At noon on 3 August, the road from Aleysk to Rubtsovsk was covered with dust, and thousands of vehicles of the Second Armored Army of the Chinese Army converged into a rolling iron stream and headed south.

In the midst of the iron flow, a "Zhi Wolf" command chariot with two eye-catching rod-shaped antennas on its head suddenly pulled over, and the tail hatch was slowly lowered with a click, and a middle-aged man in his thirties and forties with a thin body walked towards the "Zhi Leopard" command chariot equipped with three branch-shaped antennas that had been waiting on the side of the road.

The middle-aged man stood and saluted behind the tail hatch opened by the "Zhi Leopard", and was slightly tired in his sonorous voice: "Report, transfer to the detachment leader, Colonel Lin Yi, report to the commander!" ”

"Take a break."

With a serious and rigid response, in the not spacious tail cabin of the "Zhi Leopard", a short and stout man with a Chinese character face and a single eyebrow, aged about forty or fifty, walked out of his backhand, which was none other than General Lu Kaiping, commander of the group army.

In the past 24 hours, Lu Kaiping personally led the main force of the second assembly, and forced a bloody way out of the 300,000 enemy troops, and rescued Lin Yi's transfer detachment overnight.

"It's been a hard work, is it going well all the way?"

"Thanks to the commander's effective rescue, the detachment broke through in order and was not seriously damaged." Lu Kaiping sighed thoughtfully, and shook off the thick dust attached to the riding boots: "So to speak." The loss is not small, right? ”

Lin Yi blushed and lowered his eyebrows: "Yes...... More than a dozen tanks were lost. There are also more than two dozen that were dragged out of the ground with steel ropes. ”

"You don't need to apologize to me, I'm no better here, the enemy has used a lot of methods that I haven't seen before, if it weren't for the commander reminding me and preparing in advance, this time I would have died. Even so, after making a fuss all day, thirty or forty units were lost, and another sixty or seventy units were dragged back, and the infantry suffered a lot of losses. In order to hurry. He didn't catch the prisoners and collect things, just let the cavalry chase and cut a few times, and the sappers put the explosives and left. ”

"Sir......

"I'm not done yet. s”

Lu Kaiping's sharp gaze swept and pressed Lin Yi's slightly embarrassed face.

"In fact, the significance of this operation is not how much to lose, but to test the degree of evolution of the enemy and the enemy."

"Evolution?" Lin Yi is no stranger to this word. As early as before and after the First Sino-Japanese War, Zhang Zhigao, Luo Sulan, and other cultural circles organized and compiled the "Theory of Heavenly Evolution", which became all the rage, in which terms such as "natural selection", "survival of the fittest", "elimination", and "evolution" gradually became idioms in newspaper articles, and a trend of "East Asian social evolutionism" arose in China, claiming that "if the noble nations of East Asia want to evolve and survive, they must eliminate other bad peoples on the earth as the prerequisite", which was regarded as a guideline by the radical nationalist party groups in China. It has a great influence on the intellectual circles of East Asian countries.

Lin Yi, as a veteran member of the Army Iron and Blood Liaison Association, a peripheral organization of one of the nationalist political parties, has a scientific term for "evolution" that has been imposed with special political connotations. Nature has an intuitive sensitivity.

"Yes, our enemies are not pigs, they will constantly adjust themselves according to the experience learned on the battlefield, for most of the year, the Russians have suffered enough of our armored forces, and now they have finally come up with something decent, don't you feel? This time, our ground positions were carefully prepared, mainly to deal with our armored forces. And we, in the process of breaking through such specialized anti-tank positions. It is also an excellent verification of the new tactics proposed by the commander-in-chief. ”

"What the commander said is extremely true, the most rearly demon is one foot high, and the road is one foot high, after all, it is our Yan Huang nobles who are superior." Lin Yi answered proudly.

Lu Kaiping shook his head in disappointment: "Your eyes are fascinated by that senseless nationalist enthusiasm, and you still don't see the point." ”

Lin Yi twisted a pimple in his heart. But he quickly confessed: "The chief taught a lesson." After the official is released, he must pay attention to ......"

Lu Kaiping couldn't see Lin Yi's careful thoughts, and frowned: "En." I know that you are a member of the Iron Federation, but I remind you that the army is the army, politics is politics, the real emperor is disdainful of stirring up the troubled waters of politics, and you also know the recent events in the capital, Liu Bailiang's group of guys who jumped up and down and plotted against each other, I knew that they had this kind of fate, and I hope you can also learn from it. ”

Lin Yi's lips trembled, and a trace of cold sweat suddenly appeared on his forehead.

"Thank you...... Thank you for the teaching, the sir's words, Lin Yi from now on, keep it in mind, implement it, and don't dare to have the slightest different thoughts......"

The military situation is urgent, and Lu Kaiping doesn't want to pursue it too much, not to mention that it is really out of kindness, so he also comforts him: "Okay, I know that you are not that kind of person, pay more attention in the future, I called you here to hear your opinion, what problems do you think we will encounter if we come back to rescue the advancing troops in five days?" ”

Lin Yi pondered for a while, and said, "One, the enemy will learn the lessons of this battle and improve their defensive line, which may cause us more serious losses. Second, at that time, the target of our rescue will mainly be the slow-moving infantry, and we will not have enough transportation capacity to quickly move them out of the city, and the enemy will have the opportunity to encircle, pursue, intercept, and create chaos, and the breakthrough troops may suffer heavy losses. Third, even if the rescue is successful, it may not be a good thing, and the enemy may be taken advantage of the strong combat strength of our army and retreat in the face of difficulties; if this is the case, the plan originally planned to wait for work in Rubtsovsk and annihilate the enemy's main force in a defensive counterattack is bound to fail. ”

Lu Kaiping nodded appreciatively: "Well, I finally got to the point, then tell me if there is any good way to avoid the above problems." ”

Lin Yi twisted his eyebrows and thought for a while, then hesitated and said, "There is a way, but it is just ......"

"There's no one else here, if you have something to say, talk quickly."

Lin Yi gritted his teeth and clenched his fists: "Simply, don't go to any rescue, once the rectification is completed, we will directly roll up and kill the past, use our best pincer outflanking tactics to cooperate with the advancing troops, divide and cut off his 300,000 troops, and break them all!" ”

"We only have five days, and the additional personnel, equipment, and materials are not in place so quickly, and after five days, our strength and reserves will not be enough to support the large-scale mobile operations you mentioned." Lu Kaiping emphasized.

"Then please give us a few more days, and when we have enough strength and reserves, we will attack in one fell swoop and destroy the enemy in one go."

Lu Kaiping narrowed his eyes in embarrassment, and his riding boots kicked back and forth in the thick dust.

"In your opinion, after transferring to the detachment and leaving, how long can Acheng's advancing troops last?"

"We easily broke the encirclement from the south this time, and the enemy is bound to focus on deploying troops and weapons to prevent blocking the southern road, so as not to fly off the fat in his mouth again, and the attack on Acheng is bound to slow down. And we can try to maintain contact with the enemy, make it look like we can launch a second assault at any time, and send small detachments to feint from the flanks from time to time, which should be able to contain a large part of the enemy. In addition, as far as I know, the enemy forces attacking Acheng did not commit armored forces, and our two armored battalions left in Acheng should be able to play a big role. In terms of supply, as long as the supply of ammunition can be guaranteed, food can be temporarily solved by slaughtering horses, and if there is no supply of horse material anyway, the more than 20,000 war horses inside will definitely starve to death......"

"I ask you, for how long?" Lu Kaiping sighed, and his voice became more and more gloomy.

"Ten days...... If air supremacy can be guaranteed, with Xiao Bin's ability, I don't think it should be a problem to hold on for another ten days. ”

"Zhilu said, I've worked hard for you, go back and stand by."

After Lu Kaiping finished speaking, he turned around and was about to go back to the car.

"Sir—" Lin Yi called out to him with some concern.

"Is there anything else?"

"It's just my personal thoughts, please don't force it too much...... I know that this method is not a solution, and there is no way to open up to Commander Liang anyway. ”

Lu Kaiping stopped slightly, turned his head sideways, but had a satisfied smile on his face: "You can talk to me, why should I worry?" Don't think about it so much, the next question is between me and the commander, you just need to do what you have at hand. ”

"Yes—"

Salute, close the door, start the engine, the tracks sonorous, the "iron leopard" with three antennas turns and opens on the road, merging into the rolling iron stream, far away, disappearing...... The main camp meeting room.

Today, it is the first time that Qianhua has presided over the base camp meeting in the capacity of chief of general staff and army chief of staff.