Unlike Rommel's cautiousness, the attack of the 3rd Panzer Army in East Prussia was much more daring in the northern part of the Bialystok Bulge, and their front bordered the Soviet mainland without the Bug River.

The breakthrough point chosen by the commander of the 3rd Panzer Army, the real General Hort, was also clever, the junction of the Western Front and the Northwestern Front of the USSR.

Based in the Suwaki area of East Prussia, the 39th Panzer Corps and the 57th Panzer Corps under the 3rd Panzer Army advanced in unison, with the strong forces of four Panzer Divisions and three motorized rifle divisions crossing the border and attacking the territory of Soviet-occupied Lithuania and Belarus.

On the left flank of the group army, the 7th Armored Division under the 39th Panzer Corps took the lead and rushed to the important town of Alitus, on the banks of the Neman River, 60 kilometers away.

Straddling the east and west banks of the Neman River, the city of Alitus had a road bridge across the river to the north and south of the city, and a railway bridge between the two road bridges, which determined that Alitus was an important transportation town that the Germans had to capture.

On the border, the border guards subordinate to the NKVD of the USSR put up stubborn resistance, had no heavy firepower such as artillery, and no air support, and fought only with light weapons in their hands against the 7th Panzer Division, but they were quickly defeated by the powerful infantry artillery combined with the 7th Panzer Division, and did not care about disposing of the corpses and wounded, and fled into the dense forest area.

Having routed the few Soviet border guards, the 7th Panzer Division met their real enemy.

At the regimental headquarters of the 25th Panzer Regiment, the regimental commander, Colonel Rosenberg, half of his body exposed a No. 4 command tank, looking at the congested road. I couldn't help but wail in my heart.

The map is really a lie. This is where the highway is. It's clearly a country road in Germany.

The road in front of him was all sand, with no asphalt or concrete pavement.

Both sides of the road are covered with dense woods, and in the event of an attack, it is difficult for the armored troops to leave the road and spread out into battle formations on both sides.

Visually surveying the width of the road, Colonel Rosenberg was annoyed to find that his No. 4 command tank took up almost three-quarters of the width of the road, and the rest could only accommodate a bicycle or motorcycle side by side.

If a tank or truck breaks down on such a road. The entire highway will be paralyzed.

As if hearing Colonel Rosenberg's concerns, the long convoy suddenly stopped, and Colonel Rosenberg heard the report coming from the front very well over the radio.

"The enemy threw the felled trees on the road, blocking the road, and we are dredging it."

Soon after, Colonel Rosenberg saw a group of infantry running past the tank, with tools such as chainsaws and ropes in their hands.

They were sappers of the 58th Armoured Engineer Battalion, who nimbly slipped through the gaps in the convoy and ran to the blocked road ahead, sawing the trees that blocked the way. Then he was lassoed with a rope and dragged to the side of the road.

After nearly an hour of fighting. Rosenberg saw the convoy start moving again, but the good times were short-lived, and after more than two hours of slow "crawling" on the sandy ground, the convoy on the road stopped moving again.

The forward troops sent a report that an unknown creek was found ahead, the wooden plank bridge over the creek could not withstand the weight of tank No. 4, and the sappers were reinforcing it, so please be patient.

Colonel Rosenberg took off his hat, wiped his sweaty head, and had to wait helplessly.

At this rate of marching, it would not be possible to catch up with Alitus today, and it was only sixty kilometers away.

What Colonel Rosenberg didn't know was that compared to the friendly 20th Panzer Division on the right flank, his troops were already advancing rapidly, fast enough to be the envy of the 20th Panzer Division.

The troops of the 20th Panzer Division were tragic, they faced similar road conditions to the 7th Panzer Division, and unfortunately suffered from forest fires, whether it was the masterpiece of German artillery shelling or the deliberate destruction of Soviet border guards.

Most of the tanks of the 20th Armored Division carried spare gasoline drums, which could not withstand the heat, and the tanks of the 20th Armored Division had to unload these flammable and explosive materials before passing through the fire.

The two armored divisions of the 39th Panzer Corps were struggling on the bad road of the Soviet Union, and the 57th Panzer Corps on the right flank was also their brother.

The problem faced by the 57th Panzer Corps was even more thorny, and at the insistence of the commander of the Ninth Army, Senior General Strauss, a part of the originally limited road had to be set aside for the infantry.

To add insult to injury, the trucks of the Second Air Force also rushed to rush to the road, ignoring the original route and rushing onto the road assigned to the 57th Armored Corps, which caused a major traffic jam, and the 12th Armored Division under the 57th Armored Corps was even blocked on the road for four hours, and could only stop in place and could not move.

On June 22, the first day of the war, the troops of the 3rd Panzer Army did not fight a few battles, and spent most of their time in a contest with the "Russian-style bad road".

On the north and south flanks of the Bialystok salient, the 2nd and 3rd Panzer Armies progressed fairly smoothly, successfully breaking through the defenses of the Soviet border guards and attacking the Soviet mainland.

At 3:15 a.m. on the same day, due west of the protrusion, on the west bank of the Narev River, on the eastern outskirts of the city of Vape, across the river from the city of Bialystok.

The moment the sound of artillery cluster fire sounded, in the meadow on the tidal flats on the west bank of the Naref River, Lieutenant Bierman jumped to his feet and rushed to the bridge not far ahead, carrying an STG42 assault rifle.

In the grass behind him, a group of heads wearing M35 steel helmets emerged from the grass, and more than thirty agile cheetah-like figures followed him to the highway bridge.

More than 100 meters to the right of Lieutenant Bierman's headquarters, another detachment belonging to the Black Iron Battalion of the 101st Special Air Service Regiment also rushed towards the adjacent railway bridge at a speed of 100 meters.

Lieutenant Bierman's leather boots rattled on the bridge deck, clinging to the guardrails on both sides of the bridge, and it took them less than half a minute to cross the bridge more than 130 meters long.

As he raced across the bridge, Lieutenant Bierman's heart hung in his throat, and after earlier reconnaissance, it became clear to him that the Soviets had planted boxes of explosives on the bridge piers at his feet and connected the fuse.

If the Soviets were fast, the bridge and their own troops would have been reduced to ashes in an instant.

Driven by fear, Lieutenant Bierman and his subordinates rushed across the bridge in a whirlwind, raised their assault rifles, and killed the sentries at the east end of the bridge with a few shots, and rushed to the east side of the bridge.

"Get off the bridge." Lieutenant Bierman shouted.

Six commandos quickly dispersed to both sides of the bridge road in groups of three, and easily found the fuse of the bridge pier explosives.

Pulling out wire shears, the two teams cut two fuses respectively, the crisis was temporarily lifted, and the previous reconnaissance was not in vain.

In order to be safe, the follow-up commandos went down from both sides of the bridge to the piers and manually dismantled the explosives boxes placed at the piers to completely eliminate the danger.

On the east side of the bridge, the sound of gunfire has been heard, and on the east side of the two bridges, less than a hundred meters from the river bank, is a village called Ukhowa, which has been occupied by Soviet border guards.

After the shelling, the Soviet border guards in the village took up arms and rushed to the bridge by the river, they knew very well the importance of the two bridges on the side of the village, if the two bridges were lost, the Germans could drive straight into the village, and then go straight to the city of Bialystok, 20 kilometers away.

However, their counterattack quickly and crushed at the hands of the murderous Type 42 brothers.

The MG42 LMG emits a unique "snort" sound when firing, and rows of bullets are as sharp as chainsaws, cutting any humanoid object in its path into two pieces.

The STG42 and G42 semi-automatic rifles ping-pong chirped crisply, so that the Soviet troops on the opposite side couldn't raise their heads.

Dense mortar shells flew over the Narev River and fell on the heads of the Soviet border guards.

With the sound of metal crunching, five Bobcat light tanks were the first to cross the bridge, and behind them were a series of SDKFZ251 armored vehicles.

Supported by tank and artillery fire, Lieutenant Bierman and his men were more demoralized than ever, and they jumped out of their respective concealment units and rushed towards the village of Uchowa after five tanks.

The 50-mm tank guns of the Bobcat tank opened fire one after another, and the windows and roofs of several houses on the edge of the village burst into flames one after another, and the Soviet shooters hiding inside were blown to pieces.

Taking advantage of the opportunity when the Soviet troops in the village were suppressed by tank fire, Lieutenant Bierman led his troops to rush into the village in one go, and the infantry in the Type 251 armored car also jumped out of the armored car, and hundreds of figures wearing M35 steel helmets swept the whole village in an instant.

Between the houses, figures in gray and grass-green uniforms chase each other, pistols, grenades and submachine guns become the protagonists of the battlefield, and the glittering sapper shovel occasionally plays the role of killer.

Whoever reacts faster, throws the grenade first, and picks up the sapper shovel first determines every hand-to-hand victory, as well as who falls.

Half an hour later, as the gunfire in the village gradually stopped, Lieutenant Bierman and his men stood on the side of the road in the village, watching four infantry escort more than 20 Soviet prisoners to the bridge.

On the other side of the bridge, a long line of tall and handsome E-40 tanks drove across the bridge into the village and headed northeast towards the city of Bialystok.

These E-40 tanks were attached to the 503 Heavy Battalion, which in turn was part of the 1st Panzer Army.

Around the Bialystok bulge, the 2nd Panzer Army was in the south, the 3rd Panzer Army was in the north, and the 1st Panzer Army was due west.

Like the three spikes of the trident in the hands of Sea Emperor Poseidon, the three Panzer armies fiercely pierced into the jurisdiction of the Western Front and frantically advanced towards the hinterland of the Soviet Union.

After receiving battle reports from the three subordinate Panzer armies one after another, the holder of the "Trident", Field Marshal Bock, commander of the German Army Group Center, showed a smile on his face.

"Report to the General Headquarters of the Army, Army Group Center is progressing smoothly on all fronts, and within a week it will definitely occupy Minsk according to the plan." (To be continued......)