Chapter 44: The Air Force Takes the Stage (Thanks to Alisi)

  On July 30, Yuan Shikai in Beijing under pressure from Jiangsu and Hubei provinces, formally declared war on Russia.

  Two giant nations have formally entered a state of war.

  The eyes of the whole world are once again focused on the vast land of the Far East, although under the command of Jiang and Yu, the Chinese Allied Forces annihilated the Russian Far Eastern First Army, but countries around the world still do not think that China can win this war.

  Because China does not have a large-scale regular army like Japan, although the Revival Army is impressive in combat, but after all, it is limited in number.

  At the same time, Britain and France have already begun to prohibit the transportation of arms to China, their pro-Japanese stance is too strong.

  Only Germany, in order to encourage Jiang Jue to go to war with Russia, transported a batch of heavy artillery to Jiang Jue, but it was not available for the time being.

  However, the actions of England and France could not stop Jiang Yu's footsteps in going to war. The Huai'an Arsenal and Wuhu Arsenal immediately began frantically expanding production capacity after the outbreak of war.

  At this time, the Huadong Group had already produced a large number of military supplies using its assembly line manufacturing technology, but it hadn't gone into full production because there wasn't enough demand for them before.

  As soon as the war with Russia broke out, the munitions factories immediately entered full production, especially bullets and shells, which were consumed in large quantities.

  The machine has been ready for a long time, and the raw materials are more than sufficient.

  At this time, Jiangsu's chemical industry scale has reached the first in Asia, far surpassing Japan's chemical industry scale.

  Even if the bullet and shell production of the ordnance factory cannot keep up, it is possible to mobilize the common people to carry out workshop-style production at home, but it is still far from that extent.

  At the current machine manufacturing speed of the Huadong Group, it is not difficult to expand ammunition production capacity and there is no need to go all the way to Europe to buy machines.

  And ordinary factory lathes and so on, although not professional, but ordinary lathes can also be put into production, it's just that they are not as fast as professional lathes.

  However, this war is still far from reaching that scale, and the factories of the East China Group are still producing various commodities as usual.

  ……

  On August 2, the Russian Far East Second and Third Armies, with a total of 220,000 troops, finally arrived in a hurry at a point ten kilometers northwest of Seluysus.

  As the vanguard, the Cossack cavalry did not engage in combat with the Chinese United Army because the Russian Far Eastern First Group Army had already been annihilated, and the Cossack cavalry's forces were not sufficient to gain an advantage.

  At this time, the Russian commander was very cautious. It turned out that the outcome of being reckless and underestimating the enemy was death, and the fate of the First Far Eastern Front of Russia was a good example.

  After reconnaissance by the Cossack cavalry, the Russian army discovered that the Chinese had already formed a dense defensive line at Serus. If they launched an attack now, they would inevitably suffer extremely heavy casualties and achieve no effect.

  The Russian military commander immediately built a defensive line and confronted the Chinese coalition in Seluysus. At the same time, one side asked for help from Russia, asking Nicholas II to send more troops to support the Far East battlefield.

  The advantage of military strength has always been the most important in war, and the principle of concentrating advantageous forces is an important one in the Russian military guiding ideology "The Science of Victory". However, Russian commanders found that they did not have a superiority in numbers compared to the Chinese coalition army.

  220,000 Russian troops are now facing 300,000 Chinese coalition forces.

  Moreover, they discovered through telegrams sent back before the annihilation of the Russian Far Eastern First Group Army that the quality of the Chinese Allied Forces was not inferior to that of Russia.

  Even their equipment is much better than that of the Russian army.

  Moreover, from recent probing actions, Russian military commanders have found that the Chinese United Army's equipment is indeed very good, with a large amount of automatic firepower.

  They had at least 150, possibly as many as 200 heavy machine guns in a division, while the Russians had only about 30. The Chinese also had numerous light machine guns and a type of short-range but extremely high-rate-of-fire submachine gun.

  In the encounter battle, Russian soldiers were completely no match.

  "These damned Far Eastern monkeys, don't they care about bullets?" Russian military commanders cursed, and the armies of various countries naturally understood the benefits of automatic firepower, but at the same time they could also be equipped with more automatic firepower, but the problem was that the consumption of bullets was too large.

  This was at a time when no army in the world had yet equipped itself on a large scale with automatic firearms, and the great powers were confident that they did not need automatic firepower to win wars with fewer bullets. After all, too many bullets would be financially unsustainable.

  Even if the finances can be absorbed, the production speed of ammunition cannot keep up.

  At that time China was not a powerful country and to become a new power it had to defeat the land armies of the powers, so large-scale use of new equipment became a wise choice.

  At the same time, Jiang Yu has the lowest-cost ammunition manufacturing technology, and the cost of ammunition has been reduced by five or six times. If a bullet was equivalent to the price of a chicken leg in China before, excluding market profits, now it only costs less than one-tenth of a chicken leg.

  In the face of massive firepower, Jiang Yu was still able to withstand such consumption.

  The Russian military commanders believed that once a reckless attack was launched, it would inevitably lead to irreparable consequences.

  "We just need to drag on for a little while, wait for more troops to be assembled domestically and sent to the Far East. We don't need too many, just thirty thousand more will do. By then we can easily crush these Far Eastern monkeys, and not only directly incorporate Outer Mongolia into our imperial territory, but also demand even more land." The Russian commander said at the meeting, immediately gaining the approval of most officers.

  The Russian army is not thinking of attacking, and it's clear that they want to lure them over to experience the taste of a meat grinder, which is no longer realistic. Of course, Jiang Yu did not willingly think of the Russians as brainless creatures, but they have clearly realized that launching an attack would come at a terrible cost.

  In such a situation, taking the initiative to attack is the only choice for the Chinese United Army to win.

  The General Headquarters finally came up with a detailed and meticulous battle plan after nearly a day of deliberation.

  ……

  On August 3, the long-planned Operation Storm began in the Far East, and the numerous small units sent out by Jiang Yu easily reached the location of the China Eastern Railway.

  The Far East region is too vast and sparsely populated, and Russia's military strength in the Far East is also insufficient, making it impossible to provide tight protection for the railway.

  How can such a long railway be protected?

  Those small troops easily reached the railway line behind the Russian army and buried explosives, ignited fuses...

  Boom! A large section of rail was blown off.

  Half a month later, a small detachment of troops even infiltrated all the way to the Ural Mountains, where they buried explosives and detonated them when a train was passing by, blowing up more than a dozen trains.

  For this reason, Russia had no choice but to form a railway guard corps, but the Middle East Railway was too long and it was inevitable that it would be blown up by small Chinese troops who suddenly appeared at some unknown time.

  Before the Russians could react, Chinese small units went on a rampage of destruction against the railways, which would take the Russians at least half a month to repair.

  On August 3rd, at dawn, hundreds of H-6 medium bombers at Xigucheng Airport started their engines, and the propellers spun rapidly as they took off one after another.

  This will be a day forever remembered in history.

  On this day, more than 100 bombers took off from the Seltsy Usov airfield and flew directly to Irkutsk, Russia, which is currently a military transit station for Russian troops.

  A large quantity of military supplies was stored in the warehouses at Irkutsk railway station, including ammunition, rations and, of course, the famous Russian icons.

  The Russian army's notoriously poor logistics were particularly chaotic during the Russo-Japanese War, with soldiers at the front requesting ammunition and instead receiving a shipment of religious icons.

  During the First World War, the logistics of the Russian army were in an even greater mess. In the rear, a large amount of food was transported every day but rotted and mouldered, while soldiers on the front line could not get enough to eat.

  Of course, Russia's madness was also fully demonstrated in World War I. The country mobilized tens of millions of laborers to fight on the front lines, with many soldiers not even having rifles.

  When more than a hundred bombers flew over Irkutsk, the Russians in Irkutsk did not yet know that danger had arrived.

  Not a few Russians craned their necks in curiosity at the swarms of bombers overhead.

  Then...

  A bomb fell from the bomber.

  Boom!

  After the explosion, more than a dozen people were killed on the spot at the railway station below.

  But there was more than one bomb.

  Each bomber carried nearly 800 kilograms of bombs, and in order to carry more bombs, less gasoline was brought, but with a range of 1,200 kilometers reduced to 600 kilometers, it was enough to complete this bombing, so as many bombs as possible were carried.

  The bomber formation quickly found the Russian military warehouse at the train station from landmarks and dropped bombs like raindrops.

  Rumble... rumble... rumble...

  The Russian military warehouse was suddenly engulfed in a sea of flames, and soon the bombs ignited the ammunition in the warehouse. First, there was a burst of crackling sounds, followed by a sudden deafening "boom", and a mushroom cloud appeared before the pilots' eyes from the intense explosion of the warehouse.

  The Russian military warehouse below was blown up due to the explosion of the ammunition depot and turned into a piece of rubble.

  Large quantities of military supplies were reduced to fragments and ashes in explosions and fires.

  History will always remember this day, the war is recorded as 'Ji Zi Zhong E War', in this war, China was the first to use bombers, a epoch-making weapon of war.

  On this day, the Chinese Air Force also became the world's first air force to join the war series and achieved brilliant results in its first battle, destroying the largest military warehouse in Russia's Far East region.

  ————

  Today's first update, yesterday only updated one chapter, really sorry! Two days of three updates made Lu Yu somewhat unbearable, the store was a bit busy, went to relatives' house for dinner in the evening, chatted and returned home already quite late.

  There will be two updates today for sure!

  Also thanks to Alei's reward and evaluation, the first disciple of Junfa has been born, throw flowers! Kowtow!

  Also want to thank ZXCA000, Hao Zhen, Kuang Ba Jun Tian, Xing Bing Jian, Zhu Tian Ting and other classmates for their comments and rewards! Thank you! Lu Yu will work hard!