General Popov, commander of the 36th Russian Division, reported to Moscow the Russian-Japanese battle that took place outside Nomenhan at the end of May, and was furious to learn that his more than 3,000 Russian soldiers had been defeated at the hands of more than 1,000 Japanese soldiers of a Japanese brigade.

Especially after knowing that it was Li Tie's bandit army that he had always looked down on that saved the more than 3,000 Russian soldiers and defeated the Japanese pursuers in the end, Stalin felt that he was very faceless.

However, after learning of the great conspiracy of the Japanese army against the entire Far East, Comrade Stalin, despite his anger, calmed down and listened to the advice of the staff officers. That is, the Japanese plot in Mongolia must not be allowed to succeed.

Because Comrade Stalin had just met with the secret envoy sent by Hitler, Russia and Germany had just reached an agreement on a plan for dividing Poland equally in a few months.

If, before attacking Poland, a war with Japan could not be brought to a conclusion, and Russia could be dragged into the mud of another war. Then the overall plan to attack Poland will be delayed, and then Poland's fat meat will probably be swallowed by Germany alone.

However, the entire Northern Army stationed in the Far East is now in the process of rectifying its discipline, and the number of officers in the whole army has been seriously reduced, and the most important thing is that there is not a single general in the entire Northern Army who was well known to Stalin and who he considered qualified to recruit and fight well.

It doesn't take much to deal with a small Poland, because the mighty Russian army will drown the tiny Poland with a tidal wave of troops, but it is different to deal with the Japanese.

Not only because of the several wars between Russia and Japan a few decades ago, Russia was the losing party, but also because of the brilliant achievements that Japan has made in China in recent years. Therefore, Stalin believed that in order to quickly deal with the Japanese army that came out of Manchukuo, he had to have a decent Russian general. But which Russian general is up to the task?

While Comrade Stalin was still having a headache over the selection of generals to fight against the Japanese army in the Northern Group, the Disciplinary Committee sent a list of the next batch of high-ranking generals to be investigated, and the first of this list was the deputy commander of the Belarusian Special Military District, Colonel-General Zhukov.

"Oops! How can you forget him, this guy is not only experienced in actual combat, but also recognized as a very capable general in the Russian army. Come to think of it, this guy never seems to have spoken against me in public. So Stalin immediately took out his pen and crossed Admiral Zhukov off the list of rebels.

Then Comrade Stalin said to the comrades of the Revolutionary Committee in front of him: "Comrade Zhukov is a pillar of the country, and this time the examination of him can be abolished, and I will send Comrade Zhukov to the Far East to fight against the Japanese, so as to test whether Comrade Zhukov is really a Bolshevik." ”

Comrade Stalin not only canceled the censorship of Zhukov, but also personally wrote a long letter to the people of the Revolutionary Committee to immediately send it to Comrade Zhukov, who was far away in Belarus.

As a result, Admiral Zhukov, who escaped the catastrophe, was appointed commander-in-chief of the 57th Army Corps of the Northern Army in Mongolia, with a total strength of 60,000 troops.

Zhukov, who was waiting at his home in Belarus for the Revolutionary Disciplinary Committee to come to examine himself, jumped up for joy at home when he received Stalin's appointment.

He didn't even have time to say goodbye to his family, but just said hello to his family and couldn't wait to take a special plane to Tamchag Prague, the headquarters of the Mongolian 57th Army.

However, Zhukov, who arrived at the headquarters of the 57th Army, was immediately shocked by the low morale of the 57th Army in front of him, because it turned out that due to the many years of suppression and rebellion, the combat effectiveness of the 57th Army was seriously insufficient, and the entire 57th Army, more than 60,000 people in three divisions, and all the division commanders and brigade commanders were all civilian personnel who had never been on the battlefield.

The original 57th Army, from the regiment commander to the division commander, was killed by the Suppression Committee. In desperation, Zhukov could only telegraph to the headquarters of the Northern Army to urgently transfer a group of veterans and middle- and low-level officers with combat experience to enrich the 57th Army.

At the same time, Zhukov urgently transferred an armored brigade and a tank division from Army Group North to the Nomenkhand area. 500 planes were transferred from the Air Force to participate in the war.

Immediately after giving the order to assemble his troops, Zhukov drove from Tamchag Prague to the Nomenkhand region to personally direct the preparations for the war.

In the Nomenhan area, he met the commander of the Mongol army, Choibalshan, the leader of the bandit army in Manchuria, China, Hei Kill Xiangzuo, and of course, Li Tie and his party who had secretly infiltrated the Nomenhan area.

On the evening of Zhukov's arrival in Nomenkhan, Li Tie, Xiang Zuo, Choibalshan and others held a welcome dinner for Zhukov in Nomenkhan.

At the dinner, Zhukov, who met Li Tie for the first time, had a cordial and friendly interview with Li Tie: "Mr. Li Tie, you are so optimistic about our Russian army?

Our 57th Army has 60,000 elite soldiers, and the number of various types of heavy equipment is more than twice that of the Japanese army. Now that there are 100,000 Mongolian troops, can we still have 160,000 people who can't defeat the 50,000 Japanese troops on the opposite side?

Therefore, Mr. Li Tie, I appreciate your kindness, and I still think that we are enough to deal with the Japanese army, so I can only refuse your request for 100,000 bandit troops to participate in the war against Japan. ”

Zhukov did not agree to Li Tie's request to lead the bandit army to the war, "What are you kidding, he came to the Normenhan region this time to see his achievements, so he won't let go of the military merits he has received."

Before coming to Normenhan, Stalin could tell him in a letter that Japan must be defeated in a short time, and that Japan must not be allowed to hold back the Russians, because in a few months they will be ready to invade Poland.

According to the information obtained by the Russians, the defenders of the Japanese Kwantung Army opposite them were only newly established second-class divisions, and they could only be regarded as third-rate troops in the ranking of the combat effectiveness of Japanese divisions and regiments.

However, Army Group North is different, and Army Group North has always been the most combat-effective unit in Russia, and at the same time, it is also the unit with the most heavy equipment and the most complete training.

Therefore, with first-class Russian troops, weapons superior to the enemy, and troops far exceeding the Japanese army, if they could not defeat tens of thousands of Japanese troops, then they Russians might as well be killed head-on. ”

Moreover, Stalin also said in the letter that most of the Kwantung Army in the northeast had now been transferred to southern China to fight, and the Japanese troops stationed in Manchukuo were extremely empty.

Therefore, if the Japanese army could be easily defeated, Stalin suggested that Comrade Zhukov might as well take the opportunity to attack Manchukuo, because the border between the two sides had not yet been formally demarcated, and Comrade Stalin had no objection to digging back another piece of land from Manchukuo.

And Zhukov never thought that he would be an opponent of the Japanese army, and if it weren't for the 50,000 Japanese troops on the opposite side and nearly 100,000 Manchukuo troops, Zhukov would not even want to use the Mongol army to fight.

However, the combat effectiveness of the 100,000 puppet army in Manchukuo and the combat effectiveness of the 50,000 Mongolian army were ignored by General Zhukov. Because in Zhukov's opinion, although there were many cavalry in Mongolia, they were all serfs and had no formal military training, at best they were farmers who could ride horses.

As for the so-called 100,000 elite soldiers in Manchukuo, although these elite soldiers were all former soldiers of the Northeast Army, when he thought that tens of thousands of Japanese troops had swept away hundreds of thousands of so-called powerful Northeast Army, he did not think that these Northeast Army had much combat effectiveness.

And for the bandits he has always looked down on, the 100,000 bandit army to the left is even less in Zhukov's eyes. Therefore, for Li Tie's request to use 100,000 bandit troops to help, Zhukov gave up in a word.

In fact, if Li Tie asked the bandit army to help for free, Zhukov would still be happy to use these free Chinese cannon fodder.

However, Li Tie proposed to lease a hundred kilometers of land within a radius of Nomenhan, so he had to make Zhukov think more. You must know that although Mongolia is vast and sparsely populated, it does not mean that the land can be rented out at will.

If it weren't for the fact that Li Tie gave Zhukov tens of thousands of rubles as soon as they met, Zhukov would have wanted to drive Li Tie out of Nomenhan.

Therefore, after refusing Li Tie's request, General Zhukov immediately mingled with the commanders of the 57th Army and the leader of the Mongolian Army, Choibalshan, and others.

Seeing that Zhukov and the others were drinking happily, Black Kill came to Li Tie's side quietly to the left, and asked in a low voice: "Uncle, it seems that Zhukov looks down on us at all!" In that case, let's lead our troops back to Manchuria tomorrow. We're not waiting for them yet. ”

"That's it, the bandit army who dares to look down on the old lady, if I hadn't stopped my senior brother, I would have abolished that guy named Zhu Hefu just now." At this time, Sister Teng, who was already Mrs. Xiang Zuo, said unrelentingly.

Seeing his wife swearing, he glared at Sister Teng to the left. Not to mention, don't look at Sister Teng, although she is the general leader of the 100,000 bandit army, she is still afraid of going to the left. As soon as he glared at her to the left, he immediately lost his momentum, and became like an angry little daughter-in-law, muttering in a low voice, while retreating to the side and not interjecting anymore.

Seeing that the female bandit leader who was surprised in the past had become such a well-behaved little daughter-in-law, Li Tie was also drunk, and couldn't help but speculate maliciously in his heart: "How strong is this big brother Xiang's ability?" I actually cleaned up this tigress so closely, how good would I have if I had this ability? ”

Li Tie looked at Xiang Zuo with admiration, he really wanted to ask Brother Xiang Zuo for a little advice on how to make a wife, otherwise he would always let the thousand-tailed scorpions press him, and he would have no face.

And Xiang Zuo didn't see Li Tie's careful thoughts, Xiang Zuo apologized to Li Tie in a low voice: "Uncle, the insider is this temper tantrum, don't be like her."

Since General Zhukov has clearly refused to join our bandit army, how should we deal with it, please take a charter. Not to mention anything else, our bandit army in Manchuria is definitely much stronger than the original Northeast Army. Even in the face of Japan's second-rate divisions, they will not be left behind. ”

"Don't worry, Zhukov is no match for the Japanese, let's settle the brothers first, let them lurk in the Nomenkhand region and not cause trouble.

In addition, additional scouts will be sent to keep an eye on the movements of the Russians and Japanese, and if the Russians can't stand it, we will have to take action. Don't underestimate the second-rate Japanese legions, they are just as strong in combat.

I am sure that these so-called second-rate Japanese divisions will definitely surprise General Zhukov, who has never dealt with the Japanese. Looking at Zhukov, who was full of ambition, Li Tie said with a smile.