"It's not a joke, it's true, I've had people confirm it, the telegraph operator who contacted Mark Melgay said that there has been no response since noon, I'm afraid our man is dead. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 General Zukauskas said in a deep voice: "General, I invite you here just to ask us about our plans for the future.

"Without Makmergay, we have lost the supplies we have hoarded there, and we only have enough food and grass to last a week at most. We must recapture Mark Melgay within a week and open the transport line to Kaunas. Otherwise, we're all going to die here. General Goltz said solemnly.

Although General Golz was reluctant to do his best to help the Lithuanians fight in peacetime, now that the Soviet army has cut off their rear routes, cut off their food and grass, and has threatened the safety of the German troops, General Golz has no choice but to fight hard.

If the army was broken up without food, the Soviet army would not let them go because they were German.

"It's one o'clock in the afternoon, we have to rearrange the course of action of the troops, we don't have any plan to deal with this situation. We must be careful that the Soviet troops counterattack while we retreat, and we need to have a strong contingent to the rear. General Zukauskas said, looking at Goltz.

General Golz said decisively: "For the sake of victory, I am willing to command the troops of His Royal Highness, but I hope that the Lithuanian army will be able to retreat as soon as possible." ”

If these Lithuanians were to be left behind, General Golz was afraid that at that time these Lithuanians would collapse directly in the Soviet offensive.

Along the way, the Soviets discovered that the Lithuanians were retreating, and continued to launch small pursuits, all of which were driven back by the elite German troops.

After repelling five attacks by the Soviet army in a row, the Soviet army finally knew how powerful the German army was, and followed the Lithuanian army thirty or forty kilometers behind.

Three days passed.

During this time, Kaunas's Lithuanian army cobbled together a fleet of a dozen ships in an attempt to force a breakthrough of the blockade of Makmergay and transport supplies to support the Lithuanian army on the southern front.

However, Ivan commanded the army to set up dozens of large and small cannons near the city walls, and bombarded the ships on the river to the north, killing seven transport ships at once, so frightened that they had to flee back to Kaunas.

At noon, the Lithuanian army finally returned to the city of Makmergay.

General Zukauskas, with some of his officers, lurked in the forest near Makmergay, holding binoculars and carefully observing the situation inside the city.

General Zukauskas was amazed by the change in the entire east gate, and through the telescope, the originally low earthen walls became taller and thicker, and a trench several meters deep had been dug in front of the wall. The walls were also topped with dense semi-circular bastions made of wood and sandbags, and several completely enclosed bastions.

"Oh God! Is this still Mark Melgey? A Lithuanian officer next to him exclaimed.

"How could they have built the entire wall like this in three days? What a miracle. Another Lithuanian officer asked, confused.

"How can two or three thousand people complete such a large project in two or three days?"

What they didn't know was that this miracle was born with the help of thousands of Lithuanian prisoners of war.

In order to build the defenses of the East Gate, Ivan asked the prisoners of war to assist the army in carrying wood and sandbags, and he divided them into teams of five, each of which had to carry twenty thick tree trunks a day from the woods a few kilometers away, or two hundred strips of sand from the nearby river beach.

It was thanks to the hard work of these coolies that the Soviet army was able to build the eastern wall of the city in such a short period of time.

Under the protection of the guards, General Zukauskas and his party quietly went around the forest to the south side of Makmergay.

"Fortunately, the wall on this side has not changed much from last time, but it has been raised a little bit and the trenches have been dug. Fortunately, this side is different from the East Gate, so it is a little more reasonable. Said a Lithuanian officer.

If the Soviet army had been able to build the entire wall on three sides in three days, General Zukauskas could not help but wonder the number of enemies in the intelligence.

General Zukauskas and others even made a detour to the western side of the town to observe the situation of the western wall, where the defenses were the weakest.

If you continue westward, you will be able to return to Kaunas, the control center of Lithuania. But they couldn't leave the army behind and go back on their own.

Returning to the army blocked on the eastern flank of Markmergey, General Zukauskas turned to General Golz and asked: "The Soviet army has vigorously repaired the fortifications after the capture of Makmergay, this is a hard nut. Can we bypass Makmergay and go straight back from the nearby woods? ”

General Goltz thought for a moment and said, "If we were just a group of dozens or hundreds of people, we would naturally be able to avoid all kinds of towns and quietly pass through the forest around them. But with an army of nearly 10,000 men here, we can't hide from the enemy in the town.

What's more, the cannons, carriages and other things in our army can't pass through the forest at all, and if we force these cannons with us, I'm afraid we will walk slower than a snail! ”

"What if we ditch these things like cannons?" General Zukauskas gritted his teeth and continued.

"Then let's wait to be pursued by these Soviet troops like rabbits! Without artillery, we simply could not defend ourselves against the onslaught of the Soviet troops. I remember that a large number of artillery shells and other weapons and ammunition were hoarded in the city of MacMelgay.

They can crush the morale of our army as long as they drag their artillery all the way to follow us and shell them. ”

"After we drop the artillery, we don't take the main road." General Zukauskas asked.

"Our troops are not trained in professional mountain warfare, and they are veterans who have gotten to the feet of Mark Melgay through the mountains, and I don't think we can outrun them.

Even if we threw these dozens of guns back, we would all be infantry. And the Soviet troops on the opposite side, having turned the troops in the rear, could be armed with the cannons and rifles that we had hoarded in Makmergay. With these weapons, the Soviets were able to arm an army of 10,000 people. With artillery, our cities, trenches can no longer hold them back.

Perhaps in less than a week, the Soviet army would take Kaunas with these cannons on the walls. Do we want our soldiers to use rifles against enemy artillery? General Goltz said.

"Artillery is very important, but I can't let my army bleed here, let my people bleed here. As long as we have people, we can buy more guns! General Zukauskas roared.