Telephone calls from the field airfield and calls from other places resounded throughout the communications office, and the staff officer immediately reported to Xu Jingxi the situation detected by the air force during the bombing -- the Red Russian army was rapidly massing in Dubovka, and all guns, ammunition, and baggage were gathered near the Dubovka station.

The briefing to Lieutenant General Xu Jingxi was extremely short and concise, and more detailed data would be reported to professional staff officers, who would calculate the Russian and material strength of the Red Army. Although Hu Wenyao's report repeatedly emphasized that the Red Russians were tenacious and fearless of death, for an army based on science and art, fearlessness of death was not the key to determining the victory of the war.

After quietly listening to the staff officer's report on the air raid, after he turned to leave, Xu Jingxi asked the meteorological staff officer: "What is the temperature in this short period of time, and which day is the coldest?" ”

The meteorological department of the army has been in existence since the beginning of the establishment of the Fuxing Army, and it has been in the forefront of the world's armed forces for more than ten years. In the order issued by the Red Russians, weather was the focus of Yang Rui's repeated emphasis - the city occupied by the Revival Society is now called Tsaritsyn, but in a few years it will be renamed Stalingrad.

"Report to the chief, the last five days have been fine, with temperatures ranging from minus two to eight degrees, and the next few days are unpredictable, but the general trend is to get colder and colder." It is rare for a meteorological staff officer to be a 'four-eyed', and this person is called Zhu Kezhen, who graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate. Although his major was meteorology, he was still on his way back to China. The Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Soil, and the Ministry of Transportation in China are fighting openly and secretly, and the conditions are higher than the other, so they have to grab this person. However, these departments are all mud legs, and the General Staff has a military order, and the Navy intercepts people in the middle of the road.

"Is the chief worried about the freezing of the Volga?" Dr. Zhu was given the rank of major as soon as he joined the army, but he had no military training and had no military qualities other than his uniform—though he also wanted to be as tall as steel like the other officers in the headquarters. "Based on the data report of the Ministry of Agriculture that has studied ocean currents for many years, it is estimated that the temperature this winter will be higher than usual. If this is the case in Russia, then it is likely that the Volga River will not freeze, and even if it does, it will only be thin ice, and the use of icebreakers will still keep the river moving. ”

"Not really. Silly boy. Xu Jingxi looked at Zhu Kezhen, who was holding his glasses and his face was full of anger, and smiled, "If nothing else, all of us can go home before the winter solstice." You go down first, and report to me as soon as the temperature is abnormal. ”

"Yes, sir!" Although Zhu Kezhen's military posture was not good, he was still very skilled in these two sentences of 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir', and he saluted and retreated after he finished speaking.

Zhu Kezhen left. Lieutenant General Peng Qingpeng, who had been looking at the map with his back just now, turned around and said, "...... you go home before the winter solstice, are you so sure that the Russians will compromise?" ”

"Pretty much." The intelligence bureau did a lot of work about the infiltration of Russia and the Bolsheviks, and it can be said that even the British MI6 did not know as much as the 'West Factory'. "...... from intercepted messages"

Xu Jingxi was interrupted by Peng Qingpeng before he could finish speaking, he shook his head and said: "Those intercepted messages did not mention signing a contract......

"Nope. Not in terms of the content of the message, but in terms of the fact that we were able to intercept it. Xu Jingxi shook his head and said: "According to Hu Wenyao's report, he has already revealed to Stalin that the Bolshevik telegram leaked seriously. This was more than a month ago, but why did we still intercept the Red Russian cables? He looked at Peng Qingpeng, who was thinking about it. He added: "I think it was the old Bolsheviks represented by Stalin who were deeply hostile and wary of 'newcomers' like Trotsky. In particular, he was now in almost total control of the Revolutionary Military Council, so he deliberately did not guard against Hu Wenyao's reconnaissance of Tsaritsyn, deliberately let Tsaritsyn fall out, and deliberately did not inform Trotsky of the leak of the telegram, for the ...... purpose"

In Xu Jingxi's imagination, Stalin was completely a man who did not hesitate to pursue the interests of the nation-state for the sake of power, and of course he was understandable for thinking so, because the battle to take Tsaritsyn was really too strange, when the attack began at dawn, and after half an hour of artillery preparation, the thin direction was pierced by the 3rd Panzer Division, and then the assault troops swarmed into the city. The Red Russians would not fight street battles at all, especially when they saw that the first was the armored combat vehicle that had killed the White Army before, they suddenly retreated into a group, and in less than half a day, Tsaritsyn took it down, no different from Astrakhan.

"Well, let's conclude that Stalin and Trotsky are fighting hard, so what do you think should be done?" Peng Qingpeng doesn't have a seven-trick heart like Xu Jingxi, he just wants to know where his sentence 'you can go home before the winter solstice' came from.

"My suggestion is to take the initiative to attack while the Red Russian army has not yet arrived!" Xu Jingxi is very decisive. "When the Red Russia arrives, we can fight again, but then there will be no suddenness, now that both of us are preparing for war, and everyone has no intention of fighting, this time the attack is the most unexpected."

"Won't this affect the negotiations in Petersburg?" Peng Qingpeng also nodded when he heard this, it must have been unexpected for the two sides who were preparing for the big war to suddenly fight. According to the experience of the Russo-Japanese War and the war in Europe, this would be more than worth the cost, because the attacker did not have so many reserves to expand and consolidate the breakthrough, and in the end the small salient occupied would suffer heavy losses under the siege of the other side on three sides. It's just that this is the experience of trench warfare, not the experience of movement warfare, nor the experience of armored warfare, and if you really give such a guy to Red Russia, and the armored division fights all the way to Dubovka, then Trotsky will definitely collapse.

"I don't think so." Xu Jingxi said: "Stalin entered the negotiation delegation, and Zinoviev, who was with him, revealed that he was very supportive of peace talks, which is completely contrary to what was mentioned in Hu Wenyao's report. ”

Military and political are not separated, and Xu Jingxi is completely convinced of Yang Rui's judgment, believing that the strategy against Russia is actually the strategy against Stalin. He said this, Peng Qingpeng also nodded and smiled, and said. "Do you mean to give Trotsky a hard blow at a time when it is too cold to dig fortifications? If you really think about doing it from this point of view. Then I suggest that you ask Mr. Zhi, the political war is really not easy to fight, and if you don't pay attention to it, the fire will pass. ”

"Then you write a telegram, and we will sign it together." Xu Jingxi also knew that if things were not good, the situation within Red Russia would get out of control, and now negotiations were underway, if everyone negotiated at the negotiation table, wouldn't it be superfluous to do so.

The telegram was soon sent from Tsaritsyn to Beijing. And when Beijing had not yet restored power, an unexpected offensive began.

Snow was falling in Tsaritsyn and even in the lower Volga region in general, and six kilometers north of the city was the front line of the Baath Army, and two kilometers further north was the line of the Red Army. Compared with the defense of the Baath Army, which had five barbed wire fences and arranged to a height of three meters, the Red Army defense line on the opposite side had almost no barbed wire, let alone laid minefields in such cold weather, and they only had shallow trenches and unstructured communication trenches - for the Russian army, which had more movement warfare than positional warfare, the trench defense system of the 'soldier fire barrier' was not as memorable as the Allied armies on the Western Front.

November 3rd. On this snowy evening, Trotsky interrupted the rest of the army, which no longer waited for the arrival, and ordered the beginning of a strong assault on Tsaritsyn with weak forces, which planned to rush into Tsaritsyn under the cover of darkness with short artillery fire. The whole city is Russian. He, as well as the committee of the Military Council, had every reason to believe that as soon as the Red Army stormed the city of Tsaritsyn, the whole city would fall into chaos, because the people did not want to be ruled by the invaders.

In the snow and ice. All the more than 120 artillery pieces of the Red Army were concentrated at twelve o'clock in the middle of the night. As the front-line commander gave the order, the cannons, which had been brought in from the rear, began to roar. Seven-kilogram shells fired from Russian-made three-inch cannons smashed heavily on the northern defense line of the Baath Army. In the previous confrontation, the Red Russian army had never had such a powerful artillery bombardment, and the sound of artillery suddenly startled the entire Tsaritsyn. Before Peng Qingpeng could go to bed at this time, he immediately stood up when he heard the sound of artillery, and before he could call, Qian Ding, the commander of the 38th Division, who was responsible for defending the north, called and calmly reported that the enemy was bombarding the 38th Division's defensive line, and judging from the current intensity of the shelling, the enemy was likely to want him to break through.

It was simply unexpected for the Russians to launch an attack at this time, but fortunately, the whole army in a foreign country did not slack off, and as soon as the direction of the enemy's artillery bombardment was determined, although the reinforcements were not reinforced, the flares were flying all over the sky, just when everyone thought that the Russians were going to shell all night, and when they waited for the day, less than an hour after the shelling, the front line heard the sound of the Russian charge.

"It's insane!" Niu Cexun, the commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 38th Division, is a descendant of Zuo Zongtang who entered the Hunan Army in Xinjiang, and studied in Moscow when he was a teenager. But the problem is that it took more than half an hour of artillery preparation, and it was only 76mm guns that bombarded the barbed wire fence - after entering the war in Europe, the barbed wire fence of the Baath Army was set up with 150mm howitzers, and now the Russians rushed up, which was basically a repeat of the tragedy of the British army in the Somme.

Niu Cexun was thinking about it, and the various firing points arranged on the front line began to pour fire on the enemy who were charging densely, and the 80 mortars also smashed shells into the black crowd under the lights like hail - this was simply a massacre!

The dense gunfire rang out for more than half an hour, and the Russian troops who shouted Ulla before began to retreat, just when everyone thought that the Russians would attack again after this temptation, they would make full artillery preparations, and after another short artillery preparation, the second 'Ula' sound came from the opposite side again, this time the scale seemed to be even larger than before, and the Russian army attacking on the snow was like a piece of ink flowing on white paper, dyeing half of the white paper full.

As the enemy attacked, the second brigade defended. However, unlike the previous time, the Russian army, knowing that there are still many barbed wire fences that have not been cleared, brought cluster grenades and improvised explosive kits, and in the continuous explosions, some of the more seriously damaged barbed wire fences by artillery fire were destroyed by them. It's just that the Russian army that rushed through the first defensive belt did not know that the defense of the revival army was completely elastic defense, and this defensive belt was originally ready to be destroyed by artillery fire, but the Russian artillery fire was too weak, and the infantry had to take the same approach to open it. At this time, the Russian troops who rushed into the first defensive belt were immediately strafed by machine-gun fire from various formations, because most of these firing points were side-fire, so they did not even have the possibility of retreating.

Bang bang bang machine guns. Bombardment of mortars, frenzied bombardment for an hour later. When the commander of the front shouted a ceasefire, the entire line of defense looked strangely strange. In the originally white snow, at this time the corpses of the Russian army were covered with corpses, and the shouts of the surviving wounded could hardly be heard on the battlefield where the smoke of gunpowder had not dispersed.

On the side of the Baath Army, Trotsky and Vatseties, who had not slept all night on the opposite side of the defense line, stood on the roof of the ironclad train with red eyes, and although the Chinese were constantly turning on the lights in the dark night, the situation there was still not real.

"How's it going?" Putting down the binoculars, Trotsky asked Danishevsky, a member of the Military Council at his side, who this time was his man directing the battle at the front.

"The defense of the Chinese bandits is stubborn. Comrades all sacrificed. Danishevsky said. Are we ......"

"Nope! The great Red Army fighters are invincible, we should go on the offensive, the breakthrough has been opened. "Danishevsky was also Latvian, so the commander-in-chief of the Red Army, Vatsettis, considered him his own. Only the infantry units of the Tenth and First Armies had been charged, and the 2,000 Budyonny cavalry who had escaped from Tsaritsyn and a company of armoured armoured companies that had moved south at Trotsky's request did not engage in the attack. "We should send in real offensive troops." Vatsettis said, looking at Trotsky beside him in the faint starlight, hoping that he would make up his mind.

"It's over." Trotsky shook his head, "The Soviets need them. ”

"Comrade Chairman!" Vatsetis insisted, he. As well as the fact that the Front Army and the members of the Committee had formed mortal enemies with Stalin and others, it was time to cut down the grass and eradicate the roots and completely eliminate the Stalinist lineage of the Tenth Army. Among them, Budyonny and Barhominko, who commanded the armored forces, were the targets that had to be eradicated.

"The revolution needs them!" Trotsky nodded calmly. "Let's put an end to everything here, the biggest threat to us is Kolchak. I'll send a telegram to Ilyich. ”

"But Stalin will definitely take the opportunity to demand the rebuilding of the Tenth Army, and he will certainly not let us go." Vasettis still wanted to convince Trotsky. He could have expected it entirely. After the telegram recognized the strong combat effectiveness of the Chinese army, the accusation of the loss of Tsaritsyn by the 10th Army would cease to exist. Even Stalin's dereliction of duty and indulgence of Chinese spies to spy on the intelligence of Tszitsyn will be unconvincing.

"No, my friend. Ilyich won't let him mess around, I fully believe that. Trotsky nodded as he spoke, as if to convince himself, and he got off the snow-covered roof of his car.

As soon as Trotsky was gone, Vatsettis and Danishevsky were left on the roof. Danishevsky whispered in Latvian: "Karl, what should we do now?" ”

"What else can I do!" "We can only try to avoid conflicts with Stalin and others in the days to come, and at the same time hope that Ilyich will live a long life." ”

Vatsetis also got off the roof of the car, and only Danishevsky was left in the car dealership, he was completely stunned at this time, it was his men who executed all the commanders and commissars of the Tenth Army who had escaped - although the Latvians had been working on death squads since the revolution, but if we added the fact that he ordered the Tenth Army to go to the Chinese line to die tonight, then he would definitely not survive, and Stalin and Voroshinov would definitely kill him.

In the Kremlin Palace in Moscow, at 4 a.m. he received a telegram from Trotsky recommending the signing of a peace treaty with China after the failure of his night attack, and Comrade Lenin breathed a deep sigh of relief, which seemed to him to be good news. At a time when Kolchak was moved by the news of the Chinese occupation of Tsaritsyn, and when Germany was urging for food, it was really good news that Trotsky did not gamble all the Soviet and Eastern Fronts. Thinking of this, Comrade Lenin immediately wrote a telegram and sent it to Petersburg, where the negotiations were basically over, and it was time to sign a contract.

On the eighth day of the tenth month of the seventh year of Shenwu, on November 11, 1918 in the Jesus calendar, Chen Quai, the special envoy of the Great China State, the secret envoy of the Great Japanese Empire, Yasuya Uchida, the secret envoy of the Persian Kingdom, Mostufimamolek, and the representative of the Khiva Khanate, Abdullah. Khakhar and Bukhara Khanate representative Ali. Riza, with the representative of the Russian Soviet government, Adolf. Abramovich. Yue Fei signed the Petersburg Peace Treaty at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, known as the Petersburg Peace Treaty. The main provisions of the peace treaty are:

From the date of the signing of the peace treaty, the countries ceased to interfere in the Russian Revolution and withdrew from the territory of the Russian Soviet Government as defined in the treaty within ten days of the signing of the treaty......

In line with the principle of returning all the territories occupied by Tsarist Russia, abrogating all unequal treaties, and recognizing the independence of all nationalities oppressed by the Tsarist government, the Russian Soviet Government returned the territories of the Northeast, Yuz and Northwest regions of Greater China outside the country from the date of the signing of the peace treaty; return to the kingdom of Persia, the territory of the Cumens; recognition of the independence of the Khiva Khanate; recognition of the independence of the Bukhara Khanate; At the same time, we will conclude a new covenant of equality and friendship with all governments......

Taking into account historical reasons, and in accordance with the principle of compensation to the Russian people, the above-mentioned returned Russian property in the regions and independent states will be compensated by the countries to the Russian Soviet Government at a discount; The Russian Trans-Siberian Railway and Vladivostok, after careful consideration by the Government of Greater China, agreed to lease the routes, stations and seaports of Vladivostok to the Russian Soviet Government for 99 years, and the Russian Soviet Government may decide whether to renew the lease upon expiration; In return, the Russian Soviet government agreed to the establishment of an irrigation canal in Greater China with Lake Belga as its water source, exempting it from water charges and providing all the facilities for its construction......

In accordance with humanitarian principles, the governments of the Great China State, the Government of the Empire of Japan, the Government of the Kingdom of Persia, the Government of the Khiva Khanate, and the Government of the Bukhara Khanate are willing to provide humanitarian assistance to the Russian Soviet Government......

In view of the international situation and the current state of diplomacy, the Russian Soviet Government agreed that the governments would not publicly recognize the Russian Soviet Government for the time being, but that the governments would undertake to recognize the Russian Soviet Government within one year after the end of the war in Europe; At the same time, the countries undertook not to recognize or finance all governments and forces opposed to the Russian Soviet Government; On the basis of the principle of equality, the Russian Soviet Government undertook not to establish a Marxist party in the countries with the aim of overthrowing the existing government......

……

The Peace Treaty was full of 37 articles and contained more than a dozen annexes, including a map of the demarcation of the borders of various countries, a list of compensation for property originally belonging to Russia, and a list of supplies for assistance to the Russian Soviet Government. For the signatories of China, Japan, Poland, Greece and Burundi, the most concerned is the demarcation of the border between the two sides; For the Bolsheviks, the main concern was compensation and aid for Russian assets.

In the former, except for the Yuz region, which is demarcated by 200 kilometers east of the Volga River and 200 kilometers south of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the other regions are basically demarcated according to the historical customary line—the Caspian Sea for Persia, and the historical customary line for China, Mongolia, and Heilongjiang;

In the latter, the valuable assets of Russia and Central Asia were basically occupied by China and Japan, and some properties such as the northern section of the Dongqing Railway and Harbin were also in the hands of China, among which the most valuable ones were the Transcaspian Railway, the Central Asia Railway, the Turkish-Western Railway, and the northern section of the Dongqing Railway, which were valued at 100 million Chinese yuan as compensation.

As for the aid, with a special purpose, China will basically take care of this, and the total amount of grain aid is 200 million poods, but the actual transportation volume shall prevail; In principle, arms are not used as assistance, but they can be sold to Russia, but in order not to cause protests from other countries, aircraft and combat vehicles can only be sold in small quantities. As for long-term low-interest loans, negotiations need to wait for domestic stability in Russia.

The Japanese Yasuya Uchida rushed to Petersburg in the last two days of the negotiations, and he did not have much opinion on the peace treaty, nor did he dare to have too many opinions, he only demanded that the Russian Soviet Government absolutely not allow the establishment of a Marxist party in Japan, and the rest was left to its own devices; The representatives of Persia, Khiva, and Bukhara came only to sign the peace treaty after it was signed, and their share of the peace treaty was to be kept by China until the countries recognized the Russian Soviet government and returned the peace treaty to the other countries. (To be continued......)