The attack on Baitu Village finally officially started after Xi Yazhou took office. [Read the latest chapter] After the fat man was recuperating for more than half a month, Wu Nanhai kicked him out because he tried to steal a chicken. Although he repeatedly argued that the missing pair of ducks on the farm was not his responsibility, Wu Nanhai still politely asked him to "stay away." The brewing Army Club also died prematurely.
Baitu Village is a small port village, located between Lingao and Danzhou. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides and has a good port. It is convenient for ships to enter and exit. It has always been the main shipbuilding site in Lingao. The report of the reconnaissance team showed that the traffic on Route 6 here is not easy, and there are only a few mountain roads. The locals set up Juma, Luchai and Fort at the intersection to guard against bandits, as well as officers, soldiers and servants. It is not difficult for the current new army to attack by force. Xi Yazhou feels that even if the current army is given swords and spears to clean up Baitu Village, there will be no problem. It will just kill more people.
"However, our operation should be just a police operation." Xi Yazhou studied the map drawn by the Military Commission's reconnaissance team for a long time. "Since these shipwrights are going to be used, too many people cannot die."
"What are you going to do?"
"Let's have an armed parade. Force them to surrender without a fight."
"In terms of cost-effectiveness, I think our reconnaissance team is the most suitable." Bei Wei suggested, "The surrounding mountains are not steep, and it is easy to penetrate them. Go directly in and capture all the main brains inside. It’s done.”
"That's right, but Baitu Village is a soft persimmon, just for these newcomers to have a taste of something new." Ma Qianxu said.
"To embolden them?"
"Enemies, these people were just as weak as hoes more than a month ago. The officers are all modern people, so I'm afraid they won't cooperate well. We have to let them smell the gunpowder."
"Sure, let's make more designs and varieties. Let's do it as a drill."
Baitu Village itself can't be said to be armed. It has no regiments, but all the people are soldiers. It is said that it has fought off several small groups of pirates. According to the investigation by the intelligence department, Baitu Village has a population of more than 500, half of which are young people. Most of them are shipwrights who escaped from Guangdong and Fujian. This village was originally just a small fishing village with seven or eight fishermen households. The population slowly increased after foreign shipwrights fled here.
Huang Xiong was promoted. He, the former Ming army commander, was in a state of confusion after being summoned. He was not stupid. It was clear that he did not trust him. These Australians wouldn't kill him just because they doubted him, right? After a few days of doubt and fear, I thought about running away, but I thought that all the people who escaped before were caught and paraded in public, and I might not be an exception, and because of my identity, once I was caught, I would definitely die.
After a few days of panic, he was appointed squad leader of the eighth squad of the third company of the training camp. The commander of the third company was a man named You Huhu, who liked to use a sword. He heard that Huang Xiong was an officer of the Ming Army and insisted on fighting with him. Than a machete. Huang Xiong hesitated for a moment whether to lose to him on purpose, but finally decided to show his strength to the Australians - he knew that the Australians had no regard for the locals, who had the ability, and who If you have strength, you will be reused.
But the victory did not come easily. This wandering tiger actually didn't have any moves, just slashing and slashing, but he was extremely powerful and experienced in fighting. It took Huang Xiong several minutes to knock his knife away.
"You lose! Company Commander."
"If you want to use a real sword, you are no match for me!" You Laohu roared unconvinced, "I have the Qinglong Yanyue Sword!"
"That's an opera thing, you'll lose faster with it!"
You Laohu looked at him angrily for a long time and yelled: "Good man, you have some skills."
Huang Xiong inexplicably became You Laohu's "brother" and was forced to compete with him every day after training. He originally thought that You Huhu was going to promote him to be a soldier or something, but obviously the Australian army didn't do this. As the company commander, You Laohu is in charge of the 100th person. He is at the level of Dusi in the Ming army, and he only has one "guard" around him.
"The determination of this operation is to subdue Baitu Village." Xi Yazhou explained the mission at a meeting of battalion platoon and above commanders. "Minimize casualties as much as possible during the battle and maintain restraint during the operation. There are more new recruits participating in the battle this time. , the discipline of the troops must be tightened. How is the progress of each company teaching the singing of the Three Major Disciplines and Eight Points of Attention?"
"We have been teaching for three days and everyone can basically sing." Wei Aiwenhui, who temporarily serves as the camp's politics teacher, reported.
"Not only must you be able to sing, but you must also understand the meaning of the lyrics." Xi Yazhou said. The song "Three Major Disciplines and Eight Points of Attention" is catchy, and it explains military discipline and the way to get along with the people in an easy-to-understand manner. It is a rare military song for educational purposes.
"The following is a logistical issue -"
Since the coup failed, Ye Yuming returned to his promising job of raising rabbits. In the past few days, Ye Yuming's ears, which were originally troubled only by mosquitoes, were now filled with these words. "According to private chats with people from the Sixth Army, this is the first large-scale expedition since Chuanchuan established the new army." The Ministry of Agriculture is facing a huge challenge: military food.
"The soldiers and horses have not moved, but the food and grass go first." Now the military leaders have reached a consensus on whether to dispatch the new troops - not only must they be dispatched, but they must also be large-scale and turn into an armed demonstration. But there is no doubt that no matter what you plan to do, you have to eat.
Although this army is still in its most primitive state, the order to research military rations has been issued to the Agricultural Committee. The biggest headache for people in the Ministry of Agriculture is to trial-produce field rations that can be carried with the army and ensure sufficient nutrition in the high-temperature and high-humidity environment of Hainan.
It stands to reason that since this expedition is a low-intensity operation and is expected to last only three days at most, and the mechanical team has also opened a cooking truck, the guarantee of hot meals and dishes is the most ideal. Field rations are something that has never been delicious in ancient and modern times, and they are emergency supplies in emergencies.
Because this operation also has an experimental nature to comprehensively test existing equipment, the Military Commission requires that enough field rations for three days must be provided. There can be more types. The main purpose is to let the troops try them and listen to their reactions.
The Ministry of Agriculture has long tried and made portable foods from all over China and even around the world, such as fried rice, steamed cakes, rice balls, fried noodles, pancakes, naan, rice cakes, and military grain balls. Wu Nanhai also opened a rather weird thing called Jinhua shortbread. Facts have proved that this thing can indeed be stored for a long time, but it is really hard to swallow. Moreover, shortbread requires a lot of lard, and all fats and oils are now considered "strategic materials."
Dry pancakes, fried noodles, naan and dry steamed buns are all mature portable dry foods and are easy to process. In particular, pancakes showed their value in the battle against Goujiazhuang. Pancakes are extremely durable and were used as dry food for Shandong people in the past when they traveled far away. However, the food situation in Lingao is that there is more rice than noodles. Although the main ingredient of Shandong pancakes is actually sweet potato, the nutritional value of sweet potato is too low and does not meet the military rations, so it is eliminated together with noodles such as fried noodles and naan.
The rest were rice products. Ye Yuming suggested making fried rice, and also proposed using fried rice and maltose to make fried rice cakes. But fried rice is not as shelf-stable as fried noodles, and they don't have maltose available. So someone else suggested that they continue to make military grain pills - they have made some in the past: the taste of this thing is really terrible: it is made from cooked rice and dried in the sun. It is said to be very durable - the Japanese samurai in those days ate it every day. After trying it, everyone came to the conclusion that only Japanese people can eat this thing.
Rice noodles, rice cakes, rice noodles, rice noodles, rice balls, rice cakes... all kinds of rice products were unearthed from the depths of memory by everyone. Through the full cooperation of the canteen and the agricultural department, they fully searched for information and used their wild imagination. With great effort, a table full of test products was quickly produced.
This military ration experiment received a great name "Long March Project" in the documents. Later, Wu Nanhai considered that this great name might be used for other purposes in the future, so it became the rather anticlimactic "Grassland Project" in the current file. name.
Facing a table full of weird so-called field ration experimental products that looked more like being used to tease people, everyone reached a surprising consensus on the issue of tasting: distribute all these items to the expeditionary force, and then use them when the troops are the hungriest. Observations should be conducted at regular intervals to allow the troops to test the truth in practice. But who was the military observer? When they thought of those angry officers, everyone immediately started to judge each other again...
Just as everyone was looking left to right, trying to escape from accepting this life-threatening task, the savior finally appeared. It is Dongmen Chuiyu, the wise staff officer who has been in and out of the New Army Headquarters recently. At this critical moment, he passed by the farm.
Dongmen Chuiyu originally wanted to see if he could get some private goods such as tomatoes at the farm, and take a look at the little girl here in Wu Nanhai, but after being discovered, after a short but ambiguous period of time, it was enough to numb a pig. After making eye contact, everyone enthusiastically asked Comrade Dongmen Chuiyu to come to the Ministry of Agriculture to observe the development of field food...
Inspired by a burst of fearless and internationalist spirit, Comrade Dongmen Chuiyu resolutely agreed to act as the Ministry of Agriculture's field food survey. And I got two tomatoes as I wished. All the colleagues on the farm watched his back with reverence. As the saying goes: the wind is rustling and the water is cold...
After intense preparations, the Baitu expedition group left Bopu. These include the first company of the teaching battalion, one platoon each of the second and third companies, more than 160 people, 30 cadets from the military and political school, 10 people from the reconnaissance team directly under the Central Military Commission, and more than 40 people from the artillery unit. There was also a medical team sent by the health team, composed of students from the Women's Technical School led by Hippo, and finally a 100-person baggage team.
The navy dispatched the recently repaired and refitted two-masted sailing ship "Fubo" to serve as maritime support, and there were also 6 civilian ships purchased and refitted from the local area, fully loaded with various supplies. If there weren't too few ships, Xi Yazhou would have planned to transport them all by ship.
Five infantry platoons marched in in four columns. The soldiers wore rattan helmets on their octagonal hats. The rattan helmets were made in the style of colonial helmets. The front of the helmet was inlaid with a shiny piece of steel stamped on it. With the unit number on it, it can also provide some additional protection for the soldiers. There is a white sunshade neck cloth floating on the back - this item is indispensable when marching and fighting in a place with long sunshine hours like Lingao. The canvas leggings were drawn tight. The cowhide belt is equipped with double ammunition boxes. A total of 12o bullets and 13o flash caps are placed in the 4 ammunition boxes. Kettles, bayonets, engineer shovels and utility bags were hung on backpack rattan boxes stuffed with various items, with thin cotton blankets tied on top. Although there would be baggage ships supplying food along the way, each soldier still kept a pack of 10 pieces of rice cakes in his backpack. The monitor also has a bottle of soju. This is emergency food and can only be used after an order is given.
