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Just by replenishing a regiment's vehicles and walkie-talkies, the balance of military merit points dropped sharply to 2.

The next day, Xu Le distributed the walkie-talkies and then led the 667th Regiment and the puppet army prisoners back to the Fanzhuang Command Headquarters.

The garrison of Zhaozhuang is still under the charge of the 666th Regiment.

Xu Le is now beginning to worry about the Zhaozhuang Iron Mine because he has received a report that there is not much iron ore left that can be mined.

It’s not that the reserves of Zhaozhuang Iron Mine are gone. Its predicted iron ore reserves are at least 150 million tons.

But that is just the reserves, not the amount that can be mined. Most of it is buried deep underground or extends to the nearby Flaming Mountain.

With current industrial technology, further mining is impossible. If forced mining is carried out, the degree of danger will increase countless times.

The Zhaozhuang Iron Mine was first mined by the Shanxi Army more than 20 years ago, until the Japanese took over later. Currently, the remaining amount that can be mined is less than 1000 tons, and because of the increased difficulty, the last bit of output will decrease month by month.

Xu Le finally understood why the Japanese refinery in Xinjiang had to be relocated, because this place was going to be empty.

Even if all 1000 tons of iron ore were mined, they could only be exchanged for 100 million military merit points.

It may seem like a lot, but if you buy Type 69 main battle tanks, it is not enough to fully staff a tank regiment!

"Forget it. It was originally a looted iron ore. There are still many small iron ore mines like this in Shanxi Province. If this one is empty, we can take down another one! Otherwise, the Japanese wouldn't have transported the equipment from Xinjiang so early. They must be needed somewhere else!"

.....

"Young Marshal, you're back. Are you hurt anywhere? Are you tired? Your face is dirty. Let me wash it for you!"

As soon as he returned to Fanzhuang, Xu Le went back to his bed and prepared to have a good sleep. However, he had not lay down for a minute when the two maids, Xiaohuan and Xiaocui, came in with hot water.

"I've only been gone for two days, and I have a guard team here, so nothing will happen!"

Xiao Cui wrung out the towel and wiped Xu Le's face, complaining: "You, they are all grown men. No matter how good they are at fighting, can they take care of others?"

Xiao Huan took off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. She pinched Xu Le's shoulders and complained with a pout, "Yes, you are the young marshal and a lieutenant general. It's ok for you to go to the battlefield in person, but how can you not have a maid to serve you? No, from now on, we two sisters have to stay by the young marshal's side!"

"That won't do!" Xu Le interrupted hastily, "Do you know what a battlefield is? People can die if you're not careful. Do you think this is a child's play? You can go if you want, and come back if you want!"

"But Marshal, I feel sorry for you. The army is full of grown men, and you're with them all day. What should Xiao Cui and I do?"

...

Xu Le took a lot of effort to convince the two girls not to follow him, not because he looked down on women.

A great Chinese once said: Women hold up half the sky.

In this war-torn era when men joined the army to defend their country, women in many families took on the responsibilities of the family, taking care of the children, raising the elderly, cultivating the fields, etc.

When it comes to strength, many men are probably no match for rural women.

However, due to physiological problems, women are naturally inconvenienced. If they go to the front line, they will become the enemy's main target of attack. Once captured, the torture they suffer is unimaginable.

Especially now the enemies we are facing are the Japanese devils with beastly hearts in human form.

The people were convinced, but the two girls insisted on coming together.

Xu Le, who wanted to have a good sleep, was attacked from both sides, and the attack did not stop until midnight.

"It is said that women are like wolves at 18 and tigers at 36. But my two girls are only years old. Do they count as when added together? Not to mention, their skills are pretty good, and I don't need to move! Let's get some sleep first, and do some morning exercises when the sun rises!"

......

The training of the new recruits' regiment was completed, and it inherited the number of the 388th Regiment of the original 665th Brigade.

Although the 176th Division is now an independent unit, the Military Commission has set restrictions on them, and the troops are divided into 22 units.

This means that the 176th Division can only have 2 brigades, each brigade can only have 2 regiments, a total of 4 regiments. The excess establishment will not be given an official number and will not be recognized. The Military Commission will provide the 4th Division with military pay and weapons and equipment supplies based on the establishment of 176 regiments at most.

However, Xu Le never cared about the pitiful military pay and equipment, otherwise the first thing he would have done after waking up would not have been to merge the troops, merging the two small regiments into a large regiment of more than 3000 people.

Nowadays, many brigades of the Tang Dynasty army have only more than 3000 people.

The reason why he expanded the infantry regiment was to provide sufficient ammunition replenishment, build a complete motorized force, and compare the firepower of an infantry regiment to that of a Japanese division.

In terms of the military quality of the soldiers, the 176th Division is certainly not as good as the Japs, but we don't fight with bayonets, nor do we use any sophisticated military strategies. We rely entirely on endless and powerful firepower.

It’s about using one force to defeat all enemies!

Of course, even if the troops now have automatic rifles and MG42 general-purpose machine guns, they still cannot compare with a Japanese division.

Because the firepower is dense, the damage of the firepower is not great enough, and there is still some gap in large-caliber mortars and large-caliber artillery.

But at least it can be guaranteed that a regiment can fight against the Japanese division on equal terms. We just need to wait until the troops are fully staffed as a division, and then replace the mortars and howitzers.

By then, the combat effectiveness of the 176th Division will rise to a higher level!

In order to speed up the next battle and reduce the dispersion of troops, Xu Le sent the 665th Regiment to Zhaozhuang to temporarily serve as miners, on the one hand to speed up the mining of iron ore, and on the other hand to continue to strengthen the physical fitness of the soldiers.

The second group of returning home team also set off as scheduled. Because they had a safe and stable route, this time they carried tens of thousands of dollars in military pay and thousands of letters from home.

Although the escort team was no longer needed, in order to ensure accuracy, the General Staff and the Logistics Department jointly formed a platoon of veterans to escort along the way.

Some were happy and some were worried. Everything in the 176th Division was going on in an orderly manner, and the Japanese began to wonder.

First, at the border between the Jin Army and the Japanese in Yongji and Yuxiang, for unknown reasons, the 88th Division of the Jin Army and a brigade of the United Nations Defense Force launched several waves of harassing attacks on the Japanese front-line positions.

At first, the Japanese thought that the 88th Division had gone crazy, and that a mere 2 men dared to confront their elite troops head-on. So the Japanese did not take it too seriously and simply ordered the front-line troops to fight on their own.

But things took a big turn. After several days of confrontation, the Japanese lost a battalion of troops, while the Jin Army lost less than two battalions, and the casualties were almost the same.

Moreover, the Japanese discovered that the firepower of the Jin Army suddenly became stronger, and the gunshots seemed wrong. They were not the common Hanyang and Zhongzheng types, and the density of the artillery fire was also a bit higher.

When the Japanese began to take the situation seriously and prepared to dispatch their main divisions to meet the enemy, the Jin Army restrained itself and retreated back into its defense line.

After a few minor frictions, the two sides ended the matter hastily!

The casualties were one to one, and this was a powerful Type B division. This was a great humiliation for the Japanese.