Moscow was shrouded in smoke and dust. In the afternoon, dark clouds gradually drifted across the sky. The Murmansk weather station in the north sent a telegram to Moscow two days ago, claiming that an arctic cold was moving southward and that the area had entered a state of autumn rain.
After all, it is already September. If it doesn’t rain this month, what awaits Moscow and surrounding areas will be a larger-scale snowfall in winter.
Cars and trucks passed through the Kazan Railway Station Square, passed through a large iron gate, and entered directly into the busy railway station.
"It's beyond my imagination. It's really busy here." Yang Mingzhi quickly took out his glasses and saw some people stranded on the platform not far away. "Comrade Captain, are those people planning to get on the train and leave?"
"Maybe! Yesterday's bombing was too terrible, and Moscow still needs to be evacuated further. The timing of our arrival is not bad. There should be new military columns arriving in a while, and you will see a large number of new soldiers getting off the train."
"Yes, I understand. Which train will I take? I see that there are too many trains parked here."
"I don't know about this, please wait a moment." After saying that, the captain sounded the horn more than ten times, attracting all the people who should respond.
The train station now looks busy, as if the air raid had no impact on it.
Kazan Station has eighteen railway tracks, which are merged into two railway tracks through the responsible side cabinet ramp system. A large number of ironworkers are unloading wooden boxes from the carriages, then loading them on flatbed trucks and retreating. They also use some forklifts
, work faster.
Yang Mingzhi deliberately looked at it for a while, and the train in front of him was full of historical vicissitudes.
There is a huge red five-star hanging on the front section of all locomotives, with an embossed CCCP in the center. All locomotives are coal-burning steam locomotives, and they all have a violent steampunk aesthetic, as if they are covered in white mist.
The steam monster is pulling dozens of flatbed trucks with full power.
The front trucks are all uniformly manufactured flatbed trucks, which do not have any electrical system and are mounted on each other section by section, like a centipede. Most flatbed trucks are equipped with metal frames and nailed with wooden boards to carry loose and broken goods.
As for heavy tanks, they are directly fixed on the flatbed truck. Whether it is a tank or a heavy artillery, a flatbed truck can only carry one.
Yang Mingzhi looked for the car he was going to ride in among the many vehicles. Soon, a car with a weird overall shape caught his attention.
Let’s talk about this military train. The front of the train is obviously facing away from the platform, and it looks like it is heading to the east. What’s strange is not only that, some machine gun forts made of sandbags are also placed on the roofs of some carriages. Now there are soldiers with loaded guns firmly seated on it.
With.
"Um, you're not afraid of falling either?"
Since there are soldiers sitting on the roof, the speed of the train must not be faster after it starts moving. Yang Mingzhi estimated that an average speed of forty kilometers per hour is very good.
His guess was reasonable.
The military trains currently parked at the Kazan Railway Station all use Ов series 6640 freight steam locomotives. The first locomotive was produced by the Pujilovits factory in 1900. By the time production ceased, the output was nearly 8,000 units. Because it is
This model was finalized during the Tsarist Russia era, and its design speed was only 55 kilometers per hour.
Of course, there are some high-speed steam locomotives in the Soviet Union. The reason for their high speed is their more powerful horsepower, which can even reach a speed of 90 kilometers! With the state of the railways in the Soviet Union, it is rare for a steam locomotive to run at such high speeds.
These high-speed locomotives are mostly used for troop deployment, while for the large number of freight locomotives, their speed can often only be maintained at 50 kilometers per hour.
Considering that there are many bad sections on the Siberian Railway, it is dangerous to drive fast. This is just a purely technical problem. Even if an express train is transferred to the busy Siberian Railway, it must reduce its speed to accommodate the slow train.
The number of slow-speed locomotives in the Soviet Union is as high as 12,000, and the Ов series alone has nearly 10,000 units. Express trains are incorporated into the Ов army. Unless there is an emergency mission, the fast military trains will accept new dispatches and run at maximum speed.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is now in the busiest historical period since its completion. A military train passes by almost every ten minutes, and various materials are transported continuously.
If the German army used some kind of weapon to blow up a section of the railway, even if it could only disrupt transportation for a few days, the consequences would soon be felt on the battlefield.
Yang Mingzhi wanted to know more about this special train, so he had no choice but to take a closer look. At this time, the people who took care of it finally arrived!
"General, they're here," the captain said.
Yang Mingzhi opened the car door and saw not far away, a middle-aged man wearing a gray suit and a black big-brimmed hat walking quickly. There were several people with similar clothes beside him. The other two were very chic.
, the blue hat fully proved his identity.
"Comrade Captain? I saw comrades from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They are the ones responsible for escorting me to Novosibirsk?"
"That's them."
Now Yang Mingzhi is also in military uniform. He is wearing the full military uniform he received a few days ago. All the medals are neatly worn and straightened. He has a tall and powerful image, and the glasses on the bridge of his nose add a touch of elegance.
Soon, the man in a suit stood in front of Yang Mingzhi and took the initiative to extend his right hand: "Hello, you must be General Berekov."
"Yes, I am Berekov." Yang Mingzhi first saluted the military salute, then stretched out his right hand and squeezed the visitor's hand bones with Russian etiquette.
The man in the suit is not a weakling either. He claims to be Borisov, the station master of Kazan Station, and the rest of his entourage are officials from the railway station.
Then, the two people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs also introduced themselves.
"My name is Nikita Ivanovich Felyudov."
"I am Ivan Semyonovich Kastyura."
Yang Mingzhi nodded: "Comrades from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I know you now. I have to say that your names are very long and even a bit convoluted. Nikita, and Ivan, it's okay for me to call you this way.
?”
"Of course! Comrade General." Feliudov continued: "We are ordered to escort you and other comrades to Novosibirsk safely. We will be your loyal guards in the future journey."
"Loyal guards?" Yang Mingzhi couldn't help being happy. He snapped his fingers and called Grishenko and the rest of the staff who were gathering together to smoke. "Since you are all wearing the same uniform, you may know each other.
Comrade Second Lieutenant, now you have new subordinates."
"Subordinates? General, are you kidding me? I don't know them, and in terms of rank, these two comrades are senior to me!"
"He is right, Comrade General." Feliudov continued, "We are lieutenants and he is second lieutenant. Of course, if you give an order, we will resolutely carry it out."
"Forget it." Yang Mingzhi shrugged, not wanting to chatter about this matter.
The most important thing at the moment was to board the eastbound train. The stationmaster and his entourage were left aside. Yang Mingzhi turned around and pointed at the various trains parked on the track: "I don't want to wait any longer. You are the stationmaster.
, tell me, which military train I will take? I have to tell you, my wife and I, and even all the guards, we must live in the comfortable carriage."
"Of course! You are a general, how can I dare to neglect you?"
He shook hands vigorously just now, and was deliberately left aside. Now he looked domineering, and the war felt like this. He was not surprised. Obviously, under Belekov's Eastern appearance, he had the same temperament as other generals.
It must be like this in my heart, and this general is no exception. His personal behavior is rougher, but he can be more brave on the battlefield.
The stationmaster quickly pointed to a military column: "That's it. The one with many machine gun forts on the roof is your car. You are a general, so we have prepared a luxury carriage for you. You and your wife will be satisfied."
"
"Where are my guards? Where do they live?"
"They live in the sleeping car, and other escort soldiers live in it. You can rest assured that there are more places in the sleeping car than all the passengers."
"Now I finally understand why my safety must be guaranteed. It's really a military parade, I'm afraid it's more than just a machine gun fort." Yang Mingzhi muttered for a while in Chinese that no one understood, then raised his head and pointed with his big finger at the distance.
Front of the car: "Comrade stationmaster, the luxury carriage you call must be at the front. Let's go and have a look."
"Okay, we have to go down to the track first. As for all your luggage, I will arrange for people to carry it now."
"Thank you."
After eating lunch and riding in the car for a while, Yang Tao was inevitably a little tired. She rested in the car for a while, and when her husband took her down, she walked hand in hand on the gravel-filled roadbed, looking at the black paint from a close distance.
Painted car skin, my spirit is back.
Stationmaster Borisov led the way, chattering endlessly, praising the perfect protection of the train and even giving high-level treatment to senior personnel.
He even said: "Comrade Stalin will live in a luxury carriage when he takes the train for inspection. You will enjoy the same high-standard treatment as the leader. All senior military officers can enjoy such treatment."
"I still want to see more of the locomotive! I just want to see if it is absolutely safe as you said."
How long is this military column? Yang Mingzhi felt that he had already passed more than 20 carriages, and the front of the carriage was still quite far away.
He noticed that the doors of some carriages had been closed and locked, and the iron doors of some carriages far behind him were open. Railway workers were carrying goods upwards. What they were carrying was definitely not their own luggage!
"Comrade stationmaster, do these wagons contain some cargo?"
"Of course! They're all scrap metal."
"Scrap iron? Why are you taking the scrap iron to the East? No! The steel plants in the East must be recycling this scrap iron."
"You... you are so right!" Stationmaster Borisov was very surprised. He simply didn't know that General Berekov was very familiar with recycling scrap metal, so he explained it in passing.
It turns out that all military trains that arrive in Moscow with loads of goods often return directly after checking and continue to load goods. Military trains often have to pull some things when they go to the East. And this military train will be pulling six cars at the front.
Ten carriages are traveling, and half of them are not empty!
The stationmaster claimed that fourteen carriages were filled with scrap metal, such as tank parts that could not be repaired, wrecked vehicles, and even firearms that could not be repaired.
In this era, steel, energy and food are what keep the war machine running. Before the war, the iron ore in the Donbass region of the Soviet Union was so rich that it interfered with the regional magnetic field. Now the Soviet Union has lost its largest iron ore area and
After the Germans took possession of the super-large steel complex in Zaporozhye, they began to frantically extract resources from the Soviet Union to support the war.
The Soviet Union also had to start collecting scrap copper and iron, especially in areas close to the battlefield. The scrap iron obtained through various channels was being transported to the rear. Because they were a particularly excellent "iron ore".
In Moscow and surrounding satellite cities, most of the large steel mills here moved in during the war, and the remaining factories have very limited production capacity.
Large amounts of scrap copper and iron are transported to the Ural region, or directly to Kazan or even Novosibirsk.
"All the scrap metal hauled by this military train will be transported to Nizhny Novgorod. No German aircraft or rocket launchers can fly there. When we get to Kazan, we will also load a batch of grain, and then we will not
Stop and go straight to Novosibirsk.”
Yang Mingzhi was a little surprised: "Isn't the food hitting the battlefield? Why are we still sending food eastward?"
The webmaster did not go into details, but just said in an intriguing way: "Before, the population of Novosibirsk was less than 500,000, but when the war broke out, it has become a big city with a population of nearly 1.5 million!"
Who is Yang Mingzhi? With just one sentence, he has understood everything.
After all, that region is Siberia. Not only does it have a long winter, many areas still have frozen soil all year round. Even in summer, if an excavator digs down two or three meters, it will probably be able to dig out frozen soil as hard as rock. Only industrial drills can drill it.
Only by continuing to drill with the mentality of an oil well can groundwater with a constant temperature of four degrees be dug out.
The war has been going on for more than a year, and the population of Novosibirsk has tripled, which means that the food supply must also triple what it was before! No, three times may be too little. The millions of immigrants are by no means farmers;
They are the urban working class who relocated with the factories. They are engaged in heavy manual labor every day to produce large war machines such as tanks and heavy artillery. For everyone engaged in such labor, regardless of men or women, that is an additional one million large pieces of paper.
appetite!
With such a population, won’t Novosibirsk suffer from a food crisis?
The agriculture there is underdeveloped, and the perennially frozen soil cannot be saved. During the short warm period, only spring wheat can be grown for one season. It will not be until the technology of greenhouse cultivation and anhydrous cultivation matures that the situation will be significantly improved.
In fact, the climate conditions in Novosibirsk are better than those in Harbin. However, the Russians do not have the intensive farming culture of the Chinese. Fortunately, it is a large area. Even if the land’s food yield is low and more land is reclaimed for planting, even though Novosibirsk has
One and a half million people can still be fed.
In fact, with the grain output of the entire Novosibirsk state, it can feed three million people, not to mention 1.5 million people! Everything is the Soviet wartime system!
Most of the grain output of the collective farms had to be turned over. The people strictly followed wartime regulations and distributed food to different people according to different standards. The same was true for ordinary farm members.
When villagers have free time, they can go fishing in the river, catch hares, or even hunt brown bears for meat. No one objects to this.
The food turned over is transported to the frontline troops on a limited basis, followed by arsenals in various places. The food is then transported to the granary in Novosibirsk. Workers receive food with food stamps, or eat in the canteen with factory meal stamps. As for salary, ruble banknotes are still monthly
Distributed regularly, it is mainly used to purchase cheap daily necessities, or to purchase commercial grains that are deliberately sold at high prices.
The committee responsible for managing logistics and dispatching is fully responsible for such a complex and cumbersome operation, and all actions are only to ensure that all the grain collected by each administrative region can be handed over, and to ensure that the grain can be supplied to the army and military personnel in priority.
Maintain the Soviet war machine. (To be continued)