All the granaries have been inspected, so Yang Mingzhi is not worried about rain leakage at all, and the earthy yellow sacks are loaded with flour and piled up like bricks. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThe roof of each grain silo is reinforced with wooden planks, and the gaps are filled with rags. Such rudimentary means barely sheltered the rain, but fortunately, there is not much precipitation in Belarus, so there is no need to worry at this time.

If there is something that worries Yang Mingzhi, it is that the rain has delayed the fertilizer plant.

On April 4, it was supposed to be a group of people from the chemical laboratory of Catfish Village who came together with Ivanov to inspect the equipment of the fertilizer plant. The rain has made the roads extremely muddy, and in some areas there are even knee-deep mud pools, so the road conditions are not suitable for traveling!

If mud made it difficult for the Soviets to walk, it was the same for the Germans.

The rain is quietly coming, and the temperature is plummeting. The relentless raindrops hit the position of the German 707th Division, and the cold wind swished, giving every officer and soldier a sense of gloom.

It's already spring, but spring in Belarus is so late!

The weather was very bad, and the division commander Herzman was in a terrible mood. The battle ended in full on 1 April, and the coordinated operation between himself and the 722nd Division ended in failure.

Facts have once again proved that the 284th Division of the Soviet Army, hidden in the hinterland of the swamps in the south, is really strong in combat. And their own troops? The fighters of those Eastern Battalions were inferior in combat effectiveness, and even turned against each other at critical moments.

Thousands of people cooperated with the German army, they were at best supporting the table, and when it came to real combat, they were not even cannon fodder.

Extremely depressed, he stood at the position command post in a depressed mood, looking at the scenery outside through the observation hole.

His location was not a battlefield, but the gray forest only a kilometer away still worried him. Annoyed, he couldn't help but smoke a cigarette to suppress his shock, and asked the chief of staff: "Rostad, do you think the enemy will suddenly attack at this time!" This is our weakest moment......"

"Probably not, we have sentinels in the forest. Besides, even when it rains, our fighters are still holding their posts. ”

"Very well, did you do what I said?"

"It's all done, even though we don't have a lot of mines, and as we stand, we have to lay them. Yesterday, all the infantry mines of our army were buried in front of the position. ”

Hearing this, Herzman couldn't help but let out a long sigh: "If I knew this, why did I order the troops to continue the pursuit!" Why should I ask the 722 Division to work together! I might as well sell the mines early and pull up the barbed wire so that Lothaheim's regiment doesn't collapse. ”

The chief of staff walked up helplessly, patted him on the shoulder and comforted: "Things have happened, we can only recover the losses as much as possible." Today is the number four, and if the enemy continues to attack us, they will not be delayed until now. Besides, the weather is just as bad for them, and I don't believe that the Soviets can walk like a fly in the mud?! ”

Herzman was relieved a little by saying that his position was under the responsibility of his subordinate Bach, because the death of Lothaheim and the huge losses of that regiment were huge, so part of the vacated defense area was under the responsibility of Bach.

This main regiment also suffered considerable losses in the battle a few days ago, so the pressure on the defense was even greater.

Herzman dusted off his cigarette ashes, looked ahead with a dull gaze, and sighed meaningfully: "Fortunately in misfortune, the commander just criticized us severely. We have indeed suffered great losses in this battle, and it would be unfair to simply assume that our army was not in a good position to fight in such a defeat. The commander must have taken this for granted, and did not take for granted that it was the responsibility of our command, so he did not remove me from my post. ”

"Even this matter did not make the Gestapo people in the battlefield ask for guilt! After all, we were attacked by air strikes and enemy infantry. It was only natural for us to defend and counter-attack. The chief of staff said.

"Well, if they had sent for me, I would have confessed. Maybe 707 is not a good number at all, and I, as the new division commander, have suffered the same failures as my predecessor! I thought that with the 722nd Division, an army of more than 3,000 people would annihilate hundreds of people, is it still difficult? Now that the statistical report has come down, except for the people of the Eastern Battalion, our division alone has suffered 1,000 casualties. More serious than the casualties is the psychological blow, and I can clearly determine that our soldiers are already very afraid of the forest in the south! ”

Fear spreads among the soldiers, and because they are still under military pressure, they must also wear raincoats and stick to the muddy trenches. Always keep yourself warm, and wipe down your guns from time to time to keep them clean.

For a veteran of World War I, Hertzman, it was as if he had returned to France on the Western Front twenty-five years ago, where there were not as many forests as in Belarus and the rain was exactly the same. The-like soldiers held on to the muddy trenches, even if it was very uncomfortable, because no one could be sure that the enemy did not appear out of nowhere.

Because the counterattack of the two division commanders was ambitious to destroy a Soviet army of several hundred men but suffered a serious failure, the group army commander Wagner was distraught, and after receiving the report of the two division commanders, in addition to insult, it was insult. The situation was also reported to John Kube, but his reply was very subtle.

Perhaps because of the winter, partisan activity began to rage in various parts of Belarus. The destruction of communication lines has exploded throughout Belarus, starting with the opening of railways and blowing up bridges, and finally developing into direct attacks on locomotives, attacking outposts and killing everyone.

The Soviet troops in the swamps of southern Belarus are like tigers grinding their claws, waiting for an opportunity to attack, and "mosquitoes flying all over the house" will make people go crazy quickly.

Moreover, it is true that the 707th Division should not be punished now, even if the military direction allows Herzman to go to court-martialed according to the regulations, it will be suppressed by Kubey. Now is the critical moment, the 707th Division has just been adjusted and rested again? It's incredible! For the sake of the stability of the troops, the deployment of troops in the south of Belarus should not be changed lightly.

Kube learned that the Soviet Air Force had airdropped supplies to that unit, and that this group of people had never liked to make small moves, and once the war began, they could quickly rise to the level of an infantry division. The terrible environment of the swamp was intimidating, and John Kube knew that if he wanted to solve the problem once and for all, he would gather an army to overcome the huge obstacles in the swamp and force his way in.

However, it is obviously impractical to send only one or two divisions to carry out encirclement and suppression, and the results of the great war that ended in February are frightening!

Therefore, the order he gave to Wagner was nothing special, except that he was ordered to continue to defend to the death, that is, to order the 847th and 805th Divisions to move along the Moziri-Gomel road. The task of these two divisions was not to take part in the entrenchment of the line of defense for which the 707th Division was responsible, but to encircle the railway stretching from Mozyr to Bryansk and to immediately clear the scattered partisans engaged in sabotage there.

In this way, Herzman did not receive any substantial punishment, and the casualties of the troops were not small, but fortunately he still had seven or eight thousand men, and it was not a problem to defend with these people alone.

Now he is completely dismissive of the Eastern Battalion, the soldiers of the Eastern Battalion who participated in the operation have been controlled, all weapons have been confiscated, and everyone is being investigated. Because Herzman believed that there were Soviet spies in this, otherwise they would not have suddenly defected.

This kind of situation was finally reported to Kube's ears, and the result was not surprising to him.

Because the volunteers of the East recruited from the prisoners of war, most of whom were in the service of the German army out of their lives, were armed against Stalin from the bottom of their hearts? It's hilarious! But there were still many residents of the former Soviet Union who were willing to serve the Germans, and Kube knew that the brutality of these people in the execution of captured partisans proved their loyalty.

As for the soldiers of the Eastern Battalion who defected? They were all treated as guerrillas and bandits.

……

On the afternoon of April 4, Herzman inspected the positions of the former Lothaheim Regiment in a raincoat, and the battlefield was simply cleared, and the huge bomb craters and charred camps were still visible. Lawrence, who was originally the battalion commander, was promoted because of the catastrophe. All the senior officers either fled without permission or were killed, but he led his remnants to recapture their positions as soon as possible after the shelling.

This bravery gave him the power to serve as acting regimental commander, and Herzman also gave him the important task of supervising the execution of all captured defectors of the Eastern Battalion.