Chapter 26: Who's Coming?

  January 22, 1925, the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, when the officers and soldiers of the Sixth Army should have been at home with their wives and children waiting for the Spring Festival, they were instead fighting fiercely against the Northern Expeditionary Army along the Grand Canal between Zaozhuang and Xuzhou in the freezing cold weather amidst swirling snowflakes.

  The northeastern troops had a considerable advantage in winter warfare, but the officers and men of the Sixth Division, who came from the Jianghuai Plain farmers, were high-spirited and fought very stubbornly, making the opposing Fengtian Army very surprised: "Isn't the opponent an expanded security team? Why does it feel like fighting against the Third Division?"

  The officers and soldiers of the Sixth Division were in high spirits for a reason. More than ten days ago, Gao Yang came to 1925 from his original time and space, and after arriving in Xuzhou, Gao Yang promulgated the Military Personnel Guarantee Law and the Demobilized Military Personnel Resettlement Law to all troops in the two provinces.

  The Military Service Act stipulates that all military personnel are conscripts, with a recruitment age starting from 18 years old. The term of service is ten years, and after completing the term of service, one can choose to retire or continue serving. The maximum age for soldiers' service is thirty years old, and for non-commissioned officers it is thirty-five years old; special posts may be extended by five years.

  During the service period, 10 yuan of silver was paid every month. Every five years, the salary increased by 5 yuan. Those who performed exceptionally well and had special talents could be recommended to take the exam for officer school. Officers could receive officer allowances. Special positions such as artillery, medical personnel, communication personnel, drivers, and ground crew had additional position allowances, generally half of the monthly silver pay.

  At the time of retirement, a lump sum severance pay can be received according to the length of service. For the soldiers under Gao Yang, this security bill made them very excited. Before the army had national honor, money was the only pursuit of the soldiers.

  The promulgation of the Veterans Placement Act immediately set off a stir among the officers and soldiers. The Veterans Placement Act stipulates that military personnel who are injured in training or combat and cannot continue to serve can receive a living security allowance issued by the army every month, and are exempt from any taxes for life.

  For military personnel who died in training or combat, apart from a one-time payment of funeral expenses to the relatives designated before death, their direct relatives will also be exempted from tax for 20 years. Those with underage children can receive living allowances according to the standard of regular military salaries every month until they reach the age of 18.

  Normally retired military personnel should be given priority by local governments in arranging work and can directly take up posts as local militia and police.

  These two bills are nothing unusual, but it's unusual that they appeared in China in 1925.

  In this era, most soldiers joined the army just to make a living. Except for a very small number of troops, almost all soldiers would have their military pay deducted by their superiors. However, since Gao Yang's army was established, such things had never happened. When they first marched out of Pengcheng, there were so many new recruits, but very few ran away, and not deducting their pay played a big role in this.

  In this era, when soldiers died, if the officers had a conscience, they would give some money to their families for burial. If not, they wouldn't care and the bodies would be left exposed in the wilderness, which was a common occurrence. Generally, it was the nearby villagers who buried them after the war. As for those who were injured but managed to survive, they could only rely on heaven.

  Most of the soldiers recruited by Gao Yang were rural youths, and their families were basically all dependent on them. The exemption from agricultural taxes was nothing to Gao Yang, but in the eyes of the soldiers, it was as big a deal as heaven itself!

  As an agricultural country, the agricultural tax has been the largest source of national revenue for thousands of years, and the burden on farmers is extremely heavy. People who grow rice generally can't even eat rice themselves. If Gao Yang can continue to implement this policy of exempting soldiers from agricultural taxes, then these soldiers from rural areas will defend Gao Yang with their lives!

  Inside the sixth division headquarters in Xuzhou, Gao Yang sat in front of the stove warming himself by the fire. More than 20 staff officers were busy dealing with military affairs. Although Gao Yang had a diploma from the German Army Military Academy, he had never actually attended classes and was completely clueless about military matters.

  Although I've seen many anti-Japanese dramas in the original timeline, if we were to fight based on what we saw on TV, that would be irresponsible towards our soldiers. So from start to finish, Gao Yang has adhered to the principle of letting professionals handle professional matters, leaving all military affairs to the staff officers and just sitting there as a figurehead.

  Most of the staff officers in the Gaoyang Division were specially recruited former German Army officers, as well as several biochemical warriors and excellent young officers selected from the entire army. The German staff with European war experience handled things in an orderly manner, from digging trenches to laying wooden boards to ammunition allocation ratios, all of which were taken care of by them.

  Gao Yang would often go down to the troops to boost morale and chat with the soldiers, asking them what they needed. The soldiers said it was too cold, so Gao Yang arranged for a large batch of cotton coats from Feng County's garment factory. The soldiers said they wanted to eat meat, so Gao Yang allocated canned pork from Feng County's food factory.

  He slowly drank his coffee from the ceramic cup on the stove. He chatted with Yuan in his mind, "Biochemical warriors are really too energy-consuming, it's hard to get some energy points and can't create many, what should I do?" High Yang complained. As the controller of the army, biochemical warriors did a great job. In the factory where professional talents were extremely lacking, biochemical warriors were also indispensable, and most of High Yang's energy points were spent on them.

  "In fact, you don't need to instill German language skills during manufacturing. All biochemical warriors have at least a bachelor's degree in knowledge accumulation. You can organize a training class to train them, and they can learn it in just a few months, which can save a lot of energy points."

  As soon as the words fell, Gao Yang's ceramic cup in his hand shook violently, and the scalding hot coffee spilled all over his legs. Scalded, Gao Yang suddenly jumped up, knocking over the chair, and threw away the cup in his hand, frantically slapping at the coffee on his legs. The orderly beside him rushed over to help, but Gao Yang roared, "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

  The soldier's face turned white with fear, but fortunately, Gao Yang calmed down and waved his hand at the soldier, saying "It's none of your business, go find me some sweet potatoes to roast." After walking back to the rear chamber to change into a new pair of pants, he complained to Yuan Dian, "Do you know how many energy points I wasted? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

  "I know, I just thought of it too. And you can also recruit local German speakers as translators, why do you have to use biochemical warriors?" Yuandian asked back.

  "In today's China, Chinese students who speak German are extremely rare, and they may not necessarily look down on me, this small temple, so it's better to use our own people." Gao Yang explained.

  "You now have a small number of soldiers under your command, what will you do when you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the future? Will you exempt all of them from agricultural taxes? This army is currently being supported solely with your own money, what will happen when the money runs out?" The original topic was changed.

  "Basically, they're all new recruits, how can the Germans and biochemical warriors fight? I'm short of time, not money. In an agricultural country, agricultural taxes are important, so I want to speed up industrial construction and replace agricultural taxes with industrial taxes. Have the things I ordered arrived in Leber Ville yet? With so many things being transported over, I'm afraid a lot of people will be paying attention to me." Gao Yang continued to change the subject.

  Back in the operations room, the duty soldier was putting several sweet potatoes on the stove, and Gao Yang's eyes lit up as he immediately stepped forward to take over. Gao Yang, who had loved roasted sweet potatoes since childhood, squatted beside the stove, staring intently at the sweet potatoes, putting everything else aside for the time being.

  The combat adjutant ran over to report to Gao Yang, "Commander, the troops stationed at Hanjiazhuang Bridge on the Tianjin-Pukou Railway Line have sent an enemy situation report. At around 11 o'clock this morning, a large battalion of Fengtian Army launched an attack on Hanjiazhuang Bridge under the cover of multiple artillery pieces and has now been repelled."

  "Hmm?" Gao Yang stood up and walked to the front of the map, where the military advisor pointed out the location of Han Zhuangzi Bridge. Although he didn't understand much about military affairs, he still knew the importance of this bridge. After a moment's thought, Gao Yang asked the advisors, "What do you think?"

  "Everywhere in the combat zone, Kurt. Bigler saluted and said, 'From the analysis of the exchange of fire over the past few days, the enemy has already lost its offensive momentum at the main position of Tai'erzhuang. The attack on Hanjiazhuang Bridge should be a probing one. They are looking for our weak points in defense. If the defensive force at Hanjiazhuang Bridge is not strong, the enemy will launch a large-scale attack on this place by afternoon at the latest.'"

  "En." Gao Yang looked at the map thoughtfully for a moment, then said "I'll go to the front line to take a look." After finishing speaking, he left the division headquarters and got on a truck under the escort of the guard troops to head towards Han Zhuangzi Bridge position.

  More than an hour later, Gao Yang arrived at the front of Han Zhuangzi Bridge. The second battalion, first company, and first platoon were stationed here, with the battalion headquarters also on the battlefield, providing artillery support from the fire support company. After entering the battalion command post, Gao Yang came to the high-powered telescope to observe the situation in front of him.

  A few days after arriving in Zaozhuang, Zhang Zongchang's troops launched multiple attacks on the Tai'erzhuang line of the canal. Zhang's cavalry was mostly unable to move on the frozen river surface and were severely defeated by the officers and soldiers of the Sixth Division using machine guns, and no cavalry dared to appear again.

  Afterwards, Zhang's troops were all under the cover of artillery fire, infiltrating and attacking in a scattered line. The officers and men of the Sixth Division, hiding in the trenches, generously swept the front lines with intense firepower, beating Zhang's troops into a state of utter defeat.

  Both sides had a day or more of artillery battles, and after Zhang's artillery was knocked out, morale plummeted, and there has been little movement in the past two days. What does it mean to suddenly take a detour to Han Zhuangzi Bridge for an attack? Gaoyang couldn't understand either.

  The phone rang, and the battalion commander answered it. After saying a couple of words, he reported to Gao Yang, "Commander, Colonel Kurt is looking for you." Gao Yang curled his lips and said, "Remember, it's called Kurt, not Colonel Ku." The battalion commander smiled, scratched his head, and handed the phone over to Gao Yang.

  "I'm Gao Yang." He picked up the phone and said, "Commander, I'm Colonel Biggle. After studying at the staff office just now, we found that the enemy may use Weishan Lake to launch a flank attack, and the attack on Han Zhuangzi Bridge is likely to be a decoy."

  "Huh?" Gao Yang was taken aback, a frontal assault and a flanking attack at the same time? When did Zhang Zongchang ever have such ability? It's not his style. Gao Yang was shocked, unable to speak for a moment.

  "No, this is not Zhang Zongchang's troops!" Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, Gao Yang thought of the key to the problem. "Where are the nearest reserve troops? The artillery? How many can support us here?" Gao Yang hastily shouted into the phone.