The convoy of the Logistics Section left the town at 9:30 a.m. The combat unit and the main engineer unit of the attached regiment had already set off at dawn. Some children and elderly people stood by the street watching the Chinese army. Their eyes are always on the car, pointing there. The cars were covered in canvas, but half of the cars had light machine guns on the roofs of the driver's buildings.

The regiment's ammunition, food and medicine were loaded into trucks, and the convoy could carry half of the personnel of the Logistics Section, but half of them had to walk. The convoy was escorted by a guard platoon and a temporary supplementary company, which was a large strength of five platoons and numbered more than 200 people. In order to replenish the expeditionary forces in a timely manner, the General Staff allocated a large number of supplementary troops to the expeditionary forces.

Meng Enfan, who sat in the driver's building of the head car, watched the residents, barely seeing a young man, only old people, women and children. He has been reclaimed in Heilongjiang for many years, and he is used to seeing Russians, and he is not surprised by the white-faced and red-faced Russians (actually Ukrainians), but the corporal driver Kobayashi is a little uncontrollable, and always comments on the women standing on the street, when he finds that a girl in a purple pleated skirt has amazing beauty, he can't help but shout, "Lieutenant colonel, look, how beautiful that girl in a skirt is, beautiful...... Look at people's skin, it's like a ...... made of milk."

The car had already turned the corner, and Kobayashi was still looking in the rearview mirror, and it seemed that he could still see the tall Russian girl.

Meng Enfan smiled bitterly. If Xiao Lin was sitting next to their captain, he would never dare to be so presumptuous. The Defence Force is becoming more and more hierarchical. A soldier sees an officer like a mouse sees a cat. In particular, the rules of the 9th Army were particularly large. In addition, the punishment for molesting women in the military discipline of the Wehrmacht was extremely severe, and it was repeatedly emphasized before leaving the country that women should not be harassed, and the army increased the number of gendarmes to strictly supervise the enforcement of military discipline. Xiao Lin was so casual in front of himself, a lieutenant colonel officer, which could only show that he was not taken seriously by the soldiers of the 73rd Regiment at all.

"It's a pity that I don't have time, otherwise I can introduce you, and you will take her back when you return to China in the future." The guide who spoke was assigned to the logistics department, a sloppy Russian sergeant, with a dirty uniform, as if it had not been washed since the outbreak of the war. There is a sour smell from the hair and body.

"Really? Is she willing to be a Chinese daughter-in-law? ”

"Ahh You Chinese are just too honest. Not at all manly. There are too many people who have died in the war, and there will be many beautiful Ukrainian girls who can't marry their husbands. If it was a Cossack, the girl would have been taken away a long time ago. Oh, they look down on the Ukrainians. Always call them Hohor......"

The Russian sergeant was very happy from the moment he sat in the cockpit. I'm interested in those push-button sticks in the cab. That is, until Monn Vance gave him a pack of Great Wall cigarettes that were distributed to officers. The sergeant was born and was replaced by one suck after another. He didn't have matches, and he couldn't put down the matches that Meng Enfan gave him. It simply put it in his pocket.

"Your cigarette rolls are good, very good." The sergeant's Chinese was awkward, but he could understand it. Meng Enfan curiously asked this Russian soldier named Ivanov, where did he learn Chinese? The sergeant replied that he was a native of Chita and had worked as a railroad worker in Harbin. After the outbreak of the war, he was drafted into the army, and last year he was wounded by poisoning, and because he knew Chinese, he was transferred to serve as an interpreter and guide for the expeditionary force.

"Sergeant, are you familiar with Romania?"

"No, not familiar."

"Then you're a fart!" The driver, Kobayashi, scolded.

"Haha, as long as you follow the car in front of you, you can't go wrong." The sergeant was not angry at all.

The topic turned to the Russian army, Meng Enfan was very concerned about the current situation of the Russian army, the expeditionary force would not become a comrade-in-arms with Romania, but would have to cooperate with the Russians for a long time. Before leaving the country, the officers of the political department of the short training class said that the morale of the Russian army was very low, the troops were full of all kinds of chaotic ideas, and there were a large number of social democrats in action.

"Social Democrats? I haven't seen it. Peace is a good thing, isn't it? But that would have to be done if the Germans were willing. If the war is over, I am willing to continue to go to Harbin to make money, Chinese food is really delicious. ”

"Do you think the Germans want peace?"

"Ah, who knows? Germans are devils. ”

"They're amazing?"

"No, no, we can beat them. If we had your cars and machine guns. Seriously, I didn't expect you guys to have so many machine guns. ”

"You can't fight a war with weapons. Got it? Meng Enfan remembered the description of the character of the Russians in the Ministry of Political Affairs, who were born warriors, optimistic, open-minded, and hard-working. For three hundred years, no foreign race has been able to conquer them. Napoleon, who was invincible across Europe, was killed by Russia.

"No, no, you can't fight without weapons."

"Ah, what do you think of us? I'm referring to our expeditionary force to help you in the war. ”

"Of course we welcome you. It's a pity that not many of you came. If only you could come with 1 million, we can fight all the way to Berlin. ”

The 9th Army and the 14th Division, temporarily attached to the 9th Army, entered the Romanian territory. The 25th Division was the avant-garde division, while the 73rd Regiment was the avant-garde regiment. The troops advanced in the direction of Bucharest along the Suceava-Roman-Foksani Road, and their task was to occupy Bucharest before the Germans.

This is the Carpathian Mountains, and the roads are in extremely bad condition, many sections are impassable for vehicles and need to be dealt with by sappers on a temporary basis. Lieutenant General Xiong Xun particularly emphasized the road situation, and in addition to the engineer battalion of the 25th Division, the 73rd Regiment was accompanied by a motorized boat bridge battalion of the engineer regiment directly under the military headquarters. The battalion is equipped to represent the highest level of the Wehrmacht's engineering corps, and in a river channel with a slow flow of less than 300 metres, the battalion can assume in four hours a boat bridge capable of carrying trucks with a total load of less than 5 tons, and a bridge speed of 10 hours within a kilometer wide.

The battalion played an important role in the movement of troops to the front. It can be said that without this technical level, the boat bridge battalion is definitely in the world's first-class. The units of the 9th Army could not be delivered to the battlefield in time.

Without bridges, artillery will be impassable. Without bridges, the logistics of the troops will not be able to follow up. Since the founding of the Mengshan Army, it has attached great importance to the ideology and investment in logistics construction, and has achieved rich returns in the European theater. Captain Lomonov, a Russian captain who followed the headquarters of the 73rd Regiment, never expected that the Chinese troops had such advanced bridge-building equipment and technology, and when he rushed to cross the river near Bakwu that had washed away the bridge due to flooding, Captain Lomonov witnessed a well-made boat bridge being dragged down from the truck and dragged into the river. Plus a close look at the 73 regiment. completely subverted his perception of the Chinese army.

It was indeed surprising that a country with an industrial base far inferior to that of Russia could produce such advanced equipment. But it's not a miracle. When you have the right direction. You can always come up with something that is ahead of the industrialized countries. But it will soon be surpassed by others. Huayuan Group designed a light machine gun, but the Germans improved the performance of the product on its basis to surpass the Shandong product. Meng Enfan had seen the German machine guns, which were more delicate and durable, especially the barrels that were easy to heat up and scrap. The service life is much better than that of the barrel manufactured by the General Administration of Military Industry. This is the difference brought about by the difference in the industrial base. It takes time to shorten this distance. So. For Lomonov's amazement, Colonel Zhao Xin did not have much pride.

But Captain Lomonov admitted that this was a well-equipped and well-trained army. The biggest feature is youthfulness. Both officers and soldiers look energetic and energetic. They have equipment that absolutely surpasses that of the Russian army, and Captain Lomonov carefully counted the machine guns of a company, and it turned out to have nine light machine guns and four air-cooled heavy machine guns! In addition to this, the company has four small-caliber mortars!

After learning about the establishment of the company, three infantry platoons consisted of nine infantry squads, each equipped with one light machine gun, and one machine gun platoon with four heavy machine guns and four mortars. Such firepower is by no means possessed by the Russian army. He had not yet discovered that every battalion of the 73rd Regiment was equipped with a radio station, and he would be even more surprised to learn that the Chinese army had equipped the Russian army's rare radio station to the battalion level. There will be more surprises waiting for Lomonov to discover.

The Russian captain was excited, and said to his companion in Russian, "Thank God, they are on our side." ”

Captain Lomonov, of course, did not know that such equipment was guaranteed only a few troops, and only three fully trained corps had it. In order to ensure that the expeditionary force has stronger firepower, after the formation of the expeditionary force, the General Staff specially transferred a large number of equipment from the 1st and 6th armies to other armies except the 9th Army, and the two ace troops who stayed in the country could only wait for the follow-up equipment of the Ordnance Industry Administration to arrive.

The first battle came on the third day of the entry of the 73 regiment into Romanian territory. At noon, the convoy of the logistics section stopped on the road to have a meal, and the officers and men received a field ration in a special cooking car and squatted on the side of the road to eat. A German plane with a large black cross painted on its wings suddenly burst out of the clouds and swooped down on the convoy, and the machine guns mounted on the nose of the aircraft fiercely strafed the convoy; the officers and men of the logistics section, who lacked combat experience, took refuge on the spot in a panic; section chief Shen Jiangdong stood on the highway brandishing a pistol and shouting to organize machine-gun fire to return fire. By the time a dozen machine guns poured tongues of fire into the sky, the plane had disappeared without a trace.

One dead and two wounded as a result of the airstrikes. To Captain Shen's chagrin, the troops must have been exposed.

"Perhaps the main force has already been attacked," Meng Enfan comforted Captain Shen. According to Zhao Xin's arrangement, Meng Enfan is Shen Jiangdong's boss, "Don't be annoyed, let's go quickly." We're going to have to do some camouflage tonight. ”

"Didn't our Air Force come? Where is it? ”

"Don't count on them. I heard that Romania does not even have a single plane, and there is certainly no airport. Meng Enfan squinted at the gray sky.

Soon it started raining. It's good, at least the planes of the Germans will not appear. The rain that has been cursed is also beneficial. During the afternoon march, Corporal Kobayashi stopped whining.

But the growing number of refugees on the road added to the difficulty of the march. Sergeant Ivan, after questioning the refugees, reported to Mon Enfan that it was possible that Bucharest had fallen.

"How so?" Meng Enfan was surprised, "Isn't there your entire group army there?" "According to the information transmitted by the division headquarters, the 9th Army of the Russian Army cooperated with the Romanian army to cover the Danube defense line.

"How do I know?" Ivan shook his head, "These refugees are coming from Bucharest. ”

At dusk, the Logistics Section arrived at a town northeast of Ploiesti, where the headquarters of the 73rd Regiment was located, less than 20 kilometers from Ploiesti and close to Bucharest. The sound of gunfire from the south indicated that the troops had engaged the enemy.

Meng Enfan hurriedly found the regiment headquarters. The sound of the radio ticking and the hurried staff officers explained the tension of the situation, and through the door, Meng Enfan heard Zhao Xin's shout in a Hunan accent.

Chang Fumin just came out.

"Caught fire?"

"It's fired. It was the Austrian cavalry. Chang Fumin shook Meng Enfan's outstretched hand, "You don't have anything to lose, right?" ”

"There was an air strike. Sacrifice one. ”

"The enemy is not the 9th Army we are looking for, but the Austrian 1st Army. The above wants us to seize Bucharest before the enemy, Ploiesti is the way to go, or an oil city, this is good, the enemy has appeared, I have to take a look at the front. As he spoke, he took the war horse brought by the guards, jumped on the war horse neatly, and rushed out of the regimental headquarters compound with two guards.

The battle began around 5 p.m. By noon, the avant-garde battalion of the 73rd Regiment, which had crossed the town and was advancing southwest on foot, had already heard the dull sound of artillery drifting from ahead. Colonel Zhao Xin urgently ordered the avant-garde battalion to find out the situation and find out whether Bucharest had fallen. But there were big problems with the traffic, the road to Bupleojesti was so congested that cars could no longer drive in, refugees crowded the roads, and then there was a rout of the Romanian army, who had discarded their weapons and even took off their uniforms. The avant-garde battalion immediately got out of the car and drove in on foot, and the dozens of Luo troops who appeared at the beginning were intercepted, and the dozen or so rifles they brought were also disarmed by the avant-garde battalion. The avant-garde battalion, desperate for information, was unable to communicate due to language barriers. Hearing the sound of gunfire and explosions approaching, the avant-garde battalion immediately abandoned the road, seized the hill to the west and began to build fortifications. Open a radio station to report to the regiment headquarters: Because the enemy may be encountered at any time, in order to ensure safety, our battalion has occupied the high ground on the west side of the road, and will report after ascertaining the situation.

At 4:50 p.m., a force of Austrian cavalry came into view. In the telescope, it is easy to tell that this cavalry is by no means the Russian army or the Luo army. When the cavalry came into range, the battalion commander, Major Dong Xiaomao, categorically ordered to open fire. More than a dozen light and heavy machine guns spewed out tongues of fire at the Austrian cavalry, and mortar shells also landed accurately in the enemy group. Obviously, the Austrian knights did not expect the appearance of hostility here, let alone the opponent was a Chinese from the East. The cavalry squad retreated after dropping several corpses. The 1st Battalion captured four horses and captured an enemy soldier who had been shot in the abdomen, and before the interpreter could arrive, the wounded soldier was dying.

This was the first battle in which the Chinese expeditionary force arrived in Europe, and the Chinese army suffered no casualties. However, it has been recorded in military history because of its heavy meaning. (To be continued......)

PS: Aaron wishes book friends a happy new year! I wish the book lovers who like this book good health and happiness in 2015!