In the bunker headquarters of Port Arthur, these Datang army officers are the main commanders of the Liaodong Provisional Regiment sent here by the Datang Army, including the regiment commander and the commanders of the battalions below.

And the report they are circulating, this is the latest report on the establishment and personnel of their Liaodong garrison!

At the end of the report, a set of numbers stands out: nine hundred and eighty!

The strength of the Lushun garrison has dropped to a record low, but the reinforcements they applied for have been rejected many times, and not a single reinforcement has arrived in Port Arthur for three months!

At that time, there was only one infantry battalion of the army unit that landed there, and the navy sent two teams of marines and an artillery team.

Later, 300 reinforcements came over one after another, and then the navy and the army coordinated to directly transfer the marines and artillery units dispatched by the navy to the army as a whole in order to unify their command, and the army gave the navy a certain amount of compensation in other aspects.

At its peak, the army organized two infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, a baggage brigade, and an engineer regiment, with a total strength of more than 1,500 men and more than 20 field artillery pieces.

However, after the peak period, this army has not been replenished in terms of troops, and although war materials will be delivered one after another, there is not a single force.

The counteroffensive of the Ming army was quite fierce, and the continuous operation kept the troops at continuous attrition, coupled with factors such as illness, in the past few months, more than 600 people have been reduced, of which there are not many killed, only about 100 people, and more are still injured or sick, and were brought back to Shandong by ships.

But after the wounded soldiers were transported back to Shandong, the rear did not replenish them!

In this way, although there are still three battalions and two teams on the surface, the actual strength of this Liaodong temporary regiment has dropped to less than 1,000 people.

Major Jia Huayuan, the commander of the first battalion of the Liaodong Provisional Regiment, who had just read the report, said with anger in his words: "In the past five days, my first battalion has been attacked by the enemy and forced to reduce more than 20 people. ”

"yes, why hasn't the War Department given us troops to replenish it, have they forgotten us?"

"In the past few months, we have lost more than 600 people, and in front of us, at least more than 9,000 enemy troops are besieging day and night, why don't we send reinforcements to the rear, even if it is a new soldier!"

"Hmph, the adults above, all of them are staring at the southwest, where they will pay attention to our Liaodong Peninsula, not to mention, at that time, I was against directly organizing us directly under the Ministry of Operations, no, now it's okay, now even the Third Army doesn't care about us!"

Listening to the discussions of his subordinates, Colonel Hong Huofang, the head of the Liaodong Provisional Regiment, did not look very good!

Naturally, like his subordinates, he is also very dissatisfied with the lack of reinforcements from above, you know, he has already created history for the Tang Army and has become the first colonel commander with less than 1,000 troops under his command.

Nima, it's a shame to say this!

When he was transferred to the Liaodong Peninsula by his boss and served as the newly established Liaodong Provisional Regiment, although the strength of the regiment was only 1,600 at that time, several senior operational staff officers of the War Department swore to him that it would not be long before Lushun would increase troops, and when the time came, the scale of the Liaodong Provisional Regiment would not take long to reach the size of a mixed regiment, at least 5,000 people!

However, after he came to Lushun, he found that those senior staff officers in the war department were all people who were full of lies and bragged about not making drafts.

In the four months he has been in Lushun, he has not seen a single reinforcement!

He reported to the top many times, and then he was rejected, and even the reason for refusal was the same, the troops were tight, and there were no extra troops for him.

If it weren't for the Tang Dynasty's Wang Division's restriction on the troops to recruit on their own, he would have to recruit them on his own.

However, if he dares to recruit troops on his own, it is estimated that he will not send reinforcements over, but send a large army to quell the rebellion!

In the military system of the Tang Dynasty, only the War Department and the Admiralty of the Cabinet have the right to recruit soldiers, not to mention his small temporary regiment commander, even the Military Department of the Third Army, and even the departments under the Privy Council, and even the War Department, have no power to recruit soldiers!

Those who recruit without authorization will be punished as conspiracy!

The War Department recruits new recruits, sends them to the training department under the Operations Department of the Privy Council, enters the recruit camp for training, and then after the training is completed, they are sent to serve in various units, which is a whole process.

Even the salaries of soldiers are paid not by the chief officers of each unit, but by the Privy Council's salary department directly to rotate the relevant officials to each unit, and then statistically verify and distribute, and the salary of each soldier is divided into two parts, one part is directly paid to the soldiers, and the other part is deducted as the expenses related to the uniform meal.

At the same time, the soldiers can also use the military bank, well, the Datang Royal Bank has a mobile business point in every army, deposit money, or send money home directly.

Many rules forced Hong Huo Fang to watch as his troops became smaller and smaller, but they could not be replenished!

It is not even possible to hire local villagers to assist in the battle, this kind of thing seems to belong to the category of private recruitment!

A group of officers and men from the War Department are staring at it every day!

The War Department has the word "Army", but it is a civilian organization that has no real connection with the Army, and the War Department is a member of the Cabinet, and those civilian officials in the Cabinet have long wanted to limit the power of the military, or simply set up a Cabinet army on their own.

Once those civilian officials seize the opportunity, they will be sprayed to death, and then his military career will be completely over.

But although he was annoyed in his heart, he needed to stop the words of his subordinates, after all, there were some things that could not be said.

Immediately, he said: "The southwest strategy is related to the 10,000-year foundation of the empire, and it is natural for adults to attach importance to it." Our regiment is under the direct jurisdiction of the Ministry of Operations, which is related to the imperial Liaodong strategy, and the boss has his own plans! ”

"As for the difficulty of insufficient troops, there has always been one, and now, we must grit our teeth and continue to persevere! Now that the southwest campaign has won a strategic victory, 100,000 governors have been annihilated, and the pressure on the southwest has been greatly reduced, the upper authorities should also re-attach importance to Liaodong, and the official believes that it will not take long for reinforcements to arrive! ”

And as soon as he finished speaking, there was a 'military report' outside.

Military newspapers? Sent from Dengzhou?

After a few months inside, the discussion suddenly stopped, and then Hong Huofang picked up a thick iron box from the herald's hand, which was marked with the words military top secret, and after opening the iron package, the envelope inside was revealed.

This envelope is the standard envelope for the General Staff Division of the War Department to transmit orders, and the large characters printed on it are very conspicuous

After checking that it was correct, he opened the envelope, and Hong Huofang looked at the contents of the letter, and then smiled while reading it!

The letter was not long, but it was a very standard letter in the form of an official document, and the main content was that the chief of staff informed him that 2,000 reinforcements were about to arrive in Lushun, and that he was ready to meet them.

And made it clear that among the two thousand reinforcements, there are three infantry battalions that have been formed, and there are about 500 pure recruits, all of whom will join the Liaodong Provisional Regiment and be under his command.

After seeing it, he took a deep breath and said, "Everyone, our reinforcements are coming, two thousand, two thousand!" ”

"Really, really sent reinforcements?"

"Two thousand? So much, could it be that the top has taken the wrong medicine, and now that the troops are so tight, can they still transfer so many troops to us? "Someone doubts about two thousand troops!

But after a while, he also saw this letter, which clearly read, two thousand people!

"Damn, they really took the wrong medicine!" After this person saw it, although he said so, the joy on his face was very obvious.

"The Holy Son of Heaven is worthy of being the Holy Monarch of the Ages, this has just returned to the Dynasty, that is, he saw the suffering of our Liaodong soldiers, and directly sent reinforcements over!"

"Although they are all recruits, and their combat effectiveness is poor, but this is two thousand people, train well, hone it in actual combat, and you can pull it out to fight, but let alone hold this Port Arthur, there is also hope for counterattacking the puppet thief army on the opposite side.

Everyone was stunned by the news that these two thousand reinforcements were coming, even Colonel Hong Huofang's mood was much better, and then according to the date mentioned in the letter, it was estimated that it would be as short as eight days or as long as ten days, and this batch of reinforcements would be able to arrive.

Then, in the afternoon, he gathered all the main officers under his command to discuss how to meet the two thousand reinforcements, how to place them, how to train, how to do so, and so on.

And privately, he also discussed with his chief of staff a counteroffensive plan!

The puppet Ming thief army under the command of King Hui of Liaodong on the opposite side has been pressing them in the past few months, relying on a large number of people, although in the past few months, the Liaodong temporary regiment has caused at least two or three thousand casualties to the puppet Ming thief army on the opposite side.

However, there were many casualties, and reinforcements were immediately dispatched, and the number of troops has always been maintained at the scale of 10,000 people.

It was Hong Huo Fang who didn't have a temper at all!

Now, the reinforcements are about to arrive, and Hong Huofang naturally wants to think about how to use this batch of reinforcements to fight a counteroffensive, at least to take the opportunity to take down Jinzhouwei, knowing that taking this place, it will be much easier to advance northward in the future.

But it is not easy to launch a counteroffensive to the north after waiting for reinforcements, and the puppet Ming thief army has already built a complete defense line in Jinzhouwei in order to prevent them from going north, and it is a tough battle to fight directly.

However, no one stipulates that he Honghuo must fight a land attack, and he can land behind the Jinzhou defense line and give them a front and rear attack!

He didn't believe it, after attacking from front to back, cutting off the back road of the Jinzhou Weiming Army, they could still hold the Jinzhou Acropolis!