Chapter 43 Initial Scale
This unexpected outcome led to Hu Weidong's deep reflection, "Just in terms of killing efficiency, bayonets are not as good as large knives and spears, but the large knife squad and spear squad can hardly appear in a situation where they collapse instantly after a single charge. It seems worth studying... Perhaps it is because before using bayonets, the enemy's psychology was still in a state of adapting to long-range attacks, and suddenly changed to a bloody and cruel close combat, which made it difficult for soldiers with weaker willpower to bear such a huge change. When the large knife squad went to battle, the enemy knew at a glance that they were going to fight a close combat, had enough time to prepare psychologically, and firearms would have a psychological advantage over pure cold weapons, which could partially offset the negative impact of close combat. Therefore, in modern history, there are often examples of several hundred or even dozens of soldiers using bayonets (and not necessarily having an advantage in personal martial arts) to defeat thousands or even tens of thousands of enemy troops, but never heard of anyone relying on large knives to defeat hundreds of enemies..."
It was under the influence of this battle that Hu Weidong attached greater importance to the training of bayonet skills and tactics for the officers and men of the 15th Red Army. Later, he specially organized those who were good at bayonet fighting, old Red Army soldiers skilled in bayonet fighting, and some "liberated fighters" from Hu Zongnan's former troops into a regiment-level unit that emphasized close combat with bayonets - the 65th Regiment. In the sequence of the 15th Red Army, this regiment was not equipped with the best equipment, but their bayonets won them countless honors, and later they were awarded the glorious title of "Tiger Regiment", of course, this is a story for later...
Because Zhao Guantao's family was extremely wealthy and considered to be part of the Central Army, and had just replaced their equipment with new gear two or three months prior, the Eighth Route Army's equipment was surprisingly better than that of the 18th Corps of the Central Army. Additionally, since the battle was fought quickly, most of the enemy surrendered, and the Red Fifteenth Army captured a large amount of intact equipment, including 149 heavy machine guns, 512 light machine guns, 12 anti-aircraft guns (the Chinese were actually among the first to use these against ground targets), 12 75mm mountain guns, 24 82mm mortars, 6 37mm trench guns, over 10,000 German-style rifles, and thousands of various handguns. The only regret was that, as is usually the case with victories in mobile warfare, not much ammunition was captured, and with the increase in artillery, the Red Fifteenth Army's shells were again insufficient...
But in any case, it's always a good thing to capture the enemy's artillery almost intact. Among them, Long Fei Bao's special forces made great contributions. This fledgling special operations unit has now grown to over 500 people, with 67 formal members. Although they are still far from Hu Weidong's requirements of "being proficient in at least two foreign languages, being able to drive cars, planes and ships, and not needing to draft a plan to deceive people...", they have begun to play an increasingly important role. However, what surprised Hu Weidong even more was that Su Yu quickly grasped the special tactics. It turned out that the original Tujie Shi had unintentionally practiced many of its contents in order to survive, but it was inevitable to make mistakes and suffer setbacks due to self-exploration. Thinking of the two or three dozen excellent Red Army soldiers who sacrificed themselves, Su Yu shed hot tears after the great victory...
With Su Yu in command (also because the Min-Zhe-Gan-Su area was relatively less damaged, and the population ratio was still reasonable), Hu Weidong not only could expand his army faster than before but also more boldly divided his forces into three routes. He led the Instructional Regiment, Su Yu led the Vanguard Regiment, and Ye Fei led the Independent Regiment to fight separately, and the efficiency of attacking cities and seizing land suddenly doubled.
On the National Army side, due to a severe shortage of troops, the Min-Zhe-Gan-Su area had just been "recovered" not long ago, and people's hearts were still with the Red Army. As a result, by late May 1935, Jiangxi's Yiyang, Hengfeng, Shangrao, Guixi, Yujiang, Wannian, Deqing, Zhejiang's Kaihua, Qingyuan, Anhui's Wuyuan, and other ten counties were all recovered. They also took two more counties outside the original Soviet area in Jiangxi: Guangfeng and Yushan. Adding to the several counties they had previously occupied, their territory now covered a total of sixteen counties. The regular Red Army exceeded 120,000 people, and together with the Min-Gan-Yue-Su area, they formed the largest revolutionary base since the Land Revolution War - the "Min-Zhe-Gan-Yue-Wan Border Area".
What delighted Hu Weidong even more was that the surviving cadres and workers from the original Yangyuan Ordnance Factory, such as Liu Ding, also made contact with the Red Fifteenth Army one after another, and excavated those buried machines and equipment to join the ordnance factory of the Red Fifteenth Army. Together with the foundation of the Red Fifteenth Army's own ordnance factory and the previously merged North Fujian Ordnance Factory, as well as some equipment traded from the Guangdong warlord, it had already taken shape and had a good foundation. Hu Weidong then carried out necessary technical renovations on it, and newly built a bullet production line. After that, the ordnance factory could produce more than 500,000 rounds of various bullets every month, exceeding the total production capacity of all the Red Army's base areas during its peak period. The production capacity and quality of other products such as mortars, mortar shells, hand grenades, and landmines also increased significantly. More importantly, the cadres and workers of the ordnance factory were trained in the process of renovating and building the production line, laying a solid foundation for building larger and more advanced production equipment in the future...
Apart from this, the arsenal also produced a kind of ugly and even crude submachine gun according to Hu Weidong's design drawing. This is the British Sten submachine gun that has caused headaches for both enemies and users in history. The structure of the Sten submachine gun is very simple, and at first glance, it seems to be composed of pipes of different sizes: the barrel is round, the sleeve is also round, the stock is also round, and the bolt handle is a small round pipe. Therefore, someone ridiculed it as "the masterpiece of a plumber", and this submachine gun also has some major defects in design. However, it also has three huge advantages: great power, low cost, and extremely simple production technology. Especially the third point, for the current Soviet district arsenal, it is too important, the Sten submachine gun can even use iron pipes instead of steel pipes as the barrel, although this will greatly shorten its service life and affect the shooting accuracy, but for the Soviet district arsenal with poor conditions and under enemy blockade, it has a realistic significance that cannot be ignored.
At the same time, the production of Sten guns also had lower requirements for machinery and personnel. The former was fully equipped with arsenals, while the latter could be handled by even illiterate people after simple training. Therefore, Hu Weidong naturally chose this cheapest and worst-evaluated gun among those classic WWII firearms...
