In the dimly lit basement, the cannonballs whizzed and landed not far away, and the strong vibration caused by the explosion caused the chandelier on the roof to shake incessantly.

The table was covered in falling dust, almost burying the map below. Timoshenko looked at his shadow swaying like a ghost in the light, and didn't know what to say.

The German armored forces did not attack at all, but bypassed Brest and rushed directly to a further point.

The farthest troops have already attacked as far as Ivatsevich, capturing the regions of Belyoza and Pinsk in succession.

The current situation of the battle has completely exceeded the expectations of the Soviet leadership, the defeated troops can no longer be gathered, and the entire front is in a rout.

The German Army Group North in the north, under the command of Field Marshal Loeb, had stormed Leningrad, and the situation in the northern part of the Soviet army had collapsed to the point where it could not be contained.

"Comrade Commander! The German infantry is storming our outlying positions, and our troops are suffering heavy losses......" an officer entered the basement and reported to Timoshenko, who was wandering into the world.

There were as many as 400,000 Soviet troops surrounded, and Khrushchev finally took only about 50,000 mobile troops.

It sounds like 400,000 men, but most of these troops are light infantry without heavy weapons, and they are no longer capable of launching a breakthrough.

Now all these soldiers can do is wait where they are, use their own flesh and blood, and prevent the Germans from quickly occupying Brest.

"The sappers sent an officer and asked if we wanted to blow up the locomotive?" An officer walked in, still with some stains on his body.

The two-day siege had already plunged Brest into a panic. The troops on the periphery were compressed by the Germans and had to retreat into the city.

The German second-line troops, which finally caught up, carried a large number of towed artillery, making up for the shortcomings of the last siege firepower of the Brest encirclement.

The intensity of the fighting was not as exaggerated as expected, many Soviet units surrendered, hundreds of Soviet soldiers chose to lay down their arms every day, and the encirclement was shrinking little by little.

What was once a huge warehouse stockpiling large quantities of military supplies has now become an embattled Jedi.

"The Germans didn't intend to ask for these supplies at all, they wanted to occupy it quickly, so that the follow-up troops could pass quickly." A general looked at Timoshenko and spoke.

There were already several people standing in the room, but Timoshengo still didn't say a word. It was as if he had lost his soul and could only sit there like a walking corpse.

Finally, after another loud explosion sounded, and the sand fell onto the map, making a crackling sound, Timoshenko finally spoke: "Let the troops fight back and drive the Germans back to the outskirts!" ”

"Marshal! You can't do that! Our soldiers do not have heavy weapons, and the losses from the shock of the enemy will be even greater. When the general heard the order, he quickly spoke up.

Timoshenko waved his hand and interrupted the other party's exhortation: "What can you do if you don't fight back?" Do you stay in the warehouse and wait to die? ”

There was no hope of a breakthrough for a long time, and hundreds of thousands of troops were already doomed, which was a huge blow to any commander.

In order to gain a good reputation after his death, what Timoshenko wants to do now is to die here as much as possible and become a martyr of the Soviet Union.

His insistence made the command lose its original role, and the Soviets had to carry out such a useless blind counterattack every few hours, and then the Germans could always take advantage of it.

……

On the front lines, Soviet soldiers crawled slowly through the rubble full of craters. The sound of machine guns could be heard in the distance, and black smoke rose everywhere.

"Comrade Regiment Commander! Orders from above, let's fight back! When he climbed into a large crater, he shouted to a Soviet officer guarding there.

"What? You say louder! The shouts of the other party were drowned out by a huge explosion, and the regimental commander had to shout hysterically for him to repeat.

"The order of the division headquarters, let's start a counterattack right away!" The signal soldier, holding his weapon, shouted again.

"What are you kidding? I don't even have a battalion of troops left, and they even let us fight back? After hearing the order clearly, the regiment commander asked in annoyance.

Now, there are less than 500 of his own soldiers he can contact. The rest of the soldiers either surrendered or died in the vicinity.

Relying on such a small number of troops, he was already very reluctant to even garrison here, let alone use such a small number of people to fight back.

Pointing to the position of the German army on the opposite side, the regiment commander shouted hatefully: "You let them come and see how many machine guns the German army on the opposite side has!" Bastard! ”

Half an hour earlier, he had carried out the order for a counterattack. Of the more than 300 people who had finally been organized, less than half of them were left in one charge.

The lost position was not recaptured, but more than 100 lives were given to the other side in vain. It was precisely because of that and the previous failed counterattacks that he had only 500 soldiers left.

"Do they know? The 9th Army, stationed at the railway station, surrendered just now? Let's fight back? We are all about to be surrounded by the Germans! At this, the regimental commander threw his weapon on the ground in anger.

Even he has been paired with Mosin Nagant, so you can imagine how hard the battle was. The Germans are attacking from all sides, and here it is only a matter of time before it is lost.

Before they could discuss a result of whether to attack or not, on the other side of the street, the German offensive began.

A strange guy modified from tank No. 3 drove out and was slowly turning on the other side of the street.

The tank had a large turret and the hull was surrounded by hanging steel plates.

I saw that after this thing came out, it slowly ran over the rubble on the street, and approached the Soviet position little by little.

Behind it, German soldiers cautiously followed, firing with weapons into the windows of buildings on all sides.

When the distance between the two sides was closer, the strange chariot suddenly stopped, and the commander of the Soviet army leaned against the edge of the crater to see what it was.

That's a damn twin 20mm cannon! It was a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun used by Germany for field air defense!

"Hell!" He quickly retracted his head, and the sound of scolding was drowned out by the loud sound of the opponent's strafing machine guns.

Tracer bullets used in anti-aircraft guns can also be seen clearly in daytime. These tracer bullets strafed the Soviet positions, suppressing all the Soviet weapons that opened fire in an instant.

It was simply a slaughtering machine, and after the ferocious strafing of this thing, only a slowly billowing white smoke remained on the Soviet position.

Because they were the follow-up German infantry, they did not have the heavily armored weapons and equipment of the Leopard tank, and could only use what they had in their hands to launch their own attacks.

What they didn't expect was that this modified self-propelled anti-aircraft gun had the effect of an artifact when dealing with the Soviet army.

It can pierce sandbags and some impenetrable walls, and hit Soviet soldiers in hiding.

It only takes a simple strafing shot to silence the Soviet firepower in all covered areas at once.

Leaning in the crater and seeing his broken comrades, the Soviet regimental commander casually picked up a Mosin Nagant from his feet.

No matter what means the Germans used, the war would go on, wouldn't it? He had to hold his position here, because there was a makeshift field hospital behind him.

By the time he pulled the bolt, a grenade rolled at his feet. It was a new German M39 grenade.

The Führer, who advocated economy, had begun to replace the classic M24 grenade of the German army with the M39 grenade, which was easier to produce.

The new grenade saved costs, the main thing was that it was not necessary to install a wooden handle, which saved a lot of time in production.

Of course, the new grenade has been improved, directly mounted with prefabricated fragments, and the lethality has increased significantly.

Seeing this grenade, the regimental commander of the Soviet Union knew that he would probably have to explain it today. Before he could adjust his position, the grenade exploded.

"Boom!" The grenade in the crater exploded, countless pieces of shrapnel flew sideways in the crater, and the two soldiers who tried to climb out of the crater were pierced by the shrapnel, staggered and fell down, rolling back to the bottom of the crater.

After only a dozen seconds, the German soldiers rushed to the small high ground formed by the ruins with their rifles with their bayonets inserted.

A German soldier jumped into the crater and took a closer look at the steaming corpse inside.

"Hey! Guys! There seems to be a big official here! The German soldier found the body of the Soviet regiment commander and saw the uniform, which had been stained red with blood.

"What a big official! I've seen this dress among prisoners of war! A soldier with an MP-38 submachine gun jumped into the crater and said, looking at the corpse.

"Look over there, it looks like the Soviets are about to surrender again......" said the soldier who jumped into the crater first, pointing to the Soviet positions in the distance, and said to his companion.

In the direction pointed by the two 20-mm guns of the self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, on a half-collapsed building, the Soviet troops hung a striking white flag.

Farther afield, the battle was still raging. Bypassing Brest, on the country roads, countless German troops were marching farther in neat formations.

Their next target was the place where Khrushchev had just arrived, a city called Baranovichi.

Having occupied there, they are only a step away from Minsk, the capital of the Belarusian region.

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The fifth is more present