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The unexpected motorcycle rush announced the death sentence of the Kazakh Front of the Soviet Union. When the Omsk reinforcements sent a telegram to Karaganda at 1 a.m. on the 12th, asking why they had not informed the news of the fall of Pavlodar, Kulik and the Kazakh Front knew that their northern gate had been closed!

Karaganda was completely disorganized, some people thought that the last two divisions and the cavalry that had been acting as a transport team should be sent to Pavlodar to reopen the connection with the Siberian Front, some thought that it should be immediately withdrawn from East Kazakhstan, and some people thought that the East Kazakhstan troops should be ordered to form an anti-encirclement group to move southward and converge with the 400,000 Soviet troops on the southern front of the Aitau Mountains, and the chief of staff Morodinov suggested that the whole army retreat.

There was a lot of quarrel within the General Staff, and the expression of their opinions eventually turned into invective and accusations.

To retreat is to go against the orders of the General Secretary and the Supreme High Command, and it is not only about one's own life, but also the lives of one's family members in Europe, but if you do not retreat, you are likely to be surrounded. You must know that the eastern Kazakhstan on the northern front has successively invested 800,000 troops, and the southern front also has 400,000, if it is really surrounded, the 1.2 million soldiers who are already short of food and clothing have only one way to surrender. And once the entire army north of the Aral Sea is annihilated, then it will inevitably implicate 800,000 troops in South Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, and even the 700,000 troops who have already entered Iran! Throw away the whole of Central Asia at once, no one can afford this responsibility!

Time was slowly consumed in such quarrels, and by three o'clock in the morning, two other even bigger bad news came! The East Kazakhstan frontal line was lost, and the Chinese Defense Forces had a total of 4 armored divisions (the Soviet Army also regarded the mechanized infantry division as an armored division), and more than 1,000 Type 31 tanks were divided into regiments, cutting the Soviet defense line into pieces. The 12 infantry divisions that followed behind rushed forward and launched a full-scale counteroffensive. At the same time, at least 12 tank battalions and 12 infantry divisions suddenly appeared on the front of Mount Aitau, along with at least 40 210-mm heavy guns. Even more worrying was the fact that just as the opponent's forces at Mount Aitau had doubled and the defensive line was in jeopardy, about two divisions of Wehrmacht infantry (airborne divisions) suddenly attacked Breel Baitar at the southern end of Lake Balkhash. They also erected pontoon bridges over a three-kilometre-wide reed swamp area between Lake Balkhash and Lake Ala, and at least 3,000 trucks were picked up by them to carry infantry to brave the wind and snow to make a detour to the Moinkum Desert behind Mount Aitau.

Start with a tank crossing Lake Balkhash. In just 27 hours, the two huge encirclements have already revealed their rudimentary shape. "Can't retreat!" Kulik pushed the window open fiercely, his face flushed, his forehead throbbing vigorously, and he looked at the squabbling staff committee. Slammed the gun on the table: "See? It's snowing outside! Comrade General Secretary said that the snowstorm and the bitter cold are the best enemies of the Soviets! They will make the enemy's hands and feet tingle, and they will help us stabilize our position! The enemy's attack is rampant, but at the moment we still have the advantage! And retreating now will only allow more troops to be slaughtered in the snowstorm! ”

The icy north wind poured in from the window, causing the temperature in the conference room to drop to freezing in an instant.

As in history. The Soviet high command at the beginning of the war was definitely the weirdest working team in the world. They were all well educated in military affairs, but they turned a blind eye to Moscow's erroneous orders, shouting slogans one by one and jumping into the fire pit, as if whoever jumped earlier was more loyal to the revolution. This is the case with Karaganda now. Kulik still stuck to his ideas, rejecting any suggestion of retreat, and for good reason, it was snowing heavily. There are no four or five days that won't stop. What's more, the Chinese National Defense Forces have already begun a large-scale counteroffensive, and the retreat of hundreds of thousands of troops will not be well done once it is not good. It will evolve into a collapse.

A crash in a snowstorm is no different from suicide!

Kulik's opinion gradually gained the upper hand, and he also believed that as long as the 16th Army in Akchatau was secured, then this encirclement could never really be formed, so he thought that it was better to send reserves to support Akchatau, and as for Pavlodar, it could be flanked by the pursuing troops and the Omsk Infantry Army.

The meeting took place in a strange atmosphere, and it was not until six o'clock in the morning that Kulik ordered cavalry reinforcements to Akchatau and Pavlodar, due to the quarrel ahead and the delay in the news of the simultaneous counterattack of the Chinese defense forces on both the northern and southern fronts. But by this time, with the support of aircraft and follow-up trucks, the number of Pavlodar's Wehrmacht had increased to seven thousand, and the Fifth Panzer Division was only twenty kilometers.

To make matters worse, Kulik forgot to tell Lukin and the front-line commanders and fighters about the loss of Pavlodar, or he simply deliberately concealed it, fearing that it would cause the front to collapse. But in any case, the 16th Army and Lukin, who paid the price of tens of thousands of sacrifices and held back an entire armored division and two infantry divisions for 24 hours, were ignored intentionally or unintentionally, and this neglect was fatal!

Due to the lack of necessary communication, Lukin did not know that Pavlodar had been lost, and he did not know that Kulik had actually sent 20,000 cavalry as a reserve to support him! If he knew, desperately would have retreated and prevented the cavalry from coming, but he didn't know!

"Corki, such a heavy snowfall, what did the command send cavalry to do?"

"Probably to deliver supplies. I heard that many people in front of me were running out of food, and many of the supply convoys sent out were destroyed by Chinese planes. It was snowing heavily today, and the planes couldn't be dispatched, so it should be a good opportunity to deliver supplies. ”

"I see. Are they gone? Come in and have a fire. This damn weather, I really don't know if it's a thank you or a curse. ”

In the ore processing plant west of Karaganda, Korki from Ukraine saw 20,000 cavalry leave and burrowed into a wooden house with a charcoal fire. It's great for him and everyone in Karaganda to have no worries about the weather, at least to be able to make a fire to keep warm without fear of being discovered. Dozens of soldiers sat lazily around the pile, and some people set up kettles on the fire, which was steaming uncomfortably.

"Platoon commander, I heard that this was a factory for Chinese before?" With nothing to do, the soldiers lay down on the hay, drinking the inferior Chinese liquor secretly obtained from the herdsmen, chatting and enjoying this rare "good weather".

"Yes." The squad leader is a big mouth, and he talks endlessly: "The iron ore and ore processing plants here were built by Chinese. But don't think they mean that much. It was obtained by taking advantage of the weakness of our Soviets. In order to ensure the stability of the Soviet frontier, the general secretary agreed to let them open mines, but they were too greedy, not only mining tens of millions of tons of high-quality iron ore every year, but also inciting the Kazakhs here to be hostile to the Soviets, and they were also unwilling to pay taxes, so the general secretary took back the place three years ago. ”

"Squad leader, aren't you from Leningrad? How do you know so much detail? Corki asked, stretching his back, curious.

"I also read it from Izvestia. There is a lot of news about the imperialist endangerment of our country, and you should also read more and increase your learning. ”

"Then why don't you take it back and use it? Looking at the rusty appearance of these machines, they should not have been used in years. And a significant part of the Kazakhs here live on iron mines, and if they don't work, don't they have jobs either? ”

"Comrade Jacques. They are workers in the service of imperialism, not workers in the service of the Soviet people! How can it be confused to sympathize? It is to make them understand that there is no good end to serving imperialism. ”

The squad leader waved his arms, quite like a great man speaking, but the soldiers were as if they hadn't seen it. In fact, no one cares about iron mines and mines, that is, they are just idle. As for why the iron ore mine does not continue to operate, why it is not utilized. It's all high-level business.

I don't know how long it took, but the sleepy-eyed Corkey suddenly felt that the hay began to slide, and after a while, even the ground under his feet seemed to tremble slightly. Looking out the window, the snow ropes on the eaves kept shaking. Could it be that the cavalry has returned? Colki was surprised, this kind of shock could only be formed by a large group of cavalry running by, but he looked at his watch. I found that it had only been two hours since the cavalry left, so why did they return so quickly?

Come to think of it. Colkey put his gun on his back and was about to go out to have a look, but when he opened the door and saw the scene outside, he was completely stunned! "Colki, what are you doing? Close the door, the damn wind is freezing me. What are you still stunned for, hell, tanks, it's a tank for the Chinese! Oh my God, how could there be so many! "One of his comrades-in-arms woke up from the cold wind and ran up to close the door, but when he saw the outside clearly, he froze like Colky.

Hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles, like terrifying herds of migratory beasts, marched along the road a kilometre from the ore processing plant to Karaganda, ten kilometres away. Behind the armored car, there are all kinds of vehicles and artillery that can't see the end! When they saw the national flag on the car clearly, Colki and his comrades suddenly shouted. The small post panicked, and the soldiers woke up from their sleep and were about to fight with their guns when two half-track armed trucks emerged from the oblique spurs, and the 12.7mm machine guns on the trucks were declared dead in just one minute.

"Formation conversion! Self-propelled guns dispersed in preparation. In the snowflakes that covered the sky and the sun, Chu Nan ordered to change the formation. Switching between offense and defense on the move, as simple as it sounds, is actually a very complex tactic that requires a lot of training. After a 310-kilometer forced march in 24 hours, most of the soldiers were already sore and stiff, but even so, 20 minutes later, the first 85-mm high-explosive shell accurately hit the Soviet positions outside Karaganda.

"Boom, boom."

"Attack!"

The sudden explosion of the shells made the Soviet troops completely confused, and many people even went to look at the sky, wondering why they didn't hear the sound of propellers before today's bombing. It wasn't until a black spot appeared in the wind and snow that the soldiers rushed into the position in panic. It's late! Eight armoured battalions and more than 400 half-track armed trucks, with a total of 50,000 soldiers from three divisions, poured into Karaganda, with a population of less than 300,000, from a five-kilometer-wide frontage.

It was not a fierce battle, and even in the post-war summary, the First Army described the main battle in the bloody battle of Akchatau. Because the Soviet army in Karaganda did not expect to be attacked at all, on the contrary, because of the heavy snowfall, the planes could not bomb and relaxed their vigilance, more than half of the troops hurriedly came out of the garrison after the attack in Chunan, and many people were surrounded by swarming armored clusters on the road before they arrived at the position, and even the weapons, ammunition and materials that were stored here and could be used by millions of people did not have time to blow up.

Except for a few people, including Kulik and Chief of Staff Morodinov, who took advantage of the chaos to escape, a total of more than 300 staff officers and high-ranking officers of the East Kazakh Front were captured, and the battle was basically over at 5 p.m.

With the telegram from Chunan, a huge encirclement from Semiy to Pavlodar, then back to Karaganda, Akchatau, and finally back to Balkhash was formed, and only two of the 800,000 Soviet Kazakh Front troops spread over a 150,000 square kilometer area fled before the encirclement was completely formed.

One was a reinforcement force led by Vlasov, with a total of 80,000 soldiers in seven divisions. At that time, he was ordered to pursue the second group that was attacking Pavlodar, and when he saw that Pavlodar did not cooperate with the flanking attack, he knew that it was bad, so he simply turned around and went east to Kurunda, from where he diverted to Omsk to temporarily join the Siberian Front.

The second is the remnants of the 16th Army. After learning from the cavalry that Pavlodar had been captured, Lukin knew that nothing could be done, but as soon as the cavalry arrived, the rear foot received the last telegram from Karaganda that it had been attacked and that the troops had broken through, so he immediately cut off his tail to survive, decisively abandoned the 30,000 soldiers who were entangled in the first line, led two half-disabled infantry divisions and 20,000 cavalry to support, a total of 40,000 people, and hurriedly fled to Alkarek, which was located 257 kilometers west of Karaganda.

The escape of Lukin and Vlasov has to be said to be a big regret. Especially Chu Nan, he always felt that this was a return to the mountain, so he also sent troops to pursue for a while, but he had to give up because the wind and snow were too big.

However, this regret was quickly diluted by the news of the evening. At ten o'clock that night, the second encirclement from Balkhash to Cala Barta was successfully closed, and the 400,000 Soviet troops on the southern front were also caught in a net