Dominate the Country

Barnaul at night is like a grand fireworks display, with orange lights flashing across the night sky from time to time, and the scene of flames rolling up into the sky is really unimaginable for the soldiers of this era - after all, it is 1788 in the Gregorian calendar. Not 1914.

Whether it is the Russian side, or the officers from the affiliated countries who came to the 11th Division headquarters from Japan, Annan, and Siam, and many military academy students who came to practice with them, their hands holding the telescopes trembled slightly.

They looked pale, half-opened their mouths, and trembled as they watched the volcanic eruption in front of them. Imagine such a scene being imposed on their country...

As time passed, the explosions in Barnaul became more intense. In the past, there could be one or two hundred shots in a night, and no more than three hundred shots in a day. But now?

Three hundred shots in a night are common, and five hundred shots can be fired in a day, but the intensity of the Russians' counterattack has decreased! Even if the Russians prepared early, they couldn't put 20,000 or 30,000 rockets in a city. Rockets also cost money!

The cost of a rocket is not high, but if this number is multiplied by "10,000", it is not a small amount.

However, the logistics supply line of the Wehrmacht is unimpeded under the protection of a large number of vassal cavalry. Transporting rockets from the rear has become a top priority in the war. This reminds Chen Ming of the shell crisis during World War I.

Before the war began, whether it was Britain, France, or Germany, they had never estimated the extremely high shell consumption rate in the war. The millions of shells in stock were consumed in a few months, so that the two military groups waved real money and looked for arms manufacturers all over the world.

The Japanese and the Lighthouse Country took the opportunity to make a lot of money.

After a while, Chen Wei put down the telescope and said loudly to his old superior Wei Xiuzhi: "How is it? Is it much better than the training ground? You have been the deputy governor for so many years, but you have never seen such a big scene?"

On the edge of Lake Balkhash and Lake Zaisan, the National Defense Army also built a lot of fortresses. Wei Xiuzhi was responsible for the construction of these fortresses. Most of the fortresses were equipped with heavy artillery.

Ten-jin and twelve-jin cannons can only be considered small guys, and fifteen-jin cannons can be considered eye-catching. The largest caliber is twenty-jin cannon, with a flint-fire ignition mechanism. The sound of that cannon is not much smaller than that of a rocket, but their firing speed is definitely not as fast as that of a rocket.

The rumbling explosion tore Chen Wei's voice intermittently, but Wei Xiuzhi still heard it clearly, turned his head and looked at him, and smiled: "Not only have I never seen it, I have never thought about it! Such a concentrated launch of rockets, such a siege mode, is too expensive."

The production cost of a heavy rocket + labor cost, a total of about 200 yuan.

The production and manufacturing of rockets has formed a production chain in Chenhan Military Industry. Labor is not expensive, and it does not require experienced workers to take care of it. After a series of production procedures, a simple assembly line is born under the conveyor belt. The labor cost is not high, and the cost price of 200 yuan is almost all in the raw materials.

Whether it is iron, gunpowder, or cork filled inside, it all costs money.

500 shots a day, that's 100,000 yuan. Moreover, this is only the cost price of rockets, and there are also artillery bombardment, food and fodder, bullets, and human lives?

The daily loss of a battle is 300,000+. The total cost of the northwest battlefield today is probably not less than 2 million per day. If the three battlefields in the east, west and north are all counted, and the logistics are also counted, the daily cost will not be less than 5 million. How can you fight without money?

Ten-jin and twelve-jin cannons were placed close to the fortress wall less than 1,000 meters away. As long as the artillery group was not destroyed by rockets, it would be relatively safe.

The only Russian artillery in Barnaul was the fortress cannons in the fortress and closed bunkers. The artillery placed in the open air was almost all destroyed by their "peers" these days. Chen Han's artillery group also had a pair of clairvoyance.

None of the Russian artillery was ignited by flintlock, and they were basically old-fashioned - hot iron rods were inserted into the fire port.

In the first three or five days of the war, the bilateral artillery battle was still quite fierce. The artillery groups on both sides would shake at any time, and flames would spew out, followed by thunderous cannon sounds, and the cannons would retreat suddenly.

At that time, large columns of smoke would rise from the positions of Barnaul City and Chen Han's National Defense Army. This was not the smoke of the explosion after the shells hit, but the smoke from the cannons after the shells were fired by both sides.

Chen Han's artillery rarely has shrapnel shells, almost all of them are solid shells, or special shells, which are more effective for bombarding Russian fortifications. The Russians can't make shrapnel shells in large quantities. The lethality of the bilateral bombardment in the initial stage is very poor. The imagined "the fragments of the shells are like a storm sweeping over the city walls occupied by XX, and human limbs, gravel, soil or other broken things are flying around" is impossible. However, it is true that the bricks and stones on the city walls and fortresses of Barnaul were hit by iron bullets and fell straight down.

As time passed, Chen Wei and Wei Xiuzhi, who were on the front line of Barnaul, didn't know what happened to the besieged Siberian army, but at this moment they knew that Barnaul was "not going to work".

The Russians' counterattack rockets were getting fewer and fewer.

Although Chen and Wei knew that the real mission of the 11th Division was not to capture Barnaul, they were still excited when they saw the Barnaul pill.

In order to make it look more like a real attack, Chen Wei decided to launch a real attack.

Of course, the time would not be during the day. The attack time selected by the 11th Division was 2 o'clock in the morning.

The first wave of attacking troops carried wooden boards and ladders, shouting loudly and moving forward. Their starting position was only three or four hundred meters away from Barnaul. The attacking troops did not charge at full speed at the beginning, but quietly and fully advanced forward in the formation of a skirmish line. However, the Russians fired a round of flares into the sky a few minutes later, and everything was clear.

The hidden rocket launchers and rockets were quickly launched. In the overwhelming bombing, the attacking troops carried ladders and moved forward quickly.

The Russian army recovered from the overwhelming explosion just now and immediately began to counterattack!

"Everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone..."

Lieutenant Colonel Onopko's heart-wrenching roar rang out on the Russian position. He looked around, and in the moonlight, he only saw a mess on the position. Several bodies were lying on the ground, and soldiers were knocked over by the air wave.

The Wehrmacht soldiers who first rushed to the Russian position under the city, mostly under the command of officers, fired fiercely at the broken city head and the firing holes and tops of the fortress with scattered muskets, and threw grenades one by one.

But their gains were very few, and the bullets fired from the solid fortress, the shotgun shells fired, and the bombs thrown made the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers who rushed to the Russian position fall down like wheat being cut.

The two companies of Russian soldiers guarding the Russian position were easily cleared, but the solid fortress was like a hard bone, breaking a big tooth of the Wehrmacht.

The city of Barnaul is close to the Barnaul River, surrounded by a moat that is a full 10 to 20 meters wide. If they didn't take down the fortress first and went directly to attack Barnaul, how many lives did the Wehrmacht want to fill under the city?

Seeing the casualties of the attacking officers and soldiers, they still endured the enemy's bullets, shells and bombs, throwing bombs into the firing holes of the fortress like crazy, firing at the fastest speed to suppress the opponent, but it was useless.

Chen Wei's face in the back was as green as the back shell of a hairy crab, but he still issued an order to retreat. If he continued to attack, he would be killing himself.

This made him realize the powerlessness of Europeans when facing the bastions.

"If the attack fails, then we can only besiege. Will it take one or two years?" Chen Wei's mind unfolded a picture, with Russian troops shrinking in the city and not coming out, and the Wehrmacht with more people outside the city was surrounding them-"Is this still a war?"

Wei Xiuzhi watched the battle tonight and was speechless.

The Russians obviously hid some rockets, but this is not the point. Even without rockets, this battle would not be easy to win.

There are shooting positions everywhere on the broken walls of Barnaul. The Russians also made some small cannons that fired shotgun shells, broken iron and stones. They are easy to move and fast, and have great killing power at close range. They used hard granite to build fortresses outside the city to protect the Russian army inside to the maximum extent. Then the two sides formed crossfire, and the Wehrmacht in the middle could only be slaughtered. Besides, the Russians did not have no rockets...

There were losses on both sides. The Wehrmacht's rockets also caused a lot of casualties to the Russian army on the top of the city, but this was too small compared to the casualties suffered by the Wehrmacht. 10 Wehrmacht soldiers can only exchange for one Russian life. No one dared to fight such a battle.

"Alas, I finally understand why the emperor said that the Torghuts are important. This Wubashi is really crucial." Without the Torghuts as an insider, and leading the Russian First Army that had already been dispatched to "drill into" the encirclement in a few days, how long will the battle in the northwest last?

Wei Xiuzhi shook his head, as if the three views in his mind were suddenly shattered. "Yes." The voice was filled with endless sighs.

When Chen Ming started his army, he fought one battle after another, and no matter how difficult the bones were, no battle could be counted in "years".

But now he is really confused.

To solve Barnaul, we must first solve the granite fortresses outside. These fortresses are actually not very big, and they can't hide many people inside, let alone have a year or two of food reserves. But between them, between them and the top of the city, they can form a perfect crossfire.

If they can be disconnected from the city of Barnaul, perhaps the fortresses can't even last a month.

But how can the connection between the two be cut off?

Just rely on those iron bullets?

Perhaps when the rockets in Barnaul are really used up, the National Defense Army can completely cut off the connection between the two with the advantage of rockets.

…

The course of the battle in Barnaul was quickly delivered to Chen Ming through carrier pigeons. After reading it, Chen Ming did not find it strange.

Since humans started wars, sieges have been a process that must be experienced in many wars.

As for China, the distant ones include Tian Dan defending the city, the Qin attack on Zhao's Handan, the Suiyang defense battle during the Anshi Rebellion, the Taiyuan battle at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Xiangyang defense battle and the Diaoyucheng battle in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the Yuan army's attack on Gaoyou [Zhang Shicheng], and the more recent ones include the Dalinghe battle at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Jiangyin siege, the Qing-Russia Yaksa battle, and Zheng Chenggong's Xiamen battle. These are all vivid examples.

It is very dangerous to siege a city for a long time in a war. To ensure victory, it is necessary to maintain an absolute advantage in the number of troops, logistical supplies, and precise field combat capabilities. Otherwise, the Nanjing Defense War and the Lushan Defense War after Chen Han started his army were also a clear reverse example.

Chen Ming did not have the idea of ​​attacking the city and defeating the enemy in his heart. How simple it would be to do so. But reality told him that this kind of siege war in the era of hot weapons was really difficult to fight, so siege war was also his best choice.

As long as he could win, it was not unacceptable to delay some time.

Chen Ming could not say how many years this sixth Russo-Turkish war would last. Two or three years was not short, and three to five years was not too much.

As long as there was time, Chen Han could continuously mobilize troops to the northwest, transport materials, establish one military station after another on the transportation line, and then tightly surround Pavlodar, Barnaul, and Omsk.

Both sides were a waste.

Chen Ming now had money in his hands, so he was not afraid of waste. After all the Russian troops were surrounded/contained in the city, he organized a cavalry group and swept across the Ural.

Why did Europeans start the night battle mode of volley shooting after entering the 18th century?

Isn't it because the number of troops that European countries can mobilize is increasing, and then they can continue to attack the enemy's hinterland with a large number of troops while surrounding the bastion.

This has greatly reduced the role of the bastion to a certain extent. It has evolved from a national shield to a simple border bridgehead and a support point for strategy and tactics.

It should be clear that with the weapons of this era, it is still difficult to conquer a bastion with sufficient manpower and material reserves in a short period of time.

However, the importance of the bastion has declined, even if the significance of the "fortress" represented by the bastion has not declined much.

Let alone the Sino-Russian War, even in the Russian-Turkish battlefield in the Caucasus, the significance of the fortress is still very important. The Ottomans and the Russians hit each other at the beginning of the war, which itself has proved the significance of the fortress.

Moreover, Chen Ming now doesn't care about the battle in Barnaul at all. His eyes are now completely fixed on the Russian First Army.

Kamensky can't sit still anymore.

He now believes that the Chinese army is bravely attacking Barnaul, and the second batch of reinforcements of the National Defense Army, still a regiment of troops, has once again joined the 11th Division outside the city. Kamensky can't guarantee whether the Chinese will have a third and fourth batch of reinforcements to Barnaul.

So he is going to attack.

First, with the Torghut cavalry as the vanguard, directly with Barnaul as the center, sweeping the surrounding area of ​​100 miles, strictly blocking the information of Barnaul, and the First Army also launched a fierce attack on the Chinese National Defense Army, which suffered "heavy" losses under the city of Barnaul.

Kamensky believes that his position is unexpected by the Chinese. He has so many infantry and cavalry under his command, and suddenly launched an attack on the Chinese siege troops, so the chances of winning are very good.

The Russian army's counterattack was on the verge of breaking out, and in Chen Ming's eyes, this drama was about to reach its climax. He was now the director of this drama, and everything was under his control!

...

The sunset in the northern Xinjiang slowly slanted down, and stepping on the sunset afterglow, the Torghut cavalry cheered for victory. The "relatives" who had been separated for more than a dozen years reunited, and the four thousand Cossack and Tatar cavalry led by Saltykov made sacrifices for this wedding banquet.

The battlefield was full of corpses, and the bodies of the Cossacks and Tatars who were killed by surprise were scattered all over the ground. The captives knelt on the ground in embarrassment.

Saltykov's head, which was still open in death, was presented to Wabashi by Sheleng. Wabashi was full of emotion, and he had a good personal feeling for Saltykov. However, he still wanted to kill Saltykov. Because Saltykov is really a very good cavalry general, and letting him go now is likely to be like letting a tiger go back to the mountains.

The setting sun shines on the battlefield, the setting sun is like blood, covering everyone with a layer of red gauze.

Standing next to Wubashi is Tsebekdorji, the man who brought more than 2,000 Torghut cavalry "back" to Torghut, with a bright smile on his face...

The 4,000 Russian cavalry were completely wiped out.