In Rastenburg, East Prussia, Germany, that is, the "Wolf's Lair", Reinhardt, who visited the forward command in person, was pleasantly surprised to find that Stalin's luck seemed to be much worse than in history. In other words, his Reinhardt's luck is now simply full of good luck!

In the battle between Belarus and Pavlov's Western Front, the Soviet army, which was caught in a huge encirclement, not only did not insist on fighting as in the original history and inflicted heavy casualties on the German army, but on the contrary, the battle was won with great ease.

Some 490,000 Soviet soldiers were captured, and more than 2,500 artillery pieces and more than 3,400 tanks were destroyed or captured.

Contrary to the history he was familiar with, the Soviet Western Front in the encirclement did not put up much stubborn resistance, and the technical weapons captured by the Germans were much higher than the German high command expected. What is even more gratifying is that the Soviet troops captured in the Minsk battle this time are a full 200,000 more than in the original history!

The Soviet troops who fled outside the encirclement were only about 50,000 people.

On the Soviet side, Commander Timoshenko, who was sent by Stalin to take over the command of the remaining units of the Western Front, took over the command of an army not so much as the remnants of a front, not even a group army!

It has to be said that the Western Front is indeed the most well-armed unit of the Soviet Union among the many fronts.

According to the standard of full allocation of an armored division on the German side, a division with 324 tanks is already considered a perfect and powerful armored force, and in most cases, many German armored divisions do not meet this standard.

It was not because Germany could not produce so many tanks, but because the German armored forces were expanding too fast, and often transferred personnel and equipment from the original armored forces to be the backbone of the new armored divisions, resulting in the frequent evacuation of personnel and tanks from the armored divisions.

On the other hand, the German troops were in a state of war for almost a long time, and the number of tanks in the troops was more or less constantly depleted, resulting in a constant decline in the number of tanks in each division.

From this point of view, the Soviet Western Front was destroyed and captured more than 3,400 tanks in one go, which was enough for 10 fully armored divisions in the German army!

Reinhardt would never refuse these captured Soviet tanks. Especially after this battle, in the end, many Soviet tanks were directly delivered to the German army by the Soviet army under a white flag, and they were not captured on the battlefield.

The senior generals of the Soviet Western Front, who remained in the encirclement, did not know what the stimulus was, and suddenly, under the leadership of their chief of staff Klimovsky, collectively told Bock's Army Group Center that they would surrender in formation and surrender all their weapons, equipment, ammunition, and supplies.

Among them, the commander of the 4th Tank Division of the Soviet Western Front, Major General Potaturchev, directly took the tank division with complete combat effectiveness and surrendered the tank completely.

Because these Soviet tanks were more powerful and retreated early to avoid contact with the Germans, their losses were always small. As a result, after their surrender, the Germans captured almost all the tanks and armored vehicles of the Soviet Fourth Tank Division.

At Reinhardt's request, the German army has long been ready for the all-round use of these captured armored weapons, and the depth and breadth are not imaginable by ordinary people, and it can be said that every kind of armored vehicle equipped by the Soviet army can be inserted and distributed in the battle sequence of the German army at that time.

In this way, the Soviet armored forces almost became the mobile armored combat vehicle arsenal of the German army, allowing the German army to increase its own strength through this capture supplement, and effectively make up for the congestion of its own military production capacity. In a sense, General Pavlov, the former commander of the Western Front of the Soviet Union, has become the first "transport captain" of the German army in disguise.

In addition, in the Western Front, the rest of the armies, large and small, from the chief of staff of the front army to the army commanders and division commanders of various group armies, were also like this, and they surrendered to the German army very happily.

They surrendered their weapons and garrisons, so that Marshal Bock could then occupy the rest of Belarus almost without much effort.

Not only Marshal Bock, who was in the headquarters of Army Group Center, but even Reinhardt, who was in the "wolf's den", could not suppress his ecstasy at Army Group Center's victory this time.

Nearly 500,000 Soviet troops were captured in one go, which was already an almost crazy victory, setting a new record for the scale of the German encirclement in Poland and becoming the new "largest encirclement and annihilation battle in history".

What is even more fortunate is that the Soviet troops who were encircled this time gave up resistance and surrendered on their own initiative. This saved the Germans a lot of effort to clear the encirclement and avoided a large number of casualties.

Plus the 7 Ukrainian divisions that rebelled in the previous Southwestern Front, about 100,000 or so troops. The captured and mutinous Soviet troops alone have reached the 700,000 mark!

You know, 20 years ago, the total strength of the Wehrmacht was only 100,000. Now, the 100,000-strong army has forced 700,000 Soviet troops to surrender without a fight, and effortlessly let the enemy lose 700,000 troops.

And that's not all, on the day of the surrender of the Western Front in the encirclement, Field Marshal Bock of the German Army Group Center signed a new operational document, arranging for Guderian to lead the 2nd Panzer Corps to Smolensk - the key to open the gates of Moscow!

At this time, Guderian was already the famous "Scud Heinz".

Guderian, who served as commander of the 2nd Panzer Army, was under the command of Army Group Center along with General Hoss's 3rd Panzer Army.

The 2nd Armored Corps is equipped with the 24th Armored Corps, which has the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions, the 10th Motorized Infantry Division, and the 1st Cavalry Division. and the 46th Panzer Corps, which had the 10th Panzer Division, the SS Fatherland Infantry Division, and the Greater German Infantry Regiment. There are also the 17th and 18th Armored Divisions and the 29th Motorized Rifle Division under the 47th Panzer Army.

Guderian led such a large mobile force, together with Hoss's 3rd Panzer Army, to penetrate into the rear of the Soviet army in a pincer offensive and carry out an encirclement operation in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, 400 kilometers deep in the Soviet Union.

After completing this task, Guderian's remaining purpose was to prevent the Soviets from recollecting the remnants of the Western Front (although there were not many), and to prevent Timoshenko from having enough troops to form a new defensive line, thus laying a decisive foundation for the entire war against the Soviet Union.

If nothing else, Smolensk, the ancient Russian city that had become a formidable obstacle for Napoleon's French army on his way to Moscow, was difficult for Reinhardt's German army this time!