At 5:30 a.m. on October 4, 1903, the garrison headquarters of the fortress of Ussuriyysk (Twin Cities).

Lieutenant General Stessel, commander of the 1st Army in the Far East and commander of the garrison of the fortress, woke up from the violent explosion of artillery shells, and hurriedly called for the orderlies to serve him to get dressed. ”

"I know it."

Instead of waiting for the buckle to be buttoned, Stessel stood up and ran with Kontrachenko to the command post about ten meters underground from the headquarters.

When Stessel came to the command post, there were already many staff officers and adjutants inside, some were buttoning their belts, some were wearing boots, and some were not even wearing their shirts, so they saluted the general shirtless.

Stessel hurried to his seat and sat down, his orderlies following him, and now began to buckle the few remaining buttons for him.

"How's it going? What's in the report? ”

Scratching his nose and asking, Kontrachenko shook his head: "No news yet." ”

The orderly finished buttoning and picked up the basin to fetch water.

Stessel patted the table in front of him—a map of the situation in the war zone—and patted his forehead again, his voice revealing double tiredness: "It's still going to begin, God doesn't give us many opportunities." ”

Kontrachenko buttoned up his coat, took the wet towel from his orderly, wiped his face indiscriminately, leaned down on the map table, pointed to an area west of Ussuriysk and said: "If I guess correctly, the enemy's main attack direction should be this area, based on recent information, the enemy has gathered three divisions in this area, and only one division is deployed in the north and south of the fortress, but the key problem is not here, the frontal attack of the enemy, the fortress can give the enemy serious damage, But if the fortress is cut off and surrounded, we will no longer be able to get the support of other mobile forces, because we ourselves are the only mobile forces in the Primorsky Naval District. ”

Kontrachenko's fingers were drawn from Ussuriysk along the line of the Suifen River to the mouth of the Suifen River, then moved to the Vladivostok fortress, and then moved back to Ussuriysk, shook his head lightly and said: "The situation is very unfavorable for us, the 5th Far Eastern Division is responsible for defending the left bank (east bank) of the Suifen River south of Ussuriysk, there are only 16,000 men on a 40-kilometer front, and the enemy in front of it is a Japanese army of nearly 70,000 people, if the Japanese are more proactive, The 5th Division will not last long, and if the 5th Division is defeated and the enemy is locked between Ussuriysk and Vladivostok, we will be in big trouble, Vladivostok will not have enough mobile forces to support Ussuriysk, and the two fortresses will be divided by the enemy and broken separately. ”

While washing his face, Stessel sighed: "In this way, we can only retreat, but if we retreat like this, the emperor must be very unhappy, Alekseev forget it, Kuropatkin is afraid that he will slander the emperor, saying that we are greedy for life and afraid of death, and as soon as the enemy launches an attack, we will abandon the fortress and flee for our lives......"

"But if you don't retreat early, I'm afraid the losses in the future will be even greater."

"That being said, but we should not consider it only from this aspect, we should not give others the opportunity to trample on our honor, even if it is only to buy time for Vladivostok to strengthen its defenses, we should also have a big battle with the enemy in front of the fortress of Ussuriysk."

Kontrachenko looked worried: "We have already fought a big battle with the enemy, it has proven that it is difficult for us to defeat the enemy in a field battle now, Ussuriysk is not a strong fortress that can be relied on, it is too weak, even if all our mobile forces are put into the defense of the fortress, it will not change its essential inadequacy, and it is also easily surrounded on all sides......"

Stessel took the milk handed by the orderly, drank it all, smacked his lips, patted his thigh, and said loudly: "We have no choice, we can't give the emperor the impression that we will only retreat, we have to find a way to make the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese bleed as much as possible, the purpose of building this fortress is to make the enemy bleed a lot, until the value of this fortress is realized, we can't just throw it to the enemy, I think you also understand, in this situation, lost this fortress, It means that it will not be possible to recapture it for a long time. ”

Kontrachenko took a bite of the bread and corrected in his heart: "It should be impossible to take it back." ”

Stexel intended to bleed heavily under the fortress of Ussuriysk, but before the yellow people began to bleed profusely, the blood of the whites had already soaked the land.

At 6:30 a.m., 26 attack airships appeared over the fortress, including 10 "Qiangyun" large attack boats and 16 "Ziyun" medium attack boats, all loaded with 500-kilogram heavy bombs, a total of 272 bombs. The airship team flew leisurely over the most important and fortified fortress of the fortress, Fortress C, and dropped bombs one after another, almost all of the 136 tons of bombs fell within a radius of 2,000 yards from the center point of the fortress, and the explosion of the heavy bombs caused large-scale collapses in many places on the top of the fortress, more than half of the walls were destroyed, and most of the firing positions were destroyed or lost their screens.

The Russian officers and men watched as the airship team slowly climbed up, turned, and slowly disappeared behind the clouds, and several light field guns, which were raised by wooden barrels and sandbags, opened fire weakly into the sky.

The airship group was followed by thirty "Sunny Wind" bombers, each carrying four 50-kilogram bombs, swooping down one after another, launching an assault on Fort A, which had been broken through the shell by heavy bombs, although the 50-kilogram bombs were limited, they were enough to deal with the facilities and personnel inside the fortress, and one bomb after another accurately drilled into the fortress from the top or side of the breach in the fortress, detonating ammunition, destroying weapons, and killing people. Smoke and flames erupted from dozens of breaches, and for at least ninety-six hours, the fortress was completely ineffective.

After about 7 o'clock, six divisions of the coalition army successively raised 16 school-fired balloons around the Shuangchengzi Fortress, and dispatched four school-shooting airships and six school-shooting planes to provide school-firing services for 800 cannons that were firing heavily at the Shuangchengzi Fortress.

Twenty-seven 305-millimeter siege artillery guns of the Chinese army and the North Korean army were set up in two positions, and 27 rounds of 350 kilogram shells were fired every ten minutes, and the target of the huge shells was the heavy artillery batteries in the Russian fortress.

One hundred and eight 150-mm heavy howitzers and one hundred and twenty-six 105-mm cannons were set up in six positions, firing about one hundred and eight rounds of 45-kilogram shells and one hundred and twenty-six rounds of 20-kilogram shells per minute.

Hundreds of 90-mm howitzers, 75-mm rapid-fire field guns, mountain artillery, and 80- and 100-mm mortars constantly frantically projected a large number of small artillery shells ranging from 5 kg to 10 kg at targets such as barbed wire, deer barricades, pillboxes, and trenches on the Russian front.

The heavy artillery preparations began at 5:30 a.m. and lasted for nearly five hours, with three air strikes, with a total of more than 200,000 shells and more than 500 bombs raining down on the Russian positions.

Under the cover of heavy artillery fire, the first wave of attacking troops of the Chinese army successively entered the starting position of the attack: 4 regiments of the 13th Infantry Division of the 3rd Field Army of China were deployed to the north of the fortress, and 5 regiments of the 11th Infantry Division were deployed in the northwest of the fortress; Five regiments of the 1st Infantry Division of the 1st Korean Army were deployed to the west of the fortress, five regiments of the 2nd Infantry Division were deployed southwest of the fortress, and four regiments of the Janissaries Division were deployed to the south of the fortress.

At about 10:30 a.m., the coalition artillery changed its focus to cluster barrage fire, and first most of the artillery fire concentrated on the obstacles in front of the front-line trenches of the Russian army, creating an impenetrable wall of fire. At this time, the infantry jumped out of the trench and began to form an attack formation, and the smoke from the explosion of the shells affected the observation of the Russian army, making it impossible to detect the movements of the Chinese and North Korean infantry.

When the coalition infantry formed an attack formation and advanced to the Russian front-line trenches and support points 1,000 to 1,500 yards away, the coalition barrage began to gradually move deep into the enemy with the advance of the infantry, and every 2 to 300 yards of infantry advance, a signal would be sent out asking the artillery to advance the barrage a considerable distance.

Under the guidance of the school-firing equipment, some of the heavy artillery continued to carry out the task of suppressing the Russian artillery, not only to suppress the heavy artillery in the Russian fortress batteries, but also to suppress the field artillery and mortar artillery arranged by the Russian field troops on solid positions, so that they could not carry out effective strikes against the allied infantry exposed in the wilderness.

However, the forward support points of the Russian army still played a certain role, these support points were based on the annular multi-sided trenches, and the dark bunkers that could accommodate machine guns and light field guns were built, and the artillery fire of the coalition forces could not completely destroy these forward support points, and when the barrage of the coalition forces advanced to the depth of the Russian positions, the surviving officers and soldiers in these support points began to fire fiercely at the coalition infantry that had approached the four or five hundred yards in front of the formation with their remaining weapons.

The infantry firepower of the DPRK Defense Forces is relatively limited, and it is difficult to suppress the gun and artillery fire of the Russian army hidden behind the fortifications at close range, and the first wave of attacking troops of the DPRK 1st Infantry Division that launched an attack from the west of the fortress was seriously killed, among which the 3rd Infantry Regiment, which was responsible for the main attack in the center, suffered more than 500 casualties in one hour, and was still unable to break through the first-line position of the Russian army.

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In contrast, the combat strength of the Chinese National Defense Force and the Korean Praetorian Guard Division is similar, and they can easily break through the front-line positions of the Russian army, but in the face of the crossfire of the Russian fortress group, it is still inevitable to pay a huge price.

In front of the F fortress in the north of the Russian army, the 115th Regiment of the 37th Brigade of the Chinese Army was hit by blazing machine-gun fire, and more than 2,000 people of the regiment shrank in the first-line trenches that had just been captured and could not move, and the regiment commander ordered a forced charge, as a result, more than 1,000 people fell within ten minutes, and because the regiment commander was killed, the regiment commander's staff officer ordered a retreat in time, so as to avoid the tragic situation of the destruction of the whole regiment.

The rest of the coalition teams were no better, overestimating the effectiveness of artillery preparations, and the coalition infantry launched round after round of tragic charges in front of the Russian fortress with full enthusiasm, rifle machine gun bullets and rapid-fire shells cut a terrible wall of fire in front of the fort, and the bullet-riddled flesh of the coalition infantry accumulated waist-high corpses in many places. The specter of death hovered in all directions, flesh splattered in the air, smoking hands and feet arced through the sky, shattered entrails and shattered weapons scattered across the ground, a wonderful slaughter, perhaps so wonderful that even the killer would find it incredible. The allied mortars and rapid-fire guns were simply unable to cause substantial damage to the reinforced concrete fortress, and the heavy artillery was busy bombarding the Russian batteries and suppressing the Russian field artillery fire, which did not cause serious damage to the machine guns and rapid-fire guns hidden behind the fort's solid walls.

However, under the key blows of the Chinese army's air power, the C fortress in the northwest position of the fortress has lost its combat effectiveness, and the 11th division of the Chinese army attacked the fort with three regiments, successfully clearing the remnants of the defenders in the fort and occupying the auxiliary positions within 3,000 yards of the fort, but only paying a slight price.

Zheng Hong, the commander of the 11th Division, immediately put two regiments of the divisional reserve here to consolidate the position, and then, the three regiments of the reserve of the Third Army broke through from here, occupied the K battery behind the C fortress, and attacked and advanced to the Shuangchengzi urban area, causing panic among the Russian troops, but the Russian army immediately put in reserves and drove the Chinese army back to the K fortress.

All this was in the eyes of General Ma Chengwu, commander of the Vladivostok Army Group.

After 10 o'clock that day, a huge "strong cloud" heavy attack airship has been hovering over the Shuangchengzi fortress, maintaining a safe altitude of 3,000 to 5,000 meters, but it does not drop bombs, and if you observe this airship with a telescope, you will find that there are no bombs hanging under the pod of the airship, and compared with ordinary attack airships, several huge mast-like objects stick out of the side of the pod of this strong cloud boat, and a huge circular glass observation window is set up below. If you look closely, you will find that the livery of this strong cloud boat is more special, in addition to the golden dragon decoration and black number code, two red ground golden dragon battle flags with crossed flagpoles are painted on the head.

Of course, this 65,000-pound airship is not full of food and nothing to do, and it is not a waste of gasoline to increase the wear and tear of the hull, swallowing flight allowances and the like, this airship cannot be casually called "this airship" by this kind of super-layman super-eighth-rate history enthusiasts, its name at this time is very particular, called "Haizuo No. 1 Finger Boat", in fact, it is the perverted abbreviation of "Vladivostok Army Group Commander Junzuo No. 1 Command Airship". The boat was originally the No. 112 "Qiangyun" attack boat of the 1st Attack Group of the 1st Floating Group, but due to operational needs, it was completely disarmed, equipped with high-power radio sets, battery compartments, and large mast-type antennas, modified large observation windows under the front of the pod, and set up map tables and other command and staff equipment, and instead served as an air command center. There is no need to talk nonsense, you should also know that the perverted general Ma Chengwu, who is known as the "Smiling Tiger", flew to the sky above Shuangchengzi on the "Haizuo No. 1 Finger Boat" that day to observe and accuse the fortress of attacking and fighting.

"It's wonderful."

Ma Chengwu stood in front of the airship observation window and couldn't stop admiring, the smile on his face was kind, and it revealed 700% nervousness.

Lieutenant General Zhao Minhe, chief of staff of the group army group, stood beside Ma Chengwu in fear, he was already frightened by this person, he felt that the commander he served was a little wrong with his mental state, but in addition to silence, he could not say more to anyone, he knew that the other party was the old descendant of Wu Weigong, and he could only be regarded as a new descendant, and his qualifications were a little worse, and it was not a good way to be a man by talking nonsense in front of someone stronger than himself.

From 3,000 meters in the air, you can clearly observe the walls of corpses piled up in front of the Russian fortress with a telescope, which is not a battle, but a tragic massacre. In fact, it can be completely avoided, let the cannon slowly bombard for more than ten days, blow up the fortress almost, the world is quiet, and people will not die so much, but Ma Chengwu summoned all the cadres above the regiment level of the Chinese army, called on them to take Shuangchengzi within one day, and said with a smile, this is the hope of Wu Wei Gong, the first to attack the city center will have a heavy reward, increase the official promotion, share the manor assets, it is not a problem, and those who are cowardly do not enter, Wu Wei Gong will be greatly unhappy, an order, go back to his hometown, It will never be used, and it will never be known. Therefore, all the officers of the Chinese army were very ruthless and brave, regardless of the lives of their subordinates, desperately attacking, although the results of the battle were not small, the damage must be very heavy.

"What do you think?"

Ma Chengwu turned around and asked Zhao Minhe, Zhao Minhe nodded in a panic, and he didn't know what to say.

Ma Chengwu smiled contemptuously, and continued to enjoy the wonderful live drama below, he felt that there was no more meaningful thing to direct such a live drama of killing each other.

"I've been waiting for years to create this with my own hands."

Ma Chengwu said, tears of excitement flowed from his excited face.

"That's what I'm made for, what is a stupid politician, what is Congress, only the military is the greatest, only the war is the greatest, and my life is only real if I have this...... How can my life be consumed by the frivolous selfishness and greed of politicians? My life only exists for this country, exists for the war of this country, everyone is falling, but I won't, I am the purest, only I am willing to sacrifice for the country, you are all traitors, only I am the one who adheres to the ideals, Ha Lu Ha, Ha Lu Ha Ha ......"

Ma Chengwu's heart was laughing wildly, but he still maintained a kind and neurotic smile on his face.

Zhao Minhe didn't dare to look at the commander's face anymore, he was afraid that he would go crazy because of it.

The battle on the ground was still raging, and the smoke was rising, drifting with the wind, gradually spreading, and so did the soul.

Groups of troops are thrown into the battlefield, countless blood is soaked in the earth, life is incomparably cheap here, the killing continues, death spreads, the flesh is shattered, people go crazy, suffocate, forget about hunger, only think about killing, killing, killing.

Ma Chengwu watched all this, smiling brighter than Xia Hua, the admiral who had been eating eggs and ham at lunchtime while still admiring the bloody ground from the telescope.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, Ma Chengwu's boat began to return, and the battle on the ground continued, until night fell, and the two sides stopped moving one after another.

The records of the Shuangchengzi attack on October 4 were very confusing, with the Chinese and North Korean armies mixed with lies, nonsense, excuses, and some imperceptible truths, while the Russian records were piled up with words such as "heroic", "tenacious", "persevering", "under the conditions of great disparity in strength", and "inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy", while the diaries of soldiers on both sides were full of feelings of shock, sadness, pain, timidity, and nervousness.

What exactly happened on October 4th?

Later sources revealed the terrible fact that there were a staggering number of casualties.

The allied forces entered the battle with five infantry divisions, which should have numbered 200,000 men and an actual strength of 191,000, with 9,376 killed and 21,725 wounded in one day.

The Russian army carried out defensive operations with three infantry divisions and garrison troops in other fortresses, with an actual strength of about 50,000 men, and although they relied on strong fortifications to carry out the battle, they also lost 4,557 people in one day, wounded 13,289 people, and captured more than 3,200 people.

That night, the commander of the garrison of the fortress, Lieutenant General Stessel, came to his chief of staff, Major General Kontrachenko, and told him with a haggard look: "Chief of Staff, I think our blood has also been drained. ”

Kontrachenko nodded weakly: "It's time to retreat, it's hard to survive tomorrow." ”

"Is the train station still in our hands?"

"Ten minutes ago the person in charge there reported that everything was normal."

Stessel rubbed his beard, sighed long and said helplessly: "As far as today's battle is concerned, even if we withdraw to Vladivostok (Vladivostok), there will not be any good life, it is not enough to have a fortress, without the support of mobile forces, the fortress will eventually become the grave of our army, and the tragedy of Sevastopol (Note 1) will probably be repeated." ”

Kontrachenko did not want to respond to Stexel's frustrations, and even though he was as gloomy as Stexel, he was far from losing his fighting spirit.

"Let's go, whether it's Sevastopol or Vladivostok, we all have to fight for Russia, for the tsar, for honor, even if the whole army is destroyed and martyred, that is the glorious road that we as soldiers should accept calmly."

Kontrachenko said, straightening his chest and turning to leave.

That night, about 35,000 Russian officers and soldiers, including the lightly wounded, successively withdrew from the fortress of Shuangchengzi (Ussuriysk) and abandoned about 6,000 seriously wounded in the fortress's ambulance and hospital.

In the early morning of the next day, the 97th Regiment of the 33rd Brigade of the 11th Division of the Chinese Army preemptively entered the northern urban area of Shuangchengzi and raised the flag and battle flag of the Chinese Empire with the red land and golden dragon at the city hall.

The fortress fell, and this was the first.

Note 1: In the Crimean War of 1853-1856, the Central Powers (Britain, France, Turkey, Sardinia) launched an attack on the naval base Sevastopol on the Russian Crimean Peninsula on the northern shore of the Black Sea, and since September 25, 1854, the 349-day defense of Sevastopol began. The Paris Peace Treaty of 1856 forbade Russia to have a fleet and naval base in the Black Sea, but the treaty was eventually annulled, and Sevastopol remains to this day Russia's most important naval base on the Black Sea (after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia leased it from Ukraine).