Start as a young leader, grow bigger and stronger, and create more glory

Xu Le: "Don't worry, don't I know this! After you went to participate in the training, my aunt came to me and said that she couldn't sit still and asked me to give her a job. You know, this is impossible to persuade. I thought, isn't my aunt's tailoring work very good? She has relied on this to support the family all these years.

So I asked her to be the factory manager of a bedding factory, managing hundreds of people. She doesn't have to work normally, and can only occasionally guide her subordinates on some technical skills!

Later, I thought that we couldn’t go back to the old ways, so I arranged for my uncle to work in the Quartermaster Department of the Logistics Department. He had a lot of interactions with my aunt at work, and I also wanted to see if I could help him get rid of his old-fashioned thinking.”

Zhu Zhaolan breathed a sigh of relief. His father was still strong and it didn't matter if he did some work. He was just afraid that his mother would overwork herself.

In fact, if Uncle Zhu Xiaoping can erase the old Tang's outdated ideas, Xu Le is still very optimistic about him.

Zhu Xiaoping was a smart man who could draw inferences from many things. It was also his fault that he was born at the wrong time. He passed the examination for a scholar at a young age. It would have been easy for him to pass the examination for a juren, and he had a great chance of passing the examination for a jinshi. He could have become an official at that time, but his path to the imperial examination was over.

It was precisely because of this incident that Zhu Xiaoping felt that God was unfair and that his life should not stop like this, so he could not let go of his identity and retained many ideas that should have been eliminated.

You know, many ordinary people in the Tang Dynasty were able to slowly adapt to the new society. Xu Le didn't believe that someone as smart as Zhu Xiaoping would not be able to keep up with the changes of the times. It was just that he had a knot in his heart that he couldn't untie.

Therefore, Xu Le arranged for Zhu Xiaoping to go to the Quartermaster Department for training. It is not too late to mend the situation. If things go well, he wants to place Zhu Xiaoping in the General Political Department in the future.

After all, he is my relative, so I can feel more at ease using him. Moreover, with Zhu Xiaoping's knowledge and experience, he is fully capable of shouldering that responsibility.

.........

As if knowing that Xu Le was busy expanding the army and as if he had arranged some spies, the matter of the 176th Division was almost done, and the special envoys of Commander Yan and Commander Wei actually came to visit together. The purpose was naturally to purchase arms that had been mentioned verbally last month.

This is the first time that Wei Lingling is buying, so the demand is relatively large:

A one-time purchase of 4000 SVT semi-automatic rifles, 20 2000-shot revolvers, 26 ZB500 light machine guns, 150 Type 20 heavy machine guns, 75 Type 36 infantry guns, and Bofors mm mountain guns.

It is worth mentioning that Commander Wei not only purchased SVT semi-automatic rifles, but also purchased 5000 Lee Enfield rifles.

Commander Yan only purchased 36 Bofors mountain guns.

Xu Le naturally met with the two special envoys. After all, both of them were representatives of hundreds of thousands of troops. However, the specific details of the arms transaction were handled by the Quartermaster Department and the Equipment Department.

When Xu Le learned about this situation, he was stunned for a moment, but he quickly figured out Commander Wei's plan.

Semi-automatic rifles are not something that ordinary people can afford, and even if they can, they can only afford many.

The 4000 SVTs are roughly the number of rifles that three infantry regiments of the National Guard are equipped with, plus the number of Mauser pistols and light and heavy machine guns. It is obvious that the commander of the National Guard wants to create a reinforced division, and a division with a full mountain artillery regiment.

The National Guard was indeed the richest army in the Tang Dynasty. Although the Jin Army bought a total of 4500 SVTs from it, 1000 of them were bought by the 89th Division out of its own pocket, and the remaining 3500 were bought by Commander Yan by tightening his belt.

Commander Wei ordered 4000 rifles at once, but that should be the limit, and 5000 Lee-Enfields is his compromise budget.

Its performance is not much better than that of the Zhongzheng rifle, but its ammunition capacity is a double magazine of 10 rounds. While the firing rate is doubled, it does not cause huge waste of firepower like the SVT.

But this time they were not trading with oceans or pig iron.

The two special envoys said that this matter could only be discussed with Xu Le alone. Curious Xu Le met with the two again. He was not worried that the guerrilla incident would happen to Commander Yan and Commander Wei.

It’s nothing, the pattern is different.

"You two, I heard that you plan to complete this transaction in another way, and you also said that I will definitely make a profit. Please tell me what it is!"

The two special commissioners looked at each other, and finally Commander Wei explained: "It's like this, my commander is going to give the young marshal a big gift!"

"Oh? A big gift?"

"Yes, based on previous transactions, my commander believes that the young commander has a great need for steel, so my commander wants to give the young commander a large iron mine!"

When he heard that it was iron mine, Xu Le's eyes lit up.

During this period he sent people to inquire, but unfortunately, there were no other iron mines around Xiangning and there was only one Meidongshan Iron Mine within a radius of 100 kilometers.

"Go on, where is the iron ore? How big is it?"

Commander Wei came to the map of Shanxi Province hanging on the wall and pointed to a location and said, "Fenxi Majiazhai, as for the scale, it is only slightly larger than the Meidongshan Railway!"

The Meidongshan Iron Mine was mined before the Japanese invasion, so it is no secret.

Xu Le thought about it and said, "I once sent someone to investigate Fenxi Majiazhai. There is no iron mine in the whole Fenxi. So when did Majiazhai have such a large iron mine?"

"It's not surprising that the young commander doesn't know. That's a new iron mine that the Japanese discovered last year. It was officially put into production this year. It has been operating in secret, and even the workers inside have been screened through various levels, so it's difficult for outsiders to know the information about this iron mine!"

Commander Yan looked at Xu Le's strange expression and interrupted him, saying, "Young Marshal may have wondered why so many arms purchased from you could pass through the enemy-occupied areas safely.

That's because most of the Japanese troops were deployed to the front line, and most of those responsible for patrolling and guarding were puppet troops. We were familiar with a division commander of the puppet army. We paid a little price and let him make arrangements with the rest of the puppet troops, so the munitions were transported out so easily!

The news about the Majiazhai Iron Mine was also overheard by this puppet army division commander, and our army spent a huge price to buy this information from him.

The reason why it took us so long to reach your headquarters this time is because we went to investigate the iron mine first!"

Xu Le was delighted. If that had been said, then there must be something, otherwise he wouldn't have brought it up. "I see. I was wondering how you guys were able to transport it out so easily. It seems like the Majiazhai Iron Mine is real!"

“Yes, but the place is heavily guarded and we dare not get too close, so we don’t know the details of the Japs’ deployment, but there must be a lot of overt and covert firepower points!

But this is like pulling teeth out of a tiger's mouth, so our two commanders dare not be arrogant, so we decided to exchange the information about the iron ore for this arms deal!"