The cannon roared in the sky above Erkou City, and the smoke of gunpowder filled the air, covering the sky and the sun. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Since the invasion of the Tsarist Russian Empire to the east, Nicholas II personally sat in the town and commanded more than a million troops to launch dozens of fierce attacks on the defenders of the Chinese Empire in the direction of Erkou City.

The total number of artillery pieces on both sides combined exceeded 10,000, firing at each other, and it was heating up every moment.

The shells exploded, the mountains shook, and the whole earth trembled violently.

The front-line positions on both sides were scorched earth, the trees were burned into black toothpicks, the river was cut off, and the river water was evaporated by the high temperature of the shell explosion, exuding a strong smell of grilled fish and shrimp.

However, with each charge of the Tsarist Imperial Army, countless corpses piled up between the positions of the two sides, and the corpses piled up like a mountain and rivers of blood.

The smell of blood and fishy smell gradually replaced the smell of burnt fish and shrimp, which was disgusting.

Both the Chinese and Russian armies were killed, but each battle did not exceed an hour, because there were too many dead and piled up, which hindered the offensive line of the Russian army, and also hindered the heavy machine gun firing range of the defenders of the Chinese Empire.

As a result, the two sides soon had a tacit understanding, and after each battle, the Russian army would send soldiers who did not carry weapons to the center of the battlefield to clean up the corpses. At this time, the defenders of the Chinese Empire would not shoot, but seized the time to carry away the bodies of their fallen comrades in their positions, treat the wounded comrades, and then re-strengthen their positions, replenish ammunition, etc.

But this tacit understanding soon changed because of the weather in November.

It is important to know that this warring area is a lake area in the middle of the mountains on both sides, and the winters are particularly cold.

In particular, this lake belonged to the Chinese Empire, but historically it was the territory of the Russian Empire, which gave Lake Baikal a new name.

If people in the 21st century often look at weather forecasts, they will often hear the term, that is, the cold air from Lake Baikal will bring strong winds and cooling weather to the region north of the Yangtze River in China.

Lake Baikal, now known as Lake Baihaier in the Chinese Empire, is still a long way from the North Pole in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is one of the sources of cold air in the Northern Hemisphere.

If I had to use a more appropriate analogy, it is like the source of a tropical storm in the Pacific Ocean, except that the tropical storm is a windy and rainfall weather, while the formation of a strong wind, cold and snowfall weather on Lake Baihaier is a strong wind, cold and snowy weather.

The cold air from Lake Baihaier is not ordinary cold, the cold air at minus 40 degrees Celsius is only the starting price, and in the records of the 19th century, the coldest time reached minus 70 degrees.

And that's not all, as the daylight hours in the Lake Bohail area are drastically reduced to less than six hours in November.

That is to say, the number of fierce battles between the Chinese and Russian armies is generally only three times a day, and at night, the temperature is suddenly cold, dozens of degrees below zero, and no one is happy to come out to fight.

But the problem is that the defenders of the Chinese Empire lived in the city of Erkou at night, and there was a stove to heat the kang.

However, the Russian Imperial army camped in the wilderness, and the temporary wooden houses and tents were not warm and cold, and at night, once they lived, they were live targets in the dark night, which would provoke the fierce shelling of the Chinese Imperial artillery. Tents and wooden houses were easily destroyed, and even fires were ignited, leaving the Russian Imperial troops frozen all night, and they were so angry that they screamed.

The strong defensive capabilities of the defenders of the Chinese Empire prevented the Russian Imperial Army from moving forward.

Tsar Nicholas II's dream of opening the city of Erkou in three days was instantly ruined.

In its place, heavy snowfall from the cold air of Lake Baihaier and the following freezing weather.

The winter clothes of the Russian Imperial Army were not warm in the first place, and now they are still fighting in the field, eating and sleeping in the snow, and in just a few days, a large number of soldiers have been frostbitten, resulting in serious non-combat attrition.

Heavy snow covered the mountain, and either the city of Erkou was captured in one go, or it had to retreat back to Irkutsk, 100 kilometers away.

Nicholas II came murderously, of course, not easily, and immediately gave the order for a general attack.

As a result, the Imperial Russian army had to launch a massive assault on a cold night.

The decisive day came early, and Li Weiguo personally sat in the town and commanded the army to lose the city of Erkou.

The Russian army's charge was very ferocious, breaking through the outer defense line of the defenders of the Chinese Empire one after another, and killing under the city of Erkou.

The loss of several outer lines of defense was a bit of a surprise to the defenders of the Chinese Empire, but the cause was quickly identified.

It was also because of the weather that the Heavy Machine Gun used by the defenders of the Chinese Empire, because the water cooling system had no antifreeze measures (lack of antifreeze), was frozen in severe cold weather, resulting in the barrel of the Heavy Heavy Machine Gun being too hot and exploding during the fierce firefight.

Losing the cover of heavy machine gun fire, in the face of the overwhelming frenzied rush of the Russian army, the defenders of the Chinese Empire only relied on rifles, grenades and other weapons, with limited firepower, although they played a 1:10 battle loss ratio, but they still lost.

The defenders of the Chinese Empire were forced to retreat into the city of Erkou and rely on the city walls for defensive operations.

The offensive of the Tsarist Imperial army was still fierce, but in the face of the tall and strong city walls, the Tsarist Imperial army could not break through, so it could only wait for the siege artillery to be transported from the rear, and then launched an attack.

Taking advantage of this time, the defenders of the Chinese Empire reorganized their forces and dispatched special combat teams and airships.

Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, the special combat team adopted the method of small formations, interspersed and infiltrated the rear of the Tsarist Russian troops, carried out decapitation operations against the command system of the Tsarist Russian troops, and carried out sneak attacks and blown up the weapons and ammunition depots, grain and grass warehouses and other targets of the Tsarist Russian troops.

In the air, the airships of the Imperial Air Force of China entered the battle, dropping gasoline incendiary bombs for the first time.

The positions of the entire Tsarist Imperial army suddenly burst into flames, which were particularly conspicuous in the dark night.

The fire gave the Chinese Imperial artillery a reference target, and the fire salvo was fired, and the siege guns that had just been transported by the Tsarist army were blown up by the shells.

When the Russian army fell into chaos, Li Weiguo gave an order, and the Chinese Imperial army in Erkou City quickly left the city and launched a counterattack.

For a time, the Chinese and Russian armies fought fiercely, and fierce white-knuckle battles even broke out on many positions.

Originally, the Tsarist Russian Imperial Army had a large number of troops, and even if it found the Chinese Imperial Army to attack repeatedly, it would not be easily defeated.

However, Tsar Nicholas II was arrogant and arrogant, thinking that he could capture Erkou City in one go, so he personally arrived at the front line to pretend to be forced, but was discovered by a special squad of the Chinese Empire that had infiltrated him.

Tsar Nicholas II's guards were not ornaments after all, they still had strong vigilance and combat effectiveness, and they almost discovered this small force of the Chinese Empire, and fierce fighting broke out between the two sides.

In the scuffle, Nicholas II was more on his back, dressed too conspicuously, and deliberately stood near the fire, but was shot by a sniper and fell to the ground with two bullets.

The Tsar's guards suddenly went crazy and attacked this Chinese Imperial Special Operations Team like crazy.

The commander of this Chinese Imperial Special Operations Team didn't know that he had hit Nicholas II, and he didn't expect that Nicholas II would come to the front line to pretend to be forced, otherwise he would definitely rush up at any cost to see if the other party had been killed.

Nicholas II had an accident, and I don't know which Russian officer went crazy and shouted out, which quickly shocked the generals of the Russian army.

If Nicholas II died, then the next thing would be the change of power in the Tsarist Empire, and at this time, every Russian general was in a hurry, especially a few royal generals who held hundreds of thousands of troops, and they no longer had the heart to fight, and hurriedly ordered the withdrawal of troops.

One retreats, and the others retreat.

Of course, it was necessary to leave behind the broken cannon fodder, and in this regard, the Tsarists were always the darkest, leaving some officers who had no backstage with their troops.

As a result, when the Chinese Imperial Army launched a counteroffensive, these Tsarist Russian troops, who were cannon fodder, were quickly routed.

The Imperial Chinese Army pursued the victory, and it was the chariot unit of the Dragoon Regiment that was the fastest maneuvering. This is also Li Weiguo's plan in advance, to fight a defensive counterattack, and when the Tsarist Russian army is defeated, the enemy who will be killed in one go will be bloody, and he will no longer be able to attack the Chinese Empire.

However, at this time, the blizzard came early, and the road to Irkutsk was blocked, blocking the fierce Dragoon Regiment of the Chinese Empire.

As a result, the Dragoon Regiment of the Chinese Empire, which had been preparing for a long time, went out to battle on a large scale for the first time, but it was destroyed by the ghost weather and returned in defeat.

However, this time the Battle of Siberia ended in the victory of the Chinese Empire.

In this battle, the Russian Imperial Army lost more than 130,000 casualties, more than 220,000 wounded, more than 40,000 missing, 755 artillery pieces, 180 heavy machine guns, and countless losses of various military materials.

The defenders of the Chinese Empire lost only 1,222 men, wounded more than 13,000 people, and lost 12 artillery pieces and 210 heavy machine guns.

The only thing that surpassed the Tsarist army in losses was the heavy machine gun, which was also the failure of the Imperial Chinese military to properly assess the adaptability of the Bloody Heavy Machine Gun in extremely cold conditions, after which the Imperial Chinese Military Industry Department will improve the Bloody Heavy Machine Gun in response to this defect.

Of course, in Li Weiguo's view, the improvement of the bloody heavy machine gun is dispensable, because the Chinese Empire is already mass-producing new heavy machine guns, and will soon equip the front-line army on a large scale to replace the bloody heavy machine gun.

The Battle of Siberia ended with the victory of the Chinese Empire and the defeat and escape of the Russian Empire.

Li Weiguo still did not plan to attack the Tsarist Empire, he did not want to stimulate the Tsarist Empire to invest more troops in the Far East, but hoped that the Tsarist Empire would concentrate all its forces on the European battlefield and consume the vitality of the German Empire and the entire Europe.

As for Kaiser Wilhelm II's repeated calls asking Li Weiguo to send troops to attack the eastern front of the Tsarist Russian Empire, Li Weiguo refused in ten thousand words, on the pretext that the mountains were closed by heavy snow and the roads were impassable.

The Western Front of the Chinese Empire entered the winter, and the Tsarist Russian Empire was defeated by this, and it did not have the energy to organize such a large-scale offensive again in a short time.

So Li Weiguo withdrew the army to their respective theaters of war to rest, and only the necessary troops were kept on guard at the front.

Subsequently, Li Weiguo left the northern capital and returned to Wuhan, the great Kyoto.

"Is there no movement over there for a long time?"

Back in Kyoto, Li Weiguo immediately inquired about the situation in Japan.

After Mingyue processed all the information about Japan, she told Li Weiguo that Prince Nohku had no intention of rebelling yet.

"What is he thinking about this for a long time? Why not rebel yet? ”

Mingyue was also puzzled by this matter. After all, now that the Japanese Navy is completely annihilated, and Japan knows that the emperor's dominance is shaken, it is a good opportunity for Prince Nohisa to rebel and force the palace. But I didn't move for a long time, I don't know why.

"This can still look very patriotic!"

Li Weiguo suddenly smiled, he had seen through Neng Jiu's mind a little.

"Looking at this matter from the standpoint of Nengjiu, it is not difficult to find that if he rebels for a long time at this time, although he has the greatest chance of seizing the throne, it will destroy the reputation of the people who can work hard for a long time, and it will make the Japanese Empire worse, and he doesn't want the Japanese Empire to be too weak, because he doesn't want to become a puppet of our Chinese Empire in the future, so he is preserving Japan's vitality."

After listening to Li Weiguo's words, Mingyue suddenly realized, and said angrily: "This can be true for a long time, your majesty can send troops to attack and destroy little Japan." ”

Li Weiguo smiled slightly and said: "That's right, now there is no sea power in the Pacific that can compete with us, and those warship factories on the east coast of the United States have also been destroyed, and there will be no worries in two or three years, it's time to clean up Little Japan!" ”

Therefore, Li Weiguo convened a pre-imperial meeting and asked the military to recommend a capable general to conquer Japan.

"Your Majesty, there is a candidate for the minister, and Liu Changshuai, the commander of the 78th Town Division of the Eastern Theater, is up to the task!"

"How can the division commander of a town be in charge? The level is too low, at least it should be above the lieutenant general to be reasonable! ”

"Your Majesty, Zhu Xiangguang, deputy commander of the Central Theater, can take command of the Eastern Expedition to Japan!"

"Your Majesty, the Northeast Theater ......"

At this time, there are a lot of people who recommend them, and they are as noisy as the vegetable market.

Li Weiguo was not angry, on the contrary, he was happy in his heart, the Chinese Empire was full of talents, and the more prosperous.

He looked at Zhang Xiaoliu and asked, "Zhang Xiaoliu, what about you?" Who is the candidate? ”

Zhang Xiaoliu said with a smile: "The minister wants to recommend himself first!" ”

Poof, a bunch of people almost squirted!

The dignified military department Shangshu, in addition to the emperor, the honorary leader, is the highest official in the military, and he wants to take command of himself, what kind of trouble is this!

To everyone's surprise, he looked at Zhang Xiaoliu with a strange expression.

Seeing Li Weiguo shaking his head, Zhang Xiaoliu smiled and said: "Your Majesty forgives the sin, the minister is joking, and the minister recommends Nie Shicheng, the commander of the 49th Town Division of the Northeast Theater of Operations!" ”

As soon as the words fell, another group of people objected, thinking that Nie Shicheng's level was too low, and he was not obvious, who knew what his ability was.

Li Weiguo nodded instead, he was very relieved, he had not disclosed some information about the outstanding generals of the military in modern history, and he hoped that his subordinates could find them by themselves.

Today, Zhang Xiaoliu recommended Nie Shicheng, which obviously satisfied Li Weiguo very much.

Zhang Xiaoliu said: "Your Majesty, this Nie Shicheng is not good at communicating, so he has always been a division commander, but he has the ability." ”

Without waiting for the others to interject, Li Weiguo directly waved his hand to stop them and said, "Accurate!" Let Nie Shicheng serve as the commander of the Eastern Crusade against Japan! I'll see what your vision is, I'm always a little uneasy to hand over the military department to you, now is the time for you to prove yourself! ”

Zhang Xiaoliu knew that this was Li Weiguo helping him to gag other people's mouths, after all, Zhang Xiaoliu was from a humble background, and he has always been criticized by many civil and military officials in the imperial court, and this time is an opportunity to prove himself.

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" (To be continued.) )