In early autumn, the weather in the Donets Ridge region becomes cold, and the salty and wet sea breeze blows from the Black Sea, which meets the cold wind, and the north wind mixed with the rain makes people feel a chill.

The 4th Marine Corps, reorganized from the 4th Mountain Army, was deployed near Mariupol, a plateau in the northern part of the Sea of Azov, with undulating hills and gentle slopes.

It was already close to the front line, and occasionally there were sporadic gunfire from a dozen kilometers away.

The weather has warmed up.

There was a lot of rain this autumn, and it almost didn't stop. The sky was always gloomy, and for most of the army groups in Central Asia for a long time, the port of Berjiang, located on the coast of the Sea of Azov, was a strange city, and the air was filled with a strange and unsettling smell of a foreign land.

The Eastern Franconian Army Group South has crossed the Dnieper River and attacked the Donets region, and large numbers of fleeing Ukrainians, Rus' and Jewish civilians have poured into the city, crowded at the docks, waiting to flee the already burning land for the Kuban region. Some retreating warships of the Principality of Kyiv were stationed in the harbor, and several patrol ships flying the flag of the Tang Navy were patrolling the sea.

"We will defend our motherland to the death, and all male citizens under the age of 32 must stay and join the army!" The National Guard, which is responsible for maintaining order at the docks, verifies, confirms and registers the identities of the refugees, and patrol cars on the docks repeatedly broadcast the latest orders of the Don District Governor's Office.

"Oh, so many Jews?" Captain Prokhov walked over, stared at the crowd with the little black hats on their heads, and said to Captain Mijiulin, who was on duty at the docks.

"Maybe they can't stand the reign of terror of the Christians either!" Mijulin sighed and said that it is no longer known how many Ukrainian and Jewish villages have been destroyed by the war.

"We still have to give our precious food to these heretics, damn it, and let them face the slavery of the East Francons." Prokhov said, "How many transports are coming today?" ”

"This batch is 24 ships, and there may be 21 ships arriving in the afternoon, unloading ships is a big trouble, and the dock is not enough." Mi Jiulin said, pointing to the freight dock in the distance, where the long arms of a dozen tower cranes were swinging back and forth, and the dock was filled with military supplies painted in yellow and green camouflage: tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, military trucks and mountains of bullets and shells, as well as oil drums, provisions, clothing and tents and other supplies.

"This should be the Imperial 27th Armored Division, which has just been transferred from Central Asia, and the command has their unloading plan." Prokhov noticed that the turrets of those tanks were very different from the current tanks, similar in appearance to the No. 4 "Shepherd" tank, except that the turret looked larger. The tanks were also painted in khaki desert paint, and it was clear that they had just been transferred here from the battlefields of the Middle East.

"It looks like a big war is really going to break out, in recent times, in Mariupol alone, four armored divisions have come ashore, I heard that there are more armored units arriving in Rostov-on-Don, this is good, the counterattack is about to begin, so many tanks, enough for the East Franks to drink a good pot." Mi Jiulin said with a smile, "The Empire's troops mobilized this time are more than two million troops, and it is possible to fight all the way to Poland!" ”

At present, west of the Donets Ridge, the positions of the Don Army and the East Frankish Army are tangled, and the defense line of the Imperial 19th Army defending the Donetsk line is in danger of being breached, and the 15th Army, which has ended its domestic leave, and the newly formed 36th Army in Central Asia are urgently sent to the Donetsk front line to strengthen the defenses here.

The 36th Army from Central Asia was urgently transported from the country to the ports on the Black Sea coast, and from Jiangbel, the 46th Division of the 136th Army was the second group to land. More than 15,000 young people who had just completed their training in China marched from here to the front line with high morale to receive the "baptism" of war.

The roads between the northern plateaus of the Sea of Azov were filled with Tang soldiers, and over the next few days, more and more troops joined the torrent.

The mountains gradually became gentler, and the troops entered the edge of the border between the platform and the lowlands on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, and in the upper reaches of the Donets River, the fighting was raging, and as for the situation of the battle, ordinary soldiers and junior officers did not know the situation, and could only guess wildly.

As the front line got closer, the march became unsafe.

Several transports were blown up by enemy planes on the road, and black smoke was emitting from the side of the road, as if to remind the soldiers that this was already the front line. Of course, they saw more of the Imperial Army Air Corps' fighters: Swift fighters, westward Falcon dive bombers, and SM03B Vulture twin-engine bombers, flying in groups overhead, as if conducting an air review.

After the convoy dropped them off at the town of Pushkar, about 40 kilometres north of the port, they did not move forward, from where the soldiers, after a short rest, would walk to the front line, 15 kilometres away, with the exception of the armoured and artillery units, of course.

After receiving the ammunition, the atmosphere became tense and the soldiers were assembled and driven to the forward positions more than 15 kilometers away. After walking for half a day under the rumbling of artillery, the 136th Division from Central Asia was assigned to a defensive position immediately in front of the position of the artillery division attached to the army. Behind the positions of the 136th Division was the shelter of the 11th Marine Panzer Division, whose tanks, armoured vehicles and tracked self-propelled guns were parked in the woods, and the bodies were covered with artificial or natural twigs and camouflage nets.

It looks like the battle will soon begin.

In the afternoon and night, other troops also rushed to the surrounding area.

The new soldiers were placed on a small hillside with sparse shrubs outside the woods, and some troops were already digging trenches nearby.

"Alright, stop, now our mission is to hold this place!" The battalion commander said to the soldiers, "The sergeant major of each squad immediately takes your soldiers to the designated position to repair the trenches!" ”

After half a day of emergency repairs, a winding trench had basically taken shape, and only a small number of "unlucky ghosts" were assigned to continue digging traffic trenches in front of them. The defensive position of the 407th Infantry Regiment was basically centered around a hill with a relative height of about 50 meters, and the width of the defensive front was about 5 kilometers.

"Obviously, we're going to get beaten first!" Aletti mounted his machine gun on the side of a tree root and said to Battle, who was resting in the trench.

"Didn't you attack first?" Huo Qingshan picked up the kettle and took a big sip of water before speaking.

"Look at this plane, it doesn't look like an attack." Liu Lin said that he previously served in the 3rd Army, and that he participated in several months of fighting against the Byzantines in Transcaucasia last year, and that he is also a veteran. Many laughed, and Liu Lin's words made them feel more at ease.

After all, it's easier to defend than to attack......

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