Zhytomyr, the headquarters of the German 11th Army.

August. Feng. Marshal Mackensen sat in a chair and looked at the map hanging on the wall, he had been studying the map for several days, this time he needed to complete the strategic goal is not only to take Kiev, he must also lead the 11th Army and perhaps the German and Austrian 3rd Army to outflank the rear of the Tsarist Southwestern Front, completely surround the Tsarist Southwestern Front, and then annihilate it in one fell swoop, and the capture of Kyiv is only the first step to achieve this strategic goal, if you do not capture Kiev, this plan will not be completed, You must know that 300,000 people are staying in Kyiv, and more than 700,000 troops have been transported over one after another, such a large number of troops are enough to turn any unfavorable situation around.

It was not Mackensen's style to honestly fight positional warfare and carry out a strong attack, he had already put his 32nd and 43rd armies in charge of the frontal attack on Kyiv, and the 49th Army was left as a reserve, and the 51st Cavalry Corps, consisting of two cavalry divisions, was on standby.

He had been studying this map for several days, and according to his observations, it would definitely take time and effort to break through the defense of the Second Army Corps of China from the front, so he decided to do it in two steps at the same time, on the one hand, to deploy most of the troops in the front to attract the attention of the Second Army Corps of China, and on the other hand, to seek a breakthrough from other aspects, if you want to take Kyiv quickly with minimal casualties, you can't just blindly attack from the front, and the weakest point of Kyiv's defense now is the city east of the Dnieper River, But the Nepro River was like a natural barrier to his tracks, and there were only three places on the Dnieper near Kiev that could be crossed by a large army. They are Kanivo, Cherkasy, and Kremenchug, and all three are in the lower reaches of Kyiv. Of course, there were places to cross the river in other places, but those places were not heavily garrisoned. It is that the distance is too far, and a small number of troops can easily be discovered and surrounded by the Russian side in the past.

Kanivo, the closest to Kiev, is the best place to cross the river, and there are no towns around, so it is not easy to be spotted after the large army crosses the river, as long as the cavalry moves quickly and does a good job of secrecy, it is completely possible to attack the eastern city of Kiev before the Chinese Second Army reacts.

After much deliberation, Mackensen decided to let the cavalry raid Canivo, but it was never easy. There are two cities between Zhytomyr and Kanivo, namely Berkichev and Betzelkovy, if you want not to be discovered by the Tsarist side, you must let the army bypass the town, and you must also walk day and night, the key is to find a good guide, but this does not need to be worried about Mackensen, after an order is given, there are naturally the following people to solve it.

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It had been three days since the German frontal assault began. Although the Germans had not yet made progress, they had inflicted heavy casualties on the defending Japanese troops, and in the past three days, Xia Gu secretly made statistics. The ratio of casualties between the Germans and his Japanese squadron was about 1:2, and the situation should be similar in other positions.

Xia Gu also made a relevant analysis when the German army was not attacking during the break, and the ratio of German and Japanese casualties on the first day was definitely more than 1:3. This was mainly due to his lack of understanding of the offensive tactics of the German army and the military qualities of the German soldiers, after he adjusted the defensive tactics of the Japanese squadron under him. The casualty ratio has dropped to 1:2.

In addition to the above-mentioned reasons, the Japanese army's weapons were inferior to the German army. We have no artillery support, and the German artillery fire has hardly stopped, it is conceivable that in the absence of artillery support, this ordinarily equipped Japanese army can fight with the Germans in this casualty ratio is already very good, Xia Gu thought that if he wanted to hold the position, he must not do without artillery support, and he immediately reported his thoughts to the above.

Xia Gu was not the only one who reported to the higher authorities that needed artillery support, and almost all the officers of the Chinese army were in a hurry to report to the higher authorities and quickly solve the problem of artillery support, otherwise this battle would not be fought.

And what makes Xia Gu and many Chinese officers feel quite strange is that the German army also arranged sharpshooters to deal with heavy machine gunners, they thought that only the Chinese Wehrmacht had this kind of configuration, but they didn't expect that there were also in the German army, in fact, this was still Xiao Zhenlei's masterpiece left in Germany.

The commander of the Second Army Corps has also lost his temper several times in the past few days, mainly because of the transportation problem, and the Tsarist side has made great efforts to transport their 300,000 people to Kyiv, and it is not a simple matter for a large number of military materials such as food and other military supplies needed by 300,000 people to be transported over, and things like artillery are large and bulky, so they are naturally not very lucky.

After Zhang Xiaozhun negotiated with the Tsarist side many times in a row, the Tsarist side arranged a special train to transport all the artillery needed by the Second Army Corps, including a batch of shells, of course.

On the fourth day of the war, the Japanese army of the Second Army of China had suffered 12,000 casualties, and the German side was not easy, at least more than 6,000 casualties.

Saburo Kobayashi's squadron commanded by Natsuya suffered almost two-thirds of the casualties and had to be withdrawn, but he and a platoon of the regular national defense force of Huaguo did not withdraw, and Saburo Kobayashi's squadron was withdrawn to rest and recuperate, and was replaced by the Sakai squadron.

Sakai is a middle-aged Japanese, he looks a little subservient in front of Xia Tani, although Xia Gu doesn't like his appearance, but he has to admit that such a person is very easy to command, he first briefly described the battle that happened a few days ago with Sakai, and explained some matters that need attention in the battle to Sakai, Sakai wrote them down one by one and arranged his Japanese soldiers to arrange defense according to Xia Tani's instructions.

On the fourth night after the start of the battle, Xia Gu was notified to go to the regiment headquarters for a meeting, and when he returned, he was very excited, because the artillery had finally been transferred from above, and from now on the front-line positions could call for artillery reinforcements at any time, not only mountain artillery and howitzers and large-caliber heavy artillery, but also mortars, which could be used to deal with trench warfare, and in addition. Each squadron was also equipped with four more heavy machine guns to strengthen the strike firepower, which greatly increased Xia Gu's confidence. In fact, the Japanese soldiers' su zhì is not bad, as long as there is enough firepower output. Coupled with a reasonable layout of defense, the Germans may not be able to please well.

On the fifth day of the war, the German army still launched an offensive, and the Chinese Second Army deployed a large number of artillery to help defend and provide artillery reinforcements for the frontline positions, on this day the German army suffered heavy losses in the offensive due to the artillery support of the Chinese army, but on the sixth day the German side was not idle, under the order of Marshal Mackensen, a bomber group composed of more than 30 fighters and bombers bombed the front line positions and artillery positions of the Chinese Second Army. The front positions of the Second Chinese Army were badly bombed, a large number of trenches were filled, and there were some artillery losses, but due to the large number of anti-aircraft weapons deployed by the Chinese army around the artillery positions, including anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, the bombing German bomber group lost five fighters and captured three German pilots. However, due to the large number of anti-aircraft weapons on the part of the Chinese army, the Luftwaffe was also quite scrupulous and did not dare to bomb as it pleased.

In view of the fact that the Luftwaffe often bombed the positions of the Second Army Corps in China, the Tsarist side also sent some anti-aircraft units equipped with anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns that had just been purchased from China to help the air defense. At the same time, dozens of fighters were also dispatched to deal with the Luftwaffe, and at the same time, China was also required to send air force units from China to suppress the Luftwaffe and strive to regain air supremacy.

The sixth day of the war. Although the Germans suffered a lot of losses during the offensive due to the strong artillery reinforcements of the Chinese army, this kind of loss was something that the Germans had to bear. On this day, the German army launched a powerful offensive, and the offensive was quite fierce.

Tight for a morning. The German attacking troops attacked 20 meters from the forward position twice in a row, which was the closest distance to the defensive line so far that the German army had attacked, because the German attack frequency and intensity had increased a lot, and the Japanese army could not withstand it.

Three days in the afternoon, although the weather was very hot, it was easy to let him fall asleep, but Xia Gu did not dare to sleep, the commander of his defensive line, if he slept, once the Germans touched it, the position would be lost, and he already had a premonition that the Germans would definitely launch an unprecedented offensive in the afternoon.

Sure enough, as Xia Gu expected, the German army changed three groups of troops in a row in just one hour to launch an unstoppable attack on the defensive line. At 4:20 p.m., the Germans retreated again, Xia Gu counted the number of people, the casualties were too great, if the Germans launched another attack just now, the position would definitely not be able to hold, his defense line was the most prominent part of the entire defense line, and the attack was much greater than other sections, he brought the alcohol over to explain, if he really couldn't resist it, he immediately rushed out with a bayonet and the Germans for a white-knuckle battle, this is the best way Xia Gu could think of, after all, he only had these Japanese soldiers in the ability to fight bayonets is very good.

After a quarter of an hour, the Germans really launched an attack again, this time the intensity of the attack was much greater than all the offensive intensity since today's fire, the battle lasted for half an hour, Xia Gu and others could not withstand it, the Germans broke through to about 20 meters in front of the position in one go, at this distance can not but make other deployments, late will let the German army rush into the trench.

"Sakai-kun, it's time for a bayonet fight!" Xia Gu saw that the situation was critical, and immediately said to Sakai.

"Hey!" Sakai agreed, drew his command knife and pointed forward: "Kill the chicken!" ”

The remaining Japanese soldiers all rushed out of the trench with bayonets, the attacking Germans did not expect the Japanese army to rush out with bayonets, German soldiers are also equipped with bayonets, but generally do not use it, only when it is determined that it is necessary to fight with a white knuckle, and because of the strong firepower of the German army, it is basically not necessary to use white-knives combat tactics, and there is very little training in this area. Only a few German officers drew their pistols and fired a few shots, after which the two sides engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

Don't think that the German soldiers have a high tactical literacy, but they really dare not compliment in white-knuckle warfare, which is due to the strong firepower of the German army, the German army from top to bottom basically did not expect to win the war by conducting white-knuckle warfare, so there is basically no training in this area, which makes the Japanese soldiers take advantage of the big advantage, with bayonets to assassinate, almost the knife is red, the German army can not withstand it, and most of them were stabbed to death in just a few minutes, leaving a small half of the wolf bèi to escape.

At the end of the battle, Xia Gu ordered the wounded Japanese soldiers to be brought back for treatment, and after returning to the trenches, he said to Sakai: "Yo Sai, Sakai-kun, it seems that your Japanese bayonet tactics are really good, only pay eleven soldiers for casualties to kill more than fifty German troops, under the bayonet tactics, the Germans are not our opponents at all, very good, very good, I will propose to the upper peak to commend you!" ”

Sakai hurriedly said, "Hey, thank you for the compliment, Your Excellency!" (To be continued......)