Life is truly an amazing journey.

When Song Biao accepted the highest commendation from Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin and the letter of appointment from the Tsarist Empire for the formation of the Manchurian Infantry Division, and returned to his seat with the pride of despising many generals of the Russian army, his heart became more and more peculiar admiration.

He likes this kind of life full of thrills, unknowns and adventures**, this kind of life is truly worthwhile, but a few months ago, how could he have thought that he would embark on such a life path?

So, there are so many possibilities in life!

On the stage, Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin took this opportunity to face the main generals of the Second Army and the Third Army, made a complete communiqué on the entire Battle of Heigoutai, and summarized the changes, benefits, and various inspirations brought by this battle to the Russian army.

The greatest inspiration was the tactics created by Song Biao that relied on shotguns, machine guns, Cossack spears, mines and flares, and this new tactic, officially named "Song Tactics", could effectively restrain the night offensive and positional offensive of the Yue army, which was systematic and complete.

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin hereby demanded that the commanders of all units must grasp the use of this tactic and the allocation of equipment as soon as possible, and fully achieve the three tactical priorities of early prediction, early blocking, and cross-type counteroffensive.

When he explained the essentials of this tactic on the stage, many Russian generals in the audience invariably glanced at Song Biao from time to time, and that complex emotion made their hearts both hard and timid quite tormented.

Song Biao was pondering that if one day he also became emperor, he must come up with a more meaningful meritorious system, such as the Imperial Hussar Medal and the like.

After the merit ceremony and the grand celebration banquet, the generals and staff officers of the various units left Shendan Fort one after another.

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin left Song Biao alone to discuss the formation of the Manchurian Infantry Division in the Second Army's makeshift operations conference room, accompanied by General Kirbas, General Mishuchenko, and Brigadier General Madenidov.

At this time, General Mishuchenko officially replaced General Bilderlinger, who had retreated from the battle, as the supreme commander of the Third Army of the Tsarist Far Eastern Army.

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin was a rather peculiar supreme commander, he was not the kind of person who acted arbitrarily and looked no further, but in fact he was very willing to listen to the opinions of others.

Taking this opportunity, both General Kirbas and General Mishuchenko put forward some ideas of their own.

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin was very silent and listened to their thoughts, and did not immediately set an example, but said to Song Biao: "I heard that Madneydorf said that you have some special thoughts about this war, can you tell me about it?" ”

"So?"

Song Biao glanced at Brigadier General Madenidorff, a few days ago on the position of Jiangjiayao, he did have several discussions with Brigadier General Madenidorff about the Russian War, but he did not seriously consider whether to continue to influence this war in depth.

After a little thought in his heart, Song Biaocai said: "I am considering the problem from the perspective of a third party, the Chinese have an old saying, the so-called authorities are confused, bystanders are clear, translated into Russian is that the parties are usually not clear, and irrelevant people can understand better." The causes of this war are very clear, the commander-in-chief understands better than anyone else, but in this war, the people who took the initiative to provoke the war were actually defending the bottom line of their national development and survival, and Russia, I can hardly feel that Russia and the Russians are fighting for survival. These two determined that the Russian soldiers would not fight with all their might, while the soldiers of the Japanese army would not be afraid of death. That's the first point. The second point is that since the Sino-Japanese War, Yueben has been preparing for this war, and most of its soldiers are well-trained professional soldiers who have served in the army for many years, while the Russian army is mainly a temporary reserve soldier, and the gap between the two sides in the average combat level is obvious; Third, the gap between Russia and Russia in terms of equipment is no longer obvious; Fourth, in terms of the establishment of the armed forces, the Russian army has completely emulated Germany and France, and the system is more perfect, while the Russian army has retained too much of the traditional establishment system, and there is a difference in the combat efficiency of the two armies. ”

He stopped at this point, in fact, he really didn't want to say any more, anyway, the benefits he needed had already been reaped, and it was impossible to fight to the death for the Russian army and the Yue army in the future, and he couldn't fight hard, and his Manchurian infantry regiment was also crippled by the Fifth Division of the Yue Army.

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin pondered for a long time, wanting to refute, but he felt powerless to refute, and he felt as if he had heard it.

As everyone knows, when this commander-in-chief was the Minister of War of the Tsarist Empire, he already had a premonition that the army was speeding up preparations for war against Russia, and he was very much disapproving of the war with the army, and as a result, he failed to do so, and was instead appointed as the supreme commander-in-chief of the Imperial Far East Army.

After a forced sigh, Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin suddenly said to Song Biao: "You are very right, but the other advantage you and Madenidorf said is exactly what I want to fight for now, and that is the incomparably precious advantage of time on our side. There is no need for our army to fight a strong decisive battle with the Chinese army, because if we drag it out, as long as we maintain our current posture and hold out for another half a year, the Chinese army may lose its ability to continue waging war. ”

Song Biao said: "Sun Wu, an ancient military strategist in our country, once said that it is the best policy to surrender the soldiers without a fight. His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, if such a vision is possible. Now that I've talked about this, let me tell you a little bit what I really think. Your Excellency Commander-in-Chief, the Yue army actually knows very well that they absolutely cannot continue to delay, even if you avoid the battle and delay, the Yue army will continue to find a way to force a decisive battle. Therefore, I am afraid that the decisive battle will inevitably be inevitable in the end. War is an extension of the economy and politics, in the current situation, the only choice of the army is to gamble all its strength to do the final decisive battle, if we consider the problem from the perspective of the army, their only choice is to continue to storm the right flank of the Russian army and defeat the second army. As long as they do this, they can forcibly detour to the rear of Shenyang, achieve a counter-encirclement of the entire Russian army, cut off all supplies of the Russian army, and crush the Russian army's will to fight. This is their only countermeasure. If they choose to attack the front or the left flank, even if they win, they will only occupy Fushun in the end, which will not have much impact on the entire battle situation, and a second decisive battle will be implemented in the future. If I were General Dashanyan, I would continue to wait and accumulate new troops, and then make a posture of attacking the left flank of the Russian army, forcing the Russian army to drag all the reserve forces to the left flank, and then take out all the troops in my hands to gamble on the right flank of the Russian army, as long as the main force of the right wing of the Russian army is defeated in a war, this war will be over, even if you retreat to Shenyang first, the morale of the Russian army will be lost, everyone is afraid of the war, and this war will be the same as losing. ”

After a slight pause and a moment of silence, Song Biao continued to supplement and remind Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin: "Actually, if the situation really develops to that point, Your Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, even if you still retain the plan for the follow-up battle, Your Majesty the Tsar will probably not give you this opportunity again." Shenyang is a place where you can no longer retreat, not to mention that there was a big victory just before, and His Majesty the Tsar must have very high expectations for you now. ”

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin still nodded silently, and did not veto all of Song Biao's remarks, no matter how he viewed Song Biao before, at this moment, the soldier of Asian descent he knew must be a smart man with extremely high military qualities.

At this time, Song Biao was wearing the uniform of a colonel of the infantry of the Tsarist Russian Empire, wearing the Gold Order of St. George, a first-class medal, which symbolized one of the highest honors of the Tsarist Empire, and spoke extremely fluent standard Russian.

As for how to understand the "army that surrenders without a fight", His Excellency Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin must not understand it either, and he does not want to waste time and energy to understand it, and this is precisely the gap between him and Oyama Iwa, and the "800 miles behind enemy lines" used by Oyama Iwa and Akiyama Yoshigu can be called a real "soldier who surrenders without a fight".

If you can read and make use of Kleusewitz's "On War", you will definitely become a good general, but if you can really read and make use of "The Art of War", you will be able to become a great military strategist.

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin pondered Song Biao's reminder and was silent for a moment before replying: "Just as you predicted, Your Majesty has asked us to annihilate the Yue army in the fastest possible time, which is very bad news, but I have already called back and made it clear that this matter is impossible. As far as the current situation is concerned, although our army has already occupied a greater advantage, it is still too early to fight a decisive battle with the Yue army, and it is not even necessary. If the Japanese army really wants to defeat us completely, then they will make a serious mistake, and we must make them pay a heavy price. ”

Song Biao snorted and asked, "Then how do you plan to deploy it?" ”

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin asked rhetorically: "Song, if you were me, how would you deal with the Yue army?" ”

"Me?"

Song Biao sighed a little curiously, because he had never considered such a question, and after a little thought, he said: "I will have several deployments, first, I will reorganize the strength of 350,000 troops into five group armies, arrange three group armies on the left, center and right flanks, and keep two group armies in my hand as reserve forces; Second, I will give priority to strengthening the construction of fortifications, especially to the right and left flanks, so as to attract as many troops as possible to attack the frontal positions; Third, the forces of the two divisions should be transferred to strengthen the support in the rear, and it is imperative to ensure the adequacy and stability of logistical supplies. Fourth, it is necessary to strengthen the allocation of military equipment, emphasize as much as possible the firepower of positional operations, allocate more machine guns and shotguns, and concentrate artillery forces on the five group armies. Fifth, it is necessary to form six to seven cavalry regiments, disperse operations, and be responsible for bypassing the positions of the Yue army to attack the supply lines of the Yue Ben, and resolutely implement the principle of running away when fighting a wave, so that the Yue army will be tired of coping; Sixth, I understand at least one principle, that is, the loss of the frontal battlefield and the left flank is not a terrible thing, especially the left flank, even if the army occupies Fushun, in fact, it is impossible to outflank the rear flank of the Russian army through the long mountains, and the loss of the right flank is the most terrible thing. War is deception, and the army knows this way, and if they attack a certain position first, then this position is precisely their feint. ”

Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin exclaimed, "You have conceived and taken into account all aspects that are actually a little more than mine, and have some good inspiration for me. After the establishment of the Manchurian Infantry Division, you will be responsible for the safety of transportation and supply on the Hunjiang River, and the empire will not treat you badly in everything you want, Colonel Song. ”

Song Biao said with a smile: "Regarding the transportation safety in the Hunjiang area, you can rest assured, I will clear out the bandits here in the shortest possible time, as well as those small-scale army harassment troops!" ”

At this moment, how Song Biao thinks about these issues in his heart, I'm afraid only he knows. But one thing is undeniable, and that is that both Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin and General Mishuchenko have a very special admiration for him, he is not a handsome and free aristocratic gentleman, but he is extremely intelligent.

He is a wise man, this is the unanimous consensus of all of you, and he will leave the Russo-Russian war for the time being.

With a wave of his hand, he left your field of vision, taking with him machine guns, cannons, and tens of thousands of rifles.