That night, Shi Ming ignored Han Guangdi's dissuasion and pulled his troops up the heights.

Zarainorr is a small basin surrounded by mountains, and this highland is like a tentacle of the mountains reaching into this basin, and a long ridge slightly lower than the highland connects the highlands with the mountains to the west.

The top of the plateau is very large, with a length of more than 700 meters and a width of more than 400 meters, which is an irregular strip. Except for a slight convex center of the highlands, the summit is flat on all sides. In Shi Ming's view, this highland is very much like a jade Ruyi, the ridge is the handle of the jade Ruyi, and the highland is like the head of the bay leaf.

The many tree stumps on the high ground indicate that there were many trees in this high ground in the past, and it can be seen from the port of the stump that these trees were removed during the construction of this high ground position, but in the middle of the high ground, a pine forest about 200 meters wide and 500 meters long is still preserved, and in the pine forest, there are three large shelters with 100 meters apart, which are used to store ammunition and rest barracks for soldiers who defend their positions. At the edge of the hilltop terrace, trenches and bunkers were built to enclose the summit.

The shelter in the center of the summit and the trenches and bunkers around it were all built with logs and steel rails. In the Northeast, there is no shortage of logs, and at this time, the Northeast is far from being developed on a large scale as in later generations, and all the mountainous areas are full of large dense primeval forests.

The ridge that connected to the mountain range was more than 500 meters long, and the section close to the high ground was nearly 100 meters long and had no trees, not even low, dry shrubs, to prevent the Soviets from coming from the ridge and sneaking up on the high ground, where the trees were cut down.

In Shi Ming's view, this position was very imperfect, and the trenches and bunkers built on the edge of the hilltop platform must have been the key targets of the Soviet artillery bombardment before the attack, and the trenches and bunkers in front of the ridge line of the mountain were very easy to destroy, and the soldiers in the trenches would also suffer great casualties. Once the Soviets rushed to the high ground, the defenders had no danger to defend except by relying on three poorly defended shelters to resist.

Before Shi Ming became the battalion commander, he studied in the teaching team of the Fourth Route Army for a period of time. Of course, with his knowledge, he did not need to undergo a long period of training, and he was there only to understand the operational characteristics and tactical organization of the Fourth Route Army.

At the beginning, Shi Ming was very unimpressed with this study, and he thought that it would be purely superfluous for him, a graduate of the Northeast Lecture Martial Arts Hall, to study in this teaching team that teaches junior officers. However, Shi Ming was soon taken aback. The tactical thinking of the Fourth Route Army is very novel, such as 'three fierce tactics, one point and two sides, three three systems, four groups and one team, three fast and one slow. Tactical tactics, including the organization of firepower and the training of individual soldiers' individual skills, are very unique. Judging from his knowledge in the Northeast Lecture Hall and his actual combat experience over the past few years, these tactical organizations and training are very effective, and they are even a magic weapon for defeating the enemy.

In addition, in the setting of positions, as long as conditions permit, as far as possible, the defensive positions are not set in front of the ridge line of the mountain, and the position behind the ridge line is very important. One of the obvious advantages of this is that it is difficult for the opponent to destroy the position with artillery fire, even if the enemy breaks through the first line of trenches, he will immediately face a fire strike arranged in depth, and cannot quickly expand the breach, and the defenders will not collapse immediately because the first line of defense is broken through, even if they face a superior enemy.

What made Shi Ming even more unexpected was that the tactics and tactics in this textbook were all from Song Zhewu, the supreme commander of the Fourth Route Army. In Shi Ming's opinion, this young commander, who was only 2 years older than him, was simply a military genius.

As far as the position in front of him is concerned, Shi Ming felt that the main position should be set up in the woods in the middle of the platform, not only could the Soviet army not be able to accurately destroy the main position with artillery fire, but even the Soviet planes were helpless against the position in the woods. Even if the Soviets broke through the trenches and rushed to the heights, they would have been hit by heavy fire from the woods a hundred meters away.

And at such a close distance, for fear of accidentally injuring their own people, the heavy artillery of the Soviet army did not dare to shoot anymore. If the Soviets wanted to attack the main position, they had to pass through the 100-meter-long open space from the trench to the middle of the main position, and to rush through this open space, it was not possible to rely only on huge casualties.

As long as the main position in the middle of the platform is not lost, the Soviet army will not occupy this height, and it will not be able to pose a threat to Zalainorr from the direction of the heights.

However, the Manzhouli region is the northernmost part of Northeast China, and the temperature can reach more than minus 40 degrees Celsius at the coldest time in winter. Although it is still only November, the night temperature here has reached more than minus 30 degrees Celsius, and the permafrost is already more than half a meter thick. It was a very difficult task to build fortifications at this time.

However, Shi Ming is a Northeasterner after all, and Northeasterners certainly have the methods of Northeasterners. He divided the troops into several groups in companies, took turns cutting logs overnight, cut the felled logs into sections, and then nailed the logs together, and built three prototype positions with three shelters as the core by virtue of the raised terrain in the middle of the platform.

Then, he went to Zalainor, found a large number of steel rails, and built numerous machine-gun bunkers on top of the wooden bunkers.

However, such wooden bunkers could not withstand the bombardment of Soviet artillery fire at all, not to mention heavy artillery, even 82mm mortar shells. Several company commanders raised objections to Shi Ming's trenches and bunkers, but Shi Ming only laughed and did not answer, but repeatedly urged them to urge the soldiers to step up the construction of positions.

After the position was built, Shi Ming asked the commander of the heavy company to take people to Zalainuoer to collect quilts, and purchased hundreds of quilts at the price of two oceans and one bed, regardless of whether they were old or new. Han Guangdi thought that Shi Ming's troops were not suitable for the cold weather in the northeast, so he handed over more than 300 quilts in the warehouse to the baggage company and brought them back.

Shi Ming asked the soldiers to nail all the quilts they had collected to the top of the log breastwork and bunkers, and then set up large iron pots for each company to cook, and use the felled pine branches to make firewood to melt the snow more than a foot thick on the top of the mountain. It was not necessary to wait for the snow to boil, just to melt, and then let the warriors pour the water onto the breastwork and the quilts on the bunkers. It was only at this time that several company commanders completely understood Shi Ming's intentions.

If the water-soaked quilt is frozen with ice, even if the bullet penetrates the quilt, it will be blocked by the logs behind it because of the drop in kinetic energy. Originally, because of suspicion, several company commanders who were not very active immediately became enthusiastic and shouted loudly to the soldiers to speed up the progress. Without Shi Ming's orders, these company commanders instructed the soldiers to repeatedly water the quilts that quickly froze hard, and the ice became thicker and thicker, and by the evening, the ice outside the breastwork and on the bunker was already half a meter thick.

Several company commanders were so excited that they asked the machine gun company commander to pull a Maxine heavy machine gun to the edge of the platform 100 meters away, fire more than 100 rounds at the bunker, and then run to the impact point like a swarm to check the shooting effect. The ice had been knocked away, but only the quilt had just been exposed.

Shi Ming said with a smile: "Don't try again, such a bunker is not much worse than concrete, even a 60mm mortar can't hurt it." Moreover, our fortifications can be repaired at any time. ”

On the evening of the third day, Han Guangdi personally led people to the highlands and sent Shi Ming 1,800 pairs of cotton gloves and 2,000 catties of pork.

Seeing the cotton gloves sent by Han Guangdi, Shi Ming's hanging heart finally fell into place. The temperature in the winter in the Northeast is extremely low, even if the temperature is about 30 degrees below zero, if you hold the gun for a little longer, the human hand will quickly get together with the gun, and a layer of skin will be stained when you pull it. And after a long time, the hands will be frozen, not to mention accurate shooting, even it is difficult to shoot.

Song Zhewu originally ignored this matter, but when he was in the Left Banner of Bahrain, Shi Ming raised this question to Zhang Yafei. Zhang Yafei immediately led Shi Ming to see Song Zhewu, and Song Zhewu, who was shocked into a cold sweat, did not hesitate at all, and immediately called Zhang Xueliang urgently, urgently asking for 150,000 pairs of cotton gloves. Zhang Xueliang took it for granted that the winter clothes of Song Zhewu's Fourth Route Army would definitely be equipped with cotton gloves like the Northeast Army, so there were no cotton gloves in the materials he provided to Song Zhewu.

After receiving Song Zhewu's urgent call, Zhang Xueliang was also taken aback, he knew the temperature in the northeast best, and the combat effectiveness of the troops without cotton gloves would definitely be greatly reduced. Immediately ordered all the cotton gloves in the warehouse to be transferred, but there were only more than 100,000 pairs. Although Zhang Xueliang didn't know why Song Zhewu asked for almost 40,000 pairs of cotton gloves, he still strictly ordered the clothing factories of the Northeast Army to hurry up the production of cotton gloves. Shi Ming's gloves were the last to arrive.

When Han Guangdi saw the core position set up by Shi Ming, he was also surprised, looked back and forth, left and right, and praised Shi Ming for doing a good job.

"Brother Shi, it's only been two days, and it's not easy to set up such a strong position! Even if Lao Maozi rushed to the top of the mountain, he couldn't gain a foothold at all, let alone occupy the high ground. Good! Good! ”

Brother Han Guang then said with emotion: "Brother Shi, it is absolutely foolproof for you to guard this highland, and I am now full of confidence in defending Zha Lai Nuoer. And your position is not only well set up, but also timely. ”

As he spoke, Han Guangdi took out a telegram from his pocket and handed it to Shi Ming, saying: "The Hailar Command has called, and it has been discovered that the Soviet troops on the other side of the border have begun to move, and their attack time should be two days after tomorrow. Judging by the location of their assembly areas, it is likely that the Soviet army will launch a simultaneous attack on Manchuria and Zalainuoer. ”

(To be continued)