On July 15, Army Chief of Staff General Liu Mingzhao, who arrived at the front line across the turbulent Tobol River, had a bird's-eye view of the distant city of Kostanay from a periscope.

Unlike the historic fortress cities of Central Asia and Siberia, Kostanay did not establish a city until 1893 and became a trading center for the steppes. With the discovery of nearby coal, iron, and aluminum, the Soviet government established its status as the state capital in 1933. Due to its short time and deep location in the hinterland, there were no military facilities in the area before, and it was only after the defeat in the Battle of Petropavlovsk last year that the Soviets began to build permanent fortifications here. But no matter how it is built, the continuous flat grasslands and farmland are destined to have the potential to become a fortress.

Petropavlovsk was still in his hands, Aktobinsk had already been occupied, a pincer posture towards the Urals had begun to take shape, and Kostanay became the last obstacle to the Wehrmacht's entry into the Urals. Whether or not it can enter the Eurasian dividing line and take the initiative before winter arrives, the answer lies in this city. In order to fight for this place, the two sides launched a war to increase their troops. At the same time that the Wehrmacht broke through the Turkige Plateau and used transport planes to increase troops here at the rate of one division per day, the Soviet army was not idle, although the rear railway lines and transportation supplies were frantically destroyed by Chinese bombers, but in order to block China's entry into the Eurasian demarcation line, Timoshenko still let all the 430,000 troops of Lukin's Siberian Front shrink here, and also transferred 50,000 reinforcements from Ufa, Yekaterinburg and other places. At the same time, he also told Kirponos to abandon the original plan and try his best to block the passage of Lake Sarecopa into the plateau, in an attempt to cut off the supply channel of the Sunli.

In the telescope, the railway bridge across the Tobol River has been blown up, and there is a dangling pontoon bridge next to the pier, which is supposed to be the wreckage left behind by the failure of the boat bridge troops. "We have erected pontoon bridges in Alexander Drokav upstream, and Rudne downstream, according to the method of encircling three ques. It has been surrounded on three sides, northeast and south. Gong Chu stood beside him and introduced the situation softly. In order to unify the command, at the suggestion of Liu Mingzhao, the troops attacking Kostanay have been temporarily organized into the Central Army, which is personally commanded by him. Du Zishan and Li Yuguo were the Southern Front Group Army, and Sun Chuanfang, Fan Shisheng and Le Shiwen were the Northern Group Army.

"Where's the front?"

"The Funahashi battalion was attacked twice, but both were broken by artillery fire. The Soviets learned to be obedient and scattered their artillery in hidden woods, houses and bunkers, with at least 5 to 6,000 guns, many of which were 152 and 203 mm heavy guns. There was also a lot of anti-aircraft artillery, and the Air Force lost 70 bombers this week, and about 10 to 20 rocket launchers were deployed somewhere in the city. Gong Chu continued: "The people who deployed the defense are veterans. You see, on the surface, there is basically nothing unusual, but in fact, there are many foxholes and tank trenches in the fields. We tried several times, and each time as soon as we entered, we were attacked from all sides, and the infantry suffered considerable losses. "After Zhukov suffered a lot in front of the Golan trenches, the Soviet army also studied a lot of obstacles and trenches against tanks. The most famous of these are the wide-mouth tank trenches and foxholes. Hence the name of the wide trench, the upper width is narrow, V-shaped, and the tank cannot climb out at all when planted in it. Foxholes were a tactic designed by the Soviet Army specifically for tank ambush squads. It is to dig a large number of short tunnels on the enemy's offensive route, cover them with camouflage, and use various weapons to carry out close-range destruction after the tanks approach, and then cooperate with the fortified area. If you are not careful, you will easily suffer a big loss.

"Lukin, I know this man." Liu Mingzhao naturally knew who was defending Kostanay. The siege of Dongsak and the battle of Petropavlovsk were slipped away by him twice, and even Yang Qiu regretted it very much. In fact. In Yang Qiu's eyes, Lukin, who is good at defense, is far more of a headache than Zhukov.

Liu Mingzhao still had the same ancient expression, handed the binoculars to the guards, and asked about the reorganization of the troops. After 10 consecutive days of air transport, Army Group Center now has 6 armored divisions, 3 infantry divisions, 16 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division. But the problem also lies in the infantry divisions, limited by the loading capacity and speed of transport aircraft, the later infantry divisions can only be regarded as lightly armed divisions at present, and the number of artillery in each division is only one-third of the normal, and many troops have to push the captured Soviet-style artillery to the front line to make up for the firepower gap. Therefore, Liu Mingzhao simply separated the armored division and incorporated it into the infantry division as a regiment, which was equivalent to a mixed infantry division. However, in order to prevent the Soviet army from breaking through, he also left 2 armored divisions. In this way, Army Group Center became 2 armored divisions, 11 mixed infantry divisions, 8 infantry divisions, and 1 cavalry division, which greatly increased the combat capability of light infantry.

Such temporary pre-war adaptations were also risky, as not all infantry were trained in infantry. Therefore, during this time, Gong Chu and the others gave up a large-scale attack, and adopted the method of testing and training at the same time, and ran in a few mixed machine infantry divisions. "It's all done, and everyone has also rotated a few synthesis drills, and they can start at any time."

In Gong Chu's battle gaze, the Battle of Kostanay began. After the fact, military experts divided the Battle of Bulge, the Battle of Kostanay and later the Battle of Kurgan Tyumen into three major assault battles. It was the three assault battles that completely dismantled the Soviet counteroffensive launched in 1941, and also helped the Central Asian Allied forces to break into the Eurasian dividing line for the first time and seize the initiative in the war.

At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, the bombers took the lead in the Battle of Kostanay, which advanced to the Eurasian dividing line. After many previous trials, the Air Force abandoned heavy bombs and used all cluster bombs with intensive killing. During the three-hour bombardment, more than 10,000 cluster bombs were dropped. Subsequently, 1,200 barreled artillery pieces took over the suppression, and the artillerymen sweated and rained down shells on Soviet positions.

In the face of the fierce suppression of the Allied forces in Central Asia, the Soviet army, which has always been famous for its artillery tactics, bizarrely only invested a few hundred artillery pieces to counterattack, although the subsequent attack aircraft group quickly destroyed these artillery positions, but under Lukin's deliberate concealment, a large number of artillery still survived.

At the same time as Kostanay started, Li Yuguo on the other side of the battle also set off a general offensive tide. Under the cover of 616 tanks, Army Group of the Southern Front quickly captured the front-line positions of the Soviet troops. However, in the battle to open the gap in the plateau, it was desperately defended by the Soviet 5th Army. Since the area was full of forests and highlands, the troops needed to attack from the back, so the losses were very large, and Li Yuguo, who had not been able to break through after two days of see-sawing, had to suspend the attack and turn around to deal with the main force of Kirponos first.

Because the expected destruction effect was not achieved, it was until 4 o'clock in the morning on July 16. Liu Mingzhao was only put into the ground forces. Under the cover of 778 tanks and 467 armored vehicles, 8 mixed mechanized infantry divisions and 10 infantry divisions of Army Group Center began to compress the encirclement. The "Manchurian Tiger Panic" exposed the weakness of the Soviet army's armored forces, and at the same time promoted the study of anti-tank tactics. Despite his overwhelming armor superiority, Lukin was the Soviets' number one defensive master, and under his skillful deployment, the Soviets put up stubborn resistance using a combination of anti-tank foxholes, trenches, and fortified areas. At the same time, while marveling at the opponent's air transport capabilities, he also knew the limitations of heavy equipment airlift, and was more aware of the threat of bombers to artillery, so he gave full play to the five-to-one advantage in the number of artillery. Deliberately use their own artillery clusters separately, and only invest a small part at a time, so that even if they are destroyed by the Chinese Air Force, they will not hurt the roots. However, even if only a small part was invested, the Soviet artillery strength still gave Liu Mingzhao a deep headache, and many troops had just occupied a certain position, and they were covered by the sudden appearance of Soviet artillery fire, and suffered heavy casualties, especially in night battles, densely packed with craters and artillery fire. Make it difficult for the attacking troops to move an inch.

Not only that, but with the repeated sorties of tactical bombers, several field airfields on the front line were also saturated. Even with a large fleet of transport aircraft, transport aircraft plummeted from 900 at its peak to 500 per day. The amount of ammunition and equipment airlifted to the front line was cut in half. However, the unfavorable conditions did not shake Liu Mingzhao's determination to attack Kostanay, and he took advantage of his armor superiority to repeatedly carry out shallow shock tactics. This is a new armored tactic, simply like peeling an apple. Let the armored troops penetrate shallowly, encircle for a period and then throw in infantry to carry out annihilation, repeatedly killing and injuring the enemy's living forces.

The new tactics put Lukin under pressure. Reserves had to be used several times to make up for the holes in the outer layer that had been 'hollowed out' by the enemy's armored clusters, resulting in 50,000 casualties in just three days. And the artillery in his hands is not unlimited, even if only part of it is used at a time, it is constantly weakened under the blows of the Chinese Air Force. "Must retreat! If we don't deal with the transport, the enemy opposite us will be strengthening every day! You see, every time they use tanks on the periphery, they just want to drain our forces. Vlasov shook his head in frustration. After escaping death from East Kazakhstan, he led the remnants of his army to be incorporated into the Siberian Front. His 24 Army, after a year of replenishment, already had one tank corps and two infantry corps, the main force of the Siberian Front. "We can't hold here, and we shouldn't sacrifice our precious troops here in vain. While the enemy has not yet encircled the west, it is necessary to immediately retreat to the Trans-Ural Plateau to preserve the vital forces. ”

"Where else can we get there? The order of the General Secretary is for us to hold the last barrier of the Urals! Drain the blood of the enemy here and buy time for the mobilization of the Urals! ”

"Drain the blood of your enemies? No! On the contrary, it is our blood that is being consumed. Malinovsky's troops were completely annihilated, and General Kirponos was surrounded on the plateau pass. I am not afraid of sacrifice, but sacrifice must be worthwhile! In the event of our defeat, the entire Urals will be left with Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky, and there will simply not be enough troops! ”

"The high command is mobilizing more troops, 300,000 Cossack cavalry are being assembled, and Vatutin of Belarus is also coming, what the Motherland needs is time, not troops!"

"Cossacks? Are you going to fight on the Ural Plateau with cavalry? Enemy planes and tanks will tear them to shreds. ”

“。”

In the headquarters of the Soviet troops, located in the cellars, the officers quarreled fiercely about whether to break through or not. The sight full of gunpowder made Timoshenko, who was sitting in charge himself, restless and constantly pacing and thinking. Behind them, by the narrow ventilation window, Lukin stood silent, staring through the iron fence and looking at the bombed-out statue of Lenin. The mottled red brick walls in the distance are full of bullet holes, and the bleak and dilapidated scene makes people vaguely feel the Soviet Union in internal and external troubles at the moment.

The quarrel over whether to break through made Timoshenko more and more irritable, and his eyes couldn't help but turn to Lukin: "Comrade Lukin, what is your opinion?" ”

"You can't break through to the west!" Lukin broke the silence and said that he would not retreat. This statement made Vlasov and others, who supported the breakout, very angry, and said: "Why? Did the soldiers die here in vain? ”

Lukin shook his head vigorously: "I don't want the troops to die in vain, but don't forget, there is a saying in the Chinese Art of War, called 'Siege Three Queyi', which is precisely to describe our current situation." I don't believe that the enemy will make such a mistake as to forget about the west side, there must be an ambush there. So I think, it should go north! Go to the rendezvous Comrade Rokossovsky. ”

"To the north? No way! Vlasov jumped up and denied this plan: "There are 12 enemy divisions in the north, including 3 tank divisions, and if we leave this fortified area, we will all be killed in the field!" The emergence of the third plan made Timoshenko more and more undecided. You know, voluntarily giving up Kostanay would be an extremely heavy political responsibility, and he did not dare to bear such a heavy responsibility, so he had to kick the ball to Moscow after thinking twice. He waved his hand to the correspondent: "Send the plan to Moscow and ask for instructions from the high command." ”

"No, you can't!" As soon as he finished speaking, Lukin blocked the correspondent. After nearly two years of confrontation, the reality that the Soviet army has repeatedly hit a wall has made him suspect that the army's communication password is likely to have a problem, otherwise how to explain that the opponent can always anticipate the enemy's opportunity? Although there is no evidence, and the troops have to change the password every other week, it involves the life and death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and it must not be risked. Therefore, ignoring the gaze of everyone, he stopped: "It is necessary to continue to implement radio silence, stop all external communications, and prevent the enemy from discovering it in advance." ”

The idea was right, but Timoshenko, who was the first to look forward to Stalin, turned a blind eye. This is also understandable, after all, after the withdrawal from Kostanay, the Urals will be completely open. However, Timoshenko also knew that there might be a danger of leaks on the radio, so he asked the correspondent to use the original cable telegraph. The wired telegraph needed to be communicated by telephone line, and the telephone to the west could still be kept open.

After the telegram reached Moscow, Stalin at first did not agree to retreat. But at this time, news came that the Allied Army of the Central Asian Allies on the Northern Front took advantage of the start of the Battle of Kostanay and dispatched 20 divisions to launch a general attack on the 150,000 Soviet troops encircled in Yavlenka, south of Petropavlovsk. Despite the resistance of the troops, contact was lost after seven hours. The defeat of Yavlenka means that the plan for a major counteroffensive has been completely lost, and continuing to hold on to the Kostanay and Turgai plateaus can only be a waste of troops, and even if Stalin insists, he has to consider the emptiness of the Urals if Lukin and Kirponos are surrounded.

In the early morning of July 20, Stalin, after careful consideration, signed his name on the order to retreat...... (To be continued......)