Arc of Gunfire

Jules July 2, 914.

Battle Group Rokossov arrived in Loktov on the third day.

Wang Zhong, with his extremely capable command team of the battle group, was waiting on the platform of Loktov Railway Station for the guests who were scheduled to arrive today.

The guards and support staff on the platform were all very nervous. After all, there was a brigadier general here.

The brigadier general used to be called the brigade general. After the civil war, in order to "integrate with international standards", he used the title of the United Kingdom to call the brigadier general.

Brigadier General Wang Zhong only has five people around him.

The first was Colonel Ivan Pandelevich Yegorov, commander of the 31st Guards Rifle Regiment.

Although the designation of the unit under his command was changed, it was still the remnants of the Third Rear Amur Regiment who were awarded the designation of the Guards. However, they did not have the Guards flag or the iconic rainproof cloak of the Guards, which was specially provided by the Guards. The weapons were not fired at all.

The second is Lieutenant Colonel Alexey Sergeyevich Pavlov, former staff officer of the 3rd Post-Amur Regiment and current chief of staff of the Rokossov Battle Group.

After being promoted to the battle group staff officer, the staff team led by Pavlov now only has an accountant temporarily recruited from the local area, not even a communications staff officer. The person in charge of logistics is still an old division chief who was recruited from the local garrison.

In short, it is an empty shelf.

The third person is Brother Sufang Batuwendusu. She has just been promoted to the priest monk and is responsible for commanding the choir of the battle group. Currently, there is only one person in the choir.

The fourth person is Brother Yezemenko, whose current position is deputy knight and commander of the battle group Divine Arrow Company. Currently, the entire company only has one launcher, 10 divine arrows, one truck, and one prayer hand.

However, the Divine Arrow Company has at least replenished ten divine arrows, and the only firing team is fully staffed. There is also an extra truck and a driver. It can be regarded as the best unit in the entire battle group.

These are all the current senior officers of the Rokossov battle group.

Others either died or were lying in hospital.

The last person was Sergeant Major Gregory, who was temporarily appointed as the Brigadier General's guard. He was looking at the surroundings with alert eyes.

Loktov is not only a train transfer station and supply center, but also the location of the largest hospital in the nearby war zone. Most of the wounded were sent here. The Ronezh Field Hospital that moved here with the 3rd Post-Amur Regiment was also merged into the local area. Hospital establishment.

Wang Zhong was pacing back and forth on the platform, looking for something to say as he walked: "The Third Post-Amur Regiment was reorganized into a Guards Regiment. Why is it numbered 31? In less than two weeks since the war started, 30 Guards Regiments have been launched. "

The senior officers of the battle group and the surrounding guards who heard this all looked at Wang Zhong with surprised eyes.

Wang Zhong frowned: "What's wrong?"

Yegorov: "There were thirty Guards Infantry Regiments before the war started."

"Oh, really?" Wang Zhong is used to playing a guy without common sense. Anyway, the original owner is so bad, no one will be surprised, "I see, I understand. Then we will be the first to obtain the guards after the war." What about the infantry regiment with the title?”

Yegorov nodded: "Yes."

Wang Zhong: "That's great. No matter what happens in the future, we will leave our name in history."

If it were two days ago, Wang Zhong would never have said such a thing, because this honor of guard was obtained with a lot of sacrifices, and he would not have teased the new number in such a joking way.

But Wang Zhong is probably the kind of person who adapts easily to the environment. No matter what happens, no matter how sad it is, he won't remember much after a few sleeps.

Lyudmila joked this morning, saying: "The old Alyosha is back again, although only half of it is back."

In other words, the original Rokosov and Wang Zhong have certain characteristics in common.

Of course, it has now been proven that Wang Zhong will definitely not wet his pants on the battlefield. There is still a significant difference between the two.

At this time, a whistle sounded in the distance.

In fact, Wang Zhong had already confirmed through the bird's-eye view that the train was not the one they were waiting for, but at this time he still had to pretend, so he asked Pavlov: "Is it this train?"

Pavlov looked at the switchman's cabin in the northeasternmost part of the platform and shook his head: "No, the switchman didn't even adjust the rails. This train just passed us."

As soon as he finished speaking, the train blew its whistle again, without any intention of slowing down, and just entered the station on the tracks far away from the platform.

There is a railway emergency repair car in front of the car, and an anti-aircraft car is towed behind the coal transport car. The three gun emplacements of the car are equipped with four Maxim machine guns.

There are rails on both sides of the railway emergency repair car. It is obviously prepared to immediately repair the railway in place once it is discovered that the railway ahead has been blown up by the Prossen Air Force.

The soldiers in the anti-aircraft car all looked nervous. After all, it was already dawn and the Proson plane would arrive at any time.

Behind them are the tank trucks. Each tank truck has its door open, and the recruits are crowded beside the door looking curiously at the world outside.

A new recruit shouted: "General, how are you doing on the front line?"

Wang Zhong: "It's scary! Wait until you wet your pants!"

The young man didn't realize what was waiting for him in front of him, so he laughed bravely.

After Wang Zhong finished speaking, he realized that the owner of his body seemed to be——

He glanced at Yegorov and Pavlov.

Nowadays, no one would talk about peeing in the pants, but everyone who comes from Rognezh has heard of it.

The two officers began to pretend to look at the scenery.

Damn, this won’t become a famous meme in the future, right? Don’t do that kind of thing!

In order to cover up his embarrassment, he asked Yegorov: "Can the Guards all obtain special equipment?"

"Yes, the rainproof poncho is very useful in muddy seasons and heavy snow days. And then there is the Tokarev eight-year-old rifle."

This space-time Tokarev semi-automatic rifle was finalized in Jules 908, so it is called the 8-year-old type.

Submachine guns are only suitable for close combat. The Tokarev semi-automatic will theoretically have advantages over submachine guns in the wilderness.

Prosin's ordinary infantry is still pulling the big bolt. The increase in firepower brought by Tokarev will give the Guards an advantage over Prosen's army in the middle distance.

This is theoretically true, but the Prosin Army infantry squads are generally organized with machine guns as the core, and each squad has one machine gun, so Tokarev's firepower advantage over the big bolt is gone.

But it's always good to have an advantage. Wang Zhong now dreams of getting more good equipment for his troops.

Although the outcome of a war does not depend on the quality of equipment, having good equipment is definitely better than using bad equipment and can reduce a lot of losses.

Wang Zhong asked again: "So when can we get these Tokarev?"

Pavlov said: "The bullets have been delivered, all that is left is the gun and the man who uses the gun."

Wang Zhong raised his eyebrows. In the past two days, he had experienced the chaos caused by the collapse of the front line.

The good news is that things are recovering now, the bad news is that it's not recovering fast enough.

Wang Zhong continued to pace on the platform.

Brother Yetsemenko said to Pavlov: "Compared with guns, I hope people can quickly replenish them. Now the station is so empty and quiet, I even have nightmares when I sleep at night."

The order given to Wang Zhong did not say what size the Rokossov battle group was, but because the leader of the unit was a brigade-level general - that is, a brigadier general, the local logistics department designated the station according to the standards of a brigade.

The large station can accommodate 3,000 people at the same time, as well as their accompanying vehicles, ammunition and fuel.

However, Wang Zhong and his group had less than 200 people in total, and only 55 of the infantry were completely uninjured.

Of all the troops that were said to have retreated in Ronezh, they are the only ones so far.

I don’t know if the other stragglers were fighting guerrillas on the spot, were taken as prisoners, or were shot by the Inquisition. Anyway, they didn’t come here.

After all the lightly wounded people who were traveling with the troops were admitted to the rehabilitation center of the field hospital, there were only fifty-five people in the huge camp. Plus other miscellaneous logistics personnel, such as the field cooking team and the field laundry team, there were only 300 people. From the front, you can imagine how empty it is.

There are many more sparrows than people in the barracks.

These fifty-five men, all with beards and tails, have all been promoted to sergeants. Theoretically, each of them will lead at least one squad in the future, but now there are no soldiers at all.

Wang Zhong paced on the platform and said to himself: "I thought that from now on it would be constant fighting, fighting, and fighting. I didn't expect that I would have such a free time."

Yegorov smiled and said: "This is your first time on the battlefield. In fact, this is the norm. A war usually lasts for a month, or even a week or two if it is intense. That's about it, and then there is a long rest.

“This was the rhythm during the civil war.

"The Air Force will fight passionately with the enemy every day."

Wang Zhong actually knew this because he liked to play war games and read a lot of war histories.

For example, he knew that in order to wait for the mud season to pass in Kursk, both armies on the southern front had rested for more than three months, and some troops had been resting since February of that year.

But that's the thing, "what you see on paper is ultimately shallow." Even though he had read so many war histories and memoirs, Wang Zhong still never expected to have such leisure time before arriving in Loktov.

Fortunately, both Yegorov and Pavlov had experience. They brought bayan and balalaika to the troops, played music during meals, and also hired a film screening team from the church propaganda hall. Movie screenings in the evening.

Only then did Wang Zhong realize that what he had always thought was an accordion was actually a national musical instrument called bayan, and the timbre was quite different from that of the accordion.

The balalaika is a triangular piano and a national musical instrument.

Yegorov continued: "I fell in love with fishing during the civil war. It was a great way to pass the time. Just sit by the lake and the day would pass. You can also eat salmon at night."

Wang Zhongxin misses you. It is unlucky to make an appointment to fish for salmon in Lake Baikal.

Just as he was about to say this, many trucks drove into the station and stopped on the side of the platform without rails. A large number of stretcher bearers and nurses jumped out of the trucks.

Wang Zhong and others saw them and silently gave up the platform.

Soon, a whistle came from the west.

The switchman came out of the hut, and after one operation, he raised the green lantern.

The sound of train braking came from afar.

At the same time, several jeeps drove into the train station, each with three doctors on board.

Wang Zhong greeted Losonov, director of the field hospital: "Doctor, good morning!"

Losonov nodded, his expression unusually haggard.

At this time, the slowing train slid into the platform and came to a slow stop.

The people in the car immediately took action and carried the wounded out of the car one after another.

There were no lightly wounded, probably because all the lightly wounded were left on the front lines to continue fighting.

The doctors spread out, looking at the wounded lined up on the platform one by one, placing classification tags on their chests.

Behind each doctor was a nurse, whose only task was to give anesthetics to the wounded who were classified as "abandoned".

The stretcher team kept carrying the wounded who were classified as priority onto the truck.

Everything was carried out in an orderly manner, as if it was mechanically precise, and everyone had no expression on their faces.

Wang Zhong also watched all this with a blank expression.

All the thoughts about the leisure time on the battlefield just now were washed away.

It was just an illusion, and the cruel war continued.

At this time, a wounded who was classified as "abandoned" stretched out his hand in the direction of Wang Zhong and others: "Father!"

Ye Caimenko walked towards him, taking out the old and faded scriptures as he walked.

He squatted down, held the hand of the seriously injured, pressed it on the cover of the scripture, and whispered: "Speak, child, I am listening, and He is listening too."

Perhaps the anesthetic took effect, Wang Zhong could not hear the soldier's voice, he could only see the monk bending down and putting his ear to the soldier's mouth.

Su Fang looked at all this and suddenly said, "Do you know? The wounded in the sanatorium like female nurses, but these dying people trust male priests like Brother Ye Caimenko more. Obviously, as a hymn monk, I am more favored." Wang Zhong did not answer. At this time, Yegorov had already inspected the wounded and whispered in Wang Zhong's ear: "There are many bayonet wounds. Yesterday, they were all caused by shell fragments and shock waves. Today, there are more gunshot wounds and bayonet wounds." Wang Zhong: "Hand-to-hand combat has begun. I don't know if Bogdanovka can really be defended for fifteen days. We have to hurry up." "The problem is that we can't get anyone even if we hurry up. The reinforcements are all going to Bogdanovka." Yegorov frowned and said, "We seem to have been forgotten." At this time, the stationmaster came out of the dispatch room and shouted to Wang Zhong and others: "Your Excellency the Brigadier General, the train you are waiting for will arrive soon, but in this situation, we can only stop at the dispatch platform that is farther away. Please go, the overpass is over there!"