Chapter 67

  Based on the results of live ammunition shooting, grenade throwing training and bayonet fighting, Li Bin also selected a batch of outstanding soldiers from the new recruits to serve as squad leaders. More than a dozen with the most accurate marksmanship were selected by Li Bin to supplement the God Gunner Team, and more than a dozen with quick reflexes and certain martial arts skills were selected by Li Bin to join Fang Jun Tian's special forces team.

  In order to get this troop onto the battlefield against Japan as soon as possible, Li Bin intensified his training of the soldiers.

  In the blink of an eye, two months passed and it was already April 2nd, 1932. There was only one month left before Li Bin would lead this team to set out.

  During this time, the retired Chiang Kai-shek re-emerged and deployed the Central Army to Shanghai to counter Japan's offensive. This temporarily halted Japan's frantic attack. Also, due to the large number of concessions in Shanghai, Japan did not dare offend the powers and therefore did not use larger-caliber heavy artillery.

  In the past two months, thanks to Zhang Xueliang's silver dollars and Xiao Bo's frugal management, Li Bin's troops have been living a relatively good life. In the past two months, not only have the soldiers' military qualities improved, but their physical fitness has also been greatly enhanced.

  As this truly all his own team did not have a formal name, Li Bin decided to hold a meeting that night to give his team a name and arrange the formation and duties of various officers. Before naming the independent regiment, he had someone telegram Huang Xianzhi, and after seeking consent, he formally fixed the name.

  After the sky turned dark, Li Bin had finished writing his speech. Xiao Bo, Hong Biao, Wu Congyu, Huang Hua, Jin Hu, Jin Da, Liu Zi, Liu Hanshan, Fang Juntian, Ma Liqiang, Liu Linhua and Zhang Minfan entered the venue after dinner.

  Everyone arrived, and Li Bin began to speak: "Brothers and sisters! Today, I officially announce that our independent regiment is established from today on! The name is Northeast Righteous and Brave Army Iron Independent Regiment!"

  Everyone in the venue applauded, and the applause lasted for half a day without subsiding.

  Next, Li Bin first announced the list of senior officers of the Independent Regiment: "Regiment Commander Li Bin, Major General of the National Revolutionary Army, Deputy Regiment Commander Xiao Bo, concurrently serving as the commander of the Logistics Team, First Battalion Commander Hong Biao, Second Battalion Commander Jing Da, Third Battalion Commander Liu Zi, Machine Gun Battalion Commander Liu Hanshan, Special Troops Detachment Commander Fang Juntian, Guard Company Commander Wu Congyu, Engineer Company Commander Zhang Minfan, Cavalry Company Commander Jing Hu, Sniper Team Commander Ma Liqiang, Liu Linhua served as the regiment's staff officer and concurrently as the head of the reporting group, Huang Hua served as the commander of the regiment's direct sniper team."

  Then, the formation of the troops, an infantry company consisted of three infantry platoons and a machine gun platoon. A machine gun platoon was composed of a grenade launcher squad and a machine gun squad. The company commander and deputy company commander were equipped with Mauser pistols. The machine gun squad was equipped with two Czech light machine guns. The machine gun assistant shooter was equipped with a rifle or pistol. The grenade launcher squad was equipped with two grenade launchers, the assistant shooter was equipped with a rifle, and the rest of the infantry were all equipped with Type 13 rifles or Hanyang-made rifles.

  An infantry battalion consists of four infantry companies and a machine gun company, the latter equipped with two Type 24 water-cooled heavy machine guns and six Czech light machine guns.

  The machine gun battalion consists of two machine gun companies and two artillery companies. One machine gun company is equipped with three Type 30 heavy machine guns, six Type 24 heavy machine guns, and twelve Czech light machine guns; one artillery company is equipped with three 82mm mortars of the year 20 and six Hsiang-type 60mm mortars.

  A cavalry company consisted of four cavalry platoons and a machine gun squad, the company commander was equipped with a saber and Mauser pistol, the machine gun squad was equipped with two Czech-style machine guns, and the rest of the cavalry were all equipped with one Mauser carbine and one saber.

  The special forces squad consists of a reconnaissance platoon and a special forces platoon, with each platoon equipped with one sniper, all other soldiers are equipped with MP18 submachine guns and Mauser pistols, and cold weapons are optional.

  The Sharpshooter Unit consists of one sniper squad and three sharpshooter squads, the sniper squad is equipped with fifteen sniper rifles, each sniper has a deputy; the sharpshooter squad is equipped with a Type 24 Mauser rifle.

  The guard company, except for the company commander and deputy company commander who were equipped with a sniper rifle, all other soldiers were equipped with Mauser pistols. The engineer company's platoon leader was equipped with a Mauser pistol, while the rest of the soldiers were equipped with Mauser rifles.

  Most of the soldiers in the communication team and the logistics team are equipped with pistols, and some warriors are equipped with rifles.

  The independent regiment had a total of 1,780 people, with more than 900 rifles, more than 200 carbines, 24 heavy machine guns, more than 100 light machine guns, 60 submachine guns, more than 300 pistols, 18 mortars, 32 grenade launchers, and 20 sniper rifles. Such firepower equipment, especially the machine gun firepower, was probably not even reached by the Central Army in the National Revolutionary Army at that time. In fact, Li Bin was able to own so many machine guns, except for those provided by the Young Marshal, most of which were purchased from Xiao Bo at that time.

  To avoid the phenomenon of unbalanced combat effectiveness, Li Bin mixed new and old soldiers together. Of course, as the first infantry battalion of Hong Biao, it was still strengthened.

  However, Li Bin's troops also had a weakness, as a regimental combat unit, they did not have mountain guns and field guns, nor did they have heavy howitzers, which made it difficult for them to attack fortifications. However, artillery also had a weakness, that is, it was too cumbersome, which was not conducive to the mobility of this light-armed force. Therefore, Li Bin waited until the Japanese 92-style infantry gun officially entered China, and then he went to seize those guns, and in another one or two months, those artillery would appear in Northeast China. The 92-style infantry gun was lightweight and most suitable for equipping this type of light unit.

  At the same time, there was a fatal weakness that the equipment had a large number of machine guns, but 7.92mm bullets were really limited. Therefore, Li Bin considered replacing them with Japanese Type 11 light machine guns and Type 92 heavy machine guns in the future. However, the Type 11 light machine gun was really too difficult to use, thinking about this point made him feel very uncomfortable.

  After everything was arranged, Li Bin let everyone else leave, but kept Xiao Bo behind: "Xiao Ge, wait a minute before you go."

  Xiao Bo sat down and asked: "Team leader, what are your orders? Do you think the bullets are insufficient and want me to go get some more?"

  Li Bin smiled and said: "We are brothers, you'd better call me brother, I don't like it when you call me 'team leader'."

  Xiao Bo smiled awkwardly and said: "Okay, then I won't be polite."

  "The consumption of bullets is really astonishing, and in the future we can only seize them from the devils. Today I'm looking for you to ask if you know any Russians? Can we get some new weapons from Russia?" Li Bin asked.

  In fact, there was a new Soviet weapon that Li Bin had already set his sights on - the newly born Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle. This sniper rifle was truly the first generation of dedicated sniper rifles. Compared to the Mauser 98 rifle with a Zeiss scope used by Li Bin and others, the Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle was naturally much more advanced.

  After Xiao Bo raised his doubts, Li Bin said: "I need the Russian Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle! This is a new type of weapon that they have just put into production. I need this weapon to replace the old rifles in our snipers' hands."

  "My goodness! How did you know about the Russian-made weapons that were just put into production? Are you a reincarnation of Zhuge, brother?" Xiao Bo was shocked.

  Li Bin smiled slightly and said, "I'll tell you later how I knew that. Now I want to buy a batch of those rifles. Do you have any way to get them from the Russians, Big Brother Xiao?"

  "The Russians, we do know them. Lin Hua knows them too and we've even bought weapons from them before. But would they be willing to sell us these brand new state-of-the-art weapons?" Xiao Bo asked worriedly.

  Li Bin said: "We don't need a lot, just thirty is enough. I think it's such a small amount, they shouldn't refuse to sell to us, right?"

  Xiao Bo nodded slightly: "Alright then, I'll let Lin Hua go find the Russian to try and see. But the possibility of being able to buy it won't be very high."

  "If it doesn't work out, we'll buy them at a high price! General Shao still has plenty of silver to spare!" Li Bin said with a smile, "No matter how high the price is, we must buy this batch of rifles!"

  "This, I really can't guarantee." As for whether they could buy this batch of rifles, Xiao Bo really had no confidence.

  Li Bin smiled and said: "If that's the case, I'll go to Russia with you too. You can take care of things here first, big brother!"

  After Xiao Bo left, Li Bin was still thinking about the training of soldiers until it was almost dawn before he closed his eyes for a short rest.

  After the sky brightened, Li Bin walked onto the training ground and called over all the junior officers: "Brothers, those little devils are experts at close combat with bayonets. We can't match them except for our special troops and guard units who have big knives. Our ordinary infantrymen aren't their match. Now I'm going to teach you a new tactic - alternating cover."

  After finishing, Li Bin started drawing a diagram on the ground to demonstrate this tactic: "During the attack, we can take turns covering each other. One group charges forward while another group provides firepower cover. Similarly, when the little devils charge up and want to engage in close combat with us, we can also use alternating cover, divide into small groups, and retreat step by step, firing at them round after round. Of course, our automatic weapons are limited, so we need handguns, especially those held by officers, which are the nemesis of bayonet fighting. Rifles take time to reload, after shooting, quickly retreat, shoot with a handgun, and when the magazine is almost empty, retreat to replace it, then have the rifleman follow up. Of course, fighting cannot be completely without casualties, and riflemen may suffer losses. However, by adopting this approach, we can minimize our own casualties as much as possible!"

  Li Bin looked at those grassroots officers after finishing the sketch: "Does everyone understand?"

  "Understood!" All the officers responded in unison with a loud voice.

  "Alright, now everyone return to their posts and teach this method to all the warriors!" Li Bin said.

  The grassroots officers returned to the training ground and began to practice this new tactic as taught by Li Bin.

  Li Bin, however, turned around and continued to personally train the new recruits. In order to train these new recruits, he did not hesitate to waste fifty kilograms of explosives. He had Ma Liqiang's engineering battalion set up several explosive points, creating an effect like cannon fire, and then had the new recruits lie on the ground and listen to the explosions. This way, he was able to train the new recruits so that they would no longer be afraid of artillery fire.