The faces of the two people on the other side changed suddenly. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Kuznetsov in a hurry: giving up Moscow is worse than an armistice! In 1941, at the most dangerous time, Comrade Stalin also remained in Moscow and finally survived. If the southern flank is abandoned, there may be a little less political passivity, but the military embarrassment will be even greater, and Moscow will become the only salient and sooner or later surrounded by millions of German troops.

In short, it makes sense that the two salients of Moscow and Stalingrad must exist at the same time, and if one is missing, the other will never be spared. However, if there are no two salient areas in the north and south, only the salient in the central battlefield is relatively better.

"You make me think, think about ......it," Stalin's mind raced, "to convene an emergency meeting of the Politburo in the evening to discuss your ideas." In addition, an armistice can be negotiated, but what about the conditions? ”

Obviously, Zhukov should not be asked about the political question of conditions, but Stalin now raises it with a special significance, which means that Zhukov is vaguely stating what territory can be held militarily.

Zhukov sighed, stared at the map, and said his thoughts with great pain: "If you analyze the military situation, withdraw the main forces of the troops from Stalingrad and the Caucasus and retreat in two directions, it seems that you can rely on the Ural River, the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, and Central Asia to establish a relatively stable continuous defense line on the southern flank; On the northern flank, the Moscow salient could only abandon and retreat to the Perm-Ufa line and the Germans exchanged control areas. ”

The Perm-Ufa line is currently the place where the Moder pass is blocked, but the area is not large, only 400 kilometers from north to south and 300 kilometers from east to west.

Stalin walked to the map and carefully studied it, and the more he looked at it, the more ugly his face became, but he rarely did not get angry, but said: "I know, you should first properly arrange the front line, at least the current line of defense must be fixed." In the evening you go to an emergency meeting. ”

Before Zhukov could say, he thought about it and said: "Send a telegram to Comrades Vasilevsky and Antonov in Yekaterinburg, asking them to find a way to come back, they will not come back tonight, and they will come back tomorrow morning, pay attention to safety on the road; In addition, Comrade Meretskov was informed to attend the meeting as an observer. ”

Kuznetsov knew he was not qualified to attend. In fact, since last winter, the entire command of the Red Army has been divided into three parts: Zhukov went to command on the southern flank, controlling about 2.5 million troops; Meretskov, as commander of the Moscow Front, actually commanded the Northern Front, controlling about 1.8 million troops; Vasilevsky and Antonov, although in charge of the General Staff, were actually mainly in charge of the middle battlefield.

As for Kuznetsov himself, although he still bears the title of commander-in-chief of the Navy and a member of the Supreme Command, the Red Navy has basically run out except for a few ships in the Pacific Ocean, and even the remaining officers and men of the bases, shipless sailors, and security units have been incorporated into the Marine Corps (in fact, the Army) in several rectifications one after another. Several military generals were scolded the most about him. Of course, it was much better than Timoshenko and others, and Comrade Stalin did not even want to see them, let alone scold them.

Zhukov nodded with a heavy heart.

Stalin, in turn, patted him on the shoulder: "Comrade Konstantin, be strong and fight like a steel general!" The Germans can't crush us! I was arrested seven times and exiled six times by the tsarist government for participating in revolutionary activities, and I escaped from Siberia five times, and I never lost faith in the revolution and victory. During the civil war, the White Bandits were aggressive, occupying three-quarters of all Russia at one point, and in the end we gritted our teeth and survived. If you can talk about the armistice, you can talk about it, but if you can't talk about it, it's a big deal to take you to Siberia to fight guerrillas! I'm familiar there! ”

Zhukov choked up and said, "I believe that you will lead us to the final victory." ”

Hearing that there was an emergency change on the southern flank, especially when they heard that the German army had dispatched an unprecedented SS Panzer Army, Vasilevsky and Antonov did not care about the risk and took the risk to return to Moscow on a B-25, this B-25 also has some origins, it is the material aided by the United States under the Lend-Lease Act, although the United States has provided a lot of aid to the Soviet Union, but the 4-engine heavy bombers and transport planes have basically not provided much assistance, only the double-engine C-47 and B-25, and the Soviet Union has repeatedly put forward the hope of getting B-17 and B-29, However, the United States did not respond, and only used the B-29 to transport some important documents, materials and spare parts in the recent period after the blockade of the Far East route and the collection of protection money by Japan.

The reason why the United States is willing to provide B-25 is because after Doolittle bombed Tokyo, a B-25 was detained by the Soviet side after a forced landing in Vladivostok, and the B-25 was not mysterious to the Soviet Union, and it had even been thoroughly figured out for a long time, so the United States only exported several hundred B-25s, and after continuous attrition, the remaining number was not much. In order to save fuel consumption, the bombers in question have basically ceased to operate, and the B-25 has naturally been mothballed, and now the situation is urgent, and Vasilevsky and Antonov have to risk returning with the B-25 without fighter escort at night.

As soon as they got off the plane, the two of them rushed straight to the high command, and after a few more hours, the situation on the southern front became clearer and more tricky: the 24th Army and the 1st Guards Army had been officially surrounded; The 38th Army and the 5th Guards Tank Army were pursued by the Hausser cluster, and the remaining blocking forces could not stop the German armored forces that were advancing for a long time; Yeremenko's troops cooperating with Chernyakhovsky to attack the Kleist cluster were difficult to retreat for a while; Guderian's headquarters continued to advance more than 20 kilometers on the basis of noon, and the 3rd Army lost another 2 divisions and 1 tank brigade, with a total remaining strength of less than 50,000 ......

The emergency meeting of the Politburo was held at the Supreme Command for the first time today, and in order to let everyone better understand the dynamics of the front, Zhukov deliberately asked people to use a sand table to simulate the possible evolution of the situation in the next stage, and the faces of the members who understand military affairs have changed greatly, and even those who do not know much about military affairs are frowning when they see it: The troops marked with the red flag on the map are vaguely surrounded by the dense blue army around them, and whether it is tanks or planes (a small model represents 100 aircraft), there are many more enemy troops.

A major general of the Red Army, who was in charge of the war games, was sweating profusely, but he revealed to the crowd the fact that in another 7-10 days on the basis of the existing front, the German army could sweep away all the Red Army in the Caucasus Plain and approach Stalingrad and Astrakhan, and at the same time, the Guderian and Weix clusters in the north would completely close the encirclement of the northern front - a huge encirclement surrounded by five points: Saratov, Uralsk, Stalingrad, Astrakhan and Atyrau, including Southwest, River Crossing, There are more than 1.2 million troops of the Stalingrad and Independence Fronts, and if Chernyakhovsky's troops also retreat here, there will be a cluster of about 5 fronts, 1.5 million troops. This is a larger, more encircled encirclement, and a more obvious enemy advantage than the Kiev encirclement back then.

"The only weaker part of the encirclement is the section from Uralsk to Atyrau, and it is possible to retreat with all its strength in the direction of Aktobinsk, but after crossing the eastern bank of the Ural River, it will enter the Kazakh hills......," the staff officers pointed to the rolling hills of the area, "the road conditions are very poor, there are almost no inhabitants, and it will be difficult to retreat without supplies." ”

No one asks if you can stick to such a stupid thing on the spot: the Caucasus is an endless steppe, and only the devil can stop the tank; Although Stalingrad was strong, it was surrounded on three sides, the defense of Astrakhan was weaker, and the strength of the Red Army had just been weakened, while the German army was stronger than before, and it was difficult to hold it. And once the Ural River is cut off, even if it can be held, after cutting off the source of supplies, these 1.5 million people will go to drink the northwest wind?

Everyone frowned, no one spoke for a long time, everyone looked at Stalin and then at Zhukov, and did not know what opinion to say.

After a long time, someone finally stood up and spoke, but it was Khrushchev, who pointed at Zhukov with an annoyed expression and scolded: "Comrade Zhukov, the military situation is so passive, you have an unshirkable responsibility, you ......"

Zhukov didn't care about his attitude of rushing to the ground, and directly interrupted him: "It was I who misjudged the enemy's situation, underestimated the strength of the enemy's army, and even continued to attack without seeing through this conspiracy after the enemy feigned retreat, I will take full responsibility, the front-line commanders and fighters have done their best, and all the fault is mine alone, but ......"

Stalin picked up his pipe and took a deep breath, noncommittal.

Vasilevsky looked at the disposition of troops and said: "If I send two fronts from the direction of Moscow to the south to meet and open up the Ural ......"

Zhukov shook his head with a wry smile, and motioned to the staff officer to continue the deduction: I saw that the two front armies were intercepted by Army Group Center with 2 armored armies as the main force in the middle road, and then intercepted by Army Group East and Guderian, and the casualties were still second, and the critical time would take at least 6-7 weeks, and if there was this time, the more than 1.8 million Axis Army in the Moscow direction would be able to take Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Tula, Ryazan, Tver, and Kaluga on all fronts. More than 2 million citizens and 800,000 troops in the Moscow direction will be encircled, and even if the southern flank forces successfully break the siege and send a large army north, it will take 6-8 weeks.

In other words, Moscow needs to hold out for 3-4 months with only half of the opponent's troops and completely inferior equipment and supplies, and in the spring and summer when the weather is at its best, everyone is smiling bitterly, this is simply an impossible task, and the food problem alone will torture the dead. What's more, this is still the most ideal situation, who dares to say that the two fronts will definitely be able to lift the encirclement on the southern front if they move south? What if the Central Asian Army Group from the north followed south?

The scene was dead silent, and everyone focused on Father Stalin, who was looking out the window with his back to everyone......

ps: There is one more shift in the night, so I implore you to go to the monthly pass......