In the early morning of the fourth of July, the sun crept out of the eastern horizon and slowly but surely climbed towards the sky, looking at it from afar like a red disk.

The sun's persistent energy infected every soldier of the 14th Panzer Army, who wore military uniforms that were still damp, endured the bites of lice in their uniforms, fearlessly faced the attack of General Mu, and embarked on the road to the east without hesitation.

As a few days ago, Chen Dao's armored car was caught in the ranks of the artillery regiment of the Ninth Armored Division, stumbling through the mud on the ground.

While enjoying the beautiful scenery of Belarus along the way, Chen Dao saw all kinds of abandoned vehicles piled up on the dirt on both sides of the road.

Horse-drawn carts used in the countryside, bulky Gaz trucks and tanks, and corpses that smell of decay are all there.

Swarms of flies surrounded swollen and whitened corpses run away from the rain, and some German soldiers with dense phobia turned their heads to look at the horrific scene.

It was obvious that the troops of the Soviet 47th Infantry Corps had retreated in a hurry, and there was no time to deal with the broken down vehicles, and there was no time to bury the bodies of their comrades, so they could only rudely throw them on the road as an obstacle to intercept the Germans behind.

This habit of littering the ground of the Soviets played a noticeable role, and the troops of the 9th Panzer Division marched all the way, disposing of all kinds of rubbish left by the Soviets, and the speed of the march was inevitably hindered.

Through the radio, Chen Dao knew everything that was happening on the road ahead, but he was unmoved, and war was originally an infinite use of violence, as long as the enemy could be defeated.

Chen Dao is really concerned about when he will be able to reach Orsha at the current speed.

Two days had passed, and Orsha was a hundred kilometers from the city of Krupki, barely able to reach it at the current pace of march of ten to fifteen kilometers per hour. This is still an ideal situation without harassment by Soviet troops.

Moreover, even if they successfully reach Orsha, how much combat strength the troops will have left, and whether the remaining forces can support the troops to fight a battle, is also a thorny problem.

On both sides of the road, there are not only all kinds of dilapidated equipment thrown down by the Soviet army, but also all kinds of broken down combat vehicles of the German army, as small as BMW motorcycles. As large as the E-40 tank, and the frequency of its appearance is increasing, everywhere on the highway Chen Dao is in sight, you will inevitably see vehicles that have broken down due to various faults.

However, no amount of hardship or danger could stop the will of the 9th Panzer Division to advance.

The target of the 9th Panzer Division, the outskirts of Orsha City, was also in full swing.

The town of Balan, about five kilometers west of Orsha, was unsurprisingly an important support point for the Soviet defenses, as the road with Borisov and Orsha passed through the town.

On the orders of Yeremenko from within the city of Orsha. Except for some of the old, weak, sick and disabled, almost all of the town's nearly 2,000 townspeople were mobilized.

Every man and every woman was included in the war machine, and they were divided into three squads and worked with the regular troops stationed there to dig trenches, pull barbed wire, and build anti-tank trenches.

The sound of logging was also heard in the birch forests south of the town, where hundreds of birch trees were sawn off and then sawn into several sections. It is used as a support column for underground bunkers.

Dressed in blue uniforms, unsmiling NKVD soldiers wandered through the crowd. Anyone with the intent of fleeing is sent to the town and tried by a military court, regardless of whether they are military or civilians.

To the east, in and around Orsha, a larger mobilization is underway, with as many as 20,000 citizens being requisitioned by the military.

Unlike in the town of Balan, the citizens of Orsha did not just cooperate with the army in building fortifications. They lined up in improvised training camps to receive rifles and grenades, and were then organized into independent battalions.

Yeremenko received an order from Stalin that all hostile elements who disrupted public order were to be immediately brought before a military court, and all saboteurs, spies and seditionists were to be shot. All forces had to be integrated and thrown into the Great Patriotic War.

It was under the inspiration of Stalin's majesty and under the whipping of Yeremenko that at about four o'clock in the afternoon, the reconnaissance battalion of the 9th Panzer Division, despite all difficulties, hurried to the outside of the town of Balan to peep at the Soviet defense line, and saw a fairly complete fortification.

Instead of attacking recklessly, the reconnaissance battalion sent a company to cautiously infiltrate the nearby forest, intending to use the woods to secretly approach the town of Balan and check for weaknesses in the defensive line.

However, the reconnaissance battalion sent the company into a hellish battle.

Outside the forest south of Balan, there were no Soviet troops, let alone foxholes and trenches, and the scouts sneaked into the forest unimpeded.

However, as the scouts on foot reached the depths of the birch forest, their feet moving inch by inch through the wet mud, behind them, the muzzles of black holes pointed at their unsuspecting backs.

Unlike the German tactics, the Soviet soldiers did not build their lines at the edge of the forest, but in the depths.

Even more shrewd, or even more vicious, the Soviet stragglers and trenches were opened not in front, but in the rear, and were carefully camouflaged.

For the first time, the scouts of the 9th Panzer Division encountered this mode of operation, and they confidently and boldly passed by the enemy's lines, exposing their backs to the enemy.

Suddenly the gunshots rang out, and the scouts were strewn with corpses under the ferocious fire of Bobosha and SVT-40 semi-automatic rifles.

Grenades rained out, shrapnel and bullets forming the scythe of death, harvesting more than half a company of scouts almost instantly.

The surviving scouts flew into the bushes or depressions, dodging bullets from dark corners, and then fired back with their weapons.

Endless shots and explosions break the silence of the woods and kick off the Battle of Orsha.

Outside the woods, both the Soviet troops in the town of Balan and the Germans near the road were alarmed by the battle in the woods, and both sides did not hesitate to send reinforcements to reinforce their comrades.

With the arrival of reinforcements, the scale of the battle in the birch forest snowballed, and the engagement distance became closer and closer, until the hand-to-hand combat at zero distance was staged.

After all, the battlefield was close to the enemy's defense, and the Soviets had an absolute numerical superiority, and the scouts could only barely meet the surviving soldiers to break through the encirclement. Later, in the pursuit of the enemy, he fought and retreated, and fled out of the forest in a hurry, until he fled to the edge of the forest, and was supported by the fire of armored vehicles on the road to escape the pursuit of the Soviet army.

With regret and self-reproach for not being able to abandon the wounded in the forest, the reconnaissance battalion hurriedly retreated to a relatively safe distance. Wait for the arrival of the big army.

After understanding the Soviet army's combat style, Lieutenant General Chen Dao and Lieutenant General Hui Biqi resolutely came to seconded a motorized infantry battalion with the Guard Flag Division, and let this battalion cooperate with the artillery regiment and logistics convoy of the Ninth Armored Division to protect the safety of logistics materials along the way.

Alerted by Chen Dao and Lieutenant General Hui Biqi, Dietrich also used the same means to protect the safety of his logistics troops.

Chen Dao and Hui Biqi's measures were very fruitful, and when the logistics convoy passed through two woods on the way, it was attacked by a small group of Soviet partisan troops, but was repulsed by the escorting SS soldiers. After only minor losses, the Soviet troops in the forest were immediately surrounded and suppressed by the main forces of the Guard Flag Division.

As happened to Jodzino and Krupki, the night of the Fourth of July was destined to be an unquiet one.

Lieutenant General Chen Dao and Lieutenant General Hui Biqi arrived late with the artillery regiment and logistics troops, and it was already evening when they arrived near Orsha.

They chose to stay overnight in a small village not marked on the military map, and the villagers had fled, but soon after the guards entered the village, the sound of sparse grenades exploding could be heard in the village.

Chen Dao and Lieutenant General Hui Biqi thought that there was a hidden enemy in the village, but they soon saw the medical soldiers hurrying into the village.

Soon soldiers ran out of the village carrying stretchers. Lying on the stretcher were wounded soldiers with bloody flesh and blood.

The Soviets set up mines in the village, which needed the support of engineers to remove. Temporarily unavailable.

As a last resort, Lieutenant General Chen Dao and Lieutenant General Hui Biqi could only wait patiently for the support of the sappers and clear a few houses in the village before establishing their headquarters.

While waiting, the two did not waste precious time and met with the commander of the reconnaissance battalion who had returned from a foolish time.

After listening to the reconnaissance battalion commander tell him about the battle in the forest, Chen Dao immediately asked Major Lorenz to record it in his combat diary.

Lieutenant General Hui Biqi comforted the commander of the reconnaissance battalion and said: "It is a sad thing to leave behind the subordinates in your hands and retreat. But it's not your fault, it's the precarious circumstances that forced you to do so, and you had no choice but to do it. ”

Chen Dao continued: "If the Soviets dare to do anything excessive to those wounded, General Huibiqi and I will allow you to retaliate against them tenfold. ”

Seeing off the reconnaissance battalion commander, Lieutenant General Hui Biqi asked, "Our mission is to advance eastward as much as possible in two days. Today is the second day. With the intelligence sent by the reconnaissance battalion, the enemy's defensive line was very strong, and it was very unwise to launch an attack on the enemy at such a night. But if we have to leave early tomorrow morning according to the original plan, I am really not reconciled. ”

"Are you unwilling that you can't avenge the reconnaissance battalion? If I'm not mistaken, Admiral Wietsheim will give a new order tonight, and you'll have plenty of time to avenge your men. Chen Dao said.

"At this stage of the battle, can you give me a little information about what our real mission is?" Lieutenant General Hui Biqi asked.

"During the march, I reported the progress of the mission with the High Command, and at the same time received new instructions from the High Command. We currently have three tasks, the first is to change the vest, the second is to conquer Orsha, and the third is to say goodbye. ”

Lieutenant General Hui Biqi was full of confusion, and he only understood one and a half of Chen Dao's three tasks.

Does the farewell mean that the Polish governor in front of him is leaving his troops?

As for the change of vest mentioned in the first mission, Lieutenant General Huibiqi could only lament that there was a deep generation gap between himself and the young Viceroy Governor, and he did not understand the vocabulary used by young people at all.

Lieutenant General Hui Biqi also understands that modesty is a virtue, and at the moment he humbly asked Chen Dao for the deep meaning of "changing the vest"?

Chen Dao vividly told Lieutenant General Hui Biqi the story of love and hate between the tiger, the snake and Wang Ba, and finally ended the story with "I can still know you if I change my vest".

Lieutenant General Hui Biqi's comprehension is amazing, and it can be said that he can understand it at one point.

"You mean, we're going to change the number?"

Lieutenant General Hui Biqi's face was full of disappointment, it turned out that it was just a simple change of number, and he thought it was a difficult task to make it so mysterious.

"Don't underestimate the task of changing the vest, the time and place to change the vest is a university question."

Before Chen Dao could finish speaking, a communications staff officer rushed into the headquarters and handed a telegram to Lieutenant General Hui Biqi.

The content of the telegram was indeed as Chen Dao said, containing two days' contents.

The first is to ask the 9th Panzer Division to launch an attack on Orsha as soon as possible, and to seize Orsha and the Dnieper bridge east of the city together with the Viking Division and the Guard Flag Division.

The second task was very intriguing, as it turned out to be to inform Lieutenant General Huibiqi that after the occupation of Orsha, the entire army of the 14th Panzer Army would be assigned to the command of the 2nd Panzer Army.

Faced with these two tasks, Lieutenant General Hui Biqi was full of doubts.

For Orsha City, the original mission of the 14th Panzer Army was to harass the nature, but now it was suddenly changed to a strong attack, and the telegram also emphasized that the number of the Second Panzer Army could only be played after the Orsha City was taken.

Chen Dao said: "After taking Orsha City, it is the moment when we change our vests, and it is also the moment when we break up, so we must cherish the good times of the last few days and join forces to teach the Russians on the other side, especially the guy named Yeremenko, a good lesson." ”

"Well, we're happy to work together."

Hui Biqi was busy making contact with the divisional units and deploying their positions to prepare for tomorrow's attack, and was busy until late at night.

Chen Daoze and Major Lorenz studied the jungle tactics of the Soviet army and slept very late.

In the early morning of 5 July, when Chen Dao walked out of his residence with sleepy eyes, he saw the commander of the reconnaissance battalion walking briskly towards the gate of the headquarters, his face was pale, and he exuded anger from head to toe.

Could it be that there is a new military intelligence?

Chen Dao followed the command headquarters curiously, and heard the voice of the reconnaissance battalion commander trembling and said to Lieutenant General Hui Biqi: "General, please come with me, there is someone I need you to see with your own eyes." ”

Lieutenant General Hui Biqi followed the commander of the reconnaissance battalion out of the headquarters and into the street.

Pointing to a Type SDKFZ250 armored car, the commander of the reconnaissance battalion said: "He is in the compartment, you see, what did the Russians do to our people?" ”

He slammed open the door of the rear compartment, and Chen Dao and Hui Biqi raised their eyebrows in unison after seeing the people in the carriage clearly.

"Damn the Russians." The two scolded in unison. (To be continued.) )