The limits of destruction lie in the balance of ignorance......

Nearly 300 heavy artillery pieces and more than 1,000 divisional and brigade guns (75-mm mountain guns and 90-mm howitzers) fired hail of steel from opposite directions frantically washed everything in the Chita Fortress, from fortresses to batteries, from semi-permanent fortifications to bunkers, from trenches to barbed wire, from roads to rooftops, from military hats to red wine, from brains to toilets......

Within four hours, more than 200,000 fresh craters were added to an area of 40 square kilometers, large areas of barbed wire, deer barricades and large sections of trench bunkers were completely leveled, and sections of reinforced concrete fortress breastworks and fort walls were torn apart by 350 kg of 305-mm siege guns,...... The south wind blew away the thick smoke and dust over the battlefield, so that the allied army's calibration airships could clearly observe the impact point to provide calibration services for the artillery units, although the Chita Raiders were only equipped with a total of 20 aircraft and 6 airships, but they were assigned the best pilots and schoolmasters in the whole army, and they made up for the lack of aircraft with incredible efficiency.

At 11 o'clock, under the cover of the Xu Jin barrage, the Eastern Attack Group under the command of Senior General Kim Yong-nyong Nyong simultaneously deployed five brigades (the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the Korean Janissaries, the 1st and 2nd Infantry Brigades, and the 79th Reserve Infantry Brigade of the Chinese Army) on the 5-kilometer offensive front, divided into three echelons and began to break through, each brigade was closely supported by two or three designated field artillery battalions, reinforced with two professional engineering companies, and heavy artillery carried out accurate destruction fire at enemy targets in depth under air guidance. The Eastern Raiders Cluster retains 4 brigades as reserves.

About a quarter of an hour later, the Western Assault Cluster under the command of Lieutenant General Bai Yu deployed six brigades (the 1st, 2nd, 8th, and 9th Infantry Brigades, and the 73rd and 74th Reserve Infantry Brigades) on an offensive front of less than 5 kilometers, and began to advance in three echelons in turn, each brigade was reinforced with more than 40% more machine guns and mortars than the original strength and 1 specialized engineer battalion, and was closely supported by the designated 3 to 4 artillery battalions. The Western Raiders Cluster retains 3 brigades as reserves.

The two clusters were moving in opposite directions, less than 7 kilometers from each other's fronts, and the Russians were forced to deal with a delicate and ferocious attack on two opposite directions at the same time.

In fact, in the week before the launch of the general attack, the coalition forces concentrated 33 305 mm siege guns and no less than 100 150 mm heavy howitzers to carry out destructive fire on the main fortifications of the fortress, firing an average of 1,000 rounds of 305 mm shells and 10,000 rounds of 150 mm shells per day, of which at least 6 305 mm guns and 50 150 mm guns were forced to be sent to the rear ordnance station to replace their barrels due to excessive wear and tear. The shelling was mainly concentrated in the B Fortress and No. 2 Forts in the west of the fortress and the D Fortress and No. 4 Batteries in the east, and in the continuous bombardment, the main body of these permanent fortifications was seriously damaged, and the defenders suffered heavy casualties, but the Russians still filled the gaps in the breastwork and fort wall of the fortress with tenacious determination through the night, and of course, the commander-in-chief of the raiding force, Lieutenant General Zhao Feixue, did not expect to solve the problem by artillery alone.

After receiving the task of attacking Chita, Zhao Feixue, together with Qin Feiye, chief of staff, carefully studied the precedents of the previous offensive and defensive operations of the fortresses of Hailanpao, Boli, and Shuangchengzi, and referred to the ongoing offensive and defensive battle of the fortress of Vladivostok, and came to the conclusion that the fortress attack operation should be supported by strong heavy artillery firepower, with the reinforcement of the strong attack detachment of machine guns, mortars, and sapper sabotage teams as the backbone of the breakthrough, and the backbone column equipped with heavy firepower to consolidate the occupied positions as the follow-up attack base. Counterattack with strong reserves against possible enemy counterattacks or directly switch to assaults in the depth of enemy forces. In this attack, this conclusion was thoroughly practiced by the Western Raiders Group, which was the main force of the attack, and each brigade deployed all three regiments in the front, each regiment was divided into three echelons: the first echelon, that is, the assault team, with 1 or 2 infantry companies as the backbone, reinforced with 1 or 2 combat engineer platoons, 1 machine gun platoon and 1 60 mm mortar platoon, as the lead of the attack, the task of the assault team was to remove obstacles in front of the enemy's fortifications, including opening a passage from a mixed barrier group consisting of barbed wire, deer barricades, mines and traps, In addition to erecting an assault bridge over the trench or simply descending to the bottom of the trench and erecting two ladders on the wall of the trench, the assault team was also tasked with directing the regimental and brigade artillery to fire at the newly discovered enemy fire points in battle.

The second echelon, that is, the main column, is usually one and a half infantry battalions, that is, 6 to 7 infantry companies, carrying regimental 57 mm mountain guns and 80 mm mortars, and the second echelon can replenish the losses of the first echelon with sufficient strength at any time.

The third echelon, the reserve, is usually 1 infantry battalion, i.e. 4 to 5 infantry companies, which will advance deep into the enemy's depth with the fire support of the main column.

The essence of the breakthrough is to concentrate the strongest firepower on the shortest possible front to sweep and attack with the strongest forces, but for the enemy's strongly-fortified fortified defenses, the cold theory must be concretized with warm and dripping blood.

The huge "Western Division Zhizhi No. 1" airship circled one after another over the battlefield, from the bright sun to the setting sun, Commander Zhao in the airship naturally could not see the specific and subtle deaths, but the soldiers walking through the barbed wire with blasters and zha medicine bags were still stubborn and real into bloody corpses.

The fierce battle continued until midnight, and the main force of the 2nd Infantry Brigade of the Chinese Army, under the guidance of the strong attack teams of the brigade, entered the B fortress in the west of the fortress, and was met with a frantic counterattack by the Russian army.

The report submitted to Zhao Feixue by the commander of the 2nd Brigade that night reads: "...... With one burst of extremely accurate artillery fire, the enemy troops took turns to charge from three directions, they shouted "Ula", and broke into the defense areas of each company in a dense formation, and our machine gunners were often killed by the Russians who rushed in front of them before they had time to change their bullets...... From 17 o'clock to 22 o'clock, a similar massive charge was carried out 15 times, and the 4th Regiment almost collapsed, but fortunately the 9th Regiment (of the 3rd Brigade) arrived in time, and we finally managed to firmly control the western half of the ruins of the fortress......"

The experience of other brigades was similar to that, but Zhao Feixue didn't care.

Early the next morning, Zhao Feixue found Qin Feiye and asked him to read the telegram he had prepared: "Since the launch of the general offensive yesterday, our army has made smooth progress, although the enemy of Chita is trying his best to counterattack, it is really impossible to shake our two attack clusters slightly, the Korean army has become depressed due to the unfavorable combat in the early stage, the casualties are also heavy, and the progress of its various units participating in the war is the most unfavorable.......

"This is for the base camp, now that the war is still in a stalemate, how can you say that our army is progressing well?"

Qin Feiye said with a cold face, he had despised Zhao Feixue from the soul level for a long time, but so far, he had never had an irreconcilable conflict with Zhao Feixue, on the one hand, it should be out of a sense of responsibility, and on the other hand, it was probably because of Zhao Feixue's beautiful and playful smiling face that seemed to melt all the needles - or rather, it was a stinky face that was underbeaten at first glance and couldn't find a good reason to do it after thinking about it.

"I only lost 5,600 men on the first day, which is far below my estimate, and the enemy's losses should be far above our army, and I am more confident in this strategic operation, so it is time for the base camp to rest assured that other aspects of the war." Zhao Feixue sipped tea and swallowed a snack and said, according to Qin Feiye's account after the war, the biggest characteristic of this Commander Zhao is that he can eat, drink and Lazar under any circumstances.

"How? Don't you want to co-power with me? It's okay for me to send it myself......" Zhao Feixue deliberately drew the message and was about to go to the telegraph room.

Qin Feiye took out his pen: "Take it, fate is a match, even if it starts and ends well, I think this war is almost over, maybe I won't have a chance to partner with you in the future......"

Zhao Feixue smiled and swallowed another piece of puff pastry.

Neither of them knew what to do, and from the base camp's point of view, the dozens of "damned troublemakers" in the mountains and forests of the northwestern suburbs of Beijing were more nervous and worrisome than the war that the uninformed were concerned about.

The calendar has been torn to May 20 of the ninth year of Guangxing.

Yang Zhengjin, chief of the General Staff, who had gone to the Tianjin base camp to be "consulted" by Liu Yun, rushed back to Beijing a day ahead of schedule, on the one hand, to continue to perform his duties as the commander of the garrison of the temporary imperial capital and the commander of the Beizhili Military District, and on the other hand, he was also tasked with monitoring the departure of the task force and cleaning up the scene.

As the minutes ticked by, according to the statements of Fang Tianhua, Mei Wenhua, and Liu Qianhua, the scheduled recovery time area for the task force was from 22:00 to 22:45 Beijing time on May 20, and before that, Yang Zhengjin was firmly in front of the screen of the A2 communication terminal, contacting the task force commander Mei Wenhua every half hour.

At 21:30, Mei Wenhua appeared in the window of the video phone for the last time.

"Is your liaison over there?" Mei Wenhua asked. Half an hour earlier, two liaison officers from the Haw Par Battalion stationed in the task force had boarded the Zhijiu helicopter bound for Beijing—a seemingly lightweight helicopter that frequently traveled between the task force base and the Ministry of Finance compound, transporting gold and jewelry worth 11 million Chinese dollars in 20 days.

"It's here, thank you for your concern. How's it going, are you all ready? How can we help? Yang Zhengjin felt that for the person who was about to die, no matter whether he was a friend or foe, how disgusting his concern was, not to mention that his concern was still 108,000 miles away from disgusting.