Of course, Zhukov, who has a tough personality, is not something that Vasilevsky can persuade in a few words, otherwise he would not be Zhukov either. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 As for resolute decision, Vasilevsky has said it many times, and Zhukov himself has said it many times, but the connotation of everyone's "resolute decision" is obviously different, and it can't be put on the table to say it explicitly.

As early as before the loss of the Volga River valley on the central front, Zhukov's resolute decision was to hope that Stalin would push for peace as soon as possible -- taking the right bank of the Volga River as the demarcation line, but Stalin did not agree, and Vasilevsky also said that he could not accept it, and he gave up the left bank before he could fight? But after the Germans continued to attack and defeated the left bank, it was no longer possible to get the other side to accept the armistice on the right bank.

Then Vasilevsky made a resolute decision to ask for peace at this time, and now it was Zhukov's turn to quit, he thought that there was no way to negotiate peace in this way, and he must use the winter break to give the German army a dismount, complete the battle, and win and sue for peace. Due to the arrival of several successive US aids and the recovery of the situation in the rear after rectification, Stalin gritted his teeth and agreed with Zhukov's opinion, not only desperately transferring nearly 1 million troops from the central front, but also handing over several of the most elite Guards tank brigades to Zhukov.

The two lieutenant generals Chernyakhovsky and Chuikov were specially selected by Zhukov to cooperate with him in the management of the Central Asian Special Front, after agreeing to Zhukov's offensive plan, Stalin's father took great pains for the capable command staff, Zhukov was of course in command and could not escape, but Zhukov alone could not control so many 1 million troops, originally Zhukov also wanted Baghramyan to assist him, but Stalin scoffed at the latter's defeat in the previous battle and rejected Zhukov's request, Except for those who are unable to move at the level of the other fronts, the rest do not seem to be particularly outstanding. In the end, Zhukov selected these two men to help him manage the left and right flank clusters (relative to the rank of the front), and Stalin approved of this.

These two people are definitely small characters in terms of age, Chuikov is not yet 44 years old, and Chernyakhovsky is even only 38 years old - not to mention the commander of the front army at this age, even the commander of the more important group army is rare, of course, Zhukov is also a young commander, he is not yet 50 years old, and the opponents he has fought against, including Manstein, Guderian, Hort, Kleist, etc., are generally 8-15 years older than him.

It can also be seen from generals at other levels that Wink and Chuikov were in the same year, and they both had the rank of lieutenant general, and when the former had just been promoted to the commander of the main division because of his outstanding performance, Chuikov had been the commander of the group army for several years. Although Zhukov had a lot of friends and classmates, he had no personal background, let alone any confidants, and his personality was more direct and stubborn - reflected in politics was naïve, and he didn't think too much about it, so Stalin was more at ease with him, and these two generals let Zhukov take him with him at ease.

Chernyakhovsky and Chuikov are both fierce generals in the first level of the commander of the new generation of army groups, one is good at offense, the other is good at defense, in history, the former was personally selected by Stalin in 1945 as the successor of the command (taking Zhukov's class), but unfortunately he was unlucky, and was killed by German shells 5 days before he was promoted to marshal; The latter stubbornly held out in the Battle of Stalingrad, from 150,000 to more than 200 people, which is a must. Although the course of history has changed, and Zhukov himself is far less aware of their great reputation in history than Hoffman, he still unearthed two men from the course of the two-year campaign: Chernyakhovsky was the best in the offensive campaign of Army Group Center, while Chuikov was the best in the Great Don Meander and the subsequent battles, breaking the rear cover to avoid the collapse of the entire front.

So this time he took both of them to Central Asia, Chernyakhovsky was responsible for directing the offensive cluster to encircle the Central Asian Army Group, and Chuikov was responsible for the defensive cluster against the possible reinforcements of the German army. Although Stalin did not give them the title of commander of the front, the troops under their command were already worthy of the rank of the front, as long as the battle was fought well, Comrade Zhukov recommended again, the rank of general or even general, the title of commander of the front army is not at their fingertips?

Zhukov showed them the letter first. After reading it, Chuikov didn't say much, and Chernyakhovsky asked: "What does Comrade Vasilevsky mean by resolute determination?" ”

"This will be the last winter break we can get, once April is over, the Germans will resume a full-scale offensive, so we don't have much time left, and we must decide as soon as possible whether to continue the Central Asian campaign or let the Central Asian Special Front return to the middle of the division."

In front of the two of them, Zhukov recounted his strategy in its original form, which he called a five-step process:

Step 1: Take the risk of pumping Central Asian forces. Vasilevsky resolutely objected to this, but in hindsight, Zhukov's adventure was a success, and the German army did not rush forward because of the weakness of the opponent in the central battlefield, on the contrary, it continued to advance steadily and steadily, step by step, although the speed was reduced, but the stability was improved, and the front as a whole had just pressed through the right bank of the Volga River for 200-300 kilometers, but Vasilevsky's hope of counterattacking was disappointed -- the first step of the strategy was successful.

Step 2: Encircle the German forces in Central Asia, eat them or beat them to the point of collapse, and attract German troops west of the Caspian Sea to help. Zhukov believes that the number of German troops in the rescue will not be too much, that is, the scale of about 10-150,000, the road system and supply capacity in Central Asia are placed here, the infantry can be put a little more, and the German mechanized troops will break through the sky to 150,000 level. -- The second step of encirclement was barely successful, but it was still far from being eaten or hit until it collapsed.

Step 3: Encircle the point and send reinforcements, use Chuikov's defensive clusters to eat or surround this rescue force, and force the main German army on the southern front to continue to divide troops to rescue;

The fourth step: It is also the most critical and core step, after the strength of the German army on the southern front is adjusted and weakened, it will no longer pay attention to the situation in Central Asia, and demand that the central front army contain a part of the German army on the southern front, and the Red Army will transfer four front armies in the direction of Moscow and Stalingrad to advance north and south, and cut off the roots of the German salient on the central front. Although the German forces advanced a lot on the Central Front, the Central Front remained a giant salient because the Red Army had a firm grip on Moscow and Stalingrad.

Step 5: Defeat or repel the German offensive forces in the central theater (Zhukov believed that it was impossible to destroy), take advantage of the German retreat to push the front back to the left bank of the Volga, and then the two sides made peace to gain a favorable condition for the Soviet side. He even thinks that Moscow can also give up in exchange for pushing the overall front forward, so that the Soviet Union can have two relatively concentrated industrial bases and corresponding populations on the Volga River and the Urals, which can barely be regarded as a European power.

These five steps are promoted and implemented step by step, but I didn't expect that now the second link went wrong, and there was no good way for Chernyakhovsky to command 500,000 offensive clusters to take 100,000 German troops! -- However, Zhukov also believed that there was no mistake in his command.

"Comrade Vasilevsky's resolute decision is very obvious, including two meanings: first, continue to attack, speed up the progress and not lose too many forces, because these forces will return to the central battlefield in the future to serve as defense, in other words, Vasilevsky is not optimistic about Zhukov's five-step approach, believing that at most a small victory in Central Asia will deter the German army, and then the defense of the central front; Second, to abandon the overall operational objective, to build a defensive line for several months, to try to block the German offensive on the Urals line after the beginning of spring, and then to negotiate a political settlement -- also an attitude that does not agree with the five-step strategy. ”

Chuikov groaned and asked, "Which one do you prefer?" ”

"I'm not inclined to either! First of all, winning without losing is basically impossible at the moment, and simply driving the Germans into this basin has cost us 7-80,000 troops and a large number of tanks. Zhukov was a little annoyed, even more depressed, "Comrade Stalin only gave me 2 tank brigades to reinforce me, and nothing else was available; I think if we were optimistic, we would have to sacrifice 200,000 people to enter the basin, and if we were pessimistic, all those 200,000 people would probably have little effect. ”

Chernyakhovsky sighed: "The IS-1 heavy tank is a good tank, basically on par with the Tiger, each with its own merits, but unfortunately it came too late and the number is too small, if we had this kind ......of good tank shortly after the Tiger came out at the beginning of last year, many battles last year would not have been fought like this."

Now the Soviets know that the German army in the encirclement was not an ordinary person, but all of them were well-known first-line elite divisions, especially the two prefix divisions of the Great German Division and Prince Eugen -- even the ordinary officers and men of the Red Army understood that these prefix divisions were almost the synonym of the ace division. Unlike the Soviet soldiers who rushed into battle, they were specially trained and experienced veterans, and under the condition of adequate supplies and supplies, the Germans could rely on an efficient radio system to effectively command these troops to rely on support points to carry out stubborn resistance, rather than being quickly disrupted and eventually destroyed in the encirclement due to the interruption of communications, as was the case with the Soviet army.

"So what do we do now?" Chuikov was also a little frustrated, "Do you need me to divide an army group here to support the offensive cluster?" The Germans didn't move much at all. ”

"I thought of a tweaked strategy and wanted to hear from you." Zhukov walked up to the map and expounded his full thoughts, and the two of them were completely dumbfounded......

ps: Guess what, what strategy?