The staff group was established after Zhou Yi led his troops back to the mountain and Long Qian completed the reorganization of the Mengshan Army, and the members were all personally selected by Long Qian, a total of four people: Ning Shijun was the team leader, Lan Xinzhi, Deng Qinghua and Wu Nian, and later joined a Fan Deping. The common denominator of these five people is that they are all literate, and they are rare intellectuals in the predominantly illiterate Mengshan army.

The staff group also participates in military training, platoons, running drills, obstacles and shooting, but except for queues and running drills, other training requires lower requirements for staff team members than ordinary soldiers.

Ning Shijun remembered the first lesson Long Qian told them.

"I'm going to give you my first lesson today. What does a staff officer do, and how to be a good staff officer. When I'm lecturing, you can always ask questions if you don't understand. ”

"A staff officer is a person who helps military chiefs make decisions." After following Long Qian on the training ground for a long time, the people who were transferred to the staff group have become accustomed to the words that Long Qian often came up with that they felt novel, such as the chief, they were probably a little cultured, and they understood its meaning correctly and did not ask questions.

"Remember, it's the staff who makes the decisions, not the ones themselves. The decision is the chief's business. When the chief proposes an operational idea, the staff officer has to make a case about it, is it feasible or not? The basis of the argument lies in the grasp of intelligence: our troops, equipment, the enemy's troops, equipment, the generals who lead the troops, the morale of the enemy, where to choose the battlefield, whether the terrain is favorable to us, what is the weather condition, the road conditions, the speed of the troops' march, the strength of logistical support, what kind of combat and attack? Ambush? Frontal attack? The most important thing is to correctly grasp the purpose of the war, because fighting is not to fight for the sake of fighting, but to annihilate the enemy and strengthen oneself. Under the present circumstances, almost all of our army's military equipment comes from the enemy, and we must pay special attention to the mode of combat, and we cannot afford to fight a war of attrition in which a war of annihilation puts 1,000 people and 800 self-inflicted injuries. In addition to military objectives, the fundamental purpose of warfare lies in politics, and military affairs have always been the continuation of politics -- we must firmly bear in mind what kind of enemy we will fight against what kind of enemy. ”

After a series of questions, Ning Shijun and the others became excited. There are really a lot of ways to fight this war__

"There are a lot of things that staff officers have to master, first of all, to know their own side, and then to know the enemy. In the art of war, more is considered to win, less is not to be won, not to mention nothing? It is necessary to get used to having all kinds of things useful for combat in your mind, the most important terrain and enemy situation. Long Qian paused, "A qualified staff officer who is ready to answer any questions about military affairs raised by the chief. A qualified staff officer is the most trusted assistant of the military chief, and he will certainly gain great prestige in the troops. ”

"How can we know who the enemy's troops, equipment, and even commanders are?" Lan Xinzhi asked the first question.

"Good. This requires reconnaissance and other methods to gather intelligence. That's what the cavalry does. But the information you need is not limited to the cavalry, a lot of information they can't get, which requires you to use your brains, the newspapers, the information leaked from the mouths of the villagers, the confessions of the captives, etc. are all sources of information you need. There are many ways to do this, and you will slowly discover and figure it out and learn to use it. Intelligence can sometimes be contradictory, the exact opposite, and that's when judgmental trade-offs are needed. Some of the information is even deliberately spread by the enemy in order to lead us astray, and you must see through the fog unleashed by the enemy. ”

Long Qian stopped and let them digest their words.

"First and foremost, you have to learn how to make maps." Long Qian took out a map that he drew on the silk silk, this one-meter square yellow silk is Long Qian's trophy, and now it has become his first hand-drawn topographic map of Mengshan Village, the first time he went down the mountain with Zhou Hua to rob a village near Mengyin County, that family was a small landlord, people fled, Long Qian found this dirty silk scarf in the yard, and then took it with him.

"Who's going to tell me, where is it all up there?" Long Qian spread the map flat on the ground.

Ning Shijun recognized at a glance that this was the topographic map of Mengshanzhai, and all the key points of the cottage were drawn with slender charcoal, Tianmen, Niutouling, and Dudu Village......

"It's a really good drawing." Ning Shijun exclaimed.

"It's just a simple topographic map, not really a military map. Because there are no troops on it, there are fortifications and other things that must be known. These need to be marked by the staff officer according to the intelligence. There are also no contour lines, so you can't see the terrain. The map is a treasure that staff officers must never leave. From a map showing the distribution and situation of the forces of the enemy and the enemy, we can judge the determination and course of action of the commander of the enemy and us, and even the victory or defeat of the battle and campaign. In a regular army, there is a special department to make the map, and you only have to get a new map of the combat area, and mark the necessary military elements on it. But as a staff officer of the Mengshan Army, who was poor and white, he had to learn to make maps. ”

"There are two basic things to know about cartography, scale and contour lines. The scale is easy to understand, that is, the actual terrain size is reduced by a certain value. Common military maps are 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000, and 1 in 50,000. For example, on a map of 1/50,000, every centimeter is such a short distance," Long Qian gestured with a broken straw stick, "It's about a mile away." With the scale, you can see the distance between two points on the map at a glance. The contour line is more complicated, the map is flat, but the actual terrain has mountains, rivers and hills, how to identify different landforms on the plan? The contour method is used. Long Qian began to draw contour lines on the map he drew on the silk silk, "These curved lines are contour lines, and at each location on this line, its actual height is the same...... Long Qian taught his staff team the basic military knowledge, bringing them into a new world.

"Therefore, staff officers need advanced cultural knowledge, which is the main reason why I chose you to be a staff officer." After laboriously explaining the basic knowledge of altitude, Long Qian concluded, "Staff officers should have a keen sense of astronomy and geography, and accumulate a lot of information that others do not pay attention to or collect, such as what time is the light of day in the early part of a certain month? When does the sun set? What is the highest daytime temperature in the local area? What is the minimum temperature at night? What months is the rainy season? What are the seasonal or year-round rivers? Which of these rivers can be crossed on foot? There are also the direction of the mountains, the road conditions, the types of soil, these natural conditions can not be ignored__ and the social situation is also very important, the local population situation, folk customs, and powerful households, all of which are collected and mastered by the staff officers. ”

"Oh my God." Deng Qinghua, who had a baby face, was originally the head of the Feng Guozhu team, and he exclaimed after listening to Long Qian's summary explanation.

"Yes, you should be embarrassed." Long Qian nodded, "It's not that I want you to learn so many things at once, to be honest, I didn't expect you all to become qualified staff officers." If it doesn't work, it will be eliminated, and more suitable people will be selected to come in. ”

"Commander, we've figured it all out, what else do you want the chief to do?" Lan Xinzhi asked.

"Good question. Military chiefs should make up their minds after the operational plan drawn up by the staff officers has been formulated! You must know that there can be several plans, but there is only one final determination! Five minds are uncertain, and you lose cleanly. What the commander fears most is that he will be indecisive. For example, when we first broke through, it was not unreasonable for someone to propose to go from the south. We may also break out of the encirclement or fall into the enemy's ambush circle. But I chose to go west, do you know what the road is for? ”

"Surprise?" Ning Shijun asked.

"Yes. There is a law in the military, which applies most of the time, that is, the most dangerous place, but actually the safest. The reason why we chose to go west is based on this judgment. The enemy in the west is the most paralyzed, because they can't imagine that we will go the way they came from__Besides, we are a small army, we cannot fight hard with the enemy, we must choose the safest route__This is determination! The commander must give the most appropriate decision at the most appropriate time, and the staff officer does not have to be bothered by the decision to be issued, the staff officer only provides a reasonable plan. ”

"Understood."

"It is necessary to have a clear grasp of the situation of one's own troops, and the combat capability of the troops lies not only in the number of guns and men, but also in what kind of training foundation and what kind of generals they have. You should understand the actual capabilities and characteristics of each unit, pay attention to giving play to each of their different strengths, and avoid weaknesses. For example, the current company commanders, each of whom has a different personality, some are good at raiding, and some are good at holding on__In the future, the troops will also form their own different styles, and they must give full play to their strengths and avoid their shortcomings. Knowing oneself and knowing one's opponent, the first thing is to know oneself, to be a true confidant, there will not be many defeats. Therefore, you have to have a good grasp of the training of each company, and you have to speak with data, not something that is about the same, probably, maybe so vague. In the future, you should use data as much as possible to report, which requires you to establish a ledger, learn to make charts, and accurately count the strength of the troops."

"Understand the meaning of 'potential'. For a long time, we were in a situation of a weak army against a strong army. Then, we must learn the ability to attack the strong with the weak. In addition to the general tactical means, what is more important is the use of 'potential'. ”

"What is 'potential'?" Ning Shijun was interested.

"It's a small rock, if you get in the way, you can kick it away. But if this stone rolls down from the top of the cliff, you can only dodge __ stone or stone, but the effect is definitely different. This is the power of 'potential'. Those who make good use of their soldiers must always have the upper hand in the 'momentum', so that the enemy is unavoidable and unstoppable. ”

"It seems to understand__" Ning Shijun pondered.

"Won't really get it. Because I don't have much combat experience either. This requires us to explore slowly and together. ”

"So what do we do now?"

"Count the strength of the troops, you divide the labor, each person is responsible for a company, and make a chart, so that I can see the strength of this company at a glance. This task is to be completed in two days. Secondly, today you will start your first practical training. The question I'm going to give you is, if we go out of the mountains, where will we go? Give you half a day to come up with a plan for each of you. Don't negotiate, go your own way. Long Qian gave the staff group a specific task.

The second task, the five members of the staff team of the programme on the troop sortie, was completed on time, and although the narrative style of the programme varied, it was still a programme. In Long Qian's view, it was Deng Qinghua who did the best, because he raised the issue of the troops taking root, and the other four were aware of the replenishment of the troops and the acquisition of supplies, but not as clear as Deng Qinghua's views. Moreover, Deng Qinghua's plan put forward a principled suggestion, that is, the direction of the troops out of the mountain should not only solve the problem of replenishing hundreds of men and horses, but also avoid excessive attention from the government as much as possible. These two points made Long Qian satisfied.

For the strength of the troops, the five people also completed on time, the best is Ning Shijun, he has the most complete statistics on the strength of the company, not only taking into account the company's equipment and training, but also taking into account the ability of the company commander and the level of integration between the platoon leaders and the soldiers, so it is concluded that the strongest of the five infantry companies at present is Wang Mingyuan's second company, and the worst strength is Lushan's fifth company.

Long Qian summoned five staff officers and the rest of the senior officers, Deputy Commander Zhou Yi, five company commanders, and several team leaders to study and discuss the plan taken by the staff officers, and let others judge the merits of the plan. Everyone enthusiastically and meticulously put forward many very good opinions in Long Qian's opinion, which shows that everyone is considering the direction of the army during this time, which Long Qian is gratified.

This discussion also brought to the fore the role of the Staff Group. Regarding the strength statistics of each company, the first reaction of the five company commanders was to be unconvinced-get rid of Wang Mingyuan's company, which was ranked first--three people ranked the second company first. Lu Shan directly said what he thought was the principle, that is, actual combat, and only actual combat could prove who was strong and who was weak.

"Of course, it has to be proven by actual combat, but their statistics make sense! Don't be unconvinced, I can conduct a company-scale confrontation exercise, I think in the current situation, your five companies can't beat four old companies. Long Qian provoked Lu Shan.

"Just do it!" Lu Shan was still unconvinced, "I just want you to be fair." ”

"Of course I'm fair. The palms and backs of my hands are full of meat, and I won't take sides. Long Qian smiled and groaned, "I think you should pay close attention to the training of the Fifth Company, the more solid the training, the greater your hope of winning." ”