"Comrade General! The news just came that the famous hero of our army, the sniper ace Second Lieutenant Vasily, was killed on the position in the factory area. Without knocking, a staff officer walked into Rokossovsky's office, a basement now so dimly lit that the silhouettes of people and objects could only be discerned by the kerosene lamp on the desk.

In the dark, Rokossovsky did not know what to put away and put it in an iron box in front of him. Without deliberately hiding anything, he stood up and walked to a brighter place, and smiled embarrassedly at his assistant: "I got some medals in Moscow before...... Maybe they're of little use to me now. ”

Then he put the iron box on a low table beside him and walked over to his staff officer: "That Vasily, who sniped a lot of Germans...... Dead? He's dead? Such a good warrior...... How could you just die like that......"

"Yes, Comrade General, now that we are surrounded, at least we should think of a way, it is not a way to go on like this. The staff officer said worriedly. The kerosene lamp trembled as he spoke, and the beating light made his face look no better than a ghost.

After all, people who come out of this state are not much better mentally at all. Hiding in the dark air-raid tunnels under the city, I can only look at the short rays of sunlight every day, and then I hide in that dark and desperate environment, not knowing when it will end.

The feeling of longing for everything to end as soon as possible, but knowing that the end of everything is death, made everyone in this command slightly decadent. In the last few days, at least, even Rokossovsky, who had always been confident, has begun to become a little distracted.

"If there's any way you can get out of here, I'll approve it. Looking at his staff officers, Rokossovsky lost his tough side, he had executed more than a dozen high-ranking generals on the grounds of desertion, and now when his last moment was approaching, this cold-blooded Soviet high-ranking commander showed his soft side.

He walked up to his staff officer, stretched out his hand, seemed to hesitate, and finally patted the other party twice on the shoulder: "I am ready to give my life for my homeland...... But you or you, both of whom are still young, should not be with me, a sinner, to die here. ”

"Comrade General! This is Stalingrad! This is the city for which we need to lay our lives! We have hundreds of thousands of young soldiers who have died here, and if we, the commanders, leave at the last moment, what face will we have to return to our homeland?" replied the staff officer with his eyes lowered and a slightly sour tone.

Yes, he ordered thousands of young soldiers to saturate the whole of Stalingrad with blood - red soil in every crack of the stone here, decomposing corpses in every square here, mottled bullet holes in every building here, every crater here seemed to be an abyss sucked into countless souls.

He ordered his troops to attack coldly and repeatedly, he ordered his troops not to give up an inch of land, he used his human lives to fill one hole after another dug by the Germans, and he used the lives of his men to support his promise to hold Stalingrad.

Unfortunately, when everything was gone, he found himself as a flying insect struggling in a spider's web, seemingly able to break free from the shackles with just a struggle, but eventually the silk threads on his body became tighter and tighter. Keeping Stalingrad became an impossible strategic goal, and from the moment Zhukov was delayed in his southward journey, Rokossovsky had a premonition that he would leave the stage here and become a "historical" figure.

The elite infantry and armored units of his elite 2nd Guards Front had been exhausted in the streets of Stalingrad. It was only when these troops suffered heavy losses and finally could not be turned into a fist that Rokossovsky realized that the brutal street fighting at Stalingrad was not only draining the Germans' precious troops, but also the Soviet Union's remaining mobilization capacity even more bloody.

The Soviet Union had three times more mobilization capacity than Germany's, which was roughly judged by the population - the Soviet Union had about three times the size of Germany, but this multiple shrank to less than twice as much as the Germans mobilized Ukraine and other regions.

And even such an advantage, which has been weakened, has almost been lost in the face of repeated large-scale losses on the Soviet front. The number of troops mobilized by the entire Soviet Union is in fact about the same as the total number of troops that the Germans can mobilize - it is a collapse to think about.

"Let the captain of the guard in!" Rokossovsky found his palms trembling as his final moment approached. The captain of the guard was appointed to him by Stalin, and he was a very conscientious man, but Rokossovsky knew that the captain of the guard was probably the one sent by Stalin to supervise his fulfillment of his promise to live and die with Stalingrad.

"Comrade General!" the captain of the guard stood respectfully as soon as he entered the door, and gave a very formal military salute. Rokossovsky smiled awkwardly, he didn't know if the other party could see his expression, but he still made this expression.

"Comrade Chief of Staff, you can go out. Announcing my order with all the people in the command, I declare that you can now break through or surrender, and any decision is approved by me. Rokossovsky motioned for his chief of staff to leave, and as he was about to walk out of the room, he repeated the order he had just repeated.

"Sir......" The chief of staff glanced at the back of the head of the captain of the guard who had walked into the room, as if to say something more. But Rokossovsky interrupted him with a wave of his hand. So the chief of staff had no choice but to stand up and salute, turn around and retreat.

For a while, the atmosphere in the room was a little strange, and Rokossovsky took the lead in speaking: "In this situation, there is no difference between me and me, Stalingrad will still be occupied by the Germans after all, and I have done everything I can - now no one can change the outcome, so I came to you to thank you for taking care of me for so long." ”

"Is it possible for Comrade Zhukov's troops to recapture Stalingrad if they go south?" asked the captain of the guard, opening his mouth and in a hoarse voice. The power had been cut off for many days, and water had become a scarce resource in recent days, so everyone's voices were hoarse and they spoke with a hint of despair.

"If I were him, I would have retreated to Moscow, at least then he would have died a decent death in the end. Rokossovsky sneered, and then continued: "From the time when Stalin and Zhukov hesitated and wasted the opportunity to go south, I have been waiting for this day. I've spent countless lives here trying to make a difference at the last minute - but it's too late, it's all over. ”

"Boom!" The loud explosion made people frown involuntarily, and the shelling of the German army began again. The frantic cheers of the German grenadiers could be heard in the distance, and a few minutes earlier the commander of another encirclement had sent a telegram, and the Germans were only a few dozen meters away from that headquarters.

In this case, the fool also knows that the other encirclement is finished, and Rokossovsky knows that this encirclement will not last long. The Germans were cutting off his retreat along the Volga beach, and in a day at most his headquarters would be occupied by the Germans, and all resistance would be in vain, for the organized formed units had been lost, and each defensive position would have to fight on its own.

"If you hurry up, then at least there is a chance to break out, the Germans are not attacking the river beach very quickly, if you hurry up and want to go back and give Stalin a chance to return to his life, there will still be. Rokossovsky brought himself a glass of vodka and unscrewed the wind buckle on his collar with his hand.

He wanted to have a good drink, because after all, he was also an ethnic Russian who liked to drink. Listening to the rumbling of cannons in the distance, listening to the dust falling from the roof of the basement pounding on the floor, Rokossovsky drank the vodka in his hand, and then greedily poured himself another glass.

"Shoot, or I'll drink all this good wine." The doomed general looked at the captain of the guard in front of him, and persuaded him very understandingly: "You carry half a bottle of wine and go, and you will be accompanied by a good drink on the road." Remember to drink more, probably in Moscow, or in Chelyabinsk...... Anyway, you will die too, and at that time, we will see you again. ”

"I want to ...... If I find myself a new master, then at least I will live a long time......" The captain of the guard said, pulling out his pistol. He opened the safety to load the bullet, then said with a smile: "If I give you to Accardo, maybe I can be a major in the Third Reich." ”

"You! This is the Stalingrad Supreme Command...... You can't get me out, there are a lot of Red Army commanders and guards outside, they can't watch you take me away from here, and ......" Rokossovsky was contemplating his own death, so he didn't come back to his senses for a while, he thought his time was over, but now he found that someone thought more than he did-

Sorry I forgot to set a scheduled update...... It's been a long wait