Artyom Hill, the front of the Eastern Front.

Liu Bailiang's face was gloomy, and his expression did not compromise with the bright sunshine outside.

Five days ago, the 33rd Brigade stormed Fort D near the main peak of Mount Kimir, and the brigade commander, Brigadier General Fang Shensi, lived up to his oath before the battle and was killed on the spot, and nearly two-thirds of the more than 9,000 officers and men under it were killed or wounded, completely losing their attack power.

After evacuating the wounded left on the positions at night, starting from the early morning of 8 April, the heavy artillery of the Chinese army began to bombard the area around Fort D and No. 4 battery day and night, mainly firing armor-piercing shells and high-explosive shells to destroy the fortifications during the day, and mainly firing grenade shotguns at night to kill and injure the Russian soldiers who rushed to repair the fortifications.

On 11 April, when the weather cleared and the floating troops poured out, the medium-sized airships of the cluster directly under the base camp were loaded with 500 kilograms of bombs and bombed Fort D and Fort 4 in a concentrated manner, dropping 451 tons of bombs in one day, and on the same day, 18 305-mm siege guns and six 380-mm giant mortars violently bombarded Fort D, and from 5 a.m. on 11 a.m. to 7 a.m. on 12 July, the total weight of shells dropped by these huge guns in 26 hours exceeded 1,000 tons.

It was now 9 a.m. on 12 April, and the 37th Brigade of the 13th Infantry Division would launch a new round of general assault on Fort D in four hours, and the 100th Brigade, as a reserve for the campaign, would assemble behind Artem Hill and be ready to take over the 37th Brigade to continue the attack on Fort D.

It's not that Liu Bailiang doesn't believe in the power of giant cannons and heavy airships, he just doesn't believe in his troops at first.

After many fierce battles, the Third Field Army suffered a great deal of consumption, the front-line units were full of new recruits, and the replenishment of officers and noncommissioned officers was also a big problem, so it had to be filled with a large number of military academy students to the grass-roots units, and "rookie teams" and "rookie companies" abounded. The fighting quality of the grass-roots units is unbearable, making it more and more difficult to realize the more complicated tactical deployments, and the commanders are often forced to adopt a simple tactic similar to the "long live charge" -- this in turn has intensified attrition and further deteriorated the fighting quality of the troops, forming a vicious circle.

The troops' will to fight was also greatly questioned, heavy losses seriously affected morale, hysterical fear spread like ink dripping into water, violations of military laws such as retreats and disobedience were endless, and there were even incidents of soldiers killing their commanders in order to escape the attack.

At present, the most powerful means of maintaining the morale of the troops are their own powerful heavy artillery firepower and air weapons that the enemy does not have.

The heavy artillery behind the mountain began to roar again, and the huge bodies of the "Qiangyun" heavy airship and the "Ziyun" medium-sized airship covered the sky gorgeously, and in the blink of an eye, the entire Kimir Mountain was plunged into a thick and crazy smoke cloud, but Liu Bailiang's expression of resisting the weather did not loosen in the slightest.

Chief of Staff Wang Zhi handed him a piece of paper from behind him: "Colonel Ma Hengming, the chief of staff of the Hangfu Cluster just now, personally went up to the sky and sent this report, saying that the main body of Fort D near the main peak has been razed, the heavy artillery bunker on the No. 4 battery has also been basically destroyed, and the entire vicinity of the main peak is covered with huge craters......"

"How many heavy artillery shells do we have in stock?"

Liu Bailiang was very realistic, he had to be realistic, the current situation was different from the battle of Sekigahara on the island of Honshu eight years ago, when the elite Praetorian Guard under the command of Liu Bailiang was facing a garbage Japanese army composed of reservists and militiamen, and the so-called bunker line of the other side was only composed of a few half-human deep single earth pits and a few rows of sandbags, and some ragged peasants actually had bamboo guns in their hands!

The Russians in front of them, armed with Maxim machine guns, rapid-fire guns, heavy cannons, electrified barbed wire, searchlights, wireless and wired electricity, condescendingly hid in the criss-crossed concrete fortifications, and had completely destroyed countless coalition companies.

With the delay in the blasting of the tunnels, the only way to destroy the enemy's fortifications was to carry out devastating damage with continuous heavy artillery strikes and airship bombardment.

However, the large-caliber artillery shells and heavy bombs reserved for the entire campaign were limited after all, and although the supply pressure of the Eastern Front was not as serious as that of the Western Front, it was impossible to immediately concentrate a large number of heavy ammunition on the front line, and too frequent firing of heavy artillery would cause the wear and tear of the barrel to intensify, resulting in a shortening of the service life of the barrel and a decrease in the accuracy of shooting, and it would be a troublesome matter to replace the barrel at that time......

"All the reserves are on the positions, and all 27 305 and 9 380-mm siege guns of the front army have a reserve of 3,800 rounds of 305-mm ammunition and 900 rounds of 380-mm ammunition before 8 o'clock this morning."

"Order the artillery commander, leave half of the shells behind, I'm not sure that the battle will end today."

"I feel like I should be able to solve the battle ...... today"

"I just want to see the facts and throw all our feelings into the."

Liu Bailiang said indignantly, and unconsciously touched the revolver on his waist.

The adjutant at the back reported: "Air Force No. 3 Floating Sentry reported that 4 enemy ships had left the port and sailed to the East Bay. ”

"Has the commander of the combined fleet and the artillery of the eastern coast been notified?"

"Yes!"

"Damn, I still want to touch the fish, no way, now it's a blue sky and a blue sea!"

Liu Bailiang scolded quite interestingly.

At dusk four days ago, taking advantage of the bad weather and the inability of the Chinese army's floating troops to dispatch, the Russian naval detachment composed of two gunboats and five destroyers sailed out of Vladivostok Harbor, sailed along the inner side of its own mine array to the East Bay, and under the guidance of land observers, fiercely bombarded the infantry column of the Japanese Guards Division that was attacking towards the 201 Heights (known as St. John's Heights in Russia). Suddenly, the fierce vertical fire of the Russian naval guns almost wiped out the wing commander and below, and then the field artillery positions of the Guards Division were also suppressed by the Russian sea and land fire, and the Guards Division was forced to abandon the attack on the day. Under the guidance of their own land observers, the cruisers and destroyer units of the Combined Fleet, which arrived in quick succession, braved the enemy's coastal artillery fire to bombard the Russian ships at a long distance outside the minefield, destroying one enemy destroyer and driving the rest of the Russian ships back to the harbor.

As soon as the weather improved yesterday, Liu Bailiang ordered the Eastern Floating Group to dispatch light reconnaissance airships to patrol the important strongholds, barracks, road hubs, and the harbor of Vladivostok in Vladivostok Fortress; if the enemy army reserve was found to be reinforcing the front line, bombers and attack airships could be summoned to strike, and if enemy warships were found to be leaving the port, they would notify the Combined Fleet and the coastal artillery unit specially formed by the Front Army.

Clear skies, gentle warm winds, catastrophe for the Russian army - now this phrase is no longer absolute.

In the eighth month of the war, the Russian army in the Vladivostok fortress also figured out some ways to deal with the Chinese army's air weapons, and the machine guns and rapid-fire guns for anti-aircraft shooting were made out by the officers and soldiers of the ordnance factory with nimble minds, and these seemingly rudimentary anti-aircraft weapons were equipped with special sights, and airburst shells with adjustable time fuses were manufactured for rapid-fire guns, but because they could not be replenished from the outside world, these anti-aircraft weapons were all modified from machine guns and rapid-fire guns of the army and navy. If it is manufactured in large quantities, it will inevitably weaken the combat effectiveness of the land defense line and the naval fleet, so until mid-April, the Russian army only deployed a small number of anti-aircraft weapons near the military port, the fortress headquarters and some warehouses and barracks, and most of the frontline areas still had to be ravaged by the monsters of the Chinese army's aviation floating troops.

Within four hours, 100,000 shells and 176 tons of bombs were rained on Fort D near the main peak of Mount Kimir, Fort No. 4 and Fort E under the ridge on the east side of the main peak.

At 13 o'clock, Brigadier General He Chunning's 37th Brigade jumped out of the forward position, which was only 300 to 800 meters from the chest wall of the fortress, and launched an assault on Fort D.

At the same time, the 38th Brigade of the Chinese Army began to steadily attack Fort E, the 39th Brigade attacked Fort C west of the main peak, and the 31st Brigade of the 11th Division of the Japanese Army attacked Fort F on the mountainside east of Fort E.

The 100th Brigade of the 34th Division, which was the reserve of the 37th Brigade, had already begun to move to the first forward position behind the forward position, ready to meet the 37th Brigade at any time.

Before the offensive was launched, Liu Bailiang ordered that each company of the 37 th Brigade be assigned an engineer squad, each battalion should be equipped with a light machine gun squad (two machine guns) and a light mortar squad (two 60 mm mortars), each regiment would be reinforced with a 100 mm heavy mortar company and a 57 mm mountain artillery company (six guns each), radio stations should be equipped with the regiment, and each battalion should be equipped with a communications squad to lay field telephone lines.

In short, "if you can be armed to the teeth, you will be armed to the teeth".

The battle went so smoothly that it was softening.

“…… The battle unfolded on the ruins of the fortress, which had been almost completely destroyed, and we used grenades, blasting canisters, zha kits and mortars to eliminate or drive out the enemy, who was huddled in large and small concrete blocks and rubble, and the enemy destroyed us with a device capable of firing huge mines or mines...... We stepped up the pace of the offensive and there were fierce hand-to-hand battles in some places...... The Russian reserves, hidden in the anti-slope bunkers behind the hill, shouted slogans and rushed down the hill, and we swept them down like wheat with dense machine-gun and artillery fire, at which point several planes swooped down and dropped bombs on the enemy on the top of the hill......"

Before nightfall, Liu Bailiang received a report from Brigade Commander He Chunning: "This brigade has taken control of the main peak, occupied the main body of Fort D and part of the bunker of Fort 4, please send reserves for reinforcements as soon as possible." ”

Without hesitation, Liu Bailiang ordered the 100th Brigade to move closer to the 37th Brigade, carrying a number of small searchlights and ancillary equipment.

From the night of the same day to the early morning of the 13th, the Russian army repeatedly counterattacked the main peak of Mount Kimir, and under the illumination of the bright searchlight column, stormy bullets and hail-like shells swallowed dozens of Russian companies one after another.

In the early morning of the 13th, the 298th Regiment of the 100th Brigade moved eastward along the vicinity of the mountain beam, echoing the front and rear of the 38th Brigade and capturing Fortress E.

According to the post-war report, the 37th Brigade suffered 2,789 casualties from 13 o'clock on the 12th to noon on the 13th.

In any case, the situation opened up.

"I've got to get some sleep, humans need to sleep at least once a week."

At 12 p.m. on 13 April, General Liu Bailiang, commander of the Eastern Front Army and commander of the Third Field Army, said this.