"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! ”

The sound of the alarm immediately sounded in the small city of Tacheng County, followed by the whistle of the assembly one after another. Although the First Northwest Garrison Army is a "militia," after intensive training since July, it now has the elite appearance of a regular army. Bands of soldiers, armed with weapons, poured out of their barracks, and soon formed a line, led by officers, to the city walls and the positions outside the city.

The division stationed in Tacheng is also a three-regiment system, but there is no artillery regiment, engineer regiment and baggage regiment, only an artillery battalion equipped with 12 75mm mountain guns, an engineer battalion that can't do anything except digging trenches, and a baggage battalion without any motor vehicles, but the cavalry regiment is fully staffed here in the northwest three Xinjiang, horses are not worth anything at all, most of the Han immigrants have horses at home, and they have also learned to ride horses, so it is not difficult to recruit cavalry. As for the military-level directly subordinate units, there is no such thing; first, the "army" brand has just been hung up and is still in the initial stage, and second, the transportation of materials in the northwest is still very difficult, and there is no extra capacity to transport heavy weapons to dozens of national people's police garrisons.

Luo Binghui and Zhang Zhenguo both rushed to the city wall, looking at the long dragon composed of several torches in the distance extending from the end of heaven and earth, and there were always tens of thousands of people! At least an old Maozi's cavalry army, they actually took advantage of the emptiness in northern Xinjiang to sneak attack!

Zhang Zhenguo, who was still thinking about making a contribution just now, was weak at this moment, and looked at the long dragon of torches that were getting closer and closer, and said to Luo Binghui: "Army, army commander, I'm afraid there are tens of thousands of enemies." Judging by the formation, it should be a regular army, and the more than 10,000 people we have here are not enough for people to stuff their teeth, so why don't you turn to Karamay? ”

Luo Binghui glared at Zhang Zhenguo. scolded: "What kind of bastard? There are still tens of thousands of people in Tacheng County, can we leave them behind and flee for their lives? Besides, it's Lao Maozi's cavalry! Most of our teams are two-legged, can outrun them on four legs? ”

Being reprimanded by Luo Binghui, Zhang Zhenguo calmed down a little and said with a wry smile: "It seems that my brother is going to die here, military commander...... Why don't I send a cavalry regiment to escort you and the military headquarters to transfer first? Go to Alahu and the second division round first. Then drill into the Tianshan Mountains and fight guerrilla warfare with Lao Maozi! ”

Luo Binghui snorted and scolded with a smile: "Leave the people to go up the mountain to fight guerrillas? I don't think it's swimming, right? I can't do such a thing. I will stay with you in the tower city, and the people will be in the city. People are dead, and the city is dead! But don't worry too much, I guess Lao Maozi won't really attack the city, they don't want Tower City...... What's so important about Tower City? Look at it like this, they are going to attack Dihua and cut off the back road of the main force of the Northwest Front Army in the outer frontier! So I won't be delayed too much time in Tacheng. Most of the time you will go around the city. At most, a few thousand people will be left to watch. ”

The torch approached in a blink of an eye, and Luo Binghui thought about it, a small tower city is really not in the eyes of others. The torches were divided into three five kilometers outside the city, and the north and south roads detoured from the north and south of Tacheng respectively, and a small force of about 3,000 people began to camp in place.

Seeing the movements of the Soviet army, Luo Binghui and Zhang Zhenguo breathed a sigh at the same time, looked at each other and smiled, Zhang Zhenguo said: "It's still a smart military seat." Lao Maozi's intentions can't escape your eyes. ”

Luo Binghui also nodded with a smile, but his face gradually became solemn. After a while, it was already as black as iron: "Not good! How come Lao Maozi's cavalry is endless! Look at the posture, there is more than one cavalry army, maybe there are three cavalry armies! Lao Zhang, hurry up and send a telegram to Commander-in-Chief Zhu of Dihua and tell him everything about the situation here! ”

……

"No matter, sue Zhu Yujie and let him find a way to deal with Lao Maozi by himself! I don't care if they have 50,000 or 150,000, in short, there are no reinforcements to send! ”

In the temporary command post on the south bank of the Alaresa River, Bai Chongxi was watching the battle in Hebei with a telescope, and when he heard the report of the communications staff officer, he did not even look back. Liu Mingzhao on the side frowned, and whispered to the communications staff officer: "Go and tell Zhu Yujie, the north bank of the Alaresa River is a battle of millions of people, and now is the critical moment, no one can take a step back, otherwise they will lose everything...... Dihua asked Commander-in-Chief Zhu to find a way to hold on, and it didn't matter if other territories were lost, as long as the battle was won here on the Alaresa River, the Soviet army would naturally retreat. ”

After speaking, he accompanied Bai Chongxi to the high ground outside the command post, raised the binoculars and continued to watch the battle. The bloody battle on the north bank of the river continued, and the Soviet front was already shaking. Zheng Zhongyuan and Luo Zhuoying have just organized another armored assault, this time with 500 tanks, assault artillery, and 70,000 officers and men, which is a little larger than the assault this morning. Elsewhere on the entire front, the Wehrmacht infantry had crossed the Alaresa River and seized large positions on the northern bank.

However, the resistance of the Soviet army remained stubborn. Although the sands and steppes on the north bank of the Alaresa River are littered with the wreckage of tanks twisted and deformed by incineration, and the corpses of Soviet Red Army soldiers killed in battle and fragments of weapons are everywhere. But the Red Army was only defeated but not defeated, and Chapaev had already fought hard, and one after another well-equipped and well-trained Red Army infantry divisions were filled by him into the gap in the center of the defense line that allowed the Chinese armored forces to punch out. Konev's tank cluster launched three counterattacks in a row under his severity, and by the time the sun went down, the total number of tanks that the 6 tank brigades could drive was less than 50, Chapaev still sent them to guard the third line of defense After determining that the tank battle could not be won, Chapaev decided to turn the remaining T28 and T26 in his hands into fixed fire points to block the third armored assault of the Chinese Defense Forces!

Ordinary Red Army fighters also fought with all their might. Years of GCIST education finally came into play, and this generation of Soviet youth was a newcomer who had grown up after the October Revolution. Although life was hard, I grew up listening to the heroic stories of the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries, a bit like the Red Guards in the Chinese Cultural Revolution in history, full of Trotsky's personality cult and lofty ideals for the liberation of mankind, and now they are fighting like crazy. Seeing that the Soviet tanks could not defeat the Chinese pursuers, countless Soviet youths full of ideals filled them with their own flesh and blood. Either they were wearing cluster grenades or carrying anti-tank grenade launchers on their shoulders, singing the Internationale, and shouting the slogan of Ulla. It's really going forward and succeeding, and seeing death as home!

Some 76.2mm anti-aircraft guns were put on the battlefield again and used to fire at the Chinese Stalker tanks! This was probably the most effective weapon of the Red Army at hand. More than a dozen Chaser tank destroyers turned into fire under the 76.2mm armor-piercing shells, but then shells of various calibers slashed at the 76.2 secret that exposed the target. Members of the 76.2mm heavy anti-aircraft guns and artillery crews of the Red Army. And so it becomes a one-time consumable!

The stubborn resistance of the Soviet troops still played a certain role, and the squadron, which had overwhelming firepower and armor superiority, fell into a bitter battle. The attack began at 5:30 a.m. on October 9, 1932, and lasted until 11:30 p.m. that day. After 18 hours of fierce fighting, the first line of defense of the Soviet army still did not completely collapse. At the central breakthrough led by armored forces, the Chinese army launched two armored assaults and paid the price of dozens of tanks destroyed. It has only advanced less than 10 kilometers. Barely tore through the second line of defense of the Soviet army. But even when there was a breach in the defensive line, the Soviets fought to the death, fighting with the Chinese infantry sweeping from the flanks and fronts for every trench that was almost filled with corpses and dirt, every ravaged sparse fortification, and even every bomb crater that could be hidden.

Although in terms of weapons, training and officer command, the Chinese Wehrmacht surpassed their rivals, the Soviet Red Army. But it has to be denied that the fighters who have been educated with GC ideology are not afraid of sacrifice. It is still far better than the Chinese soldiers taught by Chang Ruiqing with "leftist revisionism", and he is stunned to make up for the gap in weapons and equipment with flesh and blood and the jīngshén atomic bomb.

Countless large and small orange fires suddenly began to bloom on the entire front. Then came the earth-shattering explosion. People on the ground feel like they're going through a big earthquake. This was the third wave of onslaught organized by Bai Chongxi, and more than 3,000 artillery pieces spewed fire at the same time, projecting hundreds of thousands of shells. If you look down from the sky, you will see that a river tens of kilometers wide and composed of countless flying extremely fast fires has appeared out of thin air below. The cannon made a sound that only when a hurricane came, and it became more and more intense and ferocious. The front of the Soviet Red Army erupted into countless large and small explosion points, the flames mixed with smoke and dust went straight into the sky, and the fireballs from the explosion of the shells reflected the night sky red, and it seemed that even the sky was about to be ignited.

The Soviet artillery group also began to counterattack at the first time, and although their tanks and planes were not as good as the Chinese Defense Forces, they were absolutely not weaker than any opponent in terms of artillery. During the day, due to the air superiority of the opponent, the Soviet artillery group did not dare to exert its maximum power, and at night, the Chinese air force had withdrawn from the sky, and the Soviet artillery group could finally open fire with impunity. More than 1,000 122mm howitzers, more than 800 152mm heavy field howitzers, more than 600 76.2mm regimental field guns, and more than 500 large-caliber mortars, all of which did their best to shoot at the positions of the Chinese defense forces and suppress the opponent's artillery fire.

Since the battle was not fought on a long-planned front, the infantry on both sides had no strong anti-artillery fortifications to rely on, and had to hide from the overwhelming shells in hastily constructed trenches, foxholes, and even craters. The casualty figures of the front-line infantry on both sides immediately skyrocketed, but the artillery commanders of the Chinese and Soviet armies seemed to think that this kind of fire was too slow to kill, and they invariably sacrificed such a killer weapon as poison gas bombs. Soon, the fire, smoke, and poisonous fog completely obscured the battle line in the middle of the Alaresa River, where the artillery battle between the two sides was the most.

Bai Chongxi and Liu Mingzhao stood on a high place very close to the first line of knoll, looking at the tumbling fire in front of them with binoculars. Not far from them, on the flat ground, more than 600 Stalker tank destroyers, Type 31 tanks and Type C self-propelled guns, as well as thousands of tracked and wheeled armored vehicles are forming a huge wedge-shaped attack formation! This was the scale of the third armoured assault that was about to be launched, and all the remaining tanks, assault guns, and armored vehicles of the 2nd Panzer Army were here.

It took 6 or 7 years to design, develop and finalize the Stalker series of tanks, which lived up to expectations and proved their excellent performance in actual combat. It is different from the situation that the T28 and T26 of the Soviet Union were about to break down a little bit before they went to war. The performance of the Hunter is reliable enough, even if the Chinese armored troops with average equipment maintenance level can easily guarantee a 90% equipment integrity rate. And the practice of assembling a variety of tanks, armored vehicles, and self-propelled guns on one site. It also ensures that the parts have enough versatility, which brings great convenience to the battlefield repair. After all, on the battlefield, there are very few tanks and armored vehicles that are completely destroyed, and usually, two or three tanks that have been blown up beyond recognition can always piece together a good tank. Of the more than 600 tanks and artillery pieces that are now being assembled, many of them are pieced together from damaged equipment. However, the skills of the Chinese armored forces mechanics are not particularly good, and they can only repair their own hunters. But there is nothing to do with more than 300 broken Soviet T28 and T26, otherwise the heroic Red Army soldiers will see their own tanks join the camp of the Chinese armored forces!

"Shuai, the armorers are ready. Strike at any time! Liu Mingzhao's Sichuan official dialect sounded in Bai Chongxi's ears.

Bai Chongxi put down the binoculars, with a solemn expression on his face, and said loudly to Liu Mingzhao: "It seems that we underestimated our opponent...... The jīngyàn drawn from the Kuwait campaign is incomplete, although the Soviet armament is not as advanced as ours. Their large-depth assault operations have also exposed many loopholes. But the combat effectiveness of the Soviet army was not much weaker than ours...... Not to mention that it was expected to be 1:3 before the war. I'm afraid I don't even have a 1:2, but it would be nice to have a 1:1.5. If it weren't for the fact that they didn't have a solid defense line to rely on, most of us would have lost today's battle! ”

The still rumbling and roaring cannons tore his voice apart. Liu Mingzhao glanced at his boss, who was relied on by Chang Ruiqing as Taishan's support, and said with a wry smile: "The fighting nation plus the GC system, fortunately, it is not a one-sided confrontation with the Soviet Union, and there are allies like Germany and Britain." ”

Bai Chongxi frowned and muttered, "From the overall point of view, the advantage is of course on our side. However, the advantage of the three battlefields in Central Asia is on their side, and my coach was a little too optimistic before the start of this battle. Don't talk about that. Now is not the time to say these words. Saying that, he restrained his mind for a while, and said to Liu Mingzhao when he mentioned jīngshén: "Give Commander Zheng an order, this wave of assaults is a matter of victory or defeat, and he must do his best to destroy the Soviet defense line in one fell swoop!" ”

At the same time, Frunze, who was also the chairman of the Central Asian Revolutionary Military Council, also felt the same way as Bai Chongxi.

"Comrade Bubnov, it seems that we need more sources of reserves, and I hope that full mobilization can be carried out in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and at the same time all prisoners in labor camps in Central Asia will be mobilized to join the Red Army and defend the Motherland!"

Frunze was built by Andrea, a member of the Central Asian Military and Political Committee and first secretary of the Kazakh Committee of the Communist Party of the United States. Sergeyevich. Bubnov. This person is also a Trotskyist bigwig, who served as a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Ukrainian Front in the Soviet Russian Civil War, and later served as the director of the General Political Department of the Red Army, this time he was sent by Trotsky to Central Asia to partner with Frunze, and at the same time he was in charge of the local power in Kazakhstan.

"Even prisoners in labor camps have to be mobilized?" Bubnov looked at Frunze with some surprise: "Don't you have confidence in winning the battle?" ”

"It's not a question of confidence, it's about preparing for the worst...... "Looking at Frunze's face, you can see that this confidence in the victory of the Central Asian battle has been shaken, the news from the front line of the Alaresa River is very bad, the troops suffered great losses in the first day of the battle, 6 tank brigades are almost exhausted, and now there are only 50 tanks left, while the opponent can still concentrate hundreds of tanks to launch a strong attack! It is estimated that by the time the battle is fought early tomorrow morning, at least 30,000 Red Army officers and men will be killed or wounded or missing. Although the next battle will certainly not be as tragic as the first 24 hours, the loss of 10,000 or 20,000 men a day is inevitable, and it will take at least 10 days for Budyonny's head to reach the city of Dihua. That is, Chapaev's army will suffer more losses of 100,000 to 200,000 people!

"Comrade Bubonov, the losses of the front-line troops are a bit large, and it is necessary to replenish the troops as much as possible." Frunze frowned and explained: "And the enemy's combat power and reactionary determination have exceeded our expectations, even if Budyonny takes Dihua, the main force of China's Northwest Front will not surrender, they will hold the Komsomol City and Almaty and other places to resist stubbornly, and if you want to destroy them, you have to take out jīngshén who is not afraid of sacrifice...... Therefore, the Central Asian Front will soon need a large number of additional troops, and I think that the victory or defeat of the Central Asian battle will most likely be determined by the speed of replenishment of troops on both sides! ”