On June 23, 1916, the day after the Chinese army's "Bear Slaughter" offensive began, the railway town of Mias, at the eastern foot of the Ural Mountains, had already been reduced to ruins in yesterday's artillery fire.

Wang Zhi, who was wearing a short-brimmed hat and wearing civilian military clothes, jumped out of the car with only one guard, strode into the tent, and saw Zhao Minhe in front of the map table. What about your troops? ”

Zhao Minhe looked tired, and said with a strong spirit: "Report to the commander, the enemy secretly withdrew from the position last night and redeployed on the line of Therostan, an old kilometer west of this place, and the vanguard of our army has advanced to the front of the enemy and is waiting for the artillery to follow up. Wang Zhi frowned: "What are you waiting for, give me a tight fight, don't give the enemy a chance to breathe!" ”

"Sir, without artillery support, our army will pay a big price."

"Then you can find a way for me, Chu Qing has already attacked Yurma Mountain in the north, and Zhao Feixue in the south has also taken Ustinovo, your side is good, not even the edge of the main defense line has been reached, if this continues, Chu Qing and Zhao Feixue's flanks will be violent to the enemy, and the whole offensive may collapse Can you afford this responsibility?"

Zhao Minhe endured his grievances and defended as calmly as possible: "Sir, my Middle Route Army has the longest battle line, faces the most enemies, and has only one more division than the other two Route Army, but I still took Mias half a day in advance. However, if the various units fought in a surprise attack overnight, the formation was scattered, and the supply was not smooth, and if there was no artillery support, a forced attack would make the enemy realize the weakness of our army and adversely affect the overall combat intention of our army. ”

Wang Zhi tilted his chin unhappily: "Then what do you want?" ”

"Now there are two and a half days left before the deadline for the capture of Therostan, and the artillery will be redeployed tonight, please allow our army to attack Therostan with all its strength tomorrow morning." Wang Zhi didn't speak after listening, squinted at Zhao Minhe for a while, and suddenly let out a long sigh and patted him on the shoulder.

"Am I being too you?" "Sir......

Zhao Minhe was stunned, and he didn't know how to respond for a while.

Wang Zhi smiled bitterly: "How can I not know your difficulties, but who knows the difficulties of me, the commander............ Forget it, just do what you say, and don't let the Mao Zi on the other side look down on us.

Zhao Minhe hurriedly saluted: "Yes!" Thank you for your understanding! ”

"I'll contact the Lu Airlines gang of puppies tonight to see if they can send more planes tomorrow...... Hey, everywhere is crying poor, and the landlord's family can only eat chaff. ”

Wang Zhi shook his head and walked out with his hands behind his back, Zhao Minhe led a group of young people who had not yet woken up

The staff officers sent them to the outside of the tent, and they all saluted until the "sweat horse" cart disappeared at the end of the smoke and dust in the distance......

From here you can clearly overlook the South Ural Railway that passes through the pass, and you can vaguely identify the Chinese marching column between Mias and Throstan from the high-powered telescope.

Kontrachenko put down his binoculars and turned to Lieutenant General Hovlin, the commander of the 1st Infantry Army beside him, with a serious expression: "Mias gave up too early, just hold on for another day." ”

Hovlin spread his hands helplessly: "The enemy army has surrounded Mias on three sides last night, and if it continues to hold out, the defenders are likely to be surrounded and annihilated today." ”

Contrachin Cohen snorted, and should not be held accountable.

"How long can Thorostein hold out?" Hovrin hesitated for a while, then reluctantly replied, "Two days at most." ”

Kontrachenko changed his magnanimous appearance this time: "If you can't do it, withdraw it, don't be reluctant to save your strength for the defense of the main line, how did you play yesterday?" ”

"The enemy's offensive is still consistently fierce, with a considerable number of tanks and aircraft supporting, and poison gas bombs fired in some sections, but compared to an outpost defense line, it is a bit of a fuss, and it actually uses three whole divisions to attack the front line where three regiments of our army are stationed...... "It seems that the enemy is in a hurry, and they don't want to waste time in the outpost position, so they don't hesitate to invest excessive troops and weapons." The Chief of Staff, Colonel Tukhanov, keenly grasped the point.

"Why are they in a hurry? We're not running away. Hovrin was puzzled.

Tukhanov shook his head: "This is not clear, but since they want to hurry" we should delay them in turn. ”

"How do you delay? Hold them off in front of the main line? ”

"Otherwise, it will quickly deplete our forces, and it is better to let them attack our main line of defense as soon as possible According to the report of the 27th Army stationed on the northern flank of Mount Yurma, although the two divisions of the enemy quickly seized the outpost of Karabashi, they quickly ran out of strength in the subsequent attack on the main position of Mount Yurma, and by noon today the offensive had completely stopped."

Hovrin blinked, even more suspicious: "In that case, we shouldn't have been allowed to defend those outposts in the first place, yesterday's battle has already caused more than half of my two regiments to be lost, and the other regiment has also been disabled by two battalions, isn't it in vain that these thousands of people have been sacrificed?" ”

Tukhanov looked a little helpless: "Without these outposts, we would not have been able to understand the scale and strength of the enemy's attack, and their sacrifice was worth it." ”

To Tukhanov's cold answer "Khovrin is obviously not satisfied" but could not refute it, he had to sigh: "I hope so ......" "Report!" Call from Moscow Base Camp! ”

Tukhanov turned to see a young lieutenant with goggles on his military cap busily pulling documents from his satchel, his face covered with dust, and a motorcycle lying not far away.

"Lieutenant Vasilevsky, look at your urgency" What's the good news? "Sir, according to the rules, I can't read it."

The lieutenant handed the message to Tuhano.

"Well, let Lou take a look......" Tukhanov opened the envelope and quickly skimmed through it, "Shen Sè suddenly became nervous, turned around and presented the telegram to Kontrachenko.

After reading the message, Kondrachenko shook his head and smiled: "This Nakashize" I don't know what kind of wind the road blew to the base camp, and the battle has just begun" came to steal my bee frin mouth and was unforgiving: "That old bear who can only play with strange toys? What does he want to steal from us? ”

Tukhanov shrugged: "What else can there be?" The only armored car brigade we have, plus two cavalry divisions. "He already has two tank brigades, an armored vehicle brigade and five cavalry divisions, and he came to us to ask us "We also need armored vehicles and cavalry~ God knows where the Chinese people will get behind us."

Tukhanov handed the telegram to Hovlin again: "There is no requirement in this telegram that we hand over these troops today, in fact, it is too late today" It will take at least three days for the troops to assemble and load, during which time we will have time to bargain with the base camp. Kontrachenko muttered half a cigarette with his back hand, shook his head and said: "Nakasidze wants these troops" must have his reasons, "We should not embarrass him, but our situation here is still unclear, it is better to send this: we will first send an armored car battalion and a cavalry regiment stationed in Ufa to Orenburg" and the rest of the troops will decide whether or when to send them according to the development of the situation. ”

Tukhanov clapped his hands: "Or is the commander thoughtful and uses this meaning to reply to the base camp, how about it?" ”

"That's it."

Kontrachenko nodded, "Raised the telescope again."

Tukhanov turned around and beckoned to Vassikovsky, who was waiting next to the motorcycle: "Lieutenant, come over with a pen and paper, prepare to take notes." ”

At dusk, 50 kilometers east of Orenburg, in the small village of Vyazovka on the north bank of the Ural River, Liang Tianhe, dressed in a full marshal's uniform, stood beside his "sweat horse" car with his back hand and silently watched the six pontoon bridges upstream.

These pontoon bridges used more than eighty percent of the engineering units of the entire front army, and "each pontoon bridge was enough to pass the 20-ton Iron Leopard" chariot that was built overnight, and the main force of General Lu Kaiping's assault group, General Yan Meng's right wing group, and Lieutenant General Wang Tao's covering group each began to cross the river one after another, and the entire army of 200,000 people was still slowly crossing the river at this time.

The wheels of the bridge, the hooves of the horses, the hurried footsteps, the endless marching columns, like a tributary of the Ural River, connecting the continent of Asia on the south bank with the Europa field on the north bank.

"After the bridge, it's Europe."

Liang Tian'er couldn't help but feel a sense of unnamed pride in his heart.

However, before he could find a way to express his emotions, the chief of staff, General Yan Canglong, who had just received the message from a herald on a motorcycle, walked quickly to his side.

"There's news from Lu Kaiping."

Liang Tianhe quickly collected his interrupted thoughts, turned around and nodded: "What's the situation?" ”

Yan Canglong casually recounted while presenting the telegram: "The advance detachment of the assault cluster entered the south bank of the Olun River opposite Sakmara, at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and retreated after being heavily shelled from the north bank. Liang Tianhe took the telegram and glanced at it a few times, and then handed it back.

"What do you think?" Yan Canglong read the telegram again, raised his head and said: "It seems that there is no big problem" According to the plan, the mobile engineering unit attached to the assault cluster will start to build a pontoon bridge tonight, and tomorrow morning, the assault cluster will cross the Oren River in one go, and there will be nothing left to block the armored iron flow of our army. ”

Liang Tianhe looked at the north bank from afar, and his eyes were detached.

"I hope things go well, but I always feel that the enemy seems to have been prepared for this time, and that we will come from the right."

"What do you mean by that?" Yan Canglong was at a loss for a moment.

"If you think about it, "in the past, the enemy would always desperately counterattack our bridgehead" or try to outflank our in-depth assault force from the flank, but this time, it was like this............ Cooperation, don't you think it's a little strange? ”

……@。