Since the establishment of the province in the northern part of the empire, Wutai Province has been divided into six provinces, which are roughly based on the original tribal areas, including Tu Xie Province, Dong Wu Province, West Wu Province, Wu Liang Province, Kodo Province, and Zak Province. Among them, the Tushefu is the Tushetu Khan Department of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

The governorship of the province 'Kulun' is also the seat of the province of Utai, and about 300 kilometers north of Kulen there is an obscure town 'Bula Town'.

The town was founded in the late sixties, but it was very different from other towns in the country.

The towns' inhabitants, with the exception of a few adventurous traveling merchants from other parts of the country, were either active military personnel or people from the cantonment army and their families.

This town is a very typical military stronghold.

If Kulen is the core city of the empire's control of a large part of the northern steppe territory of Utai province and the core of the confrontation against the Russian army in the entire Siberian region, then the town of Bula is at the forefront of the military confrontation between the empire and Russia.

Strictly speaking, according to the territorial boundary between the pre-Qing Dynasty and Russia, this place is actually beyond the scope of Chinese territory and belongs to Russian territory.

You must know that the town of Bra is only a little more than 100 kilometers away from Lake Belga.

Because this town is a frontier town in the war against Russia, it is stationed with a large number of troops, and the Royal Army has an infantry battalion here, a cavalry regiment and some artillery and other field troops, with a total of about 2,000 people.

In addition to these front-line field forces of the Royal Army, there are also two garrison cavalry battalions of about 1,000 men under the jurisdiction of the Wutai Provincial Garrison Command.

As the front line of the northern war against Russia, and at the same time, because of the characteristics of vast land and sparse population, nomadic people, etc., the empire has organized a large number of garrison troops in Wutai Province, and most of them are cavalry troops, and the population of the entire Wutai Province is not much, but it has formed a garrison of at least 20,000 people, and more than 90% of them are cavalry troops.

Although the combat effectiveness is not as good as the regular cavalry units of the Royal Army, because of their large numbers, they are widely involved in the operations between the north and the Russian army.

In addition to the soldiers, the other residents of Bula Town, although they are said to be residents of the cantonment units and their families who have left the army, are still under military administration and assist in the fighting as militias, and if necessary, more than 3,000 militia units can be mobilized to participate in the fighting.

Such a town is a military stronghold worthy of the name of the whole army!

And now in the center of the town, in a small building with a signboard in front of the door of the 'Great China Empire Bula Town Garrison Headquarters'.

A dozen Imperial officers in different uniforms were converging, and among them, sitting at the top was a middle-aged general in his forties, with a short beard and a slightly short build, who was dressed in a general's uniform and wore epaulettes on his shoulders that were very different from those of others, and the epaulettes were embroidered with gold silk peonies around the perimeter and a gold five-pointed star.

This is the epaulette of the Major General of the Army.

This person's name is Su Jinyu, a major general of the Imperial Army, the current commander of the garrison of Bulazhen, and the commander of the 35th Cavalry Regiment

Sitting on his left and right were several other officers, including the commander of the 9th Infantry Battalion of the 35th Infantry Division, several cavalry officers of the 35th Cavalry Regiment, and officers of the garrison who wore uniforms different from those of the field army.

These were the main officers of the garrison of more than 3,000 people stationed in the town of Bura.

Su Jinyu was saying at this time: "The order from the military department is already very clear, let us go north to test Russia's reaction, if possible, we will go all the way to the shore of Lake Belga, and directly cut off the connection between the Russian troops on the east and west sides of Lake Belga." ”

However, a young major below was puzzled and said, "The military headquarters asked us to attack first?" What about the other friendly forces, when will they come, and what about the main forces of the divisional headquarters? ”

"Yes, although there are not many Russian troops in front of us, it is not a problem for the brothers under the command of our brothers to work together to take it down, but when the time comes, the Russian army will definitely want to reinforce the counteroffensive, and if there is no friendly support at that time, I am afraid it will be difficult for us to hold on to the side of Lake Belga!"

"This time you can't repeat the old things of three years ago, if the friendly forces can't keep up, with the strength of our side of Bulazhen, it's easy to fight, but it's useless to keep the results!"

Hearing the words of his subordinates, Su Jinyu also sighed secretly in his heart, he naturally knew what happened three years ago, but he was the commander of the 35th Cavalry Regiment, but there was someone else in charge of the war, who was the commander of the 70th Infantry Brigade of the former 35th Infantry Division.

At that time, the 70th Infantry Brigade and the 35th Cavalry Regiment added a number of artillery and garrison cavalry to form a temporary mixed brigade with a strength of more than 7,000 troops, and launched a large-scale offensive on the front of dozens of kilometers wide north of the town of Bura, trying to break through to the shore of Lake Belga and cut off the Russian troops on the east and west sides of Lake Belga.

At the beginning of that year, the battle was very smooth, the Russian army in front of it was only two or three thousand people, and the 70th Mixed Brigade only took a few days, and its cavalry troops had already reached the shore of Lake Belga, but later the Russian army reacted and launched a counteroffensive from the east and west.

The 70th Mixed Brigade was almost surrounded on the shores of Lake Berga because the battle line was too long and the number of troops was too small, which caused too many holes in the defensive line.

Even in order to rescue the 70th Mixed Brigade and the commander of the 35th Infantry Division, Lieutenant General Hu Shaocheng was forced to give up another aspect of the war, and then personally led the army to rush to the aid from dozens of miles away.

In the end, although the 70th Mixed Brigade successfully retreated, this incident had a great impact, and then the headquarters transferred the commander of the 70th Brigade to the reserve in the name of 'greedy merit'.

Even Hu Shaocheng, a lieutenant general who rose during the War of Unification, was also implicated to a certain extent, and last year the emperor promoted three army generals, Hu Shaocheng was originally on the candidate list, but I don't know who said the battle on the shores of Lake Belga, and as a result, this promotion was gone.

At that time, the 70th Mixed Brigade had more than 7,000 troops, but it still failed to achieve the predetermined strategic goals, and was finally forced to retreat in embarrassment, which made the military bosses lose a lot of face.

Now the total number of soldiers available on the side of Bula Town is only 3,000 people, as for those militias, but they are only militias, and it is okay to defend the city, but if you let them follow the troops to march more than 100 kilometers and fight against tens of thousands of Russian troops, it is too reluctant.

But Su Jinyu knew that since the higher authorities gave him the order, he must have taken the whole picture into account, and unlike these middle-level officers under his subordinates, Su Jinyu was a major general of the army, although he could not get in touch with the news of the upper echelons, but he also knew that the atmosphere on Kulen's side was already a little tense.

The main forces of the 35th Division have already begun to assemble, and it is heard that other units of the military headquarters have also begun to mobilize and issue combat readiness ******.

The main force of the empire in Wutai Province was the Twelfth Army, which had the 34th and 35th Divisions, the 4th Cavalry Brigade, and the 5th Cavalry Brigade.

In addition, there are two infantry regiments and sixteen cavalry battalions belonging to the Utai Provincial Garrison Command.

These forces seem to be not small, but in fact, these troops are divided on a front of nearly 1,000 kilometers, and these tens of thousands of troops are actually far from enough on such a wide front.

The number of troops in the Wutai Provincial Theater is not large, not because the empire does not have more troops to send, in fact, with the huge size of the imperial army, it may be difficult to gather more than 200,000 troops in one direction, but it is still possible to do it with more than 100,000 people.

However, due to the long distance, the long supply line, and the railway to Kulen has not yet been completed, the empire has a large number of troops, but it is impossible to station too many troops in Wutai Province for a long time.

In fact, the military center of the entire northern region of the empire is not Wutai, but the Mongolian Province and Zhili Province in its rear, which are the strategic rear of the entire northern region of the empire, and there are more than three armies stationed in the northeast for a long time, and these forces are strategic mobile forces to rush to the northeast or Wutai direction.

Because of the supply difficulties, it is impossible to maintain a large number of garrisons in Wutai Province in normal times, and only when a large-scale war breaks out, a large number of troops will be temporarily stationed.

In the northern direction, the area where the Empire's troops are stationed is closely related to the transportation situation, especially the railway transportation, basically the railway is opened there, and the army will station heavy troops there.

For example, the Northern Railway has now been built to Guisui, the capital of the Mongolian province, and Guisui has become an important garrison of the empire in the northern territories.

With the inconvenience of supplies, it was difficult for the empire to maintain a large number of troops in remote provinces such as Wutai Province, especially those that lacked an agricultural and industrial base.

However, this situation is not only on the Empire's side, but also on the Russian side.

Their garrisons in the Siberian direction were affected even more than the Empire, and over the years Russia had made great efforts to defend itself against the Empire's attacks and consolidate its rule in the Siberian region.

Encourage immigration, cultivate a small number of areas suitable for cultivation to meet the needs of the local army, and so on.

But even then it was difficult for them to maintain a large army in Siberia.

In short, the situation of the empire and Russia in the Siberian region is that no one is comfortable, and it is not a big problem to fight a few battles in a short period of time, but if you want to hold out a large-scale war for more than a few months, it is basically nonsense, and when the time comes, the problem of military rations is okay, the key is that there are not enough shells and bullets.

The difficulty of supply, especially the supply of ordnance and materials, is why both the empire and Russia coincidentally chose cavalry as the main arm in Siberia and Central Asia.

Although it is said that war horses eat more than people, they have better mobility, and horses can eat grass, and there is not much else on the grassland, but there is more grass.

Moreover, although the modern cavalry has said that the use of guns and even cavalry cannons has been popularized, the most powerful contemporary cavalry is not the use of thermal weapons, but the use of cavalry knives for charging and slashing.

When the contemporary cavalry brandishes the cavalry sword to launch a group charge, it is still the most powerful combat force of the modern era!

This can be seen from the composition of the garrison in the town of Bula, where there is only one battalion of regular infantry, which is basically used for defensive operations or to maintain supply lines, and the main combat force is cavalry, including the 35th Cavalry Regiment and two garrison cavalry battalions, the total number of cavalry has reached 2,000 cavalry, and the artillery is mainly cavalry artillery.

With 2,000 cavalry in hand, it is not very difficult for Su Jinyu to bypass several important military strongholds of the Russian army and run all the way to the shore of Lake Belga, but Su Jinyu knows that even if he runs all the way to the shore of Lake Belga, it will not have a decisive impact on the overall battle situation.

Because the areas confined to the border conflict between Russia and the Empire were so long and sparsely populated, the war between the two sides was not actually limited to the pattern of how many kilometers or kilometers a day was advanced, but was limited to the struggle for one city and one town. (To be continued.) )