August 17, Zhytomyr, headquarters of the German 11th Army.

The adjutant knocked on the door and walked quickly into Mackenson's office, and after Marchensen stood behind him and saluted: "Marshal, today's situation is a little weird!" ”

Mackensen, who was standing in front of the map with his pipe, pondered, and after listening to the adjutant's voice, he didn't turn around, but asked, "Oh? Did something happen? ”

"Yes, Marshal!" The adjutant replied, and immediately said: "Half an hour ago, the forward troops launched an attack on the city of Kyiv, but the strange thing is that there was no reaction in the city of Kyiv, under this kind of invitation, the front troops sent several small groups of reconnaissance troops to break into the city, and after the reconnaissance troops entered the city, they quickly searched the Xicheng District, but found nothing, and now the entire Xicheng District of Kyiv seems to have become a dead city!" ”

Hearing this, Mackenson couldn't calm down, he turned around sharply, and immediately said, "What did you say?" There is not even a person in Xicheng District? Could it be that they all crossed the river overnight to Dongcheng District? Is this possible? ”

The adjutant shrugged his shoulders and said, "In fact, marshal, many reconnaissance teams searched in Xicheng District for two hours, and only found a lot of rats, and other than that, they didn't find any other creatures!" In view of the situation, the generals at the front ordered the troops to stop the advance, stay outside the city for the time being, and report to the command, the situation is like this, the generals hope that the marshal, you, will make a decision, whether to order the army to enter the city? ”

Mackensen fell into deep thought, he smoked his pipe in his mouth, kept smoking a cigarette, and then turned his head to look at the map, this Kiev is in a very special location, there are high mountains in the north and south. There are also high mountains in the northwest, and only the west side is a flat river. The Dnieper River crosses the city and divides the city in two, which is not easy to fight. It's not easy to fight.

He remembered the three cavalry divisions he had sent out, and asked, "Where are they now?" ”

The adjutant immediately said: "They attacked Poltava and routed the 300,000 Chinese troops there without ammunition and then moved north, because of the large number of people and the fact that their tracks have been exposed, so their actions are much slower, and the Chinese army and the Tsarist side have cut off the railway from Poltava to Kiev after learning about the situation, they can only go to Kiev on horseback, and now they have only walked a third of the way!" ”

Mackenson frowned. He took the pipe from his mouth and said: "Order them to speed up, and at the same time order the frontal troops to enter the city, a small Xicheng District, what is there to be afraid of, can it still devour my army of hundreds of thousands?" ”

The adjutant promised: "Yes, marshal!" ”

After the order was given, the units of the German 11th Army began to enter the western part of Kiev, which had almost been emptied by the Chinese army. All the residents who originally lived here have been transferred to Dongcheng District across the river, but there are very few residents who stay in Dongcheng District, and they all know that there is a war here, and no one knows when the shells will fall on them. Lives are not guaranteed, so most people leave Dongcheng District to seek a living in other places, and only a few situations remain in Dongcheng District.

Chen Shufan has been properly deployed. A large number of Vietnamese soldiers were deployed on the opposite side of the river, and their guns were aimed at the riverside in Xicheng District. To prevent the Germans from crossing the river, and the Chinese army also deployed a large number of troops at the bridgehead. At the same time, a large amount of explosives were planted under the bridge piers, and once the bridgehead could not be defended, the bridge would be blown up, and Chen Shufan also asked the Vietnamese soldiers to row all the boats on the river side of Xicheng District to the upstream of Dongcheng District to take care of them, so that the Germans would not have any tools to cross the river, and it would be difficult to fight unless the German soldiers swam over or crossed the river from other places.

The Germans entered the city very safely, except for seeing rats often appearing on the streets, there was no other suspicious place, Mackensen's headquarters did not move, he continued to stay in Zhytomyr, the German 11th Army except for nearly 80,000 wounded and sick left in Zhytomyr, the remaining 100,000 people all entered the Xicheng District, and quickly found a house to live.

The situation reported to Zhytomyr from the front made Mackensen's mood terrible, he didn't expect the Chinese army to retreat so quickly, and also got all the ships away, the German army wanted to cross the river, there was no way for the time being, but he could only wait for the three cavalry divisions he expected to attack the back of Dongcheng District, but Mackensen didn't know that his three cavalry divisions had already ended, and during this time, Wu Peifu had been pretending to be the commander of the German cavalry division to send a telegram to Mackensen's headquarters to deceive Mackensen and the German 11th Army Headquarters.

In the early morning of August 18, Wu Peifu's troops, who had already arrived not far from Zhytomyr, launched a fierce attack on Zhytomyr, which was the rear of the German army in this area, although it was the location of the headquarters and there were some troops around it, but the Germans never thought that the Chinese army would suddenly attack Zhytomyr from the south.

The garrison of a brigade was quickly defeated by the Vietnamese army led by Wu Peifu under the cooperation of a large number of artillery fire, from two o'clock in the morning, the battle continued until seven o'clock in the morning, Zhytomyr was all controlled by the Vietnamese troops led by Wu Peifu, the German veteran Markensen was pulled up by the adjutant and several soldiers in his sleep and sent to the war horse to protect him and fled to the west, many people in the headquarters were captured, and the German airfield, German ammunition depot, logistics warehouse and field hospital in Zhytomyr were all occupied, There were nearly 80,000 wounded soldiers in the field hospital, and these people did not know what was going on, and when it was dawn, they found that they had become prisoners of the Chinese state.

Immediately after the capture of Zhytomyr, Wu Peifu ordered 5,000 men to attack Korostviv, and in the afternoon of the same day, the Vietnamese soldiers under the command of Chinese officers attacked Korostviv and occupied the pass, so that the 100,000 German troops in the western city of Kiev and the German-Austrian 4th Army besieging Bucha and Irpin were caught in the middle.

When the news reached the headquarters of the Second Army Corps located in the eastern city of Kiev, Zhang Xiaozhun and Yang Jie and others were overjoyed, Zhang Xiaozhun immediately telegraphed Wu Peifu to let him firmly hold Zhytomyr and Korostviv and cooperate with the battle in Kiev.

There are 100,000 North Korean troops hiding in the sewer system space in the western city of Kyiv, and they have been hiding in the sewer space for two days, this taste is not pleasant, not only is it hot, but also the stinky smell, it is no wonder that the German army can see rats everywhere on the street, and the North Korean army who dares to love Xu Shuzheng drove out the rats hiding in the sewers.

When this disappearance reached the ears of the lower-level soldiers and officers of the German army, the 100,000 German troops in the city and the soldiers of the German-Austrian 4th Army besieging Bucha and Irpin were suddenly shaken, and their morale fell all the way to the bottom, and when the back road was cut off, no one still had the heart to fight, and more importantly, the food and ammunition were all in the hands of the Chinese army, and the food and ammunition on the front line could only last for two days. If you don't get supplies after two days, everyone wants their stomachs.

It was when the German-Austrian 4th Army was panicking, and the top brass of the German-Austrian 4th Army immediately ordered to stop the offensive, keep ammunition for use at critical moments, and halve everyone's food, hoping to last longer, and at the same time, the top brass of the German-Austrian 4th Army began to discuss preparations for a counteroffensive on Zhytomyr and Korostviv.

The situation of the German 11th Group in the city was not much better, there was no food and ammunition in the city at all, they only had two days of food and ammunition reserves, and they were also facing starvation.

That night, several army commanders and division commanders of the front-line troops of the German 11th Army sat together to discuss countermeasures, and at this moment, Xu Shuzheng, who was hidden in the sewers of the city, led the North Korean army to attack, he first sent a regiment of 3,000 people out of the sewers, carrying a large number of heavy machine guns to seal the passage in and out of the city as quickly as possible, and then Xu Shuzheng began to command the North Korean troops to sneak out of the sewer entrances to attack the German troops who had fallen asleep, and the North Korean soldiers dug tunnels on the first floor of many houses and buildings. These North Korean soldiers came out of the tunnel and saw that many German soldiers were sleeping in one room, so they threw several grenades in a row and exploded indiscriminately, but after the explosion was over, they rushed in again, and when they saw that they were not dead, they opened fire.

This kind of sneak attack from the tunnel mouth suddenly in the middle of the night made the German army, which had never encountered such a situation, not know how to deal with it at all, and the morale of the German army itself was already very low, and after such a sudden sneak attack, the German army suddenly suffered heavy losses.

The sneak attack was carried out until the morning of August 19, and the German army, which originally had 100,000 men, lost more than 20,000 people, and the remaining more than 70,000 people were divided into various areas of Xicheng District, as long as the chance of being hit was exposed.

After learning that the German troops in the city had been attacked by surprise, the German-Austrian 4th Army, which was attacking outside the city, immediately mobilized troops to come to the rescue, but was blocked outside the city by a regiment of Vietnamese soldiers with strong firepower, and then the Chinese army sent fighters to bomb and strafe the attacking German-Austrian forces, resulting in heavy casualties among the German-Austrian troops, so they retreated.

In the next two days, the German army in the city lost more than 10,000 people, and the remaining 60,000 people had been hungry for two days.

On the morning of August 20, the three German army commanders jointly issued an order announcing surrender, and within half a day, the German officers and soldiers trapped in the city dropped their weapons and raised their hands and came out of hiding places to surrender. (To be continued......)