Different from other troops in Beiyang, in the process of formation and training in the Third Town, the recruitment of recruits falls under the management of the Recruitment Section of the Education Department, and other institutions and units are not allowed to recruit recruits privately. Recruits are recruited after a month and a half of nutritional supplementation and physical training, which is the responsibility of the recruit battalion of the Education Department, and after the initial training is completed, the qualified recruits will be allocated to the troops, and the units will carry out follow-up training in military skills and physical fitness.

Therefore, for the commanders of the troops, daily training is still an important responsibility for them, and it does not mean that they can use soldiers to fight wars.

Meng Enyuan said: "Most of the recruits who were replenished last month were added to the engineering and baggage teams, and this month I used the newly transferred recruits to form the fourth battalion of the infantry team. ”

"So all you can use now is three infantry battalions, a cavalry battalion, and an artillery battalion?" Zhao Dongyun was a little dissatisfied with the expansion of the Jinzhou patrol battalion, and several months had passed, but there was still not much success, and at this rate, it is estimated that it will not be able to completely complete the army until the end of the year.

Meng Enyuan also heard Zhao Dongyun's dissatisfaction, but he didn't have a way, this expansion is just open his mouth, not to mention the problem of funding and ordnance, the soldiers alone can't be solved in a day or two, you have time to recruit soldiers, just to gather the newly recruited soldiers from Zhili, Shandong, and then transport them to Jinzhou, this process will take at least half a month, and then the Education Department will have to conduct another month and a half of recruit training, which will take two months before he Meng Enyuan can see the recruits needed for the expansion.

However, he did not delay in the slightest, and as soon as the recruits arrived, they were enriched into the various units, not only establishing a baggage brigade and an engineering team, but also erecting a fourth battalion of an infantry brigade.

However, it is naturally not suitable for argument on an occasion like today, and Zhao Dongyun is not unaware of this, he is just dissatisfied with the current lack of troops.

Zhao Dongyun once again put his eyes back on the map, and then said: "Xinmin can put a foot battalion here, a battalion in Liaozhong, and another infantry battalion on the Panshan side, so that the three lines are integrated, and as for the cavalry battalion, it will be stationed in Tai'an as a reserve!" ”

This remark can be regarded as a general arrangement, and this arrangement is basically the result of the helplessness of the troops, because in this way, the existing three infantry battalions of the Jinzhou patrol battalion have been released, and the main defense line on the Jinzhou side no longer has the strength of the Jinzhou patrol battalion to cooperate.

If the defense line of Jinzhou is to be strengthened, then we can only wait for the infantry battalions after the expansion of the Jinzhou patrol battalion.

Zhao Dongyun continued: "But now there are still a lot of bandits on the side of Xinmin Mansion, and Jin Wanfu is still there, so Lu Shuanggun's cavalry camp will stay there for a few months for the time being, and straighten out Xinmin Mansion before leaving!" ”

Although Zhang Zuolin has been wiped out on the Xinmin Mansion side, the hundreds of horse teams under Jin Wanfu and Wang Xiaobraid are still there, and the follow-up bandit operation still requires the cooperation of a large number of cavalry.

Therefore, Zhao Dongyun's previous allocation of local troops is only a plan for the later stage, and for the time being, the main direction is still on the side of Xinmin Mansion.

While Zhao Dongyun was cracking down on bandits in Xinmin Mansion and expanding his territory, and at the same time playing the expansion of the Jinzhou patrol battalion, Japan and Russia were also fighting at the same time in Liaoyang and Lushun.

At the beginning of August, the Russian army's positions on the outskirts of Arthur had been conquered by the Japanese, and the defenders were forced to retreat into the Lushun fortress, with a total of more than 40,000 defenders, more than 130 machine guns, and more than 600 artillery pieces. The Japanese army surrounding Lushun reached more than 60,000 people, more than 400 artillery pieces, and more than 70 machine guns.

It is worth noting here that although the number of artillery on the Japanese side is not as good as that of the Russian army, it is very targeted, and the siege heavy artillery accounts for nearly half, while the Russian side has a relatively large number of artillery, but a considerable part of it is facing the sea, and it is impossible to face all the artillery on the harbor side of the heavy artillery.

Originally, the Russian army only had 60 or 70 machine guns in Lushun, but in the past six months, Zhao Dongyun sold more than 100 heavy machine guns to the Russians, and nearly 100 were delivered in January and February alone, and more than 50 heavy machine guns were also delivered in the following months, of which about 70 machine guns and a large number of matching machine gun bullets were assigned to Lushun.

To put it simply, now the Russian army in Lushun has twice as many machine guns as in history, and there is no shortage of bullets.

In addition, due to the weight of the heavy machine gun and the very poor mobility, the contemporary heavy machine guns are used for defense, but no one can directly put the heavy machine gun on the end to accompany the infantry to charge, but the Japanese army is the attacker, and the Russian army is not nothing to play counterattack, so the role of the heavy machine gun attached to the direction of Lushun by the Japanese army is quite limited.

In such a comparison, it can be found that the Russian army has a very large advantage in machine guns!

Then the logistics supplies on both sides are quite bad, and the Russian army is limited by insufficient preparation time, although it has urgently strengthened its reserves in the first half of the year, and has also obtained a large number of machine guns and shells and bullets and other materials from Zhao Dongyun, but in addition to machine guns and machine gun bullets are relatively sufficient, artillery shells and even rifle bullets are relatively scarce, and each artillery shell is less than five hundred, which is still supported by Zhao Dongyun's early transportation of some shells, and the ammunition reserves of the Russian army in actual history are even worse!

As for the Japanese army, it is no better, they are limited by the capacity of the sea supply line, and they are simply unable to transport all the domestic artillery shells to the front line in a short time, and the amount of logistics supplies provided by this supply line is not much, plus the Japanese and Russian sides are engaged in a super-large-scale battle in Liaoyang, and the consumption of shells and bullets is astronomical, so it is even more crowded out of the ammunition supply that the Japanese Third Army can obtain.

In fact, as long as they do not stupidly launch a general attack on Lushun, but adopt the current siege strategy, the ammunition and troops are sufficient, and the surrender of the Russian army in Lushun is a matter of time.

However, can Nogi Noshinori's Third Army continue to besiege it without launching a strong attack?

No!

Why?

Because the Russians' Second Pacific Fleet is about to set off from the Baltic Sea to the Far East, if the nail of Arthur is not pulled out now, when the Russian Second Pacific Fleet arrives in Asia and joins the First Fleet, and with Arthur as its home port to rely on, it will be almost impossible for the Japanese side to completely control the sea supremacy in the Yellow Sea.

At that time, if a naval battle breaks out between the two sides, it will definitely not be the historical Battle of Tsushima, but the first and second fleets of the Russians will converge and fight against the combined fleet.

At that time, even if the Russian navy cannot achieve victory, as long as it fights for half a catty, it will be impossible for the Japanese navy to continue to fully control the sea supremacy in the Yellow Sea, and once it loses its comprehensive sea supremacy, it will be a matter of minutes for the Russian navy to cut off the Japanese sea supply lines in the western waters of Korea by virtue of the strength of the Russian navy.

Therefore, for the Japanese themselves, the victory of the army is of course important, but the victory of the navy is even more important, and if the Japanese navy can defeat the Russian navy, it will be able to give the Japanese a decisive victory.

In order to better prepare for the Russian Navy, the Japanese navy has repeatedly demanded that the Japanese army do its best to conquer Arthur, so that the Russian fleet and the European fleet in Arthur should be combined with the outside world, and at the same time, it can also force the Russian Navy to pass through the extremely dangerous Tsushima Strait, and then force the Russian Pacific Second Fleet and the Combined Fleet, which have come from afar and have not been recuperated, to fight a decisive battle, and win the victory in one fell swoop.

Therefore, during the period from July to August, the Japanese navy urged the army to launch a general attack on Lushun almost every day, and in the face of strong pressure from the navy, even the commander-in-chief of the Manchurian Army, Dashan Yan, felt the pressure, and specially prepared the Third Army and Nogi Noshinori for the capture of Lushun, and at the critical juncture of the Battle of Liaoyang, he gritted his teeth and ordered the Third Army to launch a general attack on Lushun.

From a tactical point of view, it would be very unfavorable for the Japanese army to rashly launch a general attack on Lushun under the condition that the battle of Liaoyang was pending and the Third Army lacked ammunition supplies, but the Japanese Third Army could not help but launch a general attack on Lushun, because it could not take Lushun now, and it would be even more difficult to wait until winter, and if it waited until next year, the Second Pacific Fleet would arrive, and it would be difficult for the Japanese navy to completely control the sea power in the Yellow Sea.

Once you can't control the sea power, there is little hope for victory in this war!

This is also the fundamental reason why Nogi Noshinori in history still launched a strong attack with the so-called meat 'bomb' in the absence of bullets and cannonballs, not because he likes to play with meat' bullets, but because the pressure on him from above is too great, and he must take down Lushun even if he has no bullets. As for the world's accusations against him, it is not because he stubbornly launched a continuous assault on Lushun, but because his tactics to conquer Lushun are too dull, and the casualties are too great.

At the beginning of August, after more than a month of preparation, Nogi Noshinori's Third Army finally launched a general attack on the Arthur Fortress, and the Japanese army launched a strong attack on the Dagushan and Xiaogushan on the periphery of the fortress with the strength of a division, and the defending Russian army only had three battalions, but what the Japanese did not know was that the Russian troops of these three battalions had eight heavy machine guns in their hands.

After the start of the war, after a long period of artillery preparations, the confident Japanese army began to charge, and a large number of senior Japanese generals led by Nogi Noshinori were holding binoculars to observe the battle situation, but the next thing once again made Nogi Noshinori and others shocked their jaws, although the Japanese side already knew that the heavy machine guns in the hands of the Russian army were powerful, after all, a division on the side of the Liaoyang Battle was hit by the fire of the Russian heavy machine guns, and more than half of the casualties in one day did not take long to pass.

However, Nogi Noshinori still didn't expect that the soldiers of the first group of attacking wings had already been killed and wounded before they had rushed to a distance of 100 meters!

Under the scorching sun, Nogi Noshinori watched his soldiers with binoculars as they continued to fall under the guns, and the rest of them were also lying on the ground and did not dare to move, and they couldn't rush up at all, but he still did not order a retreat, and in the afternoon ordered a wing in the reserve to reinforce and continue the attack!