Tao Rong, the deputy chief of staff, not only has a clear mind and draws up a meticulous and steady campaign plan, but also is very good at all matters such as regular military quartermaster and training.

Nominally, the command organization that Song Zhewu led in Zhengzhou claimed to be the headquarters of the Fourth Route Army, but in fact it only included an operations office, a political training office, and less than half of the logistics office. However, now here not only does the army have the task of garrisoning and guarding, but also a large number of recruits need to be trained and integrated, Tao Rong only has some personnel from the Operations Department and the personnel of the Political Training Department who can be used to transfer them, and the rest of the people are basically unable to help because they are not familiar with the affairs of the Staff Office. Despite this, all the work was arranged by Tao Rong in an orderly manner.

Song Zhewu handed over everything to Tao Rong, not only Song Zhewu was unwilling to be entangled in these overly specific affairs, but he also had a mind to observe and assess the ability of his personnel, not only Tao Rong, but also officers at all levels and many staff officers of the headquarters, he now feels more and more that there is a shortage of talents, and with the continuous expansion of the troops, the shortage of talents is becoming more and more prominent.

His Fourth Route Army has only developed into less than three years, except for a few division commanders and Xiao Guodong, Wang Xu and others, other officers at all levels have been trained by them, although these people have almost completely cultivated talents in accordance with Song Zhewu's wishes, and now not only are they basically competent for their posts, but some are even very good, such as Ye Changgui, the commander of the guard brigade, and Xu Fang, the commander of the second regiment. But after all, they are still too young, and they still need time and battles to gain experience.

Now is the period of great development of the Fourth Route Army, the expansion of the troops is extremely fast, and there is a special shortage of officers, and the officers below the division commander level have all been promoted in the past three years; due to the super-large establishment of the Fourth Route Army, the personnel under the jurisdiction of these regiment commanders are equipped with a division in other units, and such a young unit cannot help but worry him, nor can he not let Song Zhewu always think about the cultivation and recruitment of talents.

While Tao Rong was busy every day, Song Zhewu and Zhao Fengwu were patrolling and inspecting all day long, not only paying attention to the management and arrangement of various affairs of each unit, but also introducing the situation of the Fourth Route Army to Zhao Fengwu, so that Zhao Fengwu could understand the Fourth Route Army as soon as possible and integrate into the Fourth Route Army.

For Zhao Fengwu, who could become a brigade commander in his early thirties in the Northwest Army, Song Zhewu, who was thirsty for talent, was willing to let go easily, and after some heart-to-heart conversations, Zhao Fengwu finally agreed to join the Fourth Route Army and helped Song Zhewu persuade his captured officers. After the persuasion and persuasion of Zhao Fengwu and the personnel of the Political Training Office, in the end, except for the commander of the second regiment and a few officers and some soldiers from Shaanxi who were resolutely unwilling to join the Fourth Route Army, the rest of the prisoners agreed to join the Fourth Route Army.

For those who were unwilling to join the Fourth Route Army, Song Zhewu did not embarrass them, and gave all the officers and soldiers who were unwilling to join the Fourth Route Army, regardless of their official positions, each of them with three oceans of travel expenses, and let them go.

However, Song Zhewu is still very strange, with such a high salary as the Fourth Route Army, these people are still unwilling to join the Fourth Route Army?

Zhao Fengwu explained: "This is because in the Northwest Army, the promotion of all officers, especially the junior officers, as long as they are brave in battle and have brains, no matter what your background, you may enter the ranks of senior officers. Han Fuyu, especially Shi Yousan, has become a role model for ordinary soldiers and low-ranking officers in the Northwest Army. ”

Seeing Song Zhewu's disapproving expression, Zhao Fengwu smiled bitterly and said, "Moreover, they are also afraid of being discriminated against in the Fourth Route Army. ”

Song Zhewu knew that not only these people who left, but also these officers and soldiers in the northwest who stayed, and even Zhao Fengwu also had the same idea. patted Zhao Fengwu and said: "Xiangfei (Zhao Fengwu word Xiangfei), you are the original commander of these people who stayed to join our Fourth Route Army, you have to make it clear to them that in our Fourth Route Army, there is also a chance to be promoted, and the promotion may be faster, because our Fourth Route Army is still in a period of development, and it will continue to expand." At present, in our troops, in addition to me, Chief of Staff Xiao, and Deputy Chief of Staff Wang, there are also division commanders of several divisions, and the vast majority of other officers at all levels are ordinary students and peasants three years ago, including the vast majority of regiment commanders. Even if you are an ordinary soldier, as long as you are willing to train hard, fight bravely, and have excellent military skills, you will quickly become an officer, and it is entirely possible to become a military commander like Shi Yousan. As for the fear of being discriminated against, it is even more worrying, the current commander of the Third Regiment Sun Li is a deputy battalion commander of Sun Dianying, who was captured by us, and there are many people in the company-level and battalion-level officers who are from your Northwest Army and the original Nineteenth Army, as well as the current Chief of Staff Tao and Li Sichi, the division commander in Laiyuan, they are all members of the Nineteenth Army of Hu Zongduo of the Gui family. You see, were they discriminated against in the Fourth Route Army? ”

Song Zhewu looked at Zhao Fengwu again and said meaningfully: "You can tell your original subordinates that as long as they are loyal to the Fourth Route Army, they will not be discriminated against. As for your position, I originally thought that when I returned to Laiyuan, the army would be expanded and adjusted, and I was arranging for you at that time, but now it seems that arranging your position earlier is more conducive to stabilizing the hearts of the brothers who came with you, so I think you should first become the deputy commander of a division. But don't take up your post for the time being, I'll accompany you to look around these days and learn more about the troops. ”

Zhao Fengwu understood what Song Zhewu meant, the previous paragraph was to let him find a way, to reassure his old subordinates, according to his contact with Song Zhewu in the past few days, he could basically determine that what Song Zhewu said was true, and the work of his subordinates was that Song Zhewu would do the same if he didn't say it. The meaning of Song Zhewu's last passage is to tell the people of the Northwest Army, including him, who surrendered this time, that if they want to be promoted and not be discriminated against, there must be a premise, that is, they must be loyal to the Fourth Route Army, and to put it bluntly, they must be loyal to Song Zhewu, the supreme commander of the Fourth Route Army. Zhao Fengwu thinks that this is a matter of course.

Regarding the position of deputy division commander given to him, Zhao Fengwu was also very happy in his heart, and after following Song Zhewu around for the past few days, he had found that all the officers and soldiers in the Fourth Route Army were loyal to only one person, and that was Song Zhewu. No officer or soldier was more loyal to his immediate superiors than to Song Zhewu, that is, in the Fourth Route Army, the difference between the principal and the deputy was smaller than in other troops. Moreover, this first division is the absolute main division of the Fourth Route Army, with more than 40,000 people, which is more than the personnel of a corps of the Northwest Army before the reorganization, and the weapons and equipment are absolutely first-class in China. Being a deputy division commander in such a division is almost equivalent to being a deputy army commander, and it can be said that he has been promoted three levels in a row.

Song Zhewu said that he would expand and develop, in his opinion, it was absolute, and Song Zhewu, the red man of Lao Jiang, was able to develop the Fourth Route Army to what it is today in such a short period of time, which is enough to explain everything.

Since the day after the Fourth Route Army entered Zhengzhou, the banner of the Fourth Route Army's recruitment office was raised again, and the recruitment began again with great fanfare. Not to mention the settling-in allowance, just five oceans of military salary per month, you can't earn it by doing ordinary work at home. Attracted by the high military salary, not only in Zhengzhou City, but also in the surrounding counties and townships, many people have come to join the army in groups, and more than 2,000 people have been recruited in the past few days.

In the reinforced battalion of the Northwest Army and the Zhao Fengwu Brigade captured by Zhang Huqiao, a total of more than 3,000 capable soldiers were recruited, and these people all had considerable military skills, and as long as they were trained a little and adapted to the combat methods and characteristics of the Fourth Route Army, they could quickly integrate into the Fourth Route Army. Therefore, Tao Rong trained them separately from the newly recruited recruits, mainly to train stabbing and shooting.

The reason why this is so is because Tao Rong found through the assessment that although these Northwest Army are taller and stronger, their stabbing skills are not as good as the veterans of the Fourth Route Army, but they are not as good as the soldiers of the original Nineteenth Route Army. However, they generally prefer their broadswords, many can dance a broadsword to the fullest, after forcibly banning the use of their broadswords and confiscating their broadswords, many people are obsessed with sapper shovels, in addition to training, many people will also wave sapper shovels in the training grounds, their training grounds often appear full of sapper shovels flying up and down, so much so that now some people call them sapper brigades. They even reported that this sapper shovel was more handy than the original broadsword, which made Tao Rong cry and laugh.

Talking to Song Zhewu and Zhao Fengwu about this, Song Zhewu couldn't help laughing, and Zhao Fengwu explained with a wry smile: "This is because the Northwest Army has always been short of military funds, and the expansion of the army is very fast, so that there is a shortage of weapons and ammunition, and it is also Feng Yuxiang's helplessness to equip soldiers with broadswords." Moreover, the broadsword also has a certain advantage in melee combat due to the short turning distance and fast turning. ”

It's just that it is impossible to equip them with broadswords in the Fourth Route Army, it's not that Song Zhewu has too much money to spend, it's just that he has to consider the overall characteristics of the troops, and he must strengthen the stabbing training. And after being fully armed, it is very inconvenient to carry a large knife weighing more than ten pounds. However, if the sapper shovel is used well, it can also be used as a broadsword, and Song Zhewu finally decided, "The army is not equipped with a broadsword, but some people with good knife skills can be transferred as instructors, and time should be arranged to train the use of sapper shovels in the combat training of the whole army." Song Zhewu's decision made these people of the Northwest Army very happy, and they all decided to clean up those who laughed at them in the training brigade.

Also, even the shooting level of these people is not high, some veterans are fine, and the recruits are much worse.

Zhao Fengwu told Tao Rong that the Northwest Army has always been short of ammunition, and many recruits have been in the army for a year, and they have not fired 50 rounds of ammunition until now. They all opened their mouths in surprise.

It's just that when Zhao Fengwu followed Song Zhewu for a few days, after seeing the weapons and equipment of the first division, he was no longer surprised at all that he often had to shoot live ammunition.

(To be continued)