On the front from the Teteleev to the Dniester, the Russian Southwestern Front under the command of General Brushilov and the German-Austrian forces have been facing off for a winter. At the request of Britain and France, the Russian Southwestern Front began preparations for a spring offensive in late December.

Brushilov was quite critical of the offensive plan of the Supreme Command, in his opinion, the Russian army was insufficient, and if it faced the Austro-Hungarian or German East Prussian Army alone, it could still have some counterattack strength, but under the strong pressure of the German-Austrian army, it was a blessing to be able to hold Kyiv. If an offensive is launched rashly, it will cause increased losses of troops, and under the enemy's counteroffensive, it is very likely that even Ukraine will not be able to hold it.

But the Tsar, who had regained military command, was determined to fulfill his promise to the British.

The order for the offensive had been given, and the focus of the campaign was on the line from Zhytomyr to Vinnytsia, where the Russian army concentrated the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th and Turkestan armies transferred from Central Asia, a total of 750,000 men, the 8th and 11th armies as reserves, and the special corps (the 13th army, renamed the "special corps" because the generals thought the name was unlucky) was to defend a large and vast area from Uman to Odessa, between the South Bug and the Dniester River.

On February 23, the offensive began.

Thousands of artillery pieces were placed on the front line, and over the next three days, hundreds of thousands of shells were thrown at enemy positions, turning both trenches dug by the German and Austro-Hungarian armies on the front line. As soon as the shelling began on the first day, the Germans and Austrians abandoned the first line of trenches, leaving only a few surveillance posts in front. After the Russian offensive began, they abandoned the second line of trenches and retreated to the third line of defense, two kilometers away.

On 26 February, the Russian army first launched a full-scale assault on the Austrian positions on the Vinnitsa line, and the soldiers of the 3rd Army jumped out of the trenches, lined up in waves, and launched a charge in front of several barbed wire fences that had been blown to pieces in front of the Austro-Hungarian positions. The Russians still used outdated French-style crowd shock tactics, but on the Austro-Hungarian positions, from behind the trenches and from the bushes in the distance, a dense rain of bullets was fired, and the blocking artillery fire prevented subsequent Russian reinforcements.

Gunfire erupted, artillery rumbled, and the smoke of shell explosions enveloped the enemy's front line, and the flames soared into the sky, and scattered shrapnel with a piercing whistle fell on the attackers. The machine-gun fire close to the ground continued to strafe wildly, preventing the attackers from approaching their positions. The attacking Russian army was left with little left when they charged to the barbed wire fence in front of the enemy's position, and the rolling waves of people were shattered and then dispersed, leaving only the dead and wounded everywhere.

The 17th Cavalry Corps, composed mainly of Kuban Cossack cavalry, launched a surprise attack on Zhimelinka on the right flank of Austria-Hungary, while the Austro-Hungarian 30th Army, which was mainly composed of Galician Ukrainians, was defending here, and the Ukrainians fought bloody battles with each other on the battlefield, which was a national tragedy.

The brave Cossack cavalry broke through the Austro-Hungarian defenses, but an even greater tragedy struck. The Austro-Hungarian 3rd Panzer Brigade, behind the position, launched a counter-assault to close the gap in the defensive line, and the steel torrent of tanks and armored vehicles rushed into the Cossack cavalry unit, which soon turned into a one-sided massacre. The Cossack cavalrymen slashed helplessly at the steel monsters with their sabers, to no avail, and soon they were torn to pieces by bullets fired from the chariots, or died under tracks or wheels.

The enemy's tanks and armored vehicles were chasing the fleeing Cossack cavalry, the gap in the battle line was blocked, and the elite 17th Cavalry Corps, composed of more than 30,000 Cossack cavalry, suffered heavy casualties in front of the armored forces, lost half of its strength, and lost its combat effectiveness on the first day of the battle.

As the war progressed, the British, French, Germans, and Austrians were developing and equipping new weapons, but the industrially backward Russia could not afford to provide its army with enough infantry weapons. By 1917, more and more tanks and planes were being used on the battlefield, and Britain and France were equipped with nearly 6,000 tanks and 8,000 aircraft on the Western Front, while on the Allied side, the German army was equipped with nearly 3,500 tanks and 6,000 aircraft, and the Austro-Hungarian army was also equipped with 3,000 tanks and 4,500 combat aircraft.

More and more technical weapons are equipped with the army, and it is becoming more and more difficult for backward Russia to adapt to this industrial war. From 1914 to the first half of 1915, the Russian army was still basically able to compete with the Austro-Hungarian army, but with the massive equipment of tanks and armored vehicles, by now, the Russian army has needed more than twice as many troops to fight them.

This situation made Brushilov pessimistic about the prospects for the war as a whole.

Surprisingly, the Austrians abandoned Vinnitsa the next day, which gave him a sense of foreboding.

Zhang Weicheng's company and more than 2,000 Chinese laborers got off the train at Khernovka, joined the battalion commander Su Bingwen, and then walked to the front line on the South Bug River. As the bitter cold of winter subsides, the ice on the river begins to melt and become porous, and the banks of the river are covered with gray-white ice floes.

Although it still freezes at night, by noon the snow and ice begin to melt, and the dirt and hay are exposed, leaving the ground muddy.

The Russians sent a liaison officer and several soldiers who needed them to carry supplies to the front, carry the wounded, and bury the bodies of the fallen soldiers. The group passed through a large black birch forest by the river, and in the distance there was a burst of artillery fire, which was already very close to the front line. The laborers and soldiers walked along and told jokes to relieve the tension and fear in their hearts.

In a small glade, the Chinese workers saw a long line of corpses of fallen officers and soldiers, placed side by side on the ground, in different postures. Some people had half of their heads cut off by shrapnel, and some had their internal organs leaking out, which was very horrifying. A few Russian soldiers with rifles, walking back and forth.

The corpses were littered with footprints that could have been run over by wheels, and it looked like they had been transported from another battlefield and placed here.

The Russian officer in charge of liaison muttered to the interpreter, "What is he talking about?" Su Bingwen asked.

"He said let's send someone to dig a pit and bury these people." The translator said.

"But there are no shovels." Su Bingwen said.

"He said that about two kilometers from here is their logistics base and our camp, where there are tools. We went to the camp first, and then we sent people over to do the work. The translator said.

"Alright, alright, let's let these guys see more blood." Su Bingwen glanced at the laborers not far away, and some of them couldn't help but run to the edge of the woods and vomited.

As the procession continued to move forward, the laborers fell silent, and no one spoke for a long time. They hurried through the small glade, trying to forget what they had just witnessed. Not far from the woods, there was an abandoned village, where the Russians had set up a logistics station, and the Chinese laborers had settled in more than 30 mud huts, occupying almost half of the territory.

"You take a squad to lead the 6th Company of Laborers to bury those Russians." Su Bingwen said to Zhang Weicheng.

Zhang Weicheng was very reluctant, now the leather boots on his feet were soaked, and both legs were a little numb from the cold, and he wanted to hide in the house to rest, but there was no way. I had to mutter, and led the people to resist the shovel and pickaxe, and returned to the woods.

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