Chapter Seventeen: Expansion and Bandit Suppression (New Book Seeking Attention)

  Since his mother had already agreed, Chen Feng no longer insisted. Moreover, deep down, he really coveted the cavalry unit in Yehelena's hands.

  Soon, under Yelena's command, her younger brother Poposha brought more than 3,000 cavalrymen to surrender to Chen Feng, causing Chen Feng's military strength to surge.

  With more soldiers, management became chaotic, so Chen Feng decided to reorganize all the troops in his hands. The military strength in Chen Feng's hands is now composed of four parts: one is the Xinghe County Security Regiment, with a total number of around 2,700 people; the second part is from the Daqing Mountain base, with a total number of around 2,300 people; the third part is the Chen family's guard and grain protection team, with a total number of around 2,800 people. The fourth part is the dowry brought by Yelena, with a total number of over 3,300 people, all of whom are cavalry.

  In total, Chen Feng now has more than 11,000 troops under his command, with over 7,000 infantry and over 3,000 cavalry.

  The number of people is not small, but the combat effectiveness of the entire unit is very limited. In terms of infantry, the equipment is good, but the vast majority are new recruits who have not undergone training, and even if they are not new recruits, they have never been on the battlefield, and whether they can be used or not is still an unknown quantity.

  In addition, the organizational structure of all troops is chaotic. The security regiment and the Daqing Mountain base use the battalion company platoon organization, while the grain protection team uses the large team medium team small team organization. As for the cavalry, it's even more straightforward, and they simply created a thousand-man team and a hundred-man team.

  There are also low-quality soldiers, poor discipline, and no professional officers, all of which have seriously affected the combat effectiveness of the troops.

  The situation with the cavalry is similar, lacking equipment and without a unified standard weapon. Except for the sabers which are still in good condition, the spears are varied and there are no light or heavy machine guns, let alone mortars. However, on the cavalry side, there are some professionally trained officers, possibly left over from Yelena's father's old subordinates, overall quality is not bad, but having been a bandit for too long, discipline is relatively poor.

  With only three more months to go before the war breaks out, Chen Feng is getting anxious. On the one hand, he asks people to buy cavalry guns and swords everywhere, on the other hand, he reorganizes the troops.

  7,000 infantrymen are exactly two infantry regiments. According to the reorganized troop formation, the Xinghe County Garrison Command has two infantry regiments under its jurisdiction. Each infantry regiment has 3 infantry battalions with 690 people, 1 machine gun battalion with 335 people, 1 guard company with 140 people, 1 mortar company with 120 people, 1 engineer company with 140 people, 1 reconnaissance company with 120 people, 1 logistics company with 180 people, and 1 communication platoon with 38 people, as well as a field dressing station. The total number of troops in the regiment is 3,100 people.

  The headquarters also directly commands a 360-man guard regiment, a 220-man special warfare battalion, an augmented artillery battalion of 540 men and the 88-man headquarters.

  In terms of cavalry, Chen Feng unified all troops into 2 cavalry regiments with 1,550 people each, under the unified command of the City Defense Command.

  After the reorganization of the troops was completed, Chen Feng announced the new officer appointments: Garrison Commander Chen Feng, Deputy Commander Yehelena, Security Regimental Commander Chen Feng (concurrently), Deputy Regimental Commander Li Wensheng, Chief of Staff Yang Yi, First Battalion Commander Li Bin, Second Battalion Commander Hu Tiesheng, Third Battalion Commander Wang Han Sheng, Machine Gun Battalion Commander Li Jianhua, First Regiment Guard Company Commander Sun Guodong, Artillery Company Commander Zhao Tiezhu, Engineer Company Commander Wang Changsuo, Reconnaissance Company Commander Hai Liang, Logistics Company Commander Chen Dan Niu.

  Deputy Commander Zhou Haisheng, Chief of Staff Liang Feng, First Battalion Commander Lin Yong, Second Battalion Commander Chen Haitao, Third Battalion Commander Chen Bing, Machine Gun Battalion Commander Xu Lang, Second Battalion Guard Company Commander Niu Hu, Artillery Company Commander Zhang Hao, Engineer Company Commander Chen Youliang, Reconnaissance Company Commander Mo Rigen, Logistics Company Commander Wu Yanming.

  Commander of the Guard Battalion Li Deming, Commander of the Special Warfare Battalion Xu Bao, and Commander of the Artillery Battalion Wen Hao.

  Commander-in-Chief of Cavalry Yelena, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Andrei, Chief of Staff Zhang Zhigang.

  First Cavalry Regiment: Regimental Commander Poposha, Deputy Regimental Commander Hai Rihan (Mongolian), Chief of Staff Li Yang.

  Second Cavalry Regiment: Regimental Commander Ge Ri Le Tu (Mongolian), Deputy Regimental Commander Viktor, Chief of Staff Ouyang Hai.

  Of course, this reorganization plan was only known to a limited number of people such as Chen Feng, and even the soldiers who were being reorganized did not know the details. The two infantry regiments, one was stationed in the county town by Chen Feng, and the other was stationed at the Daqing Mountain base. As for the two cavalry regiments, Chen Feng directly let them continue to roam the grasslands under the banner of Sai Bei Ma Bang, but this time Chen Feng gave them a target: the Xilinguole Grassland and Khorchin Grassland controlled by De Wang. They were to use battle as training, and three months later, regardless of the outcome, they had to return to Xinghe to await orders.

  Chenfeng had his own ideas about cavalry warfare, although he didn't understand much about cavalry tactics. However, he knew that Yelena and those White Russian officers who escaped to China with Yelena's father were severely outdated in their tactics. Against the well-equipped Japanese army, a cavalry charge was no different from seeking death.

  What Cavalry Commander Chen Feng valued was not his charging power, but his mobility. The requirements that Chen Feng put forward to Yelena and the entire cavalry corps were: mounted cavalry and dismounted infantry, both must be proficient in everything. Moreover, the cavalry corps must be equipped with machine guns, for which Chen Feng specially allocated 100 light and heavy machine guns from the arsenal to equip the cavalry corps, but due to the severe shortage of horse guns, there was still a big gap in the equipment of two cavalry regiments.

  Chen Feng knew that De Wang, Li Shouxin and Wang Ying had already colluded with the Japanese, and the Japanese were supporting these traitors with a large number of weapons and equipment, mainly Type 38 rifles.

  The "Sanpachi-shiki" cavalry rifle was designed for use on horseback, with a short overall length of 966 mm and a weight of 3.34 kg, with a caliber of 6.5 mm. Its performance is only average, belonging to the already obsolete rifles of the Japanese cavalry.

  After the Type 30 bayonet was mounted on the Type 38 rifle, the center of gravity changed and the hit rate decreased. The shooting accuracy within 500 meters is the same as that of the Type 38 rifle, but at a distance of 1000 meters, only 15% of the bullets can hit the target. Therefore, in 1909 (Meiji 41), the Japanese army designed and produced the Type 44 cavalry rifle based on the Type 38 cavalry rifle, referring to the Italian rifle's folding bayonet, in 1912 (Meiji 44).

  Chen Feng was well aware that in order to survive on this land of Sai Bei, he would eventually have to clash with these few bastard traitors. Taking advantage of the fact that they were off guard and striking them a few times with a blunt instrument was still a good choice. Moreover, the cavalry regiment really needed to test Chen Feng's tactical ideas through battle.

  As for the infantry, Chen Feng was not idle either. The war was about to start, and it was probably too late to train soldiers according to the usual routine. Therefore, Chen Feng set his sights on the big and small bandit dens within the defense zone.

  This Xinghe is a poor place, the land is far and mountainous, and the people are fierce. According to the information collected by Chen Feng's men over this period of time, there are 79 large and small bandit gangs within the borders of Xinghe County, with some having only a dozen or so members, while others have several hundred. Although each gang flies the banner of "righteousness", in reality, there are hardly any chivalrous thieves among them. On good days, they don't kill people and already consider it a good thing; on bad days, they are all violent mobs that do all sorts of evil things. Therefore, Chen Feng has no psychological burden when it comes to using these people for military training.

  Besides, war is approaching soon, it's also very necessary to sweep the house clean before meeting the enemy, otherwise when the time comes and the backyard catches fire, it won't be beautiful.

  On April 10, Chen Feng issued a combat order to all bandit remnants within the jurisdiction. The First Security Regiment and Second Security Regiment launched a simultaneous attack in the name of the Security Regiment, with the county town as the center, radiating outward in all directions.

  Chen Feng required the security team to make detailed combat plans for both major and minor battles, and to recruit bandits whenever possible. Those who could not be recruited would be eliminated on the spot.

  Er Long Shan. Hall of Righteous Heroes.

  "The great hall's... the great hall's, it's not good... it's not good... the security team has arrived... the security team has arrived..." A small servant hastily ran in to report.

  "Xiao Liu Zi, what the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to lose face for your old man on purpose?" a burly man with scars all over his face shouted angrily.

  "It's a big deal! The security team has arrived, you'd better go take a look!"

  "You said the security team has arrived, who led the team, how many people are there, is it the main force of the security team?" Er Longshan's second-in-command, Er Ci La, asked hastily.

  "I didn't get a clear look at the leader, the flag only said 'Xinghe County Security Team', nothing else, I don't know who led the troops, there were many people, scattered all over the mountains and fields, at least several thousand." The little servant's face turned pale as he spoke.

  "Damn it, you dare to spout nonsense again and I'll tear you apart. The security team in the county town, I don't know about them, at most a thousand people, how can several thousand be called a security team? It must be that little brat from the Chen family who brought them here. Let my brothers gather together and fight these bastards with me..."

  It is...

  Sumu Mountain. The lair of the nine-tailed fox bandit.

  "Brother, the government troops have surrounded the mountain!" a robust woman with clear eyebrows and bright eyes said as she ran in from outside.

  In the wooden pavilion on the mountain top, a rough-looking man asked in a low voice: "Who has surrounded our Sumu Mountain? How many people are there?"

  "It's a county security team with a thousand people, and I also saw that they have already set up small cannons, which could attack us at any time."

  "Get the brothers together at once and follow me to deal with these cowardly scoundrels..."

  It is...

  Under the all-out operation of the security team, all the big and small bandits in Xinghe County were mobilized, and for the next month, battles took place everywhere, guns were fired everywhere, every day, bandit gangs were eliminated, every day, prisoners were captured and taken back to the county seat, and at one time, the bandits within Xinghe County were in a state of panic.

  For two whole months, the security team had been fighting, and by the end of May, all the bandits in the jurisdiction had been eliminated by Chen Feng's security team. This campaign against bandits annihilated more than 80 branches of bandit forces, eliminating over 4,320 bandits, killing over 800, capturing over 3,000, and seizing a large amount of gold, silver, jewelry, weapons, and equipment, as well as some grain. The outcome was glorious.

  Through this campaign to suppress bandits, the troops not only captured a lot, but more importantly, through big and small battles, the momentum of the entire army was brought out. Almost all soldiers had been on the battlefield, and the special forces were frequently dispatched, with significantly improved strength.