Kuropatkin, the commander of the Siberian Theater of Operations of the Russian army and the commander of the First Front, heard that the eight mountain fortifications in front of the Dingbei Army, including the internal passages, had completely fallen into the hands of his own troops, and his first reaction was to know how the casualties of the Dingbei Army were.

His own troops paid such a big price to capture the 8 mountain fortifications in front of him, and Kuropatkin hoped that the Dingbei army would also pay some price to relieve some pressure on the attack behind his troops.

So he opened his mouth and asked the staff officer who reported the news: "How are the casualties of the Dingbei Army?" ”

The Russian staff officer paused for a moment and said: "The internal passages of these mountain fortifications of the Dingbei Army can be connected with the mountain fortifications behind, and the Dingbei Army with 8 mountain fortifications in front of them took the initiative to retreat along these passages, and they took away everything they could take away, and there were very few corpses left, we can't estimate the casualties of the Dingbei Army, but the troops on the front line estimate that the casualty ratio of our army and the Dingbei Army may be more than five to one, and their losses are far less than ours." ”

As soon as Kuropatkin heard this, he immediately thought of using these passages to continue the attack on the mountain fortifications behind, and as for the proportion of casualties, Kuropatkin had a rough estimate in his mind, and the actual situation might be higher than the ratio of five to one.

However, the following words of the staff officer dispelled this idea, and the staff officer continued: "In addition, after the retreat, the Dingbei Army blew up all these passages leading to the mountain fortifications behind, so that we have no way to use these passages to continue to attack the mountain fortifications behind. Now the attacking troops of the four armies on the front line are waiting for the commander's instructions on whether or not we should continue to attack the mountain fortifications behind. ”

Kuropatkin hesitated for a moment and said: "Order the 4 armies that captured the 8 mountain fortifications in front of the Dingbei Army to rest on those 8 mountain fortifications to prevent the Dingbei Army from counterattacking those 8 mountain fortifications." In addition, the attack could not be stopped, and the troops who were preparing to launch the seventh wave of the attack were ordered to continue the attack on the mountain fortifications on the front line behind, and even one person was left without my order to continue the attack. At the same time, the artillery unit was ordered to continue to provide artillery support to the infantry, and at the same time to suppress the artillery of the Northern Army. ”

Since the start of the war yesterday, the Russian artillery has carried out large-scale shelling for several minutes almost every short time, and the small-scale shelling has basically not stopped, and the Russian army has adopted rotational artillery bombardment, so that the artillery officers and men can rest, and also save shells.

The artillery units of the Dingbei Army were not to be outdone, and the artillery fire never stopped, especially the artillery battle between the two sides, which caused losses on both sides to be not small, but the artillery units of the Dingbei Army had sufficient shells and had a slight upper hand.

With the artillery fire of the Russian artillery on the rear line of 7 mountain fortifications, the Russian army's new offensive began, the Russian officers and soldiers of the 1st Army directly set off from the captured 8 mountain fortifications, under the artillery fire of the Dingbei Army and the countless light and heavy machine guns of the pillboxes and hidden forts on the mountain fortifications, launched an attack on the 7 mountain fortifications in the back row.

The dozens of mountain fortifications of the mountain fortification group outside Darkhan City are equivalent to 8 platoons, which is also the reason why the commanders of the 3rd Division, Ni Fan, the commander of the 3rd Division, who defended the entire Darkhan City, saw the loss of the bunkers and dark forts on the first row of mountain fortifications, so he ordered the Dingbei officers and soldiers guarding the 8 mountain fortifications in the first row to retreat.

And all the mountain fortifications were captured by the Russian army, and the Dingbei Army still left a killer feature, if the Dingbei Army counterattacked these mountain fortifications by itself, there would definitely be no need to pay such a big price as the Russian army.

The Russian 1st Siberian Front, under the orders of the theater commander Kuropatkin, has been attacking around the clock, with one infantry corps after another attacking the mountain fortifications outside Darkhan.

In the early morning of April 21, after capturing the 8 mountain fortifications in the first row of the front, the Russian army captured the 7 mountain fortifications in the second row with very heavy casualties, and the officers and soldiers of the divisions of the Dingbei Army guarding these 7 mountain fortifications, after giving the Russian army a large number of casualties, because a large number of pillboxes and bunkers of the 7 mountain fortifications were blown up or occupied by the Russian army, they were ordered to retreat to the back from the tunnels connected to the various mountain fortifications, and also blew up the tunnels connected with other mountain fortifications after withdrawing, Prevent the Russian army from using these tunnels.

After the Russian army captured the lower 2 rows of 15 mountain fortifications, it still did not stop attacking, and by noon on the 25th, the Russian army captured the 17 mountain fortifications in the lower 2 rows, so far the mountain fortifications of the 8th row have been captured by the Russian army, and at this time the Russian army stopped continuing to attack the 5th row of mountain fortifications behind, and the non-stop artillery fire for 7 consecutive days suddenly stopped.

I haven't slept well for a few days, and the theater commander Kuropatkin, who looks very haggard, is not that he doesn't want to continue the offensive, but that the current situation of the Russian army is very bad, although it is attacking in turns, but when the casualties increase later, the troops that can be mobilized will become less and less, and the Russian officers and soldiers will have a lot less time to rest, and they may have to go back to the front line of the attack after they have just retreated from the front line of the attack, and after eating a meal and sleeping, they may have to go back to the front line of the attack, which makes the Russian infantry very tired. Compared with the infantry, the artillery officers and men of the Russian army are almost exhausted, and the artillery of the Russian army has not stopped shelling in the past few days.

In addition to fatigue, the consumption of ammunition was also one of the reasons why Kuropatkin ordered the attack to be stopped, the bullets of the infantry were fine, but the artillery shells, as well as the explosive packs and grenades necessary for the capture of the pillboxes and bunkers above the mountain fortifications, were consumed very quickly, and the ammunition transported from the city of Haktu and the city of trading to the front line was no longer enough to be consumed, and the current number of shells, explosive packs and grenades was not enough to launch an attack on the 9 mountain fortifications of the fifth row.

And the main reason for Kuropatkin to order to stop the attack was that the losses were too great, and they were already somewhat beyond the scope of the 1st Siberian Front.

In the 7-day continuous attack, all 21 infantry corps of the First Siberian Front Army were put into the attack on the mountain fortification group, although half of the mountain fortifications were captured, but the losses of the Russian army were very large, counting the losses of 7 heavy artillery divisions and other artillery officers and soldiers, a total of 650,000 troops, the number of dead has exceeded 260,000, and more than 20,000 people who were seriously wounded and lost their combat effectiveness, and those who were lightly wounded were not counted, that is to say, the troops of the First Siberian Front Army with combat effectiveness, there were 370,000 people left, Only then did half of the mountain fortifications be captured, and half of the mountain fortifications were waiting for the Russian army to capture, and there was a city of Darkhan behind that was also waiting for the 1st Siberian Front.

The artillery unit of the First Siberian Front suffered great losses in personnel, and the loss of artillery was not small, originally a total of 1,800 artillery pieces with a caliber of more than 75 mm, in the 7-day artillery battle with the artillery of the Dingbei Army, there were less than 900 left, more than half of the losses, and even 12 siege guns with a caliber of 210 mm also lost 6 guns.

Such casualties have already frightened the officers and soldiers of the Russian army, if it were not for the pressure of the theater commander Kuropatkin, and even shot and killed a division commander who refused to carry out the task of continuing the attack, the Russian army could continue to launch an offensive under the condition of very large casualties, and under the powerful firepower of the Dingbei Army, it was able to capture half of the very strong mountain fortifications built by the Dingbei Army.

The reason why the division commander who was shot refused to carry out the task of continuing the attack was that his division's nearly 10,000 troops had already launched six attacks on the mountain fortifications guarded by the Dingbei Army in a few days, and now the entire division was less than 2,000 people, and it was no longer capable of launching a seventh attack, but in this way, it was also directly pulled out and shot by the theater commander Kuropatkin on the grounds of battlefield disobedience, and then the surviving brigade commander of this division took the place of the division commander and led a force of less than 2,000 people to continue the attack.

After Kuropatkin ordered the offensive to stop, he summoned the commanders of the various armies, division commanders, and division commanders of heavy artillery divisions to the command headquarters, and the commanders of the 21 infantry corps of the Russian army did not personally lead the troops to charge, so the commanders of the 21 Russian infantry corps were unscathed, and the division commanders below did not suffer much losses, after all, they did not need to lead the troops to charge, in addition to the division commander who was shot, only 2 division commanders of the infantry division, who were unlucky to be killed by the shells of the Dingbei Army when they commanded the troops to attack on the front line.

Only the commander of the heavy artillery division, because he has been commanding the artillery position, and the Russian artillery position is the most important target of the artillery of the Dingbei Army, was killed several times, and now only 2 division commanders of the heavy artillery division and the other 5 division commanders of the heavy artillery division are left, 4 people were killed, and 1 person was hit in the stomach and thigh by shrapnel from the shell, and was seriously injured.

Kuropatkin said in a hoarse voice to the officers in the command: "On behalf of the Siberian Theater of Operations, I would like to commend the fearless fighting spirit of the officers and men of the First Front, it is precisely because of the courageous fighting of all the units of the First Front Army that we have captured half of the mountain fortifications built by the Dingbei Army, and I will personally report your exploits to His Majesty the Tsar after the battle, and you are waiting for your promotion to the knighthood!" ”

If Kuropatkin told these officers to give them a promotion to a knighthood in peacetime, it would definitely make them excited, but at this time, Kuropatkin said that he would report to the tsar and give them a promotion, but there was no voice of excitement in the command headquarters, and hundreds of senior officers of the Russian army above the division commander continued to sit expressionlessly, waiting for Kuropatkin to continue to speak.

Killed and seriously wounded and incapacitated, the First Siberian Front has lost 280,000 troops, and the entire Front Army has 370,000 left, and there are still half of the mountain fortifications in front of them waiting for them to attack, if according to the situation of seizing this half of the mountain fortifications, they will lose at least more than 200,000 troops, then they have successfully occupied the mountain fortifications outside Darkhan, and the remaining troops of the First Siberian Front Army are less than 200,000 troops. Can you still capture the fortress-like city of Darkhan built by the Dingbei Army?

These high-ranking officers of the 1st Siberian Front in the command felt that the hope of victory had become very slim, and how could they be promoted to the rank of knight without capturing the city of Darkhan, and the commander Kuropatkin was obviously suspected of fooling them.

Moreover, these high-ranking officers of the First Siberian Front in the headquarters knew in their hearts that their goal was not only to capture the city of Darkhan and everything would be fine, but also to concentrate their forces on the vast Mongolian steppes and attack the hinterland of the four northeastern provinces bordering the Mongolian region, which was already the only way for Russia to win in this war.

After all, at the very beginning of this war, Russia, a European power, continued to plant his head on Lin Daxin, a military strongman in the Far East, and now the main fleet of the Russian Navy has been completely wiped out, the army has been wiped out by nearly 2 million, and the entire Far East and millions of square kilometers of land east of the Lena River have been seized by the Dingbei Army, and the situation is already very unfavorable to Russia.

Tongguò Mongolian steppe attack on the hinterland of the four northeastern provinces is already Russia's only chance to turn the tables in this war, but now in such a situation, after capturing the city of Darkhan, does the Russian army still have the ability to attack the hinterland of the four northeastern provinces! R1152