The number of Russian troops near Ryazan was very numerous. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoIf it were replaced by the Ming Army, so many troops would almost be able to catch up with the strength of Army Group Center. However, in the case of the Russian army, most of these troops were dissatisfied, and most of the troops were traumatized by the Ming army in the previous battles, resulting in heavy losses.

The Russian army fights and likes to carry out counter-charges when defending. When attacking, he likes to use crushing tactics such as a sea of people or a sea of tanks. This tactic can crush the enemy with strong and continuous pressure when facing an enemy who is not strong or lacks a lot of technical equipment, thus causing a huge rout of the enemy army.

However, for a Ming army that outnumbered and outnumbered them in both quantity and quality, this tactic was of no use other than casualty figures and eye-popping reports of battle damage.

The units of the Russian army, which were not very full, suffered heavy losses after fierce battles with the Ming army, especially with the powerful mechanized units of the Ming army. Although there are many numbers, the number of Russian troops gathered near Ryazan is actually only a few hundred thousand. And most of them were infantry, who were seriously lacking in heavy mechanical weapons. There was neither armored forces nor heavy artillery. With rifles and machine guns alone, it was impossible to stop the onslaught of the Ming armored group in any case.

The Russian troops near Moscow originally had a lot of heavy technical equipment. However, most of them were brought into the encirclement of the Ming army by the troops led by Prince Vasily, and then destroyed.

And the remaining armored forces also suffered heavy losses when Zhukov launched a rescue operation. In addition to being equipped with a variety of anti-tank weapons, the infantry units of the Ming Army have now begun to gradually equip themselves with individual anti-tank barrels. And Army Group Center was the first unit to be popularized on a large scale. This directly led to heavy losses for Zhukov's troops during offensive operations. So much so that now when facing another assault by the Ming army, the Russian army cannot find a tank division-level formed armored unit to carry out a counter-shock and block the offensive of the Ming army's armored forces.

In view of this grim battlefield situation, Zhukov, who knew that he could not hold Ryazan, suggested to Grand Duke Nikolai that part of the infantry group be left in the Ryazan area to contain and hinder the powerful offensive of the Ming army. The rest of the troops withdrew north to Moscow in preparation for large-scale urban street battles, thereby weakening the power of the Ming army's armored forces to the greatest extent. This lose-lose tactic can offset the armor superiority of the Ming army to the greatest extent, bring heavy losses to the Ming army, and provide a good environment for subsequent operations.

However, as he said before, Zhukov was able to see that Moscow would eventually fall, and he wanted to engage in street battles with the Ming army in Moscow in order to slow down the Ming army and increase the casualties of the Ming army. This is the best option for Russia at the moment. However, Zhukov was not one who was able to make the final decision. There aren't many people who can really understand all of this and finally make up their minds.

Moscow is an extremely important city. At the beginning of the 13th century, it was the capital of Muscovy, the predecessor of the Russian Empire. The Russians were also centered on Moscow, and after hundreds of years of development, they had the territory they have today.

Until the early 18th century, Peter the Great decided to move the capital to St. Petersburg to avoid the pressure of the Ming Dynasty as much as possible and strengthen his control over the north. After the relocation of the capital, Moscow remained an extremely important city in Russia. It is a city that has attracted worldwide attention in terms of politics, economy and culture. Once this place is lost, the intensity of the blow to Russia will be unprecedented.

For the Russians, for the tsar. Moscow is a city that cannot be abandoned. The loss of Moscow would mean Russia's imminent defeat, which would be an unprecedented blow to Russia's reputation in the international arena. In this case, Ryazan, who was the southern gate of Moscow and was geographically incomparably important, was in the eyes of the tsar a place that could not be given up by anything. The Tsar demanded that the Russians must hold every position and that they must defend Moscow by repelling the Ming offensive with a tough counterattack.

With the direct intervention of the tsar, Zhukov's proposal for a quick retreat was rejected.

The red-eyed tsar began to go into battle shirtless, ordering the Russian army to hold the Ryazan region anyway and not allow any troops to retreat. This order is no longer bad news for the Russian army on the front line, it is fatal news. At this time, all the Russian troops near Ryazan were preparing to retreat, and no one expected that they would receive an order to hold on at this time.

The Russian Tsar, in order not to lose Moscow, which was extremely important and highly regarded among the allies, preferred to sacrifice a large number of troops in exchange for time to besiege the city. He had already given orders to draw troops from everywhere to reinforce the Moscow region. For the tsar, who had already begun to lose red eyes, not even an inch of land could be given up.

Desperate at the Tsar's orders, Zhukov was forced to begin a build-up of forces and campaign deployments near Ryazan, trying to resist the Ming offensive here. However, with the state of the Russian army at this moment, such a thing simply cannot be done.

Zhang Cheng did not care about the internal affairs of the Russians, he had been strictly urging the Sixth and Eleventh Panzer Armies to continuously impose offensives, forming a huge pincer offensive from both sides of Ryazan, preparing to encircle and annihilate the heavy Russian army group near Ryazan.

The 11th Panzer Army south of Ryazan began to turn north after capturing Tarnovo, and after capturing Mikhailov, it headed northwest towards Lukhovetsy, an important road link between Ryazan and Moscow, halfway between Ryazan and Moscow.

The 6th Panzer Army, north of Ryazan, captured Novoshorki after forcibly crossing the Oka River, and then also targeted the extremely important city of Lukhovetsy, where Zhang Cheng identified the meeting point.

On the evening of 17 August, two powerful Ming Panzer armies successfully defeated the interception force sent by Zhukov, and their forward troops successfully joined forces in the fields near Lukhovetsy. In a very short period of time, the Ming army once again encircled the heavy group of the Russian army.

And this time, although Grand Duke Nicholas in Moscow still had a large number of infantry units in his hands. But he no longer had a strong armored force to rescue the Russian troops who were surrounded near Ryazan by order of the Tsar.

Ryazan is an important material assembly point for the Russian army, and there are a large number of various materials in reserve. Therefore, even if the Russian army near Ryazan is cut off from the supply line, it can still hold out for a while. However, no matter how much supplies are stored, there will eventually be a day when they will be consumed. After all, hundreds of thousands of people are constantly using and consuming. And in the face of the encirclement of the powerful Ming army heavy army group, the Russian army in these encirclements was doomed long ago when they were surrounded without the rescue of strong troops.

The insightful people among the senior generals of the Russian army were extremely dissatisfied with the tsar's indiscriminate command, which led to a large number of troops being encircled. At a high-level meeting in St. Petersburg, a number of high-ranking Russian generals clashed violently with the Tsar. After several years of war, especially in this unfavorable situation, the army was enough to decide the fate of the country, and even the tsar could not confront the army.

The tsar soon lost the last vestiges of control over the army. During these years of war, the Tsar repeatedly launched pointless large-scale counterattacks. Not to regain the country, but to show his role in front of the allies. And each of these counterattacks made the Russian army shed blood, but it did not have any effect. Discontent with the Tsar in the Russian army had long since reached its peak.

Before Zhukov was transferred, then Prince Vasily, under the direct appointment of the tsar, took over Zhukov's army and forcibly attacked it despite the opposition of the people. As a direct result, the most elite units of the Russian army were encircled and annihilated. And now it was again because of the tsar's order that a large army fell into the encirclement of the Ming army. The senior officers of the Russian army were no longer willing to endure the tsar's indiscriminate commands.

In times of war, an incompetent person cannot lead an army, even if he is an emperor. This is the fundamental reason why so many emperors in history were afraid of those powerful generals.

The Russian army began to repair itself under tremendous pressure. Zhukov was then removed from the encirclement and returned to Moscow to direct the defense of Moscow. Denisov and Pavlyuchenko were ordered to command the Russian troops in the Ryazan encirclement to continue to hold out resistance to buy time for Moscow.

While the Russians were preparing to hold Moscow, the Ming army was not idle. Zhang Cheng readjusted the deployment of front-line troops after the encirclement of Ryazan was closed, except for the troops that left the Russian army near Ryazan to encircle and compress. The rest of the troops were reorganized by Zhang Cheng into the Moscow Attack Group, which was specially used to attack the city of Moscow.

The soldiers of this unit were all elite drawn from the Central Army Group. In total, there were 16 armored divisions, 1 artillery division, 6 local garrison divisions, and 33 mechanized infantry divisions plus 5 brigade units. In addition, there is a large number of logistical support and support troops. In total, there are about 70 divisions of field troops, with a total strength of more than 1.8 million troops.

Sixteen armored divisions and five armored brigades in the Moscow assault cluster, as well as a number of independent divisions. The armored battalion and other units still have more than 3,800 tanks even after many combat losses and have not been able to replenish them. Among them, there are 1,330 Leopard tanks of various types, 765 Tigers, and more than 1,400 No. 4 tanks of various types. The rest are slammers and Spitfire tanks, as well as command tanks, and so on. (To be continued.) )