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On the foothills of the southern side of Andijan, Sir Atherton, under the protection of his soldiers, watched the artillery fire in the direction of Andijan with a telescope, looking very worried. He is the British consul in Kashgar and the current highest-ranking British official in Central Asia, so he is very worried about the arrival of the Chinese defense forces in Central Asia. Although Britain also actively intervened in Russia to try to overthrow the poor Soviet regime, and Prime Minister Lloyd George wanted China to do the same, they were still very nervous when they suddenly appeared in Central Asia and fought hard. The reason is very simple, because beyond Tajikistan to the south are Afghanistan and India, so after he learned that the Chinese Defense Forces had entered Tajikistan, he immediately set out from Kashgar in the hope of meeting with senior officers of the Northwest Theater of Defense Forces to inquire about the situation, but he did not expect to encounter the outbreak of the Battle of Ferghana after arriving here.

Although the scouts had reported the discovery of the British squad, they could not stop the two sides from fighting.

Rumble! With a loud bang, the 160mm mortar shell fell 10 meters to the left of Waglev, and despite the distance, he still felt as if his mouth and nose were blocked by something, and his body was directly shocked more than two meters away.

At the age of 22, he was not a member of the Poor Party, but an ordinary worker in an oil refinery, and he joined the revolution because he felt oppressed by the factory owners, and a month ago he led the guerrillas to open the refinery gates, killing the entire family of the oil factory owner, and became a well-known revolutionary hero in the Andijan region. But when he straightened up again with a sore body and wiped the blood from his eyelids, he found that the house he was holding on to had completely collapsed, and the dozen or so companions around him were nowhere to be seen. What about people? Among the dead bodies and stumps all over the ground, he searched for a long time and did not find a single one alive. A chill suddenly surged in my heart.

He has always felt that the White Guards are nothing more than a rabble gathered by landlords and capitalists, so the squadron that helped them must also be indiscriminate troops, and when he saw that a single shell could cause such terrible casualties, he suddenly found that those so-called heroic revolutions and battles were nothing at all in the face of real armies and wars!

Boom boom boom.

A much larger number of 80mm mortar shells fell from the sky, and the 4.5-kilogram fragmentation grenade could split into 112 fragments when exploded. Easily sweep and kill all mobs within a radius. Those poor party soldiers who had not received formal training were suddenly beaten to pieces by this wave of steel rain. "The enemy is coming, hold your position." The officer hissed and shouted to stabilize the position, and Wagrev gritted his teeth and reluctantly picked up his gun and pointed it at a Wehrmacht soldier who was approaching. But the other man's body bent and pressed very low, like a rabbit that dodged left and right, and it was difficult to aim, just as he poked his head out to see clearly. A string of bullets flew from the side. The moment he fell, he realized that a light machine gun had appeared on the opposite side at some point.

The firepower of grenadiers and light machine guns made the poor soldiers miserable, and although many of them were very tenacious, there was no room for courage and courage in the face of the obvious difference in firepower.

"They're targeting oil refineries." Immediately judging the goal of the Wehrmacht, Blyukhel shouted: "Support the refinery, blow it up if necessary!" ”

The Andijan refinery is not large, with a maximum processing capacity of only 300 barrels of crude oil per day, but it is the only refinery in Central Asia and the largest modern industrial facility in the Andijan region. So the poor party deployed an infantry regiment around the perimeter early. Try to protect this vital facility from falling into the hands of the enemy. Opposite them was the 18th Brigade and 182nd Mountain Infantry Regiment, a unit that had been trained to participate in several major battles and had already integrated the infantry tactics into the marrow, and the soldiers moved very quickly after spreading out the infantry line, and the speed of the alternating charge under the cover of machine guns and grenadiers was extremely fast, and in less than half an hour the outer armed forces were cleared and the refinery was attacked.

"Machine gun."

Lu Haodong is the senior soldier who was targeted by Vagrev just now. After a dark shadow appeared in front of him, he suddenly threw himself to the ground, and almost at the same time a barrage of 7.62 bullets flew past his scalp. An M1910 Maxim heavy machine gun blocked the way forward, and he knew the power of the heavy machine gun well enough to participate in the battles on the Western Front, and immediately called for fire suppression from behind.

Two grenadiers threw grenades at the machine gun from 400 meters away, but the machine guns were protected by a thick earthen wall on all sides. Therefore, it only caused the opponent to be dumb for a moment and then continued to spew out tongues of fire.

Due to the lack of penetration of the light machine gun and the fact that the mortar did not dare to come, Lu Haodong, who was pressed to the ground, was very anxious, seeing the figures surging behind him, and a large number of poor party soldiers came to support, he was so angry that when he was about to force the attack, he saw the sniper in the regiment crawling over with a 12.7mm heavy sniper rifle. This heavy sniper rifle was developed in imitation of the captured German Mauser 13-mm anti-tank rifle captured on the Western Front. At present, the number is very scarce, and the mountain brigade has just received a few trials before coming to the northwest. Its appearance is very similar to the Soviet PTRS-41 rifle in the parallel world, with a fixed magazine of 5 rounds, using 12.7mm steel core bullets, which can ensure penetration of 30mm steel plates within 100 meters, and can penetrate two layers of brick walls at a distance of 300 meters to kill targets behind them!

The sniper did not shoot immediately after setting up the rifle, but made an attractive gesture to Lu Haodong. Seeing this, Lu Haodong silently counted three times, and suddenly jumped up and ran towards a big tree on the left. This move really attracted the attention of the enemy's heavy machine gun, which turned the muzzle and chased to the left. The long muzzle flame completely exposed the position of the machine gun, and the sniper easily found the poor heavy who was probing his brain. "Smack." The heavy recoil made the heavy feel like his shoulders were falling apart, and even with the rubber shock pads, it was still painful, but the pain was worth it, and the Maxim heavy machine gun that stood in the way never made any sound again. With no bullets in the way, the grenadiers quickly ran up to 200 meters, and several grenades blew up the machine gun along with the earthen wall.

Lu Haodong saw the opportunity to rush 100 meters and cross the earthen wall, and before the person could land, the submachine gun in his hand swept across the area, killing several soldiers of the machine gun squad who were not dead. Under his leadership, the commando team of the 182nd regiment finally entered the refinery. Fight each other in a brutal strangulation battle. Once again, submachine guns were the key to victory, and since the gradual increase in ammunition production, submachine guns have not been equipped in large quantities with the Wehrmacht. A double-row magazine of 32 rounds was enough to ensure a large output of fire in a short period of time, and in such a hand-to-hand encounter, the Red Army soldiers often fired only one shot, and seven or eight bullets flew from the opposite side.

Lu Haodong rushed all the way to kill, and as soon as he ran to the northern wall, he saw dozens of enemy soldiers climbing over the wall to try to destroy the factory, and hurriedly changed the magazine to launch a frantic strafing fire. In a series of muffled grunts. The Red Army soldiers, who had been ordered to support the destruction, all fell in pools of blood.

When the regiment's three 12.7 mm heavy machine guns were raised high above the refinery, the largest refinery in Central Asia was declared to have fallen into the hands of the Wehrmacht, although much of the equipment was destroyed by grenades at close range. But basic refining capacity has been preserved. The 182nd Regiment took the refinery, which relieved Dai Jintang, as long as the refinery was kept, it could use this place as a base to radiate to the entire basin, and if production could be resumed, the Air Force could be stationed in it. It is very conducive to the later battle.

Although the refinery was relatively successful, the assault on the city of Andijan, 10 kilometers away, was not ideal, and Andijan, home to 300,000 people, was a large fortress and residential city, and after the 1902 earthquake, the Tsar built many fortified buildings here to ensure his rule. In addition, there is a lot of affluent life here but there are many ethnic conflicts, so there are a large number of strong bunker-like buildings. It is precisely because of this that the development of the poor party here is actually not good, and if it were not for the actions of the Wehrmacht, which caused tens of thousands of partisan troops from all over the country to converge here, it would not have been possible to break through and drive away Monstrov and his group, so the 18th Brigade and the White Guards launched three successive waves of attacks to no avail. Dai Jintang suspended the attack.

The results of the first day in Andijan were quickly radioed to the Karakum base.

"The Fergana Basin is 300 kilometers long from east to west and 70 kilometers wide from north to south, surrounded by mountains and deserts, but the basin is very flat, with many rivers and fertile land! Seventy percent of this fertile land is in the southeastern regions of Andijan, Kokand and Ferghana. It can be said that the entire elite land of Central Asia is here! But here it is also ethnically complex. Both Tajiks and Kyrgyz live in the mountainous hills north of Andijan, while the Uzbeks and Slavs control most of the land resources, as well as the Tatars, Sartars and Kipchaks in 12 tribes, with a total population of more than 300 thousand!

Geographically, Tashkent and Uzbekistan can be contained to the west, and Afghanistan and Persia can be threatened to the south. To the north, you can enter the Kazakh steppe, and to the east, you can deter both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan! Therefore, taking the three places will basically solve the security of Western Xinjiang! Dai Jintang and the White Guard's Monstroff division already controlled three northeast-south directions of Andijan, which was located in the northeast corner of the basin. According to the report of the reconnaissance aircraft, we estimate that there are about 20,000 poor party fighters in Andijan. In addition, 100 kilometers away, Kokand, a poor party force was also found rushing there, numbering about 10,000. Poor partisans from all over South Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are also rushing to the Ferghana Basin. We predict that by 10 days at the latest, there will be between 60,000 and 70,000 poor army troops gathered there! It has all the characteristics of a larger campaign. ”

"We have reached an agreement with Dutov that after the war we will give them the Tashkent region north of the basin." Shi Xiaoloulou put down his pen and raised his head to look at Yang Qiu and Song Ziqing who came to inspect: "At present, Sun Chuanfang's 55th Brigade of the 18th Division, the 68th Cavalry Brigade of the 122nd Division, and the 69th Infantry Brigade are rushing there, plus the 20,000 people of the 18th Mountain Brigade and Monstrov, our troops are also about 50,000, and our combat effectiveness is far beyond that of the other party. The main difficulties are concentrated in the serious shortage of heavy equipment and ammunition! Whether you are passing from Kashgar or Almaty, you need to climb over the mountains, so it is difficult to transport heavy equipment. At present, most of the troops are carrying light equipment such as mortars and 70mm mountain guns, and the number of shells is also seriously insufficient.

The three cities (Andijan, Kokand, and Ferghana) have been the land of a hundred battles for thousands of years, and have been deeply influenced by the Han and Tang dynasties in our country to build many fortified towns, which are not much worse than those in Europe, and the casualties will be great without heavy firepower. The only fast-moving road is from Almaty west to Zhambyl and a detour to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, but this road is too far, about 1300 km away! And all of them are within the range of the enemy's guerrillas. ”

Yang Qiu finally understood why, for thousands of years, when it came to the war in the northwest, even the powerful Han and Tang dynasties were unwilling to start the war lightly. Because it is so far away, and the Ferghana Basin is surrounded by the Tien Shan and Alai Mountains, it is extremely difficult for mules and horses to cross the two mountains! It was very difficult for the lightly armed troops to gnaw down this densely populated, ethnically complex area with a large number of Chinese-style walls and European-style castles.

Of course, you can't do it without fighting! As Shi Xiaolou said, this is the essence of the whole of Central Asia, and controlling it is equivalent to controlling Russia's throat in and out of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Moreover, it is rich in products, and there is no shortage of oil, coal, and grain, and it has the ability to station group armies for a long time. As long as it is controlled, after the railway reaches Kashgar and extends into it, this place can be connected with the northwest. So Yang Qiu thought about it and asked, "Did Dai Jintang report whether there was gasoline in the refinery?" What is the damage to the device and how long does it take to recover? ”

Shi Xiaolou said: "There are about 10,000 barrels of gasoline in the underground warehouse, and the oil pipeline to the oil field is also under our control, and he doesn't know about the equipment, but I have sent people to check the situation in detail and strive to restore production as soon as possible." ”

"Ziqing. All the transport planes and bombers in Gansu, Mongolia, and Henan were transferred, and Dai Jintang was contacted to repair the temporary airport as soon as possible, and the heavy equipment was dismantled and transported in by plane! In Almaty, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, herdsmen were recruited to carry as much ammunition and supplies as possible. After Yang Qiu finished speaking, Song Ziqing frowned: "Commander-in-chief, the load of the albatross transport plane is only 1 ton, even if you use an airship, it is only 3 tons, and it will take at least more than 100 planes to establish an air supply line!" They themselves consume a lot of gasoline and supplies, if. ”

"Not so many ideas! It's a challenge but also an opportunity! In the future, there will be many, many more areas like this that have no roads or are temporarily impassable, and we can't stop fighting them. The Air Force needs to train its long-distance air transportation and supply support capabilities, and the Army also needs timely ammunition supplies, even if it is a ton of ammunition that can be of great help. Yang Qiu interrupted him with a wave of his hand and continued to ask, "What's the situation in the direction of Ufa and Orenburg?" ”

Shi Xiaolou said: "Frunze's current strategic intention is very clear, that is, to use the guerrillas to drag us in the Andijan area, and then storm the Kolchak department. As of the day before yesterday, the two sides had fought more than 10 times in a month, and Kolchak had lost tens of thousands of troops, and the situation did not seem to be good. ”

"That's good." Yang Qiu smiled slightly: "It's time for me to meet him too." ”…… (To be continued.) If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point (qidian) to vote for recommendation, monthly pass, your support, is my biggest motivation. )