Sword of Light: Humanoid Self-Propelled Artillery

Chapter 109 Breaking Down the Whole into Parts
Of course, after the old blacksmith learned that Wang Gensheng was the commander who led the night attack on the puppet army barracks in Liujia Town, the old blacksmith happily accepted Wang Gensheng's teaching invitation and went to Majia Village.

Of course, this Majia Village is naturally the name of the village where Wang Gensheng’s cavalry regiment was stationed and slaughtered.

So on that day, Wang Gensheng rented a horse-drawn carriage in the town, loaded all the old blacksmith's tools, including bellows, iron felt, hammer, and pliers, onto the carriage and drove them to Majia Village.

Baili Xiu looked at the cart of blacksmithing tools and an old man that Wang Gensheng had brought back, and couldn't help but ask:

"Captain, what are you doing? Are you planning to open a blacksmith shop in the village?"

"That's right! We have about 800 horses in our cavalry regiment now, and the horseshoes of each horse need to be replaced every three months. So why not do it ourselves and ask someone else to do it? So you see, I hired a blacksmith to teach us how to make horseshoes. This way, we don't have to worry about the problem of horseshoes being broken and not being able to replace them!"

Wang Gensheng paused here and then continued to Baili Xiu:
"Oh, right, I'm setting up a warhorse maintenance class. Ask if anyone's interested in learning blacksmithing. You can sign up here! Just like the cooking class, combat skills are essential, too. Only those with qualified combat skills are eligible to sign up!"

In fact, Wang Gensheng was really worrying too much. You should know that the blacksmith maintenance team is actually the same as the cooking team, both of which are physical work. After all, people with poor physical strength cannot carry a big iron pot, and people with poor physical strength naturally cannot use a big hammer to forge iron.

Therefore, the people in the cooking team are naturally all in good physical condition, and the same is true for the maintenance team. Only those with good physical condition can take over the task of blacksmithing.

However, just as Wang Gensheng was leading the newly formed cavalry regiment in training and maintaining and servicing the horses, Li Yunlong, who had already recovered from the large-scale mopping-up operation, summoned the backbone members of the independent regiment at the platoon level and above to hold a meeting on the future combat guidance of the independent regiment in a courtyard in Zhaojiayu.

Li Yunlong said as soon as he came up:

"Look at Xu Zhigeng, a platoon leader of a small independent regiment, wearing two bastard boxes, and the magnification of his telescope is greater than mine. You are not capable of this!"

Li Yunlong laughed as he spoke, and the soldiers of the independent regiment also laughed. Then Li Yunlong continued:

"That's right. Self-sufficiency and self-development. All the cadres in the regiment, starting with me, must correct our attitude and put aside our airs as regular soldiers. What do we think of ourselves? Just think of us as the heroes of Liangshan who gathered in the mountains. What kind of life is that? Eating meat and drinking wine with big mouthfuls, dividing gold and silver by weight. From now on, our independent regiment will be divided into small units, with companies and platoons as units, and we will go our own way.

"I don't care how the battle is fought. You, the company and platoon leaders, have the final say. Ambushes, traps, clubbing, kidnappings—as long as it's against the Japs and puppet troops, you can do whatever you want. Yeah! Why do the Japs and puppet troops get to drink and eat meat while we starve? But I have one thing to make clear: if anyone does this to the civilians, I'll shoot him!"

Just after Li Yunlong finished speaking, Zhao Gang, who felt something was wrong, immediately added:

"Captain, this is just an analogy. I don't want you to really become a mountain king. In fact, this is a popular way of saying guerrilla warfare. Comrades, you must correctly understand what the commander means!" Zhao Gang's supplement was naturally very appropriate. After all, it is embarrassing to compare a good and upright person to a mountain king. We can see from Water Margin that if there is no clear goal and no ambition to care about the world, and one only cares about immediate interests and pursues pleasure, the final outcome can only be the end of monkeys scattering when the tree falls.

Li Yunlong immediately responded to Zhao Gang's comments and said with a smile:
"Listen, this is our Zheng Wei. Our Zhao Zheng Wei is like Confucius with a sword hanging from his waist. He is both civil and military. We can't compare with him! I, Li Yunlong, have only one principle. You can only take advantage, not suffer losses. I won't do business that loses money. As long as the gunshots are heard, you must bring something back for me. I am not picky about food and want everything. Food, clothes, guns, and clothes, I want them all. I don't mind if I get too much, but I will be unhappy if I get too little. If anyone can't get it, then I will be unhappy..."

Of course, Li Yunlong's strategy of breaking up the whole into small pieces was not proposed by Li Yunlong, but was an idea put forward by the Eighth Route Army commander based on this mopping-up operation. Because this mopping-up operation made the Eighth Route Army realize that the Japanese devils only had so many people, and if they concentrated their forces to fight head-on, they would fall into the hands of the Japanese devils. Breaking up the whole into small pieces and conducting guerrilla warfare would be more suitable for the current battlefield behind enemy lines.

However, this order was not given to the newly formed cavalry regiment, because the Lion Commander believed that compared with the Eighth Route Army infantry who generally relied on their own two legs to run, breaking up into small groups was the best option.

But it is different for the cavalry who travel on four legs. Their superb mobility allows the cavalry regiment to avoid being surrounded by the Japanese.

Moreover, Captain Lion also knew that the cavalry regiment had just been formed, and 90% of the regiment had never ridden a horse. If they were dispersed now, how could Wang Gensheng train them?
With the arrival of winter, the snow on the ground is getting thicker and thicker. The snow now is the same as last year, more than 20 centimeters thick.

Such thick snow was naturally no longer suitable for equestrian training, so following Wang Gensheng's order, the entire regiment began to train skiing.

However, this time the skis were made by Wang Gensheng himself. After all, they were just two wooden boards with the ends raised up, and they were not very difficult to make.

Wang Gensheng looked at the cavalry regiments that were undergoing training in full swing, and he realized that it would be difficult for them to go out this winter.

There was no other way. Now all the soldiers of the original special cavalry regiment became squad leaders. Each of them led ten soldiers to train skiing and explained the key points of skiing movements.

Of course, Wang Gensheng also makes promises, that is, the class that achieves results first and is taught the best, then the class monitor will become the platoon leader.

After all, as the cavalry company became a cavalry regiment, it naturally needed a large number of backbones, and these backbones could only be selected from the original cavalry company. However, Wang Gensheng did not immediately appoint anyone to such positions. Instead, he used these positions as a motivation to encourage them to teach.

It is almost human instinct and nature to be unable to hide something and to keep something in reserve. However, Wang Gensheng also wants the cavalry regiment to form combat effectiveness as soon as possible, so naturally he can only use this kind of reward method to make the soldiers of the special cavalry company teach attentively.

Of course, Wang Gensheng only checked on this kind of teaching occasionally and did not stay in the training ground all day long. Now Wang Gensheng was focusing on how to forge iron!
After getting familiar with the old blacksmith, Wang Gensheng took out the royal samurai sword of the Japanese cavalry regiment captain Kuroshima Morita and handed it to the old blacksmith, saying:
"Master, can you tell what material this knife is made of?"

(End of this chapter)