After the battle on January 14, recognizing the importance of the village of Aktobe, the Russians quickly strengthened the village's defenses, withdrawing a reinforced company of the former defenders, which had been heavily damaged by artillery fire, and replacing it with a battle group with the 1st Battalion of the 10th Regiment of the 3rd Siberian Division as the core, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bamiyan, deputy commander of the 10th Regiment.

By 17 January, as one of the starting positions for the Russian 2nd Siberian Army's offensive on Ulan-Ude, a considerable number of troops had been massed around the village of Aktobe—including most of the armored forces allocated to the 2nd Army.

Among them, the 1st Experimental Tank Company has 3 platoons, the 1st platoon is equipped with 3 Mendeleev heavy tanks, the 2nd platoon is equipped with 3 Lebezenko trench tanks, and the 3rd platoon is equipped with 5 Rygisky light off-road tanks (formerly known as "off-road vehicles"). The 1st and 2nd platoons were deployed on the road behind the village to the western outskirts of Selenginsk, together with the 10th battalion of the 3rd Siberian regiment. The 3rd platoon was deployed behind a small hill to the east of the village.

The 10 armored vehicles of the 7th Armored Vehicle Company were assembled behind the 1st Experimental Tank Company as a mobile reserve.

In addition, the 2nd Experimental Tank Company, including the 5th Platoon, equipped with five French Renault FT14 light tanks, and the 7th Platoon, equipped with 3 British MK3 King-type cruisers, were deployed on the road northeast of the village to the eastern outskirts of Selenkinsk. The infantry unit was attached to the 2nd Battalion of the 10th Siberian Regiment.

In order to support the general offensive scheduled for the 20th, Ji Lu planned to deploy a total of 6 76-point 2-mm rapid-fire artillery batteries (8 guns each), 2 107-mm cannon batteries (4 guns) and 3 152-mm howitzer batteries (4 guns), a total of 68 artillery pieces, in the positions behind the village and northeast of the village. By the 17th, only 3 batteries of 76-point 2-mm rapid-fire guns, 1 battery of 107-mm cannons and 1 company of 152-mm howitzers were in place.

To cover the deployment of the main forces of the 3rd Siberian Division, 1 cavalry group (4 cavalry companies, 1 cavalry artillery company) of Lieutenant Colonel Livinov was also assembled in the woods behind the village.

By January 20, the main attacking force of the 2nd Army, with the 3rd Siberian Division as the core, would attack from the village of Aktobe and pounce on Ulan-Ude, but until January 17, the main forces of the 3rd Division had not entered the starting position.

When Lieutenant Colonel Bamiyan, who was impatient in guarding the village, asked his superiors about it, he received the following explanation: "It is all because the tanks, the roads are crushed by the big feet of the iron houses and the big wheels of the iron carriages, and the carriages and cars cannot be walked, and the baggage cannot be transported. Honestly stay there and wait. ”

The so-called iron house is the Mendeleev heavy tank that once single-handedly repelled the enemy's superior armored forces here, and the iron carriage refers to the strange-looking Lebezenko trench tank: a pair of huge iron wheels with a diameter of more than 8 meters, a cylindrical weapon tower above and below the middle beam, machine guns or small-caliber guns are installed on the left and right sides of the beam, and a solid small tail wheel hangs at the end of the tail boom that sticks out diagonally to the bottom of the beam - at a glance it looks like a deformed ancient horse-drawn chariot.

Bamiyan also carefully examined the two tanks abandoned by the Chinese army through a telescope and came to the conclusion that both Mendeleev and Lebezinko were much larger and stronger than the enemy's tanks.

But after witnessing the ruins of the roads by the "iron houses" and "iron carriages", Bamiyan had to admit that these monsters were not fit for long marches away from the railway line, let alone across the ice of the Selenga......

As soon as the Chinese artillery bombardment, Bamiyan realized that something was not good - such dense and heavy artillery fire was often a prelude to a large-scale offensive.

Amid the earth-shattering sound of cannons, Bamiyan, who was hiding in the cellar of the village chief's house, crouched in front of the telephone and hissed:

"Hey—hey, Captain Andrei? Hey, please be louder—"

"Hey, pick me up Major Minovsky-hey, talk quickly-"

"Hey, hey, son of a bitch, Andropov, send me someone to check the line!"

With such dense artillery fire, it is a matter of course to break the telephone line, and it is not surprising that the small soldiers who knocked over the investigation line......

Bamiyan was still sighing, but he felt a sudden shock on the roof of the cellar, and in an instant a large piece of earth mixed with cobwebs, candle ashes and other things poured down, covering his head and face, and smashing everyone into a wail.

"Ahh

Spit out the mud in his mouth and touch the wound on his head, Bamiyan choked and shouted, "Is there anything alive?" ”

Someone in the darkness trembled and replied: "Yes - Lieutenant Colonel, I'm Andropov." ”

"You go to Lieutenant Colonel Selenov and ask him to return fire on the enemy, fire back! Tell him that if he doesn't fight back, we'll all be buried alive before we see the enemy! ”

"Yes!"

"Is there anyone else?"

"I, Lieutenant Revisef."

"Go to Major Minovsky, beg him, ask his tank unit to come over as soon as possible and tell them that enemy tanks are coming like a tidal wave!"

"But...... No news has yet been received about the offensive of the enemy's tank units. In the darkness, the other party was gasping for air.

Bamiyan kicked viciously at the place where the voice came from: "Son of a bitch, you're afraid of death, get out of here, I said that the tank is coming, the tank is coming, do you want to bet with me?" Gamble with your life! ”

A quarter of an hour later, the sound of the cannon faded away.

Bamiyan climbed to the ground and looked out from the cellar to see that the village chief's two-story stone house was long gone, the craters filled with snow in the yard were still steaming, the haystacks in the corners were burning, and the smell of burnt meat wafted from the stables, where Bamiyan's horses were still kept.

Bamiyan did not look at his horse.

He just wanted to confirm with his own eyes as soon as possible how much combat power his carefully arranged defense system could preserve in this unprecedented ferocious shelling.

In less than three days after being stationed, Bamiyan made full use of the manpower and equipment at hand, and did not hesitate to use a large amount of zha medicine, but he opened a dense number of foxholes, communication trenches, and gun-firing bunkers in the solid frozen soil, and the important firing bunkers were equipped with anti-artillery holes, and the remaining houses in the village were transformed into fortresses.

However, due to the imminent attack of the Russian army from the village of Aktobe, Bamiyan was ordered not to dig trenches in front of the position, and set up deer barrages, traps, mines and barbed wire, so as not to "waste time on dismantling it at that time."

To which Bamiyan responded: "Either give me more artillery and machine guns, or remove me from my post." ”

Eventually, Bamiyan's battle group was reinforced by a mortar platoon (4 82-mm mortars), a small artillery platoon (4 urgently allocated 47-mm naval guns) and a machine-gun platoon (4 machine guns), together with the original 1 field artillery platoon (2 76-point 2-mm field guns) and 2 machine-gun platoons, which were carefully placed in well-protected firing bunkers and camouflaged as much as possible.

Trotting along the crumbling traffic trenches, Bamiyan climbed the hillside to the east of the village, the only vantage point within a radius of several kilometers.

"Anyone? Anyone? Get out of here, the Chinese are coming to kick your ass. ”

Bamiyan shouted all the way, and the soldiers came out of the anti-artillery holes like gophers, staring at the dazed eyes and running to the positions, occasionally sticking an arm or thigh out of the collapsed anti-artillery holes, and Bamiyan only glanced at them.

Finally reached the top of the mountain.

Like a white robe eaten by insects, the open snow with craters suddenly unfolded before his eyes, and less than two kilometers on the front, the sonorous sound of machinery and the rumbling of engines continued, and dozens of gray and white steel beasts of different sizes lined up in a strict formation, leading a small column of infantry, wrapped in snow and mud, spitting iron and fire, suffocating against him......