The Air Force officer vigorously defended his department's budget, first of all by bringing up the issue of the Marine Corps, which was repeatedly emphasized every time the Admiralty requested an increase in appropriations for the Marine Corps. But the Admiralty denied that the airships were capable of transporting either two or the Air Force's claim that the soon-to-be-expanded air fleet of seventeen ships was worth mentioning, and that the Admiralty pointed out that they were not even as capable as a small sea-going vessel. Of course, this was undeniable to the Air Force officer, who immediately tried to counter by emphasizing the greater range of the airship, which had previously been wielding the weapon of "mobility" against the War Department's attempt to annex the Marine Corps, but the Air Department's attempt to return the favor to the Marines had failed. The army officer said to the side that from the point of view of his land warfare expert, such an investment of troops has no land combat value, and he rarely spoke highly of the navy's fire support capability, and he believed that not to mention that the airship fleet only has a dozen airships, even a few hundred airships are useless, because airships cannot carry heavy weapons, a large number of horses, especially artillery, so even if they can send tens of thousands of soldiers to the battlefield, they are still a rifle unit that lacks the ability to attack fortifications and defend themselves.

"Doctor Xue, the army has infantry regiments, infantry divisions, riflemen will be supported by artillery, and there are heralds on horseback who are responsible for conveying orders and transmitting military information; And the airborne troops are at most rifle regiments, even if they throw a rifle division at a time, the combat power is no different from a group of militia with rifles, they will be easily wiped out in the wilderness by the infantry wing of Beishun, and they can't capture any fortress and can't hold it, and these so-called airborne commandos, their training expenses will be very amazing," the army officer pointed out that the air force needs to train commandos to learn how to rappel, and a lot of training time is required in the air: "The cost of training an airborne commando may be ten times that of ordinary infantry, But all they got was a group of militiamen," the army officer shook his head again and again and lamented, and finally did not forget to attack his old enemy: "The Constituent Assembly has spent a great deal of money on training a group of marines and marines who have not played any role so far for the sake of the fantasies of some people, should we make more such painful mistakes?" ”

Before the naval officer retorted, the red-faced air force colleague had already retorted, claiming that the army was crippled and deliberately ignored the superiority of other services, which the naval officer liked to hear, but the air force did not win the alliance... On the contrary, when the air force officer vigorously emphasized the similarities between the air fleet and the navy and wanted to win a point for himself, the naval officer told Dr. Xue that the navy already has a large number of talents who are familiar with the compass and stargazing operations, and as the air force officer said, there are many similarities between airships and sea ships, such as the captain system of the navy and the captain system of airships, and the fact that airships and ships are both about ships, and then for example, the fleet management model...... In short, if the airship force is placed under the jurisdiction of the navy, it will certainly be able to give full play to its role.

The Army officer also took the opportunity to say that they needed airships to reconnoiter the terrain and communicate with the besieged troops, and he also said that the War Department would be happy to see the Constituent Assembly split the Air Force into Army Aviation and Naval Aviation.

The Air Force officer, who wanted to win the funding, did not anticipate that this plan would suddenly lead to the division of the department, and then he had to fight for the survival of the department instead of continuing to ask for funding, and as he tried desperately to argue for the meaning of the Air Department's existence, the Army and Navy smiled at each other, and the two of them succeeded in forcing the greedy Air Force to switch from attack to defense - at this moment, the Army and Navy were not for tat enemies, but comrades who hated each other...

For Xue Shan, the dispute between the ministries is what he is happy to see, and the Constituent Assembly does not want to play the role of the great demon king who is full of evil, so it needs to provoke the various ministries to fight each other—just as Huangshi needs to provoke the various parties to fight each other; There is also a need to put ministries in competition to force them to come up with more efficient plans to compete for limited funding, which is consistent with the infighting mentality of democracies. Xue Xie understands his mission as limiting this infighting to a certain range, and not allowing a certain ministry to dominate, while the Constituent Assembly is determined to support the weak Air Ministry, not only out of consideration of checks and balances, but also because the Air Force is a new type of military branch that can attract the attention of voters.

Recently, the southern media have been reporting on the magical airship newsletter one after another, and the curious discussion about the air force has filled the streets and alleys, and everyone in the southern Ming Dynasty is discussing it, and its heat has reached the point of "If you don't say a few sentences about the Air Force, throw out a few fashionable new terms for the Air Force, or express your opinions on the airship, then you are a deaf and blind barbarian." At the point where Ren Hongcheng's name spread throughout the provinces with the airship, which made Xue Xian also very envious. If the Air Force can create any sensational news in the future, Xue Shi very much hopes that the Air Force officers will say a sentence or two in front of the enthusiastic reporters, such as: "The Air Force can have such great achievements because of the enthusiastic support of Xue Shirt and His Excellency the Chairman of the Xue Armaments Committee... Or, "Dr. Xue has always paid special attention to the construction of the Air Force, and without Dr. Xue, there would be no Air Force today." Something like that.

Therefore, the army and navy officers were actually engaged in a desperate struggle, and their defeat was already doomed the moment Xue saw the Air Department's plan.

While the three officers were arguing, Xue Shirt kept frowning and pondering, he could provide convenience for the Air Force within his authority, but it was not in his interest to delay serious business or anger the War Department and the Navy Department. In the event of a military defeat and angry Army and Navy officers accusing themselves of responsibility at the Constituent Assembly, Xue knew that neither the Constituent Assembly nor the Party would hesitate to abandon him.

When the controversy among the officers gradually subsided, Xue Shi had already roughly assessed the scope of the risk: a small allocation would not completely anger the army and navy, they would only resent the shamelessness of the air force for it, and it would not endanger the military strength of the army and navy...

"The war was critical, and Dr. Ben thought that instead of using the money to train a unit that didn't know how to work, it would be better to consider using the money on more sure projects, and Dr. Ben believed that the army could train more soldiers with the same resources." As soon as Xue Xie spoke, the Army officer showed a smug smile, while the representative of the Air Department lowered his head like a defeated rooster.

"But," Xue Shi threw out a turning point: "As the Admiralty said just now, sometimes we need to take a long-term view, just like the Marine Corps, our weapons are changing with each passing day, and in the past less than ten years, the appearance of the army has undergone earth-shaking changes, and we must admit that there are some things we know in the future, some things we don't know, and some things we don't know we know we don't know, and some things we don't know we don't know we just don't know." ”

After quickly finishing the tongue twister, before the three officers who were contemplating the deep meaning of their words could react, Xue Shirt announced to the Air Force officer: "For the sake of those futures that we just don't know, I will ask the Constituent Assembly to approve your establishment of a small airborne commando force, limited to one hundred people...... After greatly reducing the requirements of the Air Ministry's plan, Xue Shirt said to its representatives: "It's up to you next, I hope you can return to the Constituent Assembly a reason to continue to support you... ”

After finishing speaking, Xue Shi did not wait for the grateful Air Force officers to thank him, or the two officers who had not yet been able to fully comprehend the spirit of their superiors expressed in their tongue twisters, and quickly opened the next plan: "This is the budget request of the Admiralty......

The next round of quarrels began again, and the new feud quickly replaced the old one.

At the end of the meeting, Xue gave another big gift to the Air Ministry, but this was not his personal gift, but the meaning of the Constituent Assembly, which considered it important to increase the transport capacity to Chunhua, and both the War Department and the Constitutional Division demanded that aerial observation be provided to the Ming army at the front immediately. This does not only refer to the battlefield of Chunhua, but also the public servant division who is ready to go after learning about the new weapon of the airship, and also strongly requests to provide it with aerial observation equipment. In fact, the Air Department did not even contribute as much as the War Department in this resolution, and the Constituent Assembly said that it would immediately increase the appropriation for the purchase of airships, and after learning of the notification, the Air Department said that they could not afford to quickly train a large number of qualified crews, and hoped to limit the work to twenty airships in a short period of time, that is, to issue only such a large number of airship orders in three months; The Army expressed strong dissatisfaction with this, strongly demanding that this number be doubled, while Xue Shi generously said that the Constituent Assembly had a plan long before the notification to the three service departments, and they would double the number demanded by the Army - apparently it was not only ordinary people who had caused superstition in the Air Force because of the overwhelming news reports, but also many members of the Constituent Assembly...

……

As the hottest days of summer wore off, and so did the situation of the Constitutional Division, the Shun army seemed to have exhausted their stock of mortar shells, and many of these shells had recently fallen from the Caspian Sea in the town that had not exploded, most of which were not owned by the Northern Expeditionary Army but were imitations of Shandong from Beishun. From the point of view of the staff officers of the constitutional division, the Shun army's imitation technology of this weapon is not very good, the quality is quite inferior, and most of them cannot explode, and some of the explosions do not form a large number of fragments, but simply explode in half into two pieces of iron, and some even just explode the sphere.

As autumn approached step by step, Tang Desheng's views on the air force were slowly changing, and more and more airships were coming and going between Longtan and Chunhua, sending news to the besieged Ming army... The precious newspapers were passed around in the hands of the soldiers, allowing them to continue their work and fight despite their fatigue, but the mere sight of the arrival of the new airship boosted the morale of the Ming army, which made them feel still connected to the rear, rather than isolated.

Many of the airship's officers were killed because of the airship crash, but through their efforts, 100 reinforcements were sent to Chunhua, which was a drop in the bucket for the constitutional division, but it had an amazing encouraging effect on the morale of the army, and now the soldiers generally believe that sooner or later the airship will form a bridge in the sky, and countless soldiers and material resources will be continuously transported into Chunhua. Also for the purpose of encouraging the morale of the army, Tang Desheng let the returning airship transport a small batch of wounded and sick back to the rear with great fanfare, of course, these can only be lightly wounded, but this move also aroused the great enthusiasm of the Nanming newspaper, and the wounded soldiers who returned to Longtan were welcomed like heroes - they are indeed heroes. He Feihu personally rushed to Longtan to award the wounded soldiers, and then countless fanatical reporters rushed up to interview them, and many of these news flowed back to Chunhua through the newspapers brought by the airship.

A few days ago, the airship sent a large number of improvised balloons, these weapons were assembled after Tang Desheng immediately put them all in the air, now the Shun army has no secret movement during the day, the balloons are suspended on the position of the Shun army, keeping an eye on their every move, and at night will also throw flares from the air from time to time, and their deployment will be ** out...

Today, the artillery movement was being carried out nervously on the positions of the Ming army in Chunhua Town, and after several days of discussion between the staff officers of the constitutional division and the air force officers, it was decided that it was possible to use balloons to help the army's artillery to indicate the target. In the past, limited to the terrain, the Ming army could not see the placement of the troops, baggage and ammunition of the Shun army behind the obstacles, let alone the impact point of the side after crossing the opponent's low wall and fortifications. The air force officers felt that they could use the flag language to guide the ground artillery attack, so that the Ming army's harassment and artillery bombardment would become more efficient.

Tang Desheng agreed to carry out such a cooperation experiment, he looked at the busy artillerymen, and said softly: "I think General Xu must be very distressed when he comes over there." ”

Indeed, as Tang Desheng said, Xu Ping is indeed very troubled now, the high morale of the Ming army has no sign of falling at all, and he can't find any low-cost attack method for such a huge firearms defense force, in fact, even a high-cost attack has no certainty of victory. Now the ground reconnaissance of the Ming army during the day is almost extinct, and several balloons are hanging above their heads all day and night, and the layout of the Shun army can be seen clearly...

The commander of the Shun army knows very well that these balloons can see every corner of the Shun army's position, and one of the rules of reconnaissance is that when you can see him, then he can also see you, and the Shun army commando used to rely on the telescope to search for the enemy's firepower blind spot - as long as you can't see the enemy in the telescope, then this is the enemy's firepower blind spot, as long as you ensure that the telescope can not see the enemy when you advance, it means that you have found a blind belt of enemy fire and a safe offensive channel.

Now no matter where the Shun army is positioned, as long as you look up, you can see the big balls in the sky, so the experienced Shun army veterans understand that they have nothing to hide, which greatly reduces their confidence in infiltrating the attack - there is indeed no possibility of success, as long as they assemble, they can see the Ming army on the balloon began to wave the flag, although they don't know the content of their flag, but they are definitely not reporting to the rear, "safe and sound." ”

……

At this time, Yi Meng, who was in Zhejiang, was also actively training the coordination between the troops and the air force, and the 14th Division "Honesty" had also arrived in Zhejiang to form the Seventh Army together with the Public Servant Division. But the commander of the Seventh Army made Yi Meng a little worried, he was Li Yunrui's eldest son, the colonel and deputy commander of the Seventh Division in the early days of the Northern Expedition, and later the commander of the Eighth Division.

Moreover, as far as Yi Meng knew, Li Gongzi had also caused quite a bad impact in Jiangxi before - because the attention of the media was completely attracted by the success of the air force, what happened in Jiangxi almost did not attract any attention, but the War Department once vaguely reported that the First and Second Armies in Jiangxi had committed large-scale and serious violations of military discipline, and soon after returned from Huguang to the Jiangxi Fourth Army to intervene by force to assist the Northern Expeditionary Army Command in quelling large-scale disciplinary violations.

The War Department said very vaguely, and Yi Meng didn't care much about this matter at first, he paid more attention to the matter of the whole army going north and fighting with the Shun army. But since he learned that Li Gongzi would be his immediate boss, Yi Meng naturally began to inquire into his past experience in order to better cooperate with the military department.

According to the information inquired, Li Gongzi was a staunch hawk and advocated an uncompromising sweep of the Shun army, which gave Yi Meng's first impression that the future army commander was very kind to his own temperament, although Yi Meng felt that Li Gongzi broke the agreement with the Shun army when he was the deputy commander of the Seventh Division and ordered the naval division to carry out indiscriminate attacks on the ships of the Shun army on the Yangtze River, but he felt that it was understandable.

However, as Yi Meng gradually learned about the Jiangxi incident through his connections, he began to worry: after the defeat of Anqing, the First Army and the Second Army retreated to Jiangxi and learned from the pain and began to strictly enforce military discipline, and the General Staff of the Northern Expeditionary Army said that everyone who disobeyed military orders should be executed; But many soldiers, even junior officers, shouted that it was time for those who said this to get out of the army.

But things soon started to get off the rails...... The specific situation of the War Department has always wanted to cover it up, and the Constituent Assembly also hummed and vaguely said something, anyway, Yi Meng only knew that the Fourth Army had the most ** attitude after hearing about the change, and dispatched troops to enter the military camp that caused trouble, and I heard that artillery was also used to suppress it, and Division Commander Li was the commander on the spot.

"Why did the Constituent Assembly send Commander Li to Zhejiang?" Yi Meng was both confused and worried, and the new commander seemed hot-tempered and not very sympathetic to the soldiers.

The War Department had already informed that the Second Northern Expedition would soon be launched to recapture Huguang and secure Nanjing, and Yi Meng felt that he needed to further investigate the hidden circumstances behind the transfer of the new army commander.

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