On the evening of June 28, 1942, the last flag of the rising sun fluttered and fell in the city of Harbin, known as the Moscow of the East. The pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info artillery fire that lasted for 22 days finally subsided, and the last afterglow of the sunset disappeared into the sky, but the city was shrouded in ruins under the night. This large-scale and tragic battle is destined to go down in the annals of human warfare, because the Japanese army, at the heavy price of 210,000 killed and nearly 10,000 missing and captured, dragged down the pace of the Soviet Russian army sweeping through the puppet Manchukuo, so that the originally confident Soviet Russian high-level and military generals had to face up to the strategic dilemma they faced.

The direction of the Second Russo-Japanese War also quietly appeared here.

After the conquest of Harbin, the Soviet Russian army, which entered the puppet Manchukuo from the two directions of Outer Mongolia and the Russian Far East, successfully penetrated the east and west fronts. The biggest problem lies in the fact that most sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway, with a total length of nearly 10,000 kilometers, are still single-track railways -- the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which was established on the ruins of Tsarist Russia, has not only failed to inherit the vast territory and rich resources of Belarus and Ukraine, but even the oil-producing areas of the North Caucasus have been occupied by the Allies for a long time, and economic construction is struggling to move forward in many difficulties. Because the single-track railway can basically bear the needs of economy and trade, the Soviet and Russian governments have not embarked on the double-track project of the Trans-Siberian Railway for a long time. According to the calculation of 100% of the capacity of this single-track railway, the Soviet Russian army can maintain a maximum of 800,000 horses to fight in the Far East, and the higher the degree of mechanization of the front-line troops, the greater the number of aircraft and artillery, the greater the demand for logistics support. At present, Soviet Russia has invested more than one million troops in the Far Eastern theater, and after four months of combat attrition, not only has a large number of military supplies stored in the Far Eastern theater before the war been exhausted, but even the various stocks in the rear have bottomed out.

Another problem that was a headache for the Russian top brass and military generals was that the Japanese army was far more resilient than they expected. Even in a desperate situation with no hope of support, most of the Japanese officers and soldiers refused to surrender. In order to conquer the Japanese army's fortified defensive lines, fortresses and even important cities, the Russian army had to spend a high price. Moreover, this war was fought outside the Japanese mainland, and the Japanese army did not hesitate to implement the strategy of clearing the field with strong walls when retreating, and every kilometer of the Soviet and Russian troops advanced, they had to repair the railways and bridges on the roads of this kilometer in order to maintain the smooth flow of logistics supplies.

Thus, after the capture of Harbin, the Soviet Russian army slowed down its offensive, and its main forces were stationed along the Eastern Railway, and only the 3rd Front Army under the command of Marshal Blyukhel continued to advance towards Changchun.

As the Soviet Russian army penetrated deep into the territory of puppet Manchukuo, the Japanese army base camp ordered all the invading units to completely stop the offensive, or turn to the defense on the spot, or retreat and shrink to the military town, so that a large number of field troops with rich combat experience were transferred to the northern front, and a large number of Japanese garrisons in Southeast Asia and Australia were also transferred. In addition, the Japanese army headquarters issued two ****** in just three months, mobilized nearly one million reservists, and the domestic industrial system was quickly transformed into a wartime system, with tens of thousands of tons of war materials being loaded and shipped from ports on various Japanese islands to the puppet Manchukuo and the Korean Peninsula. At the same time, the Japanese navy turned its passivity into an active one, tightly blockading the Sea of Japan to guard against attacks by Soviet and Russian warships on its sea transportation lines, and on the other hand, organizing maritime detachments and submarine units to go north to intercept ships heading for the Russian Far East.

Under the influence of one another, the Japanese army gradually accumulated the capital to launch a strategic counteroffensive in the Far Eastern theater. By July 1942, the Japanese army had more than 1.2 million army units in the puppet state of Manchukuo and the Korean Peninsula, more than 7,000 army and navy combat planes, more than 20,000 artillery pieces of various types, and more than 10 million rounds of artillery shells.

In this delicate phase of stalemate, the intention of the Japanese base camp was to take advantage of the advantages of its own industrial scale, accumulate two more months of troops, and hoard supplies for two months, and then expel the Soviet Russian army from the puppet Manchukuo and the Korean Peninsula in one fell swoop, and occupy part of the territory of eastern Outer Mongolia and the Russian Far East, forcing Soviet Russia to accept the outcome of losing the struggle for hegemony in Northeast Asia, and then move south to completely defeat the Chinese government that was stubbornly resisting south of the Yangtze River.

However, on 10 and 11 July, a group of bombers of the Soviet and Russian air forces departing from Vladivostok and its surrounding bases successively attacked the centers of heavy industry in central and eastern Japan and dropped bombs on the urban area of Tokyo. The Japanese base camp had to implement their strategic counteroffensive plan in advance, and the direction of the sword attack was also greatly adjusted compared with the previous plan, and Vladivostok, the largest strategic fortress of Soviet Russia in the Far East, became the primary target of the Japanese attack.

On July 28, 1942, the Japanese Kwantung Army, the Japanese Korean Army and the Japanese Navy launched a large-scale joint combat operation, aiming directly at tens of thousands of Soviet and Russian troops in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Soon after the war officially began, the Soviet Russian army, which launched a counterattack from the direction of Vladivostok, quickly repelled the Japanese and Manchurian troops who had invaded the Russian border, and then in less than half a month, the Soviet Russian army occupied the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, including Cheongjin. Because the northern part of the Korean Peninsula is a mountainous terrain, it is not conducive to the activities of mechanized troops or the transportation of military baggage, and the strength of the Soviet and Russian navies in the Far East is simply not comparable to that of the Japanese navy. After the "Kirov" was sunk by the Japanese Navy, the Soviet Russian top brass adjusted their operational strategy and placed the main battlefield in the territory of the puppet state of Manchukuo, which was far from the coastline, and the Soviet Russian army switched from offensive to defensive on the Korean Peninsula.

In the middle of the night of 28 July, in coordination with the Japanese Kwantung Army's advance from west to east from the direction of puppet Manchuria, the Japanese Korean Army attacked from south to north, and the Japanese Navy carried out a landing operation at Cheongjin on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula with thousands of marines, intending to encircle and annihilate the four divisions and several independent units of the Soviet Army south of Chungton......

"Headquarters, headquarters, this is Observation Post 11 in the southeast, enemy infantry has landed, request artillery support! Request artillery support! ”

Holding the microphone and anxiously reporting to his superiors was a Russian Soviet military officer wearing a steel helmet and khaki uniform. Outside this small bunker was the endless sea, on which dozens of ships flying the Rising Sun flag were adrift, some had docked, some were heading towards the shore, and some were hovering in place and constantly firing at the shore.

On the beach, less than two kilometers from the bunker, hundreds of Japanese soldiers were roaring under the cover of the fire of the landing ships attacking the defenders' beachhead.

"The coordinates of the shelling are 131-214-022, request for artillery coverage! Instantly! Right away! Demand immediate action! ”

At this moment, a shell flying from the direction of the sea suddenly landed next to the bunker, and the loud noise almost deafened the ears of the Soviet Russian officer, and when he didn't bother to pat the dust off his body and pick up the phone again, he found that he really couldn't hear anything on the phone.

"Hey! Feed! Feed! It's too bad, the phone line must have been blown up! The officer reluctantly put down the phone and turned to a communications soldier wearing a cloth military hat and headphones next to him: "Quickly contact the command headquarters by radio!" We can't hold the ground by our strength alone! ”

It was a defensive position of the Russian army in the southeast of the northern city of Chiang Jin on the Korean Peninsula, which consisted of infantry positions and anti-artillery bunkers, and the main body of the fortification was located on a hill, facing the sea in the east and gently sloping on the north and south.

Receiving the radio signal from the forward position, the Soviet Russian artillery soon began to bombard the designated area, and the advancing Japanese landing force had to hug its head under the heavy artillery bombardment, and the Soviet and Russian officers and soldiers in the position also continued to bombard the enemy on the flank with mortars, such tactics successfully delayed the Japanese advance and caused it to pay hundreds of casualties, but limited artillery fire alone could not completely stop the Japanese attack. The Japanese reinforcements soon arrived, and their officers then announced to the soldiers that the strategic counteroffensive had been in full swing, and the Japanese soldiers, who had long been trained in the spirit of bushido, went berserk like stimulants, and the fierce commandos babbled and charged. These Japanese soldiers with white cloth strips on their heads ignored the enemy's shells and bullets, and even if they were swept down by the Soviet and Russian artillery fire, more guys with bayonets and red eyes would rush up again.

After breaking through the fire blockade of the Russian troops, the Japanese assault teams began to advance from the south and west of the hill to their positions on the top of the hill. Although the position on the top of the hill was constructed in a ring, the menacing Japanese army clearly had a numerical advantage. While the Russian officers and soldiers continued to call for artillery support and use their weapons to strike at the Japanese troops, they were ready to retreat under the leadership of the commander.

"Comrades, the superiors have agreed to our retreat, but before evacuating, we must blow up all the equipment and weapons that cannot be taken away, and a pair of binoculars and a rifle will not be left for the Japanese!"

The Soviet commander gave the order resolutely and decisively, although it seems that this will leave a good observation position and artillery position for the Japanese army, but many of the tactical ideas of the Russo-Japanese War are outdated, and if you want to let the artillery fire on those hills, I am afraid you must first ask the huge number of attack aircraft and bombers of the Soviet and Russian Air Force!

Before dawn, the Soviet Russian officers and soldiers deployed on the beachhead withdrew to the deep defense line one after another, and the Japanese army won the first "victory" since the beginning of the war at the cost of more than 1,000 people, but in the face of the solid defensive positions of the Soviet and Russian troops and the high-spirited grassroots officers and soldiers, the Japanese commanders had to admit that their opponents at this time were very different from the Russian army 18 years ago. If you want to win, I am afraid that you will have to pay a heavier price than the first Russo-Japanese War!

(End of chapter)