Just in Mikhail? When Nikolanavich was about to announce the end of the military meeting, a staff officer hurried in and whispered a few words in Mikhail's ear.

Mikhail was slightly stunned and said, "Send more scouts to reconnoitre." Turning his head, he said: "Cavalry reconnaissance has found signs of large-scale movement of the [***] team. ”

Joseph frowned slightly and said, "The Chinese will not come so quickly, unless there is a large army stationed nearby, but Mr. Chelin of Mongolia did not mention it in the intelligence." ”

Mikhail said: "Either way, your legion is ready to fight. ”

As the sun set down, the gunfire of the remnants of the Kizil Chinese bunkers gradually thinned out.

Standing on the mirror-like riverside, Mikhail paced, slightly confused in his heart, according to the intelligence of these two hours, the appearance of a large-scale Chinese army in the south was already a sure thing, the vanguard of the Second Corps had already engaged in skirmishes with the Chinese, and finally the Chinese were the first to leave the battlefield.

He suddenly walked back to the barracks quickly, his own soldiers hurriedly lit the oil lamp, Mikhail spread out the battle map, according to the original military deployment, did not prepare to stay in the Kizil area for a long time, and for the Mongolian steppe, the terrain is gentle, and there is no need to pay attention to the terrain, and the Kizil area has rare mountains and hilly terrain.

Now Mikhail has to plan for the worst, that is, the Chinese actually have a heavy army in Mongolia, as a top military secret, Prince Chelin has no way to know, and even, the Chinese have been guarding against their own invasion from Mongolia?

Mikhail was suddenly a little frightened, turned his head and said: "Notify the commander of the corps and the commanders of the divisions of the emergency meeting." ”

The Russians moved extremely quickly, and within one night the 2nd Corps, which had arrived in Kizil, had completed its defensive deployment, with one division deployed in the hills and dense forests on the left flank of Kizil; The two divisions built trenches and bunkers from the road leading to Uriya Sutai, and more than 200 artillery pieces that arrived in advance were also erected on the positions.

Although the generals could not help but think that Mikhail was making a big fuss, they also strictly carried out the orders of the Grand Duke. In the middle of the night, several cavalry scouts were driven back by the Chinese or disappeared, which also made the generals feel that the situation was serious.

At dawn, the morning light faded away, and when the black and oppressive Chinese infantry line in the distance appeared in the sight of the Russians, all the Russian [***] officers gasped and admired the foresight of the Grand Duke even more.

On August 26, 1870, Chinese and Russian troops met unexpectedly in Kizil.

Almost within an hour of dawn, artillery roared everywhere in the dense forests, hills, and grasslands, and the Chinese artillery began to launch intensive bombardment of Tsarist positions.

In a temporary brick house more than 100 miles south of the battlefield, the matchmaker looked at the sand table in the Kizil area, this sand table, in fact, she and Ye Zhao don't know how many times they have seen it and studied it.

It is not easy to set up ambushes in the steppe area, and it is not realistic to lure the Russians into the area around Uriya Sutai to gather and annihilate them, and it is impossible for their cavalry reconnaissance teams to find out about large-scale military movements, and if they want to cooperate with the operation, they will inevitably send "reinforcements" to sacrifice to make the Russians believe that they are unprepared.

In the Kizil area, while the Russians were not firmly established, the scouts had not had time to expand the reconnaissance area, so it was a relatively safe choice to give a head-on attack.

It can be said that the Russians have made painstaking efforts to induce Mongolia as a strategic breakthrough, including espionage lines in St. Petersburg and Moscow, including a "defected officer" disguised as Fan Gengji's brother-in-law.

The camouflaged military columns in Tianhu City also convinced the Russians that China had amassed more than two-thirds of its elite forces on the Western Front.

However, the telegram that just came from Dihua, although strict precautions, the railway from Dihua to Tianhu City was blown up by the Russians for several sections, and the telegraph line was often cut off, although the troops on the first line of Tianhu City were not as exaggerated as the Russians thought, but they also exceeded 200,000, and they had really moved towards the Alexandria area, and the repeated destruction of the supply line would be a severe test for the Western Front Army.

Nowadays, only by giving the Russians a blow of destruction in the central theater can the strategic deployment of the Russians be completely disrupted, and Ye Zhao said that the theater of the matchmaker at the beginning of the war is the most critical.

There was a row of telephones on the wooden table in the window, and the telephone rang from time to time, and the signal corps turned around and loudly reported to Chief of Staff Zhao Puyu that the infantry divisions of the group army were gradually entering the battlefield, that the three divisions of the first echelon had been deployed, and that the artillery divisions had begun to suppress firepower.

The only telegraph line connected to Uriya Sutai, and just after the telegram, Prince Chelin was tried by a military court and sentenced to be hanged.

The matchmaker nodded slightly, planted red flags in the sand table, and thought silently.

At the same time the Russian high command.

Mikhail? Nikolanavich was also pacing and pondering, the armed forces of Russia in Kizil now had nearly 100,000 men in the Second Corps and cavalry, and the vanguard of the First Corps had also arrived, and the rest of the troops were arriving one after another.

It is obvious that the Chinese have also deployed heavy troops in the Mongolian region, and they have a considerable vigilance surname, and now they are fighting or retreating?

Retreating from the army is inevitably too child's play, not to mention that the army's morale will fluctuate immediately, and in the pursuit of the Chinese, there will be heavy losses, which is equivalent to disarming and surrendering, not to mention that the cavalry has just sent a telegram that several sections of the railway line from Dihua to Tianhu City have been blown up, regardless of whether the Chinese are prepared in the Mongolian theater or not, the strategic goal of the Supreme Command is not out of reach.

Moreover, the distance from Abakan to Kizil, which is nearly half the distance from Uriya Sutai to Kizil, plus the supply of yachts from Krasnoyelsk all the way along the south of the Yenisei River, can fully support a large-scale campaign.

The Chinese arrogantly want to "reject the enemy outside the borders of the country," and hearing that this is the law of war and creed that they have followed for thousands of years, then it is very unfortunate that the Chinese will taste the bitter fruit of defeat.

Mikhail? The more Nikolanavich thought about it, the more he felt that this would be an opportunity to take the lead in the Sino-Russian war, and to fight a decisive battle with the Chinese in Kizil, defeat the heavy troops deployed in Mongolia, threaten the Chinese hinterland, and attack Dihua, which would cause the Chinese to be chaotic on the western front without a fight, and if they hurriedly returned to defense, the counterattack of their own Western Front corps would be fatal.

If in this era, unreliable railway lines are regarded as the first factor in the success or failure of wars, and they rely heavily on railway lines, then when the railways are lost, the defeat of the war will be inevitable.

Mikhail? Nikolanavich slowly put the pipe on the table and said: "Order the 1st and 3rd Corps to march to the battlefield and send electricity to St. Petersburg, we can break the bones of the Chinese in Kizil, and ask the presidential command to redeploy supplies and soldiers in the Mongolian theater." ”

Obviously, he had made up his mind to fight the Chinese in Mongolia, the newly recruited soldiers and supplies would be continuously transported to Abakan through the Trans-Siberian Railway, and the Middle Route Army would defeat the elite Chinese in the Mongolian battlefield and penetrate deep into the heart of China.

Even he felt that the purpose of the war of the presidential command could be changed, and it was obviously a little conservative to just make [***] establish and accept the territory of the Western Regions occupied by China.

…… In the positions of the Chinese, every few miles, a huge balloon of observation posts will be raised.

Riding on a high ground, the commander of the 3rd Infantry Division of the 2nd Russian Corps, Mikhail ? Ivanovic? Dragomirov stared at the Chinese position with a telescope, and couldn't help but secretly resented that the balloon of the Chinese in Tianhu City had been destroyed by them before evacuating.

However, it is gratifying that there are not many hilly areas south of Kizil except for towering peaks, and the deployment of the Chinese cannot escape their own observation most of the time, and in this slightly empty and flat battlefield except for swamps and woods, many advantages of the Chinese cannot be brought into play, and Dragomirov believes that without barbed wire and trenches, the Cossack cavalry will deal the heaviest blow to the Chinese.

Arrogant Chinese! Dragomirov found that even in its weakest period, the Chinese nation had the mentality of the Heavenly Empire and all nations, and now its industrial science and technology are at the forefront of the world, and Russia is far behind, and it is even more arrogant, and is ready to face off with fierce Russian warriors and Cossack warriors on the steppe, well, let the Chinese know the true meaning of warriors!

Dragomirov couldn't even wait to see the sea of Russian warriors break through the Chinese front.

The southern part of Kizil is an extremely complex terrain composed of mountains, woods, hills, rivers, swamps, steppes, and the positions of the Chinese and Russians gradually became intertwined, and soon, everywhere there was fierce gunfire, quite naturally, Mikhail? Nikolanavich used the road stretching south and the steppe area on both sides as a breakthrough, as long as he broke through the Chinese defense line, in this chaotic battlefield, the Chinese could be counter-encircled and devastated.

Judging by various intelligence, the Chinese have already committed 5-100,000 people to the battlefield, and according to the observation of scouts at observation points in the high mountains, it is likely that the Chinese still have a sufficient number of reserve mobile troops behind the southern mountain range.

Although Nikolanavich did not have a sand table, a military map of a hundred miles around Kizil was already on his table, and although the map was slightly rough, the overall strategic intention was easy to see, and according to the dense forests of the mountains and mountains occupied by the Chinese interspersed into the battlefield, they also wanted to implement the tactics of division and encirclement.

Breaking through the road front held by the southern Chinese and interspersed into the battlefield will suffer a heavy blow to the morale of the [***] team.

When the 3rd Division of the 1st Corps arrived on the battlefield, Nikolanavich gave the Cossack cavalry an order to attack the [***] squadron on the southern front, and he could not order the [***] squadron on the southern front to dig deep trenches and erect barbed wire, and at that time it would be several times more expensive to break through the Chinese defensive line.

And now the Chinese infantry guarding the road, without bunkers and trenches, even had to crouch down to shoot at the Russian soldiers, obviously, this is not their strong point, with advanced tactics and firepower to build a prestige of the squadron, once found itself into the era of three-stage strike, its combat effectiveness dropped sharply by several grades.

Of course, Nikolanavich also had no doubt that the Chinese were supported by a large number of mobile troops behind the hilly mountains at the corner of the road, but on the flat road steppe, the mighty Cossack torrent could destroy all the forces that stood in their way.

Nikolanavich had already begun to plan and consider the next stage of the campaign, when the Cossack cavalry crisscrossed the steppe to cut off the supply lines of the Chinese, tens of thousands of Chinese entrenched in various positions around Kizil became a turtle in the urn, and when these Chinese were annihilated, the Russian army could advance in unison and attack in multiple directions on a frontal width of 100 kilometers, and the defensive forces hastily assembled by the Chinese would inevitably be annihilated.

…… Looking at the black and oppressive Chinese infantry line several miles away, Dientali's eyes were bloody, his cavalry regiment was lost in the battle to attack Kizil, the most hateful thing is that the Chinese rely on the dangerous terrain, and now they are still resisting, those Chinese who were killed were all killed by the infantry of the Russian infantry regiment, few were killed under the Cossack knife, which made him even more depressed, and at this time, looking at the long defensive line formed by the Chinese on the steppe and the road, Dientali slowly drew his horse gun, and his heart was beating like a beast, Trampling the corpses of Chinese with fiery horses and bursting the heads of Chinese with muskets and sabers is the best way to avenge his men.

The prairie will become a cemetery for the Chinese!

The scene of the overwhelming Cossack cavalry charging in black was quite terrifying, and at that moment, the sky behind them seemed to darken.

More than 20,000 Cossack and Tsarist cavalry, eight men and eight horsemen in each row, wielding a forest of cold swords, charging with a fan surface of more than several miles, fearless of death, one after another, the scene is so shocking that in the vast steppe, there is hardly any force that can compete with them.

Dientali struggled to urge the horses, and his companions fell off the horse one by one, but he didn't care at all, only a wild cry in his heart, and rushed over! Rush over! Rush to the side of the Chinese! Chop off their heads!

Although he glimpsed many swarthy things on the road and on the grassy slopes from afar, Dientari's mind forgot to think completely, and only wanted to enjoy the exciting feeling of the saber and the cartilage of the Chinese's neck.

The Chinese soldiers began to retreat like a tide, and suddenly, a deafening sound of "bang bang" sounded, and the distance was closer, and Dientali could see clearly, these black things were square boxes made of steel, with four strange wheels underneath, and the top semicircular metal shell protruded from the iron pipe of the black hole, and at this time the tongue of fire was mercilessly sprayed.

Dozens of steel monsters rushed into the torrent of Cossack cavalry unscrupulously, and the cavalry who could not dodge were smashed into the air, and there were screams everywhere.

Dientali just exclaimed, "What kind of monster is this?!" As soon as his chest was hot, the force of the impact caused him to roll over and fall off his horse, and it hurt to the bone, and then he lost consciousness.

The Cossacks were in a mess, for their bullets and sabers did no damage to the steel monsters, and at last the fierce Cossacks fled north with their horses in turn, while the steel machines chased after them, and in the thump of gunfire, it was a one-sided slaughter.

In the brick room of the headquarters, the phone call answered by the matchmaker in person, she let out a long sigh, "Thunder", and finally came in handy.

Since the birth of the gasoline engine in the empire, the "Thunder Project" has officially begun, and there have been many failures over the years, even if the "Thunder" used in today's battlefield, in fact, from a certain point of view, it has no real meaning.

For example, the production number of up to 23 armored machine gun vehicles named "Tianjia No. 1" by Ye Zhao is concerned, with a total weight of 3 tons, a semicircular semi-rotating heavy machine gun tower, chain transmission, riveted thin armor plates, and manganese alloy armor on the back of the machine gun tower. The semicircular machine-gun turret is the same as the machine-gun tower of the Austrian "Daimler" armored car in 1903.

The armor covered by the entire vehicle could not penetrate with the power of the Russians' bullets, unless its sharpshooter could shoot through the square viewing hole in front of the cockpit.

It seems to be incomparably powerful, but the fatal flaw is the power, taking the "Sky Crane No. 1" as an example, the empire uses a 60-horsepower gasoline engine, and the maximum speed can reach 40 kilometers per hour, but unfortunately, the maximum range is only 5 kilometers.

In other words, if you want it to travel long distances, you have to carry it with gasoline in a horse-drawn cart, and after driving for miles, you have to refuel it, and you have to remove the chance of breakdowns. Therefore, in theory, these armored vehicles do not have much actual combat use, and it is better to put them in other ways if they have the time and energy to serve them, the garrison troops equipped for them, the oil consumed, etc., because even if you work hard to get them on the battlefield, it is likely to be scrapped as soon as the artillery comes down.

What's more, the four-iron wheel drive is even more helpless against the trenches, and it is impossible to play the role of a tank-like charge.

It can only be said that this kind of armored vehicle can only play a role at a specific moment on a specific battlefield, and the first achievement of the fledgling is naturally placed in the Kizil battlefield, where the rear is all China's territory and it is more convenient to serve these "monsters".

Division Commander Dragomirov was also apparently taken aback by these sudden steel monsters.

This Russian conservative military faction, who admired bayonets and despised firepower, never thought about the power of a bullet fired from a moving steel box.

He even urgently ordered the signal corps to give the order, summoning the artillery that was bombarding the Red Forest Heights to open fire on the southern city of Kizil, although at this time, the steel monster had just rushed into the defense line of one of his infantry regiments, and the summoned artillery fire did not know if it could hurt these steel boxes, but there was no doubt that his infantry regiment would be destroyed.

Until a brave Russian soldier threw out a grenade exploded under the chassis of an armored car, and the armored car was going down the slope and accidentally drove into the ditch with one wheel on one side, the body of the car was tilted sharply to the left.

Seeing this scene through the binoculars, Dragomirov breathed a sigh of relief, but then he knew that his rejoicing was not justified, because the Chinese infantry who followed the charging steel monster had poured into the southern city of Kizil, which had been reduced to ruins.

(To be continued)