As more and more commanders and fighters stormed the southern fortress, the German resistance became weaker. The T-34 tanks, which had been waiting outside for a long time, drove into the fortress in a formation. Without fear of anti-tank strikes hidden in the ruins or on the sides of the streets, the tanks moved at a high speed, constantly crashing into wooden barricades placed by the Germans on the roads, or one circular sandbag fortification after another.

Seeing that the railway bridge was fifty or sixty meters in front of it, suddenly a huge orange-red fireball rose in the middle of the bridge, and then a huge explosion sounded, and the tank body in front of it shook, and then stopped.

"What's going on?" The tank that was following behind, and when he saw that the tank driving the road in front suddenly stopped, the commander couldn't help but be stunned, and said in his heart, Could it be that they ran over a mine? But he did not notice the smoke and fire of the tank in front, and the commander hurriedly lifted the roof cover, climbed out of the tank, trotted to the side of the tank in front, and shouted loudly while banging on the turret with his hands.

It was a long time before the roof of the tank's turret was lifted, and out of it came an officer with a bloody face. The commander was taken aback when he saw the officer's appearance, and hurriedly asked with concern: "Comrade Captain, are you okay?" ”

The officer shook his head, then said with a wry smile: "I'm fine, it's just the damn Germans who blew up the bridge." ”

Hearing the officer say this, the commander saw that black smoke was rising from the middle section of the railway bridge, and although he was still nearly 100 meters away from the place where the smoke was emitted, he could still clearly see that the bridge in that section had been blown up, and the falling bridge body had smashed through the ice on the river surface. He looked up at the officer and anxiously asked: "Comrade Captain, the Germans blew up the bridge, what should we do?" ”

"What else can I do, I can only wait." The officer covered the wound on his head with his hand and said weakly: "Wait for the sappers to come and fix the bridge." ”

"Comrade Captain, how can you use your hands." The commander hurriedly climbed into the tank, helped the officer take off the tank cap, and took out a first-aid kit to bandage him.

When Popov learned that the Germans had blown up the railway bridge connecting the north and south of the fortress, he ordered the infantry to rush across the river through the ice, and on the other hand, he dispatched the engineer battalion and the boat bridge battalion belonging to the army group to rush to the site of the broken bridge to repair it, so that the tank troops could pass through as soon as possible.

While the battle was raging in the direction of the fortress of Thorn, the 71st Infantry Division, divided into three echelons, was rushing to the Biergrau area at the speed of a rapid march, preparing to establish a defensive position there and hold back the defenders of Thorn who had broken through.

The 117th regiment, which was marching at the front, threw everything except ammunition in a hurry. When the 2nd Battalion and 6th Company approached a small unnamed village, they found that a large group of German troops was also flocking to the village in the distance. Seeing this, the company commander, Captain Belikov, hurriedly ordered the troops to speed up and occupy the village ahead of the Germans.

With Belikov's order, more than 40 fighters of the whole company rushed wildly and rushed directly to the small village a few hundred meters away. Fortunately, they were still one step ahead of the Germans, and when they occupied a few farmhouses in the south of the village, the nearest German was still a hundred meters away.

Seeing that the Germans had already rushed up, Captain Belikov shouted at the machine gunner, who had just put his machine gun in a window: "Shoot, shoot quickly!" Be sure to block the Germans! ”

The machine gunner immediately pulled the trigger, and the 7.62 mm bullet fired from the muzzle of the Zeggalev machine gun flew into the ranks of the German troops in a fan shape, knocking down the German soldiers who were caught off guard. When the soldiers in the surrounding wooden houses heard the machine guns firing, they knew that it was the company commander who gave the order to fire, and they also used their submachine guns and rifles to fire at the rushing Germans.

The battle began abruptly and ended hastily. The German soldiers, who had been struck by a sudden blow, retreated like a tidal wave after losing more than 30 corpses and more than 20 wounded who fell to the ground wailing.

Belikov breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the Germans had been repulsed, and then instructed the operator in the same room: "Report immediately to the battalion headquarters that our company has encountered the Germans near a small village and repelled their first attack." However, they had too many troops, and asked the battalion headquarters to send people to support them immediately. ”

After the Germans had withdrawn 500 meters, they stopped and regrouped. Marcus, who was following the troops, heard the dense gunfire coming from the front, and hurriedly called one of his subordinates and instructed him: "Go and ask, what happened ahead?" ”

The subordinates soon returned and reported to Marcus: "Your Excellency, my division has encountered a Russian resistance in the small village ahead, and the vanguard has suffered some losses. ”

After listening to the report, Marcus immediately found a higher hill and stood on it and raised his telescope to look at the village in the distance. After observing for a while, he put down his binoculars and said to the division chief of staff: "The villages ahead are all wooden houses, there are no solid buildings, and we can quickly break through the Russian defenses." Immediately ordered to put mortars and machine guns on the mounts, and the covering troops launched another charge. The division chief of staff agreed, and went down the hill to convey Marcus's order.

The officers and men of the 73rd Infantry Division, in order to quickly break through the defenses of the Soviet army, also calculated the blood cost. In just a few minutes, six MG42 machine gun crews and three mortar crews were put into place. The German commander, who was in charge of commanding them, seeing that everything was in place, decisively gave the order: "Fire!" ”

The rate of fire was extremely fast, and the MG42, known as the "Hitler chainsaw", opened fire. Although their location was more than 500 meters away from the village, the wooden planks of the houses could not stop the 7.92 mm bullets at all, and a chain of bullets had not yet been completed, and the wooden walls of the houses where the Soviet troops were hiding were full of dense craters, and the soldiers in the houses suffered heavy casualties.

However, this was only the beginning, and then the German mortars opened fire again. After two volleys, the wooden house, which had already been riddled with bullets, finally could not withstand the blow of artillery fire and collapsed with a bang, crushing all the fighters hiding inside.

Seeing that the wooden house where the Soviets were hiding had been destroyed by machine guns and mortars, a German major stood in front of the queue, pointed ahead with his hand, and said loudly: "Soldiers, the Russians who are blocking our advance have been cleaned up by our machine guns and artillery." Rushing up and capturing that village will open the way for us to break out completely. Keep moving! ”

The soldiers, armed with their weapons, hurled towards the village. Although I saw with my own eyes the wooden house where the Soviet troops were hiding, it collapsed under the repeated blows of machine guns and mortars. But as they got closer and closer to the village, the hearts of the German soldiers who rushed to the front were still furious, and they were afraid that bullets would fly out of the ruins.

Two hundred meters, one hundred and fifty meters, one hundred meters...... The ruins that were still smoking were still silent, and there were no bullets coming out of the way that the soldiers feared. When they were only about 20 meters away from the ruins of the wooden house, the German soldiers slowed down and formed a search formation in groups of three or five, slowly approaching the ruins.

At that moment, the sound of submachine gun fire was heard from one of the ruins, and three German soldiers fell to the ground. Almost at the same time as the German soldiers fell to the ground, a man jumped out of the rubble, and he used the submachine gun in his hand to fire at the German soldiers who surrounded them in all directions, knocking them down one by one.