Episode 201 Desert Charge

At half past four in the morning on Sunday, May 15, 1938, it was codenamed "July Storm".

To the south of the Qilian Mountains and to the north of the Beishan Mountains, the Ming army's offensive front was 200 kilometers long, and a total of 40 divisions were used, of which 20 were armored divisions, rushing to the front, and 20 motorized infantry divisions were following in the rear.

Attacking suddenly in the early hours of the weekend was an old tactic that the Ming army had repeatedly used. But it's such an old trick, but it has succeeded again and again. This time was no exception. In addition to the paralysis and slackness of the Central Asian border military districts of the Soviet army, it was also due to another "little trick" of the Ming army. It was clearly a military plan for the May attack, but it was named "July Storm", which was quite misleading. In fact, logically speaking, the name of the code name has nothing to do with the time and place of the military operation itself, and no one stipulates that the May offensive must be called the "May Storm," not the "July Storm." But it was such a one-word difference that surrounded many people in the Soviet intelligence department.

Twin-engine bombers of three brigades took off from Jiuquan Airport and bombed Hami 530 kilometers away and dozens of military targets along the way. The Soviet Supreme Command in Northern Xinjiang was in Dihua, but the distance was too far beyond the combat radius of the twin-engine bombers taking off from Jiuquan. Hami was the location of the closest corps-level headquarters of the Soviet Army to the Ming Army.

In the dark sky of Hami City, there was a sudden rumbling roar. As the roar became louder and louder, strong magnesium light also appeared around several bombing targets in the city, indicating the area. A few minutes later, a large number of bombs fell in a roar. Several places in the city of Hami burst into flames, and flares and flames illuminated the city as if it were daylight.

The bombing of the leading group is equivalent to using the fire to make a more obvious mark for the group behind it. In just a few minutes, strings of bombs fell on these burning areas, Soviet headquarters, barracks, anti-aircraft artillery positions, quartermaster depots, garages, ammunition depots, fuel depots, telephone hubs, power stations, radio towers...... Burn together in a raging fire. Building after building collapsed.

In addition to bombs, the fleet dropped a large number of leaflets and tens of thousands of copies of the Koran. The leaflets, printed in Chinese, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Kazakh Chinese, told everyone that the Ming army was about to come and that you were about to be liberated, and called on everyone to immediately rise up and resist, kill all the Soviet officers and soldiers who could be seen, and cut all the telephone lines that could be seen.

At the same time, a large number of bombs and shells also fell on the Soviet positions, the desert fire in the darkness flashed violently, the smoke of gunpowder mixed with sand and dust obscured the sky and the sun, and all kinds of loud noises were deafening, it was like hell.

Half an hour later, the artillery fire stopped. At this time, the east was already blue, and the sky was cloudy. Various bomber groups took advantage of the first morning light to return and land. On the ground, as signal flares rose one after another along the entire front, an innumerable number of tanks and armored vehicles were launched one after another. The entire 200-kilometer-long desert was completely drowned out by the roar of engines.

One by one, the sand and dust were raised. The all-colored "Lightning-4" tanks rushed to the front, forming a wedge-shaped attack formation, each tank spaced about 50 meters apart, and each dragged dozens of meters of sand and dust, forming a barrier that covered the sky and the sun. More "Lightning-4" and "Lightning-3" tanks in the back also formed one formation after another, following behind.

The reaction of the Soviet army was also very fast, and less than ten minutes later, the shells began to fall between the Ming tanks. But the Ming army was a pure tank phalanx, and there was no infantry between the tanks. The Soviets are now a howitzer diffuse, and there is no observation of artillery fire. Although the shells were dense, the actual damage caused was small.

The fire preparation of the Ming army just now was carried out completely in the dark, and there was also a lack of observation, and the deterrent significance was more than practical, and most of the Soviet positions were not greatly damaged. Now, the Soviet GIs were all driven out of their tents and quilts, hurriedly dressed, grabbed their weapons, and entered the tunnels to wait for them. The soldiers clutched the Mosin Nagant rifles and lay their upper bodies outside the trenches, enduring the moderate wind and sand in their faces, staring at the erratic sand and dust in front of them, and the barbed wire fence dangling in the wind and sand.

The Makqin heavy machine guns were also rolled out, and they were set up behind the trenches and blocked with sandbags, aiming ahead, ready to shoot at the charging Ming troops. If the Soviets fled backwards, they were also targets for heavy machine guns.

Between the long lines of infantry trenches were anti-tank positions at intervals. Behind the low, small- and medium-caliber anti-tank guns, Soviet artillerymen in steel helmets hid behind the baffle, crouched low, holding shells in their arms, staring ahead. And more anti-tank gunners were lying in the trenches, their upper bodies lying outside, holding thick anti-tank guns, squinting ahead.

The large-caliber howitzer shell over the head whizzed straight past, and it was the howitzer position in the rear that was firing.

At intervals, a commissar stood outside the trench without a care, brandishing a pistol in one hand and a loudspeaker in the other, shouting to boost morale.

Gradually, the sand and dust in the distance became thicker and thicker, and soon a visible "wall of sand and dust" was formed. The Soviet GIs knew that it was the tanks of the Ming army. Everyone, including the commissars, began to beat drums in their hearts.

More than 2,000 meters away, pillars of black and yellow sand and dust rose among the tanks of the Ming army. The sand, like the iron sand of a shotgun, rubbed over the steel plate of the tank at great speed. The armor skirts of many tanks are already mottled with paint as if they had been beaten with sandpaper.

Shi Shengli sat in his command tank, wearing a headset and his eyes on a periscope, and while swaying with the undulations of the sand dunes, he said in a deep voice:

"Stay in formation...... Maintain speed...... Boys, hold steady, don't be nervous, just train as usual...... Remember, follow me closely, don't fall behind, don't mess up the formation...... Remember, take care of my ass, and at the same time leave your ass alone, your ass has your own behind you to watch it...... Remember, the faster we rush, the fewer casualties...... As long as we can maintain our pace and our formation, we will win the battle......"

The armored forces of the Ming army expanded rapidly, and one-third of Shi Shengli's regiment were novices. Either they are going to war for the first time today. Either they have only fought with the Qing army, and they have not fought with the Soviet army. Now on the battlefield of the Western Front, even if you are a "veteran" who has fought in the war of unification, as long as you have never seen a move with the Soviet tanks, you are still regarded as a "novice". Like Shi Shengli, there are not many "hardcore veterans" who have fought all the way since the founding of the People's Guard Force and the defense of Nanjing. These backbones are responsible for bringing more novices.

But then again, there were more novices in the Soviet armored forces, and the level of training was even worse. Moreover, they do not even have veterans who have been "fighting for more than a year" in real combat. From tanks to tank crews, the overall quality level is far below that of the Ming army. Moreover, now, with the continuous development of the strong production capacity after the unification of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the massive material resources from the United States, the numerical superiority of the Soviet armored forces is not so obvious.