In the headquarters of the busy German Army's Army Group E on the Eastern Front, Commander Liszt was sketching on a map with his staff officers, and his line of defense was on the territory of Belarus on the entire Soviet-German line, which was the closest in a straight line from Minsk.

A staff officer put several blurry aerial photographs on the table, then pointed to one of them and introduced General Liszt: "General, this is a comparison of two aerial photographs of the same place, it is obvious that the Soviets have built a lot of camouflage in this vicinity, as for what they want to hide, there is no exact analysis at the moment." ”

Another officer in camouflage frowned, pointed to the enlarged partial photo, frowned, and said: "If we are operating a camouflage net of this volume, it is estimated that it should be a large equipment such as a tank or an airplane, or a car or howitzer." In short, if it weren't for the camouflage of deception, these expanded places should be large devices. ”

Although they knew that the Soviets were preparing for a large-scale winter offensive, the Germans did not know the specific direction of the Soviets' attack, so the various armies were trying to analyze the possibility of the Soviets attacking in their defensive areas, after all, this was related to the success of the first phase of defensive operations.

In Liszt's defense area, the Soviets behaved relatively calmly, but the Germans held the battlefield air supremacy on the Eastern Front, so the reconnaissance planes that often took off eventually found some suspicious places.

For example, around some forests, there are more vegetation areas that were not there before. Obviously, these are all camouflages set up by the Soviets, and as for what is inside, it is not for the Germans to discern clearly. It could be a tank, it could be an infantry barracks, or even nothing, it was just some fake camouflage to confuse the adversary.

"Our heavy artillery can't hit this area at a distance, and if we use bombers, it's more risky. A staff officer found this issue to be a tricky one, and it fell into the category that was not suitable for both sides of the army and air force: "We don't have many large-caliber artillery, and the firing range is limited, and most of these places are outside the depth of 20 kilometers, so it is obviously not realistic to use artillery." The Air Force reported that it could not confirm the situation there and suspected that there was ground anti-aircraft fire from the opposing side. ”

On the Eastern Front, Luftwaffe fighters had dominated the skies, but the Soviets were not completely sitting still, they used decoys and preset anti-aircraft gun positions to lure German pilots to attack, so as to ambush German dive bombers and small bombers, and achieve the purpose of counterattack.

So even though the Luftwaffe came and went freely over the Soviet Union, the Air Force was still cautious about bombing by take-off planes. Moreover, relying only on the comparison of two photographs as evidence, it is obvious that any air force commander should think carefully about asking the air force to take off planes to bomb a forest of no strategic value.

Liszt was silent, and in fact, as a senior German military commander, that instinct buried deep in his bones made him feel that the targets marked in these contrasting photographs revealed a strange danger, and he could not take his eyes off his scrutiny. He felt that these anomalies were definitely not that simple, but he lacked valid evidence to support his claim.

The entire Soviet-German defense line is now in the shape of an S, the upper half is most of Belarus controlled by the Soviet Union, and the lower half is most of Ukraine cut off by Germany, in fact, Germany's offensive plan is exactly the opposite of the Soviet Union, and the German army's plan of action is to encircle the Soviet troops near Minsk and completely annihilate the Soviet troops in this vicinity.

This is determined by the geography of the occupied areas of both sides, because the first thought of most generals with this map of the Line of Actual Control between the two sides is to flatten the line of defense that has twisted into an S-shape - it may be obsessive-compulsive, but more often it is easier to attack from the flank than from the front.

The principle is similar to attacking a person with a knife, if you slash a person in the stomach with a knife, it may only leave a bloody wound, but if you slash him in a prominent place, it is possible to cut off one of the opponent's arms, and in terms of results, the effect of splitting the arm looks more shocking.

However, the German High Command drew up an overall plan that went in the opposite direction, and unlike the Soviet Union, which focused on attacking from north to south, the German army adopted the tactics of advancing on both flanks in the overall strategy, with Army Group A led by Field Marshal Rundstedt attacking in the north, and Army Group G led by General Guderian attacking in the south, jointly completing the entire "Neo-Barbarossa" offensive plan.

But before the offensive begins, it depends more on whether the defense and counterattack of the five armies on the defensive line, including the four armies of Klug, Liszt, Moder, and Weix, as well as Manstein's newly formed Army Group M in the south, can be carried out smoothly.

Just like on the football field, those strikers who destroy the city are certainly shining, but a team's victory depends more on the stable play of the midfield, those solid defenders or midfielders may not become familiar stars, but they are definitely the most important presence in a team.

Although the generals Guderian and Rommel are more fascinating, it is impossible for all the generals in a country's army to be so shining, and more soldiers are as simple as steel, but they are absolutely irreplaceable in their posts, and it can be said that it is with them that the myth of the invincibility of an empire has really been constructed.

Among the German generals on the Eastern Front, except for Kluge, who relied on absolute loyalty to the Führer and obedience to order to stand in the position of commander of the army group, the other generals were truly capable field experts carefully selected by Accardo.

Among them was the commander of the army group Weix, who was good at fighting encirclement and annihilation warfare, and was an excellent front-line commander, who performed very well in the encirclement operations in Poland, and the German infantry under his command was also known as the elite of the Wehrmacht, and he was a general with no obvious shortcomings.

Another general, Modell, was known as the "Imperial Wall" for his ability to command defensive operations. He led his troops to hold their positions in Poland, annihilated a large number of Soviet forces with local counterattacks, and finally bought time for the main force to encircle the main Soviet force, so he is familiar to the world, if Guderian and Rommel are the imperial duo in attack, then Moder is a steady general in defense.

But the most defensive general was not in the position where the Soviet Union was about to launch a general offensive, but led his army group, near Kiev, waiting for a possible large-scale attack by Soviet forces. This was also the reason why Accardo insisted on such an arrangement, because he hoped that after the counterattack began, the two armies of Guderian and Manstein could have a solid rear.

General Liszt, like Weix, was a general with no obvious shortcomings, he was already the main German general in Poland on the Eastern Front when the German army invaded France, and dared to put him on the Eastern Front to deal with a possible attack by the Soviet Union, which in itself was an affirmation for Liszt, and he completed the task brilliantly, building the prototype of the multi-mouth defense line, and laying a solid foundation for the victory of the first phase of the Soviet-German war.

Now he is in charge of the defense of the area south of Minsk, for which he has carefully constructed three lines of defense, these lines of defense if viewed from the sky, a bit like the shape of the field grid, in the longitudinal direction of the line of defense also used to transfer troops to the design of trenches, and the empty area of the field grid is filled with mines and obstacles, forming a good flank cover.

At the intersection of the trenches, he reinforced machine-gun pillboxes and anti-tank artillery in order to eliminate as much of the Soviet attacking force as possible. The whole position is actually the improvement and development of the battlement-type defense line, to put it bluntly, it is a bit like a simple World War I position, with more input than the typical defense line of World War II, and more permanent fortifications.

This is also the obvious feature of the first phase of Germany's "Neo-Barbarossa Plan", that is, to use permanent fortifications to survive the dangerous early time, to buy time for the German armored forces, and to protect the forward offensive positions -- as long as the early dangerous time is passed, then the starting point of the German armored forces will be extended a large distance forward than another time and space in history, so that Moscow, which cannot be reached in another time and space, will become the pocket of the German armored forces.

"Report!" Just as Liszt was thinking about whether to ask the Air Force to reconnoiter these suspicious locations again, an officer pushed open the door of the operational headquarters and walked up to General Liszt: "Long live the Führer! General Moder called, the Soviets have begun to bombard his forward positions on a large scale, and the battle has begun!"

"Hit the front of Kyiv first? The Soviets are a little interesting this time......" Liszt walked to the front of the map, squinted his eyes and looked at the location of Kyiv on the entire map of the huge Eastern Front, and tapped his hand twice near Brovare, on the outskirts of Kyiv, and one of them muttered: "Is it a feint? Or does Zhukov really want to knock down the front of Kyiv?"

After thinking for about ten seconds, he turned around, looked at the Air Force liaison officer in the corner of the command headquarters, and ordered: "Order, the Air Force reconnaissance aircraft unit directly under our group army should immediately take off the plane and reconnoiter those suspicious locations on the photos! If those camouflage are not fake targets, they should also move now! I have a hunch! This time the curtain has opened, and it is my turn to play!"