Episode 23 Defending the Northern Frontier

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Fourteen Gege drove the military vehicle down the hill cautiously, stopping on a high slope, and both of them climbed to the top of the car.

Now the artillery fire is a little smaller, not as dense as it was just now. But apparently, the battle is still going on. At this time, through the light of the explosion, you can see the figures one by one.

"Huh? Wrong! Xiang Xiaoqiang questioned, frowned and said, "The direction is not right!" ”

Fourteen Gege also immediately said:

"The Soviet offensive is in the wrong direction! The Soviets are going to run away! ”

"Telescope?"

Xiang Xiaoqiang only asked one sentence, and he understood that she couldn't have it. Without saying a word, he jumped out of the truck and ran to the back of the car to look for it, hoping to find a telescope.

Sure enough, there was not only spare food in the rear compartment, but also a telescope for him.

Xiang Xiaoqiang climbed back to the roof of the car, held up the binoculars and pointed them in the direction of the Soviet army, and slowly adjusted the focus.

Suddenly, he froze, and his facial expression froze suddenly, as if he had discovered something important.

"What's wrong?" Fourteen Gege looked at him and asked anxiously, "What's going on?" ”

Gradually, Xiang Xiaoqiang's big mouth opened, and the grin got bigger and bigger:

"Aha...... Aha...... Aha...... Ahahahaha...... Wow - hahahahahaha......"

Fourteen grids were almost on fire next to him, snatching the binoculars and looking at himself. Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled from ear to ear next to him, and laughed repeatedly:

"Take a look...... Take a look...... Fourteen, this is really heaven that will not kill me!! ”

Soon, Fourteen Gege's expressions were also relieved. She put down her binoculars, leaned weakly on Xiang Xiaoqiang, and smiled relaxedly. The two stood on the roof of the car like this, facing the bursts of fire in front of them, and hugged each other gently.

……

In the distance, it was not the Soviet army that marched in large numbers, but the Ming army.

The two of them joined the torrent in their trucks. But Xiang Xiaoqiang immediately felt strange. The atmosphere in the troops was obviously already very flustered, and there was a sense of sadness from top to bottom. And it can be seen that this is an army that has just been woken up from the bed, the officers and soldiers are disheveled, and the queue and formation are a little chaotic.

From time to time mortar shells screamed and flew over, exploding in the army. The nearby soldiers immediately fell to the ground in a large area. The explosions kicked off the earth and rocks fell, and the soldiers got up again and continued to move forward.

Xiang Xiaoqiang looked at his watch, it was not yet five o'clock in the morning.

He did not know what time the Soviets attacked. Although he was attacked by the Soviet reconnaissance troops on the mountain, the small reconnaissance troops on the mountain and the large troops below the mountain were not necessarily synchronized. But come to think of it, the Soviet offensive will not last more than three hours. In such a short period of time, and in the second half of the night, when I slept the deadest, and braving artillery fire, it was already very good to be able to launch a counterattack so quickly without being disrupted.

The key point is that nearly half of the combat strength of the 1st Division, as well as most of the military vehicles, have been drawn to Altay. Of the remaining two tank regiments, only one regiment is full, and the other regiment is basically left with tanks, and the personnel are all in Altay. Also, two motorized rifle regiments, and now one regiment is also in Altay. In addition to a tank regiment, a motorized infantry regiment, a cannon battalion, and a heavy artillery battalion, only units directly under the division and logistics units remained.

Units directly under the division and logistics units, that is, reconnaissance battalions, engineer battalions, guard companies, air defense battalions, communications battalions, sanitary battalions, special tank battalions, mechanized infantry battalions, quartermaster offices, supply offices, etc. And half of the main combat forces: officers and men of an armored regiment, a motorized infantry regiment, two howitzer battalions in an artillery regiment, are now in Altay.

Since most of the military vehicles were in Altay, most of the soldiers did not have cars to sit in, so they could only run behind the tanks. The First Division of the People's Guard basically lost the advantages of "mechanization" and "motorization." Moreover, with the exception of a small number of self-propelled guns and assault guns, most towed guns could not be towed by cars and had to be abandoned.

The 1st Armored Division of the People's Guard Corps is now equivalent to having an arm cut off.

But even so, after they were "blitzkrieg" by others, in the state of division commander Gao Dayi in Altay and commander Xiang Xiaoqiang in Tianchi, they could immediately get up from their nests and quickly fight back.

Xiang Xiaoqiang sat in the cab and looked at these officers and soldiers marching under artillery fire, feeling relieved and ashamed.

……

Fourteen Gege stopped the car, jumped out of the car and grabbed a soldier and asked:

"Where is the division headquarters? Where is the division headquarters? ”

"The division headquarters is in ...... Yes! The soldier's eyes lit up: "Your Royal Highness!! ”

As soon as he shouted, all the officers and soldiers around him looked over. Immediately afterwards, Xiang Xiaoqiang was discovered again.

The surroundings were boiling.

The officers and men suddenly found the backbone of the main body, and the cheers shook the sky, spreading out to the surroundings one by one, resounding throughout the sky.

Now, although they were caught off guard and rushed to the battle, the morale of the officers and men was high as if they had won a great victory.

……

Ten minutes later, Xiang Xiaoqiang and Fourteen Gege, driving the car, escorted by several soldiers, came to the division headquarters. The so-called division headquarters is now just a few command vehicles put together and a few folding tables in the open air.

Seeing that the commander and the princess were safe and sound, the officers of the division headquarters were also overjoyed. Although everyone also understood that the commander was born in intelligence, and his real military talent was not as good as that of his professional staff officers, everyone still wanted to see the source of confidence, and their emotions suddenly rose.

Deputy division commander Sun Lianyi pointed to the map and said:

"Your Highness and Your Excellency, please see, at the moment we are here, and the Soviet army has been spotted to the south of us. Whether it is the main force is not clear. However, it seems that this Soviet army has no heavy weapons, and the only thing that is fired at us is mortars. Of course, the caliber is large, but it's just a mortar. We estimate that this Soviet army should not be the main force yet, but from the south, that is, from this small road. Otherwise, the Soviet army would not have come so quickly. Please see, my lord, this path was just added by our subordinates, and our original map didn't have it at all. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang frowned, this intelligence work is too bad.

…… However, it is no wonder that the northwest has been a blind spot in the intelligence work of the Ming Dynasty for many years. The intelligence energy of the Ming Dynasty was focused on the east, and the northwest didn't even think about it. That is, after he entered northern Xinjiang, he accepted a large number of Qing troops who returned to obedience, and also hired some local guides, so he successively added some small roads to the map. And just like that, there are still a lot of trails, villages, etc., which are not on the map at all.

He noticed that this trail was the thinnest part of the Tianshan Mountains. From south to north, it is only more than twenty kilometers. To the south of the mountain is Tuoxun County, and to the east is Turpan. And from the contour line, there is no snow line at all, and the highest point is only more than a thousand meters. And that's still altitude. The relative height may be only a few hundred meters. As long as the Soviet army is lightly armed and the troops are not too bad, then it can be turned over in a few hours at most, just like playing.

"But ......," Xiang Xiaoqiang muttered, "since it is lightly armed, it must not be the main force." ”

"Yes, my subordinates think so too. I have asked the guide, and according to the guide's description, the subordinates feel that the path can theoretically pass cars and artillery. However, only theoretically. Even if the main Soviet army did come from here, it would be very slow, which would give us enough time to set up defenses. The subordinates also thought that the Soviets had just remembered the effect of a surprise attack. Seeing that our strength was not large, they had taken half of it to Altay, and they probably had a fluke mentality, hoping that sending a surprise attack force could break us up and then let the main force eat us. ”

"But their hopes were dashed." Xiang Xiaoqiang raised his head, looked at them excitedly, nodded and said, "You guys are good, our People's Guards are all good." Lao Maozi's hope of eating us in one bite was disappointed. We're so much better than they thought we would. ”

The officers at the division headquarters looked at Xiang Xiaoqiang and also looked very excited.

"Okay," Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled, "So, how about the direction of Turpan and Dabancheng?" ”

"I haven't been able to contact Turpan. This was to be expected, the Soviet troops in southern Xinjiang were stationed on the edge of Turpan, and our insufficient troops also shrank the troops in Turpan to the north and held the Dihua Pass. At the same time that the Soviet army is attacking us, it will certainly occupy Turpan in one fell swoop and achieve a favorable offensive posture. Then we estimate that in the next step, the main force of the Soviet army will attack from the Tianshan Pass on the Turpan-Dabancheng-Dihua line. This is certainly a mechanized unit with a large number of armored corps. My lord, the next battle will be outnumbered, and it will definitely be quite hard, or rather...... Fairly...... Tragic. ”

"I know...... I know ......" Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and said distraughtly, "The Soviet Union has an armored army. ”

"Your Excellen......cy," said another staff officer, "right now, what the soldiers need most is fighting spirit. My lord, could you speak to the soldiers on the radio to boost their morale? Now that the road back to the east has been blocked by Soviet troops, we have no way to retreat. What is needed most now is ...... It is the pride and ambition of the Nanjing Defense War. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and said:

"Bloody battles, people are in the city, and people are dead in the city."

Sun Lianyi was upset and said:

"But...... This is Dihua, not Nanjing. Behind Nanjing, there is the hometown of the soldiers, as well as their parents, wives and children...... Right now, to put it mildly, it's like a newly acquired colony...... The officers and soldiers have no emotion at all......"

Xiang Xiaoqiang raised his eyebrows:

"Are you afraid that they will surrender easily?"

There was no sound around. Everyone is acquiescing.

"Surrender the Soviets?" Xiang Xiaoqiang's voice raised an octave and said in a loud voice, "Do you think that we have always treated the captives preferentially, so we treat others with ourselves?" Don't you know how the Soviets treated their prisoners? Do you know that there is a shortage of people to work in the labor camps in Siberia? ”

There was still no one around.

Xiang Xiaoqiang was stunned for a moment, and suddenly shouted:

"Bring pen and paper! Lao Tzu wants to create! ”

The staff officer beside him was stunned and immediately took the pen and paper.

Xiang Xiaoqiang didn't say a word, sat down and wrote an impassioned battle song. Then he threw it into Sun Lianyi's arms and shouted:

"Let's sing this song and stop the Soviet army!"

Several officers gathered around and looked at the paper. Soon, some people high-fived and admired, while others were skeptical.

"My lord......" a staff officer raised his head and wondered, "This song, my subordinates know, isn't this Germany's "Guardian of the Rhine"? It was there decades ago. During the European war, the German army relied on it to cheer up! To say it's a really good song. But we use it like this, isn't it ......?"

Xiang Xiaoqiang was stunned, he didn't expect that he was self-defeating. He only knew that the name of this song was "Defend the Rhine to the Death", and he thought it was composed by the Nazi Party at the end of World War II in 1945! I didn't expect it to be written in the nineteenth century.

But as soon as he slapped the table, he shouted:

"So what! Let's use it to find out! Hitler's side, I'll go and say! Damn, let's give them two more boatloads of rice and let him sell us this song! Who, just so you know this song, sing it! ”

The staff officer shouted:

"Yes!"

……

Then, holding the lyrics, he stood on a stool, faced the officers and soldiers passing by, and sang loudly:

"A roar of rage, like thunder! Like the sea roaring, like a sword roaring!

Whoever goes to the north, who goes to the north,

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