On the night of May 1, 1935. Middle East, Aqaba.

There was no moonlight or starlight in the sky, and the night was as thick as a drop of black ink that could not be melted. The British soldiers in the trenches outside Aqaba tried hard to open their eyes, enduring the deep sleepiness, while watching the movements outside the trenches. However, in the darkness of the Middle East that rarely seen dark clouds cover the moon tonight, people's naked eyes could never see anything 10 meters away. They could only rely on the light of the flares fired from behind to see barely observing the wasteland outside Aqaba.

The wasteland was silent and there was nothing. After guarding for half a night, the soldiers cursed this damn war in their hearts. Perhaps they still missed the good days of garrisoning in Australia and Egypt. The war in the Middle East was far more cruel and fierce than expected. The British officers and soldiers who had fought in India had already felt that their opponents had made obvious progress compared to when they encountered them in India, and the simple human sea tactics had been abandoned. The level of running coordination almost reached the standard of the second-rate European army. In some areas of Syria and Trans-Jordan, they often used high-difficulty infantry tactics of assault infiltration!

Therefore, after learning that the Indian troops appeared in nearby Tebuk and Hanzhishan, Brigadier General Manton Smith, the brigade commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade of the Australian Army stationed in Aqaba, he immediately ordered his troops to be on guard all night. However, Brigadier Smith still lacked combat experience. If he had fought with the Soviet Red Army's master of the Indian Red Army for two years on the Soviet-German battlefield or the Sino-German battlefield, he would have known that he could not prevent the opponent's night infiltration by relying on guard all night.

In fact, the Indian army, which uses infiltration tactics, does not need to touch the British trenches, but to approach the front line as close as possible to shorten the time for attack. Moreover, the defense line of the 3rd Brigade of the Australian Army outside Aqaba was too long and there was not enough troops to guard the whole line all night. If this were the case, I am afraid that everyone would not have to sleep on the position and exhaust more than half of them in a few days. On the Soviet-German and Sino-Soviet battlefields, the way to deal with this infantry infiltration is to send a large number of patrols to patrol back and forth on the long defense line. Of course, not only the Chinese and German armies will send patrols, but the Soviet army will also send troops to reconnaissance and patrol on their own, because the infantry of China and Germany are also good at fighting infiltration!

However, in most cases, the patrol teams of both sides will not encounter enemies trying to penetrate their own defenses, but will encounter opponents' patrol soldiers. Therefore, the bloody battles between patrol troops will often last for the whole year! The casualties caused are also quite astonishing!

Of course, almost these Australians who have been fighting in the greenhouse for more than two years have never thought of going outside the position to slander patrol in such dark night. This is too dangerous and there seems to be no need... In a position defense battle, wouldn't it be enough to just hold the position and not let the enemy crawl in?

These Australians could not have thought that when they were guarding the trench and looking into the dark night with their sleepy eyes, the enemy had already touched their noses. The raid was launched by the 1st Infantry Division of the Indian Red Army Guards who had been lurking in the Hanzhi Mountains for more than a month. You could tell that they were elites at the glance! In fact, four of the eight Indian armies in the Ubolevich cluster had guard numbers, all of which were elites who were shot with one sword and one shot on the Indian battlefield.

Among them, the 1st Guard Infantry Division, which belongs to the 1st Guards Army, is the most powerful. The officers and soldiers of this division are selected from more than 10 million Indian Red Army. They are carefully trained by Soviet instructors and are equipped with all kinds of Soviet equipment. In addition to the smaller artillery organization, the rest of the equipment is even better than the ordinary Soviet infantry divisions, because they are the sharp knives used to break through the enemy's positions! They are sharp knives on the Indian battlefield, and sharp knives that still stab the enemy's heart when they arrive in the Middle East!

Behind a hill less than 5,000 meters behind tens of thousands of Indian Red Army elites who had quietly touched the British positions, the Indian army's artillery positions had been set open. Due to the cover of night, the British knew nothing about their activities. 24 152mm howitzers, 27 122mm howitzers, 36 field guns, and 31 120mm heavy mortars were concentrated and opened. Next to these cannons, they were piled up with shiny Soviet artillery shells. Piatov, the artillery director of the First Army of the Indian Red Army, wore a blue and gray uniform of the Indian Red Army, and gave the shooting he personally observed to the commanders of the artillery company.

In order to ensure the suddenness of the attack, the artillery fire preparation time was only 10 minutes, and there was no test fire. After the artillery was over, the infantry lurking under the enemy's nose immediately launched an attack. What's even more difficult is that because the distance between our own troops and the enemy was too close, the artillery must be very accurate, otherwise it would fall on his own heads! This is quite a test of the artillery observation level, but Piatov was fully convinced of this. He graduated from the Tsarist Artillery School, fought the First World War, the Soviet-Russian Civil War, the Four Kingdoms War, and the Polish War. He fought with the Germans for several years on the Soviet-German battlefield, and was definitely one of the best artillery commanders in the world!

The artillery was ready, and the time was slowly passing by while waiting. It was soon 10 o'clock in the evening. Piatov looked at his watch and it was already 9:55 pm on May 1, 1935. In another 5 minutes, the most critical battle in the Middle East Battle will begin! As long as the Indian Red Army can take over the city of Aqaba, located at the junction of the Arab Valley and the Gulf of Aqaba, it will open the gateway to Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula! More than 600,000 Red Army troops of eight armies can sweep the rear of the enemy like a flood!

...

At 11 o'clock on May 1, Marshall was watching telegrams from the front-line troops in Haifa's headquarters. He only flew back to Haifa from Djibouti this afternoon. His purpose in Djibouti was to send the US-British fleet and landing troops participating in the Persian Gulf war. According to the plan, the landing will be launched in a week. First, it will land in Ras Khaimah at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and will also occupy the island of Gershm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. According to the intelligence, the Indian Red Army did not deploy heavy troops at those two locations, so it is most likely to succeed easily. Then the British and American fleets will enter the Persian Gulf, and the main force of the landing troops will land in the Gulf of Kuwait.

The U.S. and British troops were extremely optimistic about this battle to land behind enemy lines, because air supremacy in the Middle East was firmly controlled by the United States and Britain. For this landing operation, the U.S. and Britain also concentrated up to four aircraft carriers (namely the U.S. Saratoga, Essex, the British Glory, and the Ark of Royal), which ensured overwhelming air supremacy in the landing areas. In addition, the firepower of the 10 battleships is not a joke! In front of their 14-inch, 15-inch or even 16-inch main guns, all the army firepower is a waste! And there is no intelligence that the Soviet Union or India had built coastal artillery or deployed large-caliber coastal defense guns in some places in the Persian Gulf.

So logging in is undoubtedly a victory. The question now is whether you can catch yourself off guard and take Kuwait, Basra, Avas and other places?

However, the United States and Britain have more than just landing this time. In the telegram Marshall looked through, there was Stilwell's sending from Jeddah Port. The supply of the armored cluster has been completed ahead of schedule and will start to advance eastward tomorrow morning. Moreover, the Caliph's army recovered the Holy City Mecca and the important city in the east of Mecca a day ago, so that the road to the Persian Gulf was basically opened. With the landing troops and armored clusters, it seems that Buluhell's Indian army will undoubtedly be defeated.

However, Marshall still felt a little uneasy, and always felt that he had missed some key problem. But he couldn't remember it. Just when he finished reading the last telegram and confirmed that he had not received any good news, he suddenly banged, and someone broke the door of his office and rushed in. Eisenhower, the chief of staff who was usually elegant, looked angry now, and did not salute Marshall, but opened his mouth wide and didn't know if he couldn't speak or was breathing heavily.

"Ike. What's wrong with this?" Marshall's face had already sunk. Seeing Eisenhower's performance, he certainly knew that the military situation had changed, and it was mostly changed to a bad place!

"Admiral! Not good! Not good!" Eisenhower shouted in a bad manner, causing the staff members who were traveling in the corridor outside the office to stop and watch. "Aqaba! Something happened to Aqaba, and the Indians are bombarding Aqaba city!"

"Aqaba? How could it be?" Marshall was stunned for a moment, and quickly stood up and walked to the map, and soon found the small town called Aqaba.

"The Indians fought to Aqaba? Where did they come from? Did Tebk?" Marshall shook his head. It was impossible for him to come from Tebk. Although the British 3rd Division had given up there, they did not go far. Instead, they met with the two British infantry divisions who went to reinforce at Mudaovola, 30 kilometers north of Tebk. There were three divisions guarding there, how did the Indians come? Unless they crossed Hanzhi Mountain...

"I don't know, I don't know where they came from." Eisenhower shook his head blankly: "Brother General Manton Smith didn't say on the phone. He only said that the position of the 3rd Brigade of Australia was being bombarded by hundreds of cannons! Among them were 152mm heavy cannons!"

"Hundreds of cannons... and 152mm heavy artillery!" Marshall took a breath. He knew the equipment of the Indian Red Army. There were not many heavy weapons, only 12 field cannons in a division, and only 152mm howitzers at the first level of the army! In other words, the Indian army attacking Aqaba now has at least one army! How could so many troops and cannons cross Hanzhi Mountain in a short time?

Marshall looked pale and looked at Eisenhower in horror, and his whole body was soft: "They, they have ambushed at least one army in the Hanzhi Mountains! Hurry, send the First Land War Division to reinforce! Must be quick!"

"Yes, General!" Eisenhower ran quickly towards the war room, as if he could send out the order to mobilize reinforcements a second earlier, because he knew the importance of Aqaba and it must not be discarded there!

...

"Give me a call to the Front Command, the core fortifications of the British British Army in Aqaba are at my feet! Brigadier General Manton Smith, the commander of the 3rd Australian Brigade of the British Army, has become my prisoner. The 3rd Australian Brigade, which once made great achievements in Gallipoli, no longer exists! The road to Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula is now unobstructed, and our army is stepping up its entry into the western side of the Arab Valley through Aqaba... It seems that the British and American troops have not deployed heavy troops on this line, and the door to victory in the Battle of the Middle East has been opened to us!"

To be honest, Marshall and Eisenhower's reaction was very fast, but their opponent Ubolevich responded faster. The 1st Marine Division, the American reinforcement unit, had not just left Haifa. Ubolevich had already led a team of staff to stand on the core fortifications of the British Aqaba defense system, looking at the scene after the fierce battle around with pride. The British corpses were twisted and covered with trenches and broken

Damaged fortifications, weapons and charred human body fragments were scattered everywhere. The dejected British prisoners of war were escorted out of the city by the energetic Indian Red Army officers and soldiers. More Indian Red Army officers and soldiers lined up in neat rows, holding bright red flags, singing the international song and passing by Ubolevich's feet. From time to time, they also cheered like tsunamis: "Long live Trotsky! Long live Lu Yi! Long live the world revolution!"

However, after a few hours of attack, the 3rd Australian Brigade, which was waiting for battle, was destroyed by the torrent of the Indian Red Army! Compared with the elite Indian Red Army, these Australians were too weak. They let their opponents touch less than 100 meters in front of their positions in the dark, and then made a flood of artillery fire dizzy. Before they could react, the Indian Red Army had already rushed into the position, and their resistance was even more unremarkable.

The people were either beaten to death or taken prisoners, and some smart people left to throw away their weapons and run away. Indian Red Army soldiers chased them into Aqaba City, and the street fighting between the two sides began. However, the 3rd Brigade of the Australian Army, which had lost its fighting spirit, was not the number of Indians, whose training and morale were overwhelming. Most of the city of Aqaba City were soon filled with red flags, and the final battle was in a three-story building full of British style at the port of Aqaba

The building unfolds around the building, and here is the core fortification of Aqaba City. This city is located on the southern edge of the Arab Valley. If you want to pass through the Arab Valley, you must pass the port area. This building used as the command of the 3rd Brigade of the Australian Army is the core of the port area. However, this building that has been renovated and reinforced by the Australian Army still cannot stop the Indian Red Army from advancing. In fact, the Indians did not spend much effort to destroy the building - in the past two years, Ubolevich was the master of the entire Middle East! So as early as when the plan for the decisive battle in the Middle East was formulated, he had found a way to destroy several solid buildings in the port of Aqaba. Several 152mm howitzers were dragged over, and more than a dozen 152mm armor-piercing bombs spewed out of the muzzle. Although these buildings left by the British were solid, they were no different from paper under the attack of the 152mm armor-piercing bombs!

In the morning glow that rose on May 2, 1935, this famous general who shone with dazzling light during the Soviet-Russian civil war was full of pride. A few days ago, he and the hundreds of thousands of troops he commanded hid in countless cave tunnels on the northern foot of the Hanzhi Mountains like gophers. Now it is finally time for the sword to be unsheathed and the hero to raise his eyebrows!

"Sir, it's President Zhao's phone number." Sun Yuexun, who was awakened by a phone ringing, pushed Chang Ruiqing, who was sleeping soundly beside her. At the same time, she picked up the phone and headphones and listened to it, and handed it to Chang Ruiqing who had just woken up.

"Zhao Youlin's phone number?" Chang Ruiqing took the phone and looked at the alarm clock at the bedside. It was already 11 o'clock in the morning on May 2. He went to bed at around 2 a.m. and had been in love with Sun Yuexun for more than an hour. So he was lazy and slept until now.

Fatty Zhao's voice came from the other end of the phone, and his tone was full of gloating: "Brother Yaoru, the offensive operation of the Middle East Indian Red Army has started. At least one army of Indian Red Army came out of the Hanzhi Mountains and raided the southern tip of the Arab Valley to Aqaba! Lin Zuoda's telegram said that the British army in Aqaba was finished after a few hours! Once the Arab Valley was broken, Palestine and Sinai Peninsula were no longer at risk! Now the US-British Allied generals in Jeddah Port have become a mess... According to the plan, they will march eastward to the Persian Gulf today, and it seems they will not be able to go... Lin Zuoda also said that the scale of the Indian Red Army's counterattack must be unprecedented. The troops they ambushed in the Hanzhi Mountains may have hundreds of thousands. Now there is no force to stop them from sweeping Palestine and Sinai Peninsula!"

Chang Ruiqing just said OK lightly and put down the phone. Sun Yuexun beside him leaned over and said with a smile: "Sir, you don't seem to be very happy? Isn't this result exactly what you want to see?"

Chang Ruiqing just smiled bitterly: "Are they my allies? Can I be happy if the allies are defeated?" As he said that, he sat up from the bed: "Xiaomei, it's getting late, it's time to get up. I will accompany me to meet the British and American military representatives and ambassadors later. I think they should come to ask for help, right?"

"Help?" Sun Yuexun chuckled: "Sir, are you willing to help them?"
Chapter completed!