Rise From Eight Hundred

Tang Dao's visit to Xuzhou this time was fruitful.

He used his connections to receive 100,000 military pay and rewards from the Fifth War Zone Command. In addition, he exchanged all the yellow croakers in his hands for more than 14,000 silver dollars. The total funds owned by the regiment's quartermaster department reached 114,000 silver dollars. A total of 42,000 silver dollars were spent on purchasing food, pack horses, war horses, sugar, salt and other materials, and there were 72,000 silver dollars left.

Zhuang Shisan, who was in charge of logistics, was heartbroken by the large amount of money spent, but Tang Dao thought it was worth it.

One hundred thousand catties of fine grains and a large amount of pickled meat were enough to ensure the food for more than 2,000 officers and soldiers of the Four Lines Regiment for nearly two months. If they were a little more frugal, they could even last for three months without logistics supplies. This was enough to free the Four Lines Regiment from many human constraints.

Necessary materials such as sugar and salt could fully maintain the nutrition of the officers and soldiers of the Four Lines Regiment.

Tang Dao is well aware of the importance of the physical fitness of officers and soldiers. The so-called elite is not only invincible with strong spirit and will, but also must have a strong body as a foundation.

Why are there only a few Chinese troops that can compete with the Japanese army in hand-to-hand combat? The inferior bayonet training level is only one aspect. The real reason is that the Japanese infantry is well-nourished and has better physical fitness.

Therefore, Tang Dao just took advantage of the gap between long-distance marches and no wars to supplement the nutrition of officers and soldiers with rich supplies, and no matter how much money is spent, it is worth it.

After all, people are gone, but money is still there, what else can it be used for?

And the last big deal made Tang Dao even more satisfied.

Ma Wenxue, who has an investment concept, provided 90 fat and strong Mongolian war horses from the grassland, and also gave 15 half-grown foals, at a price of 10 silver dollars, which is almost like giving it away for free. In less than two years, the foals will grow into qualified war horses.

Moreover, Tang Dao and Ma Wenxue also agreed that when Tang Dao needed it in the future, he would continue to buy war horses from him and would entrust him to buy other materials.

Tang Dao knew the ability of businessmen very well. As long as the profit was considerable enough, even if there was a blockade by the Japanese and traitors, even if there were knives raining from the sky, businessmen who pursued profits could still deliver the materials.

This fact has been proven in countless wars.

Tang Dao even knew that not only would the traitors give way under the magic of money, but the Japanese themselves had done so. They even exchanged arms for wheat and turned it into money, even though they knew that the arms would kill them.

This is human nature. In front of the devil of money, not many people can resist it. This is also the reason why Tang Dao is confident that the batch of imported arms provided by Comrade Lao Wu can be transported out of Tianjin.

The biggest difficulty is how to get the remaining 1.5 million US dollars together.

Those Western arms dealers are the ones who only pay for goods. They will never sell at a loss just because China is in dire straits. If the Japanese can afford the price, the arms will be placed on the front line for Chinese soldiers.

The Sino-Japanese War at this time is a gift from God for those arms dealers. The United States on the other side of the ocean is now manufacturing arms at full capacity, ready to lay the foundation for their future as the world's number one power

The agreement made with this businessman with enough courage can guarantee the source of a large number of cavalry horses that Tang Dao wants to develop.

Otherwise, no matter how much treasure Tang Dao finds in that mountain, he can only ride on donkeys.

Donkeys are a must-have livestock in rural areas in the north. They are hardworking and vigilant, but they are stubborn! If they don't agree with something, they will either kick or bite.

This is still secondary. The key is that Tang Dao thought that his carefully trained soldiers actually rode a donkey over mountains and ridges. What? He wanted to become the legendary donkey cavalry!

High-quality war horses are the basis for the cavalry to form a strong combat effectiveness, not a matter of face or not.

These 90 war horses can provide enough war horses for the existing 21 cavalrymen of the Four Lines Regiment and the 100 cavalrymen who will join the Four Lines Regiment to form immediate combat effectiveness.

At the same time, it also provides Tang Dao with ready-made mounts for training new cavalrymen. In less than half a year, Tang Dao will have a cavalry scale of more than 200 cavalrymen, qualified to fight against two cavalry squadrons of the Japanese army.

Ma's business is indeed financially strong. 300 pack horses and 100 carts were delivered in just one day, and each cart had a horseman with sufficient experience.

Assuming that 100 pack horses each carry 80 kilograms, and two pack horses can pull a cart that can carry 700 kilograms, the total load can be nearly 160,000 kilograms, or nearly 80 tons of supplies.

Relatively speaking, the supplies purchased by Tang Dao seem to be quite a lot, but in fact, they are only more than 50 tons, and a small half is still empty.

This is not the case when the cart is fully loaded. If more is loaded, 100 tons of supplies can be loaded.

If the previous transportation capacity of the Four Lines Regiment is added, the Four Lines Regiment's baggage unit can currently have a maximum transportation capacity of 130 tons.

If its equipment and combat effectiveness are not considered, the Four Lines Regiment at this time is comparable to a pure baggage regiment.

Of course, compared with the supplies obtained, Tang Dao is more pleased to discover talents.

The young Taoist priest Mingxin is definitely the top talent.

Because of Lu Zhongda's recommendation, the cavalry platoon who followed Tang Dao to Xuzhou knew that this young Taoist priest with a green face was a master of cold weapons.

However, judging from his immature appearance, he has nothing to do with the word "expert".

Many of the cavalry officers and soldiers, led by Lv Sanjiang, took the initiative to challenge Mingxin to a fight, but seeing the mighty style of Mingxin's seven-kilogram double-edged sword, the possibility of the saber being cut off was very high. In order to prevent accidental injuries, the cavalry wisely gave up using sabers to fight the enemy. Both sides cut wood into swords and spears, and wrapped the tips of the swords and spears with thick cotton cloth and dipped them in white lime.

The ending shocked the cavalry officers and soldiers.

Mingxin, holding a wooden sword, was already low-key. He first used several moves to continuously chop down two cavalrymen who challenged him alone, and then used almost the same moves to leave two white marks on the chest and abdomen of the brave Lv Sanjiang.

That means that if the two sides fought with real swords and guns, the three people including Lv Sanjiang would be dead and could not die anymore. Some people did not believe in evil, and formed a group of three people, one holding a gun and two holding swords, and used the three-three tactics taught by Tang Dao to fight the enemy.

The two knife-wielding men on the flanks were responsible for defense, while the gun-wielding men in the middle were responsible for attack. With this formation, and the officers and soldiers of the cavalry platoon who had fought several battles with the Japanese cavalry, they were the top candidates among all the officers and soldiers of the Four-Line Regiment in terms of courage and reaction speed. Even strong men like Lei Xiong and Leng Feng needed to go all out to deal with them.

But what shocked Lu Sanjiang and others was that it took three moves to "kill" one person, and it only took three moves to "kill" three people.

The wooden spear stabbed at his chest, and Mingxin did not dodge, but when the spear was about to hit his chest, his upper body suddenly fell back as if it was broken, while the spearman had already used up his moves, and his body involuntarily leaned forward, as if he was actively sending his body under the opponent's knife tip.

That was fine, even if Mingxin, whose upper body was almost parallel to the ground, used this dangerous move to kill the enemy in one move, there were still two knife soldiers on the flanks, one with a knife and one from both sides. Even if he could not kill him, he could still leave scars on his body.

Unfortunately, he couldn't!

After Mingxin killed the enemy with one sword, his body twisted strangely, and he moved forward like a ghost, using the spearman's body as a shield to block the sword from the left wing. As long as the swordman exerted force, the sword would hit his comrade.

At this moment, no one would hit their comrades with a sword, not to mention on the battlefield, even in the training ground, so they could only tilt their wrists slightly and chop the blade into the air.

It would have been fine if the sword from the left wing was in vain, but it left the swordman on the right wing to face Mingxin alone. Facing such a terrible opponent, he had to chop down with that sword anyway.

Unfortunately, just like Mingxin's previous "killing" of Lu Sanjiang and others alone, his sword had not yet hit Mingxin, but Mingxin's mysterious wooden sword had already stabbed him heavily in the ribs.

Let alone hitting Mingxin with a sword that was chopped with all his strength, his strong body staggered back, and his dark red face turned pale.

That hurt!

If it weren't for the thick cotton cloth wrapped around the tip of the sword, even if it was a wooden sword, I'm afraid that the sergeant cavalry would have been at risk of bone fracture.

But what if it was Mingxin's double-edged sword? It must be a one-shot ending.

Mingxin no longer concealed his strength after dealing with two opponents with just two moves, and went straight to the other cavalryman with despair in his eyes.

Originally, there was no suspense at this point, but for soldiers, whether on the battlefield or in the training ground, there was never a possibility of surrendering.

"Kill!" The last cavalryman summoned up his remaining courage and swung his sword at the cold weapon master who was younger than himself but extremely terrifying.

The result was obvious. After Mingxin "killed" two comrades in two moves, the cavalryman's determination to win had been lost, and his combat power was not even 80% of the previous one.

Killing three people with three moves, this almost exaggerated strength really shocked Lu Sanjiang and others.

Perhaps, only Lu Zhongda, who was watching the battle, was happy.

He expected Mingxin to win, but he never thought that Mingxin would be so strong. No wonder Mingxin dared to face dozens of guns alone without any compromise and retreat. That was not because of youth and frivolity, but because of absolute strength.

What did this prove? Not only was his vision correct, but it also proved that he did not betray his superiors.

For such a master, the Four Lines Regiment took such a big risk to offend the 20th Corps, which was worth it!

Moreover, even if Mingxin's sleeve knife was not used, if it was equipped with his double-edged sword, which was twice as heavy as the Northwest Army's ring-headed sword, it would definitely be a great killer on the battlefield of cold weapons.

On the second night, Tang Dao, who came to the temporary camp of the baggage platoon, heard about this. In addition to being happy, he couldn't help but compete with Mingxin.

However, both of them were masters, and even wooden swords had enough lethality. The two fought barehanded.

Mingxin, who lost his weapon, was a little worse in boxing and kicking. He retreated repeatedly under the fierce Bajiquan attack of Tang Dao. It was quite difficult to block left and right, but the miracle was that Tang Dao couldn't even think of taking him down with his ability.

His internal strength was long, his reaction was quick, and his muscles and bones were tough, far exceeding Tang Dao.

You know, even if facing a martial arts master like Mr. Han, if it weren't for the training ground, Tang Dao would have enough confidence that he would be the one alive in the end.

But Ming Xin, who was still young, had an intuition that even if it was a life-and-death fight, his chance of winning would not exceed 50%.

Ming Xin was actually the only opponent who could be on par with him in actual combat since he came to this era.

The most effective way to kill him was probably to use a sniper rifle.

Tang Dao was very happy!

This was simply a gift from God to the Four Lines Group.

This was a natural special forces soldier.

Firearms, lurking, tenacity, observation and other skills can all be acquired through acquired training, but personal combat power, if you want to reach ten enemies or even stronger, that is not something that can be trained easily.

That requires enough time and even enough talent.

The seven members of the special forces team formed by Tang Dao now all have their own characteristics, but they all have a common weakness, that is, their individual combat power is too weak.

If there is no gun, from Gu Xishui to Niu Er to Heizi and Lu Zhongda, only Heizi can deal with two or three people with his strong body. The rest are not much stronger than ordinary soldiers, and they will not become stronger as special forces.

But if Mingxin, a little Taoist priest, joins, it will be different. When there is no need to use firearms, this person is simply a king bomb, and can almost replace Tang Dao's role.

He wants to become the most terrible killing machine on the dark battlefield, and he almost doesn't need additional training. He only needs Tang Dao to tell him some lurking and richer killing skills.

Tang Dao can feel that although Mingxin is strong, he has never really killed anyone. But through that confrontation, Tang Dao also knows that this outsider is fundamentally different from those students who have never seen actual combat.

He had never killed anyone, but he would not hesitate to kill evil people.

Killing demons and monsters is Mingxin's way!

And for Mingxin, it was also a big surprise.

When he was 17 years old, his master said that he was extremely talented and was a genius that appeared only once in a thousand years. With the heavy sword that had cut through chain mail in his hand, his combat power was not the best in the world, but in the top three.

Mingxin's master was certainly not an ordinary person. He was a super strong man who had killed 60 evil bandits in a mountain stronghold alone because of the evil bandits' massacre of the village. If he said yes, it must be.

But Mingxin did not expect that he would meet a strong man who was as good as him in boxing and kicking as soon as he entered the world, and could even suppress him.

The intuition of a warrior told him that even if he took a handy heavy sword, he was not sure to win against the Tang sword, not to mention that the other party was a soldier and he would have a gun in his hand.

If they were to fight on the battlefield, he would most likely die.

Pride is gone

While agreeing to Tang Dao's recruitment to join the newly established special operations squadron of the Four Lines Regiment, Ming Xin still made a request to Tang Dao. But it was not about himself.

It was about the group of refugees he had helped. Ming Xin couldn't bear to watch them starve to death.

Although there is porridge now, once the war comes, no one will take care of them, and countless people will die.

Tang Dao pondered for a long time, but it was difficult to refuse the little Taoist priest who was about to become his comrade-in-arms.

It was not to perfect his Taoist heart, but Tang Dao also had compassion, although he also knew that his ability was limited.

However, Tang Dao's help was not a simple charity, but a conscription order to the refugees. Those who were willing to join the army would be given 10 yuan military pay each. These 10 yuan were enough for his wife and children to leave Xuzhou and reach the more distant Jiangxia.

Or, instead of fleeing to Jiangxia, they could be organized by several leaders to go to Zhengzhou first, and then notify the Four Lines Regiment when they arrived at their destination.

That was because Tang Dao considered that after arriving in the mountainous area, the military factories or other factories he needed to open would need enough population. It might not be enough to rely on the mountain people in the mountainous area. It was a perfect solution.

He could not only join the army to have enough food, but also earn 10 yuan for his family. The most important thing was that his family might have the opportunity to reunite with him in a foreign land. This was a great thing that he could not even think of.

After the dozen refugees who were familiar with Ming Xin went to find their familiar refugee groups to spread the word, nearly 500 young and strong people signed up to join the army in two days, and their family members were as many as two to three thousand people.

Tang Dao first incorporated all these 500 recruits into the baggage unit. The long-distance march in the next month or so was their first recruit training period. They had to first learn to exercise their physical fitness and learn to line up and obey military orders. Only those who met the standards were qualified to join the front-line troops in the future.

If they fail to meet the requirements of soldiers in both physical and mental standards, they will either be dismissed or become auxiliary personnel such as grooms and sweepers.

Zhuang Shisan selected people with some ability from the refugees to lead the way, divided into nearly ten groups, and left in advance towards Zhengzhou with the food purchased by their families' advance military pay.

The speed of the people is not as fast as the army, and it is good to walk 20 to 30 kilometers a day.

As for those who would rather starve to death than join the army, Tang Dao really can't care so much. He is not a saint who can distribute the military funds of the entire Four Lines Group to help them for free. As the chief officer, he must also be responsible for his subordinates.

If he wants to save the entire nation, he must first ensure his own survival.

What's more, as a local rich man, he doesn't have much surplus food.

According to the rewards promised to the officers and soldiers before the war, each person would receive 5 silver dollars for killing a Japanese invader based on their military merits. If the Japanese invaders were killed in front of the defensive positions by the squad, the average amount would be paid. In addition, there would be a subsidy of 30 silver dollars for the seriously injured and 50 silver dollars for the dead. According to Zhuang Shisan's calculation, at least 100,000 silver dollars would be required.

If the military pay that should be paid is added, on average each person would get at least 12 silver dollars, with a total of about 26,000 silver dollars.

The Sihang Regiment Headquarters was certainly not empty at this time, with 10,000 silver dollars still in stock, but there would be more places to spend money for the long-distance march over the next month or so, plus the 5,000 silver dollars advanced to the reserve recruits who were barely accepted due to malnutrition. In this way, the overall shortfall exceeded 60,000 silver dollars.

To put it bluntly, although Tang Dao had tens of thousands of silver dollars in his hands at this time, he was actually poorer than the refugees who could not even get enough food.

At least, they don't owe money, but Tang Dao, an army colonel, owes as much as 60,000 yuan.

They say that the one who owes money is the boss, but it depends on who the money is owed. Those are the soldiers' lives and blood. Tang Dao can't owe them, and he dares not owe them.

Just when Tang Dao was scratching his head and planning to pay half of the regiment's military pay and rewards first, and the rest will be paid with interest after making money.

The God of Wealth came on a colorful cloud.

For men, choosing a wife is really important.

But perhaps, for a certain father-in-law, the truth is the same. It doesn't matter if the son-in-law is poor, the important thing is that he must be capable. Anyway, he is a rich family, the kind that is rich as hell.

What we lack the least is money.

PS: I didn't update yesterday, but I updated it in advance today, a 5,000-word chapter!