The Battle of Kiev, which took place in Ukraine in mid-August 1941, had reached its most critical moment, in which Germany had 500,000 troops and Soviet Russia 850,000. However, due to the lack of armored troops and mobile forces in Soviet Russia, the number of aircraft and artillery was also nearly half that of the German army, and General Zhukov, who had just been promoted to the chief of the general adviser of the Soviet army at the beginning of the campaign, advised Stalin to abandon Kiev and withdraw the Southwestern Front to the other side of the Dnieper River to avoid being surrounded by the German army, and then defend Moscow with all his might. But Stalin categorically refused, Zhukov was dismissed from the post of chief adviser and assumed the post of commander of the reserve front.

Later, Stalin ordered Marshal Budyonny, who was in charge of the military training of the Southwestern Front at that time, to defend Kiev, but Budyonny also telegraphed several times to the Russian high command to abandon Kiev, so he was also deposed by Stalin. By late August, Kiev had finally been outflanked by the German legions, and the situation was critical.

In the dim light, a figure was sitting quietly next to a lamp, and in front of him stood an old man with a white beard, dressed in a light blue marshal's suit, and he was standing respectfully.

"Comrade Stalin, there are still more than 700,000 of us in Kiev, the Germans have outflanked it, and the battalion of Lieutenant General Kirbonos and Lieutenant General Yelio-Myanse has repeatedly sent telegrams asking for retreat. Now the besieged army in Kyiv is already seriously short of food, ammunition and oil, and they will not last long. ”

Stalin, who was sitting behind the desk, spoke with anger in his tone: "Marshal Budyonny, let's not forget that they are the great fighters of the Soviet Russian Red Army, they have an iron will!" Food, weapons and ammunition are not the key, the key is that they have lost the courage to continue fighting and the confidence to defeat the aggressor. You immediately telegraphed to Comrade Kirbonos and ordered him not to throw away every inch of Kiev, which was bought with the blood of our great Red Army soldiers, and if I heard the word retreat from their lips again, I would not hesitate to send him to a court-martial! ”

Budyonny reluctantly said: "Yes, Comrade Stalin, I will immediately convey your instructions to Comrade Kirbonos. ”

Stalin said coldly: "You are wrong, it is not that Comrade Kirbonos is a fighter of all the Southwestern Front. ”

"Yes, I'll relay your instructions at once!" Budyonny straightened up and saluted, and then walked out, and the heavy door closed behind the mountain, and the room fell into a dim silence again.

Not long after Marshal Budyonny left, the gate was pushed open again, and a Soviet general hurriedly walked in, with a slightly panicked face, he walked up to Stalin and said: "Comrade Stalin, Comrade Vasilevsky has sent an urgent telegram asking for help, Krasnoyarsk has been lost, the Huaxia team has outflanked the regiments of the Southeastern Front, Comrade Vasilevsky asked the high command to approve him to immediately lead his troops to break through. ”

"What? The Southeastern Front was also outflanked? As soon as he heard the news, Stalin, who was very deep in the city, couldn't help but stand up: "Comrade Ivan Danilovich, when did this happen? ”

"At noon today, the Second Army Group of the Chinese conquered Krasnoyarsk, and the Eighteenth Army stationed there was completely annihilated by the Chinese, 200,000 brave Red Army officers and men died heroically, and 70,000 were captured. Now the enemy's Second Army Group was advancing along the railway towards Omsk, and they were moving very fast, and it was reported that their vanguard had reached less than 200 kilometers east of Omsk. Admiral Ivan Danilovich replied in a heavy tone.

"Tell everyone in the headquarters to come to the meeting." After a long time, Stalin gave the order.

Soon, in a small conference room, more than a dozen high-ranking generals and marshals of the Supreme Command of Soviet Russia were gathered, including General Zhukov, commander of the Reserve Front, who had just been dismissed from the post of chief adviser of the Soviet army.

When these people came to the conference room, they all saw Stalin sitting there motionless, as if he had aged for several years, and one could not help but feel as if Stalin was asleep. Everyone in the conference room sat quietly in their seats, and no one dared to disturb the Supreme Commander's thoughts.

But Stalin did not fall asleep, and his nerves had been on the edge of tension and fear ever since he received the telegram. He originally thought that with the Southeastern Front under the command of Vasilevsky to defend Siberia, even if the Chinese had five million troops, it was not so easy to occupy the whole of Siberia at once, Siberia was too huge, and it would take at least a year and a half for the Chinese to occupy all the millions of kilometers of land one by one, as long as Vasilevsky could hold Siberia for a year, then Soviet Russia would have a chance to breathe, and he would be able to mobilize more reserves with an inexhaustible stream of reinforcements, and then blocked the Chinese army in that desolate field.

But the facts taught him that this unrealistic idea was now shattered, and the South-Eastern Front had been outflanked, just as the Germans outflanked Kiev, and the fate of the South-Eastern Front was in danger.

At this moment, in the middle of the conference room, a loud radio sounded a stirring of military music from the old Shawei period, which was the Russian Imperial Radio channel run by Alexei's Russian protector. However, this channel, this voice, and these words were forbidden and illegal in Soviet Russia, and anyone who listened to this report was imprisoned for the crime of "listening to enemy Taiwan," but in this room, no one would stop a single voice, because everyone here is leading and has the right to know the actions of the "reactionary" elements.

"Russian soldiers, compatriots! For twenty-three years, I have had a dream that has haunted me, when I was a teenager I fantasized about playing with my companions on the banks of the Volga, and as an adult I still dreamed of walking with my lover on the banks of the Neva River, but it was just my dream. A politics of extreme power imposes its ** will on the head of every ordinary Russian compatriot, who, in defiance of the will of God, ignores the dignity of the decree and imposes the personal will on all fellow Russians. The Romanov family, who have always been revered by us as little fathers, and countless officers and scholars of the Russian Empire, who love their homeland, were innocently imprisoned by them.

Countless innocent people were shot and killed by the Social Workers' Party, and even God will not forgive such a crime.

For so many years, I, like all my fellow Russians, have had a firm,

It is not a swinging faith. Great Russia is bound to be united again, and it will be in this great country again, Russian traditions will be restored, and the tricolor will once again fly over Moscow, and today, the time has come for Russia to come, brave soldiers, you will march west in the footsteps of Peter the Great, with the cooperation of our allies, and the tricolor of the Russian Empire will be brought by you to Kazan, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Minsk, Kiev, Accompanying the Tricolor to the Russian land was the desire of 150 million compatriots! Long live Russia! Long live the people who aspire by! ”

As the speech ended, the sound on the radio also stopped abruptly.

As if a long time had passed, Stalin slowly opened his eyes, and his voice, which had become a little old, came softly: "Comrades, the Southeast Front led by Comrade Vasilevsky has been outflanked by the Chinese, and their situation is very bad. ”

Although it was the first time they heard the news, they did not express much surprise, perhaps in their opinion, the fate of this front was already doomed when Stalin asked Vasilevsky to hold on to Siberia.

Zhukov sat at the end of the long table in the conference room, just listening quietly, without showing any strange dog expression.

"Comrade Zhukov, if you are asked to command the South-Eastern Front, can you lead them to recapture Krasnoyarsk and hold Nizhny Udinsk?" Although Zhukov was silent, it did not mean that Stalin did not notice him.

"No!" Zhukov shook his head helplessly, "If I were to replace Comrade Vasilevsky, I would not have done much better than him, now what we have to do is how to rescue the one million Soviet Russian Red Army soldiers who are in the outflanking circle, they are the precious force of our country." ”

"Comrade Zhukov, do you mean to approve of the breakthrough of the Southeastern Front?" Stalin asked casually.

Zhukov said with a wry smile: "In fact, it is no longer a question of whether to break through the encirclement, but how to break through, but in the face of the outflanking of the opponent's millions of troops, I can't think of any way to rescue Comrade Vasilevsky and his Southeastern Front." Unless we can provide them with an inexhaustible supply of supplies and aircraft support, which is almost impossible at the moment. ”

Stalin and the crowd were silent, yes! Now the Germans are still outflanking the 700,000 troops of the Kiev Front, if the Kiev Front is annihilated, the Germans can take advantage of the situation and wave their troops directly to Moscow, they themselves are unable to protect themselves, how can they take care of the Southeast Front thousands of miles away.

Stalin's heart ached like a knife when he thought of the nearly one million troops outflanked by both the Germans and the Chinese, and the Minsk Campaign, which ended last month, and now two million Soviet troops had been annihilated or were about to be annihilated.

"Then let the Southeast Front break through on its own!" It took a long time for Stalin to utter these words, which he had never been willing to say in the past. @