Don't look at the Allied forces rushing to the vicinity of the Don River from all places, only a distance of tens or more than a hundred kilometers. www.biquge.info But this section of the road is not a vehicle that requires people to walk on their own legs, and it is especially important in the extreme weather and terrain conditions at this moment. Many of the officers and men who rushed to the front line with their legs would freeze to death and starve to death on the way. Because of the lack of supplies, they will be extremely drained on their life force on the way. Many people will be exhausted to death.

Along the way, the commander of the German Sixth Infantry Army, General Paulus, sat in his air-conditioned car, and through the window, he saw the corpses of strangely shaped, stiff Allied officers and soldiers lying on the road outside. His heart was full of sorrow.

These were excellent soldiers who had been trained for a long time, and they were able to fight fiercely against the powerful Ming Army Group Southern for a long time, and they were able to not retreat for a long time. But now they did not die on the battlefield, but were swallowed up by the cold Russian weather. At this moment, Paulus was extremely angry that the domestic high-ranking people had sent them to this ghost place to die.

The Russians' war should be fought by the Russians themselves!

Paulus, who had seen too many tragic scenes along the way, secretly made up his mind to bring his men home no matter what. Even their ashes.

Before the smoke of the shelling had cleared, a large number of German officers and soldiers rushed into the city of Batesk under the cover of armored units. To everyone's surprise, they met little resistance in the city. The imaginary battle did not take place, and the Ming defenders here retreated to Rostov-on-Don on the other side of the river via several bridges across the Don River soon after the German attack. Handed over Batesk, which seemed to be very important, to the Allies.

The Germans who stormed the city of Batesk felt very strange, and they did not understand why the Ming army should abandon this important city. After all, it's only a few kilometres from Rostov-on-Don on the other side of the river. The city is a great place to start.

Garrisoned in Rostov-on-Don was the 6th Marine Division under the 2nd Expeditionary Force of the Ming Marine Corps. This formidable force of 28,000 men and men deployed only one battalion of troops on the other side of the river in the city of Bataisk to keep on guard. And soon after the German attack, he was ordered to retreat, leaving the city of Bataiysk to the Germans.

The main reason for the abandonment of Bataysk was that it was located on the south bank of the Don River, and there was almost nothing to defend. Facing a siege on three sides is very detrimental to the defense. The Marines decided to place the main point of interdiction on the line of the Don River, rather than on a lonely city.

The troops of the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division of the German Sixth Army, which had launched the attack, rushed into the deserted city of Bataisk, and became a little dazed and at a loss for a moment. Because there were neither Ming defenders nor local Russians. The whole city was horribly quiet.

However, the Allied soldiers at this time were even more terrifying, they were already tormented by cold and hunger, and they were about to go crazy. After the capture of the city, the German officers and soldiers searched almost all corners of the city in search of everything they thought would be useful. It really made them find a lot of good things.

Because the Ming army was well supplied, it was rare to rummage through the belongings of the locals, and the wealthy Ming army generally did not look down on it, and Russia was too poor here. Therefore, after the locals were forcibly taken away, there are still a lot of good things left here.

The German officers and soldiers who had been crawling in the field for many days even had the opportunity to sleep in bed. The soft mattresses and sheltered from the biting cold wind made many German soldiers feel like they were in paradise.

In addition to this, the Germans also found a lot of food in the city, even alcohol and sweets. After all, it's a city, and these things are still there. The German officers and soldiers who entered the city enjoyed a beautiful experience of bread, jerky, and vodka. Even after dark, many German officers and soldiers wrapped in various fabrics that they had found from nowhere and hid in buildings that had not been destroyed in the war and had a good night's sleep.

Some of the German officers were able to sleep in the plush beds and enjoy the warmth of the fireplaces in the well-kept rooms. This kind of life was as happy as being in heaven when I struggled to survive in the ice and snow.

But is Barthaysk really a paradise? Perhaps these German officers and soldiers did not know that in many cases, there was only a thin line between heaven and hell.

Although the Ming army did not think of holding on to Bataysk, they also did not think about letting the Germans easily succeed. The main reason why they easily let Bartesque out before was because they had already set up the foreshadowing.

Barthaysk is a city with fixed coordinates. The Ming artillerymen had already calculated the location of this place clearly, and even divided different coordinate areas into various areas in the city.

The artillery units of the 6th Marine Division of the Ming Army, as well as the units of several artillery regiments assigned to them, carried out a sudden and fierce artillery attack on Bataisk, which had fallen into silence, that night.

More than 200 heavy artillery pieces carried out an intensive shelling of 30 minutes according to their own already demarcated coordinates. The shelling was so intense that it lit up the entire city of Bataisk. The flying shells woke many officers and men of the German 3rd Motorized Rifle Division who entered Bartesk from their sleep, and many German officers and soldiers died directly in their sleep.

The panicked German officers and soldiers scattered in all directions, scurrying around the city like headless flies, trying to find a place to escape the steel storm, but there was no safe place in the city by this time. Everywhere the shadow of death loomed.

Half an hour later, the Ming artillery bombardment finally fell silent. By this time, the officers and men of the German 3rd Motorized Rifle Division had already suffered heavy losses in Bataisk. At least more than 5,000 German officers and men were killed or wounded in this round of shelling, a figure that Paulus could not accept when he received the report. Before they could get into contact with the battle, they were severely beaten, and the mood of the German officers and soldiers can be imagined.

The 3rd Motorized Rifle Division, which was originally the forward force, was almost crippled before it could launch an attack on Rostov-on-Don. Originally, the full strength of this division was nearly 17,000 people, but it has never been replenished since it came to the front line to fight. After experiencing a retreat, as well as abandoning the sick and wounded. The strength of this division is already less than 10,000. And a round of artillery bombardment by the Ming army will make them withdraw directly from the battlefield.

The Ming artillery attack at night had a great shock to the Allies, and the Allies were unable to organize an attack on Rostov-on-Don for the whole day of the next day.

Paulus personally ordered that all troops should not be within range of Ming artillery at night, which meant that the Germans had to attack Rostov-on-Don from at least a few kilometers away. This was almost unbearable news for the exhausted German infantry and the armored units that did not have much fuel.

Paulus's idea was simple, that is, the power in their hands was no longer enough to support the troops to carry out a long-term attack, and it was better to devote all their strength to one attack in one go than to constantly wear it down.

Paulus's battle plan was supported by the commander of the German 4th Panzer Army, General Hort. He also believed that it was impossible to fight a protracted war in the current state of starvation and haste of the German army. Therefore, he also tends to concentrate all his forces on a super-large-scale attack operation.

In the days that followed, Paulus continued to send small forces to reconnoiter and infiltrate the Don River, and even a small elite reconnaissance force penetrated the Ming army's defense line after crossing the frozen Don River, making contact with Manstein's forces that had gone south to rescue them.

As more and more Allied troops arrived on the banks of the Don River, the Allied commander-in-chief in the encirclement, the veteran German general Karl Brown. Rudolph. Feng. General Rundstedt gave the official order to attack on 13 February. And this day was also the day when Manstein on the other side of the river mobilized all remaining forces for the last rescue operation. The Germans on both sides knew that success or failure was at stake.

The distance between the German forces on both sides had been reduced to less than thirty kilometers. After nightmarish days, the Allied forces in the encirclement finally saw hope of escaping. Because the German army was the leader, the German General Staff called this combat operation Operation Victory Day. They hoped that the armies on both sides would succeed in breaking the last blockade on this day.

In the early hours of February 13, it was overcast and snowy. The continuous snowfall greatly affected the movement of the Allied forces, making it very difficult for them to move. However, the heavy snow also had an advantage for the Allies, that is, the powerful Ming army army fighter unit could not participate in the battle. This was good news for the Allies. The Ming Army brought too much sorrow to the Allies.

At half past five in the morning, it was dark, and goose-feather snow was falling from the leaden clouds that seemed to be overhead. In the wilderness outside the city of Bataisk, the last powerful artillery force of the Allied forces was waiting for orders from above.

This artillery unit, with more than four hundred heavy guns of various calibers, was the last artillery unit of the Allied forces in the encirclement. All the other artillery pieces had already been destroyed by the Allied officers and soldiers themselves during the retreat to avoid falling into the hands of the Ming army.

These artillery pieces were piled up next to them, and in order to be able to transport them here, at least tens of thousands of officers and soldiers lost the opportunity to arrive here in trucks. Most of them will die on the way. (To be continued.) )