The 761 Great Encirclement is one shot at a time

On November 27, 1937, the Kremlin's master's office, as usual, processed the latest war reports from the front, and the war had become the whole of daily life in the Kremlin. Molotov and Voroshilov sat at a long table covered with a green carpet, while Stalin stood at his desk with his back to them. He was talking on the phone with Smirnov, the political commissar of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet in Luangkastadt, who reported to him in a trembling voice the outcome of the naval battle in the Gulf of Finland that had taken place yesterday afternoon -- the loss of two battleships, three cruisers, and eight destroyers by the Soviet Union, in short, an unprecedented fiasco.

Molotov held in his hand a plan for the relocation of important factories in all Soviet republics for October. This was Stalin's latest assignment, and after the defeat in the Latvian campaign, the Soviet leader already knew that the situation was about to take a turn for the worse and that the developed western regions of the Soviet Union were likely to be occupied by the invaders. So Molotov and the Council of People's Commissars were instructed to urgently draw up a plan for the move.

In order to draw up plans for this big move, Molotov has been barely eye-catching for several days and nights, and he has been shuttling like a bird between the People's Commissariat and the People's Commissariat of Industry and the People's Commissariat of Transport, Railways, etc., almost all the important factories seem to be built in Leningrad, Moscow, the Donetsk Basin, and only a few factories and industrial facilities on the east bank of the Volga and around the Ural Mountains, There was simply not much capacity to undertake the transfer of factories from the west, and in the original Second Five-Year Plan, it was planned to arrange for the development of Western Siberia and the Urals. But the plan could not catch up with the changes, and the war in the Far East in the past few years ruined everything!

At this time, Voroshilov was repeatedly reading a report personally sent by the Deputy Chief of Staff of the First Baltic Front, Lieutenant General Zhukov. This report pessimistically anticipates the direction of the war and points out that now not only the First Baltic Front, but also the Second Baltic Front, the Western Front and the Ukrainian Front are facing a major crisis! The two German army groups had already formed a pincer offensive in Latvia and Poland, and they were likely to repeat the Soviet offensive that had been carried out since September 30 by pocketing the Second Baltic Front and the Western Front with tank corps! In order to avoid such a scenario, Zhukov advised the Red Army to make a big retreat on the Western Front. Zhukov did not say exactly where to retreat, but judging by Zhukov's tone, maybe even the Stalin line would have to be abandoned.

Stalin's side began to roar again, and occasionally Smirnov could be heard crying. A dignified political commissar of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet is actually crying! Molotov and Voroshilov looked at each other in disbelief. Could it be that those two 25000-ton battleships are gone? And what about Orlov? Didn't he swear to Stalin when he set out that he would be able to teach the enemy a hard lesson? How can you let the enemy give it now, look at Stalin's face, the two Soviet leaders hung their heads in mutual understanding, like two schoolchildren who made mistakes.

"That's right! This sortie was a traitorous act by the Orlov cabal to betray the Soviet Motherland! You must check it out to see if there are any Ornov elements who have slipped through the net, and you must arrest them all and hang them! Stalin roared in a distinctly Caucasian accent: "Now our cause is in crisis, all sorts of irresolute elements have emerged, and they must not be let go"

At this time, the People's Commissar of the Air Force Baranov and the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Colonel-General Berzin, appeared lightly at the door of the office, their faces sad and their eyes bloodshot due to chronic sleep deprivation. Stalin, as if hearing their footsteps, turned his head to look at them, then looked at the clock on the wall of his office and nodded to them. Then the two officers walked in with heavy purses. He gave a military salute to Stalin and sat down at the table. Berzin opened his thick briefcase, took out maps and documents from it, and laid them on a table covered with a green carpet.

Stalin had already arranged a purge in the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, hung up the phone and looked at a few of his subordinates.

"Let's start with Molotov, how is the factory relocation plan going? When will we be able to move our heavy industry from the west to the Ural Mountains? Will it work next spring? ”

"Comrade Stalin, please forgive me for not moving the factory as easily as imagined." Molotov smiled bitterly: "And now the Chinese have hit Eastern Siberia, so Western Siberia is not safe, and Central Asia is not safe"

"Yes, it's not safe everywhere, the Motherland is in a predicament of enemies on all sidesVoroshilov, do you have any good news to report?" Stalin looked at Voroshilov, and at this moment his eyes were full of anticipation.

"Oh, it's that Zhukov, the one who used tanks quite well, he is now the deputy chief of staff of the 1st Baltic Front, and Tukhachevsky sent him to Moscow, and he dropped by to the People's Commissariat of Defense to submit a report recommending that we abandon the rescue of the 1st Baltic Front trapped in Estonia and withdraw our troops to a safe place." Voroshilov slurred and slurred.

"Oh, safe place, is there still a safe place in the USSR now?" Stalin shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands out.

"This Zhukov said that now both the Second Baltic Front and the Western Front are in extreme danger! The Germans could have copied our tactics against Poland and used their huge armored forces to break through their defenses and divide and surround them! Voroshilov explained.

Stalin turned to Berzin, who was originally the head of intelligence of the Red Army and took over the post of chief of the General Staff after Shaposhnikov went to the Western Front. Stalin said: "My Chief of the General Staff, what do you think? Will our main forces on the Western Front collapse like the Polish army? ”

"I beg your pardon for not having read this report." Berzin frowned, "Comrade Baranov and I are here to report to you on the work of territorial air defense. ”

"Homeland Air Defense?" Stalin looked at Baranov and did not seem to understand. Baranov explained: "In the past two days, German reconnaissance planes have been flying into the skies over the western suburbs of Moscow. I'm afraid that they are reconnoitring the bombing lines, preparing for a massive air attack on Moscow! ”

"Yes, Comrade Stalin. Our intelligence officers also reported that Germany had recently massed bombers near Riga. Goering and Hitler have been clamoring frantically in recent days, threatening to completely destroy Moscow with air strikes and drown Moscow in flames! Berzin added.

"Now their bombers will be able to reach Moscow only from Latvia?" Stalin asked.

"Not really. However, the take-off distance from there is the shortest, and the bomb load is relatively large. Baranov replied.

Stalin sighed and looked at Voroshilov. "You see, if we get Hitler to build the airfield to Smolensk, maybe he will be able to destroy our industry with air strikes."

……

In the last days of November, the Błag River, which separates Belarus and Poland, finally froze as temperatures dropped dramatically. At the same time, the muddy roads were frozen hard, and there were no obstacles to the march of mechanized troops and the dispatch of air forces. So the atmosphere of war began to thicken again. The road leading from Warsaw to the Bouag River was crowded with vehicles and marching processions, and after nearly a month of marching and mobilizing, the more than one million troops of the German Army Group South finally entered their designated positions.

On the afternoon of November 30th, several more heavy military trains with heavy loads in the head of the gravity locomotive roared into Biahua. Podlaska Railway Station. The earth trembled as the train went. On top of the flat cars, there are tanks No. 2 and No. 3 covered with tarpaulins! German armorers in black uniforms stood next to the tanks. Braving the cold wind all the way to the march, the eyes of all the officers and soldiers above the railway station were attracted by this column of heavily loaded military columns full of tanks. Although they had seen the Chinese armored divisions before, today it was a whole day of tanks! Officers and men with a little brains can guess that the decisive offensive will soon begin!

Hu Lian's division headquarters was in a three-story building opposite the small train station, and he was now watching through the glass window as a train full of German tanks entered the station. A smug smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, "Hopner's 3rd and 4th Panzer Divisions have finally arrived!" Now is the right time to break through the Soviet front, and if it drags on for a few more days, the Red Army may have fled as soon as the Estonian situation is finished. ”

Several staff officers around him were all dancing with their eyebrows, and these staff officers came to the right place for the Eighth Armored Division. Vovomin's victory, the salvation of Warsaw, and now the spearhead of the invasion of the Soviet Union. Looking at the current situation, the Soviet army was defeated on the northern front, and the people on the central front were already panicking, as long as the armored forces made a surprise attack, it would be a complete victory! And the credit for this decisive victory is undoubtedly the ...... of the armored forces With this resume, will he not be on the rise in the Wehrmacht in the future?

At this time, the door of the war room opened, and in walked in was Wu Tuohao, the deputy chief of staff of the expeditionary force, who had gone to Warsaw to attend a meeting of Army Group South and had just returned to Biała on a train full of tanks. Poderaska's.

"Brother Mouxian, I've been waiting for you for a long time, when will the operation start? What mission did General Halder give us? ”

As soon as Hu Lian saw Wu Tuohao, he greeted him, grabbed his hand, and went straight to the point.

Wu Tuohao pulled Hu Lian to the front of the huge military map hanging on the wall, which was more than three meters high. The blue and red arrows on the map are densely marked. There are more than two million troops concentrated on both sides of the Bouag River! Among them, the Soviet army is about 1 million, and China, Germany and Poland also have more than 1 million. In addition, there is a main Soviet army cluster of at least 1.5 million men deployed on the border of Belarus with Lithuania and Latvia, and is in a fierce confrontation with the German army, which is about a million strong. From the map, it seems that the current fierce fighting can also be seen.

Wu Tuohao pointed to the map and explained to Hu Lian the mission of the Eighth Armored Division.

"On December 2, that is, the day after tomorrow, the offensive began, and our task was to bypass the southern side of the Brest Fortress, break through the Soviet defenses, and then attack Kobrin, Belyozha, Ivatsevich, Baranovichi, Dzerzhinsk, Minsk all the way to the rear of the Soviet army! Cities and strongholds that were strongly defended by the Soviet army should not be left to them, and the infantry behind them should be responsible. Our mission is to keep moving forward, assault, assault! As long as the tank can still be driven, don't stop, even if it's all the way to Smolensk! ”

He paused and said: "Boyu, the mission of the armored forces this time is like a knife that cuts through the cream, treating millions of Soviet Red Army soldiers as a cake, cutting it into pieces!" The third, fourth, and seventh German Panzer Divisions are also with us, and our three Panzer Divisions are under the unified command of General Hopner! There was also an armored cluster to the north, the 19th Panzer Corps under the command of Guderian with five panzer divisions, Latvia broke through to the Soviet city of Velikiye Luki, and then went south to Smolensk! The task of the 16th Panzer Army, in which we are located, is to cooperate with the 19th Panzer Army to encircle the main forces of the Soviet Western Front and the Second Baltic Front! If it goes well, this battle will always be able to wipe out more than 2 million Soviet troops. ”

Hu Lian nodded, he was very satisfied with the style of the armored troops this time, the armored troops were used as the blades of the army, used to cut through the enemy's defenses, mess up their rear, and divide and surround them.

"Mouxian, I just heard you say that General Rommel's 7th Panzer Division has also arrived at the 16th Panzer Army. When will he arrive? ”

Wu Tuohao smiled, "What's the matter, I miss my mentor?" I've heard that your first armoured corps was trained by Generals Rommel and Guderian. No wonder they are so sharp when they start fighting! ”

Hu Lian nodded: "That's it!" Our Wehrmacht has been able to achieve this kind of achievement over the years, and the credit of those German teachers cannot be erased. Of course, the first credit is still the assistant commander! ”

"That's, that's." Wu Tuohao patted Hu Lian on the shoulder, "General Rommel is coming to Biawa with me on a train. Poderaska's. But I'm afraid you won't see him now. His 7th Panzer Division was transported all the way here by train from Latvia. There were less than two days to get them into position, and now he, the division commander, was busy. ”

……

At this time, in the northern part of Latvia and the southern part of Estonia, everything was in chaos. Nearly 2 million troops on both sides are engaged in the most tragic fierce battle on this rich land on the coast of the Baltic Sea! The soldiers of Germany, China, Russia, and Italy have already begun a magnificent counterattack on the battlefield. Among them, the 1st Russian Army, composed of China, Russia and Italy, was responsible for launching an attack from Aluksny County, targeting the small city of Pskov in Russia. This small city on the shores of Lake Chud was the only way for the Baltic Front to break out of the encirclement from the southern front. After a modest fierce battle, it was finally captured by the Russian 6th Army on the night of November 29. The German Sixth Army counter-attacked Viljandi from Valmiera, where the Chinese Expeditionary Force had fought. With Soviet logistics disrupted for several days, ammunition reserves were running out and the weather was improving, German air superiority began to wield. So the resistance of the Soviet army gradually became weak. The German Sixth Army's offensive also went relatively smoothly, and at noon on the 29th, it entered the city of Viljandi and drove out the Soviet troops there!

In Kehra, the headquarters of the 1st Baltic Front of the Soviet Union was immersed in an atmosphere of panic and depression at the sight of a catastrophe. Insiders in blue hats patrol around the corners with straight faces, and any defeatist rhetoric is likely to lead to death in the future.

The staff officers of the headquarters were arguing around the map. A large blue encirclement appears to be forming on the map. But it hasn't been closed yet. There is still a way out for the entire front army, or to be precise, part of the front army! Because most of the people had to resist the enemy's attack in exchange for a small number of people fleeing from the northern shore of Chulei Lake to Leningrad......

"We can't retreat! Comrade Stalin has instructed us to hold on, and the High Command will raise new troops to relieve us! And the enemy's attack is not particularly sharp, as long as we get enough logistics, we will definitely be able to repel them! ”

"No more! Lieutenant Colonel Menshikov, do you stick out your ears and listen, do you hear the explosions outside? Now the sky is German, and we can't even move during the day. Comrade Commander, make up your mind! While the encirclement has not yet closed, break through, there will always be some people who can stand out! ”

At this moment, several "boom" bomb explosions rang out around the church-converted headquarters, which was the German He-111 and Ju-88 bombers coming to bomb again. Since the weather has improved, the entire First Baltic Front has been bombed by an overwhelming number of planes and almost paralyzed! During the day, the troops could not be moved, supplies could not be transferred, and even artillery did not dare to fire easily, and in such a situation it was simply impossible for the troops to organize a powerful counteroffensive. You can only wait here to die slowly.

Probably knowing that he was going to die, Tukhachevsky was indifferent to a dead pig who was not afraid of boiling water. He simply turned a deaf ear to the quarrels of the staff officers, and just paced slowly on the map by himself. Don't know what you're thinking?

"Generate electricity for the Kremlin." Tukhachevsky's hoarse voice suddenly sounded, and the originally noisy headquarters suddenly fell silent, and everyone looked at him, waiting for his tricks. "The 1st Baltic Front is ready to shrink to hold around Kehra and contain the main forces of the enemy's northern cluster, and it is hoped that the high command will take advantage of this opportunity to adjust its deployment and retreat the main forces of the Western Front, the Ukrainian Front and the 2nd Baltic Front to the east of the Dnieper River to establish ......a defensive line," Tukhachevsky said.

……