Chapter 571: The Siege of Northern Mongolia (3)

Before Blyukhel could give the order to retreat, there was even worse bad news.

Another telegram was sent from the airports of Dauri and Ulan-Ude: The cunning Chinese Air Force, with the help of small ground units that had infiltrated them, had successfully carried out night attacks on the airfields of the two places, and most of the planes at the two airfields had been blown up, and it was impossible to provide them with air cover in the short term. That is, from tomorrow, the planes of the Chinese Air Force will come to their skies again.

Now, Blyukhel finally understood that Song Zhewu, a Chinese warlord, had an amazing appetite, and he wanted not only to eat the Soviet army on the western route, but also his Soviet army on the central route. The Soviet army on the western road was a bait given to him by Song Zhewu, just to lure him into the bait.

The well-equipped 38th Army, which suddenly appeared, had been hidden, in order to serve as a killer weapon and put them in this bigger pocket.

Thinking of this, Blyukhel did not dare to hesitate any longer, and immediately ordered the whole army to set off urgently, and he must rush there before the pass is lost, otherwise the more than 200,000 Soviet troops will fall into a larger encirclement again. If they are surrounded, then don't expect strong reinforcements from home to relieve them in the short term.

To Blyukher's despair, when the main Soviet force was still 30 kilometers away from the pass, he received the last telegram from the remaining troops, reporting that the Chinese army had occupied the pass.

The message was obviously not finished, and the reason goes without saying, and Blyukhel also knew that the pass was lost.

Blyukhel ordered the troops to continue to advance, and he wanted to take advantage of the unstable foothold of the Chinese, retake the pass, break the Chinese encirclement, and save the more than 200,000 Soviet troops.

However, unfortunately, just as they approached the pass, the sky had already dawned, and groups of Chinese planes arrived as scheduled, and a string of bombs kept falling in the ranks of the Soviet troops, and the Soviet troops who were exhausted and had not even eaten breakfast scattered and fled, so that the Soviet troops did not have time to organize an attack.

The focus of the Chinese bombing was not on personnel, but on heavy weapons, tanks, and vehicles. On the narrow and rugged mountain roads, most of these tanks and vehicles, which were still lined up, did not have time to hide, and exploded and caught fire in the repeated bombardment of Chinese planes.

Under the command of Wu Jin, the remaining 200 or so planes of various types of the Air Force Corps were divided into four groups and launched a fierce bombardment of the Soviet troops almost without interruption. The intensive bombardment destroyed most of the Soviet vehicles and heavy weapons, and the casualties were innumerable.

At the same time as the bombardment, taking advantage of the chaos of the Soviet army, Fu Zuoyi, who was appointed by Song Zhewu as the commander-in-chief of the front, commanded his 35th Army, Sun Weiru's 17th Division, and the main force of Liang Zhongjia's 43rd Army to press over from the north, and quickly occupied the position on the north side of the valley, condescendingly launched an artillery bombardment on the Soviet army, and the Soviet troops in the valley were forced to retreat to the mountains south of the valley.

In the evening, Liang Fang's 42nd Army and Ma Fa's 46th Army, which had been blocking the attack in the east, chased after them from behind, blocking the Soviet army's road to the east.

There were Fu Zuoyi, Sun Weiru, and Liang Zhongjia in the north, Zhang Yafei in the west, Liang Fang and Ma Fawu in the east, and Li Ruifang's mountain division in the south, which completely surrounded the Soviet army. Soviet troops were completely compressed in a narrow mountainous area about fifteen kilometers long.

Although there were only more than 30,000 men of Li Ruifang's mountain division in the south of the encirclement, and the strength was relatively weak, the terrain in this section of the mountain was complicated, and not only was it suitable for the movement of large troops, but the Soviet army's vehicles could not pass through it at all, and the terrain was very suitable for mountain operations. Moreover, further south, beyond the mountainous area of more than 30 kilometers, there is a vast Gobi with no trees and no water for hundreds of miles, and even if the Soviet army rushes into the Gobi Desert from the south, there are still the main forces of the 1st Cavalry Army and the 2nd Cavalry Army of Han Guanghui waiting for them. If the Soviet army, which did not have tanks and artillery, entered the Gobi Desert, it would be a dead end.

Knowing that the situation was grim, Blyukhel sent a telegram to Moscow on the one hand, gathered his troops, organized a defense in the mountains, and guarded against the attack of the Fourth Route Army troops in the north, east, and south, and on the other hand, he organized forces to prepare for a night attack on the east side defended by Zhang Yafei's 38th Army at night. Only by retaking the pass can we fight a bloody way, otherwise these 200,000 Soviet troops, even if they are not wiped out by the Chinese, will be trapped and starved to death.

In order to act quickly, Blyukhel only brought half a month's food supply this time, and now more than 70,000 Soviet troops on the western route have been added, plus the losses in the bombing, it is good that the food of the whole army can last for a week. …,

It's just that before the night attack of the Soviet army could be launched, Wu Jin's plane came again. Under the instructions of signal flares and flares fired by the units of the Fourth Route Army on all sides, the planes bombed the area where the Soviet troops were assembled.

The bombardment at night was different from that during the day, with not only bombs, but also incendiary bombs, and the mountainous area defended by the Soviets, although there were no lush barren grasses and no dense forests, was covered by low shrubs and a few unconnected woods.

The incendiary bombs set fire to the bushes and woods, and although they did not burn the Soviets, the vehicles and supplies that had been hidden in the woods to avoid the bombardment during the day were devastating. The vehicles could not be evacuated at all during the night, because of the panic, coupled with the poor line of sight, dozens of tanks and trucks overturned down the mountain, and some ammunition trucks even exploded, and the chaotic Soviet troops could not organize an attack at all.

After the planes flew away, countless shells began to fire from the positions of the Fourth Route Army in the north, east, and west, and in the dark night, although the shelling was not accurate, these shells were concentrated around the fire, and the Soviet troops, who had just escaped from the fire, were killed and wounded by the shells that were almost blind.

The almost non-stop shelling throughout the night not only continued to harvest the lives of the Soviet soldiers, but also ruthlessly destroyed the will of the Soviet officers and soldiers.

After dawn, the Soviets found that the mountains more than ten kilometers south of the area they were defending had been burned to the point of bald mountains, and everywhere was black and bare.

The bombing and shelling of this night burned and blew up almost all the vehicles, artillery and supplies of the Soviet army, and nearly 10,000 casualties were inflicted.

The desperate Blyukher, before dawn, ordered the officers and men to brave the artillery fire, snatch some food from the ashes, hastily eat breakfast in advance, and as soon as the day dawned, while the planes of the Fourth Route Army had not yet come to bomb, they launched a decisive charge against the position of Zhang Yafei's 38th Army. The Soviets knew from top to bottom that if they couldn't rush out today, then they would never have a chance again.

The Soviet army launched a charge on a divisional scale, wave after wave, almost without interruption. Fu Zuoyi had already made preparations for the Soviet army's dying struggle, and took advantage of the artillery positions that had been readjusted before dawn to concentrate more than 200 mountain and field artillery and heavy artillery pieces of the 38th Army, the 43rd Army, the 35th Army, and the 17th Division, and blew up a dense fire net in front of the positions of the 38th Army to block and shoot at the follow-up units of the Soviet Army.

Even so, the frenzied Soviet troops, who risked their lives to rush through the net of fire, still stepped on the corpses everywhere, with red eyes, and rushed to the positions of the 38th Army in groups.

Thank you for the "Heart of Faith" book friends for the tip!

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