Twentieth Century Chronicle

Page 134

However, on the third day of the town's Chinese occupation, a car arrived at the town's western entrance. The residents living on the west side of the town remained at home, watching this newfangled sight with interest. If it weren't for the war, these residents would have already rushed out to see this novelty; after all, although the Far East had a railway, it remained a place extremely lacking in entertainment.

Aside from hunting and drinking, the lives of the inhabitants of the Far East were almost no different from those of medieval peasants. Therefore, the inhabitants of the Far East were extremely hospitable to guests from afar, hoping to hear some fresh stories from the outside world from these guests.

This is very similar to the Mongolians. Living on the grasslands and practicing nomadic herding, the Mongolians rarely see strangers, so they are very curious about new things. When trucks appeared on the grasslands, the Mongolians found it very novel, and some even rode horses to race against them.

When passing through the nomadic areas inhabited by Mongolian herders, the local Mongolians would call out to their friends and acquaintances to see the automatically running iron horses. The Russians in the Far East were no different from the Mongolians when they saw the trucks, except that out of fear of war, they suppressed their curiosity.

Seven or eight people quickly got out of the back of the truck. To the surprise of the Russian residents observing the town, these people were all Russians. Just as they were pondering their origins, someone suddenly rushed out of their house and shouted to the people getting off the truck, "Yakov, Yakov, brother, you're alive..."

Yakov, who was talking to his companion, turned around, quickly dropped his backpack, gave his sister who was rushing towards him a big hug, and spun her around in a circle before putting her down. He asked happily, "Yes, I'm back. Agana, how are Mom, Grandmother, and everyone else?"

"They're all fine, but I don't know when Father and Uncle will be able to come home from Novoselenginsk... Oh, and what about Brother Mirnov? Didn't you leave together? Why hasn't he come back?"

Agana glanced at the people around her brother and then asked about the neighbor's son. Yakov hesitated for a moment before replying, "I don't know, we weren't assigned to the same company..."

As Yakov was speaking, he suddenly saw his mother running towards him with a look of surprise and joy. He quickly left his sister behind and went to greet her. Soon, many families in the town came running after hearing the news. A total of 47 people had been conscripted from the town, but only six of them returned with Yakov; the other two were from nearby villages.

Seeing his neighbors weeping sadly after failing to find their families, Yakov quickly stepped forward to comfort them, saying, "Not all of us are alive; we were just released first. Don't worry, your families might still come back..."

Yakov's words caught the attention of his family members, who quickly surrounded him, bombarding him with questions: "So when will my... family member be able to come back...?"

Yakov could only raise his hands to quiet everyone before earnestly saying, "They will return safely as soon as the war ends. The Chinese haven't mistreated us, and they don't consider us enemies. They know this is a war started by the Tsar, and it has nothing to do with us..."

Yakov's words of reassurance to the town's neighbors were actually something the Chinese army had said before when they occupied the area. However, at that time, the townspeople thought the Chinese were trying to trick them into betraying the great Tsar, and they refused to be fooled. They believed that when they truly abandoned the Tsar, perhaps the Chinese would reveal their true colors.

But now that these words came from Yakov's mouth, people became skeptical. Some felt that as long as their husbands or children returned alive, then let the Tsar fight the Chinese himself. Of course, they only thought this in their hearts and dared not say it out loud.

However, some people had doubts about Yakov and others who were released first. One person questioned Yakov, "Since prisoners are only released after the war ends, why are you able to go home now? Weren't you captured by the Chinese?"

This was clearly a rhetorical question. Yakov and his men had gotten off the Chinese trucks, so how could they not have been captured by the Chinese? But they also vaguely understood the underlying meaning of the question: whether they had betrayed their brothers and friends, which was why they were released by the Chinese ahead of time. Otherwise, why did the Chinese release only them and not release all the other prisoners as well?

At this point, Yakov unconsciously uttered what the Chinese had been teaching them for the past few months: "No, we have not betrayed anyone. We have only assured the Chinese that we will no longer fight for the Tsar, nor will we invade China, Korea, or any other country or nation for the sake of our masters."

Yakov's words shocked everyone present, even though they themselves were now thinking the same thing: what did this damned war have to do with them? Why were their families being sent to the battlefield to risk their lives? Did the Tsar really know that their families were fighting for him? If he did, why was he still conscripting the remaining men from their families during the spring planting season? If all the adult men in the family were gone, how would the women and children farm and harvest? Did the Tsar want their entire family to die?

However, under the close surveillance of the military and police, no one would openly discuss such a topic. After all, Russia had plenty of remote mountains and wilderness to exile anti-Tsarist elements. Yakov only realized after speaking that he was now back in his hometown, no longer in a prisoner-of-war camp in China. Now he couldn't say that he had been forced by the Chinese.

Just as Yakov's face turned pale, one of his companions who had returned with him suddenly spoke up in support: "Yes, I swore an oath to the Chinese just like Yakov... To hell with the Tsar and the generals, they'll only send us to our deaths."

Poor little Boris, he just joined the wrong unit when he went to the battlefield, and the captain accused him of desertion and shot him in front of everyone. But I know that little Boris volunteered for the army; he was a brave young man. That damned captain…”

Suddenly, a long, mournful wail from a woman interrupted his words. Soon, everyone saw that a woman in her early forties had fainted. Someone nearby exclaimed, "She's little Boris's mother..."

This little incident interrupted the brief meeting, and Yakov's mother and sister took the opportunity to pull him home. On the way, his mother complained to Yakov, "How could you speak ill of the Tsar in public? Luckily, this place is now occupied by the Chinese, otherwise some scoundrel would have reported it to the military police very soon..."

Yakov suddenly felt a little lost. He had always thought that he would gain freedom and safety after returning home, but after hearing his mother's words, he felt that he had been too optimistic. Under the Tsar's rule, there was no such thing as freedom and safety. The Chinese were quite right in this regard.

The return of Yakov and his group broke the oppressive atmosphere in the town. The xenophobia and unease that had been directed at the Chinese immediately turned into joy for the families of the released prisoners, hope for families who had no news of their loved ones, pain for some families who had lost their family members, and dissatisfaction among some residents towards Yakov and his group.

The residents dissatisfied with Yakov and his men were mostly former upper-middle-class residents who had bribed officials or bought off poor families to cancel or transfer their military service. However, their status wasn't high enough to warrant fleeing when the Chinese army attacked the town. Although they stayed, they secretly incited the residents not to cooperate with the Chinese, waiting for His Majesty the Tsar's loyal and valiant soldiers to return.

Before Yakov and his comrades returned, these individuals, fueled by ignorance, fear, and the prestige of the Tsar, quickly became the backbone of the town's residents, who placed genuine trust in these "patriots." However, upon their return, the worry for the safety of their loved ones outweighed their love for their country and the Tsar, and the "patriots" suddenly found their influence diminished.

This infuriated the "patriots," who believed these deserters and traitors had disrupted the town's unity. They vowed to punish these traitors when the Tsar's generals recaptured the town. These people had clearly forgotten that the deserters and traitors they spoke of had dutifully obeyed the call of their motherland, while they themselves had evaded it. Strictly speaking, they were the real deserters.

Although Yakov and the others returned home, they did not immediately begin the peaceful life they desired, because Verkhovna Udinsk was still in the midst of war, and their families were still on the battlefield. To live a peaceful life, they first had to end the war.

They certainly wouldn't accept the patriots' proposition to never cooperate with the Chinese and wait for an opportunity to rescue the Tsar's army. They accepted the Chinese perspective: this was a war between China and the Tsar, not between the Chinese and Russian people; they should extricate themselves from the war as soon as possible and let the Tsar and his generals fight the Chinese themselves. Only in this way could they avoid being purged by the Tsarist government after the war.

Chapter 478 Initial Contact

The story that unfolded in Ivorginsky Klyuch is happening in many places in Verkhovna Udinsk. As soon as those who were released return, the region will no longer be able to maintain its unity against external forces as before.

Families whose members have not yet returned home hope that their loved ones will return soon. Naturally, they are no longer willing to listen to grand pronouncements about "loyalty to the motherland" and "loyalty to the Tsar." They would rather ask those who have returned how to get the Chinese to release their family members.

Babushkin was presented to Cai E in this atmosphere. Although Cai E and Lin Xinyi had had in-depth exchanges, he still had some doubts about some of the military theories mentioned by Lin Xinyi. For example, "Although 'On War' is a bourgeois military theory work, its view that military affairs serve politics is still correct."

Of course, as a bourgeois military theory work, it still has its own limitations, namely, its limited understanding of the world. In the eyes of the bourgeoisie, politics is a power game for a minority. Therefore, even if they arrive at the view that military affairs serve politics, due to their fundamental error in understanding the world, they are naturally unable to truly understand and utilize objective laws to transform the objective world.

For the proletariat, our military theory should be elevated from the theory of war, because we clearly understand that politics is the choice and judgment of the majority. Therefore, the military theory of the proletariat should be people's war, uniting all oppressed peoples against the oppressors, transcending the categories of race, nation, and ethnicity, fighting solely for the people against oppression…

Cai E could understand why his own people could unite to resist the imperial court and foreign powers, but he could not understand why foreign peoples, especially those of the great powers, would unite with the people of their colonies. After all, under the banner of imperialism, the people of the great powers could share the honor and benefits brought by the empire from the perspective of the nation.

It's normal for Cai E to have such thoughts. Even 100 years from now, citizens of socialist countries who have undergone nine years of compulsory education and enjoy the explosive information of the Internet age will still be trying to prove that the American working class cannot have any empathy with the Chinese working class because the American working class enjoys the benefits brought by American imperialism's oppression of China.

Of course, these people would never dare to conduct a survey or report to ask whether the Chinese proletariat agrees with the US government's confiscation of Chinese capitalists' assets in the US. They always treat their own views as the views of the Chinese people, as if they naturally have the right to speak on behalf of the Chinese people, and those who oppose them are automatically stripped of their Chinese citizenship.

The basis for the unity of the Chinese and American proletariat is resistance against capitalist oppression. The reaction to the documentary "American Factory" when it was shown in China and the United States shows this conclusion. How many Chinese and American proletarians actually stand on the side of capitalists? Faced with the online denunciation of capitalists by the Chinese and American proletarians, the petty bourgeoisie who claim that the Chinese and American proletariat cannot unite are playing dead again.

Babushkin's appearance dispelled many of Cai E's doubts about people's war. He certainly wouldn't refuse to unite with the Russian people to oppose the Tsarist government, which was exactly the direction of war pursued by the Chinese Workers' Party.

However, although both sides had good intentions, they were both very cautious during their first meeting because they were worried that the other was just using the guise of cooperation to try to do other things.

Upon meeting, Babushkin first asked Cai E, "Your side claims that this war is a war between the Chinese people and the Tsarist government. So, when the war ends, will you follow the wishes of the Russian people and leave Russian territory? Will you, like the Tsarist government, impose territorial concessions and reparations on the Russian people?"

After looking at Babushkin for a while, Cai E asked in return: "Who are the Russian people? Who can represent the Russian people? After overthrowing the Tsarist government, will the Russian people continue the foreign aggression policy and the internal national and class oppression implemented during the Tsarist era?"

Centuries ago, what was known as Russia was just a small area around Moscow. It was through centuries of wars of aggression that Russia has become the vast empire it is today.

In this persistent war of foreign aggression, Russia enslaved many nations and perpetrated numerous massacres. Now, can you tell me exactly where the Russian people consider their territory? Is it in the Tsar's plans, or under the boots of the Tsar's army?

Babushkin was caught off guard and had to retort, "Your country has also perpetrated massacres in Outer Mongolia and Xinjiang. Do you think the people in those places also have the right to secede from China?"

However, it is clear that Babushkin's understanding of China is not as profound as the Workers' Party's understanding of Russia. He is unaware that the Workers' Party is unwilling to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Manchu dynasty. Faced with Babushkin's questioning, Cai E immediately responded: "Since the rise of the Manchus in the Northeast, the massacres they have committed are not limited to the border regions; the massacres they have committed in the eighteen most densely populated Han provinces are countless."

Therefore, our party does not recognize the lands conquered and plundered by the Manchus through massacres. Our party absorbs laborers from all nationalities with the goal of overthrowing the corrupt Manchu dynasty and the combined rule of the landlord class, and establishing a people's republic on the basis of the laborers' unity. Our party advocates national self-determination for all nationalities on the premise of opposing all oppression.

If our party bases the nation's territory on the inheritance of the Manchu Qing dynasty, then I believe that people of all ethnicities should unite with the Han people to overthrow our party. A country that claims its legal system originates from a feudal dynasty inevitably inherits that dynasty's ideology of oppression against all ethnic groups. Without overthrowing this reactionary state, the people cannot truly enjoy freedom and democracy…”

Babushkin had not anticipated that the Workers' Party would go so far on the issue of national self-determination. He had always believed that although Russia's intellectual circles lagged behind Western Europe, they were at least more advanced than those of Eastern countries, since the East, apart from Japan, had not even seen the beginnings of capitalism.

Socialism, frankly speaking, is a sociology that developed from Eurocentrism, only in Marx's hands it truly transformed from sociology into political economy. However, the traces left by Eurocentrism did not disappear; on the contrary, they became more pronounced due to its class nature. One common view, accepted by European intellectuals, including Russian intellectuals, is that advanced capitalist societies like Britain and Germany are more likely to embrace socialism.

Because of this assertion, the internationalists of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party who fled to Western Europe actually held more authority within the party than the Central Committee that remained in Russia. This was because the party committees in various regions believed that the internationalists were closer to the birthplace of socialism, and that Russian socialism was bound to be realized after Western Europe. Therefore, the messages sent back by the internationalists represented the most advanced socialist path in Western Europe.

Therefore, Babushkin's decision to focus on the Far East region east of Irkutsk as his target for overcoming Tsarist rule after his return to Russia already surprised party members in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In their view, Russian socialism should wait for the realization of socialism in Western Europe, and only with the support of the Western European proletariat could the Tsarist regime be overthrown. Even so, the most likely places for the spread of socialism in Russia should be the large cities of European Russia, because only these large cities had a large working class.

Members of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party have little confidence in their own country's socialist path, so naturally they are even less likely to pay attention to the development of socialism in the East. Is it really possible for a political party that truly believes in socialism to emerge in China, which is even more backward than Japan?

Although Babushkin took the initiative to contact the Chinese, he did not actually regard them as comrades of the proletariat. He simply felt that the Chinese could be friends of the Russian proletariat in the fight against the Tsar.

Therefore, when he first met Cai E, he stated the political stance of the Irkutsk Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party: they were willing to join forces with the Chinese army to fight the Tsar and end the war, but would not support any additional demands from China on the Russian people, such as ceding territory or paying reparations.

However, Cai E's statement dealt him a heavy blow. On the one hand, Cai E stated that he was calling on the Russian people to rise up against the Tsar in the name of the Workers' Party, so he would not make any promises in the name of China. On the other hand, Cai E also expressed the Workers' Party's view on the Russian people: resisting national and class oppression is the people's own need and does not require the permission of any person or political party. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party also has no right to represent the Russian people and negotiate with the Workers' Party.

Without the principle of national self-determination, Cai E's words would be no different from the rhetoric of imperialists, and Babushkin wouldn't have worried at all about him being able to sway any Russians. However, with the addition of the principle of national self-determination, Babushkin knew that if the Social Democratic Labour Party opposed this principle, a rift would appear between the party and the various ethnic minorities.

After this exchange of views, Babushkin realized that trying to use the power of the Chinese to oppose the Tsarist government was actually counterproductive. Only if the Bolsheviks and the Workers' Party reached an alliance based on class interests could they avoid major miscalculations. Otherwise, the Chinese would not trust them, and the Bolsheviks' development in the local area would be hampered by the principle of national self-determination put forward by the Workers' Party.

This communication was beneficial to both sides. Cai E saw in Babushkin the ideas of the Russian proletariat represented by the Bolsheviks, which made him realize that the unity of the Chinese and Russian proletariat was possible and that the blueprint that Lin Xinyi had previously drawn for the Party was feasible. Babushkin also suddenly discovered that the spread of socialist thought in the East was much more progressive than they had imagined, and had even broken away from the scale of the Eastern proletariat, and had its own organization and regime.

From a certain perspective, the Chinese Workers' Party actually validated Lenin's concept of a revolutionary vanguard. In a society where the proletariat was not yet large enough, a vanguard composed of a group of professional revolutionaries was able to lead a small proletariat to establish a revolutionary regime. For the Bolsheviks, this was indeed an unexpected point of comparison.

After initial communication, Babushkin and Cai E began to move beyond specific conditions and exchange views again based on the revolutionary ideals of their two parties and the interests of the proletariat in China and Russia. This time, the communication between the two sides was much smoother.

Chapter 479 Surround

After a frank and intense exchange of opinions, Cai E and Babushkin reached an agreement on at least the following points.

Firstly, regarding the nature of the war, Babushkin agreed that the war was an invasion of China by Tsarist Russia. The war did not begin in 1905, but in 1900. Tsarist Russia invaded China by fabricating and smearing the Boxer Rebellion, a movement in which the Chinese people resisted imperialism, and committed atrocities such as the Hailanpao Incident and the Sixty-Four Villages East of the River.

Secondly, regarding the determination of war responsibility, Babushkin acknowledged the view put forward by the Workers' Party that the Russian people were also victims in this war, having been deceived and forced to go to the battlefield by the Tsarist government. However, the Chinese people would not blame the Russian people for the war, which did not mean that the Tsarist bandits who committed crimes against humanity against civilians during the war were pardoned. Babushkin supported the Chinese side in trying and convicting these Tsarist bandits.

Based on how to end the war, Babushkin and Cai E reached an agreement on cooperation between the Bolsheviks and the Workers' Party. However, Cai E opposed the Bolsheviks being the sole representative of the Russian side. He believed that the only entity capable of representing the Russian people and cooperating with the Workers' Party should be the Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers, established on the principle of national self-determination. The Bolsheviks should cooperate with the Workers' Party within the framework of the Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers.

Although Babushkin had reservations about Cai E's proposal, he still forced Cai E to make a commitment that all measures taken by the Workers' Party in the local area must be implemented through the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviets, and that measures related to local residents could not be issued without the approval of the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviets. At the end of the war, any clauses involving the local area should be communicated to the Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Soviets in advance.

Once both sides reached an agreement on these three main directions, the subsequent specific details became much easier to resolve. The primary task was to establish the Upper Udinsk Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Soviet, and then, in the name of the Soviet, contact the towns and villages of Upper Udinsk, demanding that they obey the orders of the Soviet, not the Tsarist government. They also needed to assist the Chinese army in persuading the Russian troops in Novoselenginsk to surrender, and to form a Soviet-led people's army from among the surrendered Russian soldiers.

With the addition of the Bolsheviks led by Babushkin, establishing the Upper Udinsk Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Soviet was actually a very simple matter. This was because, long before launching the offensive towards Outer Mongolia, the Workers' Party had already begun preparations for establishing local Soviets after advancing into Siberia, a plan based on the experience of political cadres returning from India.

When fighting in a foreign land where you know no one, the most important thing is not military victory, but political victory. You must make the people understand your political ideology and the target of your war, and ensure that the people are not deceived by the enemy's political propaganda. Otherwise, most of your strength will be wasted on projects that are unrelated to the enemy, and eventually the enemy will gather a powerful force that you cannot resist and destroy you.

However, in India, they were able to rely on the burgeoning Indian nationalism as a pillar to form the People's Committee of India, thus fighting against the British Indian government. But in Russia, they initially failed to find a widely accepted proposition among the Russian people to oppose the Tsarist government. Therefore, they had the framework but could not truly sever the connection between the local population and the Tsarist government. The entry of the Bolsheviks effectively solved this problem.

Similarly, for the Russian Bolsheviks, they had never had the opportunity to practice establishing a revolutionary regime before. Now the Workers' Party was teaching them how to do it step by step. This was indeed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Far Eastern Bolsheviks led by Babushkin. If they had to figure it out from scratch on their own, they would probably have shed buckets of blood just to figure out how to establish this Soviet of workers, peasants and soldiers.

On July 5, the 7rd Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army arrived south of Novoselenginsk. The Northern Group had already assembled three and a half infantry divisions and five cavalry divisions in the area, with a total strength exceeding 5.5 men. Cai E, Lan Tianwei, and others decided to launch a general offensive against Novoselenginsk to open up the passage to Verkhovdinsk.

The 7th Division launched its offensive from the northwest and north of Novoselenkinsk, while the 3rd Division attacked Novoselenkinsk from the southwest. Starting at noon on July 7th, by 9:00 AM on July 8th, the 3rd Division had cleared the fortifications along the river southwest of Novoselenkinsk, reaching the city's outskirts and eliminating nearly a thousand Russian soldiers.

The already low morale of the Russian troops plummeted even further after Colonel Krochaev returned to Verkhovinsk. The Russian troops in Novoselenginsk felt the city was indefensible; after all, even Verkhovinsk was threatened by the Chinese, so what was the point of defending Novoselenginsk if Verkhovinsk was lost?

The subsequent severing of ties between Novorenkinsk and Verkhovna Udinsk by the Chinese army further reinforced the Russian troops' concerns within the city. After all, with the interruption of Sino-Russian trade, Novorenkinsk lost the supply of goods brought by trade routes. Without the continuous flow of supplies from Verkhovna Udinsk, the city, despite its geographical defensive advantages, lacked the long-term capacity for self-sufficiency. After all, being a fortress was a thing of the past, two hundred years ago; Novorenkinsk was now just an ordinary city.

Lieutenant Colonel Avnika, whom Colonel Krochaev had left behind, was no outstanding figure. He had already suffered a defeat against the Chinese in Kyakhta, so no one expected him to lead them to any miracles. Furthermore, rumors began circulating in the army that surrendering to the Chinese would not result in mistreatment, but rather an early return home. It was said that some of those captured in Zhangjiakou had already returned, and these rumors made the locals particularly uneasy.

So when the Chinese began their frontal assault on Novoselenkinsk, the Russian troops stationed there had mixed feelings. On one hand, they hoped to stop the Chinese advance, but worried that the Chinese would retaliate if they won. On the other hand, they hoped the rumors were true and that being captured by the Chinese would end the war and allow them to go home.

Under this conflicted mindset, the Russian army's resistance was rather weak, far less determined than when Colonel Krochaev initially organized the defense within the city, with everyone supporting each other with fierce determination. Back then, when the Chinese army occupied the outer positions, the Russian army would immediately organize troops to retake them, but now the Russian army only put up resistance on the positions themselves, and once they lost ground, no one was willing to retake them; even the officers had lost the confidence to hold on.

At 10:00 AM on July 8th, a Russian detachment in Xicheng surrendered to the approaching Chinese troops, triggering a chain reaction among the city's defenders. By nearly noon, Lieutenant Colonel Avnika discovered that two-fifths of the city had fallen into Chinese hands, and few in the remaining three-fifths were willing to continue resisting.

At the urging of his colleagues, Lieutenant Colonel Avniká led more than 4,000 Russian troops in the city to formally surrender to the Chinese at 1:30 p.m. that day. Only a few hundred Russian troops stationed on the right bank of the Selenga River chose to retreat on their own. In this battle, more than 2000 Russian soldiers were killed and 11,000 were captured. There were no more main Russian forces south of Verkhovna Udinsk.

After capturing Novoselenginsk, Cai E immediately ordered the 1st Division to hold Tulentayevo with all its might, and ordered the 3rd and 7th Divisions to move north to besiege Verkhovnadine. He also dispatched cavalry units and the Bolsheviks led by Babushkin to attack Onokhoi, north of Verkhovnadine, at an opportune moment, cutting off the railway link between Verkhovnadine and Chita.

Onokhoy is located on the Uda River northeast of Verkhovna Udinsk. Before the railway was built, it was an important passage between Verkhovna Udinsk and Chita. The Uda River Valley and the Shilok River Valley are natural passages between the Selenga River Valley region and Chita. Therefore, the Trans-Siberian Railway also winds its way along this passage.

However, unlike Novoselenginsk, Onokhoy does not possess any fortress characteristics because the Chinese are to the south rather than the north. In the early days, it may have been a fortress on a transport route to defend against attacks from the local indigenous people, but as Russia developed the Outer Baikal region, the need for defense here gradually decreased.

Even after Tuluntayevo was occupied by the Chinese, Verkhovna Udinsk did not consider the security of this small town behind it. Therefore, when Babushkin led the Chinese cavalry to storm the town, there were only more than 500 troops stationed there, and only two old bronze cannons.

Babushkin captured Onokhoi on the evening of July 11. Verkhovna Udinsk did not know until the morning of the 13th, while Chita received the news on the evening of the 12th. A unit transferred from Harbin to reinforce Verkhovna Udinsk received the bad news before arriving at Onokhoi. This unit did not have the courage to attack Onokhoi and directly ordered its train to retreat back to the Shilok Valley.

On July 15, the 1st, 3rd, and 7th Divisions of the Northern Group encircled Verkhovdinsk. Although the city had a force of 32,000 men, it lacked a truly cohesive fighting force. After Colonel Krochaev returned to Verkhovdinsk, he managed to organize the city's forces, but the soldiers' morale had been shattered by the series of defeats in the war, and even the officers from Europe and Russia had lost faith in the war.

If the soldiers' pessimistic view of the war was caused by a series of defeats, then the officers' pessimism stemmed from news from Europe. These elites of Tsarist Russia, who upheld the autocratic system, did not only rely on their own country's news when learning about the world. Although they chanted slogans of loyalty to the Tsar, they were well aware of the trends in the world.

The soldiers knew Russia was doomed, but not why. The officers, however, understood perfectly well why: St. Petersburg had chosen the wrong opponent, violating the common interests of the great powers in the Far East, particularly those of the British Empire. Throughout the 19th century, no one had ever triumphed over the British Empire, and the miracles the Chinese had created in India were now ignored by the Russian officers.

This was an army that knew from top to bottom that it was about to face defeat, so naturally no one was willing to sacrifice themselves for a fate that was destined to fail. When news of the fall of Novoselenginsk came, some local soldiers on the outskirts of Verkhovna Udinsk began to desert. When news of the fall of Onokhoi came as the Chinese army approached Verkhovna Udinsk, even more soldiers deserted.

Chapter 480 People are panicked

For the Russian troops in Verkhovna Udinsk, the situation was actually quite dire. Although Verkhovna Udinsk was located as a forward logistics center for Outer Mongolia and had indeed accumulated a considerable amount of supplies, it lost its status as a forward support center after the failure of the Outer Mongolia route.

As the war in Manchuria continued, a large number of troops and supplies were transferred from Verkhovna Udinsk to Manchuria. Although the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway allowed military personnel and supplies from Europe to quickly converge on the Far East, it was ultimately a one-way street. Therefore, when the Chinese invaded north of Kyakhta, Verkhovna Udinsk received little replenishment of supplies.

The sudden attack by the Chinese army on Verkhovdinsk, although it brought St. Petersburg to its senses and led to the priority delivery of personnel and supplies to Verkhovdinsk, was too swift. Before capturing Novoselenginsk, the Chinese army launched a surprise attack on Tulentayevo, cutting off the Trans-Siberian Railway line.

At this time, although Verkhovdinsk had mobilized a large number of military personnel, its reserves of supplies amounted to only about 6000 tons, nearly one-third of which had been sent to Novoselenginsk. According to Colonel Ivanov's calculations, Verkhovdinsk's supplies would only last for a maximum of 40 days, starting from July 5th.

In other words, when the Chinese seized Onokhoy and cut off Verkhodinsk's external connections, the city's supplies would only last for 30 days at most, and fuel would not last more than a week, because winter had just passed, and no one would store so much timber in the spring and summer, as it would quickly rot after being rained on.

However, compared to the problem of insufficient supplies, the corruption in the distribution of supplies caused even greater dissatisfaction among the soldiers. Although Russian officers often referred to Russian soldiers as "gray animals," it did not mean that these "gray animals" were without feelings. It was just that under the strict discipline of the Russian army, the soldiers dared not resist. After all, even the great Count Tolstoy could not save the innocent soldier Shibnin, who was sentenced to death by a military court simply for slapping an officer because he could not endure the officer's abuse.

When the Russian army was not facing defeat, these soldiers obeyed their officers' orders like unyielding livestock. However, once the Russian army was on the verge of defeat, the soldiers lost their fear of military discipline and began to provoke their superiors. This was evident in the soldiers' open looting of supplies from warehouses after the defeat in the Battle of Mukden.

The current situation of the Russian army in Verkhovna Udinsk is no different from that of the Russian army after the Battle of Mukden. The fear of military discipline has given way to the fear of the Chinese army. Many soldiers are going to the battlefield for the first time and are facing defeat as soon as they go to the battlefield. Naturally, they have lost their fear of officers. They will either be killed by the Chinese or by the officers. Is there really a difference between the two ways of dying?

Moreover, the officers are still trying to conceal the fact that the Russian army is facing defeat, while these rumors have already spread among the soldiers. In this situation, if the officers still try to enjoy their privileges in the military, embezzling and withholding soldiers' supplies, then who will continue to fight the Chinese for these officers?

Thus, the Russian officers in Verkhovna Udinsk soon discovered that their attempts to send troops out of the city to retake Onokhoy were thwarted by desertions, with some units even disappearing en masse. Clearly, once out of the officers' sight, the soldiers began finding ways to disengage themselves from the fighting.

Kharchenko was the first to waver. On the evening of July 16, he asked Colonel Krochaev, "Colonel, do you really think we can hold Verkhovdinsk on our own?"

Facing Kharchenko's hopeful gaze, the colonel remained silent for a long time before saying, "We certainly can't hold out on our own. Although we have more than two divisions, we estimate that only three or four battalions are truly willing to fight the Chinese to the death. To hold Verkhovdinsk, we can only wait for reinforcements from Irkutsk or Chita to come and rescue us."

Kharchenko was not satisfied with this answer. He countered, "Does Chita still have the troops to come to our aid? Hoping for Chita's help is less desirable than hoping for the Manchurian Army's. However, the Manchurian Army itself is waiting for St. Petersburg's aid; they have no strength left to help us. Therefore, we can't rely on anyone except Irkutsk. How long do you think it will take for Irkutsk to send troops to capture Tulentayevo?"

Colonel Krochaev pondered for a long time before hesitantly saying, "Irkutsk itself has no power, so the forces that come to our aid will either come from Western Siberia, Central Asia, or the European-Russian region."

However, the troops in Western Siberia have already been largely withdrawn, and reinforcements from Europe and Russia probably won't arrive in Irkutsk until next month. Therefore, the only option is to come from Central Asia. Frankly, though, I'm not optimistic about the Central Asian troops. Although they are quite capable, they are used to fighting nomadic peoples and probably wouldn't be comfortable with positional warfare against the Chinese…”

At this time, Wang Rong, the commander of the First Division, was observing the Russian army at the exit of the Selen River Valley. Just as Colonel Krochaev had predicted, the only troops that St. Petersburg could mobilize nearby were the Russian troops from Tashkent, namely the troops of the Turkestan Governorate.

The Turkestan Governorate is located in the Central Asian oasis region south of the Kazakh steppe and adjacent to the steppe governorate to the north. Established in 1867, this governorate had a population equivalent to that of the entire Siberian region, before the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Although the oasis population in Central Asia was more dense than in the northern steppe regions, the inherent limitations of oasis agriculture, particularly its dependence on water resources, made it relatively easy for the Russians to conquer the region. This was because the Central Asian peoples were unlikely to abandon their oases and migrate to the desert. However, despite the Russian occupation, the Central Asian oasis regions were traditionally predominantly Islamic, leading to considerable resistance to Russian Orthodox Christianity. In addition to religious conflicts, the large-scale migration of Russian peasants to the region created further tensions between population and land resources.

The Tsarist Russian authorities encouraged Russian farmers to migrate to Central Asia for cultivation, which in effect meant seizing arable land from the locals and distributing it to them. This led to hostility among the locals towards the Russian immigrants, resulting in Slavic immigrants in Central Asia becoming almost all reserve soldiers for the local Russian army, and they were not lacking in military experience.

These Russian immigrants considered themselves superior to the indigenous people and supported the Tsarist government's policy of ethnic oppression in the region. Some gangsters and Russian officials even clamored to exterminate the local natives like the Americans treated the Native Americans. Massacres like Hailanpao and the Sixty-Four Villages East of the River were not uncommon in Central Asia.

However, since Central Asia was a newly conquered region for Russia, there were constant rebellions in the area, making it difficult to transfer troops to support Manchuria. In the early Far East wars, not many troops were transferred from Tashkent. This time, after receiving orders from St. Petersburg, a division was able to be mobilized immediately to go to Irkutsk.

As a border province, the newly arrived Central Asian division actually had good morale, much better than the peasants conscripted from Europe and Russia. This was because they often carried out such suppression missions and considered themselves beneficiaries of the war. After all, their land was taken from these suppressed rebels, and if the rebels won, they would naturally lose their land.

The only problem was that while the Central Asian divisions had far more combat experience than the conscripts from the Far East and Europe, the officers' command experience was still stuck in the Napoleonic Wars era. After all, the opponents they had faced in the past were almost all the private armies of feudal lords who fought with matchlock muskets and bronze cannons—medieval armies even more backward than those of the Napoleonic era.

Faced with such an army, the officers' basic tactic was to bombard the barbarian charge with artillery, then charge in with the Tsar's grey steeds for hand-to-hand combat. Once the barbarians began to flee, the war was over. What tactics were needed for such a battle?

Therefore, Wang Rong and his subordinates were very surprised to observe the Russian army's attack. One of his subordinates said, "Have the Russians gone mad? They have failed several times before with their dense charge tactics. Now they have brought in new troops, but they are still using the same tactics. Did they change the commanders along with the troops they are attacking?"

Yes, that's what surprised everyone. The Russian army had already suffered several setbacks with this tactic. If this tactic could have made them a little flustered a year ago, now even the Beiyang Army knows how to deal with the Russian army's artillery barrage combined with dense infantry charges.

Their support for the Beiyang Army and the Russian Army in waging positional warfare was not simply to relieve pressure on the Beiyang Army, but also to train the Red Army's positional warfare capabilities and infantry tactics. For example, in the face of the Russian Army's old-fashioned tactics, the Red Army had already devised a tactic: to set up multiple battle lines, with heavy firepower in the front and light troop strength in the rear, and light troop strength in the front and heavy troop strength in the rear, so as to gradually absorb the Russian Army's momentum by continuously killing enemy personnel, and then launch a full-scale counterattack when the Russian Army's charge could no longer be sustained, thereby crushing the enemy's offensive momentum in one blow.