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Whether or not the United States intervened early could not change the situation in Central Asia, and there were only two competitors on this inner continent, which was larger than Europe. (Baidu search .com)

East of Mount Ultaau, Algarbas.

On the slope of the hillside, the Soviet soldiers of the brigade buried their heads and built positions with sapper shovels to build fortifications. The troops, who had been in high spirits before departure, were dead, and there was hardly any sound except for the sound of dusty ropes. The soldiers can't be blamed for this, the cost of losing five tank divisions, eight infantry divisions, more than 3,000 artillery pieces of various types and half of the baggage, and more than 30,000 soldiers injured in three days and three nights is too great. So when the news came back to Moscow, Stalin sent a telegram directly to the troops, and at one point he was furious and wanted to remove Zhukov from command. In the end, it was Golikov who interceded, and only in the face of the victory in the Soviet-Finnish war did he let him continue to command and make meritorious contributions.

Zhukov kept his seat for the time being, but the situation was already very bad. From his point of view, he actually wanted to retreat, because after the Fifth Tank Army was annihilated, it meant that this force could easily move south along the Ultau Mountains to flank itself. Stalin, however, stubbornly refused any reason for withdrawal, and the telegram not only demanded that the offensive continue, but also that twenty divisions would be transferred to support it.

"Twenty divisions? We don't have so many troops. Golikov's face was full of disbelief. For the Eastern Front, Ufa and Don have been drained, and at present there are only 160 regular divisions in the entire Caspian Sea and east of the Urals. Among them, 40 divisions of the Siberian Front were in Siberia and the Urals, and because Zhukov took 15 divisions, half of them were still on their way from Europe. The Karakalpakstan Front had 25 divisions securing the high barrier east of the Caspian Sea, 55 divisions of the Kazakh Front, and the remaining 17 divisions on its own side, plus garrisons scattered in Arkarek, Cherinograd (present-day Asnata), Kokchetav (present-day Kokshetau), etc. There are simply no troops that can be drawn.

As for Tashkent, he didn't think at all, after the mobilization of the Persian, Caucasus and European sides, there were more than 250 divisions, but most of them were not satisfied with the formation and lack of weapons of recruits, only to guard against Germany's Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics, there were still 82 divisions of old troops, but even if they were transported, there was not enough time.

"Comrade Golikov, there are no reinforcements, Comrade Stalin wants to keep us going in this way." Zhukov shook his head. There were no reinforcements he knew best, after the defeat of the 5th Tank Army. The garrisons of the neighboring regions of Aktobinsk, Kostanay and Turkai were threatened, so it was impossible to withdraw them, and Lukin's main forces were dragged back, so Stalin's so-called reinforcements were actually Red Guards and partisans armed after the war.

He guessed correctly and waited until the afternoon. The first reinforcements finally arrived to converge. The reinforcements of the purported division were actually only 2,200 men, most of them farmers and workers, dressed in a variety of clothes, and the means of transport were also patchwork. What is even more exaggerated is that they have an average of one gun for every four people, and the whole division has only 2,500 rounds of ammunition.

Although it was extremely disappointing, it was finally replenished anyway. Golikov immediately handed over the guns and ammunition of the wounded soldiers to them, scattered and replenished the units. By the evening, more than 2,000 remnants of troops had fled from Kurgasen and supply convoys from the Ishim River had arrived, but only half of the 200 trucks, 500 pack horses and more than 2,000 transports had arrived. The rest were all blown up by the Chinese Air Force on the road.

Compared with the lack of troops and supplies, Zhukov has a bigger headache than where will the sudden appearance of the enemy move by Kurgarsen? In order to find out the scale and movement, he immediately found the soldiers who had escaped. But the whole interrogation process was messy. The soldiers only knew that there were many Manchurian Tiger tanks, but no one could say exactly how many. Some say there are 1,000, others say 500. Even more outrageous is five thousand.

The judgment of the officers and staff officers was also extremely confusing, some said that the other side would move south along the Ultau Mountains to flank the attack, some said that it would continue north to Arkarek, some said that it would directly attack the Aktobinsk region to the west, and still others said that it would turn around and go southwest between the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea to flank the Karakalpakstan Front. Due to the lack of sufficient intelligence and the loss of air supremacy, even Zhukov and Golikov could not make accurate judgments, so they decided to defend on the spot first and wait for intelligence.

Compared with the overstretched Zhukov, Zhuo Fan is much happier. After a day's rest, the convoy of supplies from Agader was replenished with ammunition and fuel, as well as large quantities of food and medicine. Immediately after that, 3,877 infantry from the Polish Legion Lodz Infantry Brigade (Lodz is a Polish place name) who took a train from Shymkent to Kyzylorda and then arrived by truck, also successfully came to converge, not only replenishing the infantry lost before, and the multi-functional engineering tank battalion that came with them, but also solved the problem of the lack of engineering tanks in the troops.

Finally, Yue Peng, Chief of the General Staff of the Wehrmacht, Xu Shuzheng, Commander of the Theater of Operations, Qin Zhangshu, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Lieutenant General Kukol, Supreme Commander of the Polish Corps, and King Aylingjun, Commander and Prime Minister of the Kazakh Independence Army, also jointly sent a letter of commendation and officially reorganized his patchwork unit into the 23rd and 37th Armored Divisions of the Wehrmacht, jointly awarding the honor of the Tiger Division. Major General Odzinski's 10th Armored Brigade and the Lodz Infantry Brigade were also officially reorganized into the 1st Armored Division of the Chinese Polish Corps, awarded the Polish Eagle Division the honor of the Polish Eagle Division, and the honor of the Tengger Division of the Kazakh Independent 3rd Cavalry Division.

There are many examples of temporary units being reorganized into integrated divisions during the war, but the honor of the Tiger Roar Division is not something that any unit can get. There are many units in the army that can fight, but there are only 10 divisions with the Tiger logo on their armbands, namely the 1st Armored Division, the 2nd Armored Division, the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, the 11th Motorized Rifle Division, the 22nd Motorized Infantry Division, the 27th Infantry Division, the 101st, 102nd, 103rd and 104th Central Guard Divisions. Let's not talk about the familiar ones, let's just say that the 11th, 22nd and 27th divisions, the three units are all old units that participated in the Battle of Qingdao Meat Grinder, went to France, and then in the Battle of Rainyvale, forced to break through the Siegfried line under German artillery fire, and fought a bloody battle with six elite German divisions on the heights of Zabal Mountain in order to block the German army.

Therefore, Sun Chuanfang said that Chu Nan did not treat Zhuo Fan badly, just because the 3rd machine infantry division was the Tiger Roaring Division. Now the 23rd and 37th Panzer Divisions are included in the ranks of the Tiger Roar Division, which not only proves the capabilities of the troops, but also shows that the Battle of Kurgasen Tank Conference was a turning point in the battle.

The same goes for the Polish 1st Panzer Division, which was awarded the Eagle Division, and the 3rd Kazakh Separate Cavalry Division, which was awarded the Tengri Division.

Although it was impossible to issue armbands immediately, the soldiers were excited to immediately draw a tiger pattern on their tanks. Even the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, which was already the honor of the Tiger Division, also drew a big tiger head on the side of the tank.

It's an honor.

With three armored divisions, one mechanized infantry division and one cavalry division, Zhuo Fan was no longer willing to be an arrow, so he immediately let the deciding soldiers split into two ways. He led Zhao Dengyu's 23rd Division and the Polish 1st Armored Division to attack Alkarek, and let Zhou Yawei, commander of the 23rd Division, and Wu Qiwen, the new commander of the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, lead their troops and the Kazakh Independent 3rd Cavalry Division to make a detour from the west of Lake Tianjiz to block Kurgarginsk and cut off Zhukov's rear road.

At noon on 7 May, two panzer divisions arrived on the outskirts of Arkarek.

Alkarek is the capital of the Turkai region and the southern gateway to and from the Kostanay region. To the north is the Turkai Plateau. To the east is Lake Tengiz. Before the start of the war, there was no railway here, and it was not until the defeat of the East Kazakh Campaign that the Soviet Army, like the Wehrmacht, accelerated the construction of the Central Asian Railway Bypass, and used two railway divisions to connect a 230-kilometer-long temporary bypass from the main road of the Ishim River.

These were two of Zhukov's most important distribution points, but by the time Zhuo Fan arrived, they had already been visited by the Air Force many times. The destroyed railway station and warehouses can be seen through the telescope. Due to the importance of the location here, once it is breached, the Turkai Plateau will be undefendable, and Kostanay, the southeastern gate of the Urals, will be directly exposed to firepower, so the Soviets have two infantry divisions here, with a total strength of about 15,000 men.

Two armored divisions fight two infantry divisions, and others must think that they will be captured. But Zhuo Fan, who had experienced the urban battles of Kyzylorda, was very careful. Because he knows the difficulty of urban warfare. More importantly, from here the troops will officially step into the Slavic cultural sphere. To put it simply, the Turke, Akmola, Kostanay, and North Kazakh regions in this target are no longer the vast and sparsely populated regions in the east, with Kostanay and Akmola being the largest breadbaskets of Kazakhstan. It is also a resource replenishment for the Ural industrial region, with a total population of more than 2 million people in the four oblasts, more than 40 percent of whom are Slavic. These people, unlike the Kazakhs and other Central Asian peoples, have immigrated here since the time of the tsars. Thoughts, ways of acting, and so on were inclined towards the USSR. Moreover, under the subtle influence of hundreds of years, the way of thinking and language of Kazakh and other peoples here have also been all Russified. So many of them do not see the Wehrmacht as liberators, but, on the contrary, are hostile.

According to the investigation of the Military Intelligence Agency, the Soviet Union formed hundreds of Red Guards and partisan units in at least these three states. Although these units are extremely poorly armed and complex, and if placed on the front, they may be completely annihilated by a single armored division, but if they go behind enemy lines, they have to be careful to avoid falling into chaotic battles.

Major General Odezinski took the initiative to take on the task of testing the offensive, and like Zhuo Fan, he was also very cautious and sent his own armored reconnaissance battalion. In order to ensure the smooth attack, Zhuo Fan ordered to provide fire protection for the reconnaissance battalion first. The 24 captured 122-mm howitzers (which are so good that the Wehrmacht tends to use them in large quantities after capture) and 16 105-mm self-propelled howitzers were the first to roar, and countless fireballs were once again set off in the city that had already been blown up by the Air Force, and the rubble and shrapnel hissed and screamed in the explosion.

Using barrage cover, 29 Type 31 tanks protected two infantry battalions and were the first to charge forward. Captain Mergiensky, who led the team, was a veteran officer who was very cautious in his work, and immediately after setting off, he carefully controlled his speed and paid attention, but before entering the city, the 31 tank at the front still flew high with a loud bang like a rocket, and then toppled on the ground.

"Mines!"

As Captain Mergiensky shouted a reminder, a dense rain of bullets rushed out from all directions, and many Polish infantrymen hiding behind tanks were caught off guard.

"Division Commander Zhao, send three battalions to the north to outflank the rear road. Artillery strengthens fire! Minesweeper, minesweeper up! The engineering tank followed, see if you don't see it, bulldoze me everything you can see! Don't leave any dead ends! General Odzinsky, let your men follow behind the engineering tanks. ”