No matter how many torpedo boat destroyers there were on the Volga, Wen Yongyu's current armored cavalry corps had to take Astrakhan quickly, and the sooner the better, otherwise the longer it dragged on, the more dangerous it would be for the Bolshevik Red Army to finish the enemy in the east. On the fourth day after crossing the Urals, when the troops advanced to ninety kilometers outside the city of Astrakhan, snow suddenly began to fall in the sky.

"Damn, didn't you say it would snow in a few days?" The commander of the 3rd Armored Division, Guo Xianchen, rode his warriors all the way, rushing from the armored queue a few kilometers away to the ranks of the cavalry corps headquarters. As soon as he saw the army commanders Tao Ke Tao Hu and Wen Yongyu, he shouted loudly. The 370-kilometer, 70-kilometer march a day really cost the armored division's life, and if it weren't for the trailer and the maintenance battalion of the 4th Armored Division, which was being formed, he would have lost more than half of his iron lumps.

"The will of the Immortal Heaven is to snow heavily, so we can only thank the heavens." The army commander Tauktahu was no longer a Mongolian bandit, but a national hero and a Mongolian prince. In his opinion, the worse the environment, the weaker the enemy's resistance, and he was very happy about this.

"But Lao Tzu's cars haven't changed their camouflage yet, and they all leak from a distance." Guo Xianchen looked at the Mongols on the horse, and then patted the iron horse sitting down, only feeling that everyone was completely different from each other. "There's still a hundred kilometers left, what can I do?"

"Let's wait for the scouts to come back." Wen Yongyu also rode on a small Mongolian horse. From the beginning of the cavalry brigade, he was accustomed to riding on horseback instead of in a chariot. "Let's find a place to camp first, and don't act rashly until we have any definite information."

"Yes!" Guo Xianchen is actually not very obedient to the Mongols, but Wen Yongyu is a student of Yang Rui. Earlier, the founder of the Linxi Revolutionary Base was still very convinced of him. See Wen Yongyu speaking here. He nodded and went back to make arrangements.

It was getting darker, but the snow was getting heavier and heavier. The smell of mare's milk wafts through the standard Finnish military tent after camping, and the headquarters is waiting for the scouts to return to the camp while discussing siege strategies. This time it was Tauktahu's eldest son, Deliger, who led the expedition to reconnoitre, and then some Kalmyks. On the night that the army left Atyrau, they set out on three horses and one man, some of them entering the city to stir up civil strife, others simply scouting - the Mongol army's combat habits still existed in the hearts of every Mongol, and the General Staff did not interfere with this.

When it was eleven o'clock, and everyone was going to doze off. Outside, the sound of horses' hooves sounded, and Deliger, who was covered in snow, shouted and reported that a cold wind rushed in. Tao Ke Taohu did not return the salute, but grabbed his son's shoulders with both hands, glanced at him and found that he had blood on his body, and asked urgently: "Have you brought everyone back?" ”

"After leaving the city, I met a group of cavalry...... "Deliger is not as young as he was ten years ago, and while his beard grows, he has become extremely sophisticated and calm. He didn't want to talk about the reconnaissance team, so he immediately turned the conversation to the defense of the city of Astrakhan. "The city was controlled by the Red Russians. The defenders were the 45th Infantry Regiment and the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry, with more than a dozen machine guns and breech 76mm guns, but there were not many cannons. Now the people in the city are panicking. Food is so scarce that all shops are closed to business, and hundreds of thousands of people have to queue up every day to buy bread......" Deliger said, holding out a proclamation.

'Astrakhan district. Provisional Revolutionary Military Council: Bulletin No. 1. September 22, 1918.

In view of the extremely limited amount of food available in the city of Astrakhan and the increase in the amount of grain delivered to the army, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Astrakhan District hereby instructed the Gubernia Grain Council and its food distribution agencies to immediately reduce the bread ration to the basic standard. That is, one pound for the first category and half a pound for the second category. Class III Quarter Pound ......'

The staff officer, who knew Russian, immediately read out the proclamation, but no one paid attention to it, and the final signatory of the proclamation was the chairman Sergei. Mironovic. Kirov. It was this person who was assassinated in history, and Comrade Stalin felt that the party and the army were full of counter-revolutionaries, and that he had launched a purge on an unprecedented scale.

After reading the proclamation, Deliger took out another hand-drawn drawing, and then said: "Martial law is now imposed in the city, and it is divided into six districts, each of which has a commander appointed by Chairman Kinov, and these commanders are subordinate to the city defense council set up by the Revolutionary Committee. The headquarters of the Council of the City Defense has been moved from the city government, where the Revolutionary Committee was located, to the city ......," Deliger pointed to a point on the map, "on the banks of the Volga River, and the towering house is said to have been a strategic point in Astrakhan for a long time, and was built in the 16th century under the IV dynasty of Ivan. ”

Obviously, even the translator of the Fourth Dynasty of Ivan of Russia does not know when it was, but everyone knows that this is a fortress built hundreds of years ago, but considering that there are only two regiments defending the city - an infantry regiment and a cavalry regiment, and considering that the Red Russian troops have always been very short of personnel, it can be concluded that there are only more than 1,000 people defending such an important city.

The introduction was not finished, and Deliger said after speaking: "There are many rebels in the city, and I have made an appointment with some people in the city without authorization, and the gunfire outside the city will be the same in the past two days, so they will launch a rebellion......"

Just like this, the soldiers were going to launch a rebellion, Guo Xianchen sat on the chair and said deflatedly: "There is still a rebellion, so what else is there to fight?" Tonight the march has passed, and the battle is over. ”

After the dedication was discouraged, the others were relieved in their hearts. When mobilizing before departure, the headquarters wanted the troops to fight with 12 points of spirit, and did not want to attack a city that was basically an empty city in the first battle. When Deliger introduced other situations in the city, Wen Yongyu quietly began to think about Tsaritsyn.

According to the information of the Intelligence Bureau, there are about 13 group armies in Red Russia, of which the 10th Army is defending Tsaritsyn, although the last war was seriously weakened, Hu Wenyao believes that through transfer and re-recruitment, it can at least immediately recover to the previous 40,000 people in terms of numbers. The 10th Army was in Tsaritsyn, and the 11th Army was in the North Caucasus, where, according to the information provided by the British, there were 100,080 infantry men. There were 18,000 cavalrymen and more than 490 machine guns. More than 160 cannons. However, no more than 50,000 troops could fight. In addition, most of them are wounds and some typhus.

If Astrakhan is occupied by the Baath Army, then this army will be cut off from support, especially since this army is short of ammunition and is 500 kilometers away, separated by a large steppe and the Astrakhan desert; The end result was that they would be wiped out by Denikin's White Army, and the 40,000 men of the Cossacks loyal to the Tsar would march north on the corpse of the Red Russian Eleventh Army. With the current diplomatic relations – China still recognizes the old Russia and belongs to the Entente bloc with it, and the two countries have not signed a treaty, but at least there is an armistice – he has a strong legal basis to go north to take over Astrakhan and Tsaritsyn......

This is the case in the South. To the north of Tsaritsyn were the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th armies of Red Russia, commanded by Trotsky himself, a total of four armies. In August, the 2nd and 5th armies took Kazan after a bloody battle, and the 1st and 4th armies captured Samara, and although the second of the four armies was pursuing the Czech corps eastward, the other three seemed to be resting in the Kazan area, and they were only a thousand kilometers from Tsaritsyn, and it would take only two to three days to go downstream. That is to say. After the occupation of Astrakhan, if the other side knows that it knows the situation of its forces and its intentions, it is very likely that it has just arrived in Tsaritsyn, and the vanguard of the other side has also reached the outskirts of Tsaritsyn.

And according to the operational plan of the command. That is, the cavalry corps first seized Astrakhan, and then, if all went well, the convoy from the port of Krasnovodsk, south of the Caspian Sea, at the same time, would reach the mouth of the Volga on the day or the day after the cavalry corps occupied Astrakhan. Grain ships were scarce in the Caspian Sea. With the Persian fishing boats, the total tonnage does not add up to 100,000 tons. These flotillas could only carry one division and one regiment at a time, and their real role was to ship troops from the port of Krasnovodsk to Astrakhan. The army was then transported by rail to Tsaritsyn.

Another intention of the cavalry to seize Astrakhan was to seize or requisition the huge number of fishing boats in this huge harbor - this city at the mouth of the Volga River, although there were many factories, many people in the city were fishermen, and there were countless fish processing plants in the city, these fishing boats could provide another part of the capacity, but no matter how you calculated, the ships were not enough. For this reason, Wen Yongyu inevitably had a question: why not use the port of Krasnovodsk as a base and take Baku across the sea? In this way, the fleet will be turned into ferries, and some troops can also be transported by rail.

Although they will be at war with the Turks and the Red Russians, they may not be able to understand their intentions to go north. Once Baku is captured, troops can be quickly transported to Tsaritsyn via Astrakhan by rail, which is much faster than by sea. As now, two cavalry divisions, one armored division, plus a few thousand Kalmyk cavalry, totaled just over 30,000 men, and even with the first infantry divisions transported to Astrakhan, the total number was just over 40,000 and less than 50,000. It may be enough for these people to occupy Tsaritsyn, but how easy is it to withstand the attack of nearly 200,000 troops of the three armies of Red Russia moving south?

Wen Yongyu felt that the headquarters' operational plan not to occupy Baku was a problem, and although the operational plan was to be kept secret, no matter how you looked at it, it was a shortage of troops. In fact, this is also a major problem in the war against Russia: That is, Russia is too big, its transportation network is extremely sparse as it is in China, and its troops often have to maneuver hundreds or thousands of kilometers in combat, and this has brought great trouble to logistics.

The Ba'ath Army, starting from the port of Krasnovodsk in the southern part of the Caspian Sea, was in a marching race with the Red Russian army starting from Kazan or Kozlov (only 600 kilometers from Tsaritsyn). What really benefits them is that compared with the other side that is improvised and lacks heavy firepower, the Baath Army has more powerful firepower and more capable soldiers. After the occupation of Tsaritsyn, if the vanguard can resist the Red Russian army moving south and wait for the reinforcements to go north, then the war must be a victory for the revival army; But if ......

While Wen Yongyu was thinking about these questions, the staff officers had adjusted the situation map of the enemy and us according to the latest intelligence, the city where the garrison headquarters was located, and the garrisons of the commanders of the six districts were marked, and a monastery was specially marked, which was the headquarters of the rebels, and they were said to have mastered 3,000 rifles and two three-inch breech guns. For this, the staff officers were not convinced, and really wanted three thousand rifles. Then why not start an uprising right away and wipe out only two regiments of the Red Russian army? At first glance, these people are 'bourgeois' with little courage, this is what Hu Wenyao said. Wen Yongyu was deeply impressed.

"Let's take this place first." Wen Yongyu pointed to a place called Narimanov north of Astra. "The 1st Armored Division and the 1st Cavalry Division are acting together, and they must cut off the defenders' path to the north. Not to get away from a single Russian army, and in addition, to cut the telegraph line on the railway, so that we can have a few more days. ”

"Yes." Guo Xianchen and the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Naidan Zabu, nodded together, everyone was very clear before the battle plan, but they didn't expect that there were so few Russian troops defending the city, and there was still an internal response.

After giving the order to the north, Wen Yongyu said again: "The 2nd Cavalry Division is responsible for capturing Astrakhan, and we must pay special attention to whether there is a radio antenna in the city, and if it is found. It is necessary to blow it up by all means in case the Russian army sends a wireless telegraphy. ”

"Yes!" The commander of the 2nd Cavalry Division, Hada, also immediately agreed, he had long been eager to try it, but unfortunately the enemy army was too weak.

"The rest of the troops will act as usual, pay special attention to the perimeter alert from now until tomorrow evening, and don't leak the news before the attack." Wen Yongyu said that he was still not at ease, and said again: "In this way, except for the attacking troops, the rest of the troops will camp on the spot during the day tomorrow." Until the attacking forces took Astrakhan. ”

After Wen Yongyu finished speaking, he looked at the army commander Tao Ke Taohu, Tao Ke Taohu had no opinion on this, he didn't know about the armored division, but what was the situation with his subordinates. He knew very well that one brigade would be enough to take Astrakhan, and a regiment would be enough to send a blockade to the north. For the sake of secrecy, there is really no need for the whole army to go together.

"General...... "There is no opinion on the side of the Renaissance Army." The Kalmyks stood up, "I would like to send three hundred warriors with the army." ”

Thinking of being able to capture Astrakhan. The blood of the Kalmyks is about to boil, and it doesn't matter if the city is handed over to them after it is conquered, but the steppe from Atyrau to Astrakhan is unusually fat, and the tribe does not make some effort, and it is not embarrassing to pick it up in the future, but the leader Baiyin Bao saw that the chief of staff did not give him a task, and he stood up excitedly at the moment.

Tao Ketao Hu glanced at Wen Yongyu when he saw this, and when he saw the chief of staff nodding and smiling, he smiled and said, "Okay!" But you must obey orders in all your manners, and you must not do anything on your own! ”

"I swear in the name of Immortal Heaven that I will absolutely obey the general's military orders!" Bai Yinbao is not a soldier, so he didn't make any military orders, just swore an oath.

"Sit down!" Tao Ke Taohu saw that Bai Yinbao was so solemn, and immediately smiled. "The real bitter battle is in Tsaritsyn, and the real steppe heroes will gallop there."

Ninety kilometers away, the Baath Army had laid out plans for the siege of the city, but Kirov, the chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee in Astrakhan, could not sleep. In order to save fuel, arms controls have been introduced in the city, but the headquarters of the Commission is lit 24 hours a day. Since the establishment of the Soviets in the revolution to take over the city, Astrakhan seems to have been so restless as in the past two days. Something is wrong! Kirov thought to himself.

'Ring, ring, ring, ......' The phone rang suddenly in the middle of the night, and there was a hint of coldness in the ringtone.

"I'm Kirov." Kirov, who was not asleep, immediately opened his eyes. During the war, there was a lack of telephone lines, and in addition to the telephones in the city, even the headquarters of the 45th Regiment outside the city did not have a telephone to train to the headquarters. The call must have come from within the city, but what's the matter at such a late hour?

"Comrade Chairman, the rich peasants who were arrested today for spreading rumors have already confessed." The telephone was the voice of Jakofink, the captain of the workers' Soviet, who was at the city hall at the time of the evacuation of the city headquarters, which had been turned into the territory of the inspection team, where many bourgeois elements were imprisoned – the wealth of the working people whom they had swindled had to be liquidated.

"Yes! What's going on? Kirov's grip on the earpiece tightened.

"We have cracked a conspiracy to rebel, Comrade President. The kulaks confessed that a kulak from Karabari named Popov and a Socialist-Revolutionary sent by Rostov were preparing to launch a rebellion. Jacofunk's voice remained calm, but the pride in it was irrepressible. They set up a secret hideout in the Blagovissichensky Monastery, where they had almost three thousand rifles, a dozen machine guns, and even two three-inch field guns that had been hidden. Comrade President, we are going to ...... shortly"

"No!" Hearing that there were so many weapons, Kirov's eyes rolled in surprise and immediately rejected Jacofunk's plan. "With so many weapons, it is definitely not just a few kulaks who can plan it. They must also have allies. Now that we know where the rebellion started, we must find a way to wipe out these counter-revolutionaries! ”

After making this decision, Kirov knew that he had missed one more thing. "Comrade Jacofink, I will definitely report to Moscow about your efforts and those of the inspection team, but we must find out all the counter-revolutionaries hiding in the shadows. It is better to surround them and kill them when they are about to start a rebellion. ”

"Yes, Comrade Chairman!" "But, Comrade President, I fear that the rebels have really been armed, and if the monastery really had so many weapons, it would be a disaster. ”

"Don't worry." Kirov had already thought of a countermeasure in his heart. "I will draw some reliable comrades from the 1st Cavalry Regiment and place them around the monastery in advance, and as soon as these counter-revolutionaries enter, I will hunt them down......"

Kirov hung up the phone after a few brief reassurances to Jakofink, and the next morning he drove to the 1st Cavalry Regiment and the 45th Infantry Regiment outside the city to draw a group of Bolshevik Party members, and these 400 troops were to be placed around the monastery in the event of a reactionary rebellion by these counter-revolutionaries. Another confession of the kulaks, that the White Army outside the city would attack Astrakhan one night in the next few days, was nothing more than the nonsense that they had been tortured and fainted, and that the White Army was being blocked hundreds of kilometers away by Sorokin's Eleventh Army. Even if a small number of the White Army sneaked out of the net and sneaked outside the city of Astrakhan, they would have done nothing as long as the counter-revolutionaries inside the city had been cleared in advance.

With this in mind, Kirov prepared a false signal that night - to send a company of soldiers to fire guns indiscriminately outside the city. In order to provoke the counter-revolutionaries in the city to launch a rebellion, and then besiege and annihilate it. At twelve o'clock in the evening, the company outside the city began to shoot and shout indiscriminately. The Red Army outside the Blagovissichensky Monastery inside the city waited with bated breath, and sure enough, it was so. More and more shadows converged on the monastery from all sides in the darkness, but just as Kirov ordered the artillery to open fire on the monastery. More intense gunfire rang out from the east side of the city......

The front-page article on September 26 in the China Times was "Darhan on a Snowy Night" -- because of secrecy, the news of the capture of Astrakhan by the Baath Army cavalry appeared in the domestic newspaper four days later. To be more honest, most of the Chinese people don't know where this city called Durhan is, but when they saw that it was the revival army that defeated the Russian soldiers and captured a big city, they didn't shout loudly. However, there are exceptions to everything, and at the Chinese anarchist headquarters at Des Voeux Dao Jie Fa No. 4 in Hong Kong, the anarchist fighters who read the newspapers were indignant.

Under the black flag hanging high on the wall, Comrade Du Wen, the president of the company, did not scold like everyone else, and after reading the front page of "Darhan on a Snowy Night", he loudly criticized it, but read all the other articles in the China Times that refuted the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and then unexpectedly said: "This propaganda is very good, what's the problem?" Any questions?! "Du Wen's queen-like pride of all the party members present,

"At least the Ba'ath government recognized the Bolsheviks as revolutionaries and not as the 'Marxist-Leninist cult' as a handful of people, but only considered them a little 'brutal' and a little 'authoritarian'. So will the revival be a revolution or a counter-revolution? At first, it may seem like a revolution when it treats its enemies with brutality and autocracy, but then it is able to gain a foothold, becoming more and more like a centrist and a gentleman, often played by the political playfulness of the domestic exploiting class reactionaries.

Some people at home are in fact unable to accept even reforms, but the Russian Soviets do not have these scruples and shackles, and although they started later and the internal and external situation is more sinister, they will never be like the Revival Society and at the same time waging a large-scale war against the reactionaries abroad while being teased by the counter-revolutionaries at home?

In my opinion, the attitude towards the Bolshevik revolution in Russia is the litmus test of a true or false revolution, but in fact, since a few years ago, the Baath clique has already established its position under the threat and inducement of internal reactionaries: that is, as long as the workers and peasants do not rebel, the core of the bourgeoisie at home and in the West. For this reason, it was necessary to intervene in the whole of Central Asia, which was not the entire territory of the Han and Tang dynasties, and suppress the Soviet revolution there......"

Since returning from Switzerland to secure the position of prime minister, Comrade Du Wen's speech has become longer and longer, and after she said this, Zheng Pi'an, the only one who was not dizzy, said: "Prime minister, we should show solidarity with the Bolsheviks, and for this reason I think we should advance the strike that was planned before." ”

"In advance?" Strikes and troublemakers were the demands of the Germans, after all, it was always necessary to get money, but the foundation of the Obscure Society was only in the south, and only in Guangzhou to be exact. In addition to shipbuilding, all military production is in the Yangtze River as well as in the north, what is the use of the Guangzhou strike?

"Yes, Prime Minister. The special herbal tea for the Fuxing Army is made by Wanglaoji in Guangzhou, and we have already penetrated the workers of Wanglaoji's factory to launch a strike in support of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Zheng Bi'an said. He is the brother-in-law of the late president Liu Sifu, and in order to realize the great harmony of "no government", "no religion", "no family", "everyone does his best" and "everyone takes what he needs" as soon as possible, his name was changed to "the other side". (To be continued......)