On the Vladimir-Volynsk and Kovelsk fronts, the defensive areas of the First Army of the East Asian Expeditionary Force, preparations for the offensive began in late October 1916. (_&book&bar)

But even so, at the request of the Russian Command, the Expeditionary Force Command agreed to the "winter surprise attack" proposed by the Russian side, after all, the Eastern Front has never had a winter offensive operation from beginning to end, and when winter comes, the warring parties will invariably choose a "truce" and confront each other on the front for several months, waiting for the spring of the next year.

However, for the Russian command, they may care about their own casualties, but they will never consider the casualties of the East Asian Expeditionary Force, in order to be able to use "a victory to boost the morale of Russia", so it still decided to launch an unexpected surprise attack with the first, second, and third armies of the East Asian Expeditionary Force as the main force.

After careful selection, the Russian base camp chose a place not far from the village of Swinuha as a base for launching an offensive, where the terrain was convenient for launching an offensive. As usual, before the offensive began, first of all, the shelling began.

On January 24, 1917, after three months of preparation, nearly 10,000 cannons and mortars of various calibers were placed in the designated area, and then the Russian army and the Japanese army shelled more than 2 million rounds of various artillery shells and mortar shells for ten days in a row, turning over the vast area where the Germans dug two trenches. Britain and France also provided loans of more than 1.5 billion rubles for this unprecedented offensive.

On the day of the offensive, the heavy shelling began, almost at the very first time when it was subjected to unprecedented shelling. The Germans voluntarily abandoned the first line of trenches, leaving only a few surveillance posts, on the third day of the battle. They abandoned the second line of trenches and retreated to the third.

As soon as the 10th day of shelling was over, nearly 100,000 infantry units of the 1st Regiment of the Expeditionary Force began to attack, using the French wave offensive tactics widely used in yeast. With the fire support of mortars of various calibers, sixteen waves rushed out of the forward trenches of the expeditionary force in a volley.

For a moment, the endless tea-green crowd rushed like the tide of the Qiantang River, expanding towards the German position, and the tide surging in front of the crooked barbed wire, violently impacting everything in front of it. But from the Germans. From behind the charred trees, from the dark fortress, from the fortress, followed by a rapid, dense number of bullets and cannonballs, and for a time everything in heaven and earth seemed to be shrouded in a rain of bullets, and the red and green trails dragged by the trailing rays tore through the lead-gray sky in winter.

Occasionally, there was a salvo from individual artillery units, and in the midst of this salvo the earth-shattering roar rolled in over a radius of several kilometers, as the shells rained down on the waves. The Germans' carefully constructed cross-shaped machine-gun fire points began to strafe wildly.

On the frozen soil, which is about two kilometers in diameter and has been potholed by artillery shells. Columns of black smoke from whirlwind shells exploded, and the scorching coals from the explosions scorched the earth and even melted the frozen snow, but the wave of attack did not stop, and the "Oriental dwarfs" with bayonets howled and charged forward......

The black smoke and flames of the cannonballs devastated the land more and more, leaving a large black mark in the snow. In the explosion, shrapnel emitted a piercing whistling sound like a downpour. Flying at the speed of sound between the attackers' limbs, the machine-gun fire close to the ground fired even more relentlessly. …,

Blood!

In the midst of that seemingly irresistible wave of attack. The blood mist continued to disperse, and in the miserable howl, the constantly splashing blood mist was suspended in the air, forming an extremely strange scene in the green wave and black explosion...... In the midst of the waves, a red mist of blood rolled forward and churned......

The German resistance did not show any panic, everything was like their plan, machine guns and shells prevented the attackers from trying to get close to the barbed wire. At this time, only the last three of the sixteen waves that seemed to be unstoppable before had just rolled in front of the barbed wire, and rolled in front of the barbed wire, which had been blown to pieces, staggered from side to side, and the pillars were charred......

At noon on that day, more than 60,000 people died in the cold frozen ground not far from the village of Svenuha, even more so than the Battle of the Somme.

But only two hours later, the offensive began again.

"Crazy Oriental Devil!"

On the Eastern Front, the East Asian Expeditionary Force had long received such a title, and no one could doubt their madness that at four o'clock in the afternoon, on the forward positions gained by the 1st Army with 60,000 losses of 60,000 men at the barbed wire fence, the troops of the 6th Division of the 2nd Army and the 105th Division of nearly 50,000 men struck out.

The 6th Division inserted the first line of trenches from the gap on the left, and on its right flank, the two wings of the 116th Division also attacked, compared to the previous tragic attack, this attack appeared to be very flexible, the offensive tactics were like the Japanese army's best detour attack, while the 105th Division launched an attack from the front, the 6th Division and the 115th Division attacked the German defense line from the flank.

During the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese army relied on this tactic accustomed to Germany to defeat the Russian army again and again, and tasted the fruits of victory again and again, but the roundabout tactics were the capital that Germany relied on.

The success of the 116th Division, which had just been transferred from the Mongol training camp to the Russians, in the stubborn onslaught of the 116th Division, which had been abandoned by the Germans, seemed to be the most exciting news at the beginning of the new year in 1917.

The 316th Wing was stationed in the area of the town of Sokali on the banks of the Stokhod River, not far from the Rudka-Melinskoye estate, before the change of guard. After a long journey, the next morning they dispersed to abandoned mud huts in the woods, where they learned for four days the French method of attack; Not in brigades. Instead, they attacked in formation in half a squadron, and the sappers learned how to cut the barbed wire as quickly as possible, and re-practiced the technique of throwing grenades. Afterwards. The wing moved forward again. For three days he spent three days in the woods, in the glades, along the icy and snowy roads that had been torn out by the wheels of the guns.

In winter, the mist of Russia is blown by the wind and grazes the pinetops. Drifting through the glade, it was as if the kite had spotted a dead beast on the ground, and the sky was covered with light snow, and the soldiers in winter clothes walked numbly like frozen walking corpses. Compared with those new troops, for the 316th Wing, which has been fighting in Russia for a year, especially for the veterans in the wing, who have been tested for life and death, they clearly know what will happen next.

A few more days of walking, then a few more days of rest, and then preparing to march on the path of death.

How many people will survive?

This one no one cares, death. For the Expeditionary Force. Death seems to be a shadow of hand, and for many veterans, they have already mastered some skills of battlefield survival, and even new recruits only need one battle after arriving at the front with the belief of "loyalty to the Empire". The whole person will come to their senses. …,

The current "imperial army" has long lost the martial arts of the past. In fact, for these soldiers. Nothing is more important than their lives, they have seen too much death, and they also know that as an expeditionary force, the purpose of their existence is nothing more than "doing what the Russians would never want to do", or more directly, they are nothing more than cannon fodder!

"It's time to be cannon fodder again!"

Shinichi Sato muttered so in his heart, the soldiers who were conscripted in the sixth phase of his village were all incorporated into the squadron where he was located. The second team is all from the same village: Morimoto's two younger brothers - Morimoto and Morimoto Saburo, carpenter's son Tengda Katsu, Akei Yuri with a pocky face, Katsuya the village chief's son, etc., many of them grew up behind Sato Shinichi's ass, but when he saw these fellow villagers, Sato Shinichi of the fourth phase of the conscription did not feel anything to be happy about, he had seen too many deaths, and those who were recruited with him died on the battlefield.

"Dead for the interests of the capitalists!"

Murmuring the articles in the underground newspaper in his heart, there was an inexplicable sadness in the heart of Sato Shinichi, those powerful and capitalists in order to please the Chinese and Westerners, but let the Russians squander the lives of the Japanese here, what does this war have to do with Japan?

"If I go back to Japan, I will kill the prime minister!"

Thinking of what Oda had said in the past when he was blown up by a shell, he didn't even have a single bone left, and Sato Shinichi agreed with it in his heart, but in his heart he was looking forward to the revolution even more.

"No more fighting for imperialist wars!"

As for the failure of his own government, in Sato's view, that own government has long been reduced to a lackey of the Chinese, and if it fails, it will usher in a "new Japan."

In the early morning of 3 February, Shinichi Sato's wing drove into the village of Little Polek. At this time, the 1st Brigade of the 318th Wing was departing from there. The soldiers ran out of the staggered huts and lined up in the streets. A dark-faced young lieutenant walked around next to the platoon at the front. He pulled out of his military bag, peeled chocolate candy, and paced back and forth in front of the queue, his military coat that dragged to the ground and was covered with dry mud on his placket swayed around him.

Heavily armed soldiers walked on the left side of the street. The carpenter's son, Teng Tian Katsu, walked in the rightmost row of the second row. He watched his feet carefully to avoid slipping and falling to the ground, when suddenly someone called out to him in the distance, and he turned his head and glanced along the line not far away.

"Tengtian! Tengda Katsu ......"

A diminutive soldier stepped out of the ranks and staggered towards him like a duck. As he ran, he threw his rifle behind his back, but the belt slipped down, the butt of the rifle slammed against the kettle, and the rifle with the bayonet was even half a head taller than him.

"Don't you recognize me? Forgot me? ”

The short soldier who ran over had a messy beard on his face, and after looking at it carefully, it was easy for Tengda Katsu to recognize him as Yoshino, his junior high school classmate.

"Where are you from? Yoshino, I really didn't expect to meet my classmates here? ……”

"It's not ...... I'm here as a soldier. ”

"What wing are you in?"

"In the 318th Wing, I really imagined...... I didn't expect to meet you. ”

Tengda Katsu held Yoshino's dirty little hand tightly, and the whole person immediately laughed excitedly, and Yoshino also laughed.

"We're going to attack...... You see......"

"We're going there, too."

"Hey. Tengda, don't you know, I ran into Watanabe before? ”

"Ahh Do you mean Watanabe, who plays basketball? ”

"That's right. It's him, it's a shame! ”…,

"What's going on?"

"This man...... He's an amazing man...... It's just that he's a little too tall, so there was a fight last year. He probed in the trenches and was hit in the head by a bullet! ”

As a veteran, Yoshino seems to have long been down-to-earth about death.

"Ahh

Teng Tian Sheng was stunned.

"And the one who went with us to listen to the teacher's corner, Yoshimura!"

"I remember him! …… Didn't you hear from him? I heard he came before us......"

"He ...... in Siberia"

Yoshino sighed.

"Or maybe it's already in China."

"How?"

Teng Tiansheng asked again, obviously a little confused about what was going on here.

"He became a deserter. Either they fled to somewhere in Siberia, or they fled to China, and from there to Nanyang, where the rubber plantations were said to need a lot of workers. Maybe he's dead by now. ”

Jiri walked silently for a while, suddenly looking back at the place where the troops were lining up, and suddenly at Teng Tiansheng.

"Take care! My friend! ”

He pulled his hand from Teng Tiansheng's palm and said goodbye.

"Probably, we'll never see each other again. Remember. When charging. If there is a crater, take advantage of the officer's lack of attention, and never come out......"

With that, Yoshino turned and left, but after he left, Tengda Katsu burst out of the ranks. Trembling shouted:

"Hey, Yoshino! You weren't like that in the past...... Remember? You said you were going to the Yasukuni Shrine ......"

A shout behind him. But Yoshino turned his face and looked at his classmates on the face that could no longer see a trace of young vitality. And then shouted.

"Yes in the past! In the past, I wanted to do my best for the emperor, but now I want them to spoil it! …… Sooner or later, the Japanese will have to die...... Remember, you must live......"

Then he shouted a few other words, but because his team had already gone far, Teng Tiansheng did not hear clearly.

"Ah, isn't this Yoshino? I remember him going to your house in the past! ”

Katsuya came over from behind and asked Katsu Tengda.

"That guy is no longer the Yoshino I used to know!"

His lips trembled with anger, and Teng Tian Katsu stroked the rifle strap on his shoulder and replied in a muffled voice. He never thought about it, what happened to these people, and even ...... He looked ahead, at Sato, the eldest brother whom he used to respect very much, and he also told the big guys, no matter what, to think about living, as for the attack, even if the Japanese died, this attack would be endless, and why help those lackeys to fight.

What's wrong with them?

As soon as the troops left the village, they kept encountering wounded soldiers along the way. At first one by one, then in groups of three or five, and then on -- just a dense group, a group of the same. Several large carts filled with seriously injured numbers swayed slowly. The old horses pulling the carts were horribly thin. The skinny back was whipped open by the whip, revealing a little bit of bone. The horse dragged the four-wheeled cart with great difficulty, snorting and panting, and bent down, his sweaty head almost brushing the ground. Sometimes, a horse stops, and with a feeble agitation, its deep, bony ribs, and hangs down its head, which is too large because of its emaciation. The whip forced it out of place, and it shook it one way and then another, and went away. The wounded soldiers clung to the wooden poles on three sides of the carriage and followed the car.

"Which unit are you from?"

The squadron leader asked a kind-looking person.

"The 6th Division of the 2nd Army Corps."

"Hurt today?"

The soldier turned his head away and did not answer. All these wounded soldiers looked exactly the same, without a trace of life, like corpses that would fall down at any time, they seemed to have no soul, looking at them, many soldiers who had just entered the battlefield felt the breath of the battlefield for the first time, which was the breath of death. …,

The troops left the avenue and headed for the woods, which were about half a kilometre away. These soldiers followed with heavy steps. In the distance in the lead-colored sky. There floated a German balloon tied to the ground, like a motionless gray-yellow spot.

"Look, there's a weird thing hanging there!"

"A big hanging of the people of the country."

"Damn it. It reconnoites the activities of the army there. ”

"Do you think it's just fun to hang it so high?"

"Oh, how tall!"

"Do you need to talk about that? I'm afraid I won't be able to hit the shells. ”

"Hey, if Chinese planes come here, they can shoot off those balloons......"

Finally. Before dusk, they entered the front line of the positions of the 6th Division and the 116th Division, which had been seized by tens of thousands of lives, but instead of entering the trenches, they huddled under a pine tree, and the biting cold wind poured down their necks. The soldiers were constantly fighting a cold war.

No fires! And here, if you start a fire, you might attract German shells.

"Ah......h

Suddenly, there was a scream, a frightened, throbbing scream, and the frightened people commanded to look at the screams, and then, almost everyone rushed there, all stunned by the sight before them.

In a small glade. The soldiers saw a pile of corpses with no end in sight. They lay there side by side. Shoulder to shoulder, in different positions, most of them were just severed arms and stumps, and in some places the stumps of corpses were piled up in a pile, several meters high. There was an infantryman with a gun. With a gas mask hanging from his belt, he walked back and forth beside it.

The corpse was littered with footprints and deep ruts of wheels in the snow. And on the ground, the blood that flowed was in harmony with the snow and ice. The red ice and snow, the corpses, the piles of severed arms and stumps, and the red ice and snow kept hitting everyone's heart.

At this time, the soldiers standing there took off their military hats and walked up to the dead body, and finally, their curiosity overcame the trembling and terror in their hearts, and they carefully examined the appearance of the dead. Almost all of the corpses were unrecognizable, and some of the soldiers even tried to count the number of corpses, but they found that it was futile to sit like this, for the corpses may have been laid out, but the fragments of the limbs were stacked on top of each other.

Maybe there were thousands of corpses, maybe tens of thousands, looking at the pile of corpses with no end in sight, such a thought popped up in everyone's hearts. Finally, a military cao looked at the corpse and suddenly sat down listlessly, the two wide eyebrows on his face locked gloomily.

"If we continue to fight like this, sooner or later, the Japanese will definitely be defeated!"

The murmur of the military cao was exchanged for a silent silence, but the atmosphere in these pine forests changed, and became extremely oppressive, and suddenly, an officer ran over, and when he saw this scene, he immediately shouted to drive the soldiers who dared to watch to leave, and when they left, almost everyone was thinking about the same question, maybe tomorrow, they would also be one of the corpses, maybe that would already be a good ending.

It was almost dark before the higher-ups agreed to let them into the trenches. The trench, which was just over a man deep, was full of ice slag, and the ice slag was even reddish, and there were even some broken limbs in it, and the air was full of the smell of blood. After entering the trenches, these soldiers who were about to freeze, tucked up their coats, squatted in the trenches and smoked, and said listlessly words that no one was interested in, and for many of them, the thick smell of blood and the chilling scene in the pine forest had affected everyone's emotions.

"Remember! You must live......"

Thinking of Yoshino's shout as he left again, Tengda Katsu seemed to understand something, and he looked around, and everyone's expressions seemed to change, and they were there silent, thinking...... (To be continued......)