This time, their 399th Brigade said that they had struck it rich, and that wasn't an exaggeration at all!
It’s still better to attack big cities. If it were like before, small-scale skirmishes where you'd capture a few dozen rifles after a battle,
you wouldn't be able to accumulate such a vast fortune in a lifetime!
“Let me add this, among those dozens of pieces of machinery, there’s a complete bullet production line and a complete small and medium caliber artillery shell production line.
All we need is to find the raw materials and skilled workers, and we can put it into production.
Then, our 399th Brigade can use the bullets and artillery shells produced by our own factory.
We won't have to rely on luck anymore, always worrying that our captured ammunition will be less than what we consume!”
At this moment, Xiao Yun added another sentence, and the morale of everyone present soared like a roller coaster, reaching its peak.
They were even more excited about this news than they were when they captured so many weapons and equipment.
They could tell the difference between a full stomach and a full belly.
Having weapons and equipment without bullets and shells is only slightly better than a firewood stick!
Especially since the 399th Brigade's fighting style was extremely lavish, the number of bullets and shells consumed in each battle was astronomical for other Eighth Route Army units. (A brother mentioned that the 谐音 of 玐 is not good when split apart, so let's use numbers from now on.)
If they always relied on captured supplies, they might run out someday.
Then, the 399th Brigade would have a bunch of advanced weapons and equipment, but would have to fight like before, firing a few shots and then charging into battle with the Japanese to use bayonets.
This would waste their seasoned and experienced soldiers, who could be used as the backbone for expanding their forces!
.......................
The political commissar, Wang Yan, clenched his fist. Unlike the other regiment commanders, he was aware that one of the main strategic goals of the 399th Brigade's attack on Shuizhou City was to find a way to solve the ammunition logistics problem.
He had been a little worried before, after all, there were so many cities in Shanxi province, and even if they took Shuizhou City, they might not be able to capture the machine tools needed to produce ammunition.
Now, he could rest easy!
From now on, they would build their own arsenal and produce bullets and shells.
He wouldn't have to argue with the political commissars of other brother units at headquarters for the paltry amount of bullets and shells that were allocated to their headquarters arsenal.
...............................
Xiao Yun was also in a good mood, but not because of the bullet and small and medium caliber artillery shell production lines that he had revealed.
He had already known about those, so there was nothing to be surprised about.
What surprised him were the machine tools captured in Shuizhou City.
There was a complete set of power generation equipment, which wasn't powered by fire, but by hydropower, which was pretty good.
With this power generation equipment, they could provide a constant supply of electricity for the arsenal to produce bullets and artillery shells.
Besides the power generation equipment, the rest were mining and smelting equipment.
Although they couldn’t use it right away, most of the raw materials would need to be self-produced after the brigade's arsenal was built.
After all, it wasn't feasible to rely on external channels for procurement all the time!
First, it was expensive, and second, it was easy for the Japanese to blockade them and cut off their supply of raw materials.
If they mined it themselves, they wouldn’t have to worry about those things.
Right now, they were short of skilled workers and relevant experts.
Although Xiao Yun came from the future, he didn't know much about this, he was only a dabbler. Trying to oversee the construction of the arsenal would be like forcing Zhang Fei to embroider flowers.
............................
Xiao Yun clapped his hands, calling the attention of everyone in the conference room back.
“Alright, let’s talk about the captured grain and cloth. I plan to give each household in the base area 30 jin of grain and two jin of canned meat.
As for cotton cloth, there's not much, so we won't distribute it. Please help us make cotton coats for each soldier from the cotton cloth in the base area.
Winter is coming, and I see some of our soldiers are still wearing single-layer clothes. We can't let them freeze!”
“Also, send a batch of grain and canned meat to the headquarters, so that the commanders at headquarters can also improve their diet!”
“Also, including what we got from Lao Jiang and Yan Lao Xi, we have a total of more than 1.1 million silver dollars and foreign currency equivalent to 78,000 silver dollars.
I plan to give half of it to the headquarters. Any other opinions?”
Everyone shook their heads in unison. Whether it was distributing grain to the people in the base area or asking them to make military uniforms out of cotton cloth,
or handing over a portion of the grain, canned meat, and silver dollars, they would support it wholeheartedly!
This time, the headquarters had given them the greatest support.
They needed artillery talent, they got artillery talent, and they also arranged for other brother units to come to their aid.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to take Shuizhou City!