On July 6, Xiang Xiaoqiang received another telegram, this time from Xiuxiu—again from Moscow. A Ming spy lurking in Moscow discovered that the portrait of Marshal Tukhachevsky, which had been hanging on the wall of his superior's office, had been quietly removed. And he also found out that a street in Moscow named after Tukhachevsky, and now the "Tukhachevsky" on the street sign has been seriously scratched off.

In the Soviet Union, this was a very effective way to accurately judge the arrest of a certain big man. If it is a relatively large figure, then it is enough to observe whether his portrait has been removed. If it is a subordinate person, such as the people's commissar or a local cadre, then if the street, factory, mine, or state farm named after him is renamed one day, it means that the person has been arrested. Hundreds of trials and white spirits.

Xiang Xiaoqiang was overjoyed, and on the one hand, he felt sorry for this outstanding genius in military history.

Two days later, on July 8, there was no need for intelligence, this time in the big news on the Jinling radio station: Marshal of the Soviet Union Tukhachevsky was tried in public in Moscow today on charges of "treason" and "espionage." The entire Soviet army carried out activities to expose the traitor Tukhachevsky and accuse the spy Tukhachevsky of his crimes. That night, Xiang Xiaoqiang opened a wine in Hami to celebrate. At the same time, Fang Dongcheng and other generals in Lanzhou also held a dinner party and drank to celebrate. Once Tukhachevsky was brought to court on such charges, he was dead. Couldn't come back.

……

On 9 July, the multi-day military operation was officially launched. The Ming army's northern offensive followed the old road to the northern frontier, while the central offensive also intensified the offensive on the Tianshan Pass. The Ming army's southern offensive has now completely occupied the Aksu region, and the troops have been resting for several days as they approach to the western part of southern Xinjiang. Now also attack again, advancing to the west.

The offensive on the northern route was very smooth, and the Soviet armored forces could no longer see the spirit of sacrificing their lives before. Apparently, Tukhachevsky was purged, and the blow to the morale of the Soviet troops, especially the armored forces, was particularly enormous. The Northern Road Offensive annihilated and captured nearly 1,000 Soviet tanks in one week, advancing 500 kilometers, setting a record for the fastest advance against the Soviet Union in 1938. It's a long drive.

The Ming army has now regained the feeling of the Northern Expedition. Wherever the Ming army fought, the people in front rose up to respond, resisted the Soviet army, destroyed communication facilities, and defected to the Ming army to serve as their guide. In every place controlled by the Ming army, at least half of the local Han youths asked to join the Ming army. Almost all of the young people of the ethnic minorities asked to join the Ming army. The Ming army also seized this good opportunity to expand its army, vigorously organized the Central Asian White Guards, issued them weapons and uniforms, and gave them basic training, and their names were subordinate to the Free Russian government.

The officers in charge of the expansion of the Ming army all had a feeling that the source of troops here was inexhaustible. As long as you want, a county can pull up tens of thousands of recruits. The speed of the expansion of the White Guards in Central Asia now depends entirely on how much food and weapons the Ming army can provide. As long as there is no shortage of food and weapons, then there are as many soldiers as there are soldiers.

After a 500-kilometer advance from the north of Hami, the northern offensive has now appeared in the Changji area north of the Tianshan Pass, and Dihua is in the south. To the south of Dihua is sheltered by the winding passes of the Tianshan Mountains, but to the north is a flat, open steppe, from which it runs north through the entire Junggar Basin to the Altai Mountains, and there are no mountains in between. From here, the Ming army rushed south to Dihua, and it was the same as attacking the mountain pass from the south. At the same time, the southern offensive has also penetrated into the Kashgar region in the western part of southern Xinjiang. It has already clashed with Soviet reinforcements coming in from Kyrgyzstan.

So far, the Ming army's road transportation line has exceeded 2,500 kilometers. Last year, this would have been unthinkable. But now, all kinds of vehicles are being transported at a rate of 4-50,000 per month, and with the huge number of military vehicles before the Ming army, there are now more than 150,000 vehicles used to maintain road transportation in the Central Asian battlefield. No other country has so many military vehicles. Even the United States is only the first major country in civil vehicles. And Daming has now become the first military vehicle power.

The repeated crushing of a large number of cars for a long time has made the original highway solid, and dozens of meters on both sides of the highway are almost pressed into a "highway". The boundaries of the original highway are no longer distinguishable. What used to be a small two-lane road has now become almost an endless "airport runway". Traffic has increased, but it has run faster.

……

The Ming army was increasing its troops westward at a rapid pace, trying not to make the Ming army too inferior in the Central Asian theater. The war had been fought to this extent, and the distance of the battle line was now clearly in favor of the Soviet Union. Now the battlefield is in the north and south of Xinjiang, and it is much closer to several Central Asian countries of the Soviet Union than to the interior of the Ming Dynasty. The Ming army also knew that the current victory was piled up with a sea of cars, materials, and money. This situation cannot be sustained for long. Although the Ming Dynasty is very rich, this kind of spending money method cannot be supported by the country's financial resources for long.

In addition to materials and money, the current victories are largely due to the temporary demoralization of the Soviet army. Once the Soviet army won two more battles and its morale recovered, it is difficult to say whether the Ming army will face the "apex of the war".

At present, the guiding ideology of the Ming army is: advance as soon as possible, go all at once, and do not give the Soviet army any respite. It is necessary to trap the enemy in a vicious circle of "losing the battle - demoralizing - continuing to defeat the battle - morale continuing to be low - continuing to defeat the battle".

On July 16, news came from Moscow. Tukhachevsky was sentenced to death, which was immediately executed. While people were listening to the radio, Marshal Tukhachevsky, a military genius and the founder of the Soviet armored forces, known as the "Red Napoleon", had already been shot. His wife and children were also imprisoned in different labor camps.

The world is watching Tukhachevsky's fate these days. And while the Soviet Red Army was "exposing and accusing" Marshal Tukhachevsky, it was also paying attention to the radio and newspapers. Especially the officers and men of the armored forces, as well as the officers and generals of the upper echelons of the Red Army. Since then, the generals have better understood the spirit of "shooting the first bird with a gun". They were afraid that they would become as conspicuous as Tukhachevsky. They would rather make themselves a mediocre general, or at least be safer.

On the Central Asian battlefield, there was even a phenomenon of high-ranking officers of the Soviet army "not daring to win the battle." They only dare to go with the flow, and if everyone else is a failure, then it is better for them to be similar to others. The law does not blame the people, and Stalin will not kill so many people because of the defeat in the battle. But if you become conspicuous and win the admiration of the officers and soldiers because of a beautiful victory, then Stalin may well think that you are "unsafe" and kill you. - Although Stalin had not yet reached this level, and at such times Stalin also preferred them to win the battle, the generals were already frightened, and they were completely safe and how to come, putting the safety of their own lives and those of their families above the interests of the country. - The generals who can survive in this environment are spineless, bloody, and even many have no conscience. People with backbone, blood, and conscience have already been killed.

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