Beginning on December 12, 1908, the Imperial Army of the Chinese Empire, outside the Russian city of Ufa, had launched a 20-day uninterrupted offensive against the combined forces of the Entente and the Central Powers, and the time also came to the new year, entering 1909 AD.

During the 20-day offensive, the Sixth Guards, the Thirteenth Field Army, the Fourteenth Field Army and the Fifteenth Field Army of the Imperial Chinese Army arrived at the front line of Ufa City one after another, making the Royal Army of the Chinese Imperial Army on the front line of Ufa City reach 4 Guards and 9 Field Army, a total of 13 main armies, and the total number of troops invested in the front line of Ufa City exceeded 2 million.

However, after 20 days of fierce fighting, the losses of the Imperial Chinese Army outside Ufa were not small, almost unprecedented, and by January 1, 1909, the 13 main armies had more than 250,000 killed, more than 100,000 wounded, more than 800 tanks and armored vehicles combined, and more than 500 guns with a caliber of 75 mm or more.

Even the Royal Air Force of the Imperial Chinese Empire in Ufa suffered considerable losses due to the continuous increase of new anti-aircraft weapons of the coalition forces, with more than 200 improved Yellow Sparrow fighters and improved Blue Eagle bombers crashing combined.

After the integration of air defense weapons technology in the three countries of Britain, France, and Germany, the new anti-aircraft guns with a caliber of 57 mm and the new anti-aircraft machine guns with a caliber of 12.9 mm were developed, and several batches of anti-aircraft guns produced by overtime in a short period of time in the arsenals of France and Germany were all delivered to the city of Ufa, with more than 200 anti-aircraft guns and more than 300 antiaircraft machine guns. It is by relying on these new anti-aircraft weapons that the coalition forces will be able to do so in 20 days. Shot down more than 200 advanced fighters of the Imperial Chinese Air Force.

The army of the Chinese Empire paid such a great price, but did not completely occupy the city of Ufa. In 20 days, only 15 kilometers of the eastern part of Ufa City were cleared of the positions of the coalition forces outside the city, and at present, more tragic street battles are being waged with the coalition forces in the city, and the location of the street battles is only limited to the eastern part of Ufa City, and the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire even controls less than one-tenth of the urban area.

The combined forces of the Entente and the Central Powers, compared with the armies of the Chinese Empire, had no air superiority, no superiority in armored forces, no superiority in firepower, and the only advantage was that they had the advantage of occupying geographical advantages. That is, the combined forces of the Entente and the Central Powers far exceeded the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire that attacked the city of Ufa.

Therefore, the coalition forces of the Entente and the Allied Powers were able to block the 13 main forces of the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire here in the city of Ufa, mainly relying on the use of human lives to fill the battlefield, 20 days of fierce fighting, the number of coalition casualties even exceeded 2 million, hundreds of thousands of wounded, because there were too many wounded, many wounded could not be effectively treated, and some of the wounded of the coalition forces who could have been saved finally deteriorated and joined the list of the dead.

The coalition forces also lost a lot of weapons and equipment. More than 300 tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed, more than 75 guns with a caliber of more than 2800 mm, more than 700 combat defense guns, and 54 fighters. Sixty-two bombers have been lost, and there are currently fewer than 40 new anti-aircraft guns of 57 mm caliber and less than 50 new anti-aircraft machine guns of 12.9 mm calibre. More than 500 old anti-aircraft guns were blown up, and the loss of old anti-aircraft machine guns was also as high as more than 700 units.

However, it was worth it for the coalition forces to pay such a large loss. In any case, the troops of the Chinese Empire are still being held back here in the city of Ufa. And with the arrival of the new year, there was another thing that surprised the commanders of the coalition forces.

In the military headquarters of the Third Guards of the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire outside the city of Ufa, the commander of the Third Guards Army Ni Fan had a very ugly face, and on the last night of 1908, the coalition forces in the city of Ufa did not take advantage of the fact that the Royal Air Force fighters of the Imperial Chinese Army could not take off at night as usual to launch a counterattack against the attack troops of the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire.

Otherwise, the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire may not even be able to control less than one-tenth of the urban area of Ufa City, in these 20 days, the coalition forces can recapture some of the positions lost during the day from the hands of the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire every night, if the coalition forces continue to launch a night attack last night, the Royal Army of the Chinese Imperial Army will enter the urban area of Ufa City, I don't know how much of the urban area in the hands will be left after dawn.

It stands to reason that the coalition forces did not launch a counterattack at night, Ni Fan's face should not be so ugly, but if you know the reason why the coalition forces did not launch a counterattack last night, you will understand why Ni Fan's face is so ugly at this time.

It turned out that yesterday evening, the Ufa City area suddenly blew a snowstorm, and the intensity of the blizzard is very large, it can be regarded as a huge snowstorm, the temperature has also plummeted a lot, from the coldest minus 20 degrees, all of a sudden to minus nearly 40 degrees, such weather coalition forces can not launch a counterattack, and so the sky becomes brighter, to the early morning of January 1, 1909, the snowfall in the Ufa City area reached at least 20 cm, and the blizzard has not stopped, the intensity has not weakened in the slightest, No one knows how long this blizzard will blow, and what is worse is that the area of this blizzard is still very large, and a large area west of the Ural Mountains, including the city of Ufa, has a blizzard.

The Royal Army of the Chinese Empire has 13 main forces here in Ufa City, that is, it has lost 250,000 people, and still has more than 1.8 million troops, including hundreds of thousands of wounded, so that the daily consumption of 13 main armies is very amazing, but the railway from the original Russian Omsk City to Ufa City here was seriously damaged by the Russian army, and the material supply of the 13 main armies can only rely on air transportation and roadsTrucks and horse-drawn carriages were also unable to travel on the road, so that even the transportation on the road was forced to be interrupted, which was definitely a bad thing for the 13 main forces of the Imperial Chinese Army outside Ufa.

Ni Fan glanced around at the other 12 commanders of the main army in the headquarters of the Third Guards Army, and in addition to the original 8 commanders who had been here from the attack on the outlying positions of Ufa City, there were 4 more army commanders. After the attack began, Wan Changlin, commander of the Sixth Guards Army, Feng Xiaoting, commander of the 13th Field Army, Lu Jianming, and Jiang Fangyu of the 15th Field Army, who rushed to the battlefield of Wufa City. Now the faces of the 12 commanders of the main army are not good-looking. This particularly heavy snowstorm began to blow yesterday evening, and by the next morning there was no sign of abating, and the longer the blizzard fell, the more unfavorable it would be for the Imperial Chinese Army attacking the city of Ufa.

Ni Fan said in a deep voice: "The Allied and Allied forces in Ufa City, the resistance is unexpectedly tenacious, our 13 main forces have been attacking for 20 days, and they have just entered the city of Ufa City, and now God is coming to make trouble again, if this blizzard keeps blowing." It's very bad for us. ”

Wu Hui, the commander of the Fourth Guards, followed and said in a deep voice: "The main problem now is food, because of the problem of transportation, in the 20 days of fierce fighting, the food transported every day cannot offset the food we consume, so we can only use some of the food stored outside the city of Ufa before the war, and now this food is enough for our remaining 1.8 million troops to eat for 6 days, and this is counting today, looking at the posture of this blizzard, I don't know how many days it will blow." If we scrape for 3 or 4 days, we will not have enough food, and we will have to think about retreating. ”

Although a large number of transport planes, airships, trucks and horse-drawn wagons were used to deliver supplies outside the city of Ufa. However, in addition to food, it is also necessary to send a large number of weapons, ammunition and other materials to the city of Ufa, which also makes the food transported to the city of Ufa every day not enough for the consumption of the troops. Every day, a portion of the food that had been stored outside Ufa before the start of the war would have to be used if it had not been for this blizzard. The grain that is delivered every day, plus the original reserves. At least for the next one and a half months, the 13 main forces of the Imperial Chinese Army do not have to worry about food, but this huge snowstorm suddenly came, and the 13 main forces suddenly had the problem of lack of food.

"Retreat? No way! We have already lost 250,000 brothers for Ufa City, and more than 100,000 brothers were wounded, so we withdrew, didn't so many brothers die in vain! Hu Desheng, the commander of the Fourth Field Army, immediately shouted with some excitement when he heard Wu Hui say to retreat.

In this 20-day offensive, the Royal Army of the Chinese Empire adopted a rotational attack, that is, let one army attack for 2 or 3 days, and then let another army take over the attack task, the original army withdrew for rest, the first to arrive outside the city of Ufa 9 main forces have already taken turns to attack once, the current troops in the city of Ufa is the 12th Field Army, if there is no blizzard, this morning, the later Sixth Guards Army will take over the city controlled by the 12th Field Army, Then the offensive continued in the city controlled by the coalition forces in the city of Ufa.

The Fourth Field Army carried out a two-day attack on the coalition positions in the east outside the city of Ufa and occupied the coalition positions at least 2 kilometers deep, but the Fourth Field Army also paid the price of more than 20,000 casualties, especially the forward command of the 42nd Division, which was accidentally hit by an artillery shell, and more than a dozen officers, including Liu Zhenli, the commander of the 42nd Division, were killed, which made Hu Desheng, the commander of the Fourth Field Army, extremely distressed.

Liu Zhenli, the commander of the 42nd Division, is Hu Desheng's old subordinate, when he was the commander of the Seventh Division of the Army Reorganization in the Water Division Academy, Liu Zhenli was one of his commanders, Liu Zhenli only got married the year before last, Hu Desheng was also the introducer of Liu Zhenli and his wife, before this war, Liu Zhenli's son had just been born, Hu Desheng really didn't know how to face Liu Zhenli's wife and newborn child when he went back this time, as soon as he thought of this, Hu Desheng's fist couldn't help but clench to death.

The other army commanders all knew the news of the death of Liu Zhenli, the commander of the 42nd Division, and when they heard Hu Desheng's words, they couldn't help but sigh secretly in their hearts, especially the other army commanders who arrived outside Ufa City at the earliest, and they were also very uncomfortable when they heard the retreat, each of their corps suffered tens of thousands of casualties in the attack, and no one would be comfortable if they retreated like this.

Ni Fan sighed and said: "Lao Hu, we all understand your feelings, but if the snowstorm really blows for a few days, we have to think about retreating, if there is no blizzard, the grain we reserve, plus the food that arrives at the front line every day, is enough for us to eat for one and a half months, but with this blizzard, the food we reserve will be greatly reduced, that is, after the snowstorm stops, the air and road transportation channels are unblocked again, and our food will not support us to attack Ufa City for another 1 and a half months, As for how much time there will be, it will be necessary to see how long this blizzard will blow. ”

Hu Desheng gritted his teeth and said: "We can ask the Ministry of Defense to increase the number of airships and transport planes for us, and after the snowstorm stops, we can increase the amount of food delivered. ”

Ni Fan sighed and said: "The number of dead in my Third Guards Army is also more than 20,000, many of them are old subordinates who have followed me for many years, and I don't want them to die in vain, but the Ministry of Defense has concentrated most of the airships and transport planes in the country near the city of Chelyabinsk to transport supplies for our troops attacking Ufa City, and in India, because a large number of airships and transport planes have been transferred to us, the Fifth Field Army and the Sixth Field Army are not even short of shells. Otherwise, the two field armies might have conquered Islamabad and Dhaka in India. Domestic arsenals and aircraft factories are also working overtime to produce airships and transport planes, but the number of newly produced airships and transport planes is only a drop in the bucket for us. In addition, the snowstorm has stopped, and the snow on the highway must be very thick, and it will be a question of whether the highway will be open to traffic at that time. ”

Hu Desheng opened his mouth and didn't say anything more, he also knew in his heart that what Ni Fan said was the reality, if there is no food, let alone conquering Ufa City, even the situation of their 13 main forces will be very dangerous, although they still have 6 days of food left, but if the snowstorm blows for 3 or 4 days, their 13 armies must retreat, from here in Ufa City, withdraw to the area east of the Ural Mountains, and leave some food on the way, you can't walk hundreds of kilometers on an empty stomach!

Ni Fan said: "This snowstorm has dropped the temperature a lot, the lowest temperature last night was close to minus 40 degrees, fortunately we have some precautions for the winter in Russia, the cotton clothes of all officers and soldiers are very complete, but we can't take it lightly, we must let the officers and soldiers do a good job of cold protection." (To be continued.) )