The question of how to retreat was hotly debated in the Military Council, and although both Trotsky and Sverdlov favoured Tukhachevsky's plan of securing the line first and then retreating, it was ruthlessly rejected by the strong opposition of the more militarily literate Frunze, Ubolevich, Arksnis, and Triandafylov.

Li Xiaofeng's plan was cleared that the retreat must be carried out immediately, and the crucial question was which troops would be responsible for blocking the rear of the palace. Truth be told, it's a rather brutal task, almost tantamount to self-sacrifice.

And now the troops on the front line confronting the German army are undoubtedly the most elite strength of the Red Army, the palms and backs of the hands are all meat, who can bear to sacrifice?

"The more elite the troops, the more they have to serve the overall interests of the Soviet Union, and the more they should have the courage to take responsibility." Li Xiaofeng said, "The First Mechanized Army of the Guards must take the lead in staying!" ”

Tukhachevsky's heart and soul of the First Mechanized Military of the Guards was also the key construction unit of the former Military Commission, and after Tu Shuai returned to power, he snatched this son back as soon as possible and transferred Rokossovsky to the Ninth Mechanized Army as a commander.

At that time, Tukhachevsky's approach made Li Xiaofeng quite annoyed, not that he was not angry that Tukhachevsky had snatched the 1st Guards Mechanized Army, but that Tukhachevsky was only transferred to Rokossovsky to the Ninth Mechanized Army, and according to Rokossovsky's qualifications, he could be promoted to deputy commander or chief of staff of the group army, and his military rank had to be raised by one level. But Tukhachevsky did not pull out a dime, and even secretly pressed Rokossovsky: "When this comrade was the commander of the First Mechanized Army, he did not fully understand the essence of the large-depth operation. Exercise is still needed! ”

Such comments are very irresponsible. If it weren't for the fact that the war was imminent. It is not appropriate to fight with Tukhachevsky, Li Xiaofeng must definitely give him a little color to see. And now, when deciding who will back the back, Li Xiaofeng fired a shot, you Tukhachevsky is not awesome, isn't it not to give face? Then I don't need to give you face, your henchman will die there!

At that time, Tukhachevsky's face turned white, and he stared directly at Li Xiaofeng. As if to bite. However, Li Xiaofeng said without backing: "As a key construction unit of the Red Army, doesn't it need to play an exemplary and leading role? ”

This sentence choked Tukhachevsky enough, because he just wanted to say that the 1st Guards Mechanized Army was an elite unit, and it was not worth the sacrifice to block it. Who would have thought that Li Xiaofeng would emphasize the role of exemplary leadership, and its subtext is very clear: "The First Mechanized Army of the Guards was the best in the whole army before, with the best weapons, well-equipped officers and the best soldiers, and the priority of supply has always been the first. ”

In particular, Frunze also added: "It is of representative significance to let the 1st Guards Mechanized Army stay to block the enemy, and it is also easy to do the work of other troops." I think it's reasonable! ”

Tukhachevsky was really anxious this time, and hurriedly said: "Then the excellent officers of the army should be withdrawn, right?" It's a shame to let them sacrifice like this! ”

It's not just Li Xiaofeng who doesn't like to hear this. Frunze was even more angry: "Comrade Tukhachevsky, what do you mean by this? Do you mean to let other comrades go to their deaths? What's going on?! When you are happy, you rush up, and when you are suffering, you want to pull your legs and leave, what kind of Communist Party member is this! Not a single officer is allowed to be transferred, and whoever is responsible must take it up! ”

Frunze's words decided the fate of the First Guards Mechanized Army, but Li Xiaofeng did not do it too far, but immediately said: "Of course, we can't let the blocking troops covering the main force break through like this, we should leave some seeds for these troops, and transfer the wounded, some officers and soldiers who have previously won the Order of the Red Banner or above, and plan to transfer 1,000 people from each division." Priority will be given to rebuilding the unit in the future! ”

In this way, there was less resistance to opposition, but when it was carried out, there was an unexpected situation, and when the political commissars conveyed this spirit to the troops, the part of the officers and soldiers who were supposed to be drawn as seeds according to the plan were unwilling to leave their brothers, and even the Hero of the Soviet Union said: "I would not have been able to receive this honor (referring to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union) without other comrades-in-arms and comrades, and now I am left alone to survive, which I cannot do in any way." Please let me stay with my comrades! ”

The political commissars made great efforts to gather enough "seeds" almost with guns, and when they parted next, both those who stayed and those who left hugged their heads and cried.

Farewell, comrades-in-arms! There will come a time when you will return to this battlefield, and please bring me a sunflower (the national flower of the Soviet Union).

On 3 August, a massive retreat of the Red Army began, with almost an average of about one corps left in each army group to hold off the enemy. In other words, if nothing else, a third of the Red Army's forces on the Western Front disappeared as a result of this battle.

"The training of new recruits and the transfer of troops from other military districts must be carried out immediately, and it is foreseeable that even if we can secure the front line in Minsk and Kiev, the enemy will launch a frantic offensive. In order not to collapse completely, we need to do our best to make up for the previous losses! Frunze said worriedly.

"We expect to have about three million reserve forces mobilized by the end of August." Trotsky said.

Speaking of which, one has to be thankful that in order to cope with this war, the USSR has been preparing for this war since the early thirties, much more fully than in history, and a significant part of the school-age youth has undergone primary military training. One of the most commendable is the 100,000 pilot and one million pilot training programs.

Beginning in 1933, the Soviet government began to establish a large number of flying and piloting schools, through a long-term and well-defined training system, and it took more than seven years to train about 100,000 pilots and nearly 1 million pilots. In particular, it should be noted that these million drivers are not only the kind that can drive cars, but the vast majority of them can drive tracked vehicles and have certain repair skills. This also allowed the Red Army to basically have no worries about pilots and tankmen in future wars.

At least Trotsky was not worried about people for now. He was more worried about the number of planes and tanks and other technical weapons.

"According to statistics. Until July 25. Our army lost more than 2,700 tanks, more than 1,800 armored vehicles, more than 1,000 artillery pieces of various types, 1,300 fighters, 1,000 bombers and attack planes, more than 20,000 automobiles, and 500 vehicles. Most of them have been completely destroyed and are not worth repairing......"

The meaning of Trotsky's number jù is clear. That is, the next expansion of the army, how to solve the weapon? These losses were enough for the Soviet Union's Great Leap Forward in heavy industry. Of course, when Trotsky brought up this topic at this time, he did not mean to avenge Tukhachevsky, after all, Li Xiaofeng had forced Tu Shuai enough just now, and Trotsky had to express it in all his feelings.

However, Li Xiaofeng had long expected that Trotsky would make a fuss on this issue, and he made full preparations in advance, but in any case he could not get Trotsky to grasp the slightest handle on this issue, and even his super high work efficiency was highly appreciated by Frunze: "Comrade Andrei's work is incredible, in a very short time. He mobilized the Soviet Union, and all walks of life were completely brought into a state of war. You can work 24 hours a day. At the same time, our enemies were still intoxicated by the previous victories, Berlin and Paris were all singing and dancing, so to speak, the Germans did not lose the war in 1945, in 1941, no, it should be said that in 1933 they lost! ”

However, the high-speed operation of the Soviet industrial machine was temporarily unable to free the Red Army from passivity at the front. Soon the Germans sensed the Red Army's intentions and immediately began the so-called pursuit and annihilation operation, attempting to penetrate the Red Army's defense line and penetrate deep and high speed, and then encircle and destroy the main forces of the Red Army in one fell swoop.

First of all, let's talk about the situation on the battlefield at that time, a part of the main forces of the German Central Army was encircling and annihilating the encircled 3rd and 10th armies of the Red Army, but the resistance of these two armies was quite fierce, and the German army's attempts to end the encirclement and annihilation operations at an early date were thwarted again and again.

On the other hand, the attacking forces, consisting mainly of the other part of Army Group Center and Army Group North, and a considerable part of the German reserves, confronted each other on the line of Verkhni-Maukinia-Kosuw-Sokowulv-Mordi-Menzizhec-Palchev-Lubaltuv-Lublin in eastern Poland. Among them, the main points of attack of the Germans were Verkhnia Ukinia, Mordi, Menzizhec and Lublin.

In these four directions, the Germans continued to invest forces to probe, especially in Vermi-Maunkinia and Menzizhec, and the Germans pressed the 1st and 2nd tank clusters in an attempt to achieve a breakthrough in one fell swoop and attack in the direction of Minsk.

Whether or not they can hold Upper Maukinia and Menzizhec is related to whether or not the main forces of the Red Army can retreat safely, and if there is a mistake, it will affect the overall retreat plan of the Red Army. Among them, the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps was stationed in Upper Maukinia.

Major General Petrovsky, then commander of the 1st Guards Tank Division of the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps (a cellmate of a certain immortal), recalled after the war (after the main force of the 1st Guards Mechanized Army was annihilated, a small number of troops led by Petrovsky broke through the encirclement and broke through in the direction of East Prussia, and finally about 2,000 soldiers arrived in East Prussia with many hardships): "At the afternoon combat meeting, as a rule, I reported to the commander about the situation at the front, but soon the commander told me, Our army had to stay behind the palace to stop the enemy, and he asked me to select some seeds to send away, and instructed me: 'We must hold our ground, and we must not take a step back, even if we have all the troops defeated!' ’。 His hideous eyes told me that this is definitely not a joke, it is time for the 1st Guards Mechanized Army to sacrifice its life for the country! ”

Petrovsky thoroughly carried out this instruction, and in a very short time turned Upper Mauginia into an iron plate, withstanding dozens of attacks by the German 1st Tank Group over the next week, destroying more than 300 tanks and 20 aircraft.

But for the time being, we are not talking about Petrovsky's story, but about the final bloody battle of the Third Group. On 3 August, at the same time that the Military Commission decided to retreat, the Third and Tenth Armies in the encirclement had reached the point of exhaustion, of which the Tenth Army had been basically annihilated, all senior officers, including the commander and chief of staff of the group army, had died heroically, and all the remaining troops in the encirclement were under the unified command of General Kirponos.

Of course, unification is unification. But there really isn't much left of combat power. At this time. There were only 50,000 men left in the two armies to continue fighting, and the rest were either dead, captured, or disappeared as they thought.

At one point, Admiral Kirponos personally went into battle and commanded an anti-tank gun crew to destroy five German tanks in a short time, at least one of which he personally handled...... The reality is cruel, there is no danger to defend on the outskirts of Suleyuvik, and in the words of Admiral Kilponos himself: "In Süleyvik, a few shovels of soil from the ground and a few sandbags are considered fortifications (quoted from Admiral Kilponos's own war diary). This valuable information was taken by his staff officer before the last moment, and he was one of the 131 people who survived the entire 3rd and 10th groups alive to break out of the encirclement. ”

Although the words are a bit exaggerated, the few words of the commander also highlight the seriousness of the form, is the situation really that bad?

Truth be told, there really is! In accordance with the CMC's previous instructions to defend on the spot and wait for rescue, the Third and Tenth Armies built a defensive circle of "fortresses" with a radius of 5 to 10 kilometers in the field. However, due to the lack of heavy machinery, the urgently dug trenches were all over the "fortress", but the vast majority were not up to standard, and a Slavic man of 1.8 meters squatted in the trench. Hunched over sometimes had to show a head on the outside, and the trenches lacked support points made of heavy weapons.

To make matters worse, the lack of ammunition left Admiral Kirponos with a big headache. In particular, grenades and anti-aircraft shells are almost always the kind that hit today and tomorrow. It was no joke to count on airlifts, there were no airfields in the field, and no planes could land under the blockade of German artillery.

Kilponos could only hope that the air force could give a little more strength and airdrop some more supplies, but the problem was that because the battlefield was too narrow and the Germans controlled air supremacy, the air force's transport planes could only be airdropped at high altitudes, and the air force's transport planes were quite limited.

The time-tested Kirponos was well aware that the fall of the 3rd and 10th armies was only a matter of time. The time was soon evident in front of Kirponos, and on the 3rd of August, when the Military Commissar had conveyed to him the order that there was no hope of lifting the siege and that your troops should continue to hold out, he knew that the last moment was coming.

Kirponos did not intend to surrender, as a soldier, a Communist, he had his own pride, and he would rather die standing than live on his knees. On the same day, he gave an instruction to the troops in the encirclement: "Those who do not wish to continue the battle can lay down their arms and go out of the trenches and surrender to the Germans, as soldiers you have done your best, and I do not blame you." Those who are willing to go to the national crisis with me can stay, and then the 3rd and 10th groups will fight until there is no one left, farewell, comrades! ”

It cannot be said that not a single person in the Third Army and the Tenth Army chose to surrender, but it is certain that that part was definitely in the minority, at least after Kirponos gave this order, his forces were not significantly reduced, and in the next half month he and his lads did manage to fight to the point of not being left. At least the last prisoners captured by the Germans were Red Army soldiers who could not move because of hunger and extreme fatigue or serious injuries, how many? No more than 1,000 people.

For the two huge army groups, which together numbered almost 300,000 men, they contributed less than 50,000 prisoners to the German army, and most of them were captured in the chaos at the beginning of the encirclement, which can be said to be an astonishing proportion. Except for a few devils in the East Asian battlefield who have done similar things, there is nothing else.

Regarding the tenacity of the Soviet Red Army, to paraphrase the commander-in-chief of Army Group Center, Bock: "In the bean-sized ghost place of Suleyyuvik, we met a group of Slavs with extremely high combat qualities, these damned Russians, I was torn apart......"

In the early hours of 4 August, sensing that the main forces of the Red Army relief forces were beginning to retreat, the Germans sharply intensified their strikes against the 3rd and 10th armies. After a quiet dawn, the flying shells announced the beginning of the German offensive. Groups of tanks No. 2 and No. 3, under the cover of Panzergrenadiers, launched a tidal wave of attacks on the positions of the Red Army.

In the face of many enemies, the Red Army soldiers showed great courage and fighting spirit, more than once there were soldiers holding explosives bags and the enemy tanks died together, more than once there were Red Army soldiers who shot the last bullet, and then resolutely pulled the grenades and rushed towards the surging enemy, they told the Germans with the most tenacious fighting spirit and immortal spirit how steel is made!

The fierce and brutal battle lasted from dawn to sunset, and I don't know what the Germans thought, but on this night they had the recklessness to send negotiators, and demanded that Kirponos and his boys immediately lay down their arms and surrender as victors.

Far from being meaningless, this kind of self-deprecating approach is counterproductive -- in order to defend the Motherland, to defend the honor, dignity and mission of the Soviet Red Army, every officer and soldier of the 3rd and 10th groups is driven to fight to the last moment of his life! (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank the members of the Dead Regiment, the fat man Fly and Fly, the Big Bang Theory, the Biao Cavalry and Comrade hzwangdd!