Weiyuan City, the headquarters of the Janissary Field Army.

Liang Tianhe swallowed the cloud of Hadmen smoke, walked back and forth anxiously next to the telegraph, and from time to time took out his pocket watch and looked at it viciously, as if he was going to swallow the extremely innocent pocket watch in a few seconds, but fortunately he stuffed it back into his pocket in time, and both the commander of the Praetorian Field Army and the pocket watch avoided a perverted and terrifying crisis.

Liang Tianhe was impatient to take every new telegram he translated, but these telegrams could only swell his original anxiety by 1 to 700 percent.

It wasn't until he received a telegram from the forward command post of the 1st Forbidden Brigade at 18:50 that his anxious nerves, which were about to explode, burst like a balloon that had been released.

"Junzuo Liang Jian, the 1st Regiment of our brigade has launched an attack on the enemy besieging the 4th Brigade at 18:45 under my personal command, and is now preparing to transfer the radio station, and will report further on the battle situation in half an hour. Ban on a brigade, Xu, 18:50 on October 5. ”

"It's too slow, it's too slow, but it's still in catch, Qian Zichen's guy can stand it."

Liang Tianhe nodded, and urged the operator again: "Isn't there a new report from the Tenth Brigade yet?" ”

The exhausted operator said weakly: "No, the latest report was sent half an hour ago." ”

"I've already seen that, you pay attention, watch closely, and ask the adjutant to call me as soon as there is a new report, and I'll go out for a while."

"Yes, sir."

The operator sighed, his face relieved of some kind of surveillance or oppression.

Of course, Liang Tianhe didn't have the heart to pay attention to the expression of a little newspaper operator, he walked quickly to the lobby, the chief of staff Zhang Yiye was directing the orderly soldiers to set the table and prepare dinner, Liang Tianhe pulled him aside, and said unhappily: "When is it, you still care about this kind of thing, leave it to them to handle it themselves." ”

Zhang Yiye spread his hands and said: "Anyway, they are waiting for news, there is nothing to do for the time being, besides, these orderly soldiers are always throwing things away, and it is boring to make a mess of such a big event as dinner." ”

"Anyway, you're also an army general, what kind of big deal is dinner......"

"You don't know what to do, after a hard day, being able to sit down and eat a perfect dinner comfortably is an indispensable procedure for recovering physical strength and spirit, only by maintaining abundant physical strength and strong mental strength, can you exert your due strength and fight the battle well."

Zhang Yiye said, took the telegram in Liang Tianhe's hand, glanced at it and said with a smile: "The famous thousand-headed beheading has finally come out, you can rest assured, Brigade Commander Qian is still saved." ”

Liang Tianhe smelled the aroma of chicken soup, and the October Revolution immediately broke out in his stomach, so he immediately complied with the demands of the revolutionary masses, grabbed the soup spoon on the side of the soup basin and tasted a few mouthfuls of slightly sweet chicken soup.

"It tastes good, hey, only in this era can you eat chicken with the original taste at any time, in our era, the chickens are all urged by feed hormones, and you have to add this essence and that essence to barely have a little chicken flavor, and it is not easy to eat pure local chicken."

Liang Tianhe sighed, and immediately returned to the topic: "Qiantou Chop only brought one group over, I don't know how effective Lu Dao can be." Damn, until now I still haven't figured out how many enemies there are, and the wind has been blowing all day, and all the planes can't go to the sky, which is really troublesome. ”

Zhang Yiye said: "Based on the intelligence of all aspects, I think that the enemy's new arrival should not exceed one army, and the forbidden fourth brigade must have made them suffer, and now even if Brigade Commander Xu only brings one regiment over, it is enough to give them a heavy enough blow, although it cannot be said that the enemy can be driven back immediately, at least it can solve the urgent need of the fourth brigade and break the enemy's encirclement of the fourth brigade." ”

Liang Tianhe nodded, not very confident: "I hope so." ”

The second dish came up, a large pot of braised hooves, which provoked the mouth of the Liang Tianhe River to overflow, almost "flying down three thousand feet", and couldn't help but call the orderly who served the dish and asked, "How many dishes are there?" ”

The orderly responded cautiously: "The chief of staff ordered, don't be too extravagant, four dishes and one soup are enough, and there are sweet and sour pork ribs, tomato scrambled eggs and radish fried beef, the two masters in the kitchen are cooking together, and it will be good immediately." ”

"Don't wait, is the meal ready? Okay, bring it up, Chief of Staff, call your staff officer to come over, and start the meal—just then I remembered, I didn't eat anything at noon! ”

Zhang Yiye said with a smile: "I persuaded you a long time ago, but you didn't listen, fortunately, I also paddled two buns - since the commander said to open the meal, we have nothing to say, all the staff officers, open the meal, whoever dares to continue working is disobedient, and if you want to go to the military court, hurry up, come here!" ”

The staff officers all gathered excitedly, and at the end of the day, no one felt tired, and eating a good meal was perhaps the most realistic and happiest pastime for the soldiers in the war.

However, on the battlefield of Vitino in Moscow, more than 100 kilometers away, tens of thousands of officers and soldiers of the Chinese and Russian armies are still a long distance away from the simplest happiness - the simplest dinner - although the sky is gradually darkening, but the dense gunfire has no tendency to fall silent at all, and the battle has reached a fever around the command post of the Fourth Brigade of the Chinese Army, and the first "cloud dragon" of the Janissary Guard The regiment launched a fierce attack on the Russian Barisoyev detachment and the Zarumenko brigade headquarters under the leadership of Xu Soul, commander of the 1st Forbidden Brigade, and launched a fierce and short white-knives battle on many fronts, and the troops of the 4th Forbidden Brigade in the encirclement also launched a surprise attack in due course, after nearly an hour of fierce fighting, a big gap was opened to the east of the encirclement, and the vanguard company of the Yunlong Regiment and the assault detachment led by He Fengqi, the commander of the guard battalion of the 4th Forbidden Brigade, successfully converged, and the commander of the 4th Forbidden Brigade was finally able to break the siege after being completely surrounded for about eight hours.

Xu Soul was led by several guards holding torches to the command post of the Forbidden Fourth Brigade, Qian Zichen greeted him excitedly, holding his hand tightly and shaking it uncontrollably: "The Thousand Heads Chop is really worthy of its name, and the contemptible people have finally seen it, and I am deeply grateful to you and the First Brigade on behalf of all the officers and soldiers of the Fourth Brigade." ”

Xu Soul nodded, let go of his hand and said: "Don't be busy thanking for it, the tenth and eleventh regiments are still surrounded by the enemy, I heard a reserve soldier who escaped say that the headquarters of the twelfth regiment has been destroyed, do you know the way?" ”

"This is the first time I've heard of this."

"In this way, the enemy will be able to deal with the 10th and 11th regiments freely, and I heard that the losses of these two regiments are also very large, and we must find a way to fight there as soon as possible and join them in the first line. On my side, a battalion of the 2nd Regiment has already landed and is rushing over, and I am going to leave the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment to you to help you hold this place, and I will lead the other troops to fight north until they are connected with the 10th Regiment. ”

Qian Zichen clenched Xu Soul's hand again: "It's all up to you, brother, I still have a lot of people here, I can hold it, just leave one for me, and by the way, give me some eighty and sixty flares to prevent the enemy from attacking at night." ”

"In this case, I will give you two companies from the first battalion, and half of the flares carried by a regiment of flares."

"That's it."

"Brother, do it yourself."

"Each other, each other."

The two let go of their hands, Xu Soul summoned the commander of the first battalion and the commander of the Yunlong Regiment, explained them respectively, and said goodbye to Qian Zichen, preparing to personally lead the troops to attack north, and when they were about to walk out of the bunker, they met Qian Zichen's guard battalion commander He Fengqi - the second ace sniper of the empire who was on par with his thousand-headed slashing Xu Soul.

"He Fengqi, Camp Commander He, it's been a long time, have you used your stunt today?"

Xu Soul asked casually, but He Fengqi didn't answer first, and handed him a small piece of paper with five "positive" characters drawn with a pencil.

"It's ......"

"Every time I shoot five enemies, I make a stroke on it, and that's all for today, not counting fractions."

Xu Soul was taken aback: "So, today's record is at least one hundred and twenty-five!" ”

"But I'm doing it all by myself, and there's no one else to testify to, so I'm afraid I can't make it into the official record, but I don't care, as long as I know that I've really done these things."

Xu Soul nodded and handed the piece of paper back to He Fengqi: "You're right, what we do here, how many people can really understand it, the most important thing we can get is probably just memories." ”

Xu Soul patted He Fengqi on the shoulder, strode towards the door of the bunker, and before his figure disappeared into the darkness outside the bunker door, a loud voice echoed in He Fengqi's ears: "Now that you are the number one ace sniper of the empire, although I can't testify for you, I will always remember this matter!" ”

Until the start of the Sino-Russian War, Xiao Ningbian, who was ranked first on the official imperial sniper ace list, had a shooting record of 192 people, while He Fengqi, who ranked second, was only eight fewer than him.

Is the most important thing left by the war to the military really just memories?

After the sun finally fell weakly into the outline of the hills to the west, the intermittent sound of gunfire echoed throughout the battlefield in the darkness of the night, and the two groups of intelligent beings continued to fight, and human flesh and blood continued to be sacrificed to someone or others to separate from the intact human body, no one stopped all this, no one could stop all this, until one was satisfied, the other was powerless, and perhaps it was time to come to an end.

The three and a half battalions led by Xu Soul only carried machine guns and a number of mortars, and attacked the Russian positions by the faint light of the crescent, and a battalion of the 97th Regiment of the Russian Zarumenko Brigade that was hit was only less than 300 people at this time, but they still held their positions and fought hand-to-hand combat with the swarming Chinese troops, and almost all of them were killed.

Xu Soul's department did not stop, continued to assault forward, and entered the flank of the position of the 99th Regiment of the Kosykin Brigade, the two sides were in a scuffle, the Russian brigade commander Kosykin did not know the situation, thinking that the headquarters was attacked by the main force of the forbidden brigade, and ordered the 99th Regiment to shrink its position and retreat to several high ground in the west (that is, the original position of the 12th Regiment of the Chinese Army), which made way for Xu Soul's troops, Xu Bu advanced all the way, and got in touch with the headquarters of the 11th Forbidden Regiment at about 21 o'clock, so far, the Chinese army was united on the west bank of the Jieya River, A new defensive posture was formed, and the area of the position held was about one-third of the area of the position of the 4th Forbidden Brigade before the start of the battle that day, and the strength of the troops gradually recovered to exceed the original level due to the continuous reinforcement of the 1st Forbidden Regiment.

※※※

For Lieutenant General Shtakliberg, fate is mercilessly abandoning his troops, his victories, and his hopes for future greatness.

At twenty-two o'clock in the evening, candles were lit on the table, and the orderlies were cleaning up the dishes, and Shtakliberg did not feel that he had eaten anything, but the dishes in front of him were indeed empty. He was a little frustrated, a little annoyed, a little overwhelmed. A few minutes earlier, the chief of staff of the army group, Colonel Muraserov, had sent a telegram asking for help from the remaining troops in Svobodny, saying that it had discovered that the headquarters of the 7th Janissary Brigade of the Chinese Army, which was deployed on the opposite bank of Svobodny, was smuggling across the Jieya River, and that several companies sent to drive it had been routed, and that the Chinese army was now approaching the city of Svobodny.

"Waste, a bunch of waste, something will happen if I'm not there, no matter what, the enemy has only one brigade, isn't it also a brigade guarding Svobodny? As soon as the enemy is found to be smuggling, the main force should be used to drive the enemy down the river, how can you only send a few companies to stuff people's teeth! Stupid! ”

After a few curses in the candle air, Shtakliberg stood up and walked around the room, when suddenly he stopped and asked the orderly: "Where has the chief of staff gone?" ”

"I haven't seen him all the time."

"Find him, he should be by my side at this time!"

Before he could finish speaking, Colonel Muraserov appeared outside the door of the dining room, and slowly walked in in the dim light reflecting the kerosene lamp.

"Well, Chief of Staff, you have come just in time, and now I want to hear your opinion, do you think we should send troops back to Svobodne?"

Shtakliberg asked, unconsciously curling the mustache on his lips.

"Commander, I think that this offensive is obviously no longer capable of a decisive victory, we still take back our troops, and hold part of them here, while the main forces are quickly transferred back to Svobodne, and the 7th Brigade of the Chinese Army that has crossed the river is annihilated or driven back to the east bank, and if you are willing to make up your mind immediately, I believe that we will have a good chance of achieving a real victory in the direction of Svobodne."

Muraserov said that in fact, he understands very well that the Chinese Army's Forbidden 7th Brigade launched just a feint attack with great momentum, and that the Forbidden 7th Brigade alone cannot take down Svobodne, which has a solid defensive system, and that the purpose of the Forbidden 7th Brigade is only to attract the attention of the Russian army and force the Russian army to withdraw the main force from the positions of the Forbidden 4th Brigade that it has seized. But he knew better what was going on at the front, and just now he had gone to the front line for a short time, and found that the brigades were practically unable to launch any substantive offensive the next day, while the strength of the Chinese army, which had been compressed in the positions on the west bank, was growing—a clue to the growing fire behind the Chinese positions. In fact, on such a gloomy night, it was impossible for the Russian artillery to prevent the Chinese army from banning the 1st Brigade from crossing the river, and only the people of the forbidden 1st Brigade were willing to use this night to build enough rafts to transport the infantry and light artillery of the whole brigade to the west bank, so the next day, the Russian army had to deal with a whole brigade that did not suffer much losses, and in today's battle, the 54,000 Russian troops fought from morning to night, and still failed to eat or drive away the forbidden 4th Brigade in front of them, but paid a heavy price. What is even more terrifying is that the cavalry troops sent to cut off the line of communication between the 4th Forbidden Brigade and Sergeyevka sounded the alarm, and the two Chinese infantry regiments starting from Sergeyevka are rapidly approaching the position of the 4th Forbidden Brigade, and before midnight, they will advance to the first blocking position of the Russian army 5 kilometers south of the 4th Forbidden Brigade Brigade, that is, after dawn the next day, the Chinese army will be able to deal with the nine infantry regiments and four cavalry regiments of the Russian army that are already in tatters. Muraserov felt that in such a situation it was best to switch from attack to defense, rest his troops, and wait for backups, but he knew that the old stubborn Shtakliberg would not give up the victory he was about to win, and that he could only distract him from the prospect of another beautiful victory, so that he could agree to withdraw his troops from the battle.

Sure enough, Shtakliberg was a little moved, he groaned for a while, and carefully asked Muraserov about the annihilation of the 7th Brigade of the Chinese Army.

"Is there a way to annihilate that brigade? Although this does not immediately give direct support to the Hylan Pao Fortress, it can at least disrupt the enemy's deployment and force them to draw troops from the troops attacking the fortress to defend us, which is still beneficial to the defense of the fortress. ”

"Even if it cannot be completely annihilated, it is possible to crush or inflict heavy losses, we only need to withdraw the Teshkin brigade from the front line overnight and transport it by wagon to the area of the Valami crossing, southeast of Svobodne, which is the main crossing point of the enemy, so that the Teshkin brigade can cut off the enemy's retreat and flank the enemy together with the garrison brigade in Svobodny, and by the way, add the Kosykin brigade, which should immediately move to the settlement of Baniv, and from there, together with the other two brigades, encircle and annihilate the enemy."

While stating the battle plan that he did not believe in, Muraserov painstakingly pointed and pointed on the map, and from time to time inserted some information that the Chinese army was constantly massing towards the position of the 4th Forbidden Brigade, and gradually, Shtakliberg accepted his opinion and decided to withdraw his troops overnight, and the main force rushed northward to prepare to "encircle and annihilate" the 7th Guard Brigade of the Chinese Army, which could not be surrounded and annihilated.

The moon is sinking, the night is parting, the wind has long since stopped, and the sun is rising silently, shining on the battlefield strewn with craters and dead bodies.

The river continued to flow unhurriedly southward, and the pine, fir and birch trees along the river looked a little tired after yesterday's strong winds, and the leaves of the birch drooped slightly, and from time to time they squirmed slightly.

Suddenly, a row of violent roars shook the leaves of several birch trees in horror and then with dissatisfaction, and the cannons rang out, and the humans were ready to continue their great repertoire, which the birches would not appreciate, they only knew that the cannons were noisy, and they would emit a lot of toxic exhaust gases, including the very nutritious CO2 (carbon dioxide).

Overnight, the 3 infantry regiments of the 1st Guard Brigade and all the artillery below the regiment were transferred from the east bank to the west bank, and only the 18 90mm howitzers and 18 105mm cannons attached to the brigade remained on the east bank due to weight problems, but the range of these cannons was still enough to cover most of the Russian positions, including the town of Vitino in Moscow.

After an hour of fire preparation, at 9:20 on October 6, Xu Xun, commander of the 1st Forbidden Brigade, ordered the whole brigade to launch a counteroffensive, the main target was the position of the 12th Regiment of the original Forbidden Regiment that was captured yesterday, from north to south, respectively 131, 153 and 147 heights, and a reinforced battalion was used as the main attack force for each height, and another battalion was assigned to assist and support.

The battle lasted only half an hour, and the three heights returned to the hands of the Chinese army, in fact, this was not a battle, the Chinese army just climbed out of the trench of the starting position, trotted for half an hour, climbed to the top of the mountain and planted the dragon flag, even if the task was completed, during which only a few dozen people were killed by the Russian army's vertical artillery fire.

The Russian army withdrew from its position overnight, the action was very fast, all the dead bodies were left behind, the wounded were quietly transported down by manpower, and from time to time they harassed the positions of the Chinese army with gun fire throughout the night, and even sent assault detachments to attack and harass the Chinese army.

At about 10 o'clock, the reinforcements of the 10th Forbidden Guard Brigade made contact with the 4th Forbidden Brigade, and then took over the defense of the 10th and 11th regiments of the 4th Forbidden Brigade.

Before handing over the command post to Xu Soul's Forbidden First Brigade, Qian Zichen got a specific loss report of the brigade (including affiliated troops), the 12th Praetorian Guard Regiment with 2,500 people was almost completely wiped out, and the other two regiments were also heavily damaged, and the whole brigade lost 4,122 people and 3,854 wounded in two days on October 5 and 6, totaling 7,974 people, accounting for nearly eighty percent of the total number of troops participating in the battle, losing 57 artillery pieces above the regimental level, and countless other weapons.

Qian Zichen left this sad place in a gloomy mood, on October 5, one of his most powerful regiment commanders - Wang Shouzhong, the commander of the 11th regiment - was beaten to a cripple, and another regiment commander - He Mingyuan, the commander of the 12th regiment, disappeared, probably captured, and a large number of grassroots officers he was familiar with were either dead or missing or seriously injured and disabled, he felt that his brigade was almost equivalent to a collapse, but he understood that the forbidden 4th brigade did not collapse, this brigade persisted to the last day, and the Russians still failed to eat it in the end.

In fact, on the day of October 6th, the battle around Moscow Vitino was still going on, but this was no longer a matter of banning the Fourth Brigade, Qian Zichen packed up his things, rode a millet mare given to him by Xu Soul - his original mount had long disappeared - and set off, behind him, several long columns of wounded soldiers, the blood-stained white bandages, which would leave indelible memories for many people.

A buzzing engine sound fell from the sky, Qian Zichen raised his eyes to the sky, and a group of planes was flying low over people's heads, rushing towards the Russian positions in the north.

"It's finally here, it's not too late."

Qian Zichen muttered to himself, clamped his legs between the horse, and stepped on the road to the south.

Behind him, the wounded soldiers threw their military caps into the air, shouting "Long live the Empire" to greet the planes in the air.

The losses of the First Siberian Army of the Russian Army on October 5 were not yet known to the Chinese officers and soldiers who participated in the war at that time, in fact, the Russian army only recorded the losses of October 5 and 6, and on October 6, the group army also launched a skirmish with the 7th Brigade of the Chinese Army's Praetorian Guard, and suffered fierce air attacks by more than 100 aircraft and airships of the Chinese Army's Northeast Front. Since there was no more information available after the war, historians generally had to enter two days' worth of losses. In the two days of October 5 and 6, the First Siberian Army suffered a total of 9,532 killed and missing, and 19,256 wounded, a total of 28,788 men, which is about half of the attack force committed at the start of the Second Battle of Moscow Vidino on October 5.