Under the warm August sun of Moscow, more than 2,000 steel beasts fought fiercely on the plain north of Losino-Petrovsky. Shells of all calibers dragged dark red or orange tail flames and rampage across the battlefield at breakneck speeds, with explosions or metal crashing against each other. The heaviest fighting took place in the southern part of the Losino-Petrovsky field, where Soviet Su-76 and T-28/1935 tanks engaged in a close-quarters artillery battle with Chinese Hunter tank destroyers in what resembled the line-and-shoot tactics of the line infantry era. At a distance of less than 1000 meters, tank guns on both sides were enough to penetrate the frontal armor of opposing tanks. Nearly 500 tanks on both sides bombarded each other at this distance, and the tanks on both sides were hit by the opponent one after another and turned into a ball of fire. According to the information disclosed after the war, the two Chaser tank battalions deployed by Zhang Zhonglin on the left flank lost 102 Stalker tank destroyers in less than an hour of bloody fighting! The battle damage rate is as high as 76%! Their results were equally impressive, with a total of 142 Su-76 and 65 T-28/1935 tanks destroyed.

However, even with heavy losses, Konev still did not give up the attack on the left flank of the Chinese army's armored group, and threw the reserves in his hands into the attack - because there was no radio communication, Konev sent a large number of cavalry to act as signal troops on the battlefield, and searched around for Soviet tanks that had been scattered in the previous offensive and "herded sheep", so he always had some reserves in his hands to invest. But when he saw that he was about to break through the left flank of the Chinese army with his numerical superiority. The Suy cluster, southeast of Losino-Petrovsky, was reinforced by a battalion of Panthers and some Panzergrenadiers, and began to attack Konev's thin tank line under his own south. More than a hundred Panther tanks and two whole regiments of Panzergrenadiers, supported by more than thirty German HS-129 attack planes that had just flown to the battlefield. It took less than 15 minutes to form a breakthrough.

At the same time, Konev's tank group on the left flank was in big trouble, as they kept closing in on the Panther tanks on the right flank of the Chinese armored cluster, and as a result, they themselves broke into the effective range of the Cheetah tank destroyers in the middle of the Chinese army! Seeing this, Zhang Zhonglin immediately mobilized a battalion of Cheetahs to turn to the northwest, forming a flanking attack with the Panther tanks, and soon forced the left flank of the Soviet army to retreat, while the Chinese Army's Panther tank group took the opportunity to advance. Always keep the distance between 1,000 and 1,500 meters from the tank group on the left flank of the Soviet army, and use the powerful firepower of the Panther tanks to kill and injure opponents from a safe distance. Soon Konev's left flank was beaten to the point of collapse. After that, Zhang Zhonglin ordered the two Cheetah Tan Annihilation Battalions in the middle and the Black Panther Tank Battalion on the right flank to press Konev in the middle at the same time.

The left flank was completely routed by the Chinese army, and the middle was attacked by nearly 200 Cheetah Tanjian and Panther tanks, and the only right flank that could make a breakthrough was possible. And because of the attack of the two Panther tank battalions and two panzergrenadier regiments of the Chinese army, they fell into the predicament of being attacked by the enemy on their backs.

It was noon and the battle was hard. With Konev's death, the Soviet tank cluster finally could no longer hold on, and the whole army fell into collapse. The fleeing Soviet troops panicked, and many tanks and soldiers rushed directly into the minefields and anti-tank trenches at the front of the Soviet defense line behind them, and as a result, they became the "forerunners" of the Chinese army. Li Zongren and Wei Lihuang took the opportunity to command the infantry to storm and broke through the Soviet defense line in one fell swoop and entered the city of Losino-Petrovsky.

But the catastrophe of the Soviet army did not stop there, on the front south of Losino-Petrovsky. The main forces of the 2nd Panzer Army of the Chinese Army had already broken through Vasilevsky's defenses at this time and broke through to the front of the Soviet defensive line. More than 80,000 infantry and panzergrenadiers poured into the Soviet trench defenses along the gaps opened by tanks and tank destroyers. The Soviet infantry, which witnessed the explosion of the nuclear bomb and the rout of its own tank cluster, had no fighting spirit, and under the joint assault of the Chinese tanks and infantry, they only held out for a few hours before retreating. By the evening of the same day. The four main strongholds of the Soviet Army's first defensive strip on the eastern front of the Moscow Line, including Losino-Petrovsky, Kupavna, Elektrougli and Ramenskoye, were all occupied by the Chinese army!

And on the southern and western fronts of the Moscow Line, the Germans also made a heavy breakthrough on this day. On the southern front of Moscow, the important strongholds of Podolsk and Domodedovo were captured, and the vanguard of German Army Group C advanced to the line of Serbinka, less than 30 kilometers from Moscow's Red Square. On the western front of Moscow, the Germans captured Odintsovo, Moskovsky and Troitsk, and the advance even reached Krasnogorsk, which was only 20 kilometers from the center of Moscow.

At this time, the GCIST leaders in Moscow have just recovered from the nuclear explosion that is close to the morning of today. Well, or that the Kremlin bunker where he was located had only just been restored to the outside world.

Due to the experience of the previous nuclear explosion in Krasnoyarsk, the Kremlin bunker has prepared a lot of wires, telephone wires, candles and so on. As a result, the power supply, which had failed due to the electromagnetic pulse of the nuclear explosion, was quickly restored, but communication with the outside world was not restored for a while. It turned out that the nuclear bomb dropped by the Germans in the early morning of August 6 exploded 1,200 meters above Red Square (the Germans turned up the height of the nuclear bomb explosion in order to increase the destructive power of the electromagnetic pulse). Although the damage caused by the shock wave and heat after the explosion was not severe due to the high altitude of the explosion, it still knocked down the Kremlin and a large area of surrounding buildings, and buried several exits from the Kremlin bunker. As a result, the Moscow Front command had to send a large number of officers and soldiers, and it took a whole day to dig out one of the bunker entrances. It was not until 11 o'clock that night that the commander of the Moscow Front, Field Marshal Yakil, entered the Kremlin bunker with the latest battle reports.

"The enemy launched a fierce attack on the east, west and south sides of Moscow during the day today, and because most of the communications of our army were interrupted, the command was out of order, and the artillery, infantry, and armored forces could not effectively coordinate together, so today's combat situation was very unsatisfactory...... The Chinese and German armies made great breakthroughs in the east, west, and south, and in particular, a large-scale decisive tank battle broke out in the battlefield east of Moscow. General Baranov reported that his tank group fought hard for nearly ten hours with the superior Chinese armored group, losing 1,552 tanks and artillery pieces, and the chief of staff, General Konev, was killed in the battle, and lost more than 30,000 soldiers......"

Listening to Yakir's report on the war situation, which seemed to be a funeral, Trotsky's face only had a numb expression, and when Yakir's report was over, he asked in a hoarse voice: "Comrade Yakir, how long do you think Moscow can hold out?" ”

Yakir quietly exchanged glances with Vatsettis and Pavlov, all three of them reluctant to answer the heartbreaking question, not even to think about it. Trotsky raised his voice again and asked, before Yakir sighed and said: "If we can't solve the problem of communications being damaged by a nuclear explosion, I'm afraid ...... It will be difficult for our defenses to be effective, and it would be nice to be able to hold out until the end of September. ”

"Isn't there a way to solve the communication problem?" Trotsky frowned.

"There is nothing that can be done at the moment," Pavlov pondered, "perhaps the situation will be better when the encirclement of Moscow is further reduced, and then the Germans will not be able to drop nuclear bombs." But ......" he was silent for a moment, then looked at Trotsky again: "Comrade Trotsky, are you really not thinking about leaving Moscow?" In the north, we still have a lot of power, and if you lead it personally, maybe ......"

"I'm not leaving!"

Trotsky shook his head: "I must hold on to Moscow, it is my duty, as long as I am alive, the military and civilians of Moscow will resist with all their might, and if I leave Moscow, the city will soon fall...... Then the entire resistance west of the Ural Mountains will be crushed by the enemy, so I must stay in Moscow! ”

Pavlov sighed, Trotsky was right, perhaps as soon as he left Moscow, the millions of Russians in the city would give up resistance and throw in the towel. Because the war had really been lost, Trotsky's current stubbornness, apart from sending more Russians to hell, had only the sole effect of setting the stage for the Second World Revolution, which by all look illusory...... The main of these arrangements was the use of the ports of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk to send supplies and troops to the resistance bases in Siberia.

At this time, a staff officer belonging to the base camp of the Soviet army hurriedly pushed the door and walked into the conference room with the telegram he had just received: "Report, the radio has been repaired, and an urgent telegram has been received from the Northern Front. With that, he handed the telegram to Pavlov.

"What's wrong?" Trotsky saw Pavlov's brow furrowed tightly and hurriedly asked.

"It's Murmansk that has happened!" Pavlov took a breath and looked up at Trotsky: "The German fleet appeared off the coast of Severomurmansk, and battleships were dispatched to shell the port!" In addition, the passage from the White Sea to the Barents Sea was blocked by the German fleet, and our fleet of 10,000 officers and 100,000 tons of supplies was intercepted by the German fleet......" (to be continued......