During the all-day battle on 1 April, Red Army pilots carried out a total of 17 mid-air rammings, including a "woolly rhinoceros" piloted by Major Qu Peng, commander of the 27th Combat Wing, who was knocked down by a Soviet pilot named Kuzman piloting a wounded fighter jet through four mid-air rammings. Qu Peng was able to parachute to escape, but his whereabouts have not been known since. Kuzman, on the other hand, was killed at the time of the impact.

On the first day of the war, although the Soviet pilots showed a brave fighting spirit, this could not make up for the huge gap in technology. A large number of "I-15", "I-16", and "I-153" fighters were easily shot down by sophisticated Chinese aircraft, often without any results themselves. In the southern section of the front, the 4th Group of the 77th Fighter Wing of the 3rd Air Force of the Chinese Army shot down 12 Soviet fighters, without losing a single of its own, and won a one-sided victory. At the same time that the Chinese Air Force was gaining the upper hand in the battles over Soviet territory, groups of Red Army "SB" fast bombers and "DB" medium bombers, which were not escorted by fighters, began to launch a hopeless attack on the Chinese mainland. The air battle of April 1 was a staggering blow to the Red Army aviation, and by noon the Soviets had lost 1,500 aircraft (1,200 of which were destroyed on the ground). According to the statistics of the Chinese army, a total of 1,923 Soviet aircraft were destroyed during the day, of which 1,652 were destroyed on the ground. At the same time, the Chinese Air Force also paid a significant price. The actual losses of the Chinese Air Force that day were: 58 aircraft were shot down, another 63 were injured. But its losses were again minor in comparison with the Red Army. More importantly, on the first day of the war, the Chinese Air Force gained air supremacy, which would bring great advantages to the Chinese Army's ground offensive.

At the same time as the Chinese Air Force launched the first wave of attacks, at 3:15 a.m. on 1 April, the Chinese Army assembled on the Sino-Soviet border used all military and divisional howitzers, cannons, regimental 150-mm heavy infantry guns, and even antiaircraft guns of the Air Force to fiercely bombard the Soviet Red Army's border posts and barracks along the entire border. On a front of 1,500 kilometers, the powerful 1st strategic echelon of the Chinese army launched an offensive. At the same time, some Chinese paratroopers were also airdropped to the rear of the Soviet army, and they would work together with the so-called "underground column" (a Chinese sabotage unit, dressed in Soviet uniforms, armed with Soviet weapons, and many of them could speak Russian or simply White Russian) trained by the Foreign and Espionage Bureau of the Chinese Army to create chaos in the Red Army, occupy the bridges that the Chinese army must pass, and cut off the communication links of the Soviet army. Destroy the barbed wire fence of the state border and open a passage for the attacking forces. The assault group was followed by scouts and topographic surveyors of all arms. After they surveyed the terrain and ascertained the Soviet positions and obstacles, the Chinese armored clusters and the armies that coordinated them launched a powerful offensive from a narrow front. In the breakthrough section, which was only twenty kilometers wide, tens of thousands of tanks and hundreds of thousands of motorized troops of the entire armored cluster swooped down on the ground. The Soviet army, which adopted a linear defense and spread out its troops on a front of thousands of kilometers, could only resist with a few or even one infantry division.

On the border, only the border guards and a small number of field armies attached to the NKVD of the USSR resisted the powerful armored offensive of the Chinese army. These border guards were armed with a large number of submachine guns and machine guns. The NKVD soldiers were extremely tenacious, and with their strong fortifications, they not only inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking Chinese troops with fierce fire like a storm, but often hit the last man. For example, the No. 13 post of the 90th Frontier Corps of the Soviet Army fought from the first day of the war to April 12, and persisted in fighting for 11 days. On the last day of the battle, the remnants of the outpost put up desperate resistance in the ruins of the outpost before they were blasted with explosives by Chinese combat engineers. In the area defended by the 8th Infantry Division of the 10th Army, the 57th Engineer Battalion stopped the Chinese offensive until 12 noon before the main force of the division arrived. But these weak troops could not stand in the way of the Chinese army. The Chinese handed them over to the follow-up infantry units to deal with, while the armored columns bypassed their fortified posts and fortifications and advanced rapidly deep into Soviet territory. In the direction of the Chinese tanks, the Soviet infantry divisions, which were supposed to fight the Chinese army in the border fortifications, were still 8 to 20 kilometers from the border. Most of them could not receive orders from their superiors, because the Soviet army's wired communication system in many areas was almost paralyzed by the sabotage of local nationalists who had been bribed by the Chinese. In the Siberian Special Military District, communications were destroyed at 4:30 a.m. when the Chinese crossed the border; And in the Tyumen Special Military District, due to intermittent radio, the military district did not have a rough understanding of the situation until 9 a.m. At this critical juncture, the Soviet commanders, faced with a powerful surprise attack by the Chinese army, had to risk opening the secret sealed bags issued before the war containing the border defense plan (which was dangerous under the Soviet system), according to the places and routes specified above (beyond that, they knew almost nothing about the situation of friend or foe in the vicinity), and with only a small amount of ammunition (the ammunition depots of the Soviet army were managed by the NKVD, and in the emergency situation of the time, the troops often did not have time to receive ammunition from there), The subordinate troops who were at a loss for the sudden arrival of the war were hurriedly taken out of the barracks, and under the continuous air raids and artillery bombardments of the Chinese army, they assembled and marched forward at the risk of huge casualties. In the process, the soldiers were depressed by the constant roar of Chinese planes and the heavy artillery fire from unknown sources (the Chinese reconnaissance planes constantly corrected the artillery fire), and when they suddenly encountered a Chinese tank formation accompanied by a large number of motorcycles, off-road trucks, and half-track armored vehicles during the march, they were unable to put up effective resistance, and some units even broke up as a result. The first battle report of the 4th Army of the Red Army described the situation as follows: during the battle, "it was often up to the commanders of the corps, starting from the commander of the group army, to stop the haphazard retreating detachments, sometimes entire units, and let them turn around and go back to the front, but these measures, sometimes even the use of weapons, did not achieve the desired effect." Regarding the events on the Soviet border, the new Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese Army, General Jiang Baili, was more sober and objective in his account of the events on the Soviet border: "The enemy (Soviet army) was taken by surprise by the attack of our army, their troops did not make defensive and combat arrangements, the troops in the border areas were very scattered in their respective defensive areas, and the vigilance in most sections of the national border itself was weak. ”

Shortly after the Chinese planes entered the Soviet Union, the eastern military districts that had been attacked sent a report to the People's Commissariat of Defense in Moscow. When Zhukov, chief of the General Staff, on the orders of People's Commissar of Defense Timoshenko, reported to Stalin by telephone the news of the air raids carried out by the Chinese army on various cities and regions in Western Siberia, the "master" of the Soviet Union was so shocked that he could not answer for a long time. When he came to his senses, he asked Zhukov, Timoshenko, and all the members of the Politburo to come to his office in a hoarse voice (some sources believe that these people were concentrated in Stalin's office very early). At 4:30, when everyone had arrived, Stalin, who looked very dazed, broke the silence.

"What do you recommend?" Stalin asked the military commanders.

"Instruct the border guards to attack on all fronts and contain the enemy's offensive." Zhukov immediately said.

"Not containment, but the destruction of the enemy." Marshal Timoshenko hastened to make a further statement.

As a result of Comrade Stalin's speech, Timoshenko, Zhukov and the members of the Politburo immediately became quite optimistic. It was in this optimistic atmosphere that Timoshenko issued Order No. 2 on behalf of the General Military Council at 7:15 a.m. According to this document, which is believed to have been revised with the participation of Stalin himself, since the Chinese Air Force has unprovoked attacks and bombardments of our cities and airfields along the eastern border, and the Chinese army has opened artillery bombardment in many places and crossed our borders, the five eastern military districts of the Soviet army should use all forces and means to attack the enemy army and annihilate them in the areas that violated the Soviet border; And with a powerful blow from bomber aviation and strike aviation to wipe out the enemy's air force on airfields and bomb the main grouping of its ground forces, aviation should strike 100 to 150 kilometers deep into Chinese territory.

On the battlefield, however, the situation did not go as the order dictated, because the reality was much worse than Moscow knew. At this time, a large-scale campaign was being waged fiercely in the three strategic directions of the central and northern regions.

In the Eastern Theater, frontal unfolding was the Northern Army Group of the Chinese Army under the command of Field Marshal Fu Xiao'an. The veteran commanded 29 divisions (3 armored divisions, 2 motorized infantry divisions, 1 cavalry division, 3 guard divisions, 20 infantry divisions), reinforced by fire from 26 artillery battalions. Together with the reserve of the Army General Headquarters in the rear, there are 31 divisions and about 800,000 army field troops. The 3 armored divisions of Army Group North had 800 tanks (all of them were "Walker" main battle tanks). The air support for the army group was 750 aircraft and a large number of antiaircraft artillery battalions of General Liu Zhaowei's 1st Air Force (1st Air Army, Eastern Coastal Activities Command). The commander of the Front, General Kuznetsov, who was the director of the Infantry School and the president of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the General Staff before the war, was a theoretical officer who had been engaged in military education for a long time. The Front Army under his command deployed two army groups (the 8th and 11th armies) on the border, and the 27th Army as a reserve in the depths, with a total of 25 divisions (4 tank divisions, 2 motorized infantry divisions, 19 infantry divisions) and 440,000 troops. However, only part of the forces of the 8th Army and the 11th Army in the north were opposed by Army Group North. Including the reserves, there were only 15 divisions in total, with less than 400,000 people fighting against Army Group North, which was only half of the strength of the Chinese army. The rest of the forces of the military region were pinned down by the 3rd Panzer Group on the left flank of Army Group Central of the Chinese Army. The two mechanized armies (3rd and 12th armies) under the Eastern Front have a total of 1,383 tanks (109 tanks of the "T-34" and "KV" types), and the total number of tanks owned by the military district is 1,549, which has more than double the advantage over the Chinese in terms of numbers, but only 378 of them are intact, so the number of intact tanks is only half of that of the Chinese army. The Eastern Front aviation has 1140 aircraft, of which only 952 have flight crews. Including the air force of the Baltic Fleet, the Soviet army had twice the advantage in the number of aircraft, but it was much worse than the Chinese army in terms of aircraft ability. Moreover, the aviation of the Eastern Front suffered heavy losses in the air raids of the Chinese side, losing 9% of its aircraft in one day on April 1 alone.

In general, in the northern section of the Sino-Soviet front, the Chinese army on the attacking side had a superiority in troops, but this advantage was not overwhelming. In addition, the border line where the two armies were facing each other did not have a significant salient point, and the Soviet army had the strength of one army group (six divisions) deployed in the rear, making it difficult for Army Group North to encircle and annihilate the enemy in front of it. After the start of the war, Army Group North attacked from the left flank with the 18th Army (7 infantry divisions) of General He Wenchang. On the right flank is the 16th Army of Lieutenant General Peng Qing (8 infantry divisions). In the center, Admiral Zhong Liwei's 4th Armored Group (Motorized 41st and 56th Corps and 3 Armored Divisions, 3 Motorized Infantry Divisions, and 2 Infantry Divisions) advanced rapidly through the dense forests of the border with a view to cutting off and annihilating the Soviet army. Including the 18th Army, which cooperated with it, this Chinese army group had a total of 360,000 troops, more than four times the size of the Soviet 8th Army under Major General Sobenikov. In terms of the number of tanks, although the Chinese army is slightly inferior, the level of combat readiness of technical equipment is much higher.

In the direction of the main assault, the superiority of the Chinese army in strength reached an overwhelming state. On the border, only the 8th Infantry Division of the 8th Army of the Red Army was able to withstand the blows of the entire 4th Panzer Group 8 divisions (3 panzer divisions, 3 motorized divisions, 2 infantry divisions) and 5 reading artillery battalions, and at the beginning of the war only 5 companies of this division were defending in the border fortifications. The 1st, 6th, and 8th Armored Divisions of the 1st echelon of the 4th Panzer Group, and the 269th and 290th Infantry Divisions, supported by more than 600 tanks and hundreds of artillery pieces, easily broke through the defenses of these 5 companies and border guards, and rushed deep into the territory of the Soviet Union. Later, some tenacious Red Army pillbox nets stopped the Chinese offensive for a time, but by noon they were also broken through by the Chinese 8th Panzer Division. Almost simultaneously, the main forces of the 125th Division of the Red Army, which were hurrying from 5 to 18 kilometers from the border, also retreated under the ferocious assault of this huge Chinese armored column. Due to excessive panic, the division failed to blow up the bridges on the Chinese offensive road during the retreat, allowing the Chinese 4th Panzer Group to rush forward unimpeded. The advance of the armored group was divided into two routes (General Huang Yongxing's motorized 41st Army on the left and General Lin Yuying's motorized 56th Army on the right), and the motorized 56th Army progressed particularly smoothly, occupying the Ob River crossing 50 miles from the border by dusk. The commander of the army, General Lin Yuying, a general who had previously won Yang Shuoming's admiration for proposing a bold and successful plan for a Western campaign, was destined to become one of the darlings of the war.

"Where is that guy Dongfang Bai now?"

Admiral Lin Yuying, sitting in a "Xuanwu" super-heavy tank, asked.

"In the 503 Heavy Tank Battalion." An officer replied.

"That said, he ran ahead of us." Lin Yuying said, crouched down next to the periscope and observed.

"Enemy tanks found!" One of the tankmen shouted.

The huge turret of the "Xuanwu" tank slowly turned, and the 180 mm 65 times diameter main gun was immediately aimed at the target.

Lin Yuying clearly saw that a square-headed Soviet tank suddenly rushed out of the shelter behind a farmhouse and opened fire on the moving Chinese tank group.

He recognized it, it was a Soviet "KV-2" heavy tank.

One of the "Walker" tanks was hit, and a raging flame rose.

"It's a big one! Fast! Fire! Don't let people rob it! One of the tankers shouted anxiously.

Just as he finished speaking, the 180-mm main gun of the "Xuanwu" made a deafening loud noise.

Lin Yuying stared at the periscope, and the "KV-2" tank in the dark burst out in an instant.

"Cool!" Someone shouted excitedly.

The square turret of the Soviet tank was completely torn down and turned into burning wreckage, and Lin Yuying did not see the scene of the Soviet "T-34" tanks that were hit by the "Walker" tank, and the Soviet tankers on fire jumped out of the burning hull screaming, indicating that the members of the "KV-2" tank were killed at the moment when they were hit by the "Xuanwu".

Thinking of the powerful firepower and high cost of the "Xuanwu" tank, Lin Yuying couldn't help but smile bitterly.

In this offensive, the Chinese Army's armored instructor served as the "sharp knife" to launch the attack, and the "Xuanwu" super-heavy tank, which costs 70 times the cost of the "Walker" tank, is the most powerful tank in the Chinese Army's armored forces, and it is a secret weapon used to take the lead.

(To be continued)