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In China, there was a saying, "Don't be afraid of being slow, but be afraid of standing." Vézé's troops marched 40 kilometers a day, which was nothing for ordinary cavalry troops. However, Vézé's troops marched for seven days, covering 300 kilometers, and the vanguard troops arrived at Jining. Even if the Qing Army's cavalry chased after them with all their might and exhausted their horses, it would still take them two days. If they marched normally, it would take them four days to reach Jining. In these four days, Vézé's troops could march another 160 kilometers. If the Qing Army chased after them, the cavalry could probably catch up with Vézé's troops when they tried to cross the Yellow River near Xuzhou.
Mathematics was a good thing. After some simple calculations, all kinds of possibilities emerged. No matter how capable Sengrinchen was, the chief of staff made some calculations on paper and concluded that if Sengrinchen's troops didn't reach Jining by the time Vézé's troops arrived at Xuzhou, then they wouldn't have to worry about being attacked by Sengrinchen's cavalry from behind.
This kind of calculation was very important for a retreating army. Troops didn't care about what they would encounter. There were many ways to attack, but there were only a few ways to retreat. Since that was the case, retreating was bound to encounter all kinds of bad things. There was always a limit to what the troops could do. If they could eliminate some of the bad things that might happen, then the troops would have a much easier time.
"Brothers, in ancient times, all of you would be famous generals!" Vézé said to the staff of the general staff. For Vézé, the general staff was a very normal system. Professionalism, division of labor, cooperation. In the 21st century, it wasn't just the army that operated like this. All kinds of enterprises operated like this.
"Haha." Chief of Staff Ruan Xihao laughed dryly. Even though he knew that Vézé was sincerely praising him, and even though he knew that he had made great progress, Ruan Xihao didn't feel ecstatic when he heard Vézé's encouragement. He frowned and said, "Chief of the General Staff, it's impossible for us to completely grasp Sengrinchen's actions. Even if our perimeter in the north is very far, if they didn't go through Xuzhou, but directly went south through Henan. In that case, they might reach Xuzhou before us. "
The more you know, the less you understand. If one were to recklessly expand one's imagination irresponsibly, then "anything is possible." Vézé was well aware of the effect of the fog on the battlefield, so he understood how difficult it was to completely dispel it. Even with the military advantages of the Americans in the 21st century, with satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, and drones, they were still in a terrible situation in Afghanistan. The army had to pay "tolls" when transporting logistical supplies. Needless to say, Vézé's intelligence system did not even have a telegram.
"Then what does Chief of Staff Nguyen plan to do?" Vézé smiled. Vézé had this kind of desire for perfection before. Young people would temporarily be confused by the power brought about by the system. It was inevitable for people who were originally fighting alone to suddenly join a relatively sound system to have an illusory feeling of suddenly possessing great power. Because he saw something familiar in Ruan Xihao, Vézé couldn't help but want to tease Ruan Xihao.
Ruan Xihao couldn't understand Vézé's thoughts at all. He frowned and thought for a while before saying, "How about we design a new transportation route and send more brothers back to keep an eye on Sengrinchen …"
Vézé listened to this and laughed in his heart. For Vézé, if he wanted to solve these problems, he would consider wireless telegrams, or at least wired telegrams. This was the difference between Vézé and this era. Ruan Xihao was limited by his own knowledge and could only use the technology and equipment he knew to complete the task at hand. But Vézé could "jump out of the limitations of this era" and come up with more effective solutions.
Thinking of this, Vézé suddenly felt like he had an "epiphany". In China, the evaluation of conservatism was quite low. But combining Vézé and Ruan Xihao's different responses to the same problem, Vézé felt that some conservatives might not really reject progress. They would either actively or passively choose to use "existing methods" to solve the problem. It was impossible to expect them to develop new technology.
With this thought, Vézé found that he could actually understand why the Frankberg General Staff became synonymous with "conservatism and rigidity" during World War I. During Moltke's era, the Frankberg General Staff gathered the world's most advanced military construction theory and scientific attitude. By the time World War I, the Frankberg General Staff could no longer carry out its own system innovation …
Thinking of this, Vézé suddenly felt a chill down his spine. In the past, Vézé was just like any other young man, always looking at the results and often wringing his hands over some tragic endings. But from a real historical perspective, some tragedies simply couldn't be prevented. For example, no matter how well the General Staff did, it was impossible to expect an organization like the General Staff to become the birthplace of the socialist revolution or even the communist revolution. Chairman Mao's guerrilla warfare and people's war system couldn't possibly appear in an organization like the General Staff.
Thinking of this, Vézé suddenly couldn't help but laugh out loud. If it was the old Vézé, he would definitely think that as long as the General Staff was built, the content of communism, socialism, and people's war should be forcefully instilled into the General Staff. But right now, Wei Ze knew very well that he had founded the General Staff Headquarters. The main problem at present was not how to make the General Staff Headquarters not oppose communism, socialism, and the people's war. The main problem at present was that the General Staff Headquarters did not even have the most basic scientific understanding.
In the German army during World War II, from the general to the soldier, the worst was a junior high school student. This kind of army fought against the entire Europe without the power to fight back. And in World War II, the junior high school students of the Germans could easily become a captain in the technical department in Vézé's current army. History had proven one thing countless times, if one wanted to skip the first nine steps and directly rush to the tenth step, he or she would die a very, very tragic death.
"Chief of General Staff, what did I say wrong?" Ruan Xihao's rather surprised voice woke Vézé up from his personal world of thought.
Although it was regrettable, Vézé had to give up the idea of further testing Ruan Xihao. After all, it was a time of war, too many tests brought too many risks. There would be plenty of opportunities to reorganize the General Staff in the future, so there was no rush. Therefore, Vézé simply gave the order. "Oh … nothing. We don't have the energy to care too much right now. We only need to ensure that, with our current reconnaissance ability, the Sengrinchen cavalry can't launch a surprise attack on us. Also, after entering Weishan Lake, vigorously search for ships. According to the information we gathered, the spring flood of the Yellow River is probably coming. If we want to build a pontoon bridge on the Yellow River, we can't do it if we don't have enough ships. "
After listening to Vézé's order, Ruan Xihao nodded repeatedly. "The General Staff has already issued an order to the vanguard troops. Once we capture Jining, we are to immediately head straight to Weishan Lake and rent local ships. Chief of General Staff, I remember more than a year ago when we turned from Changsha to Yuezhou. From Yuezhou, we took a boat downstream. At that time, the infantry were all on boats, and the shore was full of cavalry. It didn't take long to reach Wuhan. This time, if we want to save time, it's best to do the same. "
"Haha!" Vézé laughed. "Chief of Staff, the Qing Army was able to seize the ships in Yuezhou. Firstly, the Qing Army thought they could block the ships in Yuezhou's river. In the blink of an eye, we took Yuezhou and seized the ships along with the sailors. Secondly, the brothers of Yuezhou's Tian Di Hui had already fled to Changsha to seek refuge with the King Of The East. The King Of The East knew everything that happened in Yuezhou like the back of his hand. When we attacked Changsha, the King Of The East had already decided what to do. Otherwise, why would the troops begin to retreat that night when we failed to use the acupoint technique on Changsha? Chief of Staff, it's not wrong to learn from experience. However, the prerequisite for learning from experience is to first understand what actually happened. We can't just look at what happened and act accordingly. This isn't learning from experience, it's carving a boat to seek a sword! "
Ruan Xihao carefully listened to Vézé's words. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Chief of Staff, what does' carving a boat to seek a sword 'mean?"
"Oh, this sentence …" Vézé didn't expect Ruan Xihao to ask this. He felt that perhaps he should expand the scope of basic cultural training. Idioms were good things to say in a concise and comprehensive manner. The only problem was to understand the story behind them. Since that was the case, should he organize a few art classes within the army and use the model of a skit or a stage play to popularize idioms and stories to the troops?
However, before confirming this, Vézé first told Ruan Xihao the story of "carving a boat to seek a sword". After listening to the story, Ruan Xihao couldn't help but blush. Before understanding the story, he didn't feel anything. Only when he truly understood did he realize how bitter and unkind the irony of this story could be.
Vézé asked Ruan Xihan to sit down and said, "Chief of Staff Ruan, the problem with carving a boat to seek a sword is that sometimes we don't care about external changes. The story itself is quite exaggerated, but if you think about it carefully, we are all used to the world we know. Even if the world changes, we often don't see it. Even after we see it, we pretend we don't see it. Just like how you see our army on ships and our cavalry on land. You also saw that we took the ships. However, if we don't understand it, it's that the King Of The East already has complete control of the local situation. It doesn't matter whether we arrive at Yuezhou or not. Is our army's level of control over Jining that high? "
"Our army doesn't have control over Jining at all." Ruan Xihao agreed with Vézé's opinion.
"In that case, we'll do our best to observe the situation. Since we've only prepared so much beforehand, we'll leave it up to the heavens when we get to Ji Ning. We'll get as many ships as we can," Wei Ze said frankly with a look of resignation.
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