"Can we keep the designations and units? If there's an emergency, these units can be filled up immediately." Lei Hu tried to propose a modification to the disarmament.
There were not many people attending this meeting. They were all famous veterans in the Liberation Army. Ke Gongyu, who had become the principal of the military academy, rarely attended military committee meetings. This time, he appeared. Before Vézé could speak, Ke Gongyu could not help but say, "Tiger, do you think the disarmament this time is for officers or soldiers?"
After hearing this, Lei Hu was stunned. Hu Chenghe, Ruan Xihao, Lin Jiajun, Liu Sha, and the others were stunned. Only Shen Xin, Wei Changrong, Lin Asheng, and a few other big shots did not look surprised.
Lei Hu was experienced and understood a little when he heard this. The various units of the Liberation Army once reached 800 million at their peak. Later, the railway troops were separated to form the Ministry of Railways, and the engineering troops were separated to form the Ministry of Construction. Vézé forcibly passed the policy of dissolving and merging military regions. A large number of local armed forces were reorganized into armed police, and some became units that needed to establish their own armed forces. For example, the gold, tobacco, and tax departments.
Now that the Liberation Army had been reduced from more than 290,000 to about 220,000, China's standing army was still the world's largest. Lei Hu quickly understood that the purpose of the disarmament was to eliminate a large number of officers, so there was a lot of opposition among the officers. All kinds of opinions were also coming out.
"After the disarmament, we don't have enough troops. What can we do with 180,000 soldiers? If we go to war with the Americans, it won't be enough even if we throw all 180,000 soldiers to the United States … "
"The army now has 6 navies, and a lot of them are logistics units. It's been many years since we've encountered such a situation …"
"The army has a glorious history. It's not appropriate to cancel the designations of the units …"
Lei Hu wanted to appease the officers, but now, according to Ke Gongyu, Vézé's purpose was to target the officers. However, Lei Hu did not dare to fully believe it. He shifted his gaze from Ke Gongyu to Vézé. Those who were in charge of military affairs all looked at Vézé, hoping to hear Vézé's final explanation. None of the comrades who were involved in politics or who had left the army went to see Vézé. He just listened quietly.
"Soldiers grow up gradually. The reason why soldiers could become sergeants was because they could master military techniques and respond to the orders of their subordinates. The lower-level commanders were able to judge the situation on the frontline and command missions at a realistic level. The Intermediate Commander would design and discuss the combat level battle. The senior commanders were in charge of the actual execution of the military construction. At the highest level, the military commission designs the train of thought for the construction of the military. "Vézé explained the theory first, and the members of the military commission could basically understand it.
Without Vézé continuing, Lei Hu could already guess what Vézé wanted to say. Hu Chenghe, on the other hand, felt a sense of crisis. The military commission was in charge of the train of thought for the construction of the military, and a large part of Hu Chenghe's work was to carry out the construction of the military. In terms of real contribution to the train of thought, his contribution was very limited. In the past, it was Vézé who proposed the train of thought, Wei Changrong and the other training departments who carried it out, and Ke Gongyu's Instructional Brigade who trained the officers and carried out the operation of the army. Those commanders were actually only responsible for giving orders.
Vézé continued, "The equipment and training of our army have undergone great changes over the years, so some of the middle and senior comrades are unlikely to take on the work of building the army after so many years. At this time, we need to let younger comrades take on the work, and according to the current needs and the size of the army, we need to make our great army more effective. Disarmament is the external manifestation of this adjustment, but the internal manifestation will be more complicated. "
How could it not be complicated when one out of four people was to be laid off? It was easy to simply reduce the number of conscripts and retire normally at the same time. After two or three years, these hundreds of thousands of people would be laid off. The officers had their own jobs, and the higher their rank, the fewer posts they had. It was not so easy to persuade the corps commanders and division commanders who had served for 20 years to voluntarily retire.
Lieutenant Qi Rui's rank was far from this level. All the personnel who were willing to go to North America were first sent to Shenyang to receive training for the war in the north and experience the climate in the north. At least that was the plan.
But Lieutenant Qi Rui and Lieutenant Li Shaokang were told to prepare to go to North America immediately before they could even warm their butts in Shenyang. On the third day in Shenyang, a dozen trainees were sent to Vladivostok by train. After getting off the train, they were taken roll call, and the next day, they were stuffed into a large cargo ship to North America with dozens of trainees. This tormented the two young soldiers. Shenyang and Vladivostok were not warm at all at the beginning of January. There were only short-sleeved summer clothes and long-sleeved autumn clothes in their bags, and the rest was a military quilt. In the past few days, the two young people had a deep understanding of what the north was.
Fortunately, the lieutenant colonel on the same ship was very capable. Seeing that the group of young people were all dressed like this, he didn't have time to go to the logistics department to apply. He could only let the young people buy winter clothes, two thick quilts, and a blanket from the supply and demand store with their own money. The cargo ship was transporting steel rails, and the cargo hold was not full. The young soldiers finally set up a "training camp" after setting up tents on the relatively flat pile of steel rails.
After sleeping for a night, the young soldiers' evaluation of Lieutenant Colonel Deng improved a lot. They thought that such a large cargo ship would be warmer, but it was not the case at all. It was very cold inside the empty cargo hold. The portholes of those cargo ships could only provide some light, and there was no way to provide the warmth of the sun. Anyone in the tent with two layers of quilts could feel the chill. When they climbed out of the tent early in the morning, they immediately felt the cold outside the tent.
After breakfast, they did their routine morning exercises on the deck. The lieutenant colonel opened a class for these trainees who were no longer seasick. The first question was the impact of equipment in the war in the north.
"Equipment is very important when fighting in the harsh conditions of the natural environment. Have any of you experienced -20 degrees Celsius? "Lieutenant Colonel Deng asked.
The trainees looked at each other. Among this group of people, the northernmost was also from Henan, and occasionally experienced "extreme weather" of -10 degrees Celsius. Other than private communication, this group of trainees also introduced themselves. They were all recently promoted first lieutenants or soon to be promoted captain. If they were not fighting in Ceylon, then they were fighting in Southern Tibet. Needless to say, Assam, which was taken from the British, was not cold either. Everyone didn't know what the concept of sub-zero was for at least two years.
Seeing that no one responded, Lieutenant Colonel Deng continued, "Then everyone should be mentally prepared. In the six provinces of North America, it is common to have -20 degrees Celsius in winter. It is common to have -10 degrees Celsius in winter. In that kind of weather, the enemy is not only humans, but the weather is also a very important enemy. Every year, there are cases of people accidentally getting lost in the wild and getting frostbite or even freezing to death. "
The word "freezing to death" was too distant for these people who came from hot or warm areas. The opera "The White Haired Girl" sang that the north wind blew and the snowflakes floated. It was very common among the people, and everyone could hum a few lines. But freezing to death was completely beyond the imagination of this group of trainees. How cold did it have to be for a human to freeze to death?
During the break, Hu Xingzhi said in private, "Speaking of people freezing to death, I think of people being bitten to death by mosquitoes."
Lieutenant Li Shaokang and Second Lieutenant Zhou Shun, who had been drinking together, couldn't help but smile bitterly. The natural environment of this era was too terrifying. Young people who grew up in the city and hadn't experienced those harsh lives really couldn't quite understand how harsh those environments were.
Lieutenant Qi Rui said, "The people who came together this time seem to have just come from the battlefield, right?"
This question gave the young soldier an idea. There seemed to be at least seven to eight hundred people who went to the north for training, but only a hundred or so were stuffed into the cargo ship, and they were all young officers who had performed well in the war. What on earth had happened for them to be treated so differently? Why were they sent to North America in a hurry?
The young soldier didn't know what the reason was. The first element of eliminating troops was to determine who not to be eliminated. Those outstanding young officers were not included in the elimination. The training department of the Shenyang Military Region was ordered to first send those outstanding officers from the front lines to Vancouver to receive training in the north. As for the other personnel, they would have to go through a round of screening. This time going to the north meant a promotion, and promotion naturally meant an extension of the length of service. It was not only the soldiers who had just come out of the battlefield who were interested in this opportunity. The promotion might be more attractive to the soldiers who had not been on the battlefield.
"Will we fight when we get to North America?" Li Shaokang asked.
"That depends on which military region we are assigned to," Second Lieutenant Hu Xingzhi replied.
The Min dynasty had six provinces in North America: Alaska, Yukon, Arctic, Western, Central, and Eastern America. The Western, Central, and Eastern America provinces bordered the United States, which were the three provinces most likely to break out in war.
"Isn't it said that the military regions have been abolished? There are no military divisions in non-combat areas." Second Lieutenant Zhou Shun put forward his opinion. Now there were seven major military regions in the six regions of China, and only these seven military regions.
The purpose of the young people's discussion was for the war, but when the Military Commission discussed the military regions, it was a personnel struggle. Lei Hu sighed and said, "If there are military divisions, we can temporarily settle these old brothers."
Vézé sighed and said, "Since we have to abolish them, why do we have to do this?"
Lei Hu didn't agree with Vézé's idea. "Just let the commander of the military divisions do nothing. Everyone will just go home. It will always be sad."
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