The time soon came to February 14th, the traditional Valentine's Day in Western culture. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info The day was supposed to be a joyous holiday, but on the battlefields of the Far East, the armies of the allies turned the day into a blood-stained Valentine's Day.

The German Salvation Corps, commanded by Manstein, was completely incapacitated. They have lost most of their armored forces, and the cost of supplies is extremely alarming. The number of people who were wounded in battle, sick and captured and missing in various units has reached nearly 100,000!

More importantly, after a few days of adjustment and redeployment, Zhang Cheng had once again assembled a powerful corps and began to attack around the rear of Manstein's troops, intending to cut off Manstein's rear road in one fell swoop and eat the Germans' siege relief corps.

Manstein sent a coordinated Russian army to outflank the Ming army and counterattacked violently, stopping the momentum of the Ming army to encircle him in a short time. But at the moment, he no longer had the strength to continue fighting.

Although the rear had sent troops to reinforce him, Manstein knew that he could no longer fight. If you insist desperately like this, the final result can only be that you don't rescue the friendly troops, not to mention, but also put yourself in.

Eventually, Manstein ignored orders from his superiors to continue fighting and forced a quick retreat back to Ukraine with his heavily damaged troops. The German effort to break the siege was thus over.

After Manstein's retreat, the Ming army did not stop there. They continued their pursuit, all the way to the end of February. From Rostov-on-Don, the pursuit continued until the vicinity of Donetsk and Luhansk, where the Allies were strongly resisted, and then stopped. By this time, they had pushed the distance between the Allied periphery and the Allied forces in the Caucasian encirclement to more than two hundred kilometers.

With such a long distance and millions of Ming troops stationed, the Allied forces in the Caucasus encirclement had no way out. This costly effort to break the siege ended in failure.

While Manstein led his troops to attack the Ming line, the Allied forces in the Caucasus also made a large-scale sortie against the Ming army on the Don River, trying to escape.

Thanks to the bitter cold of minus thirty or forty degrees Celsius in the Russian winter, the surface of the wide Don River has frozen into ice at this moment, and for the Allied troops who broke through, they did not need to erect pontoon bridges, as long as they could break through the resistance of the Ming army. But breaking through along the long Don River was not such a simple matter, and they had to choose to meet with the troops from the north.

After all, the defense line set up by the Ming army on such a long Don River could not be broken through at random, even if the Don River was crossed without receiving troops and supplies, the officers and soldiers of the allied army would not be able to go far in the ice and snow. They can only choose to attack the same target with the rescue force.

After adjusting the deployment, the Allied breakthrough force used the elite German Sixth Infantry Army and the Fourth Panzer Army as the main force of the breakthrough to attack the breakthrough point they chose, Rostov-on-Don.

At this time, the German Sixth Army and the Fourth Panzer Army suffered considerable losses in the battle and blockade. These two units were reduced by more than three layers, and most of the losses were due to the wounded and sick, especially many officers and soldiers who were frostbitten but had to be left in place to wait for the rescue of the Ming army due to the lack of transport planes and medicines.

Because of its high quality and its own pride, the Ming army has a very high reputation and is also very positive. When the Allies fought against the Ming army, there was basically nothing that clearly violated universal morality, such as killing prisoners or anything. In the event that it was impossible to continue, the Allies would also choose to lay down their arms and surrender to the Ming army.

However, the fact that the wounded were directly abandoned on the position and handed over to the Ming army was extremely demoralized. But for the current Allies, they have no choice. If they choose to abandon the wounded outright, the army will collapse, because these allied armies are not the Yellow Army. It is impossible for them to continue fighting despite the mass abandonment of the wounded by their own army.

But if the Allied breakout troops marched with the wounded, the weeping wounded along the way would also destroy the morale of the army. In this case, the Allies could only choose to leave the wounded to the Ming army to take prisoners. After all, the Allied officers and soldiers knew that with the pride of the Ming army, they basically would not sit idly by and ignore the wounded of the Allied army.

In the hearts of many Allied officers and soldiers, they even thought that it might be good to stay and become prisoners of war of the Ming army. At least it's better than trekking through the snow and ice.

While this inevitably undermined the morale of the troops, at least they were able to continue fighting. And it can also bring trouble to those Ming troops who value reputation. After all, taking care of the wounded requires not only supplies, but also medical personnel, and can even slow down the march of the Ming army. Although the damage to the Allies was much longer and greater, they had no other choice now.

The German Sixth Army and the Fourth Panzer Army used fuel collected from various units to make rapid sorties on the snowy fields. On 5 February, when Manstein's 16th Panzer Division began its assault on the Ming lines, the 6th Infantry Army under the command of General Paulus and Hermann. The Fourth Panzer Army under the command of General Hult launched a fierce attack on the city of Bataisk on the south bank of the Don River at about the same time.

The city of Batesk is an ordinary town, but its location is very important. This is because the town is located on the south bank of the Don River, and to the north of it, after crossing the Don River, is the famous city of Rostov-on-Don. The two cities are connected by a number of railways, highways and bridges. There are also passenger and cargo terminals. Now, of course, these water docks are no longer functional.

Originally, it was one of the main supply lines in the Caucasus, but after it was captured by the Ming army, it became the only hope for the Allies to break through and return home.

As an outpost of Rostov-on-Don, the Germans must have to capture the city of Batesk in order to continue to cross the river to attack their main target.

The Germans worked hard to bring a number of artillery pieces in the best condition to the front. In order to move these guns, a lot of fuel and vehicles were consumed. As for most of the other artillery, it had to be destroyed and abandoned due to lack of fuel and transport vehicles. After all, at this time, the valuable transport vehicles are still mainly transporting people.

Transporting these heavy guns not only requires vital fuel and life-saving vehicles, but more importantly, they also consume a large amount of shells. These shells were also to be transported by vehicle.

And the transportation capacity of the Allies at this moment has been reduced to freezing. Although the Allies still had a large number of vehicles in their possession, their fuel supply had been drastically reduced to a point where they could not be used at all after their supply lines were cut off. Most of the fuel stored in the army was also used by the officers and soldiers to pull wood for heating. In this case, the Allies simply could not meet the fuel needs of all their forces.

At this moment, only carefully selected artillery could be transported to the front for use. The same is true in the armored forces. A large number of vital armoured vehicles had to be abandoned due to lack of fuel, and the armourers reluctantly destroyed their tanks before marching to Rostov-on-Don.

There is only one fundamental reason for this tragic incident, and that is the lack of supplies for the Allied forces.

The millions of Allied troops in the encirclement consume a dizzying astronomical amount of supplies every day, especially at this moment of minus thirty or forty degrees.

In order to survive, the officers and soldiers who were hungry and cold would not pay attention to the orders of their superiors. It became a matter of course to take out the precious oil and make a fire to keep warm. After all, it is human nature to survive, and no one is willing to be frozen to death if there is hope. That's just miserable.

At this time, the Caucasus was very poor and backward, and it was basically a poor rural area. Every year, the Russian tsar would send tax collectors with rifles to rob the villagers of everything. At this time, the Russians in the village were even poorer.

There is nothing to use in the area other than wood, and there are no air conditioners or heaters. The Allied officers and soldiers had to burn wood to make a fire if they wanted to keep warm.

But pulling heavy logs out of the woods and back to the army garrison was no easy task. More than a meter of snow covered the vast wilderness, and manpower was useless at this time. No one will be able to drag back one piece of wood in this case. It can only be towed using a car or tank armored vehicle.

Sending these vehicles to pull wood would mean huge fuel consumption. Judging by the number of Allied officers and soldiers, the rate of fuel consumption was enough to shock everyone.

This is the main reason why the Allies are desperate to break out immediately, even if it is a mass abandonment of troops and wounded. They can't afford to spend it anymore, and if they continue to consume it like this, there will be no need for the Ming army to take the initiative to attack, and the allies who lack everything will be swallowed up by the vast snow and cold cold.

Cornered, the Allied forces had no way out, and as soon as they reached the vicinity of the city of Bataisk, they launched a heavy artillery bombardment of the city. The heavy shelling, which lasted for nearly an hour, blew the small town of Batesk to the ground, with collapsing buildings and burning flames and thick smoke everywhere. But the Germans also consumed more than 10,000 large-caliber shells.

You know, these shells were all transported all the way in vehicles that could be called life-transporting. These vehicles, which could have been loaded with artillery shells, were loaded with artillery shells and sent here and then the shells were fired, which meant that the lives of the officers and soldiers who could have been loaded were knocked out. (To be continued.) )