By the end of the 20th day of the battle, the number of sick men in the Forces nouvelles had greatly outnumbered the wounded, and more than 1,000 people had fallen ill.

"Marshal, this is an urgent order from the General Staff Division."

What Pu Guanshui had just received was an urgent suggestion from Beijing, which showed that it was made by the Marquis of Zhendong after personally inquiring about the war situation in Henan, and Pu Guanshui certainly attached great importance to it.

"It's been ten days since the fighting in Henan, and it's clear that Xu Ping will continue this delaying tactic and let the harsh weather and scorched earth roads continue to burden us. At the moment we can barely evacuate the wounded and sick, but we don't need to think too carefully to know that this is a burden that we can't afford sooner or later, the capacity of the Forces nouvelles is limited, the rate at which the Forces nouvelles can replenish their troops is also limited, and if we do not improve our means of transportation and supply, our combat strength will deteriorate dramatically as the front continues to advance. Every commander of the Forces nouvelles must be aware of the shortcomings of our army, not just in words, but in the heart......"

Pu Guanshui read Zhendonghou's letter softly, as many years ago, Zhendonghou always liked to discuss problems with his subordinates in this frank tone among friends: "Two problems are in front of us, either admit defeat, or change our regulations. In my opinion, every commander should not leave anything to chance and seriously ask himself: Are you going to admit defeat? If not, start trying to change, the new situation requires new regulations, and we are no longer fighting in Liaodong. ”

Zhendonghou put forward many suggestions, and Pu Guanshui called his subordinates together to discuss, the main idea of which was to completely change the thinking of the Ming army that the Ming army was protected by various units and dealt with the wounded soldiers under them. The Hou of Zhendong suggested the establishment of a continuous army station, and the battalions of the New Army should try to leave this burden behind to improve their mobility and flexibly meet the battle.

“…… I have never been to Henan, and these regulations are just some of my assumptions, and whether they are feasible depends on the joint efforts of the commanders and staff officers. I am convinced that you will be able to overcome the difficulties before you, achieve victory, and continue to improve our army. Training Premier Huangshi. ”

After Pu Guanshui finished reading Zhendonghou's letter, the commanders of the three battalions in the big camp were speechless for a long time, and the three commanders were used to implementing the orders of Zhendonghou like Pu Guanshui without asking the reason, but the regulations sent this time were really impossible to enforce.

"Lord Hou asked us to set up a military station, leave the sick number of the wounded soldiers on the spot, reduce the burden of the battalions, and prevent them from further aggravating their condition on the march with the army, this ......" Cheng Ping stumbled and fired the first shot, the problem of injury and illness is indeed a headache, and the problem predicted in the letter written a few days ago by the Marquis of Zhendong has become a reality. Evacuation had become unattainable, and as the troops continued to advance, it was already very far from the supply base in Shandong, and the long evacuation of a seriously wounded, feverish soldier in such weather was tantamount to murder. In order to take care of these wounded soldiers, the third battalion of the new army advanced into a regiment, and had to slow down and move slowly with these sick numbers, and it was necessary to prepare special camps for these soldiers every day, which further increased the already heavy workload: "Hou Ye's intentions are very good, Hou Ye is indeed far-sighted, but, but ......"

Cheng Ping said a few turning words, and he couldn't continue, Wei Wu snorted and chirped: "We don't have the strength to defend the station. ”

The reason why he did not dare to leave the wounded soldiers behind was because Pu Guanshui was unwilling to disperse his troops, and Wei Wu was worried that these military stations would become the target of attack by the invading army: "If we want to build military stations, we need a large number of friendly troops to assist, and there is no hope for our magistrates here in Henan, and the people will not be able to hope for them to escape." Besides, if there are people, do we dare to hand them over our brothers? ”

"But Hou Ye said, in this way, we will be crushed sooner or later, do we have to admit defeat? We haven't fought a tough battle yet, so how can we admit defeat? "These days, because it is difficult to evacuate the wounded, a lot of medicine has to be added to the supplies, which is crowding out the capacity of other military supplies. If the new army continues to advance and is completely cleared by Xu Ping along the way, then it will become more and more difficult to replenish, the number of wounded evacuations will become smaller and smaller, and the supply of medicine will naturally increase.

The speed at which the snails crawled every day certainly had an impact on the morale of the New Army, but even more dissatisfied were the people who were with the New Army, who were already complaining about it. Pu Guanshui strictly enforced the safety regulations of the new army, and all supplies had to be unloaded from the trucks when they set up camp, properly placed, and reloaded the next day. The dissatisfaction of the people gradually overwhelmed their fear of the officers and soldiers, and they began to complain loudly in public: Every night they tossed and turned for sand and fire prevention until midnight, and they began to load the trucks before dawn in the morning, and they had to unload and oil the trucks after walking a few miles.

However, Pu Guanshui was still meticulous, and he was determined to strictly enforce all relevant regulations and never give the intruding army the slightest opportunity to take advantage of it. Under this strict command, many people fell ill, and in the uninhabited wilderness, if they could not bear to let them die, they had to be taken in, and of course these people could not be evacuated, and Pu Guanshui estimated that soon the sick people would exceed the soldiers of the New Army who needed to be taken care of.

"Dashuai, the last general feels ......" Cheng Ping plucked up his courage and said: "The last general feels that Hou Ye is a little too worried, the problems we encounter will be encountered by thieves, and they can only be more serious than us." Our supplies can be continuously brought in from the rear, and the soldiers are replenished by a teaching team......"

"This supplement is absolutely not enough." As of yesterday, Pu Guanshui found that he needed to replenish a total of 1,500 soldiers and 80 officers, but now he had only been supplemented by 200 soldiers and eight officers, and he had been urgently transferred from Shandong. Every day, new applications are sent to the Beijing Division, but when the General Staff Department sees it, trains again, and sends it to Henan again, I don't know when it will be.

"But at least there is." Cheng Ping said: "And the thieves there is one less death, and the guns are also lost one less shot, our losses are great, but the thieves can't bear it, they don't stay in the warm tent honestly in this kind of weather, they have to drag us to run in the field, it's basically a lose-lose move of killing a thousand enemies and losing eight hundred." ”

"The most important thing is that Hou Ye also said that he has not experimented with this regulation," Seeing that two commanders took the lead, the staff officers finally began to object: "How should the military station be built, how far is the distance between the two military stations, and how to protect it?" How to evacuate? How to resupply? Hou Ye also admitted that these regulations may not be accurate and we need to study them ourselves, but we don't have time, the soldiers in front always shout that there is not enough oil and water in the food, and the bedding is not enough to keep warm, where do we have the extra capacity to transport the materials needed for the construction station? ”

……

"Pu Shuai wants us to send troops to help?" Yu Dong took the urgent paperwork of the new army and asked incredulously, "How could Pu Shuai remember us?" ”

"The little one has asked the envoy carefully," Qin Ding reported: "Pu Shuai thinks that we are Bianjun, and we must be looking forward to returning to our hometown day and night." ”

"I'm really looking forward to going back to my hometown day and night." Yu Dong looked a little sad, the native of the helmet was placed by him next to the bed, and every day Yu Dong lay down next to the native and fell asleep: "But that Xu Ping is clearly Huang Hou's eldest disciple, so Huang Hou will not come to Henan for a day to teach his disciple in person, I will not go back to die." Well...... What else did Pu Shuai say? ”

"The messenger said that Pu Shuai didn't want us to go up to fight, just help him guard the grain route and wounded soldiers in the rear, so that he could free up his hands to fight." The cronies felt that this errand was not very serious, so they looked at Yu Dong's face and asked, "Why don't you go and ask the messenger in person?" ”

"No, no." Yu Dong shook his head like a rattle, and after hearing that the new army had sent an envoy, he ordered his subordinates to say that he was sick, and he was very sick and couldn't come out to see people: "Why didn't Pu Shuai go to Cheng Yijun and Zhu Yuanhong?" ”

"This little one doesn't know."

"You don't know I know," Yu Dong said angrily: "The most poisonous thing is the starvation, Xu Ping is Huang Hou's eldest disciple, I can think of it, will he not think of it?" Zhu Yuanhong and Cheng Yijun were the fattest by the new army, and they didn't go, so it can be seen that it is not a good errand, and I must not go. Let's just say that we didn't have a good time in Nanjing, that we were in arrears of military salaries and that winter clothes were not issued - this is not nonsense, is it? Obviously, Nanjing just didn't give it to us. Anyway, I can't help it, so let's go and cry with Pu Shuai's messenger. ”

……

"Master Hou's method is really easy to use, it's really easy to use."

In Xu Ping's camp tent, Zhou Dongtian sighed loudly, before the battle, the staff officers who broke into the camp set up a dense military station system, and the retreat and evacuation routes of all the wounded and sick were prepared in advance, no matter which unit participated in the battle after the battle, as long as the wounded were dealt with by the ambulance force, and the infantry wings did not have to consider this aspect of the problem at all.

Along the official road is the scorched earth zone of the camp, and outside the confines of this slender strip, there is a shelter station for the camp, and when the death toll is counted today, the staff officers of the camp are pleased to find that the mortality rate has not increased compared with before. Because the wounded do not need to move with the troops, and the troops responsible for ambulance do not need to think about the work, they only need to concentrate on dealing with the wounded and sick, and the efficiency of each performing his own duties is greatly improved.

"Thanks to the experience of the First Battle of Guide Mansion, we have confirmed that Hou Ye's foresight is feasible." Before the first application of Zhendonghou's idea in Guide Prefecture, the staff officers who broke into the camp were just as trembling, and they were full of confidence before facing Puguanshui; It is also the Guide Mansion, and the actual operation has exposed many problems, which has given valuable experience to the staff officers who broke into the camp, if only in terms of scale, the scale of the military station experiment done by Xu Ping in the last attack on Guide is even larger than this time, and the geographical scope is even wider: "It's a pity that Master Hou ...... No, it's fortunate that Hou Ye has been idle for many years and has not had the opportunity to put his ideas into practice. ”

"There's also a relationship between leisure and leisure, but it's not the main thing. First, after the Hou Ye is in a high position, he can't let it go, because he has to worry about the reaction of the court, and we are different; Second, Hou Ye is probably the number one military wizard in the past, his idea is enough as long as he uses one or two new troops, and he is already invincible in the world without the need to achieve the best everywhere, they have no pressure to improve urgently, and we are different. ”

……

Despite all the pressures, Pu Guanshui was still cautious, and under his careful command, Xu Ping and Li Dingguo did not find any opportunity for a sneak attack, and the new army slowly but continuously compressed the positions of the breaking army. Exclaim. The interval between the ignition of the fuse and the firing of the third shot was longer, and one shell exploded when it hit the ground, while the other successfully achieved an air explosion.

This air-burst cannonball exploded over the fortress, as brilliant as a salute, instantly illuminating the fortress of the invading army, the fragments were heated red by gunpowder, these scorching shrapnel drew a bright trajectory like a meteor in the night, and shot mercilessly down from mid-air to the defenders in the fortress, and the soldiers who were shrouded in this salute fell silently.

After a few shots, the mortar gunners began to lower the elevation angle to forty-five degrees, and throughout the night the Forces nouvelles fired nearly a hundred flowering shells at the positions of the invading troops. The next day, whenever the Forces nouvelles observed a point of fire in the trenches, they struck them with mortars. On several occasions, the shells exploded in the mortar because the artillery officer did not fire in time, but their power was blocked by the heavy chamber of the mortar and did not cause any harm to its user.

……

December 8th.

"The artillery used by the officers and soldiers is like a big bell, and the spies say it looks as big as the big bell of the Shaolin Temple." Zhou Dongtian reported to Xu Ping the results of his observations over the past few days. Since the use of mortars, a new weapon, the number of casualties among the invading troops has begun to rise dramatically. Originally, it was expected that three strong positions would be able to hold back the Forces nouvelles for a month or twenty days, but now all the positions have been captured by the Forces nouvelles.

Zhou Dongtian continued: "The disadvantage of this kind of artillery is that it is very small in number, and every time it is used, the new army will dig artillery barricades in advance to protect them, and now they cannot afford to lose. ”

The appearance of the mortar cannon was completely unexpected by Xu Ping, he had never heard of this weapon in the New Army, and several other officers of the New Army had never heard of it. This weapon greatly weakened the advantage of the intruders in the trenches, forming airburst flowering shells overhead, causing great damage to the defenders in the trenches.

"More than half of the 3rd Infantry Wing has already been killed or wounded, and I am afraid that it will not be able to be put into operation for a few days. The casualties of the other three infantry wings were also very large, and the casualties of our troops had already exceeded those of the officers and men. Zhou Dongtian's face was full of worry.

The Chuang army was being oppressed by the new army and retreated, and it was a defeat rather than a planned and active retreat as before, and the new army had already completed half of the journey from the ferry to Kaifeng. In the original plan, the intruders were to resolutely hold off the already weakened new army on the rest of the road, and now although the new army was indeed weakened, the use of mortars still made their attack power extremely impressive.

"The disadvantage of this bell-like gun is that it moves very slowly and cannot be used in the field." Another staff officer pointed out that the problem with mortars was that they were slow and inaccurate, and that there was always a chance to hit a long shot at fixed trenches and forts, but if it was a field battle, it was impossible for the opposing side to allow the new army to drag the mortars to a hundred meters in front of their own phalanx in ox carts: "If we were looking for an opportunity to fight with the Forces nouvelles, we would have prevented them from hitting us with these two bells." ”

"No," without waiting for Xu Ping to speak, Zhou Dongtian, the former chief of staff of the Guards Battalion and the current chief of staff of the general of the Chuang Battalion, retorted: "Now is not the time for a field battle, the new army has not been weakened to the point where it can be defeated by a war, and now we can't beat them!" ”

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