Happy Tycoon

Yang Jing remembered that when he was studying geography in junior high school, he once had a geography exam, and a comprehensive question was asked like this.

Excuse me, how many inland provinces are there in our country? Which province is the farthest from the sea? Then, can you go to sea by boat from this province? No, please explain the reason. Yes, please briefly describe the boat route.

Yang Jing remembered very clearly that he had answered all the first few questions of this comprehensive question correctly, but the last question confused Yang Jing.

At that time, China had a total of thirty-four provincial-level administrative regions, including twenty-three provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities directly under the central government, and two special administrative regions.

Among the thirty-four provincial-level administrative regions, except Guangxi Province, Guangdong Province, Qiongdao Province, Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, Min Province, Zhejiang Province, Shanghai, Jiangsu Province, Shandong Province, Hebei Province, Jinmen and Liao Province Besides, other provincial-level administrative regions are all inland provinces.

But among these inland provinces, the one farthest from the ocean is the Xinjiang region. Xinjiang is not only the largest provincial-level administrative region in China, but also the inland province farthest from the ocean. Counting all the provinces in China, none of them is farther from the sea than Xinjiang.

So can you go to sea by boat in Xinjiang?

This question confused Yang Jin at the time.

If you want to say that other inland provinces, including the snow areas with the highest altitude, can go directly to the sea by boat, and the Jinsha River, Lancang River, Nujiang River, and Yajiang River can all go directly to the sea by boat.

And other inland provinces, with the Pearl River, Yangtze River, Yellow River and HLJ water systems, can also go to sea by boat.

But only the Xinjiang region, how can this province go to sea by boat?

It seems that those rivers in Xinjiang are all seasonal inland rivers, right? How can an inland river have an outlet to the sea?

Therefore, Yang Jing happily answered No!

As a result, this question was naturally judged as an error by the teacher.

There are not a few students who stumbled on this question, and only a few people in the class answered this question correctly.

Without him, because most of the students including Yang Jing at that time only remembered that there were inland rivers such as the Ili River and the Tarim River in Xinjiang, and the unique topography and landforms of Xinjiang Province, so they all forgot that there are actually rivers in Xinjiang. There is also a river that leads directly to the sea.

And the sea that this river leads to is not the Indian Ocean in the south, nor the Pacific Ocean in the east, but the Arctic Ocean in the far north.

This river is the Irtysh River!

The Irtysh River originates from the Altai Mountains on the border between China and Mongolia, flows through the four countries of China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia, joins the Ob River in Khantymansiysk, Tyumen, Russia, and finally flows into the Kara Sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean. An international river of the Arctic Ocean system.

Therefore, starting from the Xinjiang region, taking a boat all the way north along the Irtysh River, you can finally reach the Arctic Ocean.

Some people may say, isn't this nonsense? The river originates in the Xinjiang region, so you can go to sea by boat? One of the sources of the Indus River, the Chipchapu River, also originated from the Pamirs in Xinjiang, but there are not many fish in that river, let alone boats?

Origin and being able to sail are two different things, okay?

Indeed it is. The sources of rivers are generally not navigable, such as the sources of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, but the Irtysh River is indeed navigable in Xinjiang.

Because although the Irtysh River originates from the Altai Mountains, the source area is indeed unnavigable, but after the Irtysh River has flowed through hundreds of kilometers in northern Xinjiang, it is navigable before it is about to flow out of the country.

Because when the Irtysh River flows down from the source for hundreds of kilometers, after the small town of Burqin meets another tributary, the Burqin River, the section of the river that goes down from Burqin becomes much wider in an instant. It can even exceed 300 meters, and the average width is more than 100 meters. Therefore, it is completely navigable from Burqin down.

As early as the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1901 AD, the Qing government at that time set up a pier in Burqin on the Irtysh River in the border area to conduct regular navigation with Russia. The route starts from the port of Burqin on the Irtysh River, passes through the main stream of the Irtysh River, Lake Jaisan, the plains of West Siberia, and finally reaches the Arctic Ocean.

The section of the river down from Burqin can even navigate ships of 300 tons!

And Burqin goes down, and the Irtysh River will reach Omsk after passing through Lake Zaisang, Oskmen, Semiy, and Bapulodar!

If Kolchak smuggled the 1,100 tons of gold to other places for hiding, then the most likely means of transportation would be a ship!

It is no problem to take a boat from Omsk, whether it is going north along the river or upstream.

Although going upstream from Omsk, if you want to travel 300-ton ships, you have to wait until the wet season in July every year, but Kolchak regarded Omsk as early as June 1918. It was not until November 1919 that the seat of the White Army government was abandoned.

During this year and a half, the Irtysh River had two flood seasons, enough for Kolchak to make any decision.

In this one and a half years, no matter where Kolchak transported this batch of gold, it is possible. But the only thing that is certain is that whether it is going down the river or going up the river, this batch of gold must be hidden not far from the Irtysh River, otherwise, so much gold is simply impossible Move too far from the river.

But, which direction should Kolchak choose? Is it the downstream north or the upstream south?

According to the information collected by Niam, Yang Jing can also know that after Kolchak occupied Omsk, he built a large number of defensive facilities relying on the Irtysh River to the west of the city. A large number of military fortresses were built on the bank, heavy artillery bases were arranged, and many inland gunboats were deployed on the Irtysh River to patrol the upper and lower reaches of the Irtysh River to prevent the Red Army from breaking through the Irtysh River defense line from the upper and lower reaches.

In other words, when Kolchak occupied Omsk, Kolchak had a large number of inland gunboats in his hands. Most of these gunboats are ships with a displacement of about 300 to 600 tons, but with a little modification, they can be converted into transport ships. Kolchak most likely used these modified gunboats to transport the gold.

It's just that according to Yang Jing's careful analysis, combined with the situation at the time, it is very likely that Kolchak will not move downstream, but will move upstream.

The main reason why such a conclusion was drawn was because of the direction of the Irtysh River and the situation at that time.

First of all, after passing through Omsk, the Irtysh River first flowed eastward, then turned a corner and went straight to the northwest, and finally passed through Tobolsk and Tobol, which are less than 200 kilometers away from Tyumen. river confluence. In short, if Kolchak wants to transport this batch of gold downstream, he will inevitably pass through Tobolsk, and it is only seven or eight hours away from Tyumen along the Tobol River to Tobolsk!

At that time, the commander of the vanguard of the Bolshevik Party in Chelyabinsk against Kolchak was Marshal Blyuchel, one of the first five famous marshals of the Soviet Union.

Blyukher was then commissar of the Red Guards in Chelyabinsk.

The situation at the time was like this. The Red Army occupied Chelyabinsk and faced Kolchak's White Army in the east. Blyuchel led the Red Guards to liberate Orenburg in early 1918. Since then, Kolchak has formed a huge oppression .

But in May of that year, the Czech Legion mutinied, causing the situation in Chelyabinsk to deteriorate for a while. At that time, some people even proposed to disband the Red Army stationed in Chelyabinsk, and everyone fled for their lives. At this time, Kolchak also led an army to attack Chelyabinsk, and the situation was extremely dangerous.

However, under the leadership of Blyuchel, the Red Guards quickly quelled the rebellion of the Czech Legion. At the same time, in order to be able to join the main force of the Red Army, Blyuchel sent the Red Guards to the Tyumen generation to harass the White Army from behind. Tactics, and finally persisted until the main force of the Red Army converged, and Kolchak's White Army was beaten back to Omsk.

In other words, before the flood season of the Irtysh River in 1918, the situation was actually very favorable to Kolchak.

At that time, Kolchak was sitting on 1.2 million White troops, as well as a huge amount of gold and jewelry smuggled from Petrograd. Although Nicholas II was executed in July, if according to the situation at the time Generally speaking, the White Army is fully capable of occupying a vast area east of the Urals.

So at that time, Kolchak should not have made the decision to flee when he had an advantage.

That is to say, from June 1918 to September 1919, Kolchak embraced the strategic thinking of sticking to Omsk and looking for opportunities to counterattack western Russia.

If it were Yang Jing, he would think the same way. No one would think about how to escape when they had an advantage, let alone a character like Kolchak who was loyal to the Tsar.

I have money and someone has a gun, and the situation is still in my favor, why should I run east? Even if I run, I have to run west to attack!

Under such circumstances, it is impossible for Kolchak to transport the gold in his hand.

However, as the Red Army occupied strategic locations such as Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, and launched a large-scale offensive against Omsk in September 1919, Kolchak's situation changed from favorable to unfavorable in an instant.

So in this case, Kolchak began to think about how to escape, how to find a place to hide the gold that could not be taken away.

But under this situation, the Red Army has already appeared in Tobolsk in the lower reaches of the Irtysh River. It is impossible for Kolchak to transport gold downstream by boat under such circumstances.

Therefore, if you want to transport the gold away, you can only transport it upstream along the Irtysh River.

And in September, the Irtysh River can still navigate ships of more than 300 tons. The transport ships converted from these gunboats are fully capable of transporting the gold to a place in the upper reaches of the Irtysh River for hiding!

Moreover, transporting this batch of gold upstream will also surprise most people. At the same time, in the upper reaches of the Irtysh River, surrounded by mountains, it is the best place to hide gold.

No wonder several of the materials collected in Niam mentioned that in September 1919, in Pavlodar, someone saw White Army gunboats going up the river from Omsk.

There are also sources that vaguely mention that Kolchak may transport a batch of valuable property to the mountainous area on the Sino-Russian border before withdrawing from Omsk.