Beiyang 1917

On the day of July 1918, 7, almost no one was idle in the entire Ufa Plain. On the afternoon before, Yan Junliu, who was airborne, led the Japanese Fourth Cavalry Regiment stationed in Kumertau to go north to intercept the plan. At the time of Khachevsky, the mixed cavalry brigade of the First Armored Division led by Li Mingzhong who was stationed in Orenburg sent a cavalry regiment northward according to Wang Geng's instructions, preparing to replace the Japanese Fourth Cavalry Regiment in Kummer. Set of defense lines.

The reason why Kumertau became the best place to intercept the route of the Soviet Red Army’s southward withdrawal is because the entire upper reaches of the Belaya River flowed through the valley until it reached the valley [-] kilometers northeast of Kumertau. After turning to the north, it became a plain river, and only after entering the plain river, the Belaya River had a suitable place for large troops, especially cavalry, to cross the river.

The Belaya River is a river in the Bashgar region in central and western Russia. It is the largest tributary of the Kama River, an important tributary of the Vola River. It originates from the south of the Urals at the foot of the Iremel Mountains. , flows southwest through a narrow valley and then suddenly turns north. The valley widens and becomes a platform, with a total length of 1,420 kilometers (882 miles).

The valley where the Belaya River flows from east to west and turns to the north is located 15 kilometers northeast of Kumertau. Going north, it continues to flow until it joins the Kama River north of Derbeshinsky.

The main tributary in the middle is the Ufa (ufa) River, which means "White River" in Russian, and is also known as the left tributary of the Kama River in Russia.

The source is about 100 kilometers northeast of Kumertau, in the southern Ural Ilmeli Mountains. It flows through the Bashkir Autonomous Republic in the future. It is deep in the upper reaches of the Belaya River, and the right tributary is the Nugush River. After injection, the valley widens and becomes a plain river.

The entire Belaya is 1 kilometers long, with a drainage area of ​​430 square kilometers. The main tributaries are the Ufa, Djoma and Sim rivers. The average annual flow at the estuary is 14.2 m970s.The area below Ufa can be sailed regularly, and it is frozen from mid-November to mid-April of the following year, and the icing period is 2 months.

The main towns along the Belaya River are Beloretsk, Salavat, Ishimbai, Sterlitamak and Ufa.

According to Li Mingzhong's original intention, he even wanted to use his troops in the direction of Buzuluk. 42000 people from Yegorov's Ninth Army were intercepted in the triangle area north of Buzuluk town. How big a dish is this?My own team has detoured all the way from Ufa, and the main force of the mixed cavalry brigade has not been able to fight a big battle. Li Fugui's cavalry battalion has made great contributions in the town of Sterlitamak.

But this made Li Mingzhong's main force of the [-]rd Mixed Cavalry Brigade a bit embarrassed. Seeing that the Battle of Ufa was almost over, Jiang Hongyu and Xiong Shihui on the northern front line wiped out and captured tens of thousands of Soviet Red Army troops. Well, even Sergey and Petrovich of the Second Ural Cavalry Army captured more than one army commander and political commissar, and the enemies eliminated were all several divisions.

Sun Liangcheng's troops on the southern front made a great detour and captured the Urals and Samara. The defeated enemies added up to two divisions, and they also blocked the pocket of the Soviet Red Army on the right bank of the Volga River. The main force of the detour on the south road has achieved little success.

At this moment, the Ural Cavalry Third Division assigned to him caught the big fish of Yegorov's Ninth Army, but after all, it was a Russian cavalry division with only one cavalry brigade. His Chinese mixed cavalry brigade The firepower of the Russian cavalry division is much stronger than that of the Russian cavalry division, but it can't use its strength in this stupid Orenburg.

Li Mingzhong's mood in the morning was very similar to that of Wu Peifu, the commander of the Ufa central yang group, who led three fully equipped Russian infantry divisions. The Russian cavalry divisions kept catching up with and annihilating the main force of the Soviet Russian Red Army, one after another, not to mention the aggrieved and bored.

The distance from Orenburg to Kumertau is 110 kilometers. Li Mingzhong sent the first cavalry regiment from Orenburg to take over the defense line of the Japanese Fourth Cavalry Regiment in Kumertau yesterday afternoon. According to the telegram sent by Kov, the main force of Yegorov's army had been captured in the north of Buzuluk, so he left the second cavalry regiment and artillery regiment to guard Orenburg, and brought the brigade's armored battalion, The third cavalry regiment went straight to Solochinsk in the northwest.

As for the 216-kilometer journey from Orenburg to Solochinsk to Buzuluk, Li Mingzhong, the former enemy commander of the Southern Route Army, couldn't care less. Of course, until 18:00 that evening, Ye Ge When the rest of Rove's Ninth Army was encircled and had no hope of breaking out, they surrendered to Wu Peifu.

Li Mingzhong's armored reconnaissance battalion and the third cavalry regiment, who had driven for a day, had just passed 20 kilometers northwest of Solochinsk.

The so-called intentional planting of flowers will not bloom, and unintentional planting of willows will make shade. According to Wang Geng's instructions, the [-]st Cavalry Regiment of the Third Brigade of Mixed Cavalry who went north from Orenburg to fill the gap in Kumertao drew a perfect picture for the Battle of Ufa. period.

Xiao Shanling, commander of the mixed cavalry brigade, who led the first cavalry regiment to Kumertau, graduated from the third phase of Baoding. He was born in 1892. Xiao Shanling was born in a scholarly family. Governing the influence of the Hunan Army, he decided to invest in a pen and quit. He graduated from the Hunan Army Primary School and Baoding Army Officer School. He first served as the commander of the Hunan Army platoon company.

Last year, when Bai Chongxi defected from the north of Guangxi to join the war army, when he passed by Hunan, he pulled in this classmate of the same period who had mixed up with the battalion commander in the Hunan Army and joined the war army together. This was originally the head of Bai Chongxi's No.12 mixed brigade, Bai Chongxi's department After expanding into the No.20 Fourth Division of the participating army to garrison Chita, this guy was left in Sun Liangcheng's First Armored Division as the brigade commander of the Third Mixed Cavalry Brigade.

Since Li Mingzhong, the chief officer of the detour troop on the South Route, is one of the oldest division commanders participating in the war, even though the main force of the detour troop on the South Route is the [-]rd Brigade of Mixed Cavalry under the Order of Xiaoshan, all major and minor issues are actually caused by Li Mingzhong, the commander of the detour troop. As a matter of fact, although the brigade commander Xiao Shanling only brought his own cavalry regiment northward to Kummertau this time, he was in a very comfortable mood, and finally he could show his abilities on his own.

The road from Orenburg to Kumertau in the north is relatively easy, because the continuous heavy rain is mainly concentrated on the Ufa Plain north of Kumertau, and the south line is close to the Kazakh steppe. Although there are many rivers here, But the surface of the earth is still a relatively dry area. Although the clouds are overcast these days, there is not much real rain.

The 116-kilometer road from Orenburg to Kumertau started at 7 p.m. on July 13th. At 2 p.m., the main force of the first regiment of the third cavalry brigade led by Xiao Shanling entered the town of Kumertau. In the center, there is still a supply squadron left by the Japanese Fourth Cavalry Wing.

Xiao Shanling is also a man who knows the soldiers. After the troops entered Kumertau, he sent an avant-garde battalion carrying a radio station to the direction of the Belaya River overnight, turned the Belaya River from east to west, and then flowed north into the The valley in the flat area was monitored.

When Li Mingzhong led the detour detachment on the South Road to the south, in order to establish the Kumertau line of defense, Xiao Shanling led the reconnaissance battalion to walk along the east and west sections of the Belaya River in person. Troops and heavy weapons are simply impossible. The mountains are high and the water is deep and the current is fast. There are whirlpools and boulders everywhere. Let alone finding a suitable place to go down the river, if you go down the river, you will be swept away by the rapids.

Even so, Xiao Shanling did not dare to neglect after taking over the line of defense. In the early morning of July 7, he sent a new security force along the upper reaches of the East-West Belaya River to the south bank. Commander Wang Geng taught the method when he was teaching in the officer training regiment, that is, when there is no condition to set up a wired telephone, use the method of beacon tower relay to send out police sentries to guard a section or front.

Xiao Shanling set up police guard posts every 500 meters on the east-west section of the upper reaches of the Belaya River, and brought dry food and water bottles, so that counting from the turning point of the valley 15 kilometers northeast of Kumertau, heading east Extending until the upper reaches of the Belaya River enters the Ural Mountains, on the river section of about 40 kilometers, there is a two-man watchman guard post every 500 meters, and 4 cavalry platoons with nearly 170 people form a river defense police network.

Since the terrain on the south bank of the upper reaches of the Belaya River is relatively flat, while the north bank is surrounded by towering mountains, as long as the Soviet Red Army is found to be trying to cross the river in the upper reaches where it is almost impossible to cross the river, the main force of Xiao Shanling's cavalry regiment will have enough When the river defense alert sentry reported the alert with gunfire relay, they arrived in time and intercepted it.

In the plain area after the Belaya River turned to the north, from the river valley to the town of Meleuz in the north, on a section of the river about 15 kilometers away, two cavalry platoons also took on the task of vigilance.

Xiao Shanling, commander of the [-]rd Cavalry Brigade, placed a cavalry battalion in Mellieuz, another cavalry battalion in the direction of the river valley, and a cavalry battalion in the middle of the east-west section of the upper reaches. The position between Uzi and Kumertau maneuvered.