed and 1,025 were injured. Overall, everything is under control..."
"What I want is real data!" Yamashita Tomofumi interrupted Inoue Haruyuki.
On the battlefield, deliberately increasing the enemy's casualties and reducing one's own casualties has become a common practice in military statistics of various countries. This can have the effect of improving one's own morale.
For example, in the Battle of Taierzhuang, Chinese rule wiped out more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers, but the Japanese's own battle reports recorded the loss of only a few hundred people. The statistical discrepancy between the two sides' battle reports was staggering. Yamashita Fengfumi had been in the army for a long time.
Nature knows the truth.
Upon hearing that Yamashita Fengwen wanted to hear the real data, Inoue Haruyuki's voice became deeper and he said: "Preliminary estimates show that the total losses of the imperial army in this battle of Xingkai Lake will exceed 40,000 people. If we add 28
The total loss of our army during the division's first attack on Xingkai Lake was more than 50,000 people."
Yamashita Fengfumi took a breath of cold air. Although the entire Japanese Far Eastern Front had more than one million men, heavy troops were stationed in Siberia to defend against the Soviet army. The total mobile strength was only 500,000. This time at Xingkai Lake
The battle actually resulted in the loss of 50,000 people, which accounted for one-tenth of the mobile strength of the Far Eastern Front. Moreover, the losses were all elite veterans. As a result, the combat effectiveness of the Far Eastern Front was greatly reduced, and it had a great impact on the Northeast and Far East regions.
Control has also declined.
Yamashita Fengfumi knew that the top priority was to improve the combat effectiveness of the troops as soon as possible. The Far East Front needed more troops to maintain the current situation.
"Marshal Yamashita, our Far Eastern Front is currently short of troops and needs to be supplemented urgently," Inoue Haruyuki said.
Yamashita Fengwen said: "I have applied to the base camp to send more new troops to the Far East."
Inoue Haruyuki said: "The base camp's current attention is focused on the Pacific front and Southeast Asia. Most of the main force and reserve troops are sent in this direction. I am afraid that it will be of limited help to our Far East Front."
"It seems that we can only find a way ourselves." Yamashita Fengwen said.
"Now we have three methods. One is to recruit the Manchukuo army as an auxiliary force to the imperial army. However, although the combat effectiveness of the Manchukuo army is stronger than that of the imperial association army in the pass, they are Chinese after all, and their fighting will and combat effectiveness are still the same.
There is a big gap with the imperial army.
The second is to recruit troops from Korea. Judging from a series of recent performances, the Koreans have relatively strong combat effectiveness, only inferior to the imperial army. The most important thing is that their destructive power is relatively strong and they are merciless. Their combat effectiveness far exceeds that of Manchuria.
The national army became an important part of the imperial army."
"Except for the strong combat effectiveness of Ishikawa's troops, the rest of the Manchukuo Army has very poor combat effectiveness, and the emperor of Manchukuo is always ambitious. Expanding the Manchukuo Army will have great side effects on our continued control of Manchuria. Therefore, the first method
You can no longer consider it. As for recruiting troops from North Korea, this is a good idea. However, the recruiting locations for the North Korean garrison and the Far East Front Army are different. Expanding troops from North Korea will take a long time. The bureaucrats in the cabinet only know how to waffle and have too many people. We
There is no time to drag it out with them."
"Then we can only use the third method." Inoue Haruyuki said.
"What method?" Yamashita Fengwen asked.
"Recruit troops on the spot." Haruyuki Inoue said.
"Conscription on the spot?" Yamashita Fengwen looked at Inoue Haruyuki.
"Since the September 18th Incident in 1931, the empire has begun to immigrate to Manchuria in large numbers. Its purpose is to completely turn Manchuria into a colony of the empire within twenty years, change the population structure of Manchuria, and eventually fully integrate Manchuria into
As for the empire’s territory, it seems now that the empire’s immigration policy played a big role in Manchuria. We established many pioneering regiments in Manchuria, and the residents of these pioneering regiments were our source of soldiers.”
"Oh? How many soldiers can be recruited?" Yamashita Fengwen asked.
Inoue Haruyuki said: "If we don't miss the farming season and only recruit young people, we can recruit 200,000 soldiers. If we recruit all our troops, we can recruit 500,000 soldiers."
Half a million people are half of the current total strength of the Far Eastern Front Army. If another half a million troops can be recruited, then the strength of the Far Eastern Front Army can be rapidly expanded to 1.5 million troops. If there are 1.5 million troops
, he has enough troops, not only can he destroy the Primorsky Krai, but he can even divide his troops into Southeast Asia or go north. The Far East Front will become a powerful strategic force of the Japanese Empire, and may even change the entire war situation.
Thinking of this, Yamashita Fengwen said: "I will ask the base camp for instructions to recruit 500,000 troops."
Inoue Haruyuki said: "Okay, in this case, although some farming time will be delayed, the Far East Front Army can be greatly expanded. I just don't know how to deal with the weapons and equipment after our army expands."
Yamashita Fengwen said: "It's not a big deal to miss the farming season. There are so many Manchus in the Northeast, and they can grow enough food for us. As for weapons and equipment, the Manchurian army has low combat effectiveness, but its equipment is very sophisticated.
For example, the guards of Emperor Puyi of Manchukuo were all equipped with American-style equipment. These weapons could not play a big role in their hands, but if they were handed over to the hands of the imperial army, they could play an important role.
In this way, from now on, the light and heavy weapons used by the Manchukuo National Army will be collected and used to equip the newly recruited Imperial Army troops. In addition, our army's arsenal in Manchuria will be fully activated to produce sufficient weapons and ammunition to equip the newly recruited Imperial Army troops."