Age of Rebirth

Chapter [-]: The Fuse in the Far East

Tang Qiuli ordered Liu Tiehan's troops to launch the offensive in western Liaoning. After completing the campaign objectives, they suddenly retreated to the Panshan, Goubangzi, and Panjin areas. Liu Tiehan's troops did not suffer from such a retreat. The frontier of defense has advanced tens of kilometers, and has achieved an extremely favorable situation. If you continue to attack eastward, you can threaten Shenyang, and attack southward, you can directly take the important military location of the Liaodong Peninsula.

At the cost of extremely slight casualties, one of the three divisions with the strongest combat effectiveness of the Kwantung Army was killed, and two were severely injured, and most of the Kwantung Army's troops were attracted to the Shenyang area. In the area, the strength of the Kwantung Army was empty.

The time is right, and Tang Qiuli's important plan on the Sino-Soviet border can be carried out. This plan, like his recovery of foreign countries, is enough to change the strategic structure of the Far East and the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union.

Suifenhe, a small town on the northeast border, and Gelianji, a small town in the Far East of the Soviet Union, are across the river from Suifenhe. During the day, residents on both sides can clearly see all the daily activities of each other. When the Russians did not invade this area, This place belongs to Chinese territory, and it is a small town like two neighbors. [

Residents communicate with each other and intermarry, no different from the two towns in the interior. Now, a boundary river and a boundary marker have categorically separated what was originally a family relationship and became two countries.

Suifenhe basically retains the style and features of towns in Northeast China, but after the Japanese army occupied here, there are many Japanese-style buildings and colonial colors, because it is close to the Sino-Soviet border and is a key defensive area for the Japanese army. There are many military fortresses and strongholds. .

The small town of Gelianji on the other side of the Suifen River is completely Russian-style. There are several Orthodox churches in this small town. After Stalin’s brutal purge of the Chinese in the Far East, the aborigines in the town have been wiped out. What is left, this is also the key defensive area of ​​the Soviet army.

Stalin deliberately transformed this piece of territory that originally belonged to China, trying to erase all memories about China from people's memories, changing the religious beliefs of the residents, changing the style of the town, and changing the population ratio of the residents. On Chinese territory, a deep Russian brand has been engraved.

Even Haishanwei, which the Chinese are familiar with, the Russian tsar must seize, the Soviet Union in the Far East, the only estuary and ice-free port in the Pacific Ocean, has also been changed to the Russian name Vladivostok, Russian Meaning "Conqueror of the East," Stalin was interested in everything the old Tsar was.

Tang Qiuli's choice of this place as a flash point for provoking disputes between the Soviets and the Communists has a deep meaning. This area has a military port, Haishanwei, that Stalin paid more attention to, and there are also military bases here that can quickly form an army. The Second Army in the Far East of the Soviet Union would not make Stalin feel weak and blindly back down. This battle could not be fought, and it did not conform to Tang Qiuli's wishes.

Because the Soviet Union and the Communist Party have signed the Soviet-Japanese Friendship Treaty, neither the Soviet Union nor the Communist Party regards the other as the most important enemy that must be resolved immediately. The conflict of interests, the two sides will have a battle sooner or later, but not now.

Among them, the intention of the Japanese is the most obvious. The nearly one million Kwantung Army soldiers in the Northeast are the biggest capital used by the Japanese to deal with the Soviets. The Soviet Union's defense focus is on the European part. However, neither country immediately provoked it. The meaning of the war, the Japanese are busy occupying China, the Soviets are busy carve up Poland with the Germans, they also have to compete for territory with Finland, a small Nordic country, and they have to be wary of the fanatical head of state of Germany.

Therefore, neither the Soviet soldiers nor the Japanese soldiers regarded the border patrol as a matter of high tension and alertness. A group of Soviet border guard patrol soldiers, about [-] people, walked along the border marker on the side of the Suifen River near the Soviet Union. , conduct routine patrols.

This is the road they walked several times a day, and it is as familiar as the living room of their own home. The Soviet patrol soldiers walked casually, chatting and laughing in low voices, passing an undulating hill, and suddenly, there was a heavy rain , Splashed at the Soviet soldiers from the hills, and the Soviet soldiers who were caught off guard suddenly fell down a dozen people.

Immediately, the Soviet soldiers fought back. For a while, gunshots rang out on the peaceful Sino-Soviet border, and dark red roads pierced the night sky. A dozen Soviet soldiers were suppressed on the sandy ground by the river by the fierce firepower of the other side. , several experienced Soviet veterans have already heard that the ambushers used the standard equipment of the Japanese infantry, the [-]-style rifle.

The unique crisp "ba hook" shooting sound is absolutely different from other weapons. Just a dozen three-eight guns are not enough to make the Soviet soldiers passive, but the opponent is equipped with seven or eight light machine guns. , Beat the ground everywhere.

The patrol captain of the Soviet Army who led the team immediately ordered the radio station to report the situation to his superiors, "The patrol team called the Gorenki post. Our patrol team was on our side of Suifenhe, near the No. 180 boundary marker [-], and was attacked. Judging by the weapons, the assailant is the Japanese army, and the opponent's firepower is very fierce, and more than a dozen people have been killed or injured, so we ask for support."

Just after the patrol captain reported the situation, the attackers actually used mortars, a dozen mortars, and one shot, blowing up the remaining dozen or so Soviet soldiers to pieces. Then, the attackers spoke briefly in Japanese After a few words, he disappeared into the darkness.

An hour later, reinforcements from a company from the Soviet Gorenki Outpost arrived. The battle had long since ended, and even the smell of gunpowder was blown away by the night wind. On the blood-stained sand, no one would believe that a skirmish broke out here.

The Soviet company commander who led the team found a dying Soviet soldier, and hurriedly asked, "Tell me, who attacked you?" The word "***" tilted his head and died in the arms of the company commander.

The battle on the Soviet side near Boundary Pillar 180 No. 35 resulted in the death of all [-] members of a patrol team of the Soviet Army. The Gorenki Post, which received the report, realized the seriousness of the matter and immediately reported what happened here to the Soviet Far East Ussuriysk (Chinese place name is Shuangchengzi) Frontier Defense General Station of the Military Region.

The Ussuriysk Frontier Defense General Station immediately reported the situation to the Far Eastern Military District Command. Similar information was sent.

On the night of August 23, overnight, more than 100 Soviet border guards patrolled the border between Manchuria and the Soviet Union, stretching hundreds of kilometers from Khabarovsk in the north to Suifenhe in the south. The patrols were attacked by armed forces, and these patrols were wiped out without exception, and more than [-] Soviet soldiers died. [

The patrol team that was attacked, before all of them died in battle, sent back the important clue that the attackers used Japanese weapons. After summarizing the situation in the Soviet Far East Military Region, they realized the seriousness of the situation. This may be ** The army, a provocative action before a large-scale attack on Soviet territory, reported the attack on the Sino-Soviet border in the Far East overnight to the General Staff of the Soviet Red Army in Moscow.

The General Staff of the Soviet Army who received the report, a large group of senior generals, studied it for half a day, but they couldn't judge the Japanese's attempt. If it was a signal that the Japanese army was about to attack the Soviet Union, it was not in line with the routine, and no * The movement of the Japanese to go to the border area to mobilize troops on a large scale, such a small-scale scattered attack, is different from exposing the Japanese's attempt, and the Japanese will not be so stupid to this extent.

The conclusion of the General Staff is that the Japanese will not attack the Soviet Union on a large scale, but it is a real event that there are more than 300 soldiers killed by the Japanese. The Far Eastern Military Region will not lose their heads like this This fact turned the judgment of the General Staff that the Japanese army would not attack the Soviet Union on a large scale.

Contradictory conclusions and iron-clad facts made the senior generals of the Soviet Army General Staff confused. They had to wait patiently for Comrade Stalin to report the situation after waking up in the morning and ask the leaders to make a decision.

Stalin woke up in the morning, and before he had time to eat breakfast, he received this report that made him unappetizing. After looking at the contradictory conclusions and convincing facts, he couldn't help being annoyed for a while, but seeing several senior generals , with red eyes, knowing that they have done their best, this is a big issue related to the fundamental interests of the Soviet Union in the Far East, which in turn will affect the key direction of the Soviet Union's future defense. It is understandable that they cannot call the shots.

Stalin said calmly: "Okay, comrades generals, this incident is handled in this way, and Comrade Molotov is notified, and then he, as the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, lodges a serious protest to the Communist Party. , in all places where the fighting took place, all evidence was searched, and the border guards entered a state of emergency."

After receiving the domestic order, Stovikia, the Soviet ambassador to Taiwan, immediately took the protest letter drafted by Molotov himself, and drove straight to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Communist Party of China with an angry mood. The meaning of treachery.

After receiving the letter of protest, Ishisa Inotaro, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Communist Party of China, saw the livid-faced Soviet ambassador Stovikia walk in aggressively. A face?" Inexplicable, with a very puzzled.

After reading this protest letter, he almost jumped out of his chair, his eyes almost cramping in surprise. He would never believe that the Kwantung Army would be so reckless behind the back of the emperor and the headquarters, but the Soviet protest letter stated , And the words are so conclusive, he can't help but not believe it.

Regardless of whether the Japanese or the Soviets believe it or not, this plan, directed by Tang Qiuli himself and implemented by Tang Qiuquan, followed the gunshots on the banks of the Suifen River at midnight, and became the battle between Japan and the Soviet Union in the Far East of the Soviet Union. The region was the first trigger for successive vicious battles.

(To be continued)