Now it has only been half a month since the drill, although Zhao Dongyun also knows that it is impossible to train these people into elite machine gunners in just half a month, but at least some superficial things must be known, at least in front of those Beiyang bigwigs who came to watch the performance, you must be able to practice!

Moreover, the reason why the Beiyang Army under Yuan Shikai completely surpassed other domestic armies in combat effectiveness was that in addition to the army establishment and training methods, there was also a very important point, that is, live-fire training!

Looking at the various armies in China, only one army can carry out high-intensity live-fire training all year round, and the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army and the self-improvement army are barely half of them, and the other old armies in China cannot fire a few rounds of ammunition throughout the year.

For example, the live-fire exercise after half a month will cost tens of thousands of dollars of silver to get it, and in the eyes of those old soldiers, if they spend tens of thousands of taels of silver to play the live-fire exercise, it is better to distribute cigarettes to every soldier!

The old army at the end of the Qing Dynasty can be described as such, that is, there are cigarettes to smoke together, and there are battles to flee together!

Needless to say, the other officers around him also knew the importance of live-fire training, Lin Yongquan said: "We have found a lot of old ammunition from several warehouses that we used to stockpile, which is enough for us to train for a long time!" ”

The bullets Lin Yongquan said refer specifically to the bullets used in the old Makqin machine gun, and these bullets were produced before the First Wu Dynasty, and they can only be used on the old Makqin machine gun, and the new Makqin cannot use these old-fashioned bullets.

The four new Makqin smuggled from Russian arms dealers in Zhao Dongyun's hands are actually a four-like, although the gun frame is Russian, but the gun body is a German product, that is, the body of the MG99, and the bullet fired is naturally a German standard bullet, that is, a 7.92 mm machine gun bullet, this kind of bullet has no domestic production line for the time being, so it has to be imported from Germany.

In the following half a month, Zhao Dongyun was still focused on the second battalion, and he didn't need to pay too much attention to other training in the troops, just follow the usual training, but he paid a lot of attention to the machine gun team.

In addition, he also guided the machine gun team to train according to his own memory, for example, two machine guns were deployed at both ends of the position, and finally fired diagonally towards the middle, and the two machine guns formed a cross-cutting blockade line, which was far more effective than frontal shooting.

However, Zhao Dongyun mostly proposed an outline-style construction, and it also needed Lin Yongquan and several other grassroots officers of the machine gun team to improve, for example, the specific staffing of the machine gun was made by Lin Yongquan and others, and a heavy machine gun group was composed of a commander, a main shooter, a deputy shooter, and a bombardier! However, this is only a superficial establishment, in fact, because the weight of the heavy machine gun itself is too large, and the ammunition consumption is very terrifying, and because there is only such a point in the army at present, and there is no shortage of people, there are three additional riflemen and ammunition operators.

In fact, in addition to the fighters of the above machine gun group, there is also a large part of the logistics personnel in the entire machine gun team, and this is also the reason why the machine gun team, which has a total of only eight Maxim machine guns, has more than 150 people, and the specific division is nearly 20 people serving a heavy machine gun.

While paying attention to the machine gun, Zhao Dongyun originally planned to make barbed wire, but he couldn't find a large amount of barbed wire in a short time, so he could only retreat and prepare to replace the barbed wire with a wooden horse rejection at that time.

In addition, there is a very important point that he let the troops in the daily formation, shooting and other training, but also increased the training of digging trenches, trenches are not a strange thing now, the right army of Wuwei was originally equipped with a large number of military shovels, but in the past people's cognition, this shovel was not used much, and the trenches were not paid much attention to by people.

After a month of intense preparation by Zhao Dongyun, on December 18, the 27th year of Guangxu, the drill of the Wuwei Right Army and the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army finally officially began!

The Wuwei Right Army sent the second battalion of the right flank, a cavalry team, an artillery team, and half an engineering team to form the Northern Army, which numbered more than 2,300 people.

The vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army sent seven infantry battalions on its left flank, as well as a cavalry battalion, an artillery battalion, and an engineering battalion, forming a southern army with a number of more than 7,000 people.

In terms of the comparison of troops, the Northern Army participating in the exercise had a great disadvantage, but in the eyes of many generals at that time, the disadvantage of the Northern Army was not great.

First, this exercise was conducted by the Northern Army as the main defense and the Southern Army as the main attack, and the Northern Army's disadvantage in strength could also be alleviated to a certain extent in the case of defense.

Second, the weapons and equipment of the Northern Army were much better than those of the Southern Army. The rifles of the Wuwei Right Army are all Manlixia, and the artillery is also imported new Grusen guns, while the equipment of the Southern Army is uneven, including the new 7.92mm small-caliber Mauser rifles, as well as some 11mm large-caliber Mauser single-loading rifles, in addition to other single-shot rear-loading guns. In addition to rifles, although the number of artillery pieces in the Southern Army is not small, they are all old-fashioned artillery.

Third, that is, it is recognized that the soldiers and officers of the Wuwei Right Army are far more than the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army, the Wuwei Right Army is a new type of army established by Yuan Shikai according to the German Army as a template, the soldiers are newly recruited good families, and at the same time carry out perennial live-fire training, in addition to the officers of the Wuwei Right Army, in addition to some officers of the Tianjin Wubei School, more are grassroots officers trained by the Tongguò Suiying School, in addition, the Wuwei Right Army also brings together a large number of officers who have returned from studying abroad, Duan QiruiZhao Dongyun is two obvious examples.

Although the vanguard of the Wuwei Right Army was established on the template of the Wuwei Right Army, the foundation is still those old armies in Shandong, and some of the bad habits of old-style officers are gone.

Therefore, in the eyes of everyone, the difference in the actual combat effectiveness of the two armies with these four obvious differences is still relatively large, which is why the northern army has fewer troops and the southern army has more troops, because if the number of troops is the same, then it will be necessary to fight, and the southern army will directly admit defeat.

For Zhao Dongyun, in addition to the recognized above four points, the eight machine guns in Zhao Dongyun's hands are also a major weapon of his own victory.

In order to better simulate the atmosphere of actual combat, the venue of this exercise is set in a wasteland more than 20 miles south of Baoding, the southern army simulates the attacking side, and the northern army simulates the defender, blocking the southern army's northward pace!

In this wilderness, Zhao Dongyun and other officers sat together, sitting on the top of the main seat is this time the Northern Army commander Wu Changchun, this person is about forty years old, this person is very rich in military experience, the Korean Renwu Incident in Korea to quell the chaos, during the First Sino-Japanese War in Lushun and Japan's own war, Yuan Shikai in the small station training, he once served as the commander of the second battalion of the right wing, that is, Zhao Dongyun's current position.

Then in the past two years, the opportunity for the Beiyang Army to expand aggressively, he was promoted as quickly as everyone else, a few years ago he was just a battalion commander, and now it is a division, and this drill is another opportunity for Wu Changchun, if he plays well, he can be transferred to the standing army to serve as the assistant commander.

At this time, the meeting had been going on for more than half an hour, Wu Changchun looked around, and then his eyes fell on Zhao Dongyun: "The focus of this battle is to defend Pingshan Villa, as long as you can hold the main Zhuangzi, you can cut off the road of the southern army to the north, Dongyun, what do you think about this!" ”

Zhao Dongyun immediately spoke: "In the opinion of the department, the focus of blocking the southern army to go north is Pingshan Villa, and the code of Pingshan Villa lies in the No. 4 and No. 5 heights, as long as our army can hold these two small hills and place artillery on these small hills!" ”

As he spoke, Zhao Dongyun pointed to the huge map on the desktop and said, "Condescending enough to block this area, as well as this area!"

In this way, although our artillery is insufficient, it can still pose a sufficient threat to the enemy army attacking Pingshanzhuang. In this way, the enemy army will not be able to open the passage for the superior forces to attack Pingshanzhuang, and if they want to attack Pingshanzhuang head-on, they must first conquer the No. 4 and No. 5 heights! ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Dongyun paused slightly and said: "If we can deploy artillery forces on the No. 4 and No. 5 heights, and at the same time deploy enough defensive forces, then our northern army will win this battle!" ”

Hearing Zhao Dongyun's words, many other officers nodded a little, but some showed obvious doubts, all of them were professional officers, Zhao Dongyun could see that the No. 4 and No. 5 heights were important, and others couldn't see it, the reason why everyone didn't mention sticking to the No. 4 and No. 5 highlands was because these two highlands were said to be highlands, but the height was not high, the key was which side facing the southern army to attack was a gentle ramp, and the front was extremely wide, as long as the southern army gathered the main force to launch an intensive attack, the defenders can easily become unsustainable and fall into passivity.

So immediately someone objected: "If my artillery ventures out to these two places, then how can Brother Zhao ensure the safety of my artillery position!" ”

This was Qin Huiyun, the leader of the artillery team, who naturally saw that if his artillery was deployed in these two places, not only could he go forward to attack the enemy, so that a small amount of artillery fire was enough to blockade the entire Pingshan Villa, but also rely on the anticline on the back of these two heights to avoid the enemy's artillery fire! But he could also see that these two places were not easy to guard.

At this time, Wu Changchun also showed a look of doubt, he didn't understand why Zhao Dongyun said this, he still knew a little about Zhao Dongyun, knowing that Zhao Dongyun was admitted to the Tianjin Martial Arts Academy when he was a teenager, and went to Germany to study, speaking of the theoretical knowledge of the new army, this Zhao Dongyun is also the number one in the entire Wuwei Right Army, otherwise this person would not have been in the position of the commander of the infantry battalion in just one year after returning to China.

Such a person can be regarded as a rising star of the Beiyang system! Wu Changchun also valued him more, but he didn't expect that Zhao Dongyun was going to guard the No. 4 and No. 5 highlands, as if others didn't know the importance of these two places, Wu Changchun at this time had quietly given Zhao Dongyun a comment: It's so high!

However, these comments in his heart naturally did not speak, and he immediately said: "Oh, Dongyun, tell me, if you want to guard these two places, how should you keep them?" ”