Sure enough, the Soviet offensive was fierce from the beginning, first with heavy artillery bombardment for half an hour, followed by a burst of indiscriminate bombardment by more than 20 planes, and the focus of the artillery and air raids was on the high ground. The Soviet artillery bombardment only hit the trenches on the ridge line for more than 10 minutes, and the aim was to completely destroy the trenches. Then, the shelling began to be directed to the woods at the top of the hill. Soviet planes were specifically bombed in the woods on the top of the mountain.

Shi Ming, who was hiding in the shelter department, was covered with dust by the dirt falling from the shelter department, and as soon as the plane flew away, Shi Ming hurriedly drilled out of the shelter department, he wanted to see the situation of the position. Such a fierce shelling, not to mention the trenches on the ridgeline, is his proud work, and the core fortifications on the top of the mountain cannot be resisted. Looking at the ring fortification in the middle where he was, there was no problem with the shelter, but the ring ice wall was blown up a lot, but due to the quilt lining the ice wall, although the ice wall was blown up in many places, it was not blown down, but skewed to the side, and such an ice wall could barely be used as a cover. Through the passage under the three shelters, the troops of the other two fortifications also sent people to report the situation, basically the same as he did here.

But then Shi Ming had to get nervous, the platoon at the forward observation post reported in flag language that the Soviet army had more than 1,000 troops attacking this time, and this time there was no trench in front to resist the Soviet army, which would be a direct attack by the Soviet army on the core position.

As soon as the Soviets reached the halfway point of the mountain, Shi Ming ordered the machine guns to fire three salvos in a row, he wanted to try to kill and wound as many Soviet troops as possible first.

The Soviets successfully captured the ridge line to the north this time, and after discovering that the defenders had abandoned the trenches, they tentatively sent a company of troops to attack the woods.

Shi Ming didn't pay much attention to the Soviet troops of this company, and ordered the east and west workers not to shoot in advance, and only gave the order to open fire when the Soviet troops came to the middle of the open field, more than 50 meters away from the fortifications. With the order issued, four heavy machine guns, sixteen light machine guns, and hundreds of rifles opened fire at the same time, although the trembling Soviet troops knew that there must be defenders in the woods, but they never expected that the opponent's firepower would be so dense, and forty or fifty people were knocked down at once, and almost all the Soviet soldiers who were shot died instantly. Because as long as they were shot, they were hit several times at the same time, and the Soviet troops in the front row were even beaten like a hornet's nest.

The rest of the Soviet troops retreated in a hurry, and it would be tantamount to suicide to attack under such dense firepower.

Because the distance between the ridge line and the woods was only more than 100 meters, the distance was too close, and the Soviet heavy artillery did not dare to shoot, so the Soviet troops had to use more than a dozen mortars to hide behind the ridge line and shell into the woods. Shi Ming's mortars also began to bombard the ridge line without scruples at this time, and the dense mortar shells caused great damage to the Soviet army, and soon the Soviet mortars were silent.

After a period of silence, the observation post suddenly heard the sound of gunfire and grenade explosions, and the gunfire was still very dense, not only from rifles and light machine guns, but also from heavy machine guns.

It turned out that the Soviets saw that the frontal fire was very dense and that the continuation of the offensive would not work, so they wanted to take the observatories from two sides, and the observation post of the first company was located on a steep slope at the easternmost end of the heights, and more than 200 Soviet troops who were detouring from the east were blocked by this platoon left near the observation post at the foot of the steep slope.

Shi Ming of this observation post would not give up, and he was even ready to sacrifice this platoon. As soon as the gunfire rang out there, Shi Ming ordered the machine gun company to use 60mm mortar fire support. Although the Soviets could not be seen in the fortifications on the top of the hill, the machine gun company did not need to know the exact location of the Soviets, as long as they shelled the arc-shaped area 100 meters away from the observation post, in order to prevent the large Soviet forces from besieging the observation post. As for the small troops, then only by the strength of this platoon itself.

The sound of gunfire and grenade explosions at the observation post, the mortar fire on the hill stopped shortly after that. But as soon as it stopped, the light and heavy machine guns in the No. 3 fortification on the west side rang out violently again, and this was the Soviet troops who had bypassed from the west side trying to sneak into the woods, and just hit the muzzles of the fourth company that had already found them, and the Soviets fled back to the rear of the ridge line in confusion after dropping dozens of corpses.

Through the direction of the flag of the observation post, the 12 82 mortars in the core fortifications on the top of the hill began to block and fire at the Soviet troops attacking Zalainuoer, but Shi Ming could no longer know the battle situation of Zalainuoer in time.

After a stalemate of more than an hour, more than a dozen planes flew in from the direction of Manchuria and bombed the woods on the highlands again. After several shelling and aircraft bombing, many trees in the forest have been blown down, and the trees in the No. 2 fortification where Shi Ming is located have been blown up, and the most have fallen down, and the ground situation can already be clearly seen in the air. Therefore, the No. 2 fortification became the focus of the bombing by Soviet aircraft. It was only because the core fortifications were too strong that although the ice wall was blown apart, the core shelter was unharmed.

After the bombardment, the Soviets hiding behind the ridge line launched a massive charge, and the Soviet soldiers, armed with Mosin Nagant rifles and shouting "Ula", bravely rushed to the No. 2 core fortification, which had been exposed in the woods.

As soon as the Soviet bombardment stopped, the soldiers quickly drilled out of the shelter through a dozen passages, ran behind the broken ice wall, and fired fiercely at the rushing Soviet troops. Although the Soviet attack had the first opportunity, but to pass through more than 100 meters of open land, the most heavily armed soldiers also took 20 seconds at the earliest, when the Fourth Route Army began to shoot, the Soviet army only rushed half of the distance, and this time not only the No. 2 and No. 3 fortifications fired fiercely at the Soviet attacking troops, but also the four heavy machine guns in the No. 1 fortification, which had not been exposed, also fired fiercely at the Soviet troops.

In the northern winter, it gets dark early, only after five o'clock, and the sky has already begun to darken. In the absence of aircraft air raids, Shi Ming ordered the three core fortifications to be placed on platoon duty, especially at night, to prevent the Soviet army from sneaking up on the night. The rest of the fighters took turns to rest after dinner, but the guns could not be left in their hands, and even the heavy machine guns did not have to be taken back to the shelter between battles as during the day, and there was no way for Soviet planes to bomb them in the dark.

Shi Ming knew from the light signal sent by the forward observation post that although the Soviet army's attack on Zalainuor had made great progress, it had only penetrated the urban area in the northeast corner, and now it was engaged in night fighting, but the battle line had been stable in the northeastern part of the city. Shi Ming was checking with the deputy battalion commander whether to reinforce Zhalainur, and Cui Xiaomao, the commander of the guard platoon, brought in a young staff officer of the Northeast Army covered in snow, who was sent by Han Guangdi to report to Shi Ming about the battle situation in Zhalainor.

This staff officer saw Shi Ming and immediately reported: "Wang Shijie, a staff officer of the 17th Brigade of the Northeast Army, was ordered by the commander of the Han brigade to report to the battalion commander Shi on the battle situation in Zhalanuoer. ”

Shi Ming stopped Wang Shijie, took a cup of hot water handed over by the orderly, and said, "Don't worry, drink saliva to warm up your body." ”

Wang Shijie didn't take the hot water handed to him by Shi Ming, but took out a flat tin pot from his arms, and said with a smile: "Thank you, Camp Commander Shi, I know that you are also from the Northeast, in such weather, I still come to our Northeast to "burn knives". After speaking, he unscrewed the lid and took a big sip on the tin kettle.

Shi Ming has been in the Northeast Army, and knows that in winter, most of the soldiers of the Northeast Army like to drink liquor to warm up, and they also like to drink spirits, this "burning knife" is one of the 60-degree spirits that Northeast people like.

"Lao Maozi has already attacked Zhalainor in the afternoon, but we have fought fiercely with Lao Maozi for an afternoon, they have no artillery support, and they have not made much progress, and now they have only occupied the city in the northeast corner of Zhainuoer, and we are ready to organize troops to drive Lao Maozi out at night. We still have two battalions of reserves that are not used now, and Brigade Commander Han asked me to ask Battalion Commander Shi if he needs it, and he can send a battalion to support you. In addition, Brigade Commander Han also asked me to thank you for your artillery support, without your artillery fire, maybe Lao Maozi would have approached the train station. ”

Wang Shijie finished speaking in one breath, raised the wine jug and took another sip.

Shi Ming was very grateful to Han Guangdi for giving him the only two battalions of reserves, and the situation in Zha Lai Nuoer was much more severe than that of him. Knowing that Han Guangdi was not worried about the defense of the highlands, he said to Wang Shijie: "Go back and tell Brigade Commander Han that the highlands will never be lost, and after a day of fighting, only 87 people were killed and more than 200 were wounded. And we killed at least 700 Soviet soldiers, and there is no way to count the wounded, and it is estimated that there will be no fewer than those killed. I have enough troops. ”

"What? Only 87 killed? Wang Shijie's eyes widened in disbelief.

Then he said suspiciously: "Lao Maozi's artillery plane blew up your place in the afternoon, if you weren't afraid of Lao Maozi's cannon, Brigade Commander Han would have sent someone to support you in the afternoon." Did you really only suffer so many casualties? ”

"Yes, I'm telling the truth. What about your casualties? Shi Ming asked while pulling Wang Shijie to sit down.

At the mention of Zha Lai Nuoer, Wang Shijie's face couldn't help but look gloomy, and he sighed and said: "Our 17th Brigade suffered a lot of casualties, and on this day, more than 2,000 people were killed and wounded, and the mountain and field artillery were all damaged by Lao Maozi, and there were only a dozen 60mm mortars left. If you can't fight back against Lao Maozi tonight, you can still hold it tomorrow for a day at most, maybe half a day. ”

Wang Shijie was silent for a while, then took out a telegram from his pocket and said, "This is a telegram from General Song Zhewu of Hailar, and Brigade Commander Han wants me to pass it on to you." ”

(To be continued)