On September 24, 1942, almost the same day that Hoffman selected STG43 and Iron Fist at the shooting range, the Soviet High Command was holding a meeting in the Moscow Kremlin.

"Comrade Stalin, very strange changes have taken place at the front in recent times, which we thought at first were accidental, but now when taken together, it is unpredictable, and I think it is very necessary for you to know about them." The newly appointed Supreme Deputy Commander-in-Chief, former Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Georgi ? Constantine? Norwich? Marshal Zhukov's eyes were blazing, and he was making an opening speech, but his first words made people nervous.

"Well, dear Comrade Konstantin, what unexpected thing are you going to tell me?" Joseph? Stalin's face changed slightly, but he was still amiable and ready to listen.

Comrade Stalin has been in a good mood for some time now, and he has learned about the purge of the "traitorous clique" in Germany through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the information reported by Beria is very complete, including the list of personnel involved and all the background information, and in particular, the introduction of personnel involved in the military field is very detailed. Although the Gestapo dug up the Soviet "Red Band" spy organization in Germany and arrested many Soviet spies, Stalin said that he did not care about this, and he was more concerned about the purge itself. He thought that Hitler was killing himself and repeating what he had done in the past few years, although Stalin still refused to admit that the Great Purge was wrong, but he never regretted it in his heart, especially in such a passive situation during the war, he felt the value of talent, and always felt that he had killed these generals too much and too quickly. Some should be left. If only those high-ranking generals of the Red Army, who had been tested by the civil war and were experienced, were still there. The war will not be like this for more than a year. Of course. He would not reveal such emotions in front of his comrades, his iron will would not allow for a moment of wavering and cowardice, nor would his position of monopoly on power allow him to hesitate or retreat for a moment. He walked on a path from which there was no turning back, let alone retreating, and looking back he could only grit his teeth and persist in moving forward - rightly or wrongly.

"On the Northern Front, near Demyansk, half a month earlier the Germans launched a diversionary attack on us, they were met head-on by the Kalinin Front, and the offensive was weak and the advance was fruitless. The fascist army suddenly lost momentum and took the initiative to withdraw from this salient, and now the battle line has been leveled, we have regained almost 100 square kilometers of land and liberated 3 divisions of defensive forces; In the Rzhev, Sechovka, and Vyazma areas in the middle of the front, in early August, the German 2nd Panzer Army launched an attack on the junction of the 61st Army and the 16th Army on the left flank of our Western Front. But the German army, which had had a slight upper hand, suddenly retreated back in the middle of the month, and even voluntarily abandoned the salient. Judging from the first-line intelligence received the day before yesterday, this front was also flattened, and our army received a large area of land, including the above three cities. ”

Moving all the way down Zhukov's whip, Stalin, who was holding a pipe, nodded slightly and interjected: "In this way, does it mean that the German army has temporarily abandoned its attempt to attack the front line of Moscow?" ”

"Judging by the current situation, that's so." Zhukov continued, "The more critical change was in the southern sector of the front, where the enemy's deployment was to attack simultaneously in both Stalingrad and the Caucasus, and in late August, the Germans had completely occupied all areas on the west bank of the Don, and they were only 60-70 kilometers away from Stalingrad, and their advance troops were gradually crossing the river. Of these, Paulus's 6th Army attacked from the direction of Karachi in the center of the front, and Hort's 4th Panzer Army attacked from the direction of Aksai to the south, moving slightly on the northern flank, but still forcing us to retreat to the right bank of the Don at the end of August......"

"Wait......" Stalin seemed to remember something, "on August 27 you told me that the situation at the front was critical, and that I had given the order to allocate the 24th Army, the 1st Guards Army and the 66th Army to the Stalingrad Front. ”

"It was so, our original idea was to replicate the practice of pursuing the Polish bandits in 1920, to use reinforcements and at the same time to cooperate with the original forces of the Stalingrad Front, to launch an offensive from the Don Front of Serafimovich, to rush to Rostov-on-Don, to cut off all German retreats on the southern front, and we drew up a battle plan, and the armies were scheduled to launch a counter-assault on September 6, but this order was later carried out in a hurry, because the Germans finally retreated." Zhukov said in a helpless tone, "From that time on, both the enemy's 6th Army and the 2nd Panzer Group began to shrink interestingly, and under our tentative attack, the enemy not only retreated from the Karachi and Aksai directions, but also prepared to retreat from the Germans on both flanks of the Don River, including Kotelnikovo and Nizhny Zilskaya. Last week we carried out another attack, and it turned out that the Germans had completely withdrawn. ”

"Evacuate?" Stalin stood up, his pipe in his hand stopped, and he looked incredulous, "Why is that?" I remember you telling me that the counterattack was going well, that the enemy forces in the Stalingrad direction were generally repelled by 30-80 km, and that I also issued a commendation order to Comrade Chuikov for this. ”

Zhukov's face turned red, he was also the one who reported the victory, and now he turned around and said that it was not a victory but that the enemy took the initiative to withdraw again, this link is really not easy to play a round, but he quickly thought of a pretext: "At the beginning, our Voronezh Front first launched a fierce attack on the Hungarian 2nd Army, forcing the German 6th Army to draw troops to strengthen the Hungarian defensive line, and then we counterattacked the enemy troops on the Stalingrad side." The counterattack was successful, achieving almost every operational objective, and even advancing a little more than we had anticipated. But we were blinded by the Germans' approach, judging the dynamics of the enemy's voluntary withdrawal as a successful counterattack. In the light of the information of the comrades of the Ministry of Internal Affairs afterwards, we learned that the enemy's commander had changed - Paulus had been removed from the post of commander of the 6th Army by Hitler, Weix had succeeded Kruger as commander of Army Group Center, and now the enemy had reorganized Army Group South, with Field Marshal Manstein concurrently serving as commander of Army Group and the 6th Army - an adjustment that may have been made after he took office. ”

"Manstein?" Stalin was reminiscing about the name, "The same German marshal who occupied the Black Sea and the Crimea?" ”

"That's him!"

Stalin suddenly remembered that the Beria report had written about this personnel change, and now that I think about it, many of the actions of the Germans are strange.

"What's new with Manstein?"

"No, or rather, we can't see it for a while."

"It's unexpected." Stalin carefully glanced at the map and concluded, "Is it understandable that the entire operational situation has undergone a particularly significant change in two weeks, when the 6th Army and the 4th Panzer Army, the main forces of the enemy, which had been enveloping Stalingrad in a pincer offensive, suddenly retreated, and they took advantage of the fact that they had taken the initiative to evacuate Aksai, Kotelnikovo, Kotluban and other areas while fighting and retreating, and took the initiative to break away from contact with our troops. In other words, the threat of enemy forces to Stalingrad has actually been lifted? ”

"You're absolutely right." Zhukov quietly complimented the other party, "At present, Germany has formed a large bow-shaped salient facing Stalingrad roughly along the Don River valley, the southern edge of this salient is in Rostov, and the northern edge is in Voronezh, in which there are at least 700,000 Germans and their servants, and behind them is the Donets River corridor, but the Germans have no intention of fighting for landing fields on both sides of the Don River - they have obviously obtained the two sides of the Don a month ago, and now they have returned it to us at will." I even have a bold idea that the Germans have no intention of holding on to this area, and that we can continue to advance if we attack a little harder. ”

"You should have reported this to me sooner." Stalin looked displeased, "If you didn't say it, I thought we were still in a tense confrontation with the Germans along the Stalingrad line." Knowing that the enemy is retreating step by step, we should seize the opportunity to attack in time instead of dumbly glaring at them. ”

"It may not be so simple. The General Staff initially judged that Manstein was preparing to reinforce the Caucasian theater due to the shrinking of his forces in front of him, but judging from the enemy situation in the Caucasus direction, this judgment also put a big question mark. Zhukov did not take Stalin's words, but skillfully diverted the topic, "Liszt's Army Group A has occupied Krasnodar, and they were supposed to accelerate in the direction of the mountains of the Caucasus and Grozny. But credible intelligence suggests that these German forces are also shrinking, especially as Kleist's 1st Panzer Army is focused on securing the area along the Kropotkin-Georgievsk railway, where there are still about 300,000 to 400,000 German troops. If the two are viewed together, a larger arc is formed, and its main support points stretch from Rostov in the north to Sochi and other cities on the Black Sea coast and the Caucasus Pass in the south, including important hubs such as Stavropol, Mykop, and Krasnodar, with the Kerch Peninsula and the Crimean Peninsula in the background. (To be continued.) )