But today, Marshal Voroshilov personally came to this small workshop to "guide the work", which is somewhat unusual.

Due to their poor performance at the outbreak of war, Marshal Voroshilov and Marshal Budyonny, who had a "big beard and a small brain", had lost the trust of Stalin and were now idle.

At the beginning of the war, it took the Germans less than 20 days to advance more than 500 kilometers from the borders of East Prussia and Lithuania to Pskov. With only 300 kilometers from Pskov to Leningrad, and at this rate of advance, Leningrad was about to fall soon (at that time everything seemed to be going according to Hitler's wishful thinking, which he had intended to occupy on July 21, 41), and Stalin was furious when he heard the news, and he was definitely not the slightest bit worried about the current dire situation. So as soon as Pskov lost, he immediately reprimanded Voroshilov, who was once his "close comrade-in-arms", in an extremely harsh tone: "How did Pskov lose it? Where are you going to retreat? Evacuate to the Arctic Ocean? Voroshilov, who was sincerely frightened, hurriedly expressed his determination: "Comrade Stalin, I am well aware of my duties, and I will spare no effort to fulfill the instructions entrusted to me by the Party and the people." ”

It is not clear whether Stalin had confidence in defending Leningrad at that time, but when the Germans cut off Leningrad's last land line of communication with the outside world and almost surrounded Leningrad, Voroshilov must have lost confidence in holding Leningrad, otherwise he would not have run to the front in the hope of being killed by the Germans (on November 9, 41, in Tikhvin, Voroshilov's convoy met the German number one tank ace shooter Kurt. Könispel's "Findsak" tank crew, fortunately, the officers' ability to identify enemy vehicles was much better than that of ordinary soldiers, and the Russian convoy immediately turned around and ran, but still destroyed several cars for the German tanks, and Voroshilov almost became Könispel's ghost).

However, after expressing his determination that day, Voroshilov still achieved something: he urgently mobilized millions of Leningrad residents to build three lines of defense around Leningrad day and night, the outermost one was the "Luga" defense line with Luga as the center, from Jingishepp at the mouth of the Luga River in the west to Khimshek on the west bank of Lake Ilmen in the east, with a total length of 180 kilometers and running from northwest to southeast. This improvised line of defense played no small role in the later battles. This may be one of the reasons why Stalin did not push him to the end like Marshal Kulik.

Kotin asked about the modification, and after learning that everything was going well, he turned to Marshal Voroshilov and said: "I didn't expect that the only man in the tank crew of the 'Mother Fatherland' turned out to be a young man who was proficient in artillery. He even came up with the idea of installing the Navy's 85-mm gun (52-K 1939 85-mm 55.2x diameter anti-aircraft gun), which now seems to be as suitable as the 'KV-220' tank. ”

Voroshilov nodded, came to the almost finished "KV-220-1" tank, and looked closely at the new tank, which was much taller and more powerful than the "KV-1".

"There is information that the Germans are also working on new heavy tanks." Voroshilov looked at it for a while, then turned to Kotin and asked, "They didn't say what the task Zhukov gave them, did they?" ”

"Nope." Kotin shook his head, "The NKVD people do not know what the task is, only that it is a very important task, and it was before Comrade Stalin ordered them to give them a new tank." General Zhukov's order was for them to form a special tank platoon, all of which were heavy tanks, and instructed the relevant departments to fully cooperate, and these four tanks were all named by them. ”

"That is, maybe Comrade Stalin doesn't even know what they're going to do anymore (meaning Stalin can't see through everything)." Voroshilov couldn't help but smile as if he remembered something.

"Maybe as you say, they're going to deal with the heavy tanks of the Germans." Cojing said.

"Possibly." Voroshilov replied nondeniably, "I will soon go to Moscow, maybe I can find an opportunity to ask Zhukov what is going on, and if possible, I am willing to give them a little useful help." ”

Ke Jing was keenly aware that his father-in-law had something to say, but he had long learned not to ask more questions that he shouldn't ask, as long as he knew that his father-in-law was reminding him intentionally or unintentionally that it would definitely be beneficial and harmless to support the work of the "521" crew.

Kotin did not know that Voroshilov, who had been demoted by Stalin and appointed as the ridiculous "commander-in-chief of the partisan movement" and the "chairman of the spoils of war committee" under the National Defense Committee, went to Moscow to take with him a number of important Russian art treasures and treasures as a gift, and these treasures were precisely the ones that the "521" crew had taken back from the Germans.

After sending off his father-in-law, Kotin decided to take advantage of the next few days to continue to improve the "KV-220" and "T-150", and to sum up the useful experience gained from them and apply them to the new "JS" series of tanks named after the great Comrade Stalin that may appear in the future......

Voroshilov flew to Moscow four days later, and on the day of his arrival in Moscow, the Chief of the General Staff Zhukov was introducing Vladimir? Yakovlevich went to see Stalin, and in fact they had known each other as early as the defense of Tsaritsyn. Having met with them, Stalin listened to Zhukov's routine report on the situation on the battlefield, and Voroshilov was also present.

Voroshilov was deeply surprised by the well-organized report and the fluency with which he answered Stalin's questions. Through Zhukov's report and through Zhukov's and Stalin's question-and-answer sessions, although he was in Stalin's office, he had a general and thorough understanding of the war situation in various places. Yakovlevich, on the other hand, was told that he had been appointed commander of the 28th Army, which was to cooperate with the other newly formed armies to occupy defensive areas in the rear of the combat units in the west.

Although Voroshilov knew that all this had little to do with him, he paid full attention and listened carefully to the situation of the armies under the command of the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, Marshal Timoshenko. In his imagination, he had almost clearly seen that the western front was unstable, and the battle layout of his troops was full of loopholes...... Looking at the huge map, in the northwest, in a 280-kilometer-wide strip, the 22nd Army under the command of Lieutenant General Yershakov could only defend the Smolensk direction with 6 divisions to pin down the enemy's 16 divisions.