Liang Jian: Lao Li, I'm really not a military expert

Chapter 600: You can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry. Let’s expand the territory later. Now the priority i

Li Yunlong took the mung bean soup from Zhang Dabiao and drank it in one gulp. Only then did he feel the heat in his body dissipate a little, and even the fatigue on his face was much less, and he became energetic again. He put down the tea bowl in his hand and wiped his face with a wet towel. He replied worriedly: "Dabiao, food is very important to our base. There can't be any problems."

"If I don't escort it myself, I won't feel at ease. Don't fight with me, just guard Ping'an County honestly. The market in Ping'an County is very important to our base. In the past few days, it has collected a lot of supplies for us, which has greatly reduced the pressure on our base."

"On my way here, a college student sent me a telegram specifically asking us to increase the purchase of medicinal materials. The pharmaceutical factory's medicinal material inventory is about to run out. If we don't replenish it quickly, the production of pills will be forced to stop. You guys should pay more attention to this matter and increase the purchase price of medicinal materials by 10%. At the same time, you should also post a notice that medicinal materials can be exchanged for medicines and guns and ammunition that the merchants urgently need."

"In the next half month, we must purchase enough medicinal materials to ensure that our pharmaceutical factory continues to operate. I have already given an order to Shen Quan. Tomorrow he will lead a battalion of troops to support us. No matter what time, the so-called Ping'an County must have no less than three battalions of troops. We must also pay attention to the Japanese special forces. We must make good arrangements for the light and darkness at night and never give the Japanese special forces a chance to launch a sneak attack!"

Li Yunlong gave worried instructions for a full half hour. Before leaving, he specially checked the arrangement of the light and dark sentries in Ping'an County. After confirming that there were no problems, he led the transport team to leave Ping'an County and head towards the Zhaojiayu base.

Yamamoto Ikki had not received the news that Li Yunlong was going to escort the grain. He happened to run into Li Yunlong's escort team during the march. Yamamoto Ikki originally planned to launch a surprise attack, but after thinking about it for a while, he decided not to ambush for the time being and wait until he was fully prepared before ambush.

Li Yunlong safely returned to the Zhaojiayu base with the transport team. After delivering the food to the warehouse, he went to the headquarters of the independent regiment to inquire about the resettlement of the victims.

"Old Li, come and sit down quickly. Let's have a brief meeting to discuss future actions. This morning, Chu Yunfei sent two telegrams in succession, asking us to airdrop a batch of ammunition for him. After a brief discussion on this matter, we feel that it is too difficult and we really can't agree to it at the moment. We can only wait for half a month before talking about it."

"I, Zhao Gang, have been the villain before. It's not that I don't want to help Chu Yunfei, but we simply don't have the strength to do so now. Our situation is not much better than Chu Yunfei's. What's more, we don't have enough parachutes for airdropping supplies. To put it bluntly, even our pilots and flight trainees are not all equipped with parachutes. Liu Haishan has come to me many times because of this matter."

"I, Zhao Gang, am just a housewife who can't make anything without the right materials. Parachutes are made of silk, but our base doesn't produce silk at all, and we don't even have anyone raising silkworms. I have sent a telegram to Chen Minggeng, asking him to find a way to buy 1000 parachutes for us. The price is even twice the market price, otherwise Chen Minggeng will not be willing to help at all."

"Let me talk about the canned beef. According to the information I got from Chen Minggeng, the 600 million cans of beef we ordered have arrived at the port and will reach the material transfer station within a month. Chen Minggeng asked us to be ready to receive the goods."

"In addition, his partner Tom said that he has a cheap canned luncheon meat that costs less than 1/3 of canned beef. If we want more, the price will be even lower. He contacted me last night and asked if I wanted this canned luncheon meat."

"After a brief discussion with the college students, we placed an order for tens of millions of cans of luncheon meat. After all, the cost of farming is too high, and we have no experience in large-scale farming. In order to allow the soldiers to eat meat, we can only resort to purchasing from outside."

"Finally, let me talk about the resettlement of disaster victims. We have already resettled 46 disaster victims, and this is only the vanguard of the large group of disaster victims. There are still millions of disaster victims rushing to our base. We must build more houses in advance."

"This is the planning map that the college students and I just came up with yesterday. We plan to arrange one or two thousand people for each village, and each village will be controlled within 500 households. However, since the area of ​​our base is not large, the personnel arrangement is a bit dense. After careful consideration by the college students and I, we decided to take down the second blockade line of the devils in advance and enclose the land inside, so as to give the people a place to settle down first."

"If we really want to do this, it will be very difficult. We don't have enough troops. Old Xing has only recruited 4000 new soldiers, plus 2000 militiamen. It is impossible to expect them to fight. We are giving them basic training now, which will take nearly a month to complete."

"We currently have more than 2000 troops in our base, of which more than 6 are stationed in Ping'an County. Six battalions with more than 6000 are responsible for frontline defense. Another six battalions with more than 3500 are sent out to defend the fortress. There are more than 1000 people in two battalions guarding the arsenal, and more than 2500 people in two battalions guarding the warehouse. The mobile forces that can actually be mobilized are only about three battalions with people."

"That's not all. We have to allocate two of the remaining three battalions to resettle the disaster victims, and the last remaining battalion has to guard Xiaohei Mountain. We are in such a difficult situation that we can't even allocate a company of mobile forces."

"Things are now completely deadlocked. We want to expand our base, but there's no one to guard it. The college student and I discussed it until midnight last night, but we couldn't come up with any good solution. The final result of the discussion is to force the issue and use the 4000 new recruits and 2000 militiamen temporarily for emergency use. However, it is too risky to do so, and it is difficult for both of us to make up our minds!" Zhao Gang spoke first with a conflicted look on his face.

Before, everyone thought that even if the crisis of insufficient manpower occurred, it would not be so quick. But after Zhao Gang's calculations, even after adding all the wounded, the manpower was still not enough. This was definitely a tricky problem for everyone.

Once the Japanese knew of this loophole and sent a large army to attack, the consequences would be disastrous. The entire base might really fall into an abyss of no return. This is why Zhao Gang and Lin Zhenhua are so anxious. If they don't find a way to solve it, big problems might really arise.

Li Yunlong wiped the sweat from his forehead with a wet towel and replied solemnly, "Old Zhao, the situation may be worse than you expected. I have always suspected that Zhu Ziming, that bastard, must have planted a secret line in our base, but we have been digging for a long time and have not dug out those traitors."

"The Japanese bombing of our coal-to-oil equipment made me feel something was wrong. After all, the Japanese bombing was too accurate. We hid so well, but they still destroyed it so accurately. This made me suspicious again."

"We are facing internal and external troubles. If we cannot regroup as soon as possible, the consequences will be disastrous. The first thing we need to do now is to ensure that we have three battalions of mobile forces to deal with any emergencies that may occur in the future."

"There is no need to place so many troops in the three fortresses. One battalion will be enough for each fortress. With the current firepower of the Japanese, it is impossible for them to capture our fortresses in a very short time. There is no need for us to deploy heavy troops in the fortress positions!"

"As for the troops in other directions, continue to maintain the status quo. Do not withdraw any soldiers. The three extra battalions will be used as a reserve force. As for the operation to occupy the second blockade line, there is really no need to be too hasty. With our current territory, there is absolutely no problem in resettling another 400,000 or 500,000 disaster victims. What we should do now is to take small steps and jog slowly. Don't think of getting rich overnight. We don't have that ability."

"We must proceed cautiously now, nibbling away at the buffer zone bit by bit, and once our new recruits are trained, we can take over the territory we need in one go."

Li Yunlong did not propose to fight the Japanese immediately as he had done in the past. He seemed to become conservative all of a sudden. It was not that Li Yunlong had the idea of ​​passively avoiding the war, but the base was very fragile now. If he was radical at this time, it would be a real act of seeking death. Li Yunlong was not a reckless man and he would also judge the situation.

Ding Wei and Kong Jie agreed with Li Yunlong's proposal very much. They really couldn't be radical at the moment, especially since there must be Japanese spies in the base. They couldn't leave any loopholes for the Japanese, otherwise the Japanese army would most likely turn around and attack the Zhaojiayu base. The consequences of that were simply not something they could bear at the moment.

"Lao Kong and I very much agree with Lao Li's proposal. We'd better be conservative now and eat as much as our appetite allows. Let's wait for another half a month and see how the situation changes. When our strength has almost recovered, we can be a little more radical. Our main task right now is to resettle the victims and expand the military in preparation for war. We must create an illusion for the Japanese that we are harmless now!" said military strategist Ding Wei with a serious face.