On the afternoon of August 2, in the area south of Aleysk, two torrents of armor were rolling in from the north and south, cutting the encirclement of the Russian army at the same time.

The one from the south is the main force of General Lu Kaiping's Second Armored Army, which has four armored brigades (equipped with the 15th, 18th, 19th, and 20th brigades), two cavalry brigades (5th and 9th cavalry brigades) and two infantry divisions (8th and 9th infantry divisions), with a total strength of 85,000 men, equipped with about 400 combat vehicles, and divided into three routes: the left road is based on the 15th Armored Brigade, with a battalion of the 5th Cavalry Brigade and a regiment of the 8th Infantry Division; On the left side, the 20th Brigade was the backbone, with a battalion of the 9th Cavalry Brigade and a regiment and a battalion of the 9th Infantry Division; The middle road is based on the 18th and 1st Brigades, and is equipped with the main force of the 8th Cavalry Brigade and the main force of the 9th Infantry Division. In addition, the main force of the 5th Cavalry Brigade and the main force of the 9th Infantry Division were reserved.

The one from the north is the transfer detachment of Colonel Lin Yi, and the basic strength comes from the second set of advancing troops, including two armored brigades (equipped with the 13th and 16th brigades, each lacking a chariot battalion) and two cavalry brigades (cavalry 8th and 15th brigades), with a total strength of nearly 10,000 and about 100 combat vehicles. The detachment took the 13th Brigade as the vanguard, the two cavalry brigades were in the middle, and the 16th Brigade was behind, facing the middle of the Lu Kaiping Division, and marched straight in columns.

In order to block the retreat of the defenders of Areysk and at the same time block the reinforcement of the Chinese army in the direction of Rubtsovsk, the Russian army deployed a total of five infantry divisions and two cavalry divisions south of Areysk, with a total strength of 125,000 men and 370 artillery pieces, to form a southern siege group, under the commander-in-chief of the 21st Army, Lieutenant General Rovisos. The group was divided into two parts: the 25th and 31st Infantry Divisions of the 50th Army, which were originally subordinate to the 54th Group Army, were attached to the 10th Cavalry Division, as the inner line troops, responsible for besieging the defenders of Acheng; The 36th and 42nd Divisions of the 21st Army, as well as the 11th Siberian Division transferred from the 54th Army, were attached to the 9th Cavalry Division, as an external force, specifically responsible for blocking reinforcements from the Lucheng side. The front for which the troops of the inner line are responsible is about ten kilometers long. It is 1.5 to 2 kilometers deep, and the front line for which the troops on the outer line is responsible is about 15 kilometers long and 2 to 3 kilometers deep.

In view of the importance of the position of the southern siege group, Brusilov, who was well aware of the might of the Chinese armored forces, handed over to Lovisos all 25 anti-tank gun batteries and 15 of them (a total of 60 guns). The Rovisos mobilization unit was also asked to actively build various anti-tank fortifications and prepare all kinds of anti-tank equipment on the spot, including cluster grenades, long-handled explosive packs tied to wooden sticks, and several hand-thrown Molotov cocktails with different recipes nicknamed "Brusilov cocktails".

Due to the rush of time, by 2 August, the troops of the Southern Siege Group and the two fronts urgently dug a total of 12 kilometers of compliant anti-tank trenches (six to seven meters wide) in two directions. 2.5 to 3 meters deep), and in some sections, the trenches were replaced by railroad sleepers. Even so, there were still some gaps in the front that had not been fortified by any anti-tank fortifications, and Rovisos concentrated anti-tank guns on both sides of these gaps, and planted line-fire mines in the gaps. In a report sent to Brusilov the day before, Rovisos claimed that "...... The arrangement of the anti-tank fortifications was close to perfection, enough to crush the most powerful assault of the enemy's armored forces".

However, the battle did not go as Rovisos had imagined. The armored troops of the Chinese army did not deliberately bypass the anti-tank trench and drill into the gap area that seemed to be able to pass smoothly but was actually secretly ambushed, but suppressed the Russian infantry with artillery fire, and at the same time sent armored bridge-erecting vehicles modified from the chassis of combat vehicles to erect mechanized prefabricated bridges on the trenches in the face of artillery shells.

The all-steel one-piece prefabricated bridge can be erected in only two or three minutes, which can be used by all kinds of vehicles of all arms to pass, if the troops find that the soil at both ends of the bridgehead is too soft, affecting the quality of traffic, they can also send additional armored paving vehicles to pave the hinged steel plates with permeable holes at both ends of the bridgehead. In this way, even the clumsy baggage wagons of the infantry units could pass smoothly.

The mobile engineer company of each armored brigade is equipped with an armored bridge platoon and an armored paving platoon, each platoon is equipped with three special vehicles, and the armored army and the armored group army are also equipped with an armored road and bridge company in the independent engineer battalion of the subordinate territory, and there are two armored bridge platoon and two paving platoons. 5 passages through the line of anti-tank trenches were successfully opened on a narrow offensive front of less than 19 km. At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, more than 400 chariots of the main force of the second assembly were swept up in smoke and dust, and rumbling and surging out of the passage, followed closely by the infantry with a whole company and a whole company of stragglers, and then back. From time to time, the mobile artillery unit fired a barrage of accurate barrage under the radio command of the artillery command vehicle in front. From time to time, they quickly changed positions on trucks or half-tracks - while dodging enemy artillery counterattacks, they also seized advantageous positions in time.

Four brigade motorized artillery battalions. Two mobile artillery battalions under the army, one mobile heavy artillery battalion under the group army, two heavy infantry divisions under the artillery regiment, and two cavalry divisions under the mounted artillery battalion - in order to give the other side a dismount, less than five kilometers to attack the front, Lu Kaiping launched 15 artillery battalions in one go, a total of 270 artillery pieces (54 are heavy artillery), an average of 54 per kilometer! This does not include large and small infantry guns, snipers and mortars of regiments, battalions, and companies in the formation of infantry units.

The artillery units were followed by motorized infantry in trucks, ready to march in chariots to replenish the infantry in chariots, and cavalry units dismounted, and cavalry units ready to leap and raise their swords to pursue the scattered enemy forces.

Lu Kaiping chose the front of the attack on the left flank of the Russian defense line, the junction of the 42nd Division and the 11th Siberian Division, this arrangement happened to be at the fate of the Russian army - the headquarters of the 11th Siberian Division, which had personally experienced the power of the Chinese army's armored forces, collapsed at the touch of a button, and the officers and soldiers abandoned the trenches and fled for their lives, resulting in the flank of the friendly 42nd Division being exposed. Although the 42nd Division, which was recently transferred from Europe, had a strong will to fight, under the impact of a dense group of tanks with an average of as many as 80 units per kilometer of frontage, only one hour later, the two infantry regiments defending the front line were completely wounded and wounded, and by about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the three artillery positions of the 42nd Division were destroyed, and the division headquarters in transfer was pursued and intercepted by the Chinese cavalry, and the division commander Major General Susanin was captured.

After the main force of the second assembly set reached a breakthrough, the left and right route armies were stuck on both sides of the breakthrough, and Lu Kaiping personally led the middle route army to attack the enemy's inner line troops from behind, and about 200 chariots formed a steel wedge that swept the enemy's baggage center and artillery positions one after another, and pursued all the way to the forward position of the enemy's 31st Division, and completed the convergence with the Lin Yi detachment before sunset.

In this way, the encirclement of Aleysk, where Tsarist Russia gathered 300,000 troops, was poked out of a hole by the ironclad steel cavalry of the Chinese Empire.

At night, in Novosibirsk, Brusilov sat opposite the chief of staff, Nakasidze, and no one wanted to speak first.

The 450,000 army, two fronts, and eight consecutive days of attack, I thought that the general trend had been set and the meat had been put into the pot, but at this time, it seemed like the end of a strong crossbow, and the decline was immediately apparent.

The 50,000 or 60,000 Chinese troops in Aleysk not only withstood the siege of 300,000 heavy Russian troops, but also attracted the main armored corps of Rubzovsk, which poked through the anti-tank position that Lieutenant General Rovisos claimed to be "close to perfect".

The role of the anti-tank trenches was counteracted by the enemy's tracked bridge-erecting vehicles, a situation that had not been thought of before, and Brusilov could only scold his staff officers for not being serious enough.

The anti-tank guns converted from the naval rapid-fire guns did not work, due to the lack of special sighting devices, the gunners could only aim directly through the breech, and the effective firing range was only two or three hundred meters, which was easily suppressed by the enemy's combat vehicles and infantry fire, and the artillery was pulled by mules and horses, and the mobility was poor, and it was difficult to pass through the enemy's suppressed artillery fire to reach the required area. This problem was mentioned by Nakasidze, but it was a problem that Brusilov could not solve - the ordnance department said that it would take at least a year to develop a new anti-tank sighting device for such a gun.

In addition, thanks to the tacit cooperation between the opposing infantry and tanks, most of the fighters using the "Brusilov cocktail" turned into human barbecue before dropping the bombs, and the cluster grenades and long-handled explosives packs also failed to have the desired effect.

Desperate telegrams from the front were piled up on the table, and Brusilov did not want to read them a second time.

Panlyotsev, who had been pinned on by Brusilov before, also sent a pitiful telegram for help today, reporting that the 1st Tank Brigade attached to the 53rd Army had lost half of its tanks, and that the armored vehicles of the 11th Panzer Brigade were "too weak to be used for frontal attacks."

"The only 4 divisions of the Deleev supertanks were all damaged and could not be recovered, the Rigsky and Renault tank companies were completely destroyed, and the officers lacked confidence in the remaining British tanks......"

"The soldiers want more Mendeleev to support the operation, and I personally believe that if we can put in one company of Mendeleev at a time, we can remove the obstacles that are currently causing us great trouble in one day......"

Poor Panlyotsev, no one told him that the Mendeleev super-heavy tank, which was costly, difficult to maintain and often caused terrible damage to the roads, had already been ordered to stop production by the base camp a month ago, and there were no more Mendeleev and no more domestic tanks, and the base camp decided to stop producing all kinds of "deformed" tanks that were impractical and unreliable, and instead completely relied on imported tanks.

Brusilov bowed his head deeply, rubbing his hands unconsciously, he was thinking, he was choosing.

Is this the end of it?

The so-called savior of Russia is nothing more than that......

Too strong...... The opponent is too strong, and this is not just a matter of troops and weapons, but the gap in the overall combat thinking, and their understanding of war is far beyond that of contemporaries!

But can you openly throw in the towel?

How are you going to explain to His Majesty the Tsar, how are you going to explain to your conscience?

Besides, what's the point of your personal admitting defeat?