778 Sunset Five of the Soviet Empire, another blitzkrieg

"I'm afraid Moscow won't be able to hold it! They are in a great retreat. Zhang Wtian walked into the war room of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission with a gloomy face, and held a telegram that had just been translated, which was personally drafted by Wang Ming, head of the Chinese and G International Delegation to the GC, and he reported the situation in Moscow to the Chinese revolutionaries in Baotou in a tone that was almost like a frustration.

In the war room, all the members of the Politburo and the Central Military Commission of the Central Revolution in Baotou had gathered, and everyone was surrounding a huge map platform, on which a huge military map was spread out, which was the military map between Moscow and Smolensk. It's already densely marked with markings. Several thick arrows, symbolizing the fascist German army, are stretching eastward, and the end point should be Moscow!

"Comrade Luo Fu, you can also come over and study the situation together." Zhou Elai waved at Zhang Wtian and invited him to the map table. He took the yellow stack of newspapers again. Wang Ming's telegram was smelly and long, and he described in great detail some of the circumstances before the fall of Moscow, perhaps for the purpose of recording history, and he sent dozens of similar telegrams in the future, so that later historians specially compiled a book called "Wang Ming's Moscow Observations" and became a special work on the study of Soviet history. However, Zhou Elai did not have the leisure to study history now, he frowned, picked up the telegram and read it.

"Stalin has ordered the evacuation of all those who are unable to defend Moscow, and 200 large factories of light and heavy industry have already begun to move. About 500,000 skilled workers, engineers and researchers, as well as a large number of institutions, theaters and museums, began to move. The railway station is now crowded with Muscovite citizens waiting to retreat...... The international delegation of our Party to GC also received instructions to retreat, but Comrade Wang Ming and Comrade Bogu had already proposed to Stalin that if they wanted to participate in the defense of Moscow, they would fight to the end together with the Chinese Volunteer Brigade (the Chinese Volunteer Army sent to Moscow was actually only 1 regiment in strength)!

Comrade Wang Ming also reported that Soviet internal affairs personnel were planting bombs in factories, warehouses, offices, and electrical equipment in Moscow that could not be moved. In total, there are more than 40,000 targets! Even the dynamite laid in the dacha of Stalin himself and in the Kremlin will destroy everything as soon as the enemy storms Moscow! Now the chimneys of the buildings where all the party and government offices in Moscow are located are constantly emitting black smoke day and night, and it seems that documents are being burned. In addition......"

When Zhou E said this, he suddenly stopped, stuffed the telegram manuscript to Mao Zd beside him, and sighed softly: "It seems that Moscow really can't be saved." Even Lenin's body was transferred to Kuibyshev on May 7! ”

"Lenin is gone, but Stalin is still there!" Mao Zd read Wang Ming's telegram at a glance and ten lines, and said with a smile: "He has already announced that he will defend Moscow, and is trying to mobilize troops by all means to enter the positions outside Moscow and in the city......" Speaking of this, Mao Zd's face suddenly became gloomy.

"Runzhi, what's wrong?" Zhou Elai asked curiously.

"Stalin and the top of the Soviet Red Army were too focused on Moscow!" Zhu D, who was on the side, also seemed to sense that something was wrong, and he poked the Tver region on the map with his black and thick fingers, and said in a deep voice: "The Northwest Front of the Soviet Army is the key to life and death!" If this army is blocked northwest of Moscow and cannot enter Moscow...... Stalin couldn't keep Moscow or the USSR no matter what! ”

"But now he is trying to concentrate his troops in Moscow by all means!" Mao ZD went on to say: "What a fan of the authorities! If the armored forces of the Germans come to an interspersed encirclement of several hundred kilometers and maneuver to this Tver, then they will block the retreat of the North-Western Front, and maybe even surround the cluster with the cooperation of the White Russian troops, and then they will either be annihilated or surrender! The Soviet Union will no longer have troops capable of fighting to maintain the war......" Speaking of this, Mao ZD also sighed softly, although he was ready to take over the banner of GCISM, but after all, he was a GCD person, and his feelings for the Soviet Union were also sincere.

Most of the comrades in this war room are also in the same mood now, the big guys have lowered their heads, and a few of them are still secretly crying there. However, there are exceptions, such as Comrade Zhang Xueliang, vice chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission and chief of staff of the Chinese Border Guards, who gloated with a gloating face. He took the telegram from Mao Zd's hand, flipped through it and read it a few times, then snapped, threw the copy newspaper on the map table, and sneered: "Comrades, the defeat of the USSR was self-inflicted, it is not worthy of sympathy at all, and it ...... If they do not fail, how can we take over the banner of the world revolution? Without our correct leadership, how could the world revolution succeed? So now the defeat of the USSR is a blessing and not a curse for the world revolution! We should still form a southward march army as soon as possible and prepare to go south to liberate the Indian people! In addition, the Far East should also be careful...... The Japanese have recently formed an alliance with the British, and it seems that they are going to target us China! ”

"Britain?" Zhou Elai suddenly thought of something, then shook his head again, and sighed: "It's late, it's too late, even if Britain wants to form an alliance with the Soviet Union now, it has no chance, right?" ”

In fact, Britain did have some secret contacts with the Soviet Union, because Hitler's army showed incredible combat effectiveness in the battle at the end of '37, and the Chinese expeditionary fleet was stranded in Germany...... Britain and France are already feeling deep fear! Their envoys visited Moscow in the early months of 1938 and held several negotiations with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, Livikov, on the defeat of Empress Anastasia at the Bolsheviks and the conclusion of an alliance against Nazi Germany and China. Of course, similar negotiations are also playing out in Petersburg! But the problem is that the British Empire is now in decline, and the Empress is not willing to get on the British pirate ship at all, preferring to be neutral behind closed doors so that the Russian people can rest and recuperate.

Stalin was willing to form an alliance with the British, but the British refused to give immediate support to the Soviet Union, and they had to wait until Stalin defeated the Empress before they would ally with the Soviet Union and provide assistance! As a result, Hitler preempted them and once again waved his army into the Soviet Union! Although the leaders of Britain and France could now anticipate that after the fall of the Soviet Union, Germany and China would point the spearhead at themselves, they did not dare to provoke war against fascist Germany in the first place. Because while Germany was attacking the Soviet Union, there were about 2 million troops and nearly 3,000 planes deployed on the western border with France. In addition, Mussolini was able to launch an attack on France at any time with millions of troops...... Therefore, the two world empires of Britain and France can only take a fluke and watch the Soviet Union go to hell step by step. All that can be done is to continue to contact Japan to contain China, and to strengthen the defense system on France's eastern border.

……

At this time, after breaking through the virtual Soviet defense line on the Liozno line, the 11 Panzer Divisions of the German 1st Panzer Army and the 4th Panzer Army (including the Chinese 8th Panzer Division) suddenly turned a corner to the northwest of the heavily entrenched Smolensk fortress, turned to the northeast of Smolensk, and captured the small city of Dukhovshina on May 4. Then head all the way northeast and at high speed along the road from Dukhovshhna to Tver!

It turned out that the first goal of the Germans was not to knock open the turtle shells of Smolensk, but to the more than a million Soviet Red Army who were slowly retreating along the road from Petersburg to Moscow! Those in the German High Command knew very well that as long as the main forces of the North-Western Front of the Soviet Red Army were eliminated, Moscow would be a ripe apple that would fall into the mouth basket of the Russian Empress by itself! But if the more than 1 million troops were allowed to withdraw into Moscow, a bitter battle would inevitably follow.

Therefore, the goal of the German ** team's sharp knife and armored forces in this raid was to make a detour from the north of the city of Smolensk to the northeast to attack in an easterly direction, and strive to occupy Tver before the Soviet Northwestern Front, so as to cut off the retreat of the Soviet Northwestern Front to Moscow. And then they will, with the cooperation of more than 1 million White Russian troops, surround the main forces of the North-Western Front of the Soviet Army and completely wipe out the city of Moscow!

After more than 4 months of rest, the German armored forces are already stronger than before! Nearly 5,000 tanks, assault artillery, 3,000 half-track armored vehicles, and more than 3,000 trucks form an invincible steel dragon that rumbles along the roads of the Great Plain of Russia, unstoppable. For a time, the Northwestern Front of the Soviet Army was in an extremely dangerous situation.

In fact, at this time, the top of the Soviet army was already completely confused, they were confused by the sudden blow, and the chaotic retreat made the people in the General Staff and the People's Commissariat of Defense panic, and all the staff officers had only one thought in their minds, to quickly arrange for their families to leave Moscow, a city that would become hell, and it would be better to have their names appear on the list of personnel evacuated to Chelyabinsk.

Stalin and Zhukov, on the other hand, had been wrestling with how to muster enough troops to encircle Moscow. After all, Smolensk is only 400 kilometers from Moscow! Although the city had become a strong fortress (not very strong, in fact) and was expected to withstand it for a while, the German armored forces could also bypass the fortress and advance under Moscow in one fell swoop! Although tanks are not particularly ideal siege tools in theory, if the number of these tanks reaches 100000, Moscow will still be captured by this monster wrapped in steel armor.

So they were complacent for the first few days that Smolensk had blocked the German armored forces, and when the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Marshal Budyonny, told Stalin that the German armored forces would not come to Moscow for the time being, and would go north to block the rear of the Soviet North-Western Front, it was already May 8, 1938, and it had been 4 days since Dukhovshina was captured by the Germans, during which time the German armored group had advanced more than 200 kilometers at high speed on the road!

"Budyonny! You are worthy only of a cavalryman, only of a cavalryman! Not worthy of being the Chief of the General Staff at all! Thousands of enemy tanks actually marched more than 200 kilometers on the land of the USSR as if they were in a no-man's land, and you, the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, actually knew nothing! How could I appoint you Chief of the General Staff? I'm really blind. ”

The roar of the GCIST tsar echoed in the underground bunkers of the Kremlin. Budyonny stood in front of the great leader with his head hung and his face full of panic, and the two big mustaches on his lips trembled slightly. In fact, the responsibility for this matter is not him, in order to transfer troops to defend Moscow in the past few days, the troops originally stationed in the north of Smolensk, and the troops in those "unimportant" towns have been ordered to rush to Moscow as quickly as possible. The small forces that remained were often wiped out by the vanguard of the German army before they had time to figure out the size of the German armored forces. It was not until the mighty German armored units marched into the small city of Rzhev, about 200 kilometers southwest of Tver, that they were discovered by lurking Soviet internal affairs personnel and sent the news to the NKVD in Moscow by radio.

Budyonny, the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, who was born in the Cossack cavalry, took a look at the map and realized that the general situation was not good, because the Germans only had to advance more than 200 kilometers to feel Tver and completely close the door to the retreat of the North-Western Front to Moscow! Although there is still a division of the Red Army stationed in Tver, how can an infantry division of 10,000 men stop the German armored cluster with thousands of tanks? The thought that the last strategic main force of the Red Army would be buried because of his mistakes made Marshal Budyonny was so sad that he almost wanted to commit suicide.

Hearing Stalin's accusation, Budyonny could only lower his head and said sadly: "Comrade Stalin, you are right, I am only a cavalryman, and I have no ability to be the chief of the General Staff of the Red Army at all, now please remove me from the post of chief of the General Staff, give me a cavalry corps, and let me go to the front to fight the enemy!" ”

Looking at this honest and obedient Budyonny, who did not have much desire for power, Stalin could only sigh, as if he wanted to cry without tears. Leaning slightly, Zhukov was brought in by Stalin's secretary. Stalin pointed to a piece of paper on the table and said: "We have found the German armored units that have been missing for a few days, they have reached the city of Rzhev, which is only more than 200 kilometers from Tver!" You see what to do, right? ”

Zhukov picked up the report, looked at the map on the table, and said in a hoarse voice: "Comrade Stalin, now the initiative is completely in the hands of the enemy, and at the speed of the advance of the German armored forces, they will be able to reach Tver in three or four days at most." And the North-Western Front was moving very slowly under the indiscriminate bombardment of German bombers, and it was simply impossible to pass through Tver before the Germans, and it looked like they were going to be surrounded by the Germans again! For this reason, I propose that the North-Western Front withdraw to Ostashkov and then defend it by relying on the lakes and rivers near Ostashkov, so that they can attract some of the enemy's forces and at the same time delay a little longer......"

"Can you only procrastinate for time? But how long can we hold out in Moscow without them? How much power can be used to defend Moscow now? Stalin asked with a heavy heart.

Zhukov sighed and said: "We had an army of 2.25 million people on the Western Front, and later we formed about 400,000 new troops. Now about 1.6 million of them are about to be pocketed by the enemy! There are 250,000 men entrenched in several cities west of Moscow, and about 400,000 people are retreating from the Velikiye Luki front, which is now past West Dved. It is estimated that the Germans will leave a few panzer divisions in Rzhev to intercept them...... There are now 400,000 troops in Moscow, but most of them are newly formed, and these troops are poorly armed and poorly trained, and it may be difficult for them to take on major tasks. ”

"1.6 million people were surrounded...... How long will they last? Is it possible that the 400,000 men evacuated from Velikiye Luki will bypass the southern side of the German armored forces? They're not the main target after all, are they? Stalin asked a few more questions.

Zhukov thought for a moment and said: "If the main forces of the North-Western Front are surrounded, it is possible to hold out for 1 to 2 months, if it is necessary to save the troops withdrawn from Veliko Luki...... Then order the main force of the North-Western Front to send three assault groups to attack Tver, create the illusion that the North-Western Front is going to break through and escape, and attract the attention of the German armored forces, so that the Germans may be able to transfer all the panzer divisions to Tver. ”

"Is it true that the Northwestern Front can't stand out? That's 1.6 million people! And a few hundred tanks, tens of thousands of artillery? "Stalin still didn't give up.

Zhukov smiled bitterly, "After these few days of fighting, the total strength of the Northwest Front is at most 1.5 million, and it is difficult to say whether there are 100 tanks or not." There are a lot of cannons, but there are not so many ammunition, so you can only save a little. ”

"But waiting for the encirclement is not always an option," said Stalin, leaning over the map, "and having the Northwestern Front send out two army groups to hold out at Borogoye and block the White Guards in the east." The remaining 8 armies and 3 assault groups advanced towards Tver, taking advantage of the fact that the Germans were not firmly on foot, broke through their lines and withdrew to Moscow! Comrade Zhukov, do you think it is possible to realize this plan? ”

Zhukov knew that Stalin had already made up his mind, so he saluted the leader and said: "Then please give me an order to return to the North-Western Front, they I brought out of Moscow, and I am obliged to bring them back." ”

"No need, Moscow needs you more." Stalin shook his head, "Let General Timoshenko command the Northwestern Front to break through, I think he has the ability." ”