, The yang rice under it is very dazzling, but it is not hot, the mountain wind blows from the north Zhen Jue is very comfortable, although he will not feel cold when he wears a shirt, but if he adds a military jacket, he will definitely not feel hot.

Lieutenant Colonel Francis, still wearing the half-worn British Army summer uniform and a stiff helmet, reclined on a chaise longue in a very comfortable position, holding a military telescope equipped with British Army equipment in his hand, leaned in front of his eyes, and carefully looked at the mountain pass to the north.

The sound of artillery had ceased for a while, but there were still no suspicious targets in sight on the other side of the pass, which made Lieutenant Colonel Francis somewhat strange, because according to the order just conveyed by the headquarters, the Chinese had broken through the last line of defense of the Tashkent guerrillas and were coming from that ancient trade route, and the target was this city, a city on the west bank of a tributary of the Syr Darya.

Francis put the telescope back on the ammunition box next to him, then stood up, walked to the edge of the roof, and looked down, the British soldiers were still busy arranging artillery positions in the open space behind the house, and the Indian soldiers were dragging a mountain gun into the position, and there was no doubt that the British commander in the city had probably made up his mind to fight the squadron face to face here.

"Crazy guys

Francis muttered, and he didn't blame him for commenting on the British commander so much, the reason is very simple, because just yesterday, dozens of Chinese bombers carried out a fierce bombardment of several logistics warehouses near Tashkent, and successfully destroyed those ammunition depots that had almost no concealment measures, in that brilliant fireworks, a large number of British-made shells turned into ashes, in this case, the British artillery may only be able to count the shells one by one, this is not the battlefield of the Western Front in Europe, there is no railway, no road, The fact that the rear shells could not be quickly transported to the front was certainly a challenge for the Chinese, but it was also a difficult challenge for the British.

According to Francis's idea, the best tactic now is not to meet the armored forces of the ** team here, but to retreat, retreat to the south, and join the main force of the British ** team. However, the British commander apparently did not intend to do so, because he believed that he had a trump card in his hand, and this trump card could obviously reassure Mr. Commander more than artillery.

The trump card in the commander's hand was a tank unit of the British army, with a total of twenty tanks, all British-made tanks, although they may be a little old, but there is no doubt that these tanks participated in the European war. And contributed to the British victory over Germany, so of course, the British commander thought that these tanks could be used to stop the ambitions of the Chinese.

In fact, the commander of the British army who is in charge of the defense of the city is a tank unit commander, with the rank of colonel, he is not only responsible for transporting these British tanks into Tashkent, but also responsible for training the pro-British armed forces in Tashkent to learn to use these British tanks, but no one expected that the squadron would come so quickly, the British tanks have just been sent to the city today, and the novelty of those curious locals has not completely passed, and the Chinese armored forces have actually come over.

Perhaps the rapid advance of the Chinese armored forces frightened the pro-British feudal lords in the city, so, just two hours ago, when it was learned that another line of defense of the guerrillas had been breached, the people in power in the city immediately wisely handed over the task of defending the city to the commander of the British tank unit, so the colonel officer took office and became the supreme military commander, now. All the armed forces inside and outside the city were under his command.

Perhaps in order to show the strong combat effectiveness of the British tank forces, the first order given by Mr. Colonel, after serving as the commander of the city defense, was to send tanks to attack the ruins of the castle southwest of the city, because there was also a squadron guarding it, and they were driven out of the city by the locals, but they did not go far, but built fortifications in the ruins of the castle and waited for reinforcements.

Francis knew that Mr. Colonel's order had actually violated the policy of the British government, because the British government had clearly told the supreme commander of the British Expeditionary Force that no British ** could be directly involved in the battle unless the squadron took the initiative to attack the British army.

Although Fminsis tried to persuade Mr. Colonel, in his capacity as a lieutenant colonel, to cancel this provocative order, but was rudely refused, Mr. Colonel went out with tanks and artillery, and in only half an hour completely destroyed the ruins of the castle and drove the Chinese army unit downstream of the tributary of the Syr Darya River, and then returned to the division in triumph, where he was greeted heroically in the city.

In addition to being proud, Mr. Colonel decided to meet the squadron ** regiment that was rapidly approaching Tashkent in the city, he planned to use these twenty British tanks to cooperate with the local armed forces to annihilate the invading squadron ** regiment, and planned to use this opportunity to see whether the Chinese tank was better, or the British tank was better, to be honest, there were many British army officers who were not convinced like this colonel, and they all thought that it was very irrational to put the laurel crown of "tank master" on the heads of the Chinese, they insisted, British tanks are the best tanks.

Whether the British tank is better, or the Chinese tank is better, Lieutenant Colonel Francis has some right to say, when he was active in China, he was ordered to collect intelligence in this regard, and in his professional spy's opinion, the tanks made by the Chinese are quite impressive both technically and structurally, and now the tanks of all countries in the world actually carry strong traces of Chinese tanks, even British tanks are no exception, although the British journal, Du designed Tansu into a strange diamond shape, But in the end, they also did not recognize that the original design of the Chinese was better, and the comprehensive performance of the tank was the best.

Of course, Francis would not be stupid enough to anger the arrogant British colonel, even if he went to tell the other party that the Chinese tanks were better, the other party would never believe it, and without a fight, the colonel would never leave Tashkent, and Francis could only accompany him here and wait for the attack of the Chinese.

Francis originally came to show the local intelligence network, but he did not expect the Chinese to call so quickly, because the British colonel was afraid that Francis would make a small report to his superiors, so he refused to use the radio to contact the rear, so now Francis could not get in touch with his superiors at all, nor could he leave Tashkent without authorization.

In desperation, Lieutenant Colonel Francis had to ask the soldiers to move a deck chair to the roof, and then sit on the deck chair with a telescope to look at the mountain pass in the north, according to intelligence, the ** regiment will pounce on Tashkent from there, Francis had suggested that the city defense commander lay mines in the mountain pass to stop the advance of the Chinese, but he was told that this is not London, nor Paris, plus the ammunition depot was destroyed by the Chinese Air Force, so now in addition to British tanks, only British mountain artillery is available, These mountain guns were also provided by the British government to the local pro-British forces.

Of course, it was also British artillery that operated the mountain artillery, which was also clearly in violation of the British government's "non-active provocation." If the Chinese knew that there was actually a formed British ** team attacking them in Tashkent, no one knew what kind of reaction the "mad president" would make, but at least one thing was clear, that is, if there was really a local war in Central Asia. The source of reserves that Britain can mobilize is simply pitiful, and even these current units are patchwork, more than half of which are from India, and their combat effectiveness is quite questionable.

At present, Britain's backyard is not at peace, the wave of Irish independence has seriously threatened British interests, and the military intervention in the Russian Revolution has also constrained a large part of the British government's energy.

Of course, Francis couldn't have interfered in these things, he was just a spy, whatever. The spy who served the British ** news agency, his task was to arrange an intelligence network in Central Asia to serve the interests of Britain, in this struggle for hegemony in Central Asia, Francis is only a small role, and now the colonel who is commanding in the city is also a small role, even if he dies here, I am afraid it will not change the balance of power here, because from the current analysis of various signs, the determination of the Chinese to expand into Central Asia is unshakable, The British government sent an additional 10,000 troops to Central Asia, and the Chinese government is likely to send 20,000 or more troops to Central Asia, and in this kind of land military competition, Britain may not be able to gain the upper hand, after all, Britain itself is far away from the Central Asia-Pacific region, and Britain's colonies in Asia are also facing a frenzy of national awakening movements, since the end of the South China War, the strategic situation in Asia has undergone tremendous changes, and driven by the example of China and Japan, the awakening of Asia is definitely not just an exaggeration of journalists.

Therefore, Francis insisted that the resistance of Tashkent was meaningless, only to further anger the Chinese, and the consequences were not something that anyone could bear, even the British Foreign Secretary could not afford this responsibility, and as for the confident colonel, I am afraid that he was completely carried away by vanity, you know, this is not within the range of the British Air Force, but the Chinese Air Force can easily carry out strategic-level bombing in this area, and in yesterday's bombing, In addition to the loss of those ammunition depots, the British lost six tanks at the same time, so that only twenty British tanks entered the battle today.

Just as Francis was worried about the future of Mr. Colonel, he suddenly heard a cannon shot.

"Tom"

The sound of artillery came from near the mountain pass to the north, Francis turned his head to look over, and now a puff of green smoke rose from the top of the hill on the east side of the mountain pass, there is no doubt that the squadron not only seized the rebel ambush position guarding the mountain pass, but also set up a cannon on the top of the mountain, using mountain artillery instead of that kind of mortar. Mountain artillery had a longer range than mortars, therefore, the shells ended up in the city and exploded on the roof of a building, although not very powerful, but immediately caused chaos in the city. The local armed men who were engaged in close street battles with the squadron ran out into the streets, looking around in panic, not knowing what was going on.

"Aren't the Chinese going to go into the city to fight?"

Phosis was also quite surprised, looking at this posture, the squadron seemed to have learned the lesson, they did not plan to rush to the city, but planned to use artillery to completely destroy the city's defense first.

Obviously, the commander of this Chinese unit is definitely not a humanitarian, and he does not care at all about the casualties of the peaceful residents in the city, although there are indeed not many peaceful residents in the city now, since the birth of this armed rebellion, the peaceful residents of the city have fled to other places, and those who remain in the city are the British ** team, except for the local armed men.

Just after the mountain artillery shells fell, the British artillery counterattack began, and the Battle of Tashkent began, which was also the first time that the British ground forces had a face-to-face armed conflict with the Chinese ground forces.