Chen Tian remembers that there is a Chinese idiom called "smelling the chicken and dancing".

As soon as the rooster in East Prussia began to crow, Mr. Leninkamp from Russia was already up, and with two thick black circles under his eyes, he drank the glass of milk in front of him, and without eating bread, he let his troops begin to advance from camp. He had just thought that he would be severely punished by the Tsar for defecating in the Berlin Imperial Palace, after all, he and the Kaiser were relatives. So he changed the oath he had made in the morning to booing in the house of the prince of Königsberg, and then let the soldiers, who had not slept well all night, move forward quickly, and try to accomplish his great goal as soon as possible.

"Did you sleep well last night? Feeling nervous? Chentian asked the very young-looking soldier next to him as he chewed his bread.

"Report to His Royal Highness, I wasn't nervous last night, I just got up and went to the toilet a dozen times!" The soldier straightened his back, but did not know whether to salute the prince with his right hand with the milk or with the bread with his left hand.

"It's okay! Relax, in the trenches, I'm just like you, a German soldier! "The night before, Chen Tian had come to inspect the line of defense at the mouth of the Insterburg Gorge, and at night he slept in the trenches with his soldiers.

"Your Highness, the reconnaissance plane has sent a report that the Russians have begun to march here, 3 infantry corps and 4 cavalry divisions have been deployed in the middle, and the other 1 cavalry division is on the left flank, it seems that they intend to force a breakthrough through the gorge!" A staff officer hurriedly ran over and handed a report to Chentian.

Chen Tian picked it up and glanced at it, then turned around and walked towards the front line headquarters.

At this time, the commander of the Russian First Army, General Leinenkamp, also received a report that his Cossack cavalry had detected that the Germans had deployed a defensive line at the Insterburg Pass, but the number of defenders was unknown, and all the scouts who had approached the enemy's line last night had been killed.

"It must have been these damn Germans who didn't get me a good night's sleep yesterday!" Rainingkamp yawned and cursed as he once again asked his men to speed up, and he thought that if the Germans were strong, they would not shrink into the trenches and wait for him to pass, so he was ready to make the first contribution on the Eastern Front.

"Adjutant, go and contact the 2nd Army, ask Samsonov when he will arrive, and by the way tell him that my army group is advancing smoothly and will soon crush the German troops in East Prussia, and I will wait for him at the Davistula!"

His adjutant was about to leave, and he added: "By the way, inform the commander of the North-Western Army Group, General Gilinsky, that our army is about to come into contact with the enemy's small forces!" ”

"Although our army is equal to the invading enemy, only by attracting the enemy to the front of the defensive line can we have a chance to arrange a huge encirclement!" Chen Tian explained to the puzzled staff officers, "The result I want is not to repel this Russian army, I want to annihilate them all, and not a single one will be left!" ”

At ten o'clock in the morning, the Russian field heavy artillery began to bombard the German defensive positions at the mouth of the Insterburg Gorge, and the Cossack cavalry division on their left flank began to enter the Masurian Lake area.

Russian artillery shells were supplied at 244 rounds per day, and without resistance from the enemy's artillery, they poured shells at the German positions with a maximum rate of 440 rounds, forgetting that it was 60 kilometers from the border, and poor logistics did not bring enough supplies up. Finally, the Russian artillery fell silent.

Although his artillery was no longer denied shells, Lenningkamp was very pleased with the continuous shelling for several hours, at which point the German positions fell silent and it seemed that all the soldiers there had been killed by Russian shells.

"The cavalry began to charge! The infantry followed closely behind the cavalry! We're going to take this gorge in one go! With the order of Leninkamp, more than 100,000 Russian troops charged in the open area 50 kilometers wide in front of the Insterburg Gorge, tens of thousands of Cossack cavalry brandished their sabers and rushed towards the German positions, behind them were countless infantry with bayonets, from the gorge, the black tide was coming.

At this time, the commander of the Panzer Corps, Olg, was departing from the fortress area of Könisserburg, east of the Insterburg Gorge, with 100 armored vehicles, 150 trucks, 120 77 mm rapid-fire guns, 30 large-caliber howitzers, and 20,000 soldiers of the Panzer Fighting Vehicle Division and the Mechanized Infantry Division.

In the Masurian Lake area, the Russian Cossack cavalry division encountered the German motorcycle unit that had been waiting here for a long time, and the 5,000 three-wheeled motorcycles had a Firebird light machine gun or Maxim heavy machine gun on it, so when tens of thousands of fierce Cossack cavalry brandished sabers and rushed towards the 15,000 German troops and 5,000 machine guns, a very violent sound of fried beans broke out in the woods, and the leaves fell one after another, and no Cossack came out of the woods alive. Subsequently, the motorcycle unit began to circle the left rear of the Russian army from the other side of the lake area.

In front of the Insterburg Gorge, Lenningkamp rubbed his eyes over and over again, he could hardly believe what he was seeing, he would rather hallucinate because he didn't sleep well, but it was all true. In just one hour, more than 30,000 Cossack cavalry and 45,000 Russian infantry fell in front of the gorge. They didn't fall asleep because of sleepiness, the countless shells flying from behind the position at the mouth of the gorge, and the countless tongues of fire that burst out from the position in an instant, let them lie there peacefully one by one, enjoying the scorching summer noon sun.

Yes! This is the slaughter! The massacre of the Russians by the Germans, the massacre of 200,000 soldiers by 250,000 soldiers, the massacre of countless sabers and rifles by 800 cannons and 7000 machine guns.

If there is God, God will shed tears for it!

Chen Tian silently watched this hellish scene, this is exactly the effect of his spending a lot of money to equip the East Prussian Army with a large number of machine guns, and it is also the result he wants, there is no army in the world that has a machine gun ratio that exceeds the German 8th Army, that is, the East Prussian Army of Chen Tian. A large number of Maxim heavy machine guns and "Firebird" light machine guns have been distributed to every company, platoon, and even squad, and the staggering consumption of ammunition has caused half of the vehicles of the logistics units to transport machine gun ammunition.

But Chen Tian couldn't be happy at this time!

But this is war, and no one has the power to be soft!

"General, the other side asks for negotiations!" When the commander of the Russian army, General Leinenkamp, was in a state of confusion, his adjutant told him that someone was coming across the position with a white flag.

"This ...... Tell the soldiers to stay where they are and keep an eye on every move on the opposite side to prevent the other side from attacking at this time! Leningkamp stood up and carefully sorted out his military uniform, he hadn't lost yet!

"Stupid! You've already lost! Chen Tian stood at the front of the position, watched his envoy with a telescope holding a white flag over countless Russian corpses, and then walked to the position of the Russian army, and the Russian soldiers surrounded him, but were drunk away by their officers. The envoy was there to persuade him to surrender, but Tatsu knew that the Russians would not surrender now, and he only hoped that he could delay for another half an hour so that his flank could complete the encirclement, and preferably provoke the Russian commander to attack again.

Leningkamp did his best to maintain the manners of an aristocracy, politely driving the German envoys away.

As the envoy walked back, he glanced at the Russian artillery, and there were only empty shell boxes and a large pile of shell shells next to it.

After the German envoy left, Leningkamp stood in his temporary headquarters, and the staff officers around him stopped what they were doing, waiting for him to give the order to attack or retreat.

"Attack, or retreat?" Leningkamp himself didn't know what to do.

"General, why don't you attack yet? We must avenge our fallen brethren! We're going to chop those Germans alive! Two officers of the Cossack cavalry rushed into the command headquarters and waved their swords like crazy, so frightened that the staff officers took aside.

"General, attack! Otherwise, what face do we have to go back to our Grand Duke, to our Tsar, to our people? ”

Lenenkamp nodded in a trance.

The 20,000 Cossack cavalry and their mounts rushed frantically towards the German positions like doping, but after a few minutes they all fell off their horses, and the Russian infantry began to retreat.

"Retreat! Fall back! Leningkamp came to his senses, the Germans were well prepared, and even this was a trap they had laid.

"It's late!"

When several signal flares were raised behind the Russian army, Leningkamp sat on the ground and refused to get up no matter how much the staff officers pulled it.

Just after Olg's armored forces and motorized units completed the encirclement of the Russian army, the remaining more than 100 armored vehicles of the Panzer Army began to charge with more than 100,000 German troops. The German soldiers stepped over countless corpses of Russian troops, and shouted with bayonets and rushed towards the Russian army, which was in full retreat.

The armored vehicles quickly rushed into the Russian troops and divided them, and several machine guns on the vehicles opened heavy fire on the crowd, and the retreat of the Russian soldiers finally turned into scattering.

On the back of the Russian army, armored vehicles, trucks, motorcycles and German soldiers of the Panzer Corps formed a huge semicircle, 6,956 machine guns, 150 artillery pieces and 35,000 soldiers formed a huge Aegis, tearing all the Russian soldiers who tried to escape from the encirclement under the dense fire net.

With a network of firepower in front and countless pursuers in the back, the Russian soldiers had lost their fighting spirit and surrendered one after another.

Just as Lenenkamp attempted to commit suicide with a gun, a German soldier kicked his pistol out and pinned him to the ground. On this sunny summer afternoon, even fools can see that this guy in a gorgeous general's uniform is a big fish, a big fish.

The battle ended at 4 p.m., and the German soldiers were still in time for dinner. The large crowd of Russian prisoners was gathered into a large clearing, as black as they had been when they attacked. It's just that at this time, these people have lost the courage to move forward in the morning, and one by one they are dejected, and they sit there silently. It is a great tragedy that they have been away from their homes for only a few days and are about to embark on a long life as prisoners of war.

In addition to the troops responsible for logistics and transportation, the 210,000 men of the 1st Army of the Russian Northwest Army Group were completely annihilated, of which 108,000 were killed and the remaining 102,000 were captured. It took the Germans nearly 70 trains to transport the prisoners to the rear, and the more than 400 Russian artillery pieces were captured except for those damaged in battle, and the captured horses were herded into makeshift livestock pens.

In this battle, the tanks of the Panzer Army did not appear directly in front of the Russian army. However, after the Russian artillery bombardment of the Insterburg Gap position, they drove to the rear of the position and participated in the shelling of the charging Russian soldiers.