Meng Enyuan held back his anger, and then snorted heavily: "The more than 100,000 taels of silver obtained by the bandits, it was all brought back by me Meng who drilled in the ravine in the north for more than a month. When my cavalry brothers are fighting with bandits in the north, you Liu Tinggui can stay in the barracks! ”

Liu Tinggui did not show weakness: "It seems that just like your two cavalry battalions are fighting, Wei Anpo's mortar team is also fighting."

Kong Weibei also interjected at the right time: "Didn't the first battalion under my command also fight, the battle against bandits is a heavy military operation in which all departments of my third town participated, when did it become a matter for you alone, Brother Meng!"

"You ......" Meng Enyuan glanced at Liu Tinggui and Kong Wanbei fiercely after hearing this, facing these two sharp-toothed people, he Meng Enyuan was speechless for a while, and finally he turned his head to Zhao Dongyun and said: "My lord, you are clear about the significance of mortars to the cavalry......

Meng Enyuan's grievances and pleas are already very obvious, he is a good hand when it comes to fighting, but in today's battle of words for the interests of his troops, he is obviously not the opponent of those young people, he knows that if he is entangled with Kong Weibei and Liu Tinggui, I am afraid that the cavalry team will not be able to catch a mortar at that time, and as a last resort, he can only find Zhao Dongyun for help.

When Zhao Dongyun saw it, he had to glance at Kong Yubei and Liu Tinggui, and signaled them not to be too presumptuous!

Then he pressed his hand, but then his eyes fell on Wang Zhanyuan: "Brother Wang, all of you colleagues have also said a lot, I don't know what you think about this mortar?" ”

Wang Zhanyuan couldn't help but curse in his heart when he heard it, I can have a fart opinion, I didn't even know what a mortar was before today, and although I listened to everyone's arguments for more than half an hour, I knew a little about the simple situation of mortars, but I was far from having any opinions.

But looking at today's situation, it is obvious that there is a struggle for the ownership of mortars between cavalry, infantry, and artillery, no matter what opinions he Wang Zhanyuan has, and whether he is Wang Yingkai's person or not, but first of all, he is the commander of the Sixth Association, and he is a serious infantry officer, so he must maintain the power of the infantry like Chen Guangyuan.

So he said slowly: "The staff has been here for a short time, and I don't know much about mortars. Although I have not seen the mortar in person, from the information in my hands and the oral accounts of my colleagues, the gun has a short range, a fast rate of fire, and is light and easy to maneuver.

In addition, because it is necessary to launch artillery bombardment at any time to support infantry operations during operations, if it is still under the jurisdiction of artillery like that, I am afraid that it will delay time and be suspected of continuing the fighters, so at this point, my plan is to assign mortars to all infantry units, and we and other infantry officers will directly command them, so as to give full play to the advantages of mortars in close range as much as possible. ”

Wang Zhanyuan's point of view has actually been said by Kong Guanbei and Chen Guangyuan just now, he just repeated this point of view, but he was able to be stuffed into the Sixth Association by Wang Yingkai, and even if Wang Yingkai recommended him, Yuan Shikai was able to abandon other candidates and choose him, so naturally he also has his advantages.

"In addition, I heard General Manager Zhao just say that in addition to the existing 80-millimeter caliber mortars, the Fuzhou Machinery Factory has begun to develop smaller or smaller caliber mortars. Among them, there are 60 mm and 120 mm of these two new calibers, I wonder if this is possible, the weight of a mortar of this caliber of 120 mm is probably three or four hundred kilograms, such a weight is naturally not suitable for the infantry team to carry with the army, can be formed in the artillery team standard, for large-scale battlefield fire support operations!

The 80-millimeter mortar, weighing nearly 100 kilograms, can be carried separately, but it is still not easy to carry in the troops below the battalion level, and the equipment directly in each infantry battalion is also relatively large, it is better to configure a mortar battalion in each infantry standard, with four guns as a team, and a total of 12 guns in three teams, and the cavalry standard can also be appropriately equipped with a battalion.

Then there is a 60 mm mortar, this cannon is extremely lightweight, it does not need to be carried by horses, it can be carried directly by soldiers, and it can be directly delegated to the infantry team. ”

Zhao Dongyun was slightly surprised when he heard Wang Zhanyuan's words, this person is more flexible in thinking, he hasn't said anything about the equipment of 60 mm and 120 mm mortars, he just noticed these from the discussion of everyone just now, and when it comes to the observation of affairs, he is far more sensitive than his own lineage!

Zhao Dongyun nodded: "That's right, since the mortar is easy to use, we naturally want to use it, and we also have to develop mortars of different calibers have constituted a multi-level strike firepower, the Fuyuan machine factory has reported to me a few days ago, saying that they have begun to carry out the research and development and design work of 120 mm and 60 mm mortars, of which the 60 mm mortar is relatively simple, they have made a sample gun, and the people from the Ordnance Department have gone to the Fuyuan machine factory to inspect the performance of the sample gun. If nothing else, they will place an order for this cannon from Fuyuan Machinery in the near future! ”

Liu Tinggui had expectation on his face: "What about the 120mm mortar, I don't know how they developed it?" ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "The caliber of this cannon is slightly larger, and the requirements for the barrel are relatively high. ”

After Liu Tinggui heard this, his face was full of disappointment, unlike the 80 mm and 60 mm mortars, the 120 mm large-caliber mortars were destined to be the artillery under his artillery standard, and he would naturally be disappointed if it could not be developed and put into service.

At this time, Zhao Dongyun glanced at Lin Yongquan: "A few days ago, I also asked the Education Department to make a mortar equipment plan, how is it going?" ”

Lin Yongquan has not spoken since he made his opening remarks in this meeting, he is different from Chen Guangyuan, Meng Enyuan and others present, he does not serve in the field army, and his subordinates are also a group of civilian officers, but the leader of the staff officer faction in the third town, so there is naturally no need to participate in the struggle for the grassroots troops on weekdays.

After Lin Yongquan heard Zhao Dongyun's order, he spoke: "According to the previous instructions of the adults, my education department has made several mortar equipment plans!" ”

As the general office of the Education Department, Lin Yongquan's mortar equipment plan is naturally impossible to talk about it like the commanders of these troops here, and the plan he made needs to consider is not only a tactical application, but also has to take into account the acquisition cost, the later cost, the officers and soldiers needed to train the mortar unit, etc., and also have to consider the impact and changes caused by the application of mortars on the existing infantry tactics. And give a solution to what changes the infantry should make to adapt.

You must know that most of the more than 10 professional staff officers in charge of the education department, especially those members of the supervision and training department under the jurisdiction of the education department, are all young officers with professional backgrounds.

Moreover, the plan is as detailed as possible, from how many shooters should be used for mortars, how many shellmen should be used, what equipment should be equipped with mortar commanders, what matters need to be paid attention to during combat, and as large as the tactical theory of coordinated attack between mortars and infantry and the coordination of mortars and traditional field artillery.

If the various arguments of the Education Department were to be gathered, it would be estimated that it would be able to read through a book on mortar application hundreds of pages thick, and the text in Lin Yongquan's hand was just a summary of the general plan.

"The plan of the mortar equipped by our army, taking into account the lack of mortar officers and shooters in the early stage, will be as centralized training as possible, and at the same time considering that the mortar's consumption of ammunition is very large, and the logistics supply capacity of our army's grass-roots troops is poor, so in principle, the mortar will be used as much as possible, but considering that the front-line commander must be able to command the mortar operation in real time, so our education department has formulated a series of equipment plans.

The infantry battalion will have a mortar platoon containing four 60-mm mortars and two 80-mm mortars.

The infantry standard also has a mortar platoon under its command, which contains four 80-millimeter mortars.

The town's artillery has a battalion of mortars under its jurisdiction, equipped with 16 120-mm mortars.

The cavalry unit had two 60-mm mortars in the battalion and four 80-mm mortars in the standard.

The engineering team and the baggage team each have two 60-mm mortars in charge of the battalion headquarters.

Thus, the whole army had 60 60-mm mortars, 40 80-mm mortars, and 16 120-mm mortars. Since mortars are concentrated in battalion and standard units, it is also planned to further strengthen the later personnel of the battalion headquarters and standard headquarters. ”

In fact, this equipment figure is still relatively exaggerated, it has exceeded the logistics supply capacity of the third town, and it will also cause a shortage of military spending in the third town, but the reason why Zhao Dongyun approved this expensive plan is mainly because he has such a third town under his command, as long as the combat effectiveness can be improved, Zhao Dongyun does not care how much it costs.

Of course, what is more important is that some time ago, the bandits were suppressed, and it is expected that there will be a lot of income from the bandits in the future, so this fund is not too strict, so take advantage of the opportunity to have time to equip the mortars in place at one time.

If it weren't for the fact that the mortars were not equipped with enough officers and shooters, he would have planned to delegate the 60-mm mortars directly to the squad level, instead of concentrating them in the battalion-level units.

Hearing Lin Yongquan's plan, everyone didn't say much for a while, because they found that what they had fought before was in vain, Meng Enyuan's cavalry also had mortars, Liu Tinggui's artillery also had 120 mm mortars, and those infantry units, not to mention, the 60 mm and 80 mm ones were almost all taken up by them.

For a while, everyone was satisfied, especially the infantry officers led by Chen Guangyuan, who showed satisfied expressions one by one, and then Lin Yongquan's next sentence made them even more satisfied.