Military Affairs

The conference went on for almost the entire day, and only when the sun had set was everything wrapped up. Even still, many matters had not been decided. The concrete action plans had not yet been laid. At least they had managed to assign jobs for everyone and established a preliminary governing structure, and confirmed the direction that their preparation should go. Everyone knew what they were to do from now on.

A sense of eager excitement permeated everyone’s heart. The committee had made a rule that no one could talk about their plans after leaving the office building for reasons of confidentiality. However, the groups of people walking along the outdoor tracks along the yard were all whispering about the meeting and various opinions. Some seemed to already have become fast friends and were venting their dissatisfactions to each other.

There were various reasons for this dissatisfaction: the development plans of a certain industry, the equipment list, or maybe even just rumours about someone else’s relationships. However, there was nothing in the world that could make everyone happy.

The Executive Committee, still drunk on the high of a successful conference, naturally didn’t realise these security shortfalls. At this time, the Executive Committee was talking to the Sports Group.

The so-called Sports Group, although currently in charge of the physical training of the travellers, was actually the predecessor of an organisation with a more violent lean. The name was just to mislead.

During the entire day’s meeting, the Sports Group only listened in. In fact, this was a special arrangement from Wen Desi beforehand, one of the three heads of the Executive Committee. The scope of work of the Sports Group was too sensitive and not suitable for public knowledge, even for members that formed the technical backbone.

The current leader of the Sports Group was a sales manager. Of course, this was not the real reason why he became the leader. In reality, he was a retired officer of the army, a graduate of the ranger school, and had served as a company commander in the field, and also worked as a staff officer. He was currently the most experienced military officer among the time travellers.

He had a super cool name, Xi Yazhou.

Most of Xi Yazhou and the other members of the Sports Group were retired soldiers. There weren’t many people, but their discipline and temperament from through their service could still be clearly felt. Xi Yazhou introduced the faces of the Sports Group.

“Chief Wen, this is Bei Wei, from the reconnaissance brigade of the XX region.”

“This is Wu De, from the Marine Police.”

“And this is He Ming.” Xi Yazhou introduced the oldest member respectfully. “He was an infantry company commander during the Two Mountains war, and received merits for his service…”

This introduction made everyone present awed, and look differently at the old veteran who was nearing fifty years old. He had dark skin, short hair with a few streaks of grey, and sat with his back straight.

After hearing Xi Yazhou’s introduction, He Ming waved his hand, “Little Xi, why are you talking about this! What’s so special about a soldier going to war?”

It seems there are still many honest people among the older generation of soldiers, Xiao Zishan thought.

“Most of us time travellers are laymen in terms of military affairs.” Wen Desi weighed his words, “Although many people have a deep understanding of weapons and theory, in the end, these are all on paper. There are not many who have actually served in the army and fired a weapon in anger. So, I want to hear any ideas from the Sports Group. After all, you are the professionals.”

“Well, I need to confirm first how many people will be coming with us? How many of them would have done military or militia training?”

“It’s hard to say in the end. Maybe around 500 people? There will be about 10 people apart from you four who would have any prior military experience.”

“Then we would have to take the route of universal military service.” Xi Yazhou said. “Such a small population base cannot maintain a usefully sized professional standing army.” He paused. “Fourteen people… even if we were all Rambo, would not be enough. We would have to conduct comprehensive training involving everyone.”

“Including the women?”

“Yes, even women, maybe apart from Aunty Tian. How about this: men of all ages, and women below 40?”

“What sort of training?” Xiao Zishan thought that it would surely not be like the military cadetship like in university.

“We’ll have to make a special training regimen.” Xi Yazhou thought for a while. “After all, the environment we are facing is unprecedented for modern military doctrine. So, we would need to modify the usual training content. But the basics would probably be similar. Initial training would be formations, marching and trench digging. Then of course firearm maintenance and marksmanship, and maybe some simple hand-to-hand fighting.”

“Beyond just universal boot camp, we should also form a small 15 to 20 person platoon mainly composed of veterans. This elite group would be responsible for reconnaissance and scouting work, and would be a standing army. Then, the Sports group will take in some young men with better physical fitness for more comprehensive training, forming a militia unit of about 50 people.”

“These 50 people cannot leave their main job.”

“Of course,” Xi Yazhou said, “that’s why they’re just a basic militia. With their extra training they will serve as the backbone force in any larger battle.”

“How long would training take?”

“Basic training would take 30 days. The militia, maybe 90 days in total. If there are really good candidates I’d honestly want to train them until the moment we cross.” Xi Yazhou did some quick calculations while listening.

“In addition, physical training should be ongoing: long-distance running at the very least every single day. Keeping up basic fitness both here and there would be crucial to ensure that we have a reliable military reserve at all times. The sports team is responsible for conducting all training, I suppose, including firearms and live-firing. Hmmm, we’d have to find another place. Are there any shooting clubs here?”

“I think there’s one in this county, which is specially geared towards visitors from Hong Kong.”

“That’s good. Unfortunately, guns themselves aren’t easy to get.” Xi Yazhou sighed. “The bullets in these clubs would be far too expensive, so everyone can probably only get familiar with the feeling, and we can’t really work on marksmanship at all.”

Xiao Zishan shifted on his feet uneasily. It seemed that what followed would be some very sensitive information.

“The issue with weaponry is indeed hard. Such matters are way too sensitive.”

“Can you get a real gun?” Wang Luobin pushed on. Although he had claimed to have made many guns in Zhanyu’s machine shop, they were all made from ordinary steel after all, and there was a huge difference between them and the guns made by real gunsmiths.

“It’s possible.” Xi Yazhou had a little understanding of this matter. “But it’d be better to drop this idea. The possibility of stuff going wrong is too high, it’s not worth the risk.”

“Then we would have to rely on the Industrial Group to make them ourselves.” Wang Luobin was a little disappointed.

“Do we make it on this side?”

“We do have the equipment, the workers, and the materials aren’t hard to buy over here. The things we make would definitely not be worse than from Hualong.”

Wen Desi shook his head. “This is still too risky. Illegal firearms are the focus of crackdowns. If we do this the police will come busting down our door in a few days.”

“Then what should we do? We can’t get any weapons then.”

“How about exchanging some fakes for real ones from the shooting club?” Someone had a wild idea.

“Then we might as well go steal from the army then!” Xiao Zishan objected.

“Chief Wen, can you roughly tell me how many weapons we have right now?”

Wen Desi hesitated. What he had was enough to be sent straight to jail. But Xi Yazhou was after all the future captain of their military arm, so he had to show some sincerity.

“Only a few things.” Wen Desi hadn’t ever committed it down on paper, but had it all in his head.

Currently they could confirm more than ten hunting rifles of various types, including some single-action and some with clips, with calibers gauges across 12, 16 and 20. All of them were old domestic brands, such as Dove, Eagle, Flying Dragon and Double Rings. These were all left behind by hunters in the past. They came equipped with a complete set of accessories such as cartridges, primers, and bullet loaders, but the guns themselves were generally old. Some had even seen more than 30 years of use.

The only two that could be considered real rifles were two Emei small-calibre sports rifles. They were in good condition and also came with a small box of ammunition and a proper sight.

There was also an East German hunting rifle chambered in 8x57 mm that came with a few empty cartridges but no gunpowder.

Otherwise there were several Shanghai made Type 64s, one of which had a sight.

“None of them are real guns.” Someone sounded quite disappointed.

“I think it’s very good. Hunting birdshot can reach 35 metres in range, and a slug maybe 7. The effect wouldn’t be inferior to flintlock and are one generation ahead of matchlock. The main advantage is our rate of fire.” Xi Yazhou wasn’t disappointed. “Small-calibre sports rifles are very accurate and also have sights. We can use them as sniper rifles to neutralise important enemy targets at range. I remember that the effective range of such rifles might be up to 200 metres.”

“The lethality is low though right? Most of our enemies would be wearing body armour.”

“Where would they get so much armour? Maybe a shoddy uniform at best.”

“That’s the Qing Dynasty, the Great Ming wasn’t so sloppy with their armies…”

When someone was about to launch into an argument about historical armour, a low voice came from the back of the group.

“Just aim for the head. Clean, simple, lethal.”

That was Bei Wei who spoke, a sturdily built ranger who had been expressionlessly sitting there since the meeting started. Everyone collectively shuddered.

Xi Yazhou nodded. “How about our enemy’s equipment? We need our history guys to do some research. The intelligence team should give us a table estimating the military strength of various forces in the late Ming: their combat power, weapons, equipment, tactics and methods, examples of previous engagements, and so on. This intelligence is crucial so that we can make detailed and targeted response plans.”

“Got it.” The intelligence team agreed.

Then, everyone went over the details again. The issue of weapons was complicated by their current circumstances, so they decided to collect some intelligence first and then return to the problem later.