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"Results so soon?"

Yang Qiu was surprised that there was a result so quickly, but after raising his wrist to look at his watch, he found that it was already eleven o'clock in the evening before he knew it. Although there is a time difference between the northwest and Beijing, the sky outside has also darkened, and most of the rest of the people have gone to rest except for the operation center, which is still busy.

Xu Shuzheng didn't expect time to pass so quickly, and was just about to ask Dai Jintang, the commander of the 15th Army, to prepare dinner, when Yang Qiu handed the notes to Gu Yu, shook his hand and interrupted: "Don't be busy, just go to the kitchen and get a few steamed buns to eat in the car." Chu Nan, Lisan. Let's go, go and have a look over there. ”

Dai Jintang is also a veteran officer who has followed Yang Qiu from Wuhan to the present, and when he heard that he was going to Luweidang, he immediately understood his thoughts and asked the guards to take more cooked food to eat on the way.

The assembly site is 300 kilometers from Almaty to the Ili River, and it is not a well-equipped mainland, so Yue Peng recommends taking a car to go there for safety. Fortunately, in the past twenty years, the northwest has been built in an orderly manner, except for the mud road after entering the reeds, the rest are high-grade provincial roads, and twelve hound armored vehicles are enough to ensure safety.

It was already early in the morning when they arrived at the station, most of the soldiers had already fallen asleep, only the two regiments of the 1st Armored Division were driving the Type 36 main battle tanks onto the landing craft, and the workers and masters also took the last opportunity to check whether there was any problem with the fully loaded landing craft one by one. Because it was an inland river and it was the dry season in winter, the 35-ton tank entered the cabin and the smooth bottom of the boat sank into the river beach. To reduce exposure, workers installed two high-powered electric winches on the other side of the river, and when the landing craft was towed with steel cables and reversed, the sound of sandstone scraping on the bottom of the boat raised doubts about whether it would break. However, this kind of worry is unnecessary, and the bottom of the landing craft is designed for beaching, so it is very strong.

The 1st Armored Division is a new type of unit established according to the standards of later generations, and the whole division has 1 reconnaissance company, 2 tank regiments, 3 infantry battalions, 1 self-propelled artillery battalion, 1 anti-aircraft artillery battalion, and 1 combat engineer battalion. 2 logistical fuel battalions. The division headquarters also has 1 divisional armored battalion. This includes the command tanks of each battalion, a total of 252 Type 36 tanks and 14 Type 25 light reconnaissance tanks. The division also has 374 short-wave radio stations (including vehicle-mounted), 3 long-wave radios, 24 107-mm recoilless guns, 226 HJ32 general-purpose machine guns, 24 127-fanged heavy machine guns, 54 60-mm artillery guns, 24 imitation Carl Gustaf 84-mm recoilless guns, 18 80-mm mortars, 12 self-propelled 105-mm howitzers, 16 vehicle-mounted self-propelled 25-mm twin anti-aircraft guns, 8 vehicle-mounted 40-mm anti-aircraft guns, and 6 85-mm towed anti-aircraft guns. 188 armored half-tracks, 330 motorcycles, 88 jeeps, 410 trucks and 530 horse-drawn carriages. The total number of the division is 14,377.

The entire First Army has 14 tank battalions, with a total of 504 Type 36 tanks, 42 Type 31, 42 Type 25 reconnaissance tanks and 84 hunting tanks. The number of tanks owned by the entire army alone would need to be transported three times back and forth, and it would take three hours to cross and return for three hours. That's at least nine hours. Even if part of the logistics is temporarily abandoned, it will take at least 36 hours for the whole army to cross. So in addition to 212 tank landing craft and 72 personnel landing craft, Xu Shuzheng borrowed 90 hard-shell inflatable speedboats from the navy, so that the hard-shell speedboats alone can transport 1,080 people at a time. If the airborne troops can open up a field airfield as soon as possible, plus 600 transport planes, they can ensure that all the equipment and most of the logistics of the two armies can be sent across the lake within 48 hours.

When Yang Qiu arrived here. The 1st Panzer Division's 12 Type 21 tanks and 200 Type 36 tanks were all on board, and soldiers and workers were pulling the landing craft out of the shallows one by one, and then lining them up in the middle of the river and locking them with arm-thick chains to prevent them from sliding down due to the current.

In fact, Yue Peng and others all know. In addition to inspecting the preparations for the first batch of crossing troops, Yang Qiulai also came to see his son, so everyone specially vacated an armored car for the father and son to talk.

"I've lost a lot of weight, but I'm in good spirits."

Seeing Yang Tianlei wearing a military uniform, he had a bit of his own style back then. Yang Qiu's gaze softened, and he took out a heavy nylon body armor from his suitcase: "So many years." Your mother never used my connections to open the back door. This time, for you, I specially asked your Uncle Song to buy it from the laboratory, so that I must see you wear it. Come on, put it on. As he spoke, he unzipped up. He moved very carefully, checking every detail as carefully as he did when he led the troops. Finally, he stuffed the M1911 pistol that had been following him into the pouch on the right side of the vest: "Take it, use it for self-defense." ”

"Father, this shot." Yang Tianlei knew this gun, and when he was a child, he saw his father wiping these two pistols every day, and his eyes couldn't help but turn red.

"Take it. You have a handful, a handful, for the two of you brothers to defend themselves, anyway, I can't use it now. ”

Yang Tianlei sniffed and inserted the gun hard. He knew that Yang Qiu was actually worried about himself, but he just refused to say it, so he deliberately avoided heaviness and smiled lightly: "Father, don't worry, tell my mother and aunt that I will take good care of myself." Besides, it's not easy for the Soviets' bullets to hit me, and I'm the commander of the broken battalion in the army. ”

He was right, although Chu Nan treated everyone equally on the surface, but in fact, he was more or less taken care of because of his identity. For example, this crossing, Yang Tianlei and the division commander and army commander fought several times, but they were still ranked at the end, and they got a job to protect the follow-up infantry, and there was no room for negotiation. Seeing his son's stiff smile, Yang Qiu was also a little sad. But he always smiled, and finally deliberately laughed and scolded: "You kid, don't complain." I put you here, your Uncle Yue and Uncle Chu are under more pressure than me. You know, even though I'm the president, they're the chief of the general staff, they're the commander of the army, how many eyes are on the troops and in Congress? If something happens to you, even if I don't pursue it, someone will jump out and deliberately frame them. ”

Yang Tianlei has heard and seen politics since he was a child, and he knows all the things in the army, so he smiled and said: "Father, don't worry." In fact, if you think about it, this kind of thing is quite suitable for Yanai to do. ”

"Yanai? Ha ha. ”

These two words made Yang Qiu smile, and he felt that he still looked down on the young people of his eldest son's generation. Waving his hand: "Okay, you can see through this, you finally didn't come to the army to exercise in vain." ”

After the father and son laughed for a while, Yang Tianlei touched the body armor and asked, "Father, where is the second brother?" ”

"Your aunt has already sent him a set, so you don't have to worry about it. He is much smarter than you, he is now the captain of a frigate, and he went to the Persian Gulf with the 22nd fleet, and he will not be able to return in a year or two. It's good. Save yourself from adding to the chaos. Yang Qiu talked about his second son Yang Tiancheng, and the smile on the corner of his mouth became a little bigger.

The father and son sat in the car and chatted, until Yue Peng came to knock on the door and Yang Qiu found that the most feared thing had finally happened.

Snowflakes are starting to fall from the sky!

God still didn't help, and the heavy snow caused the temperature in the Kazakh steppe to plummet. Although the troops have been prepared for a long time, it has become a suspense whether there will be a window period after three days. For this reason, Yang Qiu immediately rushed back to Almaty, consulted Zhu Kezhen and others again, and learned that the probability of a sunny day in three days was more than eighty percent, and specially asked Luo Zuoji's radio code-breaking team, and once again convinced that there was no word in the Soviet army's radio communications about counterattack and Balkhash, and after discussing with Yue Peng, Xu Shuzheng and others, he decided to continue according to the plan. The whole army was silent by radio at 6 p.m. on 10 November, and landed at 0:00 p.m. on 11 November, while the crossing troops landed an hour late.

After determining the next time. The command of the Kazakh army group was busy. Regardless of the Soviet Union's level of technology, the highly classified Talas plan could not be communicated by radio, so Xu Shuzheng sent more than a dozen Yunqi planes to and from various units to make contact, and carried out a last large-scale feint with the next morning. First of all, more than 200 bombers were mobilized to bomb the Soviet army and Karaganda again that surrounded Semey. Then three divisions were mobilized to attack Cascabrak north from Ayaguz, and put on a posture to open up the Semeyi connection. Finally, take advantage of the heavy artillery cover on the fortress of Karakum. 2 armored regiments were sent to cover the infantry division to launch a counterattack on the Soviet troops at the Ayaguz River.

Yang Qiu also took advantage of the last time to inspect the front line with Yue Peng under strict protection. The personal presence of the President and the Chief of the General Staff encouraged the soldiers on the front lines and reunited the morale that had slowly faded with the weather. As the counterattack clusters quietly moved into action, the 1st and 29th Corps, under the cover of tall reeds, began to move towards Tomar, and the soldiers braved the wind and snow to spread the mobilized naval assault boats all over the shores of the lake.

The snow gradually lightened on 9 November, but the snow clouds showed no signs of dispersing. Xu Shuzheng and the command of the Kazakh Army Group began to work on the preparatory plan, according to the backup plan, if the weather did not allow, the 1st and 29th armies would be transferred to Akdouka to attack, north of Lake Balkhash. But then the entire plan would have to be postponed for five days, and the distance from the point of attack to Karaganda would be extended to 540 kilometers, far exceeding the maximum distance that an armored division could cover in one assault.

At the same time, the Air Force continued to look for gaps in the snowfall, bombing along the western shore of Lake Balkhash and Mount Aitau, and on the basis of clues provided by intelligence officers, dispatched a fleet of fighter planes to protect 24 Y-6s, and quickly unloaded 400 commando soldiers in the flat area of the Tondek River east of Karaganda, continuing to divert Kulik's attention. By 10 o'clock in the evening, 64 special forces from the Hunter Brigade and the Air Force's Falcon Brigade made a punctual attack and took the lead in crossing Lake Balkhash on board 12 Y-7s.

This series of attacks and feints made Kulik unable to sit still, especially since the Tondek River is between Karaganda and Pavlodar, and since 24 can land, then who can guarantee that it will not be 240 next time? You must know that Kazakhstan is a vast territory, the east of the Aral Sea alone is larger than Ukraine, and the vicinity of Karaganda is a flat steppe, and the roots are invincible. So in the end, he simply decided to continue to take the initiative, ordered Lukin's 16th Army to immediately set off for Eastern Kazakhstan, and asked three recruit divisions from Chelyabinsk to escort 600 truckloads of ammunition and supplies to Seminy, deciding to gamble on the last force.

On the afternoon of November 10, there were still 9 hours left before the scheduled airborne.

The outskirts of Aksuayure were hectic, and after Kulik's repeated urgings, the Soviet 16th Army went into action. Pack horses were spewing white gas, carrying large bags and small bags waiting to leave, next to hundreds of gas trucks and American utility trucks, and in the woods there were more than 100 BT7 and T26 tanks hiding from the bombing, each of which was strapped to the extra oil drums. Due to the shortage of ammunition and supplies at the front, the 16th Army, which was ordered to reinforce East Kazakhstan, brought three times as much supplies. Even 70,000 soldiers were ordered to carry twice as much ammunition and prepare to advance at night.

"Comrade Lukin, Commander-in-Chief Kulik has telegraphed again."

Nietzelev drove a German Opel sedan and hurriedly stopped at the entrance of the headquarters. When I entered the door, I saw that some orderlies had begun to pack their bags, but the tall and thin Lukin was stepping back and forth on the oak floor, and the adjutant with his head down stood on the side, looking like he wanted to roll up the map but did not dare to.

Nitselev hurriedly walked over, blocked the map with his hand and reminded: "Comrade commander, now is not the time to look at the map!" Commander-in-Chief Kulik has already asked for the third time when we will be on our way. He's very angry on the phone! ”

"I see." Lukin waved his hand and continued to look at the vast Balkhash Lake on the map in a daze. After the last time he failed to send planes to reconnoitre, and the reconnaisance boats were abandoned because of the war, he had been thinking about reconnoitring the Ili River delta east of Lake Balkhash, if it had not been for the recent sudden rain and snow. I'm afraid it has already been put into action. Now that Kulik had ordered him to support Donsack, the agitation had become strong again for some reason, and he always felt that it would be a big mistake to leave, so he had not given the order to set off until now.

Because the political commissar and the chief of staff had already taken two divisions to reinforce East Kazakhstan early, Nitsekov, the commander of the bare-bones aviation division, temporarily took over the work of the chief of staff, and when he saw that he was still looking at Lake Balkhash, he was a little anxious: "Comrade Lukin. Commander Kulik was already very angry. If he doesn't leave, I'm afraid he will ask for responsibility. ”

As if he didn't hear, Lukin stood in front of the map and frowned and asked: "Comrade Nitsekov, if you have a strong aircraft transport capacity. Will you abandon the big gap of Lake Balkhash and run to the Tondeck River to be airborne? ”

Although Nitsekov was anxious, he still shook his head patiently: "Of course not. The Tondek River is more than 400 kilometers from East Kazakhstan, and it is necessary to cross the entire theater of operations, and the airborne light infantry will slowly die without follow-up support. But Comrade Lukin. The same applies to the Lake Balkhash region! Because there is no airport on the west side of the lake, it is impossible to land large planes in the field. So the Chinese used planes to transport only light infantry back and forth. There have been no ships or shipyards for ten years, and it has been raining and snowing lately, and it would have been easy to be eaten by Hafrov's three infantry divisions if it was transported by planes alone. Unless, of course, they have enough patience to build a front-line position with light infantry regardless of casualties and wait for the counterattacking forces of East Kazakhstan and Almaty to come around, but then who knows how long it will take? ”

"Comrade Lukin, why do you always think that the Chinese will make trouble in this direction?" After Nitsekov finished speaking, he saw that Lukin was still staring at Balkhash, and asked curiously: "The plane is not omnipotent, the Balkhash region is hilly, very suitable for infantry combat, and there is only a large flat grassland 35 kilometers away to the north." So even if it is transported by boat and plane, as long as there are no tanks and armored vehicles, our BT7 tanks and artillery there can easily be held with the three infantry divisions of General Haverov. ”

Lukin also knew that what Nitsekov said made sense, but he still felt that something was wrong, so he squeezed out a smile that even he felt was fake: "If I tell you that it is just intuition, do you believe it or not?" ”

"Intuition?" Nitsekov thought it was funny. But there have been many officers in history who have relied on intuition to discover the enemy in advance, but at this time it is not appropriate to say intuition, right? Hurriedly spread out his hands: "Comrade Lukin, whether I have intuition or judgment, we must go!" Heavy snow and severe cold made the front very bad, and the Chinese counterattack was already beginning to appear, so Comrade Commander Kulik asked us to rush to Semiy within four days! And I believe that as long as the snow doesn't stop all day, they can't carry out their plans even if they have them. ”

"yes, maybe the snow will help us." Lukin was right to think about it, as long as the snow didn't stop, no commander would be stupid enough to brave the snow to transport soldiers on a large scale by plane. So after picking up the coat and putting it on, I looked at the map again before I made up my mind to set off to reinforce the East Kazakhstan.

When Nitsekov saw that he had finally left, he was relieved. But as soon as the two of them opened the door and were about to go out, a brilliant golden light in the western sky rushed straight to their faces!

Sunny day?

Lu Jin, who had just made up his mind, suddenly chuckled in his heart, could it be a coincidence? Even Nitsekov beside him was a little dumbfounded, he didn't expect that the clouds were gathering just now, and now there was sunshine, so he also stayed on the spot.

Lukin suddenly changed his decision: "Comrade Nietseikov, I will give you all the armored cars and trucks, and you immediately take three regiments to the south of Akchatau. ”

"But what about Commander Kulik?" Nitsekov was worried. It's an eventful time, Moscow is already very unhappy with the stalemate, and any slight mistake can lead to serious consequences, and maybe as soon as it arrives in Akchatau, the internal guard troops will come and arrest people. Even Lukin thought it would be bad if he was wrong this time, but after thinking about it for a long time, he decided to go to Akchatau, 140 kilometers from Balkhash, and then hold on until the snow fell again before setting off for East Kazakhstan.

"I'll explain it to the commander-in-chief. Maybe we just need to stay there for a day or two, and the snow and cold will be our helpers again. Lukin looked at the sky and muttered to himself