Chapter 4: Teachers and Elders (Middle)

  For several days, Wu Sheng and Ji Ping accompanied the two Chens of the Guangdong Army and Yu Wang of the Guangxi Army to travel around and discuss business. Tan Xiao laughed at himself, saying that he was writing at night, and during the day, he was working as a laborer in a mountain valley between Lion Ridge and Guanzhi Ridge in Xiling's western suburbs, facing the yellow earth and with his back to the sky.

  This is the temporary base of Tan Xiao's 23rd Division, where the military camp and training ground are being built. The reason for abandoning the original garrison in the city is Tan Xiao's intention. He will build a strong field army in this wilderness. The construction process is also a training process. Throughout the entire earthwork process, Tan Xiao personally demonstrates and guides the details of the actions in the team. At first, everyone thought that this division commander who had never done farm work was just a new official on duty for three days, and he wouldn't be good at doing these earthworks. Unexpectedly, after one working hour, Tan Xiao was not only directing everyone on what to do but also his progress was faster than anyone else's. The soldiers were convinced.

  Although there are still many things that people don't understand, such as why the outer defensive trenches need to be dug two meters deep, why they need to be dug into two layers like a rice paddy, and why there needs to be a reverse excavation of a deep wall cave inside that can hide people. And also, why all the trenches are dug in a zigzag shape... There are too many things that don't make sense. But one advantage of being a soldier in this era is that no matter whether you understand or not, as long as your superior tells you to do something, you just do it.

  In just three days, the entire garrison base has taken shape. It's actually a fortified position with houses: complex terrain and various trenches, communication tunnels, hidden firepower points, scattered foxholes, anti-artillery fortifications, anti-aircraft fortifications... except for the houses that haven't been built yet, only the foundation has been dug out, but the defensive fortifications have all been completed. In three days, more than 5,000 people worked hard in the wilderness at night, and even cooking required digging a smoke tunnel, absolutely no open fires were allowed, and there was also a curfew on lights at night, sentry posts... basically a field exercise to establish a position. Because Tan Xiao personally inspected the sentries at night, made sudden assemblies and other small movements, everyone was quite tense, and it actually had a hint of real combat flavor.

  In Tan Xiao's plan, this was just a bottom-testing exercise. The formal training would have to wait until the training ground was built, but even with just this test, the entire division's officers and men were exhausted, not because they couldn't physically keep up, but because they weren't used to it, and mentally they couldn't keep up either. However, seeing their superiors take the lead, they didn't have any complaints, at least they didn't dare to speak out.

  That day, just as Tan Xiao was repairing the earth with the soldiers, a messenger came from the headquarters and said that the guest was leaving, and Can Zuo invited Shi Zuo to return. The soldiers working next to Tan Xiao were secretly delighted when they heard this, thinking that they could finally take a break!

  Tan Xiao had just finished bathing and changing his clothes, when he came out and gathered a group of senior officials together to assign tasks before leaving. Those officers looked at the military orders with tears in their eyes: the amount of work to be completed within the time limit before Tan Xiao returned to inspect was even more than when Tan Xiao was there himself!

  Upon arriving at the garrison affairs office in the city, I immediately received good news: The Guangdong Army replied that there were 2,242 usable Type 38 rifles, which had been handed over to the Ishii Arsenal for maintenance and repair. It is estimated that they can be shipped out in a month's time, with each rifle equipped with 500 rounds of ammunition, plus two British-made six-pounder guns. According to Chen Jitang's intention, this would be considered a gift to Tan Xiao. Chen Jitang also sent a telegram mentioning his acquaintance with Tan Dechang in Guangzhou and expressing deep sorrow for Tan Dechang's loyalty to the country, as well as congratulating Tan Xiao on his promotion.

  It's raining cakes! Even if these guns are sold at a discount of 30% off the market price, it would still be no less than $70,000. Adding to that the cost of maintenance and repair, as well as two flat-shooting cannons and transportation fees, 11 million rounds of ammunition, 4,000 cannonballs... it's a huge sum of money! The Guangdong Army is indeed the biggest! Tan Xiaobing couldn't help but sigh in admiration. Moreover, he also wondered to himself: Why did Chen Jitang give so much face to this small division commander?

  The Guangdong Army has made a statement, and the Guangxi Army is not to be outdone. It directly said that Bai Zhongchang had approved two brand-new French Schneider 75mm infantry guns as gifts, which are already on their way! Good guy, this is indeed a famous gun with a faster firing rate than Krupp's, equipped by the French land forces!

  As for the return in the future, Tan Xiao didn't know how to pay it back, but things can't be taken for free anyway. First, he gave each of the four representatives 5,000 yuan and also rewarded their followers. After sending off the guests with a great mood, Tan Xiao didn't return to the base either, and had dinner at his future father-in-law Wu Sheng's house instead.

  The Wu family was the wealthiest among their group of brothers, and Wu Sheng's earnings were more than Tan Dechang's. The family banquet was very sumptuous: they had abalone, Dong'an chicken, Nüshu River fish, sour and spicy dog meat, amber meat, blood duck, and many other local specialties.

  "I suppose Father has invited all the famous chefs in town to prepare this family banquet?" Tan Xiao sucked up a sip of the delicious soup.

  "Hey, old man wants to eat well and go out the door? Just made by little nine, not bad? What a pity, in the future I will have to go to your house to freeload!" Wu Sheng said with a mischievous smile. Little nine is Wu Sheng's daughter, the ninth child among his children, also Tan Xiao's fiancée. Wu Sheng married six wives and had fourteen children, the most among his brothers.

  "What? Jiǔ'ér has such skills? How did I not know?" Tan Xiao searched through another memory of Tan Xiao, but couldn't find any information about his fiancée's culinary skills. In his impression, Jiǔ'ér Wú Dézhēn was just a virtuous and gentle beauty, he had even been delighted by this for a while when he first crossed over.

  "Hey, just learned a year ago, getting married, rushing to put up the duck, didn't expect her to be clever and deft, following my Xiangxiang Building's several cooks for a few months, unexpectedly surpassing them, haha, this daughter of mine is a treasure!" Wu Sheng was quite pleased.

  "That's right, after Jiuer passes the door, I will treat her well...". Tan Xiao was originally just a poor soldier in his original time and space, stationed in a remote training base all day, not even finding a girlfriend. When he came to this time and space, he unexpectedly got a virtuous and beautiful woman, so he was very satisfied. Seeing Wu Sheng boast about his daughter, he also echoed him.

  "Men, having three wives and four concubines, fooling around outside is normal as long as they know the way back home." Wu Sheng is a very understanding and reasonable father-in-law.

  "No, no, no, with the nine children I will be satisfied..." Tan Xiao asked himself if he was the best in this era at leading troops and fighting wars, but when it came to life's affairs, he had no experience at all. He didn't know if Wu Sheng was testing him or not, so he hastily declared, afraid that Wu Sheng would cancel their engagement.

  "Feng Sheng, I know you're a big shot now!" Wu Sheng suddenly stared at Tan Xiao. "We all knew what you were like before, we've even whored around together a few times, but after you became the sect leader, everything changed, no more whoring or gambling, just hiding in the mountains practicing martial arts every day, it's really impressive that you could tolerate so many years of this!"

  "You are different from your elder brother, he only wishes for peace and wealth, so that his younger brothers can live a happy life. But you, I think you're the kind of person who would sacrifice everything to achieve great things." Wu Sheng's eyes became increasingly deep and solemn. "Today, I took a look at those training outlines you wrote, you little brat wants to train an army to fight against the Japanese devils?"

  Tan Xiao was shocked: What a formidable father-in-law, he figured it out!

  "You're just like Xiao Ba, after returning from military school, that kid kept shouting about fighting the Japanese. He recently sent a letter back, and after graduating, he stayed in the Central Instruction Corps as a squad leader. However, he's still far inferior to you, all he knows is how to shout, but you actually managed to grasp an entire division! My old man really admires you! When it's time to endure, you endure; when it's time to strike, you're ruthless - and you even managed to get a division!"

  "Where, isn't it just everyone giving me face and supporting me? With this little ability of mine, without my dad and his group of uncles propping me up, I'd be lucky to even get a meal!" Tan Xiao could only force a smile. He discovered that after leaving the army, he, as a transmigrator, wasn't anything special at all.

  "Feng Sheng, don't pretend to be a good boy either. We old men can see clearly that you're a ruthless leader who will stop at nothing to achieve your goals, even if it means killing thousands and bathing in blood! However, we've all grown old, our descendants are thriving, and we can no longer fight. If you want to make a name for yourself, we'll support you, just spare our lives!" These words sent chills down Tan Xiao's spine. Could there be internal changes?!

  "What are you talking about, Dad?" Tan Xiao smiled and asked, waiting for Wu Sheng's next words.

  "The wind is born, these days the old brothers have calculated, the security brigade is still good with the temporary 23rd division. Wu Sheng waved his hand to let Tan Xiao not speak: "Among our children and nephews, there are many people like my little eight who are young and ambitious, wanting to conquer the world, they all followed you to the temporary 23rd division. The older ones, with smaller guts, stayed in the security brigade. As for the soldiers, we left three hundred local households with families in the security brigade, and the rest were all incorporated into the temporary 23rd division. We are still one family, how is that?"

  "This is for the best, it was my intention all along. After all, this Zero Ridge is our root, and someone has to take care of it!" Tan Xiao Chang let out a breath: "Those munitions factories and whatnot will also be put under the name of Local Security Brigade, so that other troops won't get jealous."

  The two of them then began to make plans for the division of the 23rd Division and the Security Brigade, discussing it for a full two hours before finishing. Tan Xiao was deeply impressed by his father-in-law, who was getting older but still sharp-witted. In just a few days, this group of old men had already seen through what he wanted to do. When he was busy building his base, these old men had already made their calculations, truly worthy of being seasoned veterans of the Eastern Expedition and Northern Punitive Expedition!

  Tan Xiao was very satisfied, basically just weeding out the useless and keeping the useful, leaving all the trivial things like relationships and human feelings to the security team, letting a group of old men go and deceive, with the new powerful forces full of fighting spirit and ambition all belonging to Tan Xiao. The consolation money that was cheated also basically remained as military expenses, only 100,000 was taken out for the security team's post-work processing.

  "Feng Sheng, you should pay attention to those soldiers of yours. Go to the mountainous areas of Guangdong and Guangxi to recruit more new soldiers. I'm afraid these old soldiers won't be able to keep up with you!" Wu Sheng said finally: "Don't look at them now, they seem fine, but these local soldiers are all door dogs. If you want to take them to fight in other provinces, I estimate none of them will be willing..."

  "The military order has been given, how dare they still resist?" Tan Xiao was not very supportive.

  "The wind is born, our Xiangjiang this piece of wealth, you just look at ordinary farmers, a year down eating from the fields and rivers, living in old houses, which family can't make less than 50 or 60 big silver coins? This monthly salary of 10.5 taels, even in peaceful years, is willing to earn, but if we really go to war, I estimate there will be no shortage of deserters."

  Wu Sheng's words make a lot of sense. Nowadays, the area along the Xiangjiang River is still relatively affluent. The purchasing power of one hundred yuan in this era is roughly equivalent to 340 yuan in 2010 when Tan Xiao crossed over. The livelihood of the people along the Xiangjiang River is actually quite good, especially for some miners who can earn dozens of yuan per month. They really don't want to risk their lives by taking up arms.

  "Most of these soldiers are from local militias, their homes are here, and many were just recruited for this campaign against the Communists. Except for training, they can return home to work during busy farming seasons. I think they don't meet your requirements for training soldiers, so in the future, most of them will probably go back to the Security Regiment. For now, we'll train them first and then select the best ones to form an instructional regiment to train new recruits. As for the real fighting troops, I think it's better if you recruit from the mountainous areas of Guangdong and Guangxi."

  Wu Sheng added: "I know you want soldiers who are brave and willing to risk their lives. It's better to recruit them from places where people can't get enough to eat. The Miao and Yao minorities are also good options, they basically all know how to shoot guns, can endure hardships, and run in the mountains, it's just that they're a bit dim-witted."

  This is another problem, although it doesn't seem obvious on the surface. Wu Shengyi said that Tan Xiao woke up to this himself and took his own experience of crossing time and space as an example. The most desperate and hardworking ones are all rural soldiers. Calculating from his own perspective, this batch of people in front of him is not much different from new recruits, they just have better discipline in formation. Even if he were to train a new unit from scratch, the difficulty wouldn't be too great.

  "That makes sense! I'll arrange for people to recruit new soldiers tomorrow, but the personnel quota has increased, and the military expenses are not enough. Unless we gradually put some people back into the security brigade, but can the security brigade accommodate so many people? At least three thousand people need to be arranged."

  "Yes, it's hard to find a place to accommodate so many soldiers. Nobody wants to take in 1,500 people...” Wu Sheng was also worried, as the expenses of the security team would have to be borne by the local government itself. "Let's do it first, and we'll naturally find a way when the time comes!"

  Not to mention Wu Sheng, even if Tan Xiao himself was willing to spend his own money to support the army with the mission of fighting Japan, he would not be very willing. After all, this amount of money is too large, and it's hard to make ends meet. Every month, it's tens of thousands, and if they were to go to war, it would be several times more. His family property of 2 million would be depleted in no time. Now that he has become a division commander, there are many places where expenses are incurred. Although the annual opium, dock taxes, and other miscellaneous income bring in around 300,000 to 400,000 yuan, considering the future need for the army to purchase advanced equipment and accumulate war materials, Tan Xiao only has one feeling: he is very poor! As for asking those old men to raise funds to support the troops, they have the ability, but would they be willing? Now their strong support is probably already a burden, and it's hard to ask them to do more.

  The over 500,000 yuan of consolation money that Tan Xiao had swindled was already allocated in his mind: to strengthen the arsenal and ordnance factory, purchase equipment to enable the former to produce cannonballs with sufficient production capacity for training. The latter would be able to modify weapons and ammunition - this is the first step. Just these alone would require a significant amount of expenditure, and additionally, the artillery training had also exceeded the original plan, because there were more cannons, they couldn't be wasted, so he expanded the artillery unit, which increased the training costs tenfold.

  But it's not possible without practice. Take the flat-shooting cannon as an example, a battery that hasn't been trained for more than a year and hasn't consumed hundreds of rounds (a single round costs tens of dollars, 75mm shells are even more expensive) can't reach the level required for combat. He dare not hope that his troops can play with some YY crossing big shots, take over equipment and have subordinates who can play with it. The money spent on buying equipment is not a big deal, but the money spent on maintaining equipment is a bottomless pit. Like the Northeast Army fighting in the Middle East Road, they dug anti-tank trenches to block Soviet tanks, but their flat-shooting cannons fired for half a day without hitting one vehicle, and good equipment was just a decoration. In Tan Xiao's view, the low training quality of Chinese troops on the anti-Japanese battlefield directly caused the waste of scarce combat materials, he absolutely would not allow his own troops to make such mistakes. The question is, how long can he afford to pay for the over-expenditure of military funds himself?

  Ten cannons, especially those French Schneider ones, require two operating teams with ammunition handlers and guards, totaling eighty people plus eight transport mules... Now, Tan Xiao finds those once coveted big guns to be so frightening. It's clear why the National Army only equipped one artillery company per division.