Chapter 60: Guerrilla and Counter-Guerrilla
More than 100,000 Russian troops with incomplete equipment, insufficient ammunition and short of food stopped near Siberia and were stationed in a rudimentary trench defense. When the Russian army retreated, it was not even enough to have food, so how could it carry those bulky military shovels and other things, so the construction of trenches could only be done casually.
Brunov immediately asked people to send some supplies to support the retreating Russian army, and with the consent of the Tsar, they were allowed to go to Siberia to borrow some food, but they had to sign IOUs with the local people and could not be forced.
At this time, the retreating Tsarist army was taken over by Lieutenant General Nicholas, the henchman of Grand Duke Nicholas, and the establishment of hundreds of thousands of troops was completely chaotic, and there were people in each army, so the Minister of War Polivanov and the tsar discussed and divided the army of nearly 170,000 into four armies, namely the 1234th Army of the Eastern Expeditionary Army, and Lieutenant General Sky became the temporary commander of these armies for the first time with the rank of lieutenant general.
Lieutenant General Skiy abandoned the defensive approach of Grand Duke Nikolai, he knew that it would not work to follow the Grand Duke's method again, the army was now lacking in everything, and it was absolutely impossible to continue the defense, but only to attack and defend. He decided to separate the army and spread the four armies in all directions to block or attack the Huaxia army from multiple directions, which could also distract the attention of the Huaxia army well and effectively evade the reconnaissance of the Huaxia airship.
His idea was endorsed by Brunov, whose idea was to attack, and as a cavalry general, he was very angry at the defeat of the Far Eastern cavalry, and it was a shame that the powerful Cossack cavalry was defeated by the weak Chinese cavalry. He believed that it was the Grand Duke Nicholas who had been defending and made the Chinese army gain an inch, and if the Grand Duke Nicholas dared to attack and fight to the death, he would definitely not end up like this.
In this way, the Tsarist Russian Eastern Expeditionary Army was divided into four parts to attack the Chinese army from different directions, and carried out guerrilla attacks to delay the Chinese army's entry into Siberia as much as possible, and by the way, annihilated the living forces of the Chinese army and achieved the effect of weakening.
It has to be said that this effect is very good, and the Chinese army has a headache when it is attacked by small groups of Tsarist Russian troops in all directions, especially when these troops attack at night, and the airship troops cannot detect it at all.
Whether it was day or night, the Chinese army would be harassed by the Russian army, and the guerrillas of Tsarist Russia would run away if they could not beat it, and they would attack frantically when they had the opportunity, which was simply a stubborn fight.
"General, the Tsarist army is also too shameless, when will we enter Siberia if we continue like this?" A high-ranking officer of the Chinese army grumbled.
"The soldiers are not tired of deceit, their tactics are also very good, they can use this method to consume the enemy's strength when they are at a disadvantage, and they can also hinder the enemy's progress, and even make the enemy collapse, you should learn more." Xu Shuzheng, who led the army, said, "The method is thought up by people, any tactics have shortcomings, as long as you find this, you can crack it, you should also use your brains more, and many times you must use wisdom rather than brute force to fight." ”
Of course, Xu Shuzheng can't continue to lead the temporary commander of the East Route Army after meeting with the headquarters, after all, his military rank is not high, and this time Jiang Fangzhen sent him to go deep into Siberia to destroy the Far East Railway, and the purpose is to train him.
As soon as the Chinese army, which Jiang Fangzhen named the Chinese Western Expeditionary Army, approached Siberia, it was ambushed by the guerrilla army of Tsarist Russia. The Chinese army reacted quickly after encountering the guerrilla attacks of the Tsarist Russian army, and no matter how much the Tsarist Russian army fought guerrilla in the face of strong strength, it would not cause great losses to the Western Expeditionary Army of China, but it was just a headache for Xu Shuzheng and others.
"The materials of the Tsarist Russian army are very scarce, and it can be seen from their attack that there is a shortage of ammunition and so on, otherwise the proud Tsarist army disdains to do this kind of hiding and hiding thing, although it is a good tactic, but their situation is also exposed." Xu Shuzheng analyzed, "Their purpose is very simple, to block us as much as possible, delay our entry into Siberia, and wait for the arrival of follow-up reinforcements from Tsarist Russia." Our mission is to sabotage the railway, then to clean up the remnants of the Tsarist army, and finally to enter Siberia to loot, so as long as we withdraw as long as we can after completing these tasks, this is not our main battlefield. ”
"We have almost destroyed the railway, and it is not so simple to destroy the railway in the hinterland of Siberia, so the task now is to destroy these Tsarist Russian troops as much as possible, and to withdraw them before the arrival of Tsarist reinforcements, isn't it a general?"
"Yes, the guerrillas of Tsarist Russia are probably divided into four parts, and the attack is irregular, so I built a separate airship unit to reconnoitre, and Cheng a big circle to reconnoiter around our army." Xu Shuzheng arranged.
The Western Expeditionary Army of China not only sent airship troops to reconnoitre, but even sent a large number of cavalry scouts, as long as they found the enemy's traces, they would launch signal flares, so that they could be well guarded against the enemy's guerrillas.
"Damn the Huaxia army, they actually let the airship troops scout around them, our actions are likely to be detected, and there are a large number of cavalry scouts scouting in the reconnoitre, it's really amazing!" After hearing the news brought by the scouts, one of Lieutenant General Sky's henchmen complained.
As soon as the Russian guerrillas emerged, they were detected by the Chinese and had to run back in disgrace, several times, but this time it was their turn to have a headache, only to see the Chinese army go straight to Siberia.
"It seems that we can't attack during the day, and the Chinese army at night is a turtle shell, extremely hard, and we don't have those cannons, so we can only rush hard. In this way, several ways are attacking in different directions at the same time, and the Huaxia army will never dare to divide the army to attack us, and as long as the Huaxia army attacks someone in a big way, run away, don't fight to the death! Lieutenant General Skiy thought for a moment and then said.
Lieutenant General Sky thought that the Chinese army would definitely stop when faced with four armies attacking at the same time, after all, his own army was much larger than the enemy's.
The prepared Russian guerrilla army acted in accordance with the orders of Lieutenant General Sky, attacked in four directions at the same time, and tried to hide as much as possible from the reconnaissance of the Chinese army, so that the chances of success would increase.
The Chinese scouts who were reconnoitring soon discovered the traces of the enemy army, and the signal flares rose into the sky from four places, but the marching Chinese army did not stop because of this, because the place where they were now was a plain, and there was no terrain to take advantage of, and they were very passive, so they tried their best to rush to a small high slope not far ahead.
"Listen to my orders, let the cavalry bring enough ammunition to rush to the enemy on the left, and chase me all the way, the enemy army on the left is the weakest, even if you pursue it for two or three days, you must chase it down, and try to kill this enemy army. The rest of the army marched forward, and the army in front of them was killed before the other two enemy armies arrived, and then there would be 30,000 troops to block those two armies and delay time. I'd like to see how they can fight with peace of mind after crippling two enemy armies, huh! After Xu Shuzheng understood the direction of the enemy's attack, he immediately ordered the army to act.
There are 20,000 Chinese cavalry in the 100,000 army this time, although some are newly added cavalry, but most of the cavalry have experienced war, so the combat effectiveness is not weaker than the Cossack cavalry of Tsarist Russia, and it is still possible for them to deal with an enemy army of about 40,000 and insufficient ammunition, and the enemy army does not have many cavalry.
The 20,000 cavalry rushed to the left with enough ammunition and food and other supplies, and the team on the left was led by Airry's henchmen, with the least number and ammunition, which was done privately by Lieutenant General Sky, and they were helpless.
This army, which is short of ammunition, has always been the most passive among these guerrilla armies, and the intensity of the attack is also the smallest.
"Oh no, General Gaojiwensi, there is an enemy cavalry suddenly rushing towards our army, about 20,000 people, what should I do general?" A cavalryman shouted as he rushed to Major General Gogginwens.
"What to do, hurry up and retreat, you still want to rely on these equipment to fight against the cavalry troops in Huaxia, don't be naïve. Okay, now our task is to divert these cavalry, yes, to divert these cavalry to weaken the strength of the Huaxia army and help the rest of the army. Major General Goggevens quickly gave the order to retreat, and came up with a good reason.
As soon as the enemy's cavalry came, the troops were ready to flee without waiting for the officer's order, and after the major general announced the retreat, they fled even more frantically, and only by escaping faster than the cavalry could they save their lives, and all the soldiers became the 100-meter champions at this time.
The Huaxia cavalry behind saw that the enemy had not yet made contact and began to flee desperately, and immediately scolded, never seeing such an army, so they could only urge the war horse to continue to accelerate.
The actions of the Huaxia army were completely unexpected by Lieutenant General Sky, who originally thought that the Huaxia army would set up a formation on the small high slope in front of them to welcome their arrival, but he did not expect it to be a disguise. What he didn't expect was that the Chinese army would divide the cavalry to chase Gao Ji Wensi's army, and Gao Ji Wensi actually fled without a fight, so hated him that he gritted his teeth.
When he saw that the Huaxia army had been rushing forward, a bad omen was suddenly born in his heart, and after thinking about it for a while, he immediately asked people to contact the team in front of him and ask them to evacuate quickly, the Huaxia army wanted to annihilate them!
Just when they were in contact, the Chinese army was already preparing to make contact with the army in front of them, and the Tsarist Russian army, which had received the order to retreat, had no time to retreat, so it could only fight and retreat at the same time.
Knowing that the situation was not good, the other two Tsarist armies quickly rushed frantically in the direction of the Chinese army, and they wanted to rescue the army in front of them, and if possible, to kill the enemy as much as possible.
The Huaxia cavalry on the other side also caught up with the tail of the fleeing Gao Ji Wensi's army, and immediately launched a frantic attack.