On May 27, 1904, on the Western Front, above the defense line of the 20th Infantry Division of the Fifth Army, in the huge "Western Division Zhizhi No. 1" command airship, Zhong Xiahuo, the commander of the Front Army, who had just been promoted to general a week earlier, faced a staff officer with great ambition, his knuckles clicking.

"This is it, the key is here, here is the main direction of attack of the enemy, you see, the Russians who are as dense as ants...... The left and right detachments of the Praetorian Guard were outflanked from both sides, and the Fifth Army was further forward, and they would be able to wrap a big dumpling for them! Is there any news of Xu Soul's Left Route Army? Not yet? It's too slow! Rush! What about Qian Zichen's right army? No, no, slow as a pig, tell them to act ruthlessly, quickly, and accurately, like a hot knife cutting through frozen lard, cut the enemy in one breath, and advance to the flank and rear of the enemy in front of the Fifth Army, we must fight a big war of annihilation, we must not be merciful, and we must not be merciful, and even more so afraid of losses, what is the purpose of raising the Praetorian Guard? It's used to fight big battles, tough battles, and evil battles! Chief of Staff Deng, come on......"

The generals who command the battle in the sky are inevitably a little fluttering, after all, this is two thousand meters in the air, and as soon as the clouds and fog are soaring, Sun Monkey, the Jade Emperor or something will come.

The battlefield is one-way transparent, and the enemy has no air supremacy, and on the premise of this understanding, there is nothing wrong with moving the headquarters of the front army to the enemy's airspace.

"Report sir, an airship below the port side is approaching at low speed."

When the captain reported to Zhong Xiahuo, His Excellency the Admiral didn't take it seriously at all, and instructed nonchalantly: "You can do it." ”

"Yes, signalman, send a signal to the incoming boat and ask for the number of the troops."

On the instructions of the captain, a flight sergeant operated the port side signal light and sent an inquiry to the incoming boat in Morse yards.

Three minutes passed, and there was no response.

The puzzled captain raised his binoculars to carefully observe the incoming boat, and found that the shape of the boat did not match several combat airships in service in the army, and there was no huge golden dragon cloud symbol commonly used by the floating troops of the Chinese army on the boat, and more importantly, a triangular St. Andrew's flag was actually hung on the stern of the other party's boat!

"It's an enemy airship! The whole boat is on alert! ”

Everyone looked at each other, at a loss for a moment, no one expected that the first encounter with the Russian airship since the beginning of the war would take place on this special command airship carrying the commander of the front army, in order to carry high-power radio and other command equipment, the "Western Division Jiji No. 1", which was modified from the "Qiangyun" heavy attack airship, had already dismantled all weapons and equipment, including the boat's heavy machine gun.

"Drop all the ballast, the engine is at maximum power, turn to the southeast, and sail downwind!"

The captain was quite sober and gave the order to evade in time, he did not dare to risk the life of the commander of the front.

Zhong Xiahuo, who came back to his senses, immediately ordered: "Take out all the life-saving weapons!" All armed! Prepare for battle! ”

The so-called life-saving weapons were mainly for the purpose of providing self-defense capabilities for the crew when the airship fell into enemy-occupied territory, and a light machine gun with five drums, six rifles with 50 rounds each, and 12 wooden-handled grenades were placed in the life-saving weapon cabinet on the side of the command module.

Zhong Xiahuo personally took out the machine gun, loaded the drum, and ordered the chief of staff, General Deng Jian, to open the hatch in front of the port side of the airship pod, press the door with both knees, hold the gun with both hands, and rush at the Russian airship less than 500 meters away.

Fifty bullets disappeared in the air without mentioning anything, Zhong Xiahuo was about to turn around to change the drum, a heavy machine gun on the starboard side of the opponent's pod spewed out tongues of fire, the bullets fluttered through the wooden pod of the "strong cloud", large and small sawdust flew in the cabin like an avalanche, one of the sharp wooden thorns pierced into the right eye of Zhong Xiahuo's personal adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Jiang Zichang, causing the only loss of personnel in the first air battle between humans in history.

"Ballast - Drop off the job and you're done!"

With the 50 ballast water bags with a total weight of two and a half tons thrown out at one time, the "Qiangyun" airship quickly climbed to 3,500 meters, and the powerful power emitted by the 180-horsepower aero engine of the six Taipei Ocean Heavy Industries HK-9C type coupled with the airship turned into a tailwind voyage, the "Qiangyun" slackened away at a speed of 110 kilometers per hour, and the Russian airship was left far behind.

An hour later, the "Western Division Zhizhi No. 1" landed in Petrovsk, and the first thing Zhong Xiahuo said when he got off the airship was: "Damn, the only thing to bully us is light machine guns, come on, get me ten heavy machine guns and ten Wuqi mountain guns, I want to transform this airship into an air battleship!" ”

Two months later, the airship was renamed "Floating Battleship No. 5", equipped with 4 heavy machine guns and 2 30x diameter 37 mm naval guns on each side, the guns were equipped with armor shields, and light armor was also installed in the engine room and cockpit, becoming the first floating armored gunboat in the world! This is not to be said later.

After lunch, he first went to the General Hospital of the Front Army to visit the wounded adjutant Jiang Zichang, and then went to the Petrovsk airport, where he took an FJZL-5 "Gale" liaison plane alone to the headquarters of the 5th Army in Novoiliinsk, where he did not meet the commander of the 5th Army, Lieutenant General Zhao Minhe.

"What about Commander Zhao?"

"He's gone to the Twentieth Division, and he's been there since last night."

After some tossing and turning, Zhong Xiahuo found Zhao Minhe.

"What are you doing here?" His Excellency the General asked quietly.

"I want to see if there's any way to drive the enemy back." Zhao Minhe replied calmly.

"You command an army, not just the Twentieth Division."

"This division is under the greatest pressure, in three days, the twentieth division has been repulsed three times, it is already on the verge of collapse, last night I personally brought a brigade to support, but today we have been attacked by the enemy more ferociously, please come and see for yourself." Zhao Minhe presented the telescope.

Although he had already seen the situation here from the air, it was another thing to face the enemy head-on on the ground, and Zhong Xiahuo took the telescope without hesitation.

The two generals were located on a tall earthen ridge, and through the telescopes they could clearly observe the battlefield more than ten kilometers wide, and beside them, the infantry and cavalry drove from the rear to reinforce the line of fire, and the front continuously evacuated the wounded. On the line of fire, the dust and smoke from the shells continued to swallow up as much space as possible, and the dense Russian infantry cavalry under the support of artillery fire launched a huge impact again and again, each time almost rushing through a small stream marking the defensive line of the Chinese army, but finally they were all broken back under the counterattack of the Chinese reserves, and between the streams and grass, there were corpses of men and horses.

"Who is the division commander here?" Zhong Xiahuo asked.

"Major General Xue Fugui, he went to the 60th Brigade to supervise the battle, which is the most dangerous place in the battle."

"Recall him back to the division headquarters, you and I go back to the army headquarters, his task is to hold this line of defense, and your task is to command the Fifth Army to counterattack."

"Counterattack? Is it really possible to start a counteroffensive? Zhao Minhe became excited.

"The best defense is to attack, I want you to use the 20th Division to contain as many enemies as possible, and save the main forces of the other two divisions, as soon as the Praetorian Guard detours back to the flank of the enemy's 6th Army, your 5th Army will immediately launch a powerful counterattack from the front, striving to encircle the main force of the enemy's 6th Army, and then directly threaten Ulan-Ude."

"You mean to throw the main forces of the Praetorian Guard into the attack on the enemy 4th Army? The other armies are under pressure as well, should they abandon them? ”

"No matter how many ways he comes, I will only go all the way, after destroying the 6th Army with all my might, the door of Ulan-Ude will inevitably be wide open, and the enemy will have to give up the attack of other roads and return to the middle road, we can buy time for the strategy of Chita Fortress, and after Chita is conquered, as soon as the 1st Army and the Korean Army return to the front, the Russian army will have no possibility of victory."

"Understand, your subordinates will do everything they can to realize the commander's strategy!" Zhao Minhe, who climbed to this position from the grassroots level after a hundred battles, knew very well what he should do at this time, and this was the reason why Liu Yun promoted him.

Before the words fell, a dense artillery boom rolled in, and a new round of the Russian offensive began.

The Grim Reaper still has a lot of time to harvest many cheap lives that are unaware and unconscious.

The Reserve 20th Infantry Division would also be soaked in a pool of blood for three days, even though they had lost a third of their men in the previous three days.

Three hundred and sixty kilometers away, Chita, the First Field Army of the Chinese Army and the Korean Army Group Army have been soaked in a pool of blood for more than a week.

Since the launch of the general offensive on 19 May, the number of casualties among the Chita raiders under the command of Lieutenant General Zhao Feixue has remained high, and within a week, the First Army of the Chinese Army and the Korean Group Army have suffered nearly 8,000 casualties and 23,000 wounded, but the fortress has remained immovable.

The new three-wave offensive method was effective only when capturing the forward positions of the enemy fortress, and as the offensive progressed, in the face of almost impassable deep ditches and high fortifications and dense complex obstacles, "Asian limbs and clothing fragments were vividly hung with barbed wire in front of the reinforced concrete forts".

There are only three days left before the time limit set by the base camp.

Qin Feiye, the chief of staff of the Raiders Force, had already become an ant on a hot pot, but Zhao Feixue was still leisurely sipping tea in the lobby of the headquarters.

"How do you still have time to drink tea! If we haven't taken the fortress by the time limit, Wu Wei Gong will launch a threat, and our heads will be in danger! ”

"We still have a fresh army, but the enemy has reached the limit."

Facing Qin Feiye, who shouted at life and death at will, Zhao Feixue still looked lazy and unbeaten.