On July 15, 1877, a total of 83,000 Russian troops besieged the Pleven fortress. The Third Plevin Siege was personally commanded by the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army, Dmitry 61 Alekseevich 61 Milyutin.

The campaign of the Russian army was designed to attack from both sides of the Black Sea simultaneously from north to south. The Danube Army Group west of the Black Sea forced its way across the Danube, broke through the Balkan Mountains and approached Constantinople. The city of Pleven is south of the Danube and north of the Balkan Mountains. If this nail cannot be pulled out, the Russian army is an important concern for a flank attack from Pleven during a large-scale military operation.

In the first two battles, the Russian army suffered defeats one after another. The Ottoman army in Pleven was supposed to be the elite unit of the Ottoman Empire. Solving this unit not only made the Russian Danube Army no longer have to worry about the future, but also made the Ottoman army frightened. For this battle, Chief of Staff Milyutin is determined to win.

In the Pleven fortress opposite the chief of staff of the Russian army, Li Weiren first commanded the Ottoman army to place all the stored materials first, and then entered the headquarters. Ottoman 61 Nuri Pasha in the headquarters looked grim, and this time the battle was more difficult than he imagined. According to the agreement, the troops under the command of Suleiman Pasha, who were holding the Hika Pass in the Pubalkan Mountains, would cross the Balkans and reinforce Plevin. According to the latest information, Suleiman Pasha could barely hold on to the Pushka Pass. The situation now became that the 30,000 troops under the command of the Ottoman 61 Nuri Pasha had to hold the fortress of Pleven on their own.

Seeing Li Weiren coming in, Osman 61 Nuri Pasha asked in a heavy tone, "Lieutenant Colonel Li, do you think we can hold it?" ”

"It depends on how long you're ready to stay. I don't think we'll be able to hold out here for two years. Li Weiren replied.

Hearing this, Osman 61 Nuri Pasha couldn't help but sigh. This joke that is not a joke is aimed at something not so long ago. For more than a month, the Ottomans have also been frantically collecting food around the city of Pleven, with limited success. The nearby estates and peasant homes were completely emptied, and in the end, less than 2,000 tons of grain were collected.

In order to replenish vitamins, at the suggestion of Li Weiren, the Ottoman army even plucked all the unripe apples in the apple orchard. Salt and mash into a paste and store. On the contrary, tobacco is abundant in the local area, and a large amount of tobacco is enough for 30,000 people to smoke for two years. Osman 61 Nuri Pasha even joked: "Are we going to keep it in Pleven for two years?" ”

Now Li Weiren is joking with this remark, and Osman 61 Nuri Pasha doesn't think it's funny at all.

While he was talking, the Russian Rhine Army began shelling. This time, at least more than 400 artillery pieces must have been involved in the shelling, and unlike the last shelling, this time the Russian army used larger caliber artillery.

In the fortified core command post, Osman 61 Nuri Pasha and Li Weiren only felt the mountain shake, and the earth fell down from the cracks in the wood on the top of the command post. The lantern for lighting swayed back and forth, and its magnitude was so great that it almost fell off the iron hook. The staff officers and guards in the command post all had ugly faces, and some of them showed frightened looks......

The commander-in-chief of the Pleven Fortress, Osman 61 Nuri Pasha, and the de facto commander of the defense, Lieutenant Colonel Li Weiren, were not so excited, and when the others got up, they each pulled a chair and sat down steadily. Russia has no money, and its industrial strength is relatively weak, even if it has 3,000 artillery pieces, it is impossible to be as stingy with firepower as Britain, France or China. Although the Ottoman Empire was weaker in industry than Russia, neither of the Ottoman commanders at the moment believed that such an earth-shattering bombardment could last long.

In less than a minute, the Russian artillery fire weakened. Li Weiren stood up and ordered the communicator: "Let people immediately go and inspect the traffic trenches to determine whether the various firepower points have suffered damage." ”

In the last battle, the Russian artillery did not directly destroy the firepower points of the Pleven fortress, but most of the important firepower points of the fortress were built below the ground, and a large amount of soil blown up by the shells blocked the firing ports and vents. Because of inexperience and poor investigation, the personnel in the two fire points that were not taken seriously because of their remote location suffocated to death. This time, Li Weiren was not willing to make the same mistake again.

These have been targeted training, and the Ottoman army has also specially determined the person in charge. Soon, the personnel of the various full-time departments began to act in the face of artillery fire. By the time the Russian troops lined up again and rolled towards the Pleven fortress, all the firing points had been prepared. This time the Russian artillery was more powerful than last time, and the firing ports and vents of more than a dozen firing points were blocked, but fortunately, the troops coped with it effectively, except for a fire point that was directly hit by enemy artillery fire, there were no casualties.

Last time, the Russians also used the tactic of multi-pronged siege, but at most they only sent two simultaneous attacks. This time with 83,000 elite troops to attack, the Russians took a more aggressive approach and launched a four-way siege.

The Russian army, which attacked from four directions at the same time, was like an iron ring tightly surrounding the Pleven fortress in the middle, and the Ottoman army responded the same as last time, starting from 2,000 meters and firing with single-shot rifles. When the Russians approached a distance of 200 meters, the Ottomans began to fire fiercely with rifles with Gatling's extremely strong and five-way magazines.

The Russian troops who came this time were more elite, which meant that they were more able to hold out. Not only did the Russian army fire at the Ottoman troops inside the fortress at a distance of 200 meters, but several units even braved the rain of bullets and began to charge at the fortress. As long as it dares to pay the price, any army can move on.

With their bravery, these Russian troops rushed to a distance of 50 meters from the Pleven Fortress regardless of their losses. At this time, a trench that the Russian army had not been able to see appeared in front of the Russian army. Where does the Russian army care so much, they jumped one after another. After this jump, the Russian army discovered the strangeness of this trench. On the attacker's side, the trenches were still the same as normal trenches. On the side of the defending Pleven Fortress, the trenches were completely leveled. In other words, the Russian army who jumped off the trench found itself like a person who had been shot, and was shot in the back by a trench that was not easy to climb over, and let the fire point of the Pleven fortress shoot as much as they wanted.

Moments later, these brave Russians were killed in a hail of rifle and Gatling gun bullets. From jumping off a trench to being killed or seriously injured, the men moved less than ten metres. Life and death are just ten meters away.

The Ottoman army did not have time to count the results of the battle at this time, and the Russian troops that came like a tide did not simply come to send them to death. They also opened heavy fire on the Ottoman troops, killing and wounding many of the machine gunners at the firing points with a heavy barrage of bullets. Those Ottomans who fought on the outside positions suffered more casualties.

Doctors with military insignia led the logisticians to and from the various firing points, carrying the wounded and dead away. The deceased were sent to the rear for centralized parking, and the injured were taken to the hospital for treatment. New combatants immediately took over.

Lieutenant Ali 61 Riza, a timber merchant, was in charge of transporting ammunition, and he led his company to carry ammunition boxes through the passage, and the strong smell of gunpowder made it difficult for him to breathe. But the lieutenant did not stop, but, like the rest of his companions in the transport unit, covered his mouth and nose with a cloth dipped in water. Place the ammunition box in a fixed position next to the firing position.

At each firing point, someone was responsible for collecting as many shells as possible from the ground and placing them in empty ammunition boxes. Lieutenant Ali 61 Riza They also had to carry the boxes and place the shells in the corresponding positions at the various passages. These are all combat operations that have been trained many times. After repeated training, these movements can be performed with your eyes closed.

Someone would deliver these shells to the small arsenal of the fortress. In the arsenal, 500 ordnance workers began to use tools to reload the bullets. Among the supplies that arrived in Pleven were these Chinese-made reloading equipment, which were operated by man, given the level of Turkish industry. These devices are suitable for Turkey, especially for the current Pleven Fortress.

The production adopts the assembly line method, removes the fire cap, removes the ash in the cartridge case, expands the mouth of the cartridge case, installs the fire cap, loads the quantitative gunpowder into the cartridge case, loads the warhead, and presses the interface with a machine. Although reloaded ammunition does not have to be sent to the front line immediately, the military factory is also working intensively, completely oblivious to the fierce fighting that is going on outside.

Under Li Weiren's arrangement and training, the entire fortress was operating in an orderly manner. And the Russian army outside the fortress could not withstand it after three rounds of attacks. The main force of the attack then became the Bulgarians, who had a bitter hatred for the Ottoman Empire.

The Bulgarian army was mainly an armed force with militias as the backbone, and they did not have the formal training of the Russian army, and the ranks were scattered and scattered, and when the enemy fired, the Bulgarians would also lie on the ground and use the accumulated corpses of the Russians to avoid bullets. This was undoubtedly an unprofessional demonstration of the Bulgarians, but it did have the effect of reducing casualties along the way. Moreover, the Bulgarians will also pick up the weapons thrown by the Russian army on the position when they move, and their own weapons are undoubtedly much behind the weapons of the Russian army, and a considerable part of them are still front-loading smoothbore guns.

But Bulgaria's hatred of the Ottoman Empire was far greater than that of Russia, and no matter how irregular it looked, no one fled or hesitated. They approached the Pleven fortress and engaged the Ottomans in an exchange of fire.

When they saw their chance to rush to the "dilapidated Ottoman positions" devastated by artillery fire, the Bulgarian soldiers, full of bitter hatred for the Ottoman Empire, jumped like moths to the fire and were completely exposed to Ottoman fire.

The corpses in the trenches began to pile up at an alarming rate, and by the end of the battle, less than 1,000 of the 5,000 men who had been thrown into the battle were able to return to their starting point. The Gallian army, who had been killed in battle, used their own bodies to fill the trench that Li Weiren had painstakingly designed. When Li Weiren saw the corpses piled up inside the trench in the telescope, he didn't even feel complacent. Holding the binoculars, Li Weiren felt that his worldview was about to collapse. Even though he had seen the brutality of the battle with his own eyes, he still couldn't believe it at all.

Many years later, the fortress in the city of Plewen was demolished and disappeared. The Battle of Pleven Memorial is located next to this trench. The lowest part of the trench was dug up again and became part of the exhibition hall. Even if it was once landfilled, even after decades have passed, after the trench has been dug up again after several tons of blood, it can still clearly see the black color completely different from the other soil layers.

On the display board next to it, the name of the trench is written in large letters, "River of Blood".