Beiyang 1917

Wang Geng walked quickly to the combat map, drew a large circle centered on Bavley and Briguma, and turned around and said, "The radius of this circle on the map is 70 kilometers. The Soviet Red Army has wings We will start retreating across the board tonight, and the westernmost Fifth Army can't escape this circle. Of course, Slavin's three divisions don't have the burden of the wounded, so they run relatively briskly, but this guy is obviously setting up suspicious positions!"

"Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, I also wonder, even if Slavin's Fifth Army wants to run away, why does he attack from Briguma to the northwest? Could it be that he ran faster and easier after provoking us?" Taro Utsunomiya asked the solution.

"Slavin is a thoughtful Soviet general. Obviously, with the destruction of the North Route Army of the Fifth Army and the appearance of Xiong Shihui's armored reconnaissance battalion in Brigoma, the existence of the main force of the coalition forces in the northwest is beyond doubt. He knows that even if he marches at night, our reconnaissance plane will definitely find that the Fifth Army has left the line of Bafrey and Brigoma by tomorrow morning, and he can snatch a distance of 60-70 kilometers at most!"

Wang Geng looked at the general of the Japanese army with his hands behind his back, pondered for a moment, and said, "Your Excellency Taro, if you were the commander of the Soviet Russian Fifth Army, how would you break out? Samara in the southwest has been occupied by the coalition forces. The ferry on the other side of Birsk is obviously the next target for the coalition forces to seize in a detour, and the opponent's Fifth Army left a division of troops behind after crossing the river in Bolgar. If you were Slavin, how would you arrange the retreat? "

Utsunomiya stepped forward and looked at the map carefully, and said hesitantly, "Obviously the best strategy is to retreat to the northwest and cross the river from Bolgar and Tetyushi, which are still in the hands of the Soviet Red Army, back to the left bank of the Volga River. go."

"That's right, since everyone thinks this way, even if the road to the northwest is not the safest, it is the shortest and the most familiar, because that's the way the Fifth Army came! So Slaven will definitely To make this move to retreat to the northwest of Bolgar, or else it is contrary to common sense, but self-defeating, going west is the most convenient, and going east is the most dangerous, so he sent the main force to attack the northwest!" Wang Geng smiled slightly on the road.

"Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, you mean that Slavin deliberately took the path that everyone thought he should take when retreating, and even attacked with great fanfare, just to attract our attention?" Utsunomiya Taro asked in surprise.

"Maybe he wanted to scare off our forwards with a fierce attack, so that we dare not act rashly in the night, buying time for his main force to run west, but I guess this time we will attack north from Brigoma That division must not be the main force, and the artillery company moves slowly and has big targets, and Slavin is probably playing the trick of getting rid of the shell!" Wang Geng said quite confidently.

"So we sent troops to the east and south to intercept? Regardless of the second Ural cavalry division, but... but the Japanese seventh cavalry regiment only has more than 4000 people. If the two main divisions of Slavin really go northeast Running away in the direction, the Seventh Cavalry Regiment was trying to stop the opponent's main force of more than 20000 people in the middle of the night, which is a bit difficult!" Utsunomiya Taro said awkwardly.

"Whether it is the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of Japan or the Second Ural Cavalry Division, the purpose is to intercept the enemy rather than eat the enemy. These two groups of troops only need to find the enemy and stick to them. They are infantry, our cavalry It’s just that they are really outnumbered and can’t beat them, but it’s no problem to stick them to follow and harass the other party to hold him back. The air team will be dispatched at dawn, and I’ll see where Slavin is going!” Wang Geng said firmly.

"Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, what if the enemy swarms south? Our troops in the south are far away! Li Mingzhong's main force is still in Orenburg, and the [-]rd Ural Cavalry Division has just arrived in Buzuluk! They are all separated by more than [-] kilometers." How about the distance?" Utsunomiya Taro looked at the map again and asked his own question.

Wang Geng nodded, "Accordingly, going south was a very good way to retreat by surprise at the beginning, at least there are no coalition ground troops within 200 kilometers, but the road to the south is long, and you have to go to the Volga in the end? No matter how far they can go south, they have to turn west in the end. Li Mingzhong's main force is waiting for work in Orenburg. As long as our aerial reconnaissance finds out the direction of the opponent's main force's retreat, he will not be able to run south, maybe the opponent himself Just drag the team away!"

"Your Excellency, Commander-in-Chief, in the nearly 400-kilometer area from Orenburg to Samara, only the [-]nd Ural Cavalry Division is in this area. Can't stop!" Utsunomiya Taro expressed his worries.

"The cavalry division only needs to find and follow the enemy. If the main force of the enemy really swarms south to break through, then the main force of Li Mingzhong in Orenburg will go north, and the main force of Samara Sun Liangcheng will go south. The main force of the group, let me see where he is going!" Wang Geng comforted his assistant.

The night of July 1918, 7 was a sleepless night for both sides.

At nightfall, Slavin's Fifth Army divided into two groups. The commander of the army, Slavin, personally led Hessing's first division, six artillery companies, and three heavy machine gun battalions to march towards Brigoma in the dark. , and soon encountered the armored reconnaissance battalion that Xiong Shihui had left five kilometers southeast of Briguma.

Slavin's military command ability is by no means inferior to that of Eich and Lezhevski, who have surrendered to the coalition forces. This guy, a division, marched in three ways, and the commander of the first Siberian infantry division, Hisin, led the first brigade. The avant-garde regiment opened the way in front, and then on the left was the division political commissar Simbik leading a regiment of the second brigade, on the right was the commander of the first brigade leading a regiment, and Slavin and the commander of the second brigade led a regiment and artillery and heavy machine gun battalions go in the middle.

Xiong Shihui's armored reconnaissance battalion is fairly alert. He discovered the leading regiment of Hai Xin who came from the dark ahead of time. This brigade belongs to the armored reconnaissance battalion with 2500 fd-40ii wheeled armored combat vehicles. The 17mm large-caliber machine gun on the 360-degree rotating turret is quite powerful when fired.

But this time Slavin came prepared. Heising led the leading regiment to attack with a skirmisher line. Although the casualties were not small, they did not retreat. At this time, Slavin had already deployed six artillery batteries behind him. And let the two heavy machine gun battalions accompany the two regiments on the left and right to outflank.

The battalion commander of the armored reconnaissance battalion on the opposite side is Gu Xiaosi, Xiong Shihui's distant cousin. , The vehicle infantry got off the vehicle and entered the position, ready to eat this Red Army infantry regiment who didn't know the heights of the sky and the earth.

As a result, the fighting was full of enthusiasm, and the sound of the opponent's Maxim heavy machine gun sounded from both wings at the same time, and sparks were scattered from the turret armor of his own armored vehicle, and then the artillery and cannons behind the opponent's position rang!

The third company and the second company successively reported that the enemy from the left and right flanks outflanked at least one regiment or more in strength. Listening to the sound of the cannons, the opponent had at least 30 cannons roaring behind the position. Er can really suffer a lot.

Gu Xiaosi, the commander of the armored battalion, ordered the retreat immediately. Fortunately, the armored reconnaissance battalion here is well-trained. When running, the bullets fired by the large-caliber heavy machine gun on the 360-degree turret were like rain, while the vehicle-mounted infantry squad They all practiced the ability to get on and off the vehicle while the vehicle was moving at a low speed, so the armored battalion had already retreated 100 meters before the second wave of shells came from the other party's running group, and then ran away on the way. Going back, of course, the night sky also served as a good cover, making the first wave of artillery shells of the opposing artillery group not hit very well.

Under Slavin's artillery fire, three armored vehicles of the armored reconnaissance battalion were destroyed and abandoned. The coalition forces killed 12 people and injured more than 30. The wounded and weapons were taken away during the retreat. The three damaged armored vehicles were even destroyed by the coalition forces The soldiers detonated the wreckage themselves before retreating.

On Slaven's side, 123 people were killed and 236 were injured in Hessing's leading regiment. In less than 20 minutes of fighting, a full battalion of troops lost their combat effectiveness.The fighting power of the coalition armored forces made the soldiers of the Fifth Army shudder.

Slavin personally checked the positions of the coalition forces. To his disappointment, no prisoners were captured in this battle. Although the corpses of twelve coalition soldiers were placed next to the 123 corpses of the Soviet Russian Red Army, the Soviet Russian Fifth Army For the first time, the soldiers of the Red Army saw the appearance of strange and mysterious coalition soldiers. Several fallen soldiers of the coalition army whose faces were still intact looked very young, and the armbands wrapped around the arms of the military uniforms were dazzling red under the torchlight.

Slavin went up to untie an armband and looked at it. The red hoop, white circle and black Chinese characters were embroidered and trimmed, and the workmanship was exquisite. This guy turned around and asked who knew these words. Haixin, the commander of the First Siberian Division, looked up and said, "Comrade Commander, this is the armband of the Chinese army participating in the war. These three characters are Chinese characters, called "Model Army".

Haixin's forehead was scratched by the mortar shrapnel from the Allied Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. The injury was not serious, and there was a lot of blood flow!At this time, his face looks more ferocious!