Early the next morning, the 37th Cavalry Regiment was ordered to set off first and act as the vanguard of the entire army.

The departure of the army is naturally not something that can be done just by walking, but requires detailed arrangements. Guo Chengyong, as the deputy battalion commander of the 3rd Cavalry Battalion and the sentry officer of the 2nd Cavalry in the Cavalry Regiment, started making arrangements before dawn.

Various matters.

After breakfast and other matters were prepared, he followed the battalion commander, Major Xu Wenshan, to assemble troops in the open space of the camp, and then left the camp and headed west.

After the army officially set off, Guo Chengyong could not be idle. He not only needed to command and lead the actions of the 2nd Cavalry Post directly under him, but also needed to serve as the deputy battalion commander and contact the regiment headquarters on behalf of the 3rd Battalion to determine the specific march of the 3rd Cavalry Battalion.

Route, coordination with other cavalry battalions, etc.

After a day's march, he had to be busy arranging camp affairs, and arranging sentinels to conduct peripheral exploration, security and many other camp affairs.

As for the battalion commander, Major Xu Wenshan, he will naturally not handle these trivial matters personally.

However, although he is tired and needs to deal with many trivial matters, Guo Chengyong will not feel bored. On the contrary, he is quite happy - because this is an important step for front-line cavalry officers to continue moving up. Other cavalry officers want this

There is no chance yet.

Generally speaking, in the Dachu Empire, if you want to be promoted to chief officer, you must first serve as an adjutant for a period of time. The military rarely says that it will directly promote the commander of the next level of troops to the previous one.

The commander-in-chief of the superior force.

There is both a gap in military ranks and a huge difference in command strength. Therefore, there is a transition of positions, among which serving as an adjutant to a higher-level unit is the most common.

The cavalry unit has a slightly special organization. There are only two cavalry sentries in the cavalry battalion. The number of troops is small and the organization is simple. In addition to the battalion commander, it is naturally impossible to arrange a deputy battalion commander. Therefore, the cavalry unit arranges a senior captain to serve as deputy battalion commander.

The battalion commander also serves as a sentry officer.

These senior sentry officers are often the next batch of candidates for promotion.

Cavalry sentry officer, cavalry sentry officer and deputy battalion commander, and then battalion commander. This is a very common promotion route for frontline officers in the cavalry troops of the Great Chu Empire.

This is how Major Xu Wenshan came here before, and Guo Chengyong is also following this route. If everything goes well, and he achieves some military exploits, Hu Guo Chengyong will be able to serve as a cavalry battalion in a few years.

Battalion Commander, and was promoted to Army Major.

Guo Chengyong is quite looking forward to this. An army major in his early thirties is considered young and promising no matter where he is.

After nightfall, after all camp affairs were arranged, Guo Chengyong, battalion commander Xu Wenshan and another sentry officer, Captain He Tianyu, the sentry officer of the first cavalry sentry, each sat on a simple folding stool, surrounding

A small wooden table was set up temporarily to eat.

The food on the temporary wooden table is very simple. In a few iron lunch boxes, there are a few canned meats and canned fruits, as well as some pickles and sauerkraut. The staple food is noodles.

When marching outside, it is naturally impossible to eat as well as in the camp.

Even officers eat a variety of canned food when marching in the field, mostly compressed dry food.

This is limited by practical conditions... Marching in the prairie or Gobi Desert, or even in the desert, you still want to eat rice or even home-cooked vegetables... Why not go to heaven.

The reason why I was able to make noodles to eat was because I had just set out not long ago and had not entered enemy territory yet, and the flour I carried had not gone bad or moldy.

If you enter an area where enemies are active, you will really have to live with all kinds of canned food, fried noodles, and beef and mutton every day.

As for rice... you can't find much rice in the entire Yining area. There are currently no rice-producing areas in Turpan Province. Several large oases and even the most important Yining Valley area mainly grow wheat.
p>

Although some people from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are thinking about trying to grow rice in places such as the Yining River Valley, that is a matter for the future.

The only staple foods currently supplied locally are wheat and corn.

It’s not impossible to eat rice, but you can only buy rice that has been transported thousands of miles from behind, and the price is sky-high!

Limited by the types of local food output, the units of the First Army garrisoned in the Yining area naturally have what they can eat. They are fine when they are in the camp. Their daily food and drink are actually no different from ordinary people, including steamed buns, steamed buns, noodles and other pasta.

Mainly.

When leaving the camp to march and fight, you can only eat mainly fried noodles, plus various canned food and fresh beef and mutton.

Fried noodles, this is a traditional military ration in China, and people were still eating it even during the Korean War.

By the way, this thing is not noodles... but a kind of powdered dry food made directly from flour. The advantage is that it is easy to store and convenient to eat. The disadvantage is that like almost all dry food, it does not taste good. In fact, it tastes both.

Fortunately, the key is that this thing must be eaten with water, otherwise it will be impossible to swallow.

Why is there an allusion about fried noodles with snow? It’s because you need water to eat this food, otherwise you won’t be able to swallow it... And when the war is fierce, there may not even be time to boil snow into water, so many soldiers simply stuff it into water.

Put a handful of snow into your mouth and wait for the snow to melt into water before taking a bite of fried noodles.

In addition to fried noodles, there are also various canned meats, canned water and compressed dry food. These are more popular among soldiers than fried noodles, but the relative cost is also higher, so the military provides fried noodles as well as various canned foods.

Compressed dry food.

Speaking of this compressed dry food, we have to talk about the Buller thorns of the nomadic people. The Chu army’s compressed meat cans were improved based on this thing.

This thing was born out of the Buller thorn of the early nomadic people, but the process technology has been improved, but the basic principles are still the same, they are all types of dehydrated and compressed dry food.

The basic steps are to slaughter the cattle in the military grain factory at the rear, select the beef with less fat, dehydrate it, crush it and compress it with mechanical equipment... and finally use horseshoe cans for final packaging and high-temperature sterilization.

This damn thing is hard and unpalatable, but it has to be said that it is light in weight and provides sufficient calories, allowing soldiers to survive longer than ordinary canned meat that has not been compressed.

And the most important thing is that it can be stored for a long time... After the military purchases it, it can stock up in large quantities without worrying that the shelf life will expire after one or two years of purchase.

The Army is fine, but many of the Navy's warships are rationing cans of compressed beef, some of which are even more than ten years old.

Because the frontline soldiers had great objections to various types of compressed dry rations, the Army also adopted a large-scale supply of fresh cattle and sheep for military rations on the Western Front!

To put it bluntly, it is to let the frontline troops directly bring a large number of cattle and sheep to the battlefield, graze them while fighting, and kill them and cook them immediately when the meal is served!

In order to solve the problem of food supply for the troops on the front line, especially on the front line in the Western Regions, the Army of the Dachu Empire made a lot of efforts and used various methods.

Various flavors of fried noodles, various flavors, different types of cans, and now compressed cans, etc. In addition, we have also developed industrially produced biscuits based on a snack in Europe, that is, biscuits.

Used as military rations.

So far, the development of military rations in the Da Chu Empire has evolved from early fried noodles and primitive cans to various compressed dry foods.

Now is a transitional period, so the military has a variety of military rations at the same time.

Although many of the military rations are not very good, especially fried noodles, some compressed dry food, and some relatively primitive dehydrated and air-dried foods, such as bacon and the like, are not popular with the soldiers, but the various fresh canned foods are an exception.<

/p>

Non-compressed cans made of various fresh meats, as well as various canned fruits, are very popular among soldiers... Of course, this is limited to cans made of fresh ingredients without additives.

Not the bad cans from Donglin Trading Company that are exclusively for export.

Let’s not talk about whether the damn thing will kill you due to poisoning. If we just talk about the taste, it’s actually not that good. When I first ate it, I thought it was like that, with a bit of a meaty taste... But if you eat too much, it will

It makes people feel disgusting.

In the past year, there has been news that Donglin Trading Company is preparing to build a so-called new cannery to produce cans that meet domestic food safety standards, and then supply the domestic market and even want to enter the military procurement system.

For this reason, it has encountered opposition from many grassroots soldiers and even officers.

However, although there is considerable opposition from the grassroots, the senior military officials are very interested in the so-called 'national standard version of special flavor canned meat' proposed by Donglin Trading Company.

The reason is very simple, this thing is cheap, only about one third of the price of fresh pure canned meat.

Moreover, the safety standards of all aspects of the national standard version of the special flavor canned meat are within the legal range. People from Donglin Trading Company patted their chests and said, this thing will definitely not kill anyone!

However, despite this or that problem, the military rations of the Dachu Empire can still be proudly said to be the best in the world, and are absolutely incomparable to other indigenous countries.

Every day in the camp, there is enough noodles, bread or white rice, and often meat. There are also abundant fruits and vegetables. The daily diet is much better than that of ordinary people in China.

Even during marching operations, the logistics department will try its best to maintain the supply of fresh food. If fresh food cannot be supplied, a sufficient supply of various military canned or dry food will be provided. Whether it tastes good or not is another matter, but the portion is definitely sufficient.

of.

This Western Expedition to the Kazakh Khanate was no exception. The logistics department prepared a large amount of supplies. The logistics warehouse in Yining area was filled with five warehouses filled with canned fresh beef!

There are even more supplies of other types of military rations, including various canned fruits and vegetables, as well as various compressed dry rations.

In addition, the frontline soldiers were provided with fresh meat. The logistics department also prepared a large number of live cattle and sheep to march with them so that they could eat fresh meat while on the front line.

In addition to the food for the soldiers, a large amount of food rations for the large number of military horses was also prepared.

Sufficient supplies are enough to maintain 50,000 troops and tens of thousands of horses for at least half a year of fighting.

In terms of material supply, the logistics supplies for this Western Expedition to the Kazakh Khanate were more than those for the previous Western Expeditions against Zhungar.

When Zhungeer was attacked, material supplies were actually very scarce. However, because Zhungeer had a lot of troops, the Chu army also used a lot of troops. At most, it even used more than ten or two hundred thousand troops.

In terms of the logistics supply capacity of the Chu army in the Western Regions, it was actually not enough to supply such a large army. Therefore, many troops were often fed and hungry when marching and fighting, and under special circumstances they would kill soldiers and horses.

Eat.

However, this time during the Western Expedition to the Kazakh Khanate, the number of troops deployed was only about one-third of that of the previous Western Expedition to Jungar. However, the rations for the soldiers and horses provided were more than those of the previous Western Expedition to Jungar.

This was due to the Chu Empire's control of the large oases in Turpan. The most important thing was its control and development of the Yining Valley area.

This place is a very rare area in the Western Regions that is suitable for large-scale reclamation and development. The Ili River and the plains in the valley area have made this place the largest and most important granary of the Chu Empire in the Western Regions.<

/p>

Some people call it Jiangnan beyond the Great Wall!

It is precisely with the food support from the Yining River Valley that the Chu Empire can station a large number of troops outside the Great Wall for a long time, and at the same time be able to supply an increasing number of new immigrants.

As of the twenty-eighth year of Chengshun, the Yining Valley alone had a population of more than 50,000, and these more than 50,000 people refer to the ethnic population.

This does not include soldiers. In fact, in the Yining River Valley, more people are stationed here. The various units of the First Group Army that are also conducting military reclamation have more than 60,000 troops stationed here for a long time, including one first-class division and two
To be continued...