After the battle, the two sides died down, and the front line resumed its usual fierce battles.

Both sides continued to invest in a steady stream of new recruits into the front line.

But there are some changes.

Both the devils and the independent regiment have found that this battle is getting harder and harder.

Two and a half months of hard construction, the enemy's night raids and infiltrations, made the defensive positions built by the independent regiment more and more perfect, and also made the alert system of the forward positions more and more mature, and it became more and more impossible for the devils to approach quietly or find weak points to infiltrate.

Commanders at the battalion, company, and platoon levels have mastered the anti-infiltration tactics and are also very familiar with how to use actual combat to sharpen recruits, and while greatly increasing the efficiency of training, they can also avoid problems among recruits and triggering a crisis in their positions.

But war is on both sides, and progress is mutual.

After two and a half months of continuous infiltration at night, the little devil's night interspersed tactics made it more and more handy, and the devil officers also had full experience in how to sharpen and select elite soldiers from the inferior soldiers of the second class through actual combat.

There are also those devils who have escaped under the ferocious fire of the independent regiment again and again, either having a mental breakdown, or completely comprehending the spirit of bushido and becoming real old devils.

And the two sides are still in a fierce battle.

A few days later.

Yuxian Railway Station.

Bags of sealed and packaged white granulated sugar were loaded into the car, and bags of grain were transported to Shijiazhuang through the Zhengtai Railway, and then to Beiping.

"Two thousand tons of high-quality white sugar?"

Hearing the news of the staff officer's report and seeing the sample handed over together, Okamura Ninji actually stood up directly.

As a commander of the North China Front, with more than 100,000 people in his hands, he should not be so surprised by 2,000 tons of supplies.

But this is white sugar.

It is an important material for the empire, which is urgently needed in the homeland and can stabilize the domestic situation.

Nowadays, the price of white sugar in the empire, the regular market has disappeared, and the black market price is 400 times the price ten years ago, and there is no market for it, which shows how scarce it is.

Moreover, the white sugar in front of me is of extremely high quality, and it has sealed moisture-proof packaging, and the minimum shelf life is two years, and the price will be higher.

Other than that.

These white sugars were collected in 10 days from several county towns around Ping'an County and flowed out of the base areas of the Independent Regiment.

Because of the existence of the imperial garrison, all the county towns were controlled by the imperial merchants in key livelihood industries, key factories, and other businesses were basically monopolized by the empire, but in just ten days, two thousand tons of white sugar were collected, which is enough to show the amount of materials flowing out of the independent regiment.

It also shows that the abundance of materials for the Independent Regiment is beyond his imagination.

White sugar is also an important and rare material in the Republic of China, and such a large outflow is either because the independent regiment has too much white sugar to be used up, or, it means that there is a problem in the management of its base area.

Gangcun prefers the latter.

The production of white sugar is much more difficult than grain.

"We should increase the dispatch of troops to Ping'an County and increase the pressure on that independent regiment."

The new chief of staff, Major General Takahashi, proposed on the side.

Ten days, 2,000 tons of sugar, this income is very high. Not to mention food.

"Yes."

Gangmura nodded.

The garrison of Ping'an County not only solved the food consumption by itself, but did not need to be provided by the front army, and even had the spare strength to provide food and materials in reverse, as well as sugar, an important strategic material, which really surprised him.

Operation No. 1 is imminent, and the main force cannot be dispatched, but there is no problem with new recruits or newly formed miscellaneous units in the country.

After this batch of supplies entered the mainland, he was also able to persuade the base camp to send more recruits.

For the empire today, these inferior recruits sent to the front line are beneficial and harmless, which can not only release the domestic anti-war pressure, but also reduce the domestic material consumption.

As for the basic weapons and equipment, military uniforms and weapons, the weapons and ammunition consumed in Ping'an County are all light equipment, and the arsenal in the northeast can meet them. The impact on Operation One was minimal.

·····

End of September.

It's been ten days since the last large-scale engagement.

In the past ten days, the night fighting on the front line continued, but there was no large-scale fighting, and both sides consciously controlled the scale of the engagement, silently accumulating forces to prepare for the next large-scale battle.

Ping'an County.

A Japanese army training camp.

Yamamoto walked in with his secret service team.

After passing through layers of guards, the group finally came to a flat area, where about 1,500 devils were training.

From the sturdy posture and movements of these devils, as well as the unified 38 big cover, 96-type machine guns, grenadiers, mortars and other equipment, it can be seen that this must be an elite army.

"Dazuo."

Seeing Yamamoto, the devil who was directing the training at the top hurriedly came over to salute, and this devil's armband showed that this person was a young man.

"Saito-kun."

Yamamoto nodded in response, his tone satisfied.

The Saito Shaosa in front of him is the new leader of the first combat team of the Yamamoto Special Forces, and he is also the team leader he is most satisfied with.

There are two reasons for this, first, this person has good ability, not inferior to the previous captains, and second, this person has lived a long time, and he is the longest-living leader of the first team in the history of Yamamoto's special team.

"How's the training going?"

Yamamoto continued.

The troops in front of him were the decisive troops he had prepared.

All are veterans, and they have been honed from the front, veterans loyal to the Empire, equipped with the best weapons, trained by his secret service members, teaching special operations.

In Yamamoto's plan, when the time is ripe, that is, when the imperial army of Ping'an County has sufficient troops and material reserves, he will launch a full-scale attack on the front line, and at the same time, this elite force will infiltrate into the base area of the independent regiment through the flank as a unit of 500 people, carry out sabotage, and cut off the supply channel of the independent regiment, so as to cooperate with the frontline troops to eliminate the independent regiment troops on the position in one fell swoop.

"It went very well."

Saito's tone is confident:

"These people are all elite warriors of the empire, and they can quickly comprehend the essence of special operations."

"Yo Si."

Yamamoto also said in a satisfied tone.

This situation is actually very normal, the devils here are all old devils who survived the fierce fire of the front-line independent regiment, and each devil has at least seven front-line fierce battle experience.

······

A few days later.

Separate regiments.

Sun Desheng, who finished his work at the machinery factory, went to the tank training camp with Zhao Gang, Li Yunlong, Ding Wei, and Cheng He. Originally, Kong Jie was also invited, but Master Kong was busy with the construction of the factory in the base area recently and did not come.

It has been 90 days since the troops got the tanks, and today is the day to test the results of the tank troops' training.

The group passed the sentry post and entered the tank training camp, where preparations had already been made, the nearby hills, the anti-aircraft artillery was on alert, the soldiers of the air defense battalion had entered the gun position, and on the ground, forty-five No. 4 tanks were lined up neatly, and the green smoke from the exhaust pipe in the rear indicated that the engine had been started.

In front of each tank, there was a five-man queue.

In the rear, there was a company of more than 500 fighters lined up, and most of the people in this company were armed with submachine guns.

In front of this formation, there was a training ground set up in the actual battlefield, with long slopes, pits, bunkers, trenches, fortresses, anti-tank piles, wooden rakes erected on the sides, and 'enemy' troops.

"Let's get started."

Li Yunlong often came here, and even participated in the training of tank units together many times, so there was no nonsense and went straight to the topic.

Now that the base is developing, everyone is very busy, and there is no need to waste time for a few nonsense words.

"Yes."

Sun Desheng ran into a tank group and shouted at the same time:

"Get in the car."

As the words fell, forty-five tanks entered the tank in unison, and at the same time, the infantry company in the rear also entered combat mode.

Buzz...

Amid the muffled roar of the diesel engines, forty-five tanks rushed out in unison, and the rear infantry followed closely behind the tanks, or on both flanks, and the two sides cooperated tacitly to advance all the way to the front line.

Encountering the enemy machine gun fortress, the tank artillery opened fire to destroy, covering the infantry behind, before passing through the trench, the infantry cleared the trench under the cover of the tank's fire, and the death squad that suddenly escaped from the trench was also quickly eliminated by the infantry near the tank, and after completing the battle, the troops continued to advance.

During this period, the tank also climbed large slopes, descended steep slopes, passed through dangerous narrow sections, stopped and fired at high speeds, dodged the sudden appearance of anti-tank guns on the side, and so on, and rehearsed all the situations that might be encountered on the battlefield.

It is different from Li Yunlong's familiarity with tank troops.

Ding Wei has been busy with the training of new recruits and studying how to reduce casualties on the front line, and rarely comes to see the training of tank troops, and only comes a few times in the early days, when the tank troops are still very immature.

He profoundly experienced the progress of the tank unit in front of him, or rather the rebirth.

Each tank is flowing smoothly, so that people can see that the driver is highly skilled, and when passing through the appearance of only one car wide, there are no accidents, and each tank passes as if measured with a ruler, with precision.

There are also those deep pits, big high slopes, long steep slopes, and Ding Wei, who has experience in standing three jumpers, also knows that these terrains are very testing of posture skills, and if you don't pay attention to it, you will turn off the fire, but in the one-and-a-half-hour actual combat exercise, there was not a single flameout.

Ding Wei knew very well that three months ago, this group of people had never touched a tank, and even the driving experience of other mechanical vehicles was at most a year.

It's hard to imagine that in just three years, it has progressed to such an extent.

Moreover, whether it is an emergency response to a close-range target or a long-range call-call shelling, the tank has shown a fairly high degree of accuracy.

"Yes, the training is very good."

Grand Master Ding praised from the bottom of his heart.

In just three months, it is unbelievable that he can now go to the battlefield.

At the same time, this also shows that the logistics group of the independent regiment has basically mastered the technology of tank maintenance, otherwise it would not be possible for these tanks to carry out high-intensity maneuvers for up to an hour and a half without any problems.

"Hey, hey, hey..."

Grand Master Li smiled with satisfaction.

"How did you train it?"

Cheng He, the commander of the new regiment and the first battalion on the side, couldn't help but ask.

Three months, from an absolute novice, to a skilled tank crew, it's unimaginable.

Ding Wei also looked over, and he was also a little curious,

"How did you train it?"

Grand Master Li smiled, pointed to the tank unit that was relining in the distance and said:

"Each of the 45 tank crews here has a minimum tank driving mileage of 9,500 kilometers and more than 900 rounds of live ammunition."

"No wonder ·····"

Hearing Li Yunlong's words, Ding Wei was deeply emotional.

Minimum mileage of 10,000 km.

Boss Chen's No. 4 tank is much more advanced than the German engine technology, not to mention the fuel efficiency of the 330-horsepower diesel engine, high reliability, sufficient power, large torque, the maximum speed on the road is 48 kilometers per hour, and the maximum off-road speed is 36 kilometers.

Taking into account the life of the engine and other machinery, as well as the consumption of physical strength and fuel for the crew, the tank generally does not travel at maximum speed.

The tank training ground has gravel roads for training and dirt off-road roads, and the construction brigade mobilized tens of thousands of people to quickly complete the construction, but judging from the dense track prints on the slopes around the training ground, after completing the basic operation training, the vehicle crew training is probably seldom driving on the special training road, and everything starts in accordance with actual combat and runs directly in the field, and the terrain in the field is complicated, and the actual driving speed is even slower.

In this way, the average speed of the tank during the training should be about 25 kilometers per hour.

The minimum driving distance of 10,000 kilometers, that is to say, these 45 tank crews, in just 90 days, drove 400 hours on real vehicles, and the minimum real vehicle driving training was more than 4.5 hours a day.

"But it's too expensive to train."

Zhao Gang spoke:

"In 90 days, 25 tanks, 497 engines, more than 370 gearboxes, more than 500 tons of scrapped tracks, and various other parts, all added up to two large warehouses."

"At the moment, we only have 90 tank crews involved in training."

"Such a big drain."

The corners of Ding Wei's mouth twitched.

There is a master in the logistics group, as long as it can be repaired, it will definitely be repaired, and Boss Chen's tank, spare parts are very sufficient, even so, so many tanks, engines and gearboxes have been scrapped.

With such training, it is estimated that the richest Americans in the world can play.

Fortunately, it is not that Boss Chen's guarantee is doubled, and all the consumption can be reimbursed, otherwise I will die of distress.

"That's right."

Ding Wei suddenly lowered his voice and asked:

"How many tanks have we taken out now?"

"Plus the harvest in the Luliang Mountains, as well as the two devil warships that were killed before."

Li Yunlong knew that Ding Wei asked this sentence to ask how many devils the Independent Regiment had killed since the beginning of the tank business, so he replied:

"Seven thousand eight hundred."

In order to complete the tank mission, the independent regiment attacked from all sides, not only fighting fiercely with the devils of Ping'an County on the front line, but also sending a large number of small units to expand the base area and support the armed forces in other enemy-occupied areas.

For example, in the Luliang Mountains, the Independent Regiment sent two real companies, carrying heavy machine guns and Type 92 infantry guns, destroying a large number of devil turrets, killing more than 800 devils, eliminating a large number of puppet troops, and even occupying several small county towns, greatly expanding the scope of Zhao Jiayu's base area.

Recently, the construction brigade has begun to build a kilometer leading to the Luliang Mountains, intending to connect that side thoroughly.

Although there are not so many other base areas, they add up to a lot.

"This is data from five days ago."

Li Yunlong added.

"It's almost there."

Ding Wei said with a smile.

"yes, it's coming."

Li Yunlong and Zhao Gang also said at the same time.

All three of them spoke with surprise and joy.

When they first saw the tank business, the goal in everyone's hearts was 15,000, but now in just three months, 7,000 and a half have been completed. Moreover, the devils of Ping'an County are still sending new recruits in an endless stream.

"I'll push harder."

Zhao Gang's eyes flashed:

"There is still grain and sugar, continue to loosen regulations, and release more materials."

"Good idea."

Ding Wei agreed.

Zhao Gang was preparing for the construction of the light rail railway, and there was a lot of preparatory work to be done, and Ding Wei was also very busy, so the two left first.

"Commander."

Just when Li Yunlong finished the inspection and was about to leave, Sun Desheng ran over:

"Give me some more pickup trucks, it's that big jeep."

"What are you going to do?"

Li Yunlong asked.

"You're not preparing tank troops to wipe out the infiltration interspersed forces of devils."

Sun Desheng says:

"I have done exercises, and now the roads in the base area have been reinforced, and the tank troops can rush to the battlefield as soon as possible, but the infantry can't keep up, and it is easy to fall and be crushed when sitting directly on the tank."

Li Yunlong nodded.

The tank has a narrow field of vision and is easy to deal with without infantry protection.

Sun Desheng continued:

"Now in the core area of our base area, there are roads, Daji's ordinary ability to travel is guaranteed, and the big jeep can be added with heavy machine guns, the firepower is also good, there are tanks in front of the road, and it is not so easy to be destroyed, besides, the big jeep has been used in our base for so long, it is very familiar and easy to use."

"Now..."

Li Yunlong narrowed his eyes, pondered for a moment, and said:

"Now, do you have what it takes to get acquainted with a new armored vehicle?"

In the casual chat with Chen Fan, Grand Master Li learned.

An armored unit, the best configuration is the main tank in front of the front, breaking through the enemy's defensive line, followed by the armored vehicle carrying the infantry, destroying the enemy's infantry to expand the breakthrough, and finally self-propelled artillery fire support, with aircraft in the air to defend the sky and ground fire support.

There is no need to think about the plane, let alone Zhao Jiayu's base, even if it is the headquarters, or even the border area, there are not enough people to play this for the time being, not to mention that Brother Chen did not provide it.

Self-propelled guns are available, but they are too heavy, and there are not enough manpower in the regiment for the time being, and the quota is not enough.

But armored vehicles, it seems, are in the right place.

"The wheeled armored car, the engine is the same as the ten-wheeled truck, and the technology is the same as the No. 4 tank, and the gearbox is the same."

Li Yunlong added.

"Wheeled armored vehicles?"

Sun Desheng hesitated.

The tracked tank machinery is complex, and it is very troublesome to master and use, and the crew must not only have driving skills, but also be proficient in maintenance skills.

Even with a detailed operating manual, a whole bunch of problems arise.

In the past three months, there have been no less than 50 accidents in which the tank crew forgot to check the lubricating oil, resulting in the scrapping of the engine cylinder, and there were also various problems caused by improper operation.

It can be said that more than ninety percent of engine and transmission scrapping is caused by improper operation.

He was in tears.

If it weren't for Boss Chen's spare parts, gearboxes, and engines, there would be six spare parts, as well as a large number of maintenance parts, and the master's skills would be really powerful, I'm afraid that all the current 100 tanks would have to be scrapped.

But after so long, the logistics personnel have also become proficient, and there are more and more skilled crews, and he has also summed up some training experience, and the number of low-level mistakes that lead to serious problems has been very small.

"Okay."

Sun Desheng nodded.

A wheeled armored car will be a lot simpler than a tank, and it should be fine.