Paulus's heart smiled bitterly. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 Although the info is only a little more than twenty kilometers away, under normal circumstances, it will not take long for the armored troops to drive through. However, the current situation is that the powerful Ming army has deployed at least 100,000 elite troops and a large number of heavy weapons and equipment in an area of just over 20 kilometers. How could the Allies, who lacked food and clothing, and even had little fuel left, break through the distance of more than 20 kilometers?

"I brought you the reserves." Paulus's eyes lit up with Rondested's words: "This is the last force we can muster now." If it is not possible to break through the blockade of the Ming army and join up with Manstein's forces before dawn tomorrow, then please prepare your own parts. ”

Ron Stead's words made everyone's hearts slightly cold. Ready, what else can you do? Either quietly become a prisoner of war, or commit suicide for the sake of honor. There is simply no other way to go.

Among the high-ranking generals at the outpost, only the generals of the American Expeditionary Force had slightly better complexions. Because the United States had already sent them telegrams, informing them that if the breakthrough failed, the expeditionary force would send transport planes into the encirclement at night to pick up these senior generals.

Reports from within the United States informed that their failure in this operation had nothing to do with them, the front-line commanders, but was caused by the stupidity of the Allies and bad weather. So these generals are not responsible for this defeat.

Although flying at night is very dangerous, it is 10,000 times better than waiting to die in an encirclement and waiting to be taken prisoner. At least they had hope of escaping. Of course, only the high-ranking generals can go, and as for the ordinary officers and soldiers, they can only be asked to be loyal to the country.

Rundestede sent Paulus a reserve. This is the last power of the various allies. Now everyone knows that the situation is urgent, and that if we don't go all out, it will be all gone. At this time, there was no more infighting between countries, and everyone devoted themselves to the breakthrough operation.

With the arrival of Allied reinforcements, the battle for Rostov-on-Don entered a white-hot phase. Officers and soldiers on both sides fought real fire, and brutal white-knuckle battles broke out in many important buildings and barricades.

The officers and men on both sides brandished their weapons with red eyes, killing any enemy who appeared in front of them. In such a fierce battle, it was almost impossible for there to be any prisoners of war, and there were only those who died and those who were not yet dead on the battlefield.

In the face of the tremendous pressure of the Allies, the 6th Marine Division of the Ming Dynasty began to be unable to hold on, and they sent a telegram directly to the naval headquarters, asking for urgent support.

But the Navy is helpless at this moment. The sky was dark and gloomy, with heavy snow and howling winds. In such weather conditions, no fighter aircraft can take off for combat. And because the river was frozen, the Ming Mediterranean Fleet, which was circling in the Sea of Azov, could not go up the Don River to provide artillery support to the marines.

As for the reinforcements of the Marine Corps, although the Ming Marine Corps is huge, they also have many battlefields to take care of. Especially now that it is impossible to provide practical assistance to the 6th Marine Division in such a short period of time. In this situation, the Navy had to bow to the Army, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy personally telephoned the Commander-in-Chief of the Army to ask the Army to provide support to the defenders of Rostov-on-Don.

The Navy, confident that it would be able to handle everything, rejected the Army's request for a coordinated defense after confirming that there would be a Marine Corps to defend Rostov-on-Don. They swore to Zhang Cheng and the army that they would be able to hold the place. But now, the Navy has been slapped in the face.

For the Navy, there is no way to do this. It's better to be slapped in the face than to lose your position. The navy had patted its chest in front of Zhang Cheng before, promising that it would hold on to Rostov-on-Don no matter what, and let the Allies return here. But if it really fails, then the reputation of the Navy is finished. At least a large number of high-ranking officials will be held accountable for this, and the Navy will never be able to hold its head up in front of the Army in the future.

Rather than being slapped in the face at that time, it is better to lower your posture and ask for help now. As long as this operation can be successfully completed, then it is easy to say anything after the victory of the battle.

Although it has always been at odds with the navy, since the navy has taken the initiative to admit defeat and ask for help, it is impossible for the army to really not give face at all. After all, no matter what you say, both sides hope to win this battle. Once the Allies are really allowed to escape, no one will end well. Zhang Cheng's anger had to be borne by both of them.

The Army was actually prepared for the possibility of the Navy dropping the chain before the campaign was launched. After all, the Marines are not subordinate to the Army, and they can't be completely at ease with them. Therefore, the General Staff arranged a large number of troops near Rostov-on-Don early on, which could go to the city for reinforcements at any time.

The Don Army Group, temporarily formed for this campaign, had a super-large strength of five infantry armies and two armored armies. The number of officers and men exceeds 1.5 million, and it is equipped with more than 4,000 body-barreled artillery pieces of various calibers and more than 12,000 self-propelled guns of various types of tanks and armored vehicles.

How could such a large force defend a position of no more than a few hundred kilometers and still know the enemy's main target, how could it be defenseless?

There is also a reason why Zhang Cheng organized this army so large. In addition to blocking the Allied forces in the encirclement. Army Group Don is also tasked with attacking Ukraine after the beginning of spring and then into the heart of Europe. This is the main reason why it is so large.

Moreover, Army Group Don will merge with Army Group South after the end of this campaign to form a super-large heavy group, which will sweep away the main Allied forces in the Ukrainian region during the summer offensive. In fact, the Ming army had a very large number of troops in this battle.

The Ming Army had a large infantry reserve near Rostov-on-Don. These ordinary infantrymen who were unknown among the more than 30 million Ming troops were actually the core of the entire Ming army.

Whether it is the world-famous army aviation or the invincible armored troops in the siege of the city, whether it is the artillery unit known as the king of war or the cavalry that has dominated the world for hundreds of years but has now been eliminated. Compared to these troops, the infantry, who has always been obscure, is the real core of the entire army.

The General Staff of the Ming Army soon mobilized at least two infantry divisions from nearby areas to Rostov-on-Don to the rescue. Tens of thousands of officers and soldiers entered the city in the afternoon to join the battle. The addition of this new force completely shattered the last will of the Allies, and after a day of fierce fighting, the Allies had exhausted all their strength. When the Ming reinforcements appeared, the morale they had worked so hard to support was completely shattered.

The entire city of Rostov-on-Don was turned into a huge battlefield. The Ming army, with its sturdy buildings and barricades, used various weapons to continuously kill and injure a large number of Allied officers and soldiers. By the afternoon, the armoured forces available to the Allies had been practically exhausted. In the hours that followed, the Allied officers and men were in fact fighting entirely with pure infantry units.

Also in the afternoon, the last of the Allied artillery units were completely depleted. They emptied all the shells in their hands, and the artillery that survived the bombardment with the Ming artillery completely lost their effectiveness and became a pile of useless steel. The artillerymen who were still alive were gathered and given firearms and sent to the battlefield for hand-to-hand combat.

After losing the cover of artillery fire, the heavy artillery group of the Ming army immediately put the hordes of shells on the heads of the Allied troops. The Allied attacking force, which was already at the end of the crossbow, immediately lost the last vestiges of its hard-earned faith after being attacked by artillery and counterattacked by Ming reinforcements. Their confidence and will to fight completely collapsed.

In the evening, the battlefield that had been boiling all day finally quieted down. The snowflakes in the sky had also dissipated, and the battlefield was now left with only burning flames and the remains of equipment personnel strewn everywhere. Under such weather conditions, and the fact that there was already a real fire between the two sides, there would basically be no casualties on the battlefield at this time.

At about seven o'clock in the evening, Manstein, who received the news of the failure of the breakthrough force to attack Rostov-on-Don, immediately began to retreat sharply with his troops, and retreated directly all the way to Ukraine. If he didn't leave, at most a day or two later, he wouldn't even be able to leave Manstein's troops.

On 14 February, General Rondested, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in the encirclement, issued a telegram stating that the Allied forces in the encirclement had fulfilled their duties as soldiers and that they were worthy of the honor of their soldiers. At this moment, when the army was no longer able to continue fighting, the Allies were willing to surrender unconditionally to the Ming army.

At this point, this super-large-scale battle, which had begun gradually from the time when Zhang Cheng launched the Moscow Campaign, officially ended with a complete victory for the Ming army.

In this large-scale battle of unprecedented scale, the Ming army used a total of nearly 3 million troops from two army groups. They succeeded in encircling and annihilating a coalition force of several countries south of the Don River. And seized along the Don River, as well as in the Caucasus. It can be described as a brilliant record.

During the battle, the Allies suffered casualties, were captured, and nearly 2.3 million people were missing. The losses of all kinds of heavy equipment and materiel are incalculable. Nearly two hundred generals, including the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, General Rondested, became prisoners.

The number of officers and soldiers lost by the Ming army and the various equipment and materials were simply insignificant compared to the results they achieved.

Of course, not all of the top Allied generals were taken prisoner or committed suicide. There is such a thing as favors in all countries, and many of the high-ranking generals of various countries have mobilized their connections to find powerful figures to intercede for themselves, so that they have a chance to escape. (To be continued.) )