Zero 71 Highland is actually a low hill. Two infantry companies with about 300 people defending this place are already a bit bloated. Generally speaking, deploying one company is enough.
The rapid artillery bombardment in the night made the Tsarist Russian soldiers here dizzy. The tricky Ming army came up from the narrow road on the flank of the highland. The two sides instantly started a firefight at an extremely close range.
"There's a machine gun right in front, kill it!"
"You guys, come on!"
"Ta-ta-ta-ta-boom!"
A DP light machine gun had just fired a bunch of bullets, but in the blink of an eye it was misfired by a rifle grenade.
The panicked Tsarist Russian soldiers were still looking around, hoping to catch the Ming army's figure in the vast night, but the next second they suddenly discovered that the opponent had rushed to a distance of only ten meters.
"Bang! Bang!"
The Russian army's subconscious firing was tantamount to suicide. The Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers who broke into the enemy's position either fired continuously or directly launched a bayonet charge!
Such a close distance was like lightning and flint. The enemy soldiers holding Mosin-Nagant rifles didn't even have time to pull the bolt and change the ammunition. The Ming army had already rushed in front of them.
A tall recruit took the lead and jumped straight into the foxhole with a rifle. The enemy soldiers inside had frightened faces, and their eyes met in this situation.
The slender and sharp twenty-type sword-shaped bayonet easily penetrated the enemy soldier. Due to the excessive momentum, the bayonet holder came out of his back.
Amid the screams, the two men collided with each other, half of their bayonets piercing the soil of the foxhole wall. The recruit pulled out the bayonet forcefully, and as a result, a section of his intestines was pulled out.
The enemy soldiers in more than a dozen foxholes were either stabbed to death on the spot, or were blown to pieces by grenades that fell into them.
In just a few minutes, a corner of Zero Seventy-One Highland was easily shaken.
However, there is no chance to breathe. In this case, you should seize the time to rush and strike before the opponent has recovered.
As the security position on the edge of the high ground was cut off like a knife splitting bamboo, the heavy machine gun positions deployed by the Russian army on the flanks of the position were immediately attacked by the top Ming army troops.
The Russian heavy machine gun team thought that the firefight on the left was not a big deal, maybe it was just a Ming army reconnaissance unit coming to harass.
As a result, I never expected that these Ming troops not only did not come to harass, but also broke through the warning position in a few minutes?
They hurriedly moved the bulky Maxim water-cooled heavy machine gun, turned it around, and then fired randomly in the general direction.
"Da da da da——"
A lighting projectile fired from an 82mm mortar appeared in the sky above the Zero 71 Highland. It was belatedly arriving and illuminated the entire position.
With the light brought by this signal flare, the Tsarist Russian soldiers saw a group of figures only tens of meters apart.
Blocked by heavy machine gun fire and illuminated by flares, the officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty who were about to make a move immediately fell down, then crawled and rolled to find a bunker to hide.
Even during the day, the extremely bright flare will dazzle people, but at night, it is absolutely impossible to see it visually - it is more dazzling than the flame of electric welding.
"Gun-grenade--"
"Damn it, do it quickly!"
"Stop being so impatient! Hurry!!!"
The scattered Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers were shouting loudly. Some were lying in low areas, some were in foxholes, and some were lying on their sides in bomb craters.
"Recruits are afraid of artillery, veterans are afraid of machine guns" is no joke. Light machine guns and heavy machine guns each have their own scary features. The former has high accuracy and can shoot continuously. If it is targeted, it will be more dangerous than the latter. The fire continued, and the bullets were as dense as raindrops.
Bullets whizzed past, and the sharp sound of breaking through the air was very terrifying. The instinctive fear made people lose control of their hands and feet.
The two soldiers responsible for using rifle grenades were aiming at a crater. As a result, several 7.62×54mm machine gun bullets hit the ground directly in front. Because the angle of incidence was too small, one of the bullets ricocheted and hit directly. The main shooter holding a rifle.
The bullet entered through its nose and exited from the back of its head, bringing out a mass of red and white material and broken skull fragments, and finally smashed into the back of the helmet.
The rifle fell from his hand, and his body suddenly fell to the ground.
The deputy shooter was so frightened by this scene that he was stunned for two seconds. Then he lay down in the crater and gasped for air. He felt that his heart was about to burst out.
After a while, the shouts from the other people made him calm down.
Pick up the rifle with the grenade loaded, remove the safety pin, aim, and fire!
The blank bullet was fired, and the gunpowder gas spurted out from it drove away the Type 18 grenade installed on the muzzle launcher.
It drew a parabola in the air, fell to the ground and rolled a few meters, stopping right behind the Russian heavy machine gun position.
"boom!"
Shrapnel flew in all directions, and the three or four enemy soldiers in the group were instantly enveloped in smoke and dust. The heavy machine gun that had been showing off for a moment suddenly stopped.
Dozens of soldiers stood up and jumped forward together, sweeping across the entire heavy machine gun position in an instant!
Several enemy soldiers who resisted were shot to death randomly, and the three or four people who fled in panic were also knocked down by chasing bullets one after another. In fact, they only died a few dozen seconds late.
The injured enemy soldiers who were not dead were still struggling or calling for help, but were immediately shot and executed one after another.
"It looks like there's something going on."
"Yes! Move the heavy machine gun over here! Quick, send the signal!"
"Bang-whoop-"
A sergeant took out his flare gun and pulled the trigger. A red flare shot into the sky.
Later, another yellow flare was fired.
Due to the delay when they were just suppressed, one of the companies defending Zero 71 Highland had already responded.
At this moment, more than a dozen Russian troops rushed from diagonally forward, apparently coming to reinforce this corner of the position.
A soldier holding a Type 34 submachine gun had quick eyesight and quick hands. He turned the muzzle of the gun and fired two shots in that direction, and then fell to the side.
The inertia caused several enemy soldiers who were shot to stagger to the ground, and one of them even rolled several times before stopping.
Another big-bodied pacesetter took off the blasting tube slung on his back, pulled the fuse, and then threw the ten-kilogram blasting tube over like a javelin.
"boom!!!"
The explosion shook the earth, and the broken limbs of the enemy soldiers were spinning and flying in the air.
Since the enemy in front of them had already reacted, the more than 40 officers and soldiers of this elite team made the immediate decision to defend on the spot, thus becoming a thorn in the noses of these Russian troops.
Has the left wing of the position been captured? The frightened Russian captain immediately ordered his men to launch a counterattack without thinking much.
The illumination bomb that was descending slowly with a parachute was about to burn out, and the light quickly faded. The dark figures were quite shocked in the sudden explosion light.
However, this hasty counterattack was meaningless. The Maxim heavy machine gun was now turned to attack its original owner.
Rifles, automatic guns, submachine guns, heavy machine guns, etc. intertwined into a fire net, and the dense bullets were like ice cubes splashed on the crowd.
When the first faint scream came from the front, the 82mm flare was completely extinguished, and darkness enveloped the entire position again.
"Holy shit! These guys are really going to hit the muzzle of the gun!"
Ten seconds later, the second illumination bomb was launched into the sky, and the light returned again.
The officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty could clearly see the situation ahead - the Tsarist Russian soldiers were alternately shooting and crawling, and there were more than ten dead bodies scattered on the ground.
At this moment, Zero 71 Highland is facing the front.
The third battalion of the 140th Regiment had already prepared the main attack team. More than 300 people from the two teams quietly arrived at the attack starting position an hour ago.
The dense sound of gunfire coming from the hills indicated that the exchange of fire was fierce, and the subsequent two flares, one red and one yellow, which were launched into the air meant that the penetration assault of the Jian'er team was relatively successful and suitable for launching a frontal attack.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
When our own 64mm and 80mm mortars began to launch a sudden fire attack, the first group of officers and soldiers immediately formed a spread-out formation before engaging the enemy, while more than a hundred people from the second group continued to stay in place.
If the first team's offense is frustrated, the second team will immediately take over.
The three platoons and nine squads of the first team connected one after another and launched an attack in a left trapezoid, forming a "/" shape.
"Be bold! Try to win it all at once!"
"Beep beep beep——"
The sound of sharp whistles resounded throughout the wilderness, and the Ming army rushed up the relatively gentle hills, and then started fighting with the troubled Russian soldiers...
Among the seven commanding heights held by the Russian army, the encounter at Zero 71 Heights was just one of them.
In other places, progress was smooth and poor. An elite team that attacked Highland 104 from the southwest was suppressed by heavy machine gun fire because it was exposed to flares, and suffered a lot of casualties.
The main attacking team on standby had to give up the attack and rescue it.
The fierce fighting continued until dawn the next day. Three of the seven commanding heights were captured by the Ming army. The 66th Infantry Brigade lost as many as a thousand people overnight.
Maybe the remaining 5,000 people seem to be a lot, but you must know that the larger the establishment of an army unit, the smaller its ability to withstand casualties, because the proportion of main battle units will be lower.
For example, infantry platoons are all infantry, but infantry regiments are not. Starting from the battalion level, more and more service units will be incorporated, so a regiment actually only has nine companies that can be engaged in front-line operations. With the same 40% casualties, the platoon can continue to fight, but for the regiment, this means that almost all the infantry are dead and unable to fight anymore, unless service personnel are also added to the front line at all costs.
At 6:21 in the morning, the 66th Brigade, which suffered heavy casualties, was compressed into a small area of only three square kilometers, and there was not much ammunition left.
The officers and soldiers all looked at a loss. Some people's eyes were dull, and some people's faces still had a look of fear. The wailing and moaning of the wounded soldiers made people feel uneasy.
Colonel Vadim seemed to have aged ten years overnight. His right hand could not stop shaking, and he was still yelling, but his voice was very low.
"Fuck him! Won't they come at night? He must be court-martialed... Must!" (Ебтвоюмать)
"Commander, let's try to break out! We haven't..."
"What nonsense are you talking about! How much longer can you hold on and break out? That's equivalent to committing suicide!"
"Is there any point in waiting to die here? We should disband the troops and break out separately."
"Disband? Breakout? This is an escape, this is a cowardly act!"
"At least it's better than being wiped out here, on Russian soil! Do you want the 66th Brigade to be permanently eliminated?"
Several officers in the field command post quarreled, and no one gave in.
After a long time, the familiar sound of engines came from the sky again - it was dawn, and the Ming army's fleet arrived as scheduled.
A major staff officer shouted eagerly to Vadim: "Commander, there is no time to hesitate! We failed because of the stupidity of politicians. It is not our fault. Even if there is only one company to break through, the 66th Brigade will be defeated." Still there!”
At the same time, 4km to the northwest.
The reinforcements that Colonel Vadim had been dreaming of - the 40th Infantry Division were here, but they were blocked by roadblocks.
Since aerial reconnaissance discovered the subsequent arrival of Tsarist Russian troops, the 139th Regiment of the 47th Division separated two battalions and detoured deep into Tsarist Russia, directly cutting off one of the main roads.
This dirt road, which is muddy in the summer, is the best transportation artery here. However, the four commanding heights along it were all occupied by the Ming army.
In the air raids in the previous two days, the 40th Division lost most of its heavy weapons on the road, and the weak air defense units only shot down two Ming army fighter jets.
Frustrated by the bombing, the Russian troops opened fire on the parachutes, which then led to even more ferocious and indiscriminate retaliation. After several Oerlikon 20mm anti-aircraft guns and a dozen 7.62mm Maxim heavy machine guns were destroyed, there was no longer any firepower that could threaten the Ming Army Air Force.
As a result, the 40th Division, which lacked artillery support, could only struggle to attack the high ground along the way. It had to spend a lot of time regrouping after each air attack, resulting in slow progress and heavy losses.
Acting division commander Colonel Kuzma is now a little confused - not only the headquarters is urging, but even St. Petersburg far away is also urging.
And what can he do now? There was nothing he could do in this situation, and he had no choice but to order his subordinates to continuously launch inefficient attacks.
At 12:03 noon, the weather turned cloudy.
The intensive sound of gunfire in the fighting area gradually stopped, and then only sparse and sporadic gunfire came.
Now, everything is a fait accompli.
About an hour later, the capital Yingtian Mansion, the Forbidden City.
In the Zhaoren Hall, the mid-autumn afternoon sunlight slanted into the room through the large glass windows. A slightly lazy Zhu Lingjing was leaning on a chair and reading a book, while the mandarin duck-eyed lion cat named Ta Mo lay at her feet.
At this time, a burst of fast footsteps came from outside, getting closer and closer. This was obviously the sound of boots hitting the floor.
With such a unique pace, you can tell it belongs to a certain guy as soon as you hear it.
Finally, there was a knock on the door.
"Enter."
Zhou Changfeng, who was full of interest, pushed open the door and walked forward quickly. While presenting the victory report, he smiled and said: "Battle report sent back from the front line! Most of the brigade where the Russian army crossed the border was destroyed. They tried to break out, but there were only a few people. They broke into pieces and ran away.”
"The ability to escape is not as good as that of the British." Zhu Lingjing closed the book and reached out to take the good news.
(End of chapter)
