"We will broadcast in Russian, Lithuanian and Polish, but in coordination with the division headquarters and the assault engineering units, there will be a curfew in the whole city after 7 p.m. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Lin Jun didn't say anything, this is all a normal need, especially the curfew is very important in the current situation.

"Batyusin, Comrade Pulkaev and I both believe that your current military rank is too low, and in view of the situation of the 284th Division's operation and your personal reality, I will now promote you to the rank of colonel. But I guess you'll be able to put on a tall hat soon, just because there are no ready-made generals' uniforms in the front. ”

"Serve the USSR!"

Ba Qiuning, who had already sat down, stood up again, and he, the lieutenant colonel division commander, was sometimes really embarrassed, because many regiment commanders in other troops were colonels, and he was obviously too low. However, the promotion of commanders to the rank of general requires the approval of the Supreme Command, and the military uniforms are also issued by Moscow, so Lin Jun can't change them like a trick.

But it's really fast, when Stalin understands the situation here, a large number of commanders of the Northwest Front will be promoted, and Batyunin will basically not be able to run away from the rank of major general.

The orderlies brought dinner, which was very simple - a piece of roast pork and a few potatoes per person, and some raw green onions and some black bread, but Lin Jun gave the raw green onions to Ba Qiuning, and he didn't like it.

After eating, each person was served a cup of coffee, which of course thanks to the Americans, was instant.

Knowing that the marshal did not drink strong alcohol, Batyuk did not bring vodka.

For dinner, Gusev sent in a folder, which was thick and large, "Marshal, the manuscript of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Front Army, and some photographs. ”

"It's fast enough."

Lin Jun said that the first manuscript sent to Moscow should be read by him first, but he didn't expect those people to even wash out the photos, I don't know how to do it, did those people bring the magnifier and the printing potion?

I really brought them all, the medicine powder was carried in packets, as well as sealed photo paper and a simple magnifying machine that was disassembled, and the comrades in the propaganda and agitation department were still very efficient.

Lin Jun read it seriously for a while, and the writing was not bad, anyone who saw this report in the rear would definitely be furious about the fascist atrocities! And then there are the pictures, with piles of slaughtered corpses, scrawny children, and old people......

Once published in the newspapers, the effect is very sensational!

"There are still some film films, but you have to go to Riga to process them." Gusev said on the side.

"Marshal, there should be a transport plane to Riga at night to send the front headquarters overnight?" Batyunin asked.

"Yes." Lin Jun took out the pen in his coat pocket and signed his name on the manuscript. As soon as he closed his handout folder, he said to Gusev: "Give this back to the propagandists, and ask them to send someone to cross the river immediately to the field airfield, and send this night plane that let the first night flight back to Riga be sent to the front headquarters." Tell the command to send it to Moscow as soon as possible after copying. ”

Gusev turned to leave, and the head of the Propaganda and Agitation Division of the Front Army outside the door was waiting anxiously, and finally waited for Gusev to come out and hurriedly inquired about the situation.

After listening to Gusev's words, he was relieved, at least the marshal did not reproach, and he hurried to the airport himself.

The subordinates who came with Comrade Chief this time are still busy all over the city, but he himself is about to return to Riga in advance, and he is still indispensable there.

At 20 o'clock in the evening, Lin Jun decided to return to his own station in the headquarters of the assault army group on the north bank of the Nereis River, but before he left, a report forwarded by the headquarters of the group army reached the headquarters of the 284th Division - in the direction of Valentris, the troops were counterattacked by superior German mechanized troops, and the Red Army was driven out of the city; Night fighters also spotted a large number of German mechanized units in the direction of Vilnius near Yeznas, one of which had a convoy more than 30 kilometers long!

Field Marshal Ritter von Loeb, commander of Army Group North, was clearly not going to let Vilnius lose sight of this strategic point, and the 41st Motorized Corps, commanded by General Hans-Reinhardt's Panzer Corps, with the cooperation of two divisions of the Second Army, was striking at Vilnius with two attack arrows in the pincer shape. The main forces were led by the 8th Panzer Division under the command of Major General Erich Brandenberger, and the 36th Motorized Division and the 269th Infantry Division drove the vanguard of the Red Army out of the direction of Valentris!

Lin Jun's brows furrowed, the situation was urgent!

"Marshal, we can hold out until the rainy season, please rest assured, as long as the pontoon bridge on the river continues." Batyunin could not have said: Please ask the marshal to return to the headquarters of the group army, then the marshal will not leave nine times out of ten.

For the time being, Lin Jun really didn't leave, watching Ba Qiuning deploy troops and deploy troops based on the urban area. Army Group meant to hold Vilnius, use the city as a support point to hold the Germans, and if the southern banks of the two flanks were captured, set up a second line of blocking defense on the north bank of the two wings of the Nereis River, dragging the Germans into the mud of the rainy season!

If the positions on the south bank of the two flanks fail, the troops in the city will be surrounded, except for the pontoon bridge in the north of the city, which is equivalent to being cut off, and the form will take a sharp turn!

However, Lin Jun is not worried, Tukhachevsky is not a mediocre talent, and there will be effective countermeasures.

"Batyunin, I will now appoint you as the commander of the defense of Vilnius, and control all the troops fortified in the city and the surrounding suburbs."

To have a head, you can't rely on coordination for everything.

"Yes, Marshal! We will defend Vilnius to the death! ”

At present, Vilnius and its environs have three infantry divisions and other units, which together are almost two full-strength infantry divisions, one assault engineer brigade and one missing artillery division, and almost two tank regiments of mobile forces.

Together with the heavy artillery units of the army group on the north bank of the Nereis River, which had not yet had time to cross the river, Vilnius could fight.

At 10 o'clock in the evening, 5 kilometers south of the railway station in the south of the city, the outpost of the 284th Division exchanged fire with the German advance troops, and with the help of the artillery of the superior rear artillery to beat the Germans back!

It was at this time that Lin Jun's convoy returned to the north bank of the Nereis River and went to the headquarters of the army group - Tukhachevsky called him directly, and the front army was ready to deal with it and asked him to leave Vilnius.

Now Lin Jun is not the political commissar of "the city is in the people, and the city is dead" in Minsk, it is time to leave, otherwise it will be in the way, and the commanders below will be tied up because of their own existence.

More than an hour earlier, a battalion of Red Army troops in the ghetto had received an order to leave the supplies in the ghetto and hand them over to the management committee of the ghetto, which had just been organized today, and the troops were stationed in the factory area on the east side of the railway station.

Now the whole city is mobilized, and the streets are full of infantry and anti-tank artillery units marching forward, making a disturbance but not chaos, but suffering a small number of Red Army troops in the quarantine area.

Just like Tozic and Kodelinkov's squad, their superiors don't know where to send them, and when they came to the quarantine area, they explained that they don't have to return to the team for the time being, and they probably won't be able to find it all at once anyway.

As soon as the two sergeants combined: the others were all formed troops, and their own 20-odd people were temporarily homeless wanderers, so they simply joined whichever unit they encountered - the infantry battalion that was originally in the quarantine area did not want them, and the captain battalion commander left them to deal with the aftermath, and his own troops got into trucks and left first with hundreds of relatively strong Jewish volunteers.

While scolding the captain for his "immoral" behavior of leaving a lot of troubles and patting his ass and leaving, the people who stayed behind also left the follow-up matter to the Jews themselves as quickly as possible, and prepared to kick out.

In the end, only the military doctors and ambulances were left, and the manpower was organized to expand the territory of the medical clinic, preparing to combine them into a small field hospital.

Hearing that the troops were going to be put into battle immediately, the Jewish members of the temporarily integrated management committee of the quarantine area did not panic, but organized a volunteer team of young and middle-aged people who were in good physical condition, and prepared to help the Red Army go to the front line as porters and stretcher teams.

In the quarantine area of 20,000 people, nearly 2,000 young people were organized at the first time: these survivors were afraid of the war, but even more afraid that the Germans would reoccupy Vilnius! It would have been impossible to cross the river and flee the city, and the order for a city-wide curfew had been received a few hours before - to fight for the pontoon bridge with the troops crossing the river and into battle would be to seek their own death, and even the most timid man would not have lost his head and done so.

Most of the young and strong laborers were sent to work in the logistics station, the medical station, and the artillery position, but there were still seventy or eighty people waiting at the entrance of the police station - they were also volunteers, and they were the "best of the best" among the volunteers, and they were skilled in the use of weapons.

After explaining the follow-up to the Jewish elders, Toziqi walked out of the gate of the police station, saw the line of volunteers dressed in various clothes and the soldiers on the side, and shouted: "Go!" ”

It really smells like a death squad, the streets are full of people, cheering at this small detachment, and even some of the old, weak, sick and disabled people who have difficulty walking come out, shouting slogans to kill all evil fascists! Kill them! Revenge for the children! …….

The power of hatred is enormous, it can turn a flock of sheep into a tiger!

At the head of the marching procession, Kodelinnikov said to Tozic as he walked: "I don't know if the warehouse is still there." ”

"It's still there, I've already asked Sasha to go and see it first."

A few minutes later, the group arrived at a chapel outside the quarantine area, where two Red Army privates were guarding the door: inside were some captured German weapons.

Most of the new weapons have already been shipped in advance, but there are still a lot of them. A crowd poured inside, picking up German equipment - automatic weapons, including submachine guns, assault rifles, and machine guns, were left intact, and only a few were broken and unusable. There were still some 98k, and a German mortar with a caliber of 80 mm was found, probably because no one would use it in the troops who came to select the equipment.

"Do you want to bring this thing with you?"

"My people won't use it, they can't aim." Tozic said to Kodelinkov: It's a pity, some of his men can use mortars, but no one really has a good time with this guy who lacks sights and doesn't know how to perform, although there are still many boxes of shells and ****** module boxes that are obviously used in this gun.

"Comrade sergeant, I can try, in the First World War we often did not use aiming and division to carry out artillery shelling." A Jew in his forties, leaning over to examine the shells, turned his head and said.

"Can you use it?"

"I was a mortar artillery in the last war, but at that time I participated in the German army and fought on the Western Front."

He explained with a wry smile: It was the unpredictable that the world was unpredictable, and maybe he had provided artillery support for "that corporal" back then.

In this way, this veteran of the First World War named Benjamin became the commander of this mortar without an aiming device, but he couldn't walk fast with a 19-kilogram barrel on his back, and it was estimated that he couldn't even carry a bracket and a base.

The three soldiers were asked to carry the mortars separately, and a four-wheeled carriage found by the people outside the church helped a lot, piling up two or three hundred kilograms of ammunition, explosives, and grenades that could not be carried on it, and seven or eight people pushed the carriage, which was supposed to be drawn by two horses.

Bring everything you can to use, even the two privates who were supposed to guard the church have been requisitioned - their troops are also to the south, and the useful things in the warehouse have been removed, and they have nothing to do here, so they join this ragtag army of their own accord.

Jewish policeman Martin was also on the team, but he had already changed the "dogskin" and was wearing a fitter's winter overalls with many pockets, which had been given to him by his fitter neighbors: warm, waterproof and tough!

Lots of pockets and practical. The lower two were stuffed with bullets, one of the two large pockets in front of his chest held two packets of compressed biscuits, and the other was stuffed with four M39 oval grenades. Carrying a large kettle with a thermal jacket on his shoulder, this is the baby of the aunt next door! Around his waist was an exaggeratedly wide belt, which smelled of an armed belt - it was also given by a neighbor fitter, a belt commonly used by fitters and electricians, with many sockets on it for all kinds of tools.

But instead of wrenches and vices, four M24 grenades are stuck in the belt!

Although Martin had never been a soldier, he was an old man in the post office, and he had received some military training, and they used to be armed with rifles, and they always had to train once a year. I am also familiar with this German rifle, although I used not to use the 98K, but the longer old 98 rifle.

There were a few others who, like Martin, had never been a soldier but were skilled in using rifles, including the former banker who walked next to Martin and who lived in the same apartment with him—the men in the house were all here, and another mechanic who was in a little poor health was happy to trade his cheap coat for the banker's Houni coat.

One relied on being a "policeman" to eat more, and the other relied on a pile of jewelry he didn't know how to hide to exchange for food in the black market to fill his stomach, and the two were in decent health.

Tozić was a little strange when the banker came to sign up, but he finally agreed to the banker's request - this guy named Moses used to have his own bank in Poland, which was said to have been passed down for two generations, and was very rich, typical of a bourgeois rich man. However, as soon as the Germans arrived in Poland, he ran to his hometown of Lithuania, and the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs did not do anything to this old banker who had no bank, and he also got a job as a cashier in the agricultural department thanks to his friend.

When the Germans arrived, because they were Jewish, they lost nothing but some valuable jewelry and a few sets of clothes that they and their families had hidden. One of the two sons died of illness in the quarantine area, and even his wife's wedding ring was not exchanged for a little medicine for dysentery!

The more Moses thought about it, the more angry he became, and the Red Army wanted manpower, so he persuaded his timid wife to sign up - he loved to hunt when he was in his glory, not only double-barreled shotguns, but also several rifles!

"Moses, are you afraid?" Listening to the sound of explosions in the distance, Martin asked his neighbors.

"It's a little, but it's not afraid to think about the kids." Moses is a bit of a "wind and sluggishness, easy to water cold, strong men are gone and never return!"

When the team went out of the street, they ran into a mixed artillery group, and a captain shouted at the somewhat strange group: "Where are you going?" ”

"To the south, at the train station. Can you get us to join you? Tozich saw that there were quite a few infantry mixed in the artillery, and they were all ZIS-3 cannons, presumably anti-tank artillery.

"Welcome!"

Hearing the captain's answer, Tozić and his team followed them in the direction of the train station.

"Sergeant, who are you carrying?" A corporal with a machine gun on his shoulders asked Tozich, apparently he was a little strange.

"A combat squad, infantry and assault sappers. Those were militias organized in the ghetto, and we armed ourselves in a seized warehouse. ”

On the side, a medium jeep dragged a cannon by, and there were more than a dozen people "piled up" on the car, and a lieutenant with a wrapped head was sitting in the co-pilot seat, also looking this way.

"Lieutenant, it's Jew." Valykin, who was in the back, leaned against the artillery mirror and said to Shuklin.

"What happened to the Jews? It can also fight, and there are Jewish comrades among the defenders of the Pavlov building. Glancing at Vallekin, Shuklin interrupted his curiosity.

Two hours earlier, they had received an order to evacuate Mount Gediminas, and they were busy moving artillery and ammunition down the hill again, with the new mission of stationing at the railway station and cooperating with an infantry battalion of the 284th Division to hold there.

Granov, who was supposed to be in the hospital, also ran back - the hospital told that all the wounded who could move would be sent to the north side of the Neres, and Granov, who had just slept in the warm storeroom, ran out to find something to eat. Upon hearing the news of the German counterattack, he immediately "discharged himself from the hospital without permission" and returned to the artillery position.

Logistics brought in a lot of armor-piercing shells for use against tanks, and only a battalion of 122mm howitzers and an artillery observation post were left on the top of the hill, ready to warp to support the forward battle. (To be continued.) )