Irkutsk, the command of the Eastern Siberian Front of the Russian army.

"It's too fast, it's impossible to do it with manpower and horsepower......"

Facing the colorful map painted on the wall, the commander of the Far Eastern Front, Colonel-General Balreev, sighed with a shy belly.

"The enemy relied on tanks and automobiles, which could easily break through our field defenses, and automobiles that could quickly transport infantry and supplies to the front line – tanks and automobiles were not unusual, what mattered was the numbers and the form of organization." Major General Tokarev, the chief of staff, who was slender and contrasted with the commander, replied.

The door opened, and an adjutant came in and reported: "General Nakasidze asks for an audience." ”

Bareyev waved his hand: "Please let him in." ”

In a few moments, a cavalry lieutenant general with a broad face and a sheep's horn beard strode in.

Bareyev greeted him warmly: "Welcome, dear Mikhail Ilyich Nakasidze, how are you doing along the way?" ”

Nakasidze hurriedly took off his Cossack fur hat and reached out to clasp it with Pareev.

"God and your blessing, my armored troops and I have a safe journey, the troops are still in the car, as long as you give an order, I will immediately take them to the front line and crush the yellow monkey's toy to pieces!"

Baleyev stroked his belly and nodded: "Great, with you, the father of the armored forces, the enemy's armored forces can no longer go on a rampage - please come over here and look here." ”

This general Nakasidze, whom Baryev called the "father of armored forces", was a senior staff member of the Siberian Cossack cavalry unit during the Asian-Russian War, and worked with Bareyev for a while. In that protracted and tragic battle, the Cossack cavalry, admired by Napoleon and proud of the Russians, was defeated in the face of the powerful fire of enemy machine guns and rapid-fire guns, and turned into "a pile of completely obsolete waste." The harsh facts have forced people of insight in the Russian army to feel bitterly that "it is necessary to develop an armored car with both mobility and firepower", and it is Nakasidze who advocates it most actively.

In 1905, Nakasidze designed Russia's first armored car, named "Nakasidze" armored car, which was adopted by the Russian Ministry of Defense at that time and prepared for trial production, but there was no automobile industry in Russia at that time, so it had to be commissioned to the French company Gilard Bauer to manufacture, so in the first half of 1906, the first prototype of the "Nakasidze" armored car was born in the French factory. In fact, judging from the appearance alone, this "Nacasidze" is exactly the same as the "Chalon" armored car equipped by the French Army at that time, and it also uses a French automobile chassis.

The car weighs 3 tons, has a crew of 3-4 people, has a small machine gun tower on the top of the hull, is equipped with a Haqikai 8 mm heavy machine gun, the power plant is a gasoline engine with a maximum power of 37 horsepower, the maximum speed on the road is 50 kilometers per hour, the armor plate is 4.5 mm thick, and it can defend against ordinary gun bullets and grenade fragments at a distance of 100-200 meters.

At that time, the Russian government ordered 10 "Nakasidze" armored vehicles from the Gilad Baue company, the company completed the manufacturing task in 1908, and then shipped to Russia, not wanting to be stolen by the German military on the way to two "research and research", and only 8 were shipped to Russia later, plus the previous first prototype, so that the Russian army had the first nine armored vehicles. On this basis, the Russian War Department set up an armored teaching team, with General Nakasidze as the director of the armored forces, and the fashionable new branch of the Russian army, the armored troops, was born, and Nakasidze was also named the "father of the Russian armored forces".

Under the vigorous promotion of Nakasidze, the armored teaching team participated in the summer exercises of the Russian army in 1908, and the response was good, and the upper echelons of the Russian army decided to further expand the strength of the armored forces.

From 1908, the Rousseau Bald Automobile Plant in Riga, Latvia, began to produce and assemble a modified version of the Nacasidze armored car, the "Rousseau Bald", and by the outbreak of the European War, about 250 units were completed.

In addition, several types of armored vehicles were developed, such as "Mgeibulov", "Ptilov-Gaft", "Zhizolsky Piaret", most of which were armed with 1-2 machine guns, two with 40-mm guns.

At the same time, a large number of armored vehicles were ordered from the British, primarily in the "Austin" and "Leicester" models. The former weighs 4 tons, has two machine gun towers, each equipped with a Vickers machine gun, armor thickness of 8 mm, the maximum speed on the road is 50 kilometers per hour, a total of 100 were ordered before the war, and 60 actually arrived, since 1914, the St. Petersburg Ptiplov factory began to copy this type of armored car, called the "Austin Ptiplov" type, a total of more than 20 were completed before the war. The latter, equipped with a Vickers machine gun, was purchased in 20 units, but the wheelbase of the car was too long to suit the terrain of Russia, and it was not further purchased.

Nakashize was not satisfied with the development of wheeled armored vehicles, he turned his attention to half-tracked armored vehicles, which were more suitable for driving in the Russian wilderness. In 1909, the Tsar's personal car driver, A. Keglais, designed a "light rubber track system" for the Baltic Factory, which allowed the vehicle to "drive off-road and on snow". In 1912, under the leadership of Nakasidze, the Putilov plant began to manufacture half-tracked armored vehicles using the design principles of Keglas, and the prototype made by the factory was successfully driven in the summer and winter of 1913. Subsequently, the Russian army ordered 60 of these armored vehicles, called the "Austin-Keglas" half-track armored vehicle, which some also called "automatic sleds", which were all completed before the war.

The car weighs 5.8 tons, has 2 machine gun turrets, each equipped with 1 Vickers machine gun, a 50-horsepower "Austin" 4-cylinder water-cooled gasoline engine, a maximum speed of 25 kilometers per hour on the road, a maximum formation of 80 kilometers, and a thickness of 7-8 mm armor. The biggest feature of the car is that there is a roller that extends out of the front and rear of the body, which can improve the ability to pass through the trench, and the front roller can also be removed in winter and replaced by a sled, which improves the snow traffic capacity, which is very practical.

Around 1911, with the complete bankruptcy of Britain's compromise policy with Germany and the further deepening of the Anglo-French-Russian Entente, Britain and France began to focus on strengthening Russia's military industrial capacity, in order to make more effective use of Russia's most advantageous military resources in future European wars. While helping Russia expand its arsenal, Britain and France also secretly provided Russia with the manufacturing drawings of the all-tracked armored weapon under development - tanks, and before the outbreak of war in 1914, more than 30 tanks of four models were successively transported to Russia, laying the foundation for the establishment of Russian tank forces.

Nakasidze did not blindly believe in foreign tanks, and at his full urging, the Russian government decided to independently develop a tank with "Russian characteristics."

Soon, the "heavy tank" of the "Mendeleev" type, designed by engineer B. Mendeleev (note: not the same Mendeleev who discovered the periodic law), the "Lebezinko" type of the "Trench Tank" designed by engineer H. Lebetinko, and the "off-road vehicle" type of "fast tank" designed by the Rigisky Machine-Building Plant were included in the experimental plan of the armored teaching team.

Before the outbreak of the European war, these three domestic tanks had completed the experiment, decided to trial production in small batches, and combined the trial production of prototypes and imported foreign tanks into four experimental tank companies, each company of 10-14 tanks of various types, which was the earliest tank unit of the Russian army.

At the time of the outbreak of the European War, the Russian armored forces had a total of 450 armored vehicles of various types and about 50 tanks of various types, as well as 12 armored trains.

In September 1914, the Russian army used armored vehicle units for the first time in the operation against Austria-Hungary, and achieved very good results, at this time, the grassroots armored vehicle units were called "armored companies", consisting of 2 armored vehicles equipped with artillery, 7 armored vehicles equipped with machine guns and 21 armored vehicles without turrets carrying 100 infantrymen.

At the end of 1914, China joined the Allied side to fight, with a large and highly organized armored mechanized corps launched a fierce attack on Russia's Siberia and Central Asia, in which the armored assault group advancing along the Selenga River valley in the cold and snow of Siberia in winter unexpectedly fast maneuvered, broke through the two lines of the Russian army, broke through 250-300 kilometers in two weeks, and completed the encirclement of the Russian Far East strategic hub - Ulan-Ude, which made the Russian base camp extremely shocked and panicked.

According to the operational plan for China drawn up by the General Staff of the Russian Army in 1913, six corps will be used to defend the two Siberian Governorates in the east and west, two armies to defend the Turkestan Governorate (roughly west and south of Balkhash), and one army to defend the steppe governorate (roughly west and north of Lake Balkhash). On the Siberian side, the Russian army should take the fortified areas built before the war as the core of resistance, carry forward the tenacious spirit of the last war, and contain and consume the vitality of the Chinese army under the fortified city, but it must also pay attention to avoiding large-scale encirclement of its own troops, and it is also necessary to seize the opportunity with a high degree of initiative and flexibility, and make a rapid attack to strive to annihilate the headquarters of the first brigade and one division of the Chinese army, so as to defeat the morale of the Chinese army and boost the morale of the Russian army.

Paleyev led Nakasidze to the map, raised his whip and pointed left and right: "Look here, here, there are divisions of the 5th Army and the 4th Army in the Ulan-Ude fortress, and there are troops of the 6th Army scattered around Chita, we can abandon Chita, or even give up Ulan-Ude, but we must rescue them, the base camp cannot give us any more reinforcements, we need these troops, they can help us survive on the West Bank of Baikal until next year." ”

Nakasidze thought about it with his chin propped up, rubbed his thumb against his beard and smiled, "I don't think you should just think about rescuing your allies, right?" ”

Bareyev raised his fat chin: "Really? Have you guessed my mind again? Mikhail, it seems that I was right to make up my mind not to play with you anymore, or I would have gone bankrupt and begged for a living on a street corner in St. Petersburg or Novosibirsk. ”

Nakasidze shrugged: "What do you think of me, how can a person like me who believes in God and is willing to give you to put yourself in such a deplorable situation—then again, Your Excellency, what are your plans?" ”