Mengshan Army

The staff group was established after Zhou Yi led his troops back to the mountain and Long Qian completed the reorganization of the Mengshan Army. The members were all personally selected by Long Qian. There were four people in total: Ning Shijun was the team leader, Lan Xinzhi, Deng Qinghua and Wu Nian, and later joined a Fan Deping.The common feature of these five people is that they are all literate. In the mostly illiterate Mengshan Army, they are rare intellectuals.

The staff group also participates in military training, formation, running, obstacles and shooting, but except for the formation and running, other trainings have lower requirements for members of the staff group than ordinary soldiers.

Ning Shijun remembered the first lesson Long Qian told them.

"Today I will teach you the first lesson. What does a staff officer do and how to be a good staff officer. When I am teaching, you can ask questions at any time if you don't understand."

"A staff officer is a person who helps the military chief make decisions." Long Qian has been with Long Qian on the training ground for a long time, and those who are transferred to the staff team are used to the new words that Long Qian often pops up, such as chief, they probably have a little Culture, rightly understood what it meant, did not ask questions.

"Remember, it is the staff who make the decision, not the decision. The decision is the chief's business. When the chief puts forward an operational concept, the staff must make an argument for it, whether it is feasible or not? The basis of the argument lies in the grasp of intelligence: our side Troop strength, equipment, enemy's strength, equipment, generals leading troops, enemy's morale, where to choose the battlefield, whether the terrain is favorable to me, weather conditions, road conditions, troop marching speed, logistical support strength﹍﹍use How to fight? Attack? Ambush? Frontal attack? Or harass to make the opponent split up or get tired, or retreat to avoid the battle﹍﹍ The most important thing is to correctly grasp the purpose of combat. Fighting is not fighting for the sake of fighting. The purpose of fighting It is to annihilate the enemy and strengthen ourselves. In the current situation, almost all the military equipment of our army comes from the enemy. We must pay special attention to the way of fighting. The first thing in the annihilation war is the kind of attrition war that kills one thousand and self-injures eight hundred. We can’t fight, even if the equipment is improved and the logistics can be guaranteed in the future, it is not the way we choose. Apart from the military purpose, the fundamental purpose of combat lies in politics. Military is always the continuation of politics. , this point of view must be firmly borne in mind.”

After a series of questions, Ning Shijun became excited.There are so many ways to fight.﹍﹍

"A staff officer needs to master a lot of things. First, they need to understand their own side, and then they need to know the enemy. In the art of war, more counts as victory, less counts as victory, not to mention nothing? You must get used to using all kinds of things that are useful in combat. Keep everything in mind, the most important terrain and enemy situation." Long Qian paused, "A qualified staff officer can answer any military questions raised by the chief at any time. A qualified staff officer is the most trusted by the military chief. An assistant will definitely gain high prestige in the army."

"How can we know the enemy's military equipment and even who the commander is?" Lan Xinzhi asked the first question.

"Very good. This requires reconnaissance and other methods of gathering intelligence. That's what the cavalry is for. But you need more information than the cavalry. They can't get a lot of information, so you need to use your brains, Di Newspapers, information revealed by villagers, confessions of captives, etc. are all sources of intelligence you need. There are many other methods, and you will slowly discover and learn to use them. Intelligence is sometimes contradictory, and it is completely opposite. It is necessary to make judgments and trade-offs. Some intelligence is even deliberately disseminated by the enemy, with the purpose of leading us astray, and you must see through the fog released by the enemy."

Long Qian stopped and let them digest his words.

"The most important thing is that you have to learn how to make maps." Long Qian took out a map that he drew on silk. This one-meter-square yellow silk was Long Qian's trophy, and now it became the first Mongolian map he hand-painted. The topographic map of the cottage was obtained when Zhou Hua went down the mountain to rob a village near Mengyin County for the first time. The family was a small landlord who fled. Long Qian found this dirty silk scarf in the yard. take it with you.

"Who can tell me, where is it?" Long Qian spread the map on the ground.

Ning Shijun recognized at a glance that this was the topographic map of Mengshan Village. All the main points of the village were drawn with fine charcoal pencils, Tianmen, Niutouling, Dudu Village...

"The painting is really good." Ning Shijun praised.

"This is just a simple topographic map, not a real military map. Because there are no troops, fortifications and other things that must be known. These need to be marked by the staff based on information. There are no contour lines, and the terrain cannot be seen. The map is the treasure that the staff always has. From a map that shows the distribution and situation of the troops of the enemy and the enemy, we can judge the determination and course of action of the commanders of the enemy and the enemy, and even the outcome of battles and campaigns. In a regular In the army, maps are produced by a special department, you only need to receive new maps of the combat area, and mark the necessary military elements on it. But as a poor and white staff officer of the Mengshan Army, you must learn to make maps.”

"There are two basic knowledge of cartography, scale and contour line. Scale is easy to understand, that is, the actual terrain size is reduced by a certain value. Common military maps have one in 20, one in [-], five One ten-thousandth. For example, on a one-fifty-thousandth map, every centimeter is such a short distance," Long Qian gestured with a broken straw stick, "It's about a mile away. With a scale , you can see the distance between two points on the map at a glance. The contour line is more complicated. The map is flat, but the actual terrain has mountains, waters and hills. How to mark different landforms on the plan? Use The method of contour lines." Long Qian began to draw contour lines on his map drawn on silk, "These curved lines are contour lines, and at each point on this line, its actual The heights are all the same..." Long Qian taught his staff the basic military knowledge and brought them into a brand new world.

"So, a staff officer needs advanced cultural knowledge. This is the main reason why I choose you as a staff officer." After laboriously explaining the basic knowledge of altitude, Long Qian concluded, "A staff officer must have a keen sense of astronomy and geography. Accumulate a lot of data that others do not pay attention to or do not collect, such as in the first ten days of a certain month, when is the sky bright? When is the sun setting? What is the highest temperature in the daytime? What is the lowest temperature in the night? What are the surnames or perennial rivers? Among these rivers, which section can be crossed on foot? There are also the direction of mountains, road conditions, and soil types. These natural conditions cannot be ignored. Social conditions are also important. Local conditions The population situation, folk customs, wealthy and powerful households are all collected and mastered by the staff."

"Oh my God." The baby-faced Deng Qinghua, who was originally the head of Feng Guozhu's team, exclaimed after listening to Long Qian's brief explanation.

"Yes, you should find it difficult." Long Qian nodded, "I didn't ask you to learn so many things all at once. To be honest, I didn't expect all of you to become qualified staff officers. If you can't, we'll eliminate them and choose more suitable ones." Come in."

"Commander, we've figured all this out, what do we need the chief to do?" Lan Xinzhi asked.

"Good question. The military chief must make up his mind after the combat plan drawn up by the staff! You know, there can be several plans, but there is only one final decision! You can't make up your mind, and you will lose completely. What the commander fears most is I can’t decide. For example, when we broke out, someone proposed to go from the south. It’s not unreasonable. We may also protrude from the encirclement, or fall into the enemy’s ambush. But I chose to go west, and I know why ?"

"Surprise?" Ning Shijun asked.

"Yes. There is a law in the military, which is applicable most of the time. It is the most dangerous place, but actually the safest. The reason why I chose to go west is based on this judgment. The enemy in the west is the most paralyzed, because They never thought that we would go the way they came from﹍﹍In addition, we are a small force, we cannot fight the enemy head-on, we must choose the safest route﹍﹍This is determination! The commander must issue the most appropriate time Appropriate determination, the staff does not need to be troubled by the decision, the staff just provides a reasonable plan."

"understood."

"You must clearly grasp the situation of your troops. The combat capability of your troops is not only about how many guns and how many people you have, but also about what kind of training basis and what kind of generals you have. You need to understand the actual capabilities and characteristics, pay attention to their different advantages and avoid weaknesses. For example, the current company commanders have different surnames, some are good at surprise attacks, and some are good at holding fast. Give full play to its strengths and avoid its weaknesses. To know yourself and the enemy, the most important thing is to know yourself. If you are a true confidant, you will not lose many battles. Therefore, you must have a good grasp of the training situation of each company, and use data to speak, not about the same, roughly, Maybe something so vague. In the future, we must use data to report as much as possible, which requires you to establish ledgers, learn to make charts, and accurately count the strength of the troops﹍﹍”

"To understand the meaning of 'potential'. For a long time, we have been in a situation where the weak army is against the strong army. Then, we must learn the ability to use the weak to attack the strong. Apart from the general tactics, the more important thing is' Potential' use."

"What is 'potential'?" Ning Shijun was very interested.

"A small rock, if it blocks the road, you can kick it away with one kick. But if this rock rolls down from the top of the cliff, you can only avoid it﹍﹍ The stone is still a stone, but the effect is absolutely different. This It is the power of 'shi'. Those who make good use of soldiers must always occupy the upper hand of 'shi', making the enemy unavoidable and unstoppable."

"I seem to understand﹍﹍" Ning Shijun pondered.

"I won't really understand. Because I don't have much combat experience. This requires us to explore slowly and jointly."

"Then what do we do now?"

"Statistics of the strength of the troops, you divide the work, each person is in charge of a company, and make a chart, so that I can see the strength of this company at a glance. This task must be completed within two days. Secondly, today You will start the first actual training. The question I will give you is, if we go out of the mountain, where will we fight? I will give you half a day, and each of you will come up with a plan. Don’t discuss it, each will do his own thing.” Long Qian Specific tasks were given to the staff group.

The second task, that is, the five staff members of the plan for the troops to attack all completed it on time. Although the narrative styles of the plans are different, it is still a plan.In Long Qian's view, Deng Qinghua did the best, because he raised the issue of the troops taking root, and the other four were aware of the replenishment of the troops and the acquisition of supplies, but Deng Qinghua's point of view was not as clear as that of Deng Qinghua.Moreover, Deng Qinghua's plan put forward a principled suggestion, that is, the direction of the troops going out of the mountain should not only solve the problem of replenishing hundreds of troops, but also avoid the excessive attention of the government as much as possible.These two points made Long Qian satisfied.

As for the statistics of the strength of the troops, five people also completed it on time. The best one is Ning Shijun. He has the most complete statistical items on the strength of the company, not only considering the equipment and training of the company, but also the ability of the company commander and the platoon leader. Based on the level of integration between them and soldiers, it can be concluded that among the current five infantry companies, Wang Mingyuan's second company is the strongest, and Lu Shan's fifth company is the weakest.

Long Qian summoned five staff officers and other senior officers—Deputy Commander Zhou Yi, five company commanders, and several team leaders to study and discuss the plans proposed by the staff officers, and let others judge the pros and cons of the plans.Everyone enthusiastically and meticulously put forward many good opinions in Long Qian's opinion, which shows that everyone has been thinking about the direction of the army during this period, which Long Qian feels gratified.

This discussion also made everyone aware of the role of the staff group.Regarding the strength statistics of each company, the first reaction of the five company commanders was that they were not convinced—except for Wang Mingyuan's company, which was ranked first—three people ranked the second company as the first.Lu Shan directly stated what he believed to be the principle, that is actual combat, and only actual combat can prove who is strong and who is weak.

"Of course it needs to be proven in actual combat, but their statistics are reasonable! Don't be unconvinced, I can conduct a company-scale confrontation exercise. I think under the current situation, your fifth company can't beat the four old companies. "Long Qian provoked Lu Shan.

"Just do it!" Lu Shan was still unconvinced, "I only want you to be fair."

"Of course I'm fair. The palms and backs of my hands are full of flesh, and I won't take sides." Long Qian said with a smile, "I think you should pay close attention to the five consecutive trainings. The more solid your training, the greater your chances of winning. .”