Chapter Thirty-Five Doing Business

  Apart from the four historical celebrities, those who joined the team in Ruijin, such as Lai Changzuo, Zhong Desheng, Peng Shengbiao, and Hu Rongjia, were also good talents. With the training of the military school and the experience of battle, the quality of the grassroots officers and soldiers of the 15th Red Army improved rapidly. Hu Weidong could finally take a break and devote more time to the school and the arsenal. At the same time, taking advantage of the Nationalist army's heavy losses, Hu Weidong ordered the three main force brigades to operate separately, attacking those counties that were still lost in enemy hands. The special operations team also got the opportunity to go into battle under Mao Zedong's repeated requests. The four armies fought separately, and the efficiency of attacking cities and seizing land was almost twice as high as before. In less than a month, eleven counties including Shanghang, Yongding, Pinghe, Longyan, Liancheng, Qingliu, Mingxi in Fujian, Ningdu, Shicheng, Guangchang in Jiangxi, and Dapu in Guangdong were all recovered by the people. The Min-Gan Soviet Area was renamed the Min-Gan-Yue Soviet Area. During this period, the 15th Red Army eliminated more than 30,000 Nationalist troops, including militia, and its total strength quickly exceeded 100,000.

  During this period, the National Army's planes began to frequent the Soviet area, and even the marching Red Fifteenth Army troops suffered several air raids, suffering some losses. Obviously, Old Chiang in Nanjing was furious. However, Old Chiang did not understand that relying solely on aircraft could not eliminate a large army. This isolated air raid, separate from the ground forces, not only had limited effect but also gave the Red Fifteenth Army's commanders an actual combat lesson in air defense. As a result, the effectiveness of the air raids became worse with each passing day, and planes began to be shot down. The pilots, who valued their lives and hated the civil war, went on strike for a time, forcing Old Chiang to suspend this wasteful and meaningless act of venting his anger...

  In this series of battles, the four routes of troops performed well, with Tan Zhenlin being the best, followed by Mao Zedong. The other two routes were slightly worse, but at least they could still deal with the militia. Hu Weidong had to admit that war was indeed the best way to temper people, and even those who did political or economic work (except for those who went straight from being students to taking office) became commanders one by one. As for Tan Zhenlin, who was both militarily and politically capable, he was undoubtedly a rare talent. Hu Weidong immediately promoted him to be the commander and political commissar of the newly established Independent Second Division and reported it to the Central Committee for approval. However, the person who rose the fastest was Mao Zedong. He suddenly rose from being the commander of the Special Task Regiment to becoming the chief of staff of the army. This was not because Hu Weidong deliberately flattered Mao, but because Mao had truly made great contributions that were crucial to the Red Fifteenth Army...

  The victory of the Red Fifteenth Army is undisputed, having eliminated the enemy and expanded its territory. However, Hu Weidong's long-standing concerns have finally become a reality, as the army's ammunition has begun to run low. Although the elimination of the enemy forces resulted in relatively minor casualties for the Red Fifteenth Army, the spoils of war were also meager, especially since the Nationalist regular troops had retreated voluntarily, taking most of their supplies with them. The Red Fifteenth Army was left with only a small amount of leftover materials.

  Furthermore, as the army's scale continues to expand, the originally abundant spoils now seem like a drop in the bucket. For example, the Red Fifteenth Army currently has over 50 million rounds of ammunition, which seems like a lot at first glance. However, when distributed among each soldier, it amounts to only around 50-60 rounds per person, not even enough for one basic loadout. When accounting for machine gun consumption, the situation becomes even more dire.

  The biggest problem lies with handgun ammunition, of which there are now less than 3 million rounds available. On average, this means that each of the Red Fifteenth Army's over 1,200 assault rifles and nearly 4,000 twenty-round guns can only be allocated around 60 rounds, equivalent to two or three magazines. For firearms with high rates of consumption like assault rifles and twenty-round guns, this amount is woefully insufficient for even a single intense battle.

  In addition, other military supplies and even necessities of life are also facing severe shortages. Since the old Chiang's military losses, he naturally brought out the economic blockade again. The salt problem alone is enough to make Hu Weidong worried, after all, it's not like before, with a population of over 1 million in the Soviet area, relying solely on looting can no longer solve the problem, unless they can break through the enemy's encirclement and rush to the salt-producing areas once and for all. But that is simply a fool's dream. Moreover, what the Soviet area lacks now is not just salt, but many other necessities...

  Just as Hu Weidong was about to launch a military adventure, regardless of the fatigue of his troops, and break out of the original Central Soviet Area to plunder food from the enemy to alleviate the material tension in the Soviet area, Mao Zedong, who had just led the Special Operations Brigade to raid Guangdong's Dapu County, sent back some good news...

  Originally, long before the Central Red Army's Long March, the Soviet government had extensive economic dealings with Chen Jitang, a warlord in Guangdong. The most important trade was that the Red Army sold tungsten sand produced in the Soviet area to Chen Jitang, who then acted as an intermediary and exported it abroad to earn huge profits. Although the Soviet government only received a small share of the income, this amount was enough to maintain the majority of the expenses of the Soviet government and the Red Army, and it can be said that it was the economic pillar of the Soviet area. On the other hand, under Chiang Kai-shek's long-term blockade, Guangdong Province, controlled by Chen Jitang, was almost the only window for the Soviet government to import large quantities of materials from the outside world. After Wang Ming's line gained power, the Red Army, which had abandoned external warfare, could no longer obtain supplies from the enemy, and the trench warfare also led to a sharp increase in ammunition consumption. The transaction volume between the Soviet government and Chen Jitang reached new highs.

  At that time, the person in charge of this matter was Mao Zemin, the second brother of Mao Zedong, who was the president of the "National Bank of China" and the director of the "National Foreign Trade Bureau". Therefore, after Mao Zedong captured Dapu County, he immediately thought of this connection. Coincidentally, Chen Jitang was now seeing Chiang Kai-shek's power growing bigger and bigger, especially after absorbing several local warlords during the pursuit and suppression of the Long March Red Army, and he felt uneasy in his heart. The rise of the 15th Red Army undoubtedly became a straw that he desperately wanted to grasp in his subconscious mind. Moreover, the 15th Red Army now had many goods that made Chen Jitang envious. Therefore, before the smoke of gunpowder in Dapu County had completely dissipated, the two sides began to do business there...

  After intense but friendly negotiations, Mao Zedong cleared out almost all of the unnecessary supplies (such as antiques, jewelry and other hard-to-sell items, as well as tungsten sand, a traditional commodity that would be more profitable to sell in Guangdong than in Jiangxi) that had been accumulated by the Red 15th Army, and paid out almost all of the army's savings since its inception (worth over 10 million yuan). In return, they received over 50,000 tons of grain, over 3,000 tons of salt, and other civilian and military supplies, as well as some equipment and materials needed for Hu Weidong's military industrial development plans. The most significant gain was the 150 million rounds of rifle ammunition (all Mauser 7.9mm) and 20 million rounds of handgun ammunition that the Red 15th Army urgently needed. With these additions to the bullets reloaded at the arsenal, the Red 15th Army would have enough ammunition to last for a relatively long period of time.