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Hitler never expected that the Atlantic barrier, on which he had high hopes, would be breached so quickly by the Coalition. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Rommel's 200,000 German troops were besieged by Rouen and Amiens, and they were left in a situation of isolation, which made Hitler even more mad.

I thought that the Atlantic defense line would last at least half a year, so Hitler said that most of the German troops in France were transferred to the Eastern Front, because the Soviet Red Army had won a great victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, and more than 3 million Soviet troops and more than 500,000 Chinese emperors* who had been assembled in the Caucasus were a serious threat to the German army.

At the same time as the outbreak of the Atlantic Campaign, the main forces of the Soviet and German armies on the Eastern Front were engaged in a fierce decisive battle.

Although the Chinese Empire promised to reinforce the Soviet Union, as speculated by the media of various countries, the Chinese Empire deliberately allowed the Soviet army to fight with the German army, and used the guns of the German army to slaughter the Soviet Red Army as much as possible.

This intention to deliberately weaken the Soviet Union is well known to all, but as long as the Chinese Empire does not admit it, the Soviet Union will not dare to easily pierce that layer of window paper, and the Soviet Union will have to count on the military and economic assistance of the Chinese Empire.

Stalin secretly scolded the Chinese Empire for being shameless every day, but he had to admit that the Soviet Union at this time had to rely on the supply of the Chinese Empire for both military equipment and daily necessities. After five years of fighting with Germany, the Soviet Union in the twenties had either been blown up by the Germans or fought hard with the Germans, and if it did not have the assistance of the Chinese Empire, the Soviet Army would not even be able to move an inch.

Stalin had to endure it, and even as a leader, he had to go to the Quartermaster Liaison Officer of the Chinese Empire in Moscow. Stalin's death would not have done so before. But at this time, people have to bow their heads under the eaves. However, Stalin swore deep in his heart that when this war was over, he would make the Chinese Empire look good.

In the same way, Hitler saw through the mind of the Chinese Empire. The fact that the Soviet Union was not actually included in the Coalition* and that the Soviet Union did not participate in the major conferences showed that the Chinese Empire was not of the same mind as the Soviet Union.

Therefore, Hitler decided to defeat the Soviet Union in one fell swoop before the Chinese Empire was bent on helping the Soviet Union.

To this end, Hitler appointed Manstein as commander of the German army on the Eastern Front. Commanding the German, Italian, and American forces on the Eastern Front, as well as 450,000 German troops transferred from France, a total of 265 troops, preparing for another major Armageddon with the Soviet Army.

Previously, Manstein also agreed with Hitler's point of view, that is, he also believed that the Chinese Empire and its minions* could not really help the Soviet Red Army in the war, so Manstein also had a tacit understanding not to take the initiative to provoke the Armenian army in the direction of the Transcaucasia and other servants* of the Chinese Empire, but only focused on attacking the Soviet Red Army.

As a result of the great victory of the Soviet Red Army in the Battle of Stalin, the Soviet army suddenly stood on its toes. The commander of the Soviet Red Army, Zhukov, came down to the Soviet Red Army to launch a major counteroffensive combat operation. In order to drive the Germans out of Soviet territory.

However, Zhukov was very careful at first. Avoid letting the Soviets pursue the Germans too quickly and avoid being ambushed by the Germans.

But when the news came that the Coalition* had won a resounding victory in the Atlantic Campaign on the Western Front and that the Allied forces had recaptured Paris, the whole world believed that the good days of the Germans were over and that Hitler was bound to lose. Zhukov was determined to speed up the counterattack on the Germans and not let the Chinese Empire see the jokes of the Soviet Union. He quickly received a nod of approval from Stalin, and the Soviets accelerated the pace of the counteroffensive against the Germans. However, the pace of the Soviet counteroffensive was still not very fast, and the Germans did not have the opportunity to counter-ambush the Soviet army.

At this time, Manstein saw through Zhukov's thoughts. In order to allow the Soviet army to speed up the pace of counteroffensive pursuit, Manstein deliberately fought several major defeats in the Don River, Kursk and other places, and the German army on the front line accelerated the pace of retreat, and released news that the German army in order to prevent the United * to recover France and transfer most of its troops to the Western Front battlefield, in order to confuse Stalin and Zhukov.

After several tentative offensives, Zhukov found that the Alliance* was on the verge of collapse at the touch of a button, and even lost even the most powerful Tiger tanks in order to flee for his life. This led Stalin and Zhukov to believe that the Germans had indeed abandoned the Soviet battlefield and were retreating on all fronts. So Zhukov ordered the Soviet Red Army to speed up the pace of counteroffensive operations.

On July 23, 1943, the main forces of the Soviet and German armies met in Minsk, and the first time since the Soviet-German war that both sides were engaged in the main battle of the attackers.

For the previous week, the Germans had been retreating. Lure the Soviets into pursuit. Since the Soviet battlefield had already been reduced to ruins, the arrival of summer was a torrential downpour that caused muddy roads and was not conducive to the movement of motor vehicles.

Since the start of the Soviet-German war, the Soviet army has been fighting passively, and supplies are obtained locally, so there has never been a worry about supplies. At this time, the German army learned wisely and deliberately led the Soviet army to the Minsk region, which is the material terminal of the German army in Belarus, and does not worry about the supply problem, and can fight a decisive battle with the Soviet army. On the contrary, after the victory of the Soviet army from the Battle of Stalingrad, it turned from defense to attack, pursuing the German army all the way, the line of occupation was too long, and the supply was already in difficulty.

However, the morale of the Soviet army was high, and Zhukov's generals agreed that Minsk could be captured in a few days and the German supplies would be captured. Although Zhukov had some concerns, he did not want to demoralize his subordinates, so he did not resolutely oppose it.

In this way, the Soviet troops, having occupied too long a line and less than three days of supply support, sent a fierce assault on Minsk.

Manstein was calculating the Soviet army's supply route from the beginning, and when the Germans in front were retreating, the Germans in the Minsk area began to strengthen the fortifications and wait for the Soviet army to attack.

It can be said that Manstein prepared a huge pocket for the Soviet army in Minsk, waiting for Zhukov to drill into it.

The Battle of Minsk officially began at two o'clock in the afternoon of the 23rd. The Soviet 75th Army, which was responsible for the attack, launched a fierce attack on the 3rd SS Division defending Minsk, but was fiercely counterattacked by the superior German firepower, and the Soviet troops were unable to attack for a long time and suffered heavy casualties.

Zhukov was a little worried when he learned that the troops at the front did not take Minsk on time, but he could not convince his subordinate Lieutenant General Monkdorf. Because the commander of the Soviet troops in charge of attacking Minsk was none other than Monkdorf's brother-in-law, Major General Pieck. Monkdorf interceded for Pieck, and Zhukov had no choice but to save face, so he extended the deadline by one day and did not stop the offensive operations of other Soviet troops.

In fact, Zhukov was convinced in his heart that he could take Minsk. Because he relied not only on the strong fighting will of the Soviet army, but also on the support of the Chinese Empire.

It turned out that the Chinese Empire said that the Armenian army would capture Kyiv in three days. The strong combat effectiveness of the Armenian army benefited from the strong logistical supply capacity of the Chinese Empire in the rear. Zhukov believed that even if the Soviet army could not capture Minsk tomorrow, the Soviet army's supplies would not be cut off, and it was completely possible to borrow some from the Armenian army. Therefore, Zhukov thought that he had no worries, so he dared to give Pierke a day of grace.

However. What Zhukov never expected was that after the Chinese Empire saw the victory of the Soviet army in the Second Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army had swelled to more than 5 million troops, and launched a major counteroffensive against the German army. The strength of the Soviet army has always been a concern for the Chinese Empire, so the General Staff of the Chinese Empire was worried that the growth of the Soviet army would be uncontrollable in the future, so it secretly ordered the Armenian military to delay its operations, and the Cypriot Air Base of the Chinese Empire, which was responsible for providing air fire support to the Soviet battlefield, also reduced air support operations for the Soviet army for various reasons and interfaces.

As a result, Zhukov's reliance on supplies from the Chinese Empire was gone, and the powerful air fire support was reduced.

At this time. The main force of the Soviet army still wanted to move closer to Minsk according to the original plan, waiting for the Soviet army to obtain supplies from the German army after the capture of Minsk.

Manstein also quietly counter-surrounded the main German army. Prepare to encircle and annihilate all the main forces of the Soviet army in the Minsk region.

In this way, in the Minsk region, the Soviet army quickly amassed 1.914 million troops, 5,212 tanks, 25,426 artillery pieces, and 2,430 aircraft.

Manstein's Eastern Front Army Group amassed a total of 3,757,000 troops, 5,918 tanks, 32,480 artillery pieces, and 2,619 aircraft, including the United States, Italy, Austria, and Finland.

Zhukov realized that the Germans had more troops than the Soviets, but he was convinced that Minsk could be captured in a short time. Once Minsk is conquered. A large amount of supplies for the German army will be occupied by the Soviet army, and then more than three million German troops will also collapse without a fight.

Just like betting on pai gow, the losing side will always hate that card.

Both Manstein and Zhukov put their cards on Minsk, and it was destined to be a decisive battle on an unprecedented scale.

Realizing that the Soviet and German armies would start an unprecedented decisive battle, the General Staff of the Chinese Empire decisively ordered the Armenian army to postpone the attack on Kiev, wait for the Soviet and German armies to fight to break the net, and then take action to reap the benefits of the fisherman.

Sure enough, the fierce offensive of the Soviet army inflicted heavy losses on the German troops in Minsk. But it failed to capture Minsk on time. On the contrary, the rest of the Soviet army thought that Minsk would be occupied on the 26th, so they sent logistics troops to Minsk to ask for supplies.

Zhukov was frightened and hurriedly appealed to the Armenian army for help, asking for supplies to save their lives. But the Armenian military, instructed by the Chinese Empire, did not advance in the direction of Kiev. It was more than 300 kilometers from the Soviet troops in Minsk.

But the Chinese Empire could not directly refuse to rescue the Soviet army, and immediately said that it would send a force to deliver supplies to Minsk. But it is uncertain when the supplies will be delivered to the Soviet army. It just so happened that the Germans were also preventing the Soviets from getting supplies from the Armenian army, so they sent a German army to intercept them halfway. This happened to give the Chinese Empire an excuse to continue procrastinating.

Only then did Zhukov realize the danger and regret that he should not have attacked so quickly. The Soviet army did not have supplies, and its combat effectiveness was naturally greatly reduced. There was no way, Zhukov had to hurriedly urge the Soviet logistics department to send supplies as soon as possible, and at the same time, he obtained Stalin's tacit permission to plunder the food of the local Soviet people on the spot. This incident smeared the Soviet army with a stain that can never be washed away.

Zhukov poured his anger on the Germans, believing that only by conquering Minsk and returning the Germans' grain to the common people could the Soviet army's grain grab be quelled.

This just made Zhukov lose his cool and forget about the fact that more than three million German troops were surrounded by him.

The Battle of Minsk reached its worst* the day after the Soviet troops rushed for food. The German 2nd Panzer SS, as the most critical stitch used by Manstein to tie the pocket stitches for the main force of the Soviet army, encountered the Soviet 19th Panzer Army in Mogilev on the 28th.

Both sides were aware of the importance of Mogilev, and the German occupation of the area would completely cut off the Soviet army's rear route, and 1.9 million Soviet troops would be besieged under the city of Minsk. If the Soviet army held Mogilev, it would mean that the German army would have sacrificed a large area of Soviet territory for the Soviet army in half a month to occupy in vain.

Therefore, as soon as the two Soviet and German armored armies encountered, they immediately fell into a fierce battle.

One tank corps of the Soviet army had more than twice as many tanks as the German Panzer Corps, but the main battle tanks were basically copycats of the 28A3 tank, the T34 tank. It is not at all inferior to the No. 6 King Tiger main battle tank and the No. 5 Leopard main battle tank equipped by the German army. The Soviet tanks were destroyed by German 88mm tank guns before they could get into range.

Two tank armies on both sides, with a total of 3,800 tanks, broke out in the largest tank battle in history. In order to compete for favorable terrain, a small piece of high ground is often repeatedly contested as many as 20 times.

At the beginning, the Soviet army had more tanks and was fast, seizing the high ground. But soon a large number of German planes arrived to reinforce and bombed the Soviet tanks, inflicting heavy losses on the Soviet tanks. Soviet planes also quickly came to help in the battle, but the advanced jet fighters of the Chinese Imperial Air Force came very few, only more than 20 of them, and they only fought for about ten minutes before retreating. The old propeller fighters of the Soviet Air Force remained, although they were more numerous than the German planes, but they did not want the German aircraft to have many E262 jet fighters, and the Soviet fighters suffered very much and gradually fell behind.

The planes of the two sides fought fiercely for air supremacy for more than three hours, and finally the German planes seized air supremacy by a narrow margin. As a result, the Soviet ground tank units were soon attacked by German aircraft, and the small heights in their hands were taken by the Germans one after another.

When the Germans completely captured several small advantageous heights, they immediately took control of the situation on the battlefield. The German tank cluster launched a fierce attack, interspersed with detours on the flanks of the Soviet tanks, and the Soviet T34 tanks, which were originally relatively thin, were destroyed one after another.

The Soviets originally planned to delay until the evening, then they could hold on. But in the end, the Germans routed the Soviets by evening and captured Mogilev.

In this battle, the German army lost 528 tanks and 1,344 aircraft, while the Soviet army lost 1,471 tanks and 1,422 aircraft. The German 2nd SS Panzer Army successfully occupied Mogilev and declared that more than 1.9 million Soviet troops were encircled in the Minsk region.