Yang Jing remembers that when he was in junior high school, there was a comprehensive question he asked in a geography exam.
"How many inland provinces are there in our country? Which province is the farthest away from the ocean? So, can you take a boat to sea from this province? No, please explain the reason. Yes, please briefly describe the route of the boat."
Yang Jing remembered it very clearly that he had answered the first few questions of this comprehensive question correctly, but the last question confused Yang Jing.
At that time, there were 34 provincial administrative regions in China, including 23 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities and two special administrative regions.
Among these 34 provincial administrative regions, except for Guizhou, Guangdong, Qiongdao, Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, Min, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei, Tianjin and Liaoning Province, other provincial administrative regions are inland provinces.
But among these inland provinces, the one with the farthest distance from the ocean is the Xinjiang region. The Xinjiang region is not only the provincial administrative region with the largest land area in China, but also the inland province with the farthest distance from the ocean. In all provinces in China are stacked up, none of them can be further away from the ocean than the Xinjiang region.
So can I take a boat to sea in Krainian region?
This question made Yang Jinqi confused at that time.
You have to say that other inland provinces, including the Tibetan area with the highest altitude, can all take a boat to reach the sea, Jinsha River, Lancang River, Nujiang River, Yajiang River, and can all take a boat to reach the sea.
Other inland provinces, including the Pearl River, Yangtze River, Yellow River and Heilongjiang River water systems, can also go to sea by boat.
But only in Krainian region, how can this province take a boat to sea?
It seems that the rivers in the Krainian region are all seasonal inland rivers, right? How can an inland river have an estuary?
So, Yang Jing answered a very happy answer, "No!"
As a result, the teacher naturally decided that this question was wrong.
There are quite a few students who fell on this question, and only a few people in the class answered this question correctly.
It was nothing else, because most students, including Yang Jing, only remembered that there were inland rivers such as the Yili River and the Tarim River in the Xinjiang region, and coupled with the unique terrain and landforms of Xinjiang province, they all forgot that there was actually a river in the Xinjiang region that could directly connect to the sea.
Moreover, the sea led by this river is not the Indian Ocean to the south, nor the Pacific Ocean to the east, but the Arctic Ocean to the north.
This river is the Ertzis River!
The Ertzis River originates from the Altai Mountains on the Huameng border, flows through the four countries of China, Mongolia, Kazakhs and Russia, merges with the Ob River in Khantmansisk City in Tyumen Prefecture, Russia, and finally injects into the Kra Sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is the only international river in China that flows into the Arctic Ocean water system.
Therefore, starting from the Krainian region, taking a boat along the Ertzis River all the way north, and you can finally reach the Arctic Ocean.
Some people may say, isn't this nonsense? If the river originates from the Krainian region, you can take a boat to sea? The Chipchapu River, one of the sources of the Indus River, also originates from the Pamir Plateau in the Krainian region. But there are not many fish in that river, let alone the boat.
Is it good to be born and be able to sail?
This is indeed the case. Generally speaking, the source of rivers cannot be shipped, such as the Yangtze River and the source of the Yellow River, but the Ertzis River is indeed navigable in the Krainian region.
Although the Ertzis River originated from the Altai Mountains and its source area is indeed unavailable, the Ertzis River can be navigated after it flows through the northern border for hundreds of kilometers before it is about to flow out of the border.
Because when the Ertzis River flowed down from the source for hundreds of kilometers, after the small town Burzin converged with another tributary Burzin River, the river section downward of Burzin became much wider in an instant, and the widest part of the river channel could even exceed 300 meters, and the average width exceeded 100 meters. Therefore, it is completely navigable from Burzin to the downward.
As early as the 27th year of the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1901 AD, the Qing government set up a dock in the Ertzis River Burjin in the Krainian region to conduct regular navigation with Russia. The route set sail from the Burjin port of the Ertzis River, passing through the main stream of the Ertzis River, the Jaisan Lake, and the Western Siberian plains, and finally even arrived at the Arctic Ocean.
From the downstream section of Burzin, even 300-ton ships can be navigated!
And when Burzing goes down, the Erttis River will arrive in Omsk after passing through Zaisang Lake, Oskmen, Semiy, and Bapurodar!
If Kolchak secretly transported the 1,100 tons of gold to another place to hide, then the most likely means of transportation would be the ship!
It is no problem to take a boat from Omsk, whether you walk north along the river or go upstream.
Although I had to wait until the flood season in July of Omsk to travel from Omsk, if I wanted to walk a 300-ton ship, I had to wait until the flood season in July every year, Kolchak regarded Omsk as the seat of the White Military Government as early as June 1918, and did not abandon this place until November 1919.
In this year and a half, the Ertzis River had two flood seasons, which was enough to allow Kolchak to make any decision.
In this year and a half, it is possible that Kolchak will transport this batch of gold wherever he goes. But the only thing that is certain is that whether it is down the river or upstream, this batch of gold will inevitably be hidden not far from the Ertzis River. Otherwise, it would be impossible for so much gold to be moved to a place too far from the river.
But, which direction should Kolchak choose? Is it the north of the downstream or the south of the upstream?
Based on the information collected by Niam, Yang Jing can also know that after Kolchak occupied Omsk, he relied on the Erthis River in the west of the city to make a large number of defense facilities. He not only built a large number of military fortresses on the east bank of the river and arranged heavy artillery bases, but also arranged a lot of inland gunboats on the Erthis River to patrol the upstream and downstream of the Erthis River to prevent the Red Army from breaking through the Erthis River from the upstream and downstream of the Erthis River.
In other words, when Kolchak occupied Omsk, Kolchak had a large number of inland gunboats. Most of these gunboats were ships with a displacement of about 300 to 600 tons, but with a slight transformation, they could be converted into transport ships. Kolchak was very likely to use these modified gunboats to transport gold.
However, based on Yang Jing's careful analysis and combined with the situation at that time, Kolchak is very likely not to travel downstream, but to travel upstream.
The main reason why we came to such a conclusion was the direction of the Ertzis River and the situation at that time.
First, after passing through Omsk, the Ertzish River first flowed eastward, then turned a bend and then headed straight to the northwest, and finally converged with the Tobolsk River less than 200 kilometers away from Tyumen. In short, if Kolchak wanted to transport this batch of gold downstream, he would inevitably pass through Tobolsk, and it would only take seven or eight hours to travel from Tyumen along the Tobolsk River to Tobolsk!
At that time, the commander of the Bolshevik Party's vanguard in Chelyabinsk was Marshal Buluhell, one of the first five famous marshals in the Soviet Union.
Buluhell was the political commissar of the Red Guards in Chelyabinsk at that time.
The battle situation at that time was like this. The Red Army occupied Chelyabinsk, facing the White Army facing Kolchak to the east. Buluhell led the Red Guards to liberate Orenburg in early 1918, and since then it has formed huge oppression on Kolchak.
But in May of that year, the Czech Legion rebelled, which led to the deterioration of the situation in Chelyabinsk. Some people even proposed to disband the Red Army stationed in Chelyabinsk, and everyone fled. At this time, Kolchak also led the army to attack Chelyabinsk, and the situation was extremely dangerous.
But under the leadership of Buluheer, 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, Buluheer sent the Red Guards to intersperse the Tyumen generation, and carried out harassment tactics against the White Army from the rear of the White Army. Finally, he persisted until he met with the main force of the Red Army and defeated Kolchak's White Army back to Omsk.
In other words, before the flood season of the Ertzis River in 1918, the situation was actually very beneficial to Kolchak.
At that time, Kolchak had 1.2 million White Army and a huge amount of gold and jewelry smuggled from Petrograd. Although Nicholas II was executed in July, according to the situation at that time, the White Army was fully capable of occupying a large area east of Urals.
So at that time, Kolchak should not make a decision to escape while having an advantage.
In other words, from June 1918 to September 1919, Kolchak embraced the strategic idea of ​​defending Omsk and seeking opportunities to counterattack Russia's western region.
If it were Yang Jing, he would have thought so. No one would think about how to escape when he had an advantage, let alone a person like Kolchak who was loyal to the Tsar.
I have money and some people have guns, and the situation is beneficial to me. Why should I run east? Even if I run, I have to run west and attack!
Under such circumstances, it is impossible for Kolchak to transport the gold in his hand.
However, as the Red Army occupied strategic areas such as Chelyabinsk and Tyumen, after starting a large-scale attack on Omsk in September 1919, the situation in Kolchak instantly changed from favorable to unfavorable.
So in this case, Kolchak began to think about how to escape and how to find a place to hide the gold that he could not take away.
But under such a situation, Red Army has appeared in Toborsk in the lower reaches of the Ertzis River, and it is impossible for Kolchak to transport gold downstream with a ship under such circumstances.
Therefore, if you want to transport the gold away, you can only transport it upstream along the Ertzis River.
Moreover, in September, the Ertzis River can navigate ships of more than 300 tons. The transport ships converted from these gunboats are fully capable of transporting the gold to a place upstream of the Ertzis River to hide!
Moreover, transporting this batch of gold to the upper reaches will also be beyond the expectations of most people. At the same time, in the upper reaches of the Ertzis River, surrounded by mountains, it is the best place to hide gold.
No wonder several of the information collected by Niam once mentioned that in September 1919, someone had seen a White Army inland gunboat flowing up the river from Omsk...
Chapter completed!