Traveling through the sword to engage in military industry

#205 - The Great Development of the Independent Group

After listening to the introduction and examining the materials, Staff Officer Ye delved into some of the details with Ren Zhong, gaining a thorough understanding before finally feeling relieved.

This task was truly challenging, requiring a deep understanding of both sides. While Staff Officer Ye had a general understanding of the information Ren Zhong provided, he couldn't possibly match the detailed knowledge of the later generations in the main world who had thoroughly studied this issue.

Therefore, this reorganization plan was also a highly valuable piece of intelligence.

Considering that the organization behind Ren Zhong even knew about major events like the Pearl Harbor attack, Staff Officer Ye wasn't surprised by the intelligence regarding the Japanese.

The regiment was the cornerstone combat unit of the Eighth Route Army's regular forces, above which were the military sub-districts and military regions. Once the regimental level was straightened out, the higher levels would naturally follow smoothly.

Staff Officer Ye stared at the combat power of the Class A regiment, unable to contain his excitement. When had the border region progressed to the point where a single regiment could defeat an entire Japanese regiment? He knew that even a division couldn't achieve that just two years ago.

With Ren Zhong's development of the military industry over these past two years, Staff Officer Ye wasn't surprised at all by the Class A regiment's advantage over the Japanese field regiment after reviewing the weapon and equipment configurations. Four 75mm mountain guns, seven 107mm guns, and forty 82mm mortars completely overwhelmed the Japanese regiment's artillery company, which only had four "Type 41" 75mm mountain guns, two 90mm mortars, and six Type 92 infantry guns. The Japanese only held a slight advantage in forward firepower with twenty-four heavy machine guns and fifty-four grenade launchers, but even that was negated by the forty 82mm mortars, leaving them in a purely defensive position.

By leveraging the production advantage in mortars, the front lines had begun to achieve true fire superiority.

In Staff Officer Ye's opinion, the only drawback of this Class A regiment plan was the waste of ammunition and vehicles. Without a motor transport company, it would be difficult to support the massive ammunition consumption.

However, simply looking at the data on paper, an aura of invincibility emanated. This was truly a regiment that could be worth an entire division in the past!

According to Ren Zhong's estimates, only the Old Ninth Regiment of the border region was qualified to be reorganized into a Class A regiment.

In addition to the four regiments of the Northern Saibei Military Region being reorganized into Class A regiments, the border region had five remaining garrison regiments that could be reorganized. By 1943, the vehicle production capacity would basically reach its limit.

The remaining newly expanded units in the border region could at most be reorganized into Class B regiments. With the border region's weapon reserves, about five Class B regiments could still be formed. These would be the truly core field forces of the border region.

Then, relying on the county-level cities, a Class C regiment could be formed in each county, totaling about 20 or more, with a main force of over 60,000 people. The grain produced after reclaiming wasteland would supply this force, basically eliminating the need for local support.

The current situation in the Taihang and Taiyue base areas of the Eighth Route Army headquarters was estimated to be able to reorganize 5-6 Class A regiments, with Li Yunlong's unit accounting for about half. In terms of Class B regiments, the Taiyue Military Region and Taihang could gather about 10 in total. Counting the surrounding counties, about 20 Class C regiments could also be formed, with a main force of over 70,000 people.

In the original timeline, Jin-Cha-Ji couldn't manufacture its own 82mm mortars. Even grenade launchers were difficult to produce, requiring a lot of blacksmithing. Mortars were high-end firepower, relying entirely on captures and early accumulation, which continued until the liberation period. Mortars were still a very scarce resource.

After all, the level of iron smelting in the original timeline was very low, and the quality of pig iron was unusable. Military steel had to rely on dismantling railway tracks.

In this timeline, Ren Zhong solved all the steel and manufacturing technology needed for mortars. Although the threshold for native blast furnaces and open-hearth furnaces was still somewhat high, Ren Zhong took iron ore and pig iron samples to the main world for precise measurement and re-adjusted the local iron ore process ratios in various base areas. The quality of gray cast iron and wrought iron produced was stable, and the No. 45 carbon steel was even better than the steel used for railway tracks in this period.

With the diffusion of machine tools, the 82mm mortar became a common commodity that could be manufactured by all major base areas.

The production quantity of hand grenades, landmines, and shells had increased by orders of magnitude compared to the original timeline.

The tactics of the old Eighth Route Army had naturally changed accordingly, beginning to consider using fire superiority to deal with the Japanese.

A shell going downrange was much more effective than a bayonet charge.

"Old Brother Ren, can we really support the vehicle configuration of this Class A regiment?" Staff Officer Ye flipped through Ren Zhong's materials, and couldn't help but feel a headache when he saw the vehicle transport company configuration: 100 Hongxing G506 trucks and 50 Hongxing F1 pickup trucks.

Currently, both the G506 truck and the F1 pickup truck were still in the initial production stage, barely able to produce a dozen vehicles a month. If the Class A regiments all needed to be equipped with vehicles, with hundreds or thousands of vehicles, how long would it take?

"Chief of Staff Ye, right now our factory only has one primary production line. Later, once the processing of all components is streamlined and the equipment is properly debugged, new production lines can be quickly replicated. We can build a large automobile factory in the border region's capital, set up ten or so production lines, and then a monthly output of two or three hundred vehicles will be no problem," Ren Zhong explained with a smile.

The current rudimentary automobile production line doesn't even use spray paint; the paint is applied by hand. We can quickly expand by throwing manpower at it. As machine tools become more complete, the core components, especially engine production, are rapidly increasing at the Dawn Research Institute's engine factory. Now, producing four or five hundred engines of various types per month is no problem.

By adjusting the production capacity, supplying the automobile side won't be a big issue.

"That's great! I'll immediately go back and find a hundred workers to learn. The number of students and workers coming to the border region from various places has obviously increased. Tomorrow, several hundred people will enter the border region. We can completely solve the worker problem."

Chief of Staff Ye's eyes lit up. Since Ren Zhong said so, it meant he was quite reliable.

"Automobiles will be our main means of transportation in the future. It won't hurt to train more workers now. When we drive away the Japanese devils, I'll come up with a few new car models suitable for ordinary people, so we won't have to rely on riding horses or our own legs when traveling long distances in the future," Ren Zhong said with a smile.

Small cars are definitely out of the question for the time being. Even the Ford Model T is too expensive for the current Chinese people; not many people will be able to afford a car.

However, passenger buses are definitely a rapidly developing field in the future. The domestic transportation conditions are almost a blank slate. A distance of a hundred kilometers often takes two or three days to reach, and the transportation efficiency is too poor.

Of course, Ren Zhong won't wait several decades to solve this problem.

As soon as the war ends, Ren Zhong will promote the large-scale construction of highways and railways. After all, to get rich, build roads first. Poor transportation will prevent development forever.

Now that the Chinese people are united and have few personal thoughts, it's the time to mobilize and work hard. As long as we take the right path, it's normal for us to accomplish three years' worth of work in one year.

After finishing Chief of Staff Ye's important matter, Ren Zhong improved the military industry upgrade plan for the Independent Regiment.

Now that the headquarters has expanded its base areas, resources have increased by several orders of magnitude. Many minerals that Ren Zhong didn't dare to mine before are now being mined. He gave the brigade commander the latest resource distribution map for each county in the new base area, telling them to mine the most convenient ones first.

Although the Taihang and Taiyue Mountains have barren land, growing crops is very challenging, and expanding farmland is very limited. With Ren Zhong's method, reclaiming cultivated land along river valleys will soon reach its limit. For example, in Heyuan, almost all suitable land for cultivation has been reclaimed under Ren Zhong's plan.

For the mountain forests that are not suitable for cultivation, Ren Zhong had long instructed that no fires should be set to clear the mountains. The forests in those places have formed over hundreds or thousands of years, which was already very difficult. Digging out a little land from the cracks in the rocks and cultivating and irrigating it is not easy, and the yield is not high, which is completely not worth the loss.

Therefore, according to Ren Zhong's standards, any land that even streams and windmills cannot reach, and cannot form a scale of hundreds of acres, should not be randomly reclaimed.

Zhao Gang implemented Ren Zhong's request very well. In addition, with the large-scale mining and use of coal in advance, even in the mountainous areas, firewood is no longer the main fuel, allowing Ren Zhong to preserve the precious green mountains and clear waters of Taihang while developing industry.

Considering that the base area is still a high-risk area bombed by the Japanese devils, Ren Zhong suggested not building large and obvious targets such as thermal power plants near cities, but to continue searching for suitable terrain in the mountains to build them in a low-key manner.

Now that the base area's air defense capabilities are weak, large-scale infrastructure must be avoided as much as possible from Japanese aerial reconnaissance and bombing.

Building factories in the mountains, small hydropower has natural concealment. Ren Zhong gave priority to the base area developing small hydropower. Now the construction cycle is fast, and equipment production is also very mature, which is the best way to quickly expand the base area's power supply.

Ren Zhong asked people to investigate and study the rivers and streams in various places. As long as the water energy resources can reach more than 50KW, unless the area is too sparsely populated and the transportation is extremely difficult, development can be considered.

By developing new factories in the mountains near rivers and mountains, various productions can be carried out secretly. In the current stage, this is better than anything else.

As for the newly liberated cities in various places in Luzhou, industrial construction will not be carried out for the time being. Only after building anti-aircraft gun bases around them and gradually forming an air defense network will industrial development begin in the cities.

Now, let's double the military industrial output under the Independent Regiment first!

Heyuan and Yangcun originally produced more than 2,000 Type 56 semi-automatic rifles, more than 100 Type 56 machine guns, more than 50 82mm mortars, more than 50 RPG rocket launchers, and seven or eight 107 rockets per month. According to Ren Zhong's new plan, doubling the output at once will be very considerable.

If the new steel is successfully smelted, then add the production of mountain guns and anti-aircraft guns, at least 20 pieces per month. However, with the manpower of the base area, that's about it. After all, many jobs still require workers with certain skills. The base area here is not as good as the border area, and it is very difficult to attract foreign talents. Ren Zhong's actions have basically absorbed almost all the workers in the newly occupied territories.

The radio waves carried Ren Zhong's plan, first transmitting the infrastructure requirements to the Independent Regiment. Under Zhao Gang's leadership, the construction work was carried out first. The mineral resource map and process design drawings still need to be delivered to the base area by manpower. Ren Zhong is not in a hurry, but fortunately, the initial infrastructure construction also takes time, which is not a waste.

Pulling the base area's production capacity to the maximum, one month can produce equipment for an additional Class A regiment. For the rapidly developing Eighth Route Army headquarters, this is a remarkable thing.

After all, they are blocked inside and could only rely on seizures. Now they have finally achieved self-sufficiency, and their strength is increasing every day.

It is estimated that it will not be long before the brigade commander's next attack.

Second update of the big chapter! Asking for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets!