Due to the tight blockade of information, Zhukov himself did not know the news of the defection of the Bryansk Front, and his entire attention was on the offensive of the North-Western Front and the maintenance of the Central Front, and he had no time to be distracted. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Although the troops participating in the Battle of Little Mars included the Northwest and Western Fronts, a large number of troops were drawn from the southern flank to contain and form the Moscow Front, and the total number of troops actually put into operation was less than 800,000, more than 10,000 artillery pieces, and more than 1,300 tanks.

Meretskov attached great importance to the combat effectiveness of the 9th Army, and mobilized more than twice the strength of Schellner's troops in terms of both strength and technical weapons, but in the course of the specific campaign, the commanders of the front-line troops still underestimated the tenacity of the German defense and the ability to counterattack - the 9th Army had been holding the Vyazma line for more than a year, and not only knew this battlefield well, but also had a very complete defense system.

Schellna, who was born as a mountain infantry, relied on the terrain to build a defense in depth, built towns and villages into strongholds to support the defense line, and accurately deployed crossfire nets to kill and break through the enemy. At the same time, in view of the characteristics of a large number of swamps and narrow offensive passages on the Vyazma line, he gave up the initiative to attack and concentrated on ambushing all kinds of anti-tank firepower to fight a counterattack, and an Assault tank destroyer destroyed 23 T-34s in one day and finally retreated, achieving jaw-dropping results.

After the start of the campaign, Schellner was not only supported by two additional air wings, but the General Staff also sent him a steady stream of follow-up troops. In addition to the 2nd Panzer Division at the beginning, the 10th Panzer Division and several reserve infantry divisions of the 3rd Panzer Army were handed over to Schellna, so that the strength of the 9th Army was always maintained at around 300,000. More importantly, the Germans firmly held air supremacy over the battlefield. By the time the issue of the Tambov encirclement was basically resolved, the entire main forces of the 3rd Panzer Army of Laus began to move in the direction of Vyazma.

The 39th Army of the Red Army's Northwest Army launched a diversionary offensive in the northwest, breaking through the German line for 10 kilometers before stalling. On the east side of Vyazma, a total of 200,000 officers and soldiers of the 20th and 31st armies under the Western Front launched a frontal assault with the support of 500 tanks, and after three days of fierce fighting, the 31st Army could not shake the defensive line held by the German 102nd Infantry Division and was unable to move forward. The first attack wave of the 20th Army broke through the German forward line, and the second attack wave, consisting of the 6th Tank Army and the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, immediately advanced in depth and prepared to cut off the Rzhev-Vyazma railway, the lifeline of the German army.

But these Red Army, which had struggled to break through, encountered German strongholds scattered all the way, were intercepted by fire from all sides, and the troops exposed to crossfire suffered heavy casualties. The German 2nd Panzer Division and the 78th Infantry Division advanced north and south along the railway, launching a fierce counterattack and cutting off the rear route to break through the enemy forces. On the evening of 10 June, the Red Army had to abandon its original plan to break through to the east and return to its own line of defense after a bitter battle -- after seven days of fierce fighting, the group army suffered more than 30,000 casualties and 200 tanks, and was unable to fight again.

The 41st Army, deployed in the northeast of the North-Western Front, fought slightly better, with the 1st Mechanized Army breaking through a gap up to 20 kilometers wide and breaking through the German line 40 kilometers and, together with the 3rd Mechanized Army of the 22nd Army, breaking through a gap 8 kilometers wide and 15 kilometers deep. But what is surprising is that the German defense line that was broken through the gap was very resilient, and Schellner constantly directed the troops to bend back, but kept the line unbroken. Although the German 246th Infantry Division was heavily encircled, it relied on strong fortifications to respond calmly, attracting a large number of Soviet reserves. The Soviet 1st and 3rd Mechanized Corps, which broke through, were attacked by the German 10th Panzer Division and struggled.

By 14 June, the day before the surrender of the Bryansk Front, the Soviets had made some progress on the eastern, northern, and southern sides of Vyazma, but they were all weakened by the stubborn defense of the Germans in depth and had to switch to defense. Seeing that the Soviet offensive had become the end of a strong crossbow, Schellner immediately seized the opportunity to turn the tables. On the 15th, the main force of the 3rd Panzer Army, which had been secretly deployed in place, counterattacked the 41st Army of the Red Army, which had broken through the deepest, under the leadership of Rouse, and launched a pincer offensive on both sides of the salient held by the Soviet Army with a strong force of more than 120,000 troops from 2 armored divisions, 1 panzergrenadier division, and 4 infantry divisions. The next day, it broke through the combined position of the Red Army's breakthrough headquarters, realized the meeting of the two divisions, and 60,000 Soviet troops were surrounded.

Zhukov was not a man who easily threw in the towel. In the face of the bad news from all fronts, he was extremely tenacious, and in a desperate attempt to order Meretskov to put the last two armies that the Western Front could use into the attack, in an attempt to counter-encircle the Rouss headquarters that had broken through and rescue the besieged Red Army. The 5th and 6th Tank Corps of the Red Army, with 20,000 officers and 350 tanks, stormed the German fortified line on a frontal line only 4 kilometers wide.

Rouse used the Tiger heavy armored battalion and the tank destroyer battalion to top the front line, allowing the armored battalion to attack from the flank, the key high ground changed hands several times, the battlefield was full of burning tanks and destroyed artillery, the Soviet tank unit and even seven or eight tanks poured out together, risking death to approach the German tanks, the nearest was only more than 100 meters away from the Tiger defense line, the successive waves of charges were like waves hitting the reef, but they were smashed in front of the German strong defense line and the accurate fire of 88mm guns. By the evening of the same day, the Red Army had lost more than 140 tanks, tens of thousands of officers and men had suffered casualties, the attack group had lost its combat effectiveness, and the commanders of the four Guards Tank Brigades had lost 2 killed, 1 seriously wounded, and 1 lightly wounded.

Although Zhukov and Meretskov were still holding on and refusing to let go, everyone knew that the battle did not have to continue any longer - the Germans still had at least 2 Panzer armies available in the central theater, and if they were to be redeployed, the remaining 500,000-odd Red Army troops on the Vyazma line would be wiped out.

That night, Zhukov, who was in the front command, was urgently recalled to Moscow to meet Stalin, and he did not enter the office when he felt that the atmosphere was wrong, and he was surrounded by armed internal troops, but he still walked in without fear.

"How's Vyazma playing on the front line?"

"The Germans had reinforcements, the comrades fought hard, we firmly attracted their attention, the losses were a bit large, but this would reduce the pressure on the central battlefield, and after the departure of the German armored cluster near Tambov, I decided to let Comrade Tolbukhin go to meet the breakout of the Bryansk Front......"

"No need......" Stalin's tone was full of exhaustion.

"This ...... Although there were not many comrades left in the Tambov encirclement, if the Germans completely wiped out a front, the impact and shock would be too bad. Zhukov weighed his words, carefully avoiding anything that might exacerbate the conflict.

"You really don't know?"

"What happened?"

"Look at the telegram." Stalin fluffed over a piece of paper.

After reading the telegram about the surrender of the Bryansk Front, Zhukov was like five thunderbolts, showing an incredulous look in his eyes, and he was speechless on the spot. It took him a long time to react and scold: "Bastard, bastard, this damn bastard!" I'm still thinking about saving him, this soft bone ......."

"What are you going to do now?"

"The Vyazma front is armistice, the Volkhov Front moves south to hold the southern flank of Moscow, the Moscow Front goes to block the enemy in the Tambov direction, and then transfers 500,000 troops from the Far East and Central Asia to form a new front to block the southern gap in the central front." Zhukov groaned, "The offensive is not feasible now, it must be transferred to the defense on all fronts." ”

At this point, he wisely did not mention the matter of "armistice negotiations" again.

"Let's get it in place quickly." Stalin waved his hand, "Three days later, the Politburo will hold a meeting, and you are going to make a special report on the military situation." ”

After Zhukov left, Beria slowly walked out of the inner room and asked respectfully, "Do you need to keep an eye on him?" ”

"Let's put it first." Stalin frowned and asked, "Has the situation been investigated?" You 1510 and tell me, don't hide or keep anything. ”

"There are calls for armistice negotiations at the grassroots level, but they are not mainstream...... Zhukov's opinion is his own idea, and he probably only communicated with Vasilevsky, Kuznetsov, and others, and there is no evidence that any commander of the front army and a general of the first rank are in tandem with him, and there is also no evidence that this idea is implicated with members of the Politburo...... Of course, it may also be that he is hiding deeper, and we still need to dig deeper. Beria cautiously reported that if it was the era of the Great Purge, this must be a good opportunity for the Ministry of Internal Affairs to make waves, but now that the military pressure is so huge and the battlefield continues to be defeated, even the Ministry of Internal Affairs has a feeling of imminent disaster, so it does not dare to add fuel to the fire.

Stalin was visibly relieved to hear that no members of the Politburo were involved, and what he feared most was that there was a conspiracy to seize power, that the "armistice talks" were fake, and that it was true that he had to be brought down -- and in some cases, the struggle within the party was even more severe than that of the Germans face to face.

His mind was spinning rapidly, but on the surface, he quietly instructed Beria: "Keep an eye on him, don't show flaws, don't interfere with normal military movements, and observe more." ”

Along the way, Zhukov only felt a cold sweat on his back, and the scene in Stalin's office just now was really terrifying: he dared to guarantee that if he did not deal with it properly, countless officers and soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who had been ambushed in advance would immediately rush out, and he would spend the night in the prison of the Ministry of Internal Affairs tonight - he had been in it and knew exactly what it was like.

But now he doesn't have time to think about Leitel's choice, he has to quickly deploy the adjustment of troops, once the nearly 400,000 troops of the Eastern Army Group are liberated, the consequences will be unimaginable...... (To be continued.) )