The movements of the Japanese were known to the Northwest at the first time, and then Yang Yuanzhao and Cai Ye were informed, Cai Ye was also surprised when he heard the news, and surrounded the remnants of the Japanese army, which was a free move at that time, encircling the point to send reinforcements, and by the way reducing the losses of the Northwest Army, no matter how to say it, a division that was formed into a regiment, or the 18th Division with very strong combat effectiveness, even if it was forcibly attacked, no matter how to reduce the losses, there were hundreds or even thousands of casualties.

Maybe for other troops, such a loss is nothing at all, annihilating 30,000 people, losing one or two thousand people, this is a rare victory, but for the northwest, the two thousand people's pension, plus some expenses in the later stage, is really a lot, try to avoid sacrificing soldiers, has always been advocated by the northwest, of course, it is not unwilling to sacrifice, the 117th regiment in the resistance battle showed this spirit, that is at a critical moment, can be taken, withstandable. However, similar to the senseless sacrifice of attacking the trapped beast, it can be avoided, and letting them wait for help is the best choice, not only to avoid casualties. They also surrounded each other.

However, now, it seems that things are getting a little bigger, according to the scale of the Japanese mobilization, it is not a small group of mobilization, the remaining 15 standing divisions, 17 new independent brigades, a total of 400,000 troops, all of them have been mobilized, which is almost all the remaining strength of Japan at present.

Feelings, the other side also seems to have discovered that in Shandong, the Northwest Army is numerous, so the permanent divisions and regiments have been sent, according to the information of the Intelligence Bureau over there, in Japan, under the condition that the necessary seeds have been left, a large number of reserve troops. At one time, it was 25 divisions. Japan is also a powerful guy with a mobilization capacity of more than one million, and during the Russo-Japanese War, Japan mobilized an army of more than one million. Later, in order to focus on the development of the navy, and the Russo-Japanese War did not take much advantage, it was reduced to a permanent division.

Now that only 8 years have passed since the Russo-Japanese War, a large number of veterans are actually still in the prime of life. If at least 25 divisions are formed in the country, it will be almost 500,000 troops. For these permanent divisions and regiments of Japan, the Northwest Corps did not underestimate them. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan was able to rise rapidly and defeat the Qing Dynasty and Russia in the army. It's powerful. And this is 400,000 people, who chose to march on Qingdao with a steady attitude.

Cai Ye annihilated 2 divisions of the Japanese army in Qingdao and surrounded the rest, but did not let Cai Ye underestimate the Japanese, Cai Ye studied in Japan, and knew a lot about the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army. That battle could not be regarded as the full strength of the Japanese. The Japanese army encountered the Northwest Army under extremely unfavorable circumstances, and in that case, if it were not for the asymmetry in intelligence, they might even have escaped.

In the sudden attack, with the help of the battery, the Japanese army was greatly disturbed, almost lost more than half of its combat effectiveness, and was attacked head-on by the superior forces of the Northwest Army, especially the reconnaissance group against Tachibana Koichiro's department, although it was an encounter, but one side understood the other side's movements, and took the initiative to find the advantageous area to defend, and one side of the main attack, defeat was inevitable, but now, Japan is preparing to land from Tianjin, and then attack Shandong, preparing to fight a positional war in a dignified manner.

Positional warfare, with the heritage of the Northwest Army, Cai Ye is not afraid at all, although it is not the beginning of the army's construction, it has entered the Northwest, but since the beginning of the 54 Mixed Formation Association, every step of the Northwest Army expansion, Cai Ye is clear, professional army construction, high-density technical equipment, strict and almost cruel training, these have become the strong foundation of the Northwest Army, plus now, continue to graduate, a steady stream of professional officers and non-commissioned officers into the barracks, the Northwest has embarked on a professional officer road, compared with The Japanese army learned from Germany, but it was a bit nondescript, paying attention to reducing logistics, with soldiers and white-knuckle warfare as the main body, which is outdated in the current era, how can the flesh be opposed to steel.

Positional warfare is bound to break out, and another issue has to be considered. Along the way, it is all the chassis of the Chinese, the virtue of the Japanese army, not only Yang Yuanzhao is very clear, even Cai Gong also knows, many senior officials of the Northwest Army know that these senior officials are former Beiyang old generals, and even stationed in the northeast, very clear that the Russo-Japanese War of that year, in the northeast, the Japanese and the Russian army, do not know how many killings were caused in the northeast.

Cai Ye knew very well how difficult it was to resist the Japanese army and prevent them from casually causing killing, and even sometimes, he was also thinking about whether to use planes on the ship to send these Japanese soldiers into the belly of the fish, which was probably the best way not to lose the people.

But soon, Cai Ye sobered up, this is not the best way, because Japan is coming on a British, French and American cargo ship, if they are completely sunk, maybe there will be a lawsuit, but there will be a certain Cheng dù above, the northwest will fall into passivity in diplomacy. At this moment, it is not the time to attack Britain and France, according to Yang Yuanzhao's proposal, after the Nanyang side starts in the future, it can be blatantly cooperated with Germany, and even nominally it can be said that with the help of Germany, Borneo and even Indonesia became independent. At that time, Scheer's fleet can attack Malacca with Borneo as the center, and include the whole of East Asia, perhaps in the name of Lan Fangguo, or in the name of Indonesia, in short, China will occupy the land, and by the way, be responsible for the maintenance and logistics supply of Scheer's fleet, so that each takes what he needs.

As for China's side, it is not very suitable to intervene in the Central Powers, China has not yet been completely reunified, has not yet formed a stable country, representing the same strength, rashly joining the camp of the Central Powers, just a name, China is not ready, to intervene in the European battlefield, to join the Central Powers in vain, need to bear obligations, but there is no benefit, but also to deal with the direct threat of Britain and France, this is too uneconomical.

Located at the Cai Ye Headquarters in Qingdao, the staff officers who urgently came from the northwest began to get busy and jointly deal with the situation. And the followers of these staff officers are Jiang Baili, this is a war related to the fortunes of the country, different from the previous war against Russia, at that time not only did the two sides not declare war, the northwest has already used all its strength, but Russia only used part of the forces of the Far East. This time, Japan has done its best in the real national war, and if these 400,000 permanent divisions have no effect, those new divisions and regiments formed in Japan will definitely continue to be involved, and it will also be a war of one million people.

In terms of troops, the northwest has almost a large number of human resources, and now the controllable human resources almost occupy 7 percent of the entire China, which is almost 350 million personnel, if it is a general mobilization, according to the 0.5 percent of the troop drawing rate, it is more than 17 million troops, of course, this is the limit, the northwest can produce so many weapons and equipment, but it may not need so many people.

In the Northwest Military Academy, a steady stream of soldiers, constantly replenished into the Northwest category, the number of soldiers is gradually expanding every year, if at the beginning, the Northwest Military Academy, some like squeezing toothpaste, squeezing out students, now, almost endlessly, this is not the earliest time 2 years, 3 years of graduates, but orthodox after three to four years of training, and at least one and a half years of internship of real officers.

At present, there are as many as 6,000 graduating students in the school, and with the short-term training, junior officers and non-commissioned officers refresher courses, it can provide about 10,000 low-level officers every year. According to these low-level officers, a standard for dealing with 40 soldiers is almost 400,000 troops, and the expansion of the northwest is not only scientific but also advanced, focusing on low-level personnel, technical equipment, and hard training, but the ammunition consumed in the northwest every year because of army training is enough to fight several times, or even a dozen times of the Russo-Japanese War. Although sharpshooters rely on talent, they don't have enough ammunition and can't be trained at all, while sharpshooters in the northwest are almost standard, plus all kinds of heavy firepower, a division's combat effectiveness is very strong.

At present, at the end of 1913, the northwest had made certain statistics, and there were currently a total of 50 first-class divisions, 40 second-class divisions, and a different number of independent divisions, with a total of about 1.93 million soldiers. As far as the total number of soldiers is concerned, even if Japan completely breaks out, it is definitely not the opponent of the northwest, and this is the difference between the mainland countries and the maritime countries, and the most important thing is that the northwest has all the weapons production capacity, and the difference between making its own weapons and purchasing weapons from outside is as little as two or three times as little as ten times and as much as ten times more, not to mention the consumption of labor required for the production of these weapons.

The machine in the northwest has been modified by Yang Yuanzhao, especially the machine tool in the northwest, which has reached the extreme of manual machine tools, high-speed cutting and a variety of machine tools specifically for machine tools, so that every weapon is cheaper than the cheapest in the world, and the most important thing is that the speed of making zuò is extremely fast, in the past few years, the northwest has almost provided, Turkey, the Revolutionary Party, Beiyang, and even some of the German arms, but also on this basis, supporting the consumption of nearly 2 million troops, and even a certain inventory.

The northwest can casually use the strength of two or three group armies, almost 600,000, and the Japanese will fight in Shandong, perhaps after the orthodox positional warfare at the beginning, followed by assault warfare and annihilation warfare, the number of soldiers and weapons and equipment occupy an absolute advantage, whether it is commanded by Cai Yi or commanded by others, there is not much difference.

The key problem is to reduce losses, but to fight on their own chassis, but also to guard against the possible massacre of the Japanese, this has to be prevented, whether it is the Japanese, or the Russians, there is such a tradition, for this Jiang Baili came, but also brought the current except for a small number of left-behind personnel, including the entire staff, a total of 3,000 professional staff officers, jointly for this battle, to work out a perfect plan. (To be continued......)