Smolensk in March is still snowflakes for the year, and although winter is coming to an end, the cold still reminds people that it does not want to go away so cleanly. But the year was different from usual, because Smolensk became a battlefield, a front line.

I can't remember how long it has been since there has been a war here, and the ethnic Russians here seem to have forgotten that there is such a thing as war in this world. They have their own unique pride, because their homeland seems to have a lot of pride in the word war.

The last time he passed by to challenge this country, I heard that he was also a great leader, who was the most powerful in Europe, and had the myth of being invincible, and whose name was still spoken of more than a hundred years later: Napoleon!

But the name fell, because he attacked Moscow and tried to challenge the bravery of the Russians, so he was defeated in Moscow, losing his honor and his country. Therefore, the civilians of Smolensk looked at the war in front of them very calmly, and they had reason to believe that the other side would be defeated, and they themselves would win the final victory.

But when these civilians saw the face of war, they knew that there might be some twists and turns this time, because the enemy they saw seemed to be a little stronger than they thought it would be—or rather, not a little stronger.

"Boom!" A large-caliber shell fell on the city of Smolensk, a huge shock wave destroyed the buildings blocking the road, and one building began to collapse with the explosion, and the dust raised by the collapse began to spread throughout the street. After more than 100 years of evolution, the destructive power of war is no longer the kind of petty fights of the Napoleonic era, and how terrifying it has become is known only to those who have experienced it firsthand.

A teacher who had just been conscripted looked at the collapsed houses in the distance, carried his rifle on his back and exclaimed: "Oh my God, the enemy's artillery is so powerful that a building collapsed like this!"

Several of the veterans who walked ahead of him looked dismissive, knowing that their artillery was more powerful, but they were reluctant to explain it to a recruit. After all, the follow-up of this incident will develop a sentence: "Why is our cannon more powerful, but it is hit by people at the doorstep?"

The explanation is more complicated, after all, the Germans are too powerful in planes, too powerful in tanks, and even more powerful in infantry. But these words were too embarrassing to say, were they? So everyone remained silent, just walking towards the edge of the city.

It was in ruins, the Germans only surrounded Smolensk without sending their own troops to attack it, they shelled and harassed the edge of the city every day, but never tried to capture the interior of the city heavily defended by the Soviet army, and the German army was careful not to engage in street fighting, so as not to get caught up in a battle with the Soviets that drained their human resources.

In order to defend Smolensk, Zhukov left 100,000 Soviet infantry and arranged a Kharkov-like street fighting position in Smolensk, trying to drag Army A into street fighting and let Smolensk consume the German army's armored forces, but Rundstedt was not fooled, or Germany did not have the capital to be fooled, so the two sides only fought some skirmishes on the periphery of the city.

The lack of oil made the Germans themselves stop the attack, while Zhukov and Stalin could not figure out the details of the Germans, they did not know why the Germans stopped the offensive again this time, whether they were tired or another trap dug for the Soviet Union.

"Let the troops counterattack at the right time and see what the Germans are planning!" Stalin said in a somewhat unpleasant tone on the phone. He ordered Zhukov to hold Smolensk, but Zhukov lost it to the Germans, much to Stalin's displeasure. However, he also knew the current situation in the Soviet Red Army, and knew that it was not Zhukov who questioned his orders, but that he could not hold Smolensk at all.

However, he was still worried that Moscow would be strategically bombed by the German army, so he was almost paranoid about strengthening the Soviet Union's air defense in the Moscow direction, and he mobilized the best fighters and best pilots near Moscow, and also deployed a large number of anti-aircraft gun positions here.

This consumed a lot of valuable Soviet air defense resources and also increased the burden of the lack of anti-aircraft fire at the front. But Moscow meant a lot to Stalin, and he was absolutely justified in doing so.

Zhukov was also happy to see this happen, since Stalin personally intervened in the air defense in the Moscow direction, there was no time and energy to interfere with his operational command. Therefore, he has more flexible command and can arrange his defense more calmly.

Zhukov held the phone in the command headquarters and said to his leader: "I don't have enough information to confirm it now, I don't know if the Germans stopped the attack on their own initiative this time, or if it was really because of a lack of fuel or other supplies." If we attack rashly at such a time, we are likely to lose a large number of troops again, which will definitely cause the defense system that we have built up with great difficulty to collapse again. ”

Although British spies in Germany repeatedly claimed that Germany lacked sufficient strategic supplies, and the United States hoped that the Soviet Union would begin to counterattack and gain the initiative on the battlefield, this series of intelligence was not enough to make the Soviet generals resolve to carry out a tentative counterattack.

After all, their wounds have not yet healed, and they have been attacked head-on by German armored forces in Poland and in Ukraine, both of which have been met by German armored forces, and they have lost a large number of troops in these two offensive operations, which have prevented them from organizing an effective defense to stop the German advance.

Who dares to say that the Germans did not stop the offensive this time because it was not premeditated? Who dares to say that the incomplete information that Germany is short of supplies, and who dares to say that it is not the false information spread by the Germans to deliberately confuse the Soviet side into making a wrong reaction? Once the Soviet Union begins to counterattack again, the price of defeat will not be something that the Soviet Union can bear.

Therefore, Stalin gave up his arbitrariness and consulted Zhukov's opinion, so Zhukov changed his combat policy of replacing defense with offense and cautiously waited for the opportunity he saw fit.

It's like the mighty British Empire's navy, which has ruled the world's oceans for a hundred years, and anyone who challenges it should think twice. After a series of victories in the German Army, anyone should be cautious about this behemoth, and dare not easily try to counterattack this more offensive challenge - everyone is willing to win in another relatively mild way: hold the position first and wait for the Germans to attack, once the Germans fail to attack, it will prove that the Germans are really weak in attack, and then launch a counterattack.

Sometimes being conservative means less risk, and it means less responsibility. So even Zhukov and all the senior Soviet generals were waiting for a more perfect opportunity to come, and this opportunity was related to time.

Zhukov's idea was very simple, the USSR had already transferred the main forces of 35 divisions from the Far East and secretly transported them to its own Western Front in batches. Many of these units were veteran units commanded by Zhukov, and they had actual combat experience against the Japanese Kwantung Army, and their combat effectiveness was relatively higher.

As soon as these troops reached Moscow, Zhukov was confident that he would hold his current line of defense, and as long as he held his current line of defense, then the USSR would find an opportunity to defeat the German army in the new winter.

A muddy spring, a summer in which the German offensive was thwarted, and after a muddy autumn, the most exhausting winter of the German army followed, and the Soviet Red Army entered a full-scale counterattack at the arrival of the second winter, and the German army was defeated one after another...... This is the script of Zhukov and Stalin, there is no need to take risks at all, just maintain the current situation, and that's it.

According to estimates, the maximum number of mobilized troops in Germany is about 7 million to 8 million, and now the German army has almost reached the limit of army mobilization, and if they defeat the Germans once, then they will not have a second chance. So Stalin felt that it was possible to wait for a chance to kill without allowing the Soviet troops in the Moscow direction to continue the adventure.

Therefore, on the phone, Stalin's instructions were very simple: "Strengthen all defenses in the direction of Moscow, let the Germans get into the quagmire of war, and finally counterattack when the Germans lose their offensive capability!

Zhukov generally agreed with Stalin, but he was more concerned with the defense in the Caucasus direction: "Great leader, Comrade Stalin, Rokossovsky is determined to live and die with Stalingrad, then I, Zhukov, will definitely live and die with Moscow! ”

His idea was to quickly destroy Germany's war potential by counterattacking from the Caucasus to remove the German threat to oil resources, and then counterattacking from the south to recapture Ukraine in one fell swoop, threatening the German oil-producing region of Romania.

"Comrade Zhukov, I believe that we maintain a high degree of unity on the issue of the defense of Moscow, and as for where to counterattack, that will be a matter for later. Surprisingly, Stalin agreed with Zhukov and promised Zhukov on the phone: "Defend Moscow! Let's work together! You will surely be a great hero of the future Soviet Union!"