325 Kshessinskaya defended

7/7/4/7 at 3 p.m., Petrograd.

The Guards Artillery Battalion marched to the Hermitage Square in full gear and immediately began to suppress the rebellion, blocking the main street leading to the Hermitage, hanging bridges and driving the crowds of people pouring into the streets away from the Hermitage Square with bayonets and bullets.

After the initial dispersal of the demonstrators, the Guards Artillery Battalion, supported by a military police platoon, three police squadrons, and a Cossack cavalry company, slowly marched towards the Kosheshinskaya Palace, trying to completely destroy the Bolshevik command center and completely wipe out Lenin's rebellious party that had participated in the "rebellion".

At this time, only the reconnaissance company of the Red Eagle Regiment and a small number of special guards were responsible for defending the Koshesinskaya Palace, a total of more than 200 people. Theoretically, the ratio of forces between the enemy and us has reached an astonishing 1 to 10, and the reactionary forces have the absolute upper hand, at least in theory.

"But in fact, those damned Petrograd policemen are not reliable at all, not only are they ineffective, but they must always be on guard against escaping, and those Cossacks, the only thing they know here is to ride on tall horses and show their majesty, bully unarmed civilians They are good, and they are simply rubbish when fighting in the streets!" Major Alexei Alekseevich was briefing his immediate superior, Major General Moros, the commander of the Petrograd City Defense, on the situation of the troops, and in his mouth, most of his troops were rabble, except for the Guards Artillery Battalion, which had the strength to fight, and the rest could only serve as flag-waving and shouting soy sauce people.

Speaking of the worst, the artillery major became a little impulsive - it was only natural that three infantry companies that were supposed to be under his command were temporarily transferred away, and they were ordered to reinforce friendly forces that were fighting fiercely with Petropav's regiment on the outskirts of Petrograd. In his place was the aforementioned policeman, gendarme, and Cossack rabble, and only the artillery in his hand barely received formal military training, and that's it, half of them were recruits who had never fired a gun, and the combat effectiveness of the whole unit was full of worry.

Major General Moros was not very impressed with Major Alexei Alekseevich's complaints, in his opinion, even if the major was telling the truth, even if his troops were a rabble, the huge numerical advantage could completely make up for this disadvantage, and even with the tactics of a sea of people, the artillery major could easily defeat the Bolsheviks.

"Stop complaining, there's no point in any of this, Major." Major General Moros interrupted him, "Don't just see our inferiority, the enemy is not as strong as you think. They're also a rabble, and they're almost a tenth of yours. On June 9 they've already suffered heavy losses, and you only need one charge to crush them! ”

The major general shook his head and said bluntly: "And even if you complain to me, it doesn't make any sense, I can't send more people to you, you must know that the two regiments under my command are still responsible for attacking Peter and Paul Fortress!" It's a real fortress! ”

Major General Moros did not feel at all that Major Alexei had any right to complain, and that he was going to deal with only 200 Bolsheviks, and that he was going to attack a solid fortress without artillery support. There was no way, the Russian army lacked everything, rifles, machine guns, and especially artillery. In the eyes of the old men above, they didn't need those heavy firepower to guard Petrograd, and all the artillery that could be drawn was transferred to the front line, leaving them with a pile of old antiques that could only be displayed in museums.

Major Alexei looked sympathetically at his commander while looking for something valuable for his mission here, well, the opponent had just hastily erected a barricade two feet wide and three feet high, hastily piled bunkers and fortifications made of sandbags. These were a modest threat to the Guards Artillery Battalion, which still had two mortars in their hands, and as long as the shells fell, they should be able to scare the opponent away. What really trickled the major was the advantage of the terrain, and although the Koshesinskaya Palace was not particularly tall, it was condescending to suppress his troops on street corners.

While Major Alexei was considering the pros and cons, another pair of commanders in the Kshessinskaya Palace was doing the same.

"We just don't have enough people!" Rokossovsky complained to Georgi.

Georgi sighed helplessly, spread his hands and said: "I know the way, but I can only tell you that we are short of manpower everywhere, and our comrades are in the suburbs, so we can't get there for a while!" ”

Rokossovsky cautiously suggested: "Can you transfer some men from the 1st Machine Gun Regiment besieging Tavrichher Palace, even if it is a company?" ”

Georgi shook his head, "I asked, Comrade Lenin refused, the 1st Machine Gun Regiment must not be moved lightly, they are responsible for guarding the Soviets, and it is not ruled out that the enemy will attack them first to save the Soviets, we cannot take this risk!" ”

Rokossovsky smiled bitterly: "The problem is, it is really ...... to guard the center with this amount of manpower Let's put it this way, this is taking the security risk of the center! ”

Georgi showed a helpless expression, "This is also no way, now we can only seize the time to strengthen the defense, according to the information provided by Comrade Andrei, the enemy has gathered one or two thousand people to prepare to attack us!" ”

"Well, what is in our favor, Comrade Georgi?" Rokossovsky asked.

"In our favor, we have six new PK machine guns brought by the Red Eagle Regiment, we have plenty of ammunition, and ......," Georgi turned sideways and pointed to the barricades with his right hand, "you can see them." ”

Rokossovsky could see them, and a new PK air-cooled machine gun had been erected in the sand-bashed fortifications on the streets and at the sentry on the side of the gate, which could not completely cover the defensive front, but was enough to block the main road to the Kšesinskaya Palace.

"It doesn't look like it's going to be very bad." Rokossovsky said to himself.

"You can think so, but my comrade, I personally think that you are overly optimistic. Be prepared to fight a protracted battle, and don't be careless! With that, Georgi walked away.

Looking at Georgi's back, Rokossovsky sighed, shook his head, and then turned his gaze to the western side of the position, where the main street leading from the Winter Palace to the Ksheshinskaya Palace was the direction in which the enemy was most likely to attack. Although the fortifications there were the most complete and the firepower was the strongest, all of this was built in a hurry and on the spot, and it was okay to deal with the average infantry, but if the enemy had heavy firepower, all this was basically useless.

Dragging a wounded leg, Petrovsky limped behind Zhao Yunxia, a class brother of the Red Eagle Regiment, and squeezed into a sandbag fortification at the corner of the street. For him, who had not yet recovered from his wounds, he could have avoided the battle, but Petrovsky rejected Georgi's kindness and resolutely rushed to the front, yes, he was determined to avenge the death of his comrades on the night of June 9.

Petrovsky's position was on the flank of the Kšeszynskaya Palace, and they were to guard the flanks, and of course, if necessary, they had to relieve pressure on the frontal positions with flank fire.

"Two more punching bags!" Petrovsky instructed Zhao Yunxia.

Zhao Yunxia, the old smoking gun we once mentioned, knew a few words of Russian for the first time, and could barely communicate with the forced Lovesky. After gesturing and figuring out Petrovsky's intentions, he carried back two punching bags without saying a word.

Petrovsky looked contentedly at the rudimentary fortifications surrounded by sandbags, believing that with a new PK machine gun, which was much faster than the Maxim, the enemy could be firmly suppressed, of course, this was just an extravagant hope, because the entire reconnaissance company had only six PK machine guns. Except for one on the frontal position, the others were erected on the balcony of the Kšesinskaya Palace.

Petrovsky and Zhao Yunxia huddled in this small and rudimentary fortification, watching the movement on the other side of the street, and every five minutes they would use the walkie-talkie to report the situation to the back. Some curious residents were watching their every move through the window, and they seemed worried about the impending fighting, wondering whether they were anxious for the safety of their lives and property, or for the future of Russia.

It was difficult to see anyone else in the streets, except for the sneaky residents, and of course, this was not absolute, and some of the demonstrators, who had been driven by the police, gendarmes and Cossacks with nowhere to go, occasionally fled into the Kšesinskaya Palace, for whom Petrovsky sympathized with the misfortunes.

In addition, other people who appeared on the streets were not welcomed by Petrovsky, and the appearance of their clothes made it clear that they were not good people, and their sneaky behavior showed that they were lackeys of the reactionaries, who had come to reconnoiter the defenses of the Koshzynskaya Palace.

Petrovsky wanted to shoot these vile villains, but the Central Committee issued a very strict order that the first shot should not be fired until the enemy had attacked.

Petrovsky didn't like the order, which meant he could only watch as these goddamn bastards probed the truth. But as a Bolshevik and a military man, he needed to obey the orders of his superiors, no matter how much he disliked it. He was in a conflicted mood, and the only thing that made him glad was that for the time being, he had not yet found a large-scale enemy approaching the Ksheshinskaya Palace.

"Damn it." Petrovsky thought, "Why haven't the reactionary sons of dogs come yet?" ”

"Look!" Zhao Yunxia suddenly shouted, Petrovsky raised his head, looked in the direction of his finger, and what came into his sight was an astonishing scene: a brigade of Cossacks appeared in the streets, they rode tall horses, brandished sabers to drive away the fleeing people in all directions.

"The enemy is coming." Zhao Yunxia frowned, "You can shoot, right?" ”

"Wait a little longer......"

Before Petrovsky's words could be heard, the Cossacks, who had dispersed the population, clamped their horses' bellies and apparently began to accelerate their charge, as if they were planning to break through.

"Attention One, Attention One!" Petrovsky called out to Georgi.

"Seven, please say, seven, please say!"

"There are Cossacks charging at our positions, is it possible to shoot?"

After a short wait, Petrovsky heard Georgi's very firm order: "Seven, please pay attention, fire the warning gun first, if they don't retreat, you can shoot!" Again, after firing the warning shot, you can shoot if necessary! ”

"Loaded! Warning shots! Petrovsky shouted.

But just as Zhao Yunxia began to act, the enemy fired first. The gunfire came from the gendarmes behind the Cossacks, who only knew how to bully the civilians and fired a flurry of guns. Most of the bullets flew away without a trace, shattering a large area of the glass of the surrounding houses.

"This is the first enemy to attack us, right?" Zhao Yunxia turned her head and asked Petrovsky seriously, but in Petrovsky's opinion, this question was really full of ridicule, so he also replied seriously: "Of course, I hope your marksmanship is not as stinky as theirs......"

The gunshots rang out, and the first to shoot back was not Zhao Yunxia, but the frontal position on their left, the Tekko fighters hiding behind the barricade took the first step to pull the trigger, and a bright tongue of fire came out of the muzzle **, and sent a Cossack led by a distance of 100 meters off the horse. The poor creature fell on his back without a snort, and fell to the ground with a snap, probably not hitting the vital point, and he struggled to get up, but was immediately trampled by the hooves of the horses whistling behind him......

The Cossacks who were trying to charge were quickly routed, and their horses through the narrow streets were a good target, and Petrovsky would not have been polite to them.

"Damn it!" Major Alexei glanced at the several Cossacks who fled back in embarrassment, and scolded indignantly: "This group of fools, tell them to listen to the command, Nima, just don't listen, it's a waste of manpower!" ”

The major's deputy asked weakly: "Battalion commander, what now?" ”

Alexei scolded like a deputy: "Idiot, what else can be done!" Go on the offensive! Tell the cops to attack now! ”

The deputy asked weakly again: "Do you need artillery support?" ”

Major Alexei gave him another blank look, and greeted the fool's mother again, Nima, we only have two good and bad cannons together, and the shells are even more pitiful, and now they are used to support those policemen who have no seeds, what will we do when our own brothers charge in the future?

"They don't need support!" Major Alexey replied coldly.

The deputy, knowing that he had said the wrong thing, no longer dared to speak indiscriminately, and under the continuous urging of Major Alexei, the police uncles reluctantly moved towards the Bolshevik position.

"What are they doing here?"

Zhao Yunxia asked puzzledly, at the Finnish base, every time the armed assault drill, they were told that they should move quickly, and the faster they broke through the enemy's fire blockade, the more guaranteed their lives were. But now, the police in Petrograd clearly defy this common sense, and they are as slow as snails, like a group of old ladies walking.

Petrovsky scoffed: "They are greedy for life and afraid of death, believe it or not, as soon as we shoot, they will scatter?" ”

In this regard, Zhao Yunxia was skeptical, but at the moment when the gun rang out, he immediately saw that the originally slow police uncles seemed to have become popeye who had eaten spinach, that fast! In the blink of an eye, they disappeared from the line of fire and returned to their positions at the speed of a 100-meter sprint.

This scene made Major Alexei furious, he pulled out the pistol on his waist and shot a policeman uncle who fled back on the spot, "From now on, only advance and no retreat, anyone who escapes from the battle will be killed!" ”

The poor police uncles were in a dilemma, with the Bolshevik fire blockade in front and the urging Major Alexei in the back, they were like gas packs caught in the middle, and for a time the future was extremely dark.

However, as the old saying goes, the living cannot be suffocated by urine, and the police uncles who were forced to be anxious could think of any crooked tricks, some broke into the houses on both sides of the street, and refused to come out again, and some of the more disgraceful people directly raised their hands and surrendered happily as prisoners.

Looking at this group of incompetent subordinates, Major Alexei almost vomited blood, he could only drive the gendarmes into the battlefield in vain, of course, in order to prevent the gendarmes from also following the bad example of the police, he gave an order to his "artillerymen": "Monitor their every move, and if they dare to deviate from the street or surrender, shoot them immediately!" ”

It should be said that this order was issued in a relatively timely manner, and the poor worm in the gendarmes who was ready to learn the style of the policeman's uncle had just made a move, and was knocked down by the rain of bullets behind him, and even they were not the only ones who were unlucky, and they often affected their comrades-in-arms to be unjustly killed.

The helpless gendarmes had no way to retreat, they could only blindly charge forward, but they were greeted by a dense rain of bullets, compared with the laymen under Major Alexei, the Bolsheviks were a head higher in both firepower and marksmanship, under their intensive strafing, in less than ten minutes, there was no longer a standing gendarme on the battlefield, they were either dead, or they had no choice but to choose to play dead.

In less than half an hour since the battle began, Major Alexei had expended almost a third of his vital strength, after testing the Bolshevik firepower with the lives and blood of the Petrograd gendarmes and police uncles. He understood that there was only one way to die, and in order to reduce sacrifices, and more importantly, to complete the task, he began to be flexible.

"Prepare the Cossacks and artillery," he ordered, "and as soon as the shelling begins, the Cossacks charge and tear through the enemy's lines!" ”

This point has the style of Napoleon, His Majesty the Emperor relied on this hand to crisscross Europe in those years, first bombarded with artillery and then charged with cavalry, if not, he would do it again.

Two tattered mortars were erected, and more than a dozen artillerymen carefully waited for this pair of old antiques, for fear that this pair of old men would lose their temper if they were unhappy, and it didn't matter if they couldn't hit the shells, anyway, it was not their artillery who charged, and they were afraid of exploding, with the age and quality of this pair of old antiques, this possibility is quite large!

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