NIP #221 - Five major bases
#221 - Five major bases
The Japanese devils' dormancy did not truly put Ren Zhong at ease. Ren Zhong knew that even as the entire Pacific War was drawing to a close, the Japanese devils had launched a desperate Ichigo Offensive. Judging from the current situation, the Japanese devils were not quite at the point of desperation.
Japanese devils who could swallow a major loss and remain still were definitely brewing a big move.
Perhaps the plans for the Ichigo Offensive were already being prepared in advance.
Therefore, the window of opportunity was even more crucial for Ren Zhong. The Japanese devils were like springs; the longer they were compressed, the more violently they would rebound.
Coupled with the Japanese devils' usual basic tactic of going all in, if they brewed a final, ultimate move, the Japanese devils would pour out their entire fortune for a final struggle. In that final frenzy, the Japanese devils' troop deployment would be unprecedented.
In the original timeline, the Japanese devils' Ichigo Offensive tore away the flimsy disguise of the GMD's millions of troops, sweeping from Henan all the way to Annam. Six provinces and 146 cities fell, and over 200,000 square kilometers of land were occupied by the Japanese devils.
The GMD army's collapse triggered widespread criticism among the Allied forces, leading to complete international disappointment with the GMD. This unprecedented rout changed the war situation in Northeast Asia, causing the Allied forces to abandon hope that the GMD could defeat the Japanese devils, instead placing their hopes on the Great Bear.
The million-strong Great Bear's deployment to the Northeast stemmed from this very point.
For the Dragon Country, this was an extremely humiliating defeat, and it lost too many benefits because of this failure.
Not only was the entire industrial infrastructure of the Northeast swept away by the Great Bear, but it also lost the genuine respect of a great power as a result.
In the original historical timeline, the republic, which had not yet completed its reconstruction from a blank slate, was forced to fight a bloody battle in Korea to re-establish its reputation.
For Ren Zhong, the reason he risked launching the Three Mountains battle in Jin was to use his best efforts to transform these resources into the strength of the Eighth Route Army, and then use his own methods to prevent this disaster from happening.
In order to gain strategic initiative, Ren Zhong had to, before the Japanese devils launched the Ichigo Offensive, create over a thousand tanks, hundreds of warplanes, and at least 100 fully equipped Type A regiments for the Eighth Route Army!
Only with such strength could the Eighth Route Army completely rely on itself, without depending on the already rotten GMD, to take on everything in North China!
However, Ren Zhong had no way to mention any of these things to anyone at the moment.
Even to Staff Officer Ye, he could only talk about the importance of the Three Mountains (Lüliang Mountains, Wutai Mountains, Taihang-Taiyue Mountains) base construction, using the construction of the Three Mountains base to provide mineral and human resources for the Eighth Route Army's arms production explosion.
But the deepest reason behind it was Ren Zhong's preparation for the major changes of the Ichigo Offensive.
According to Ren Zhong's plan, when the Japanese devils launched the Battle of Henan, the Eighth Route Army would suddenly strike, directly seize Jin, and then sweep across the North China Plain, forcefully cutting off the Japanese devils' Ichigo Offensive.
Only by initially hiding the trump card, keeping the steel torrent still, and waiting until the Japanese devils returned to the North China Plain, would this powerful steel torrent surge from Jin, giving the Japanese devils a harsh lesson on the North China Plain on what a steel torrent truly was!
The idea was very full, but to achieve all of this, Ren Zhong could not do it alone.
It was necessary to concentrate all the power of the Jin Eighth Route Army's new base areas, and through 24-hour non-stop high-intensity construction, utilize the hard work of millions of ordinary people, to have even a sliver of possibility.
After Ren Zhong provided the most extreme technical support for this sliver of possibility, it would depend on whether the Japanese devils could cooperate and leave a six-month time window for Ren Zhong's construction climax to bear fruit smoothly.
After Ren Zhong completed the construction of most of the key facilities of the electrolytic aluminum plant, he returned to the Liming Research Institute.
He began to fully organize the large-scale expansion plan for tanks.
Producing tanks required a large amount of mechanical equipment, and it was impossible to transport this mechanical equipment from the border area to the base area in its entirety. Although the channels connecting these base areas had now been opened, the traffic situation was really terrible.
The Japanese devils were not blind, and it was impossible for them to do nothing. They could launch attacks at any time without large troop escorts.
This part of the work had already begun. The Heyuan and Yangcun bases, which were fast-moving and had a good foundation, had now begun to mass-produce mechanical equipment for tank production lines.
The newly built Heyuan Machine Tool Factory and Yangcun Machine Tool Factory had gathered most of the mechanical workers from Taihang-Taiyue, and were fully committed to producing various types of standardized machine tools for the border area.
They not only produced equipment for Taihang-Taiyue, but also needed to take into account providing some for the northern Wutai base area.
As the weakest in strength and with the worst industrial base, the Wutai base area currently had no ability to produce its own machine tools, and had to rely on aid from the Jin Northwest Military Region and Taihang.
Fortunately, in the replication of this system in the border area, a complete set of technical reserves had been completed. From operating and maintenance manuals to the training of technicians, Ren Zhong, who was most familiar with the development of modern industry, summarized and compiled while experimenting. When a production line was built, a very practical manual was completed along with it.
Relying on this advanced awareness, Ren Zhong's frontier industrialization experiment is progressing very solidly.
It's not just the construction of the Three Mountains Base; now, facilities such as the Jiuyuan Steel Plant and Jiuyuan Machinery Plant, developed based on the Bayan Obo super mineral resource area, have already been put into operation. The expansion and opening of the Jiubian Highway and the mass production of G506 trucks, coupled with a large-scale fleet of 'Old Man Happy Dali King/Victory I' vehicles, have formed a close-knit entity between Jiuyuan, the Yikezhao League, and the border region. Now, it's possible to reach Jiuyuan from the border region in just one day and night!
As a steel base outside the Great Wall in the main world, in Ren Zhong's timeline, Jiuyuan's production capacity of pig iron, crude steel, and steel has reached 19.12 million tons, 22.2 million tons, and 19.62 million tons respectively. For Ren Zhong, this is the biggest reason why he would risk having the border region move north to occupy this crucial node of Jiuyuan.
If it weren't for the inconvenient transportation, Ren Zhong wouldn't have needed to launch the Three Mountains Base strategy in Jin Province, and could have focused on building the Saibei base.
However, the road transportation situation in Jin Province and the Japanese devils' control over the transportation lines forced Ren Zhong to separate his eggs.
To avoid attracting the covetous eyes of the Japanese devils after becoming too big and strong in one place. You should know that the Japanese devils might not care about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of tons right now.
But if a place builds up a steel production capacity of millions of tons, the Japanese devils would go crazy and desperately come, otherwise, they wouldn't be the Japanese devils who bet their national fortune at every turn.
The Nanyang area is occupied by international powers, which is like being worlds apart from the Japanese devils, but it didn't prevent their southward strategy, even going to war with several contemporary powers to take it down. Just because they have resources here that they can't get anywhere else.
If they could get millions of tons of steel resources in the grasslands, the Kwantung Army would definitely go crazy too.
Therefore, the construction of the Saibei base can be carried out, but Ren Zhong has to control the scale and develop it secretly.
In fact, apart from him, no one knows that this place can still support a steel production capacity of tens of millions of tons.
The construction that Ren Zhong is giving now is only tens of thousands of tons a year, the same as what he is doing in other places, aiming for practical benefits and developing in a low-key manner.
Even among the high-level officials of the Eighth Route Army base areas, Ren Zhong is currently the only one who knows the most about the development of production capacity in various places.
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So, after developing for so long, the intelligence departments of the Japanese devils and the Kuomintang have not yet grasped the potential of the military industry on the border region, although they have already seen some results on the battlefield.
But what is revealed now is only a very small part of the iceberg.
For example, the 107 rockets, the number that has always appeared in the hands of the Japanese devils and Kuomintang intelligence personnel is the concept of more than 100 units, but in fact, it has exceeded 500 units so far.
As for the 82mm mortars, not only the border region and Jin Province, but even the Jin-Cha-Ji region has achieved the universality of battalion and company equipment.
Now the Eighth Route Army has not achieved unified production registration, and the production is sent to different troops, which is actually Ren Zhong's deliberate operation for confidentiality requirements.
The less written information is formed, the less likely the information is to be leaked.
This is the experience Ren Zhong learned from the main world. To keep a secret, it is best not to form a secret.
To truly grasp combat effectiveness, Ren Zhong has completed the standardization of troops through three types of reorganized regiments: A, B, and C.
Coupled with a highly distributed military industrial production system, now, let alone the Japanese devils, even the border region and the base areas do not know the total production volume.
Just like Li Yunlong can rely on his proximity advantage to arm the Independent Regiment to the extent that it is unique in the entire base area. If unified management is truly achieved, it is impossible to achieve according to the standards.
For the real development of large-scale industry, this will of course have great drawbacks, such as each fighting on their own, repeated construction, low efficiency, unstable quality, and countless other shortcomings can be created.
But now is the era of war, and the biggest advantage of this system at present is that, on the premise that they themselves do not know how much military industrial production capacity has been built, how can the Japanese devils destroy the military industrial strength of the Eighth Route Army?
Therefore, Ren Zhong is currently adhering to the policy of military industry blooming everywhere. At the high level, he has been promoting, through Staff Officer Ye, that all base areas with resources should strive to build their own military industrial industries.
Even if it is just a simple iron smelting plant plus a landmine and grenade manufacturing plant, this is already the lowest technical level of the base area. An earthen blast furnace, a simple cylinder tower method sulfuric acid production line, and some simple equipment such as charcoal production can be built.
But it can greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the local armed forces.
Unreliable steel quality, but with reliable explosives, the lethality of these landmines and grenades is still very reliable.
It's much stronger than the kind that Ren Zhong made when he first came to the border area, which would shatter into several pieces when they went off.
After all, the production formula Ren Zhong gave them is real high explosives, not low-end explosives like black powder.
Time flies, like a white horse passing through a crack, and when it was time for the golden autumn harvest season again, Ren Zhong received good news from all over the place one after another!
First update!