'Dear Vladimir. Ilyich:

The situation in Tsaritsyn, as well as in the North Caucasus Military District as a whole, is improving. The morale and combat effectiveness of the troops are rapidly rising after the transfer of the old Russian officers and military experts who have been slacking off and doing nothing have been transferred from the army, and although the White Bandit Army is approaching, the entire Tsaritsyn Soviet, as well as the Tsaritsyn Military Council, all the officers and soldiers of the Tenth Army are fully confident that they will crush their shameful offensive under the city of Tsaritsyn, and at the same time, I am actively organizing a counteroffensive to recapture the entire Caucasus, the Don region, and the Baku oil fields occupied by the Turks......

In addition, there is a very important matter to report to you, that the Chinese who are trying to establish normal relations with us have appeared in Tsaritsyn, and in order to gain our understanding, they are willing to transfer to us a part of the relief food for Persia, which is about 10 million poods......

In Stalin's patent, Comrade Iron and Steel was writing a letter to the great Comrade Lenin, but when it came to ten million poods, his pen stopped, and after a long hesitation, he crossed out these lines and wrote again:

As I have previously reported, the main reason for the failure to get grain out was the interruption of the railway south of Tsaritsyn, the fact that the White Bandits prevented the railway freight and caused great damage to the railway, and the reason why the White Bandits could not be cleared was due to the passive sabotage and criminal dereliction of duty of the old Russian officers towards the counter-revolutionaries. But now I have completely reorganized the North Caucasus Military District and appointed the old Bolshevik party, the heroic Kliment. Yevremovich. Comrade Voroshilov was the commander of the 10th Army, and at the same time the personnel of the command were comprehensively adjusted.

Very fortunately, under the leadership of the brave Comrade Commander Voroshilov. We've had some small wins this month, with some towns close to the railroad being opened. At least two million tiods of food are already in our hands. I'm trying to do whatever it takes to raise trains, yes. The most important problem now is not the absence of food, but the absence of trains!!

I strongly urge that the ships of Nizhny Novgorod be concentrated and go south to Tsaritsyn, and although the railway can quickly transport this grain to Moscow and some other regions, I fear that the bad railway will not be able to carry such a huge quantity of grain - the comrades who sent out the scouts have reported to me that the area south of Tsaritsyn and the Don region can optimistically estimate that at least ten million poods of grain can be collected - if there are not enough trains and ships to transport this grain to Moscow and other northern cities, That is a crime against the whole revolutionary cause! Therefore, I strongly urge the Central Executive Committee to concentrate all trains and ships to transport grain south to Tsaritsyn.

In addition, I have one more thing to report to you, just half a month ago. A Chinese who claimed to be 'Greater East Asia International Trading Co., Ltd.' came to Tsaritsyn, and after careful investigation, the important business of this trading company was actually the sale of arms, and I had reached an arms deal with him, using some of the luxury goods we had seized from the bourgeoisie and rich peasants as payment in currency, and the other party was unwilling but in the end reluctantly accepted these luxuries.

I thought that it would be of great help to the revolutionary cause to buy as many arms as possible, but unfortunately the other side could not sell the arms in large quantities as I requested. Even the artillery they feared being discovered by the Chinese government and the British government, so now they are delivering a small artillery called mortar, as well as more than 30 Chinese combat vehicles and four reconnaissance planes in the name of decommissioning and scrapping. I will try to maintain friendly contact with them to get more military supplies......

It took more than an hour to write the letter to Comrade Lenin. Stalin asked his little secretary to make a copy, and then checked it thoroughly before signing his name, and then asked someone to follow the train carrying grain north to deliver the letter to Comrade Lenin in person. Originally. The contents of the letter could have happened by telegram, but the Chinese spy told a shocking secret. That is, the telegrams that Russia is now using are being intercepted by the spies of the Allied powers, so he demands that all news related to Chinese aid be transmitted only by letters carried by special people.

In the First World War. In the Battle of Tannenberg in 1914, the loss of telegraph secrecy led to the German army's knowledge of the battle plan was an important factor in the encirclement and annihilation of the Russian army, in fact, this problem existed in the Russo-Japanese War, and Colonel Hoffmann, who was an observer of the Japanese army at the time, discovered this serious problem. After the Bolsheviks came to power and announced the formation of the Red Army, the problem was not resolved, but was aggravated by the turmoil.

After Hu Wenyao raised this question with Comrade Stalin, Comrade Iron and Steel was sincerely pleased, and in order to express his joy, he personally helped Comrade Hu Wenyao to choose a Russian name: Zhang San. Nikolaevich. Lukashin. His identity was also assumed to be a Siberian hunter, a complete proletarian poor peasant.

When Comrade Stalin watched his little Lori in the special train and put the letter with fire paint, Comrade Hu Wenyao, that is, Zhang San. Nikolaevich. Comrade Lucas was visiting the training of the Red Army armored corps of the former armored battalion of the Baath Army, Colonel Zhu Jiande, now known as Zhu Jiandenovsky, who arrived with the second batch of munitions.

Time was limited, and it was impossible for the Moscow drivers to be transferred to Tsaritsyn so quickly, and the current solution was to temporarily arrest Ding, and some Red Army soldiers who had gone to secondary school were transferred to start training not far from Stalin's armored train. The base of the Baath Army's chariot was actually a tractor, and American farmers could get started with it in one day, but some of these revolutionary fighters who had never touched mechanical vehicles were dizzy as soon as they got on the car. It seems that before the offensive of the White Army General Krasnov, these people could not be trained at all.

"How?" Tom. Nikolaevich. Lukashin looked at Zhu Jiandnovsky, whose mouth was bubbling under the autumn sun, and said, the closer and closer cannon sound made him sleep more and more unstable at night.

"Not good." Zhu Jiandenovsky shook his head, he poured a sip of tea before shaking his head and said, "It's too difficult, it's too difficult to teach." Many people are afraid of getting on the car, what is the matter with this armored soldier being afraid of getting on the car, can this still be learned? ”

"You speak quietly. If you really want to be heard by the people above, you will be shot again. "ZHANG San. Nikolaevich. Lukashin reminded. A few days ago. When Stalin came to inspect it, he killed the worst students.

"It's not something that can be solved by shooting. It's technology. It's okay when you don't shoot, but everyone is even more afraid when you shoot, and when the lever is tense, it's almost broken. What the hell ......," Zhu Jiandnovsky complained. As soon as he came here, Hu Wenyao told him that this place is different from China, and he will leave after teaching these people, and don't care about anything else, but the reality is how to teach well under such a system. "Comrade Zhang San, you must talk to them, if you don't learn well, you can't drag people to be shot. There must be a process to learn everything, so can it be achieved overnight? ”

"Understood, understood." Hu Wenyao said haha, in the past half a month, he has understood the essence of the Russians, no wonder the prime minister said that the Russians are bears, they like to be rough in everything, and this temper can't be changed.

After Hu Wenyao finished fighting, Zhu Jiande asked again: "I heard that there are 60,000 white troops who have come over. There are only more than 40,000 people on our side, and it is still this kind of ......" Zhu Jiande, who was born as an infantry officer, knew that this was a rabble at all as soon as he saw the army in front of him. The commander of what is the name of Voroshinov is just a veteran oilman, and he is okay with guerrilla warfare in the mountains, but he is not at all good at positional warfare and offensive and defensive warfare with tens of thousands of people. Not at the top, nor can divisional, regimental, and company-level officers in the middle. As for the non-commissioned officers below, it is even more unscored, and the whole army is not like an army at all. It's just a group of outcasts with guns and artillery, and it is difficult for such an army to win even if it has two armored companies.

Zhu Jiande just started. Hu Wenyao interrupted: "You don't care about this, you can't take care of it." Your task is to just teach those Russians and then bring your people home early is the most important thing. ”

"But if this city can't be defended, how can we go home?" Zhu Jiande asked rhetorically, "And you, it won't be served in a pot by then." ”

"Damn!" Hu Wenyao wiped his face, and Zhu Jiande did say what he was most worried about, that is, what if Stalin really didn't hold Tsaritsyn? Not to mention that these people are going to die here, the prime minister's investment plan has also been ruined. "I'm going to check it out...... Look at how they set up their defenses. Comrade Jiande, you and other comrades should also prepare, and when the time comes, you will really be unable to stand it, and you will end up in person. ”

"In person?" Zhu Jiande was surprised. "Brother Zhang, now there are two armored companies here, and my people plus the maintenance platoon are less than forty people, how can this end up in person?"

"Then one person and one car, and if it's not enough, let's make it up from the students." He did not go to the headquarters of the Tenth Army, but went to find Stalin, but halfway through the horse, he suddenly remembered that Stalin did not understand military affairs, and fighting was also guerrilla warfare, and he stopped asking for a meeting, but he regretted his decision two days later.

The city of Tsaritsyn is located on a bare sun-scorched hillside on the right bank of the Volga. On the outskirts is a brown grassland, crisscrossed by dry rivers and loess valleys. To the north of the river, there are many sawmills, and inside the city is a small improvised arsenal and a French metallurgical factory, all along which all buildings are located.

But if it was only sawmills, arsenals and metallurgical plants, there was no need to seize them, and what really made Tsaritsyn a strategic location was that it had not only a railway to the North Caucasus and a river, but also a railway to the Don region, which was an important transportation point in southern Russia, and whoever occupied it could really control the entire lower Volga region.

In the face of the imminent attack of the Cossack White Army, the Tsaritsyn line was only a thin line of defense of the railway around the city, and there were shallow and substandard trenches on the outside of the railway, because of the lack of barbed wire, many of the trenches were only bare in front of some improvised wood to resist horses, and what really made the defense line somewhat solid were only a few urgently patchwork ironclad trains - modified flatbed cars and open cars were arranged with numerous breech guns and machine guns, and steam locomotives were attached to the middle of the whole train. This makes it easier for the train to move forward and backward to the most critical places. Machine guns and mortars from China had been distributed to the soldiers, and although they were still rusty with their operations, the war was imminent.

However, when the war began, all preparations seemed so inadequate. On the day of the battle, the mountains were full of Cossack cavalry and soldiers in the gray uniforms of old Russia surrounded almost the whole of Tsaritsyn, and the cavalry and infantry approached from all directions. their cannons. Roaring across the horizon, the four support planes engaged in a fierce battle with enemy planes in the sky. The sound of the engine was covered by other sounds, and explosions were everywhere throughout the steppe. It was as if the earth itself had burst.

The pre-war defense line of the Ring Railway, which was thin and incomplete with barbed wire, was being attacked by the Cossacks who were not afraid of death, the carriages of the trains were burning, the open cars loaded with shells were exploding, the railroad was covered with smoking shrapnel, corpses were strewn all over the field, and the wounded were crawling and shouting. Steam erupted from the side of the broken locomotive, and some wheels piled up in the air. But the more and more intense artillery fire swept away everything that was left to be destroyed.

Already docked on the Stalinist train in the city, Hu Wenyao and Zhu Jiande were watching the chaotic battle ahead with binoculars. He saw that the Cossack cavalry was attacking frantically in the smoke of gunpowder, trying to break through the already crumbling defense line, and his own counterattack was just a cavalry that was waiting to be attacked, he looked at Zhu Jiande beside him with a numb scalp and said, "Is this useful?" ”

Zhu Jiande shook his head with a noncommittal expression, and at this time, the cavalry was on their horses under the order of the leading officer. In the telescope, Budyonny, the leader, got on the horse and strangled the horse so hard that the horse was lame and almost stood up. He pulled his saber out of its sheath, seemed to shout something, and kicked his horse forward. The cavalry behind immediately followed him, their mouths wide open. It should have been a fierce roar and shout, they whistled like Cossacks, wielding sabers.

Budyonny led his troops into enemy formation. And on the side that was obscured by the church, another cavalry team rushed out. When he saw that the leader turned out to be the commander of the corps, Voroshinov, Hu Wenyao's jaw dropped. The world seems to be in chaos. If the commander of a group army actually led his troops to charge in person, if this was in the Revival Army, then whether he died honorably in battle or not, he would definitely be held accountable by a military tribunal after the war. The commanders are all on the battlefield, so who commands the troops?

'Woo... Woo......', the howl of the aircraft engine sounded overhead, and another German Fokker was shot down. Looking at the falling enemy planes, the Red Army soldiers who remained in various parts of the city jumped out of their bunkers and shouted Ula without hesitation. Hu Wenyao shook his head with a wry smile, even if all the German fighters in the air were wiped out, what could this be, it was only the infantry who could decide the victory.

"Comrade Zhang San, very good, Comrade Pilot should be commended." Unlike Hu Wenyao's wry smile, Comrade Stalin, who had always had a serious expression, looked back at him and smiled.

"It's... Yes, Comrade Stalin. Hu Wenyao stammered a little at this time, and he turned to ask: "Comrade Stalin, now is the best time for the armored troops to charge......

Hearing Hu Wenyao talk about armored soldiers, Stalin glanced at Zhu Jiande suspiciously, "Really?" Comrade Zhu Jiandenovsky? What do you think? After he asked, without waiting for Zhu Jiande to answer, he came to the conclusion again: "As far as I know, the armored soldiers are not well trained, and let a group of untrained soldiers go to the battlefield, especially ...... Especially the armored corps, which is more than worth the loss. ”

Comrade Stalin was somewhat discouraged when he learned that Hu Wenyao could only bring in a maximum of 38 chariots, although Hu Wenyao had been stressing that if Chinese chariots appeared in large numbers in Russian chariots, the Chinese Government would face tremendous diplomatic pressure, and was already facing tremendous diplomatic pressure -- the Entente had unanimously agreed to intensify their intervention in the Russian Revolution, but the Chinese Government was opposed to this. Although the Entente countries did not accuse the Russian Bolshevik Party of being funded by the Chinese, it is believed that the day is not far from when the countries strongly question it.

Although the chariot unit has not experienced actual combat, Comrade Steel can still feel its tremendous lethality. It is precisely because of this that he is desperate to learn it for the soldiers to master all the combat skills as soon as possible, and at the same time to implement a policy of shooting the saboteurs, but even with such violent means, ten days is not enough time for the drivers to master it.

Sensing Comrade Stalin's hesitation, Hu Wenyao glanced at Zhu Jiande again, saw him nod lightly, and then said to Comrade Stalin: "Comrade Stalin, I suggest that Colonel Zhu Jiande and his comrades lead the Red Army soldiers into battle, and if there is a loss of chariots, I will notify the country to replenish them in time." ”

Comrade Iron and Steel was obviously stunned for a moment, but then he smiled and said, "I very much agree with your proposal, Comrade Zhang San. He said and looked at Zhu Jiande, "Comrade Zhu Jiandnovsky, what kind of cooperation do you need?" ”

"I need about three hundred elite infantry, and I need more cavalry." Colonel Zhu Jiande saw the front-line fortifications that he was about to be unable to hold, so he had to go to the battlefield in violation of the regulations before going abroad.

"How many cavalry do you need?" Comrade Stalin put down his pipe in his mouth. Tilting his head sideways, he asked seriously.

"The more the merrier, the cavalry follows behind me. Just look for an opportunity to attack the enemy line. Time is also of the essence, and I think the troops will attack in an hour at the latest! Zhu Jiande thought that he was about to enter the war. His whole body seemed to be burning, and he wanted to immediately command the crippled armored battalion and surprise him with the enemy on the opposite side.

"Comrade Mazyretsky, you immediately gather a detachment of cavalry and fight with the armored fighting vehicle units." With the phone in hand, Comrade Stalin ordered the chief of staff of the army group with great seriousness, "Be sure to be quick, the troops will be assembled to me in half an hour." ”

Contrary to the dispersion of the army organization, after the order of Comrade Stalin. It is always carried out resolutely and thoroughly. Within half an hour after Comrade Iron and Steel hung up the phone, more than 300 infantry and more cavalry requested by Zhu Jiande gathered on the side of the special column, and the commanders and fighters of all units came over, and they surrounded Zhu Jiande and obeyed his orders.

"I'm going to the infantry to bring grenades, rifles, and climb into the chariots, six to eight people each, your task is to protect the chariots, pay special attention to three things: first. Those enemy infantry who carry grenades and explosives and want to destroy the chariot must be eliminated in advance and must not be allowed to get close to the chariot; Second, if there is enemy artillery in front. Then be sure to inform the comrades of the tank where these guns are, remember, be sure to shout loudly. Until the chariot commander heard about it; Thirdly, follow closely behind the chariot. Keep a distance of about 10 to 20 meters, and never get too close or too far away. ”

After Zhu Jiande finished speaking, he waited for the interpreter to inform these infantry officers of his words. Finally, he asked, "Do you understand everything?" ”

"Ulla!" The chariot next to it had already started, and the infantry officers were boiling with blood amid the low roar of the engine.

"Very well, you guys go!" Zhu Jiande said loudly, and then he looked at the cavalry officers, and said in the same loud: "The chariot is the shield of your cavalry, and the gap in each war workshop is the gap for your attack. ”

"Ulla! Ulla!! "There are two or three thousand cavalry mobilized, and the officers have never fought with the ironclad chariots, so the interest is very high, even if the defense line is about to be broken by the White Army.

"Remember not to rush in front of the chariot to avoid accidental injury." Although the Red Army cavalry was swollen and smelly, Zhu Jiande could feel the force of their impact, just like the Budyonny Cavalry Brigade he had seen in the telescope just now.

Grinding his guns in battle, Zhu Jiande knew that the order should be as streamlined as possible, so he only gave three instructions to the infantry with the vehicle, and only two to the cavalry. After sending the infantry and cavalry, Zhu Jiande immediately returned to his chariot, and after getting into the chariot, he turned back to look at the commanders of the other chariots - the newly trained Red Army soldiers could only be drivers, cannons, and loaders, and all the men he brought with him were commanders.

Seeing that his former subordinates nodded to him, Zhu Jiande also bowed slightly, and then gave the order to drive in the car by radio, so the chariot under him slammed down, and the battle began.

The presence of armored units in Tsaritsyn was obviously unexpected, and the commander, General Krasnov, under the guidance of his subordinates, saw through the telescope the row of chariots driving from Tsaritsyn and could not believe it at all. He knew very well what the enemy was in front of him, but he was extremely surprised by the battle he was sure to win today, first of all, the Red Army also had planes, and then they had an astonishing number of machine guns, and now when he saw the chariots that suddenly appeared, he only called out to God.

Nothing impossible. In the telescope, thirteen chariots divided into three rows and a row formed a wide assault front of one and a half versts, rolled up in dust and attacked itself, and behind it were countless cavalry. After a quick drive out of the city, the 20mm guns on the chariot began to fire fiercely, and the shells startled the charging Cossack cavalry. Soon, the chariots that had crossed the city to the Ring Railway line were irresistibly rushing towards them, and it was clear that their goal was their temporary headquarters.

In the face of the attack of the steel monsters, the Cossacks who were not afraid of death launched a decisive charge, but they were all crushed by the machine guns and 20mm machine guns on the chariots, and no one could rush in front of these monsters, and after several ineffective charges, the front-line troops suddenly collapsed like a landslide. Seeing this astonishing scene, General Krasnov had to get on his horse, and as far as he knew, the battle was over. (To be continued......)