Hailanpao is an important town on the north bank of the upper and middle reaches of the Heilongjiang River, located on the left bank of the Heilongjiang River and the right bank of the Jieya River, at the confluence of the two rivers, and the river transportation industry is developed; At the beginning of the 20th century, the city became one of the largest cities in the Russian Far East, and the shipbuilding industry and fleet flourished; The city already has more than 60,000 inhabitants and more than 6,000 houses, all of which are red, mostly wooden, spacious and sturdy. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

On the 22nd, Feng Linge led his troops to surround Hailan Pao and began to build fortifications, sending scouts and airships to reconnoiter the enemy's troop deployment.

On the morning of the 23rd, news came from the command that the Xia Imperial Army had completely occupied the two important towns of Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude in the west, isolating the Far East; At the same time, Wang Dajun, chief of staff of the Taiwan Provincial Military Region, and Ma Longtan, commander of the First Garrison Army, had already led their troops to surround Shuangchengzi and completely divide the Russian Far Eastern Military Region into several small pieces, preparing to break them down individually.

Other troops are advancing in the direction of Sakhalin, Boli and Vladivostok.

After Feng Linge informed everyone of the news, the commanders and fighters were very optimistic about the situation on the battlefield of the entire Russian Far East Military Region, and they all wanted to eagerly finish the battle of Hailan Bubble, destroy the Russian army in Chita as soon as possible, and get more combat achievements.

On the afternoon of the 23rd, taking advantage of the high morale, Feng Linge ordered the two newly formed Japanese mercenary brigades to send one brigade each to carry out a tentative attack.

When the two groups of mercenaries advanced to 1,500 meters of the enemy's defensive line, the Maxim heavy machine gun in the enemy fortress began to roar, raining bullets at the mercenaries, and the mercenaries could only lie on the ground, unable to organize an effective charge.

"The divisional artillery battalion will immediately give fire support!" Feng Linge ordered.

The 75mm mountain artillery battalion, which had been prepared for a long time, immediately opened fire.

"Boom, boom, boom......."

The artillery shells exploded on the enemy's position, raising puffs of smoke and dust, and the flying sand and rocks on the position were very spectacular.

However, those shells hit the permanent fortifications, and the effect was not very great; The permanent fortifications were semi-underground in nature, concrete was poured on the top of the fortress, and in front of it was also a shooting hole for concrete pouring, with entrances and exits in the rear, and the rest of the place and the top were protected by earthengravel and earth; Not to mention that the mountain cannon can't hit directly, even if it hits its top, it can't cause damage.

Seeing the effect of the shelling from the telescope, Feng Linge immediately ordered the shelling to be stopped, the mercenaries to retreat, and the offensive to stop; and convened a meeting of division and brigade commanders to negotiate offensive strategies.

According to the information brought back by the scouts, the battlefield was a large plain with a flat river, and the enemy did not build many permanent fortifications, but built two lines of defense on the periphery of the city, many machine gun forts, and many batteries along the river, and the strong attack was very unfavorable to the infantry; However, most of the buildings in the city are made of wood, which is convenient for firefighting.

After Feng Linge discussed with everyone, he felt that if he attacked strongly, the battle damage would be very large, and even if he occupied Hailan Pao, everyone would not gain much battle merit; Therefore, it was decided to use the method of fire attack to annihilate all the defenders and residents of the city, and immediately reported to Chief of Staff Ge Zhennan for instructions.

Ge Zhennan thought to himself that there was no need to be merciful to the Russians, it was better to kill the enemy than to let his army die in battle, as long as he could win, so he immediately approved Feng Linge's application and ordered him to prepare for war, and when the time came, two airships would be loaded with ammunition to bombard Hailan Pao and assist them in their attack.

The bombing time was chosen at 6 o'clock in the morning of the 24th, after which the infantry had time to attack, hoping to capture Hailan Pao that day.

The defenders of the city did not rush to attack after a brief temptation, but were busy building fortifications, which made them even more worried that if the enemy could launch a dense infantry charge, they could rely on the strong permanent fortifications to inflict heavy blows on the enemy and consume the enemy's vital strength, so that they would have a chance to hold out until winter; If the enemy does not attack, but encircles them, builds fortifications, and engages them in artillery battles, they have no confidence in holding out.

At the same time, the news that reached the defending 4th Army made them worried, the successive losses of Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude, even if winter came, reinforcements would not easily arrive here, and the armies of the Far East were divided by the enemy and were easily annihilated separately; The speed of the enemy's advance was so rapid that they did not have time to gather their forces, the officers and soldiers outside the city were very scattered and would be easily eliminated by the enemy, and the defenders inside the city were isolated and helpless, and it was only a matter of time before they were eliminated.

At this time, a telegram was sent back from the garrison troops outside, the army of the Xia Empire was killing frantically on the periphery, and the small forces were all annihilated, and they were attacking in the east and west directions along the Siberian railway line, their forces were scattered, and they could not gather troops in a short time, and they could not stop the attack of the Xia Empire at all.

After thinking about it, the commander of the 4th Army of the Russian army ordered the cavalry in the west to retreat to Chita, and the regular army in the east to retreat in the direction of Boli by train.

The time soon came to the morning of the 24th, and the two airships were ready to bomb Hailan Bubble on time.

The two airships first used incendiary bombs to bomb the city, and instead of precision bombing, as long as the incendiary bombs fell into the city, they could deal a big blow to the enemy. With the landing of one incendiary bomb, after exploding on the ground, there was a continuous huge explosion sound, and at the same time, flames as high as more than ten meters rose, and the flames spread to dozens of square meters around, and the incendiary objects splashed in all directions, flying dozens of meters away, quickly igniting the surrounding wooden buildings.

At 7 o'clock, the whole Hailan bubbled into a huge sea of fire, all the houses were burning, and there were very few residents who could escape, even the military headquarters and the governor's palace were caught in the fire, even if they hid in the bunker in time, they would die of suffocation.

The officers and soldiers in the barracks suffered heavy casualties, even if they ran to the playground and other open areas in time, they did not escape the bombardment of the airships, and only those who fled the city in time got a glimmer of life, but it was only temporary.

Several speedboats in the enemy's harbor, seeing a huge flame rising nearly 100 meters high in the city, lighting up the entire sky, they knew that Hailan was finished, the Russian army was finished, the commander called the governor's palace and the military department for instructions, the phone was no longer available, after thinking about it, ordered the speedboats to disperse and retreat to Boli, if they could save a little strength, they would save a little, besides, no one wanted to die, and it would be useless for them to stay.

The defenders in the fortress on the front line saw that the city in the rear turned into a sea of fire, all the officers and soldiers turned pale, and their weapons, ammunition, food, medicine and other heavy materials were stored in the urban area.