Having unexpectedly received an Order of Suvorov of the 1st degree, Rokossovsky, although he appeared happy on the surface, his mood was extremely heavy: seeing that his troops were only a few dozen kilometers away from Kyiv, as a result, an order from the base camp had to adjust the area of operations and hand over the honor of liberating Kyiv to the Voronezh Front in Vatutin.

This means that history has not deviated greatly because of its arrival. When the 1st Belorussian Front led by himself arrives under Warsaw next year, Zhukov will follow the orders of the Supreme Command to take over his command, and send himself to the secondary operational direction and advance to Berlin in the direction of the main attack.

Now that the troops of the 60th Army have successfully liberated the city of Priluki, the next step is to adjust the direction of the attack and launch an attack on the German troops to the north. "Comrade General, apart from leaving an infantry division to hold on to Priluki and waiting for friendly forces to come and take over the city, you turn the main forces to Chernihiv and advance to the Dnieper with the troops of the 13th Army," he said in assigning a task to Chernyakhovsky. ”

"Understood, Comrade Commander." Although Chernyakhovsky was disappointed by the passing of Kiev, he replied firmly: "I obey your order and immediately move my troops to the north." ”

After Rokossovsky put down the phone, he said to Kazakov, who was sitting at the table: "Comrade Artillery Commander, the rivers of our Motherland are steep on the west bank and flat on the east bank. In other words, if we attack from the east coast, we will have to pay a greater price than if we attack from the west bank. ”

"Comrade Commander, I understand what you mean." As soon as Kazakov waited for Rokossovsky to finish speaking, he hurriedly continued: "I will deploy enough artillery units along the river to carry out heavy fire on the German army." Some of them used long-range artillery fire to destroy the German defenses, and some of them used direct fire to destroy those fortifications on the opposite bank that were not destroyed by artillery fire when the artillery fire was being prepared, and to cover the advance of our troops. ”

Malinin interjected and asked: "Comrade commander, when will we force our crossing of the Dnieper?" ”

"The first thing we need to do now is to force the crossing of the Desna River and capture Chernihiv, which will be the starting point for our army's offensive." Rokossovsky tapped his finger on the map and said: "After we have made all the preparations, we will carry out a forced crossing operation on the Dnieper." ”

Orel probed over to take a look, and then said with a solemn expression: "Comrade commander, if our army moves north on a large scale, the area where we cross the river to fight will have a large number of forests, lakes and swamps, which will not be conducive to the movement of armored troops. ”

"That's right, Comrade Orel, you're quite right." In response to Orel's statement, Rokossovsky nodded in agreement: "It is true that our tank army cannot be deployed in these areas, so we can only rely on the help of artillery and air force to complete the task of forcing the Dnieper to cross." ”

After the commanders sitting at the table left one after another, Terekin saw that only he and Rokossovsky were left at the table, so he lowered his voice and said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade commander, I know that the sudden adjustment of the combat area of the base camp this time will hit you very hard, if you have any grievances, you can say to me, don't hold it in your heart, okay?" ”

Rokossovsky smiled bitterly and said: "Thank you, Comrade Military Commissar. To be honest, when I first received this order, I was really annoyed in my heart, but then I thought about it carefully, and the base camp did it, and he had a reason. ”

"What's the truth?" Rokossovsky's words aroused Terekin's great interest, and he asked curiously: "Comrade commander, have you found something that can tell me about it?" ”

"Comrade Military Commissar, come here to see." Rokossovsky took Terekin to the wall, pointed to the map on the wall with his stick, and said to him: "You see, at the moment we are south of Moscow, and at the same time there are troops of the three front armies, attacking the Germans. To the southeast, there was General Konev's steppe front; to the northwest, is our Central Front; And in the middle of our two fronts was Vatutin's Voronezh Front.

After the base camp adjusted the direction of our attack to the north, the entire front of the attack was enlarged. Now Konev's troops are holding back a large number of German forces in the southeast; We, on the other hand, are dragging as many enemies as possible to the northwest by attacking with great speed. In this way, the strength of the German army that Vatutin faced would be greatly weakened.

The enemy was like a dough, and our front and Konev's troops grabbed at both ends of it and pulled it both sides, so that the dough in the middle would become longer and thinner, and it would be enough to break them in two if Vatutin's troops gave them a hard blow. ”

After hearing this, Terekin nodded again and again, and said with emotion: "Comrade commander, this analogy of yours is really appropriate, and it is explained in depth and concisely, even I, a layman in military affairs, can understand it as soon as I hear it. So let's say that our liberation of Kyiv this time is not a big problem? ”

"Yes, with the offensive launched by our three front armies, the German defense line has been stretched indefinitely, and the forces they can deploy on the defense line are becoming less and less." Rokossovsky confidently said: "It will take only two months at most for our army to liberate Kyiv." ”

"Two months?" Terekin was a little skeptical about Rokossovsky's statement: "Comrade commander, the Germans have gathered heavy forces in the direction of Kiev, and if we want to storm them, I don't think it will be possible to achieve the goal of liberating Kyiv without three to five months." ”

Rokossovsky glanced at the date on the war report, and secretly calculated the time for the Soviet army to recover Kyiv, and found that the two months he said were a bit too conservative, and from now on, it only took one and a half months for the Soviet army to liberate Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

…………

After the main forces of the 60th Army were transferred to the north, the offensive went very well, and they soon managed to cross the Desna River and advance towards the city of Chernihiv.

When Rokossovsky learned that the troops of the 60th Army had successfully crossed the Desna River, his mood became a little impatient, and he was anxious to take the city of Chernihiv as soon as possible, so every hour he would call Chernyashovsky to inquire about the advance of the troops.

At one o'clock in the morning, the vanguard regiment of the 167th Division, to which the 60th Group Army belonged, came to a strange place in the dark, and the regiment commander who was walking in the front vaguely saw that there seemed to be a high ground ahead, so he ordered the troops to stop advancing, rest in place, and wait for the commanders and fighters who had fallen behind.

At this moment, the communications soldier who was following them reported to him: "Comrade regiment commander, the division commander's phone, he ordered you to report, where are we now?" ”

The regiment commander looked left and right, but because it was too dark and the visibility was limited, he couldn't see anything clearly except for the faint high ground a few hundred meters away. In order to give an explanation to the division commander, he hurriedly called a staff officer and asked him to shoot a few flares into the air to figure out the surrounding environment.

After a dozen flares were lifted into the air, the sky was lit up in an instant, and the surrounding terrain became clear for several kilometers. The regimental commander was pleasantly surprised to find that the outline of the high ground he had just seen was not actually a high ground, but the walls of a city. After a brief moment of surprise, he cried out with joy. He called the communications corpsman to his side and emotionally ordered him: "Immediately report to the division commander that our regiment has arrived under the city of Chernihiv." ”

The news that the vanguard of the 60th Army had arrived under the city of Chernihiv was quickly conveyed to the command of the Front. When Rokossovsky heard the news, he slapped his hand on the table and said excitedly: "Great, this is great." Now that Chernyakhovsky's troops have reached the city of Chernihiv, let them hurry up and prepare for battle, and as soon as dawn comes, they will immediately attack the city, and it is necessary to take the city in the shortest possible time. ”

Knowing that his vanguard had arrived at the foot of Chernihiv, Chernyakhovsky was even more anxious than Rokossovsky, and he received a battle order from Malinin and immediately ordered several other divisions that were lagging behind to speed up their march and rush to the city of Chernihiv before dawn.

The commanders and fighters of the 60th Army, who had already lost the opportunity to liberate Kiev, were holding a breath of breath in their hearts, but after receiving the order to speed up the march and rush to Chernihiv, everyone rushed to Chernihiv with their legs open.

As soon as the day dawned, there was no artillery preparation at all, and after a red signal flare representing the offensive signal was lifted into the air, tens of thousands of soldiers who had already been ready to attack jumped out of their hidden hiding places and rushed towards the city with their weapons in hand.

According to Chernyakhovsky's idea, in this city there will definitely be stubborn resistance from the Germans. Who knew that after the troops had been rushing into the city, there was sporadic resistance. Chernyakhovsky was shocked to hear that the attack was so smooth, he thought that the Germans were plotting something, and hurriedly ordered the prisoners to be sent to his command headquarters for personal interrogation.

Through interrogation, he learned that the German army only had an incomplete infantry battalion in the city, and most of them were recruits, with no combat effectiveness.

The battle, which was supposed to last a day, ended in less than two hours. So much so that when Rokossovsky received the battle report, he thought that the message sent by Chernyakhovsky was wrong. After learning that the troops of the 60th Army had indeed occupied Chernihiv, he hurriedly ordered Terekin to send a telegram to reward the other side in order to achieve the goal of encouraging morale.

The 60th Army achieved good results, and General Pukhov's 13th Army also received good news: they were approaching the Dnieper and were choosing a place to cross it.

Hearing that the troops of the 13th Army were preparing to force a crossing of the Dnieper, Rokossovsky hurriedly brought the head of logistics, Antipiko, and the commander of the engineering troops, Proshlyakov. He said to the two: "Comrade generals, at present, Pukhov's 13th Army has reached the Dnieper, and I would like to ask you if you have prepared sufficient equipment and bridge-building facilities for them. ”

After the two generals looked at each other, Andipenko spoke first: "Comrade commander, when our troops forcibly crossed the Desna River, they consumed a lot of equipment for crossing the river, and now if we want to force the Dnieper River, I think it may take a while before we can prepare enough equipment for crossing the river. ”

"What about you, General Proshlyakov?" After listening to what Antipinkko had to say, Rokossovsky turned his gaze to Proshlyakov and asked: "Do you have enough equipment to build bridges?" ”

Proshlyakov shook his head as expected and said: "I'm sorry, Comrade Commander, I didn't expect our troops to advance so quickly, so after the end of the bridge over the Desna River, we didn't have time to replenish the bridge-building equipment that the troops needed. ”

"And when will you be ready?" Rokossovsky knew about the poor logistics of the Soviet army, so instead of blaming the two, he patiently asked: "In other words, you still need us to postpone the forced crossing operation for a few days?" ”

Andypinkko frowned and thought for a while, then said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade commander, if the troops of the 13th Army want to carry out a forced crossing, we can think of other ways. ”

"Something else?" Rokossovsky hurriedly asked: "Is there any way to think, General Antipinkko?" ”

"If the 13th Army were to force a crossing in the near future, they could use all the captured boats, rafts, and empty gasoline drums." Andisenko explained to Rokossovsky: "I think Proshlyakov could have sent people to help them use these equipment to complete the river crossing. ”

"Yes, Comrade Commander," Proshlyakov saw that Antipienko was talking for himself, and quickly nodded and added: "We can let the troops of the 13th Army, using these things that General Antipienko said, force the crossing of the Dnieper." As long as we have strong artillery fire to suppress the enemy on the opposite bank, our forced crossing will be successful. ”

"I see, you go back and prepare first." After Rokossovsky sent the two away, he asked Malinin, who was standing next to him: "Comrade Chief of Staff, where do you think we should choose the place to cross the river?" ”

Pointing to the map, Malinin said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade commander, I think the place of crossing the river should be chosen in the Mnevo, Chernobyl, and Stashev regions north of Kiev. According to reconnaissance, the German defenses in these areas were relatively weak, and the hope of our success in forcing the crossing was very great. ”