There was a steady sound of footsteps at the door of the headquarters, and then Su Tong's voice also sounded in front of the door.

"Hahahaha, Jiangong, I've finally waited for you, but you make me want to wear it!"

A middle-aged man's steady voice came: "I've seen Chief Su in my humble position!" ”

"Haha, you're still so polite, please come in after a hard journey!"

The door of the office opened, and Su Tong and a middle-aged general in his forties walked in, and the three golden stars on the shoulders of this general all indicated his identity as a second-level general, he was the number two person in the Gui family, Bai Chongxi.

As early as the Chahar military parade, Su Tong had a secret conversation with Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, and Su Tong sold a batch of arms to the Gui Department at a low price, and gave more than 20 P-26 fighters, and was responsible for helping the Gui Department train pilots. As a sincerity to deepen the cooperation between the two sides, Bai Chongxi wanted to go to Siberia to serve as Su Tong's chief of staff for a period of time.

After both of them sat down on the same sofa, Bai Chongxi said to Su Tong Zhengse: "Don't call the lowly post in the future, the chief can't afford it." The chief is the son-in-law of Principal Baili, and he is a student of Principal Baili, so you and I are already equal friends. If you call the lowly position Jiangong again, the lowly position will be speechless to face the principal. ”

Su Tong was also a little helpless when he heard this, originally, it would be no problem if he called Bai Chongxi like this before, but the problem is that his godfather-in-law Jiang Baili is too senior, and even Bai Chongxi is his student, if he calls him Jiangong, doesn't it mean that Bai Chongxi is placed on the same generation as Jiang Baili? This is unacceptable for Bai Chongxi, who has been influenced by Confucian etiquette since childhood.

"Okay then, I'll call you Brother Jiansheng, it's okay!" Encountering such a brainless master, Chief Su had no choice but to surrender.

"Yes, that's right." Bai Chongxi smiled and nodded at Su Tong.

Su Tong got up first, fetched a glass of water for Bai Chongxi, and put it in front of Bai Chongxi before continuing: "Brother Jiansheng! What do you think of the post of deputy chief of general staff of our 37th Group Army for the time being?

Bai Chongxi smiled: "These positions are all false, and now that the lowly positions are under you, they are naturally arranged by the chief!" "The current Bai Chongxi doesn't dare to underestimate the senior officer in front of him who is more than ten years younger than him, to say that when Su Tong just clamored to take over the defense of Chahar more than a year ago, Bai Chongxi could still laugh twice. But now, to put it mildly, Bai Chongxi is going to look up at him.

Su Tong was overjoyed when he heard this: "You don't know, I'm looking forward to the stars and the moon, and I've been looking forward to you for a long time." Now that you're here, I'm much more relaxed, and I'll hold a military meeting to relay your appointment in a while. You can just perform your duties here with confidence, and you don't need to worry about anything, and whoever dares not to listen to your greetings, you can clean him up. ”

Seeing that Su Tong had given himself the truth, Bai Chongxi secretly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, what he was most afraid of before he came was the group of arrogant generals who commanded the 37th Group Army. You must know that these people all followed Su Tong from Mongolia to Siberia, if you want to say that you are not arrogant, you don't even believe in ghosts. Now that Su Tong has said so, although there will definitely be some moisture in it, I believe that the work will be easier to carry out in the future.

"Hehe, that's it, my deputy chief of the general staff, I wish us a happy cooperation!" Su Tong smiled and stretched out his hand to Bai Chongxi, Bai Chongxi was stunned for a moment, and then stretched out his hand with a smile, and the two big hands were tightly clasped together.

The pouring rain not only annoyed Su Tong, but also gave Major General Rubievich, the commander of the 13th Tank Brigade in Selenginsk, a headache. Looking at the heavy rain in the sky that had not yet shown the slightest sign of stopping, and thinking of the reconnaissance detachment that had lost contact yesterday afternoon, Major General Rubievich's head hurt even more.

"Report!" The arrival of the communications staff interrupted the musings of Major General Rubievich.

"Speak!" Rubievich said without a head.

"Commander Zhukov sent a telegram to our department to speed up and quickly rush to Ulan-Ude to prepare for the arrival of the large army."

Major General Rubievich thought about it for a moment, and then ordered the staff officer to call back word by word: "You call back to the headquarters of the group army, the railway ahead has been destroyed in many places by enemy bombers, and now our department is organizing sappers to step up emergency repairs, and the enemy reconnaissance detachment has been found to be active 200 kilometers in front of Selenginsk. It is not ruled out that Ulan-Ude has been occupied by enemy troops. After saying that, he ordered: "You order a tank regiment and send a reconnaissance detachment to the place where the reconnaissance detachment happened yesterday to find out their whereabouts." He also asked the Air Force to provide aerial reconnaissance support as soon as the rain stopped. ”

"Yes!" The communications staff officer who recorded the game immediately handed over the original draft of the recorded message to Major General Rubievich for signature, and then turned around and walked briskly to the confidential place.

At this time, in the small city of Uginsk, which is more than 600 kilometers away from Selenginsk, the commander of the eastward group, General Zhukov, was discussing the situation ahead with his staff officers.

"Comrade Zhukov, our staff office unanimously believes that after the surrender of the traitor Timoshenko, the Chinese army has been freed up, but due to the huge disparity in strength with ours, they will definitely stick to Chita and fight a long-term war of attrition with us." The Chief of Staff of the Eastward Group, Colonel-General Praryuvich, said in an affirmative tone.

"No, you don't know the commander of this Chahar in front of you." Zhukov shook his head: "Looking at his routine of using soldiers, this person advocates attack, he will never trap himself in one place, even if there is a huge difference in strength with the opponent, he will never flinch." ”

After a pause, Zhukov asked again: "Is there any new news from the Thirteenth Tank Brigade?" ”

"Report, the thirteenth tank brigade is calling!" A blonde, blue-eyed, snake-waisted female confidential officer walked up to Zhukov with her waist twisted and handed him a telegram.

After reading the telegram, Zhukov said with a gloomy face and handed the telegram to the chief of staff, General Pralyevich, with a gloomy face: "It seems that Ulan-Ude has been lost, otherwise it would be impossible for the reconnaissance detachment of the Chinese to reach such a place so close to Selenginsk." ”

"Now that Ulan-Ude has been lost, we must now hurry up and order the 13th Tank Brigade to build a defensive line in Selenginsk and wait for the arrival of a large force." The Chief of Staff, Colonel-General Praryuvich, suggested after reading the message.

"Yes!" Zhukov nodded, "Also, order Major General Rubievich to capture as much of the 'Northwest Tiger' tank of the Chinese army as possible if possible, our tanks are already too far behind them." According to the previous news from Marshal Timoshenko, the caliber of the tank artillery of the Chinese army has reached 100 mm, and it is estimated that the armor thickness of this tank is also more than 100 mm, and our existing tanks are already too far behind the other side. If we don't catch up, the battle will become more and more difficult in the future. ”

Hearing that Zhukov was still calling Timoshenko a marshal, Admiral Praryuvich seemed to want to say something, but the corners of his mouth moved and he swallowed back the words. He just nodded, and ordered the female confidential officer on the side to draft the message, sign it, and then send everyone in the command room.

After all the personnel had gone out, Admiral Praliuvich said to Zhukov: "Zhukov lives with you, and I have to remind you that your attitude towards Timoshenko, a capitulationist, is very dangerous. I know that you have a good personal relationship with Timoshenko, but this is not a reason for you to sympathize with him, and you do not understand the current situation in the country, so I must remind you to be cautious when speaking in the future. There is an old saying in the Chinese people, called trouble comes from the mouth, I think it is still very reasonable, as your chief of staff and close comrade-in-arms, I know how amazing your talent is, so I don't want you to ruin yourself because of this kind of thing, do you understand what I mean? ”

"Thank you very much, my dear Comrade Praryuvich, I remember your kindness." Zhukov knew what was wrong with him, so he was also grateful to this good subordinate, who had just partnered with him, but who had a deep understanding.

When Admiral Praryuvich saw that Zhukov understood what he meant, he smiled kindly and said: "Okay, Comrade Zhukov, don't forget that we are now a comrade-in-arms in the trenches, so don't say such sour words." Let's take a look, several sections of the railway to Selenkinsk have been blown up or washed away by rain, and let's see how we can restore the railway as soon as possible, otherwise it will be impossible to move troops normally in this weather with trucks alone. I don't know how many more days are going to fall from this damn downpour, so we'll have to figure out how to deal with the trouble this downpour."

The torrential rain that had been falling for three days finally stopped, and the sun finally showed his figure lazily. This meant another year of hard work for the peasants, but for the Soviet Russian Eastward Advance Group and Su Tong's 37th Army, which were in tension, it meant that a big war was coming.

As soon as the heavy rain stopped, the ground crew began to get busy at the field airfield on the outskirts of Ulan-Ude, some were busy cleaning up the stagnant water on the ground, some were removing the tarpaulins from the planes, and some were refueling the planes.

Ever since the invention of airplanes, airplanes have been endowed with many functions. Conducting aerial reconnaissance is one of the oldest functions of aircraft.

On the runway of the field airfield, two F-5E lightning reconnaissance aircraft were being towed to the runway by ground crews on trailers. Following the signal of the ground crew and the order of the ground tower, the two reconnaissance planes flew into the blue sky one after the other, and their target was Selenginsk, which was several hundred kilometers away.