Chapter 102

From time to time, the rumble of guns came from afar and rattled the windows of the conference room. Rokosovsky stood at the table, facing a large number of commanders who attended the meeting, and asked, "the German guns are shelling our army. What should we do next?"

"We should fight back," one of the Colonel stood up and answered loudly, "order our artillery to open fire and destroy all the enemy artillery."

"We all want to wipe out the enemy," chief of staff malining stood up. "But where are the enemy's artillery and where should our artillery fire?"

Listening to what the chief of staff said, the colonel was silent and sat down without saying a word.

"Rita," rokosovsky called my name and asked, "you tell me, what shall we do?"

I couldn't think of any way to deal with the sudden attack of the German army, so I kept silent on the question of rokosovsky. However, he has asked me to answer the questions by name. It seems that I can't escape. I can only stand up and reply with a stiff head: "Comrade commander, I think we should withdraw our troops from the shelled area as soon as possible."

"Get out of here?" After listening to my words, rokosovsky didn't say anything. A lieutenant commander next to him jumped out and asked me, "is it so easy for us to throw the place that we have sacrificed so many soldiers to seize to the enemy?"“ Yeah, yeah! We can't just give up the position that we can recover at a great price. " His words immediately attracted a voice of support.

Rokosovsky made a gesture, interrupted the words behind these people, looked at me and said, "tell me your reasons for withdrawing the troops."

"According to the information obtained so far, the German army only shelled the areas occupied by our army, but did not dispatch ground forces. According to my estimation, "I know rokosovsky's character, so I didn't beat around the Bush and directly stated my point of view:" this shows that the German army does not have enough troops to counterattack. The reason why they use artillery bombardment is to achieve the purpose of killing a large number of living forces of our army. As soon as their follow-up troops arrive at dawn, We'll launch a full-scale attack. In order not to let our soldiers die in vain under the artillery fire, I suggest that our troops should be withdrawn immediately. Except for a small number of Guard troops, all other troops should be withdrawn to safe areas to build new fortifications. "

"What about the present position?" This time, it's deputy chief of staff o'lear“ Just give up? "

"It's not giving up, it's just a temporary retreat." Although the person who asked this was the deputy chief of staff, I clearly know that almost all of you here share the same idea, so I have to explain to them clearly: "the German artillery reserves are not unlimited. It's 11 p.m. now, maybe in an hour or two, they will stop shooting. When it's safe, let our troops re-enter the position; As for the newly built positions, they can be used as preparatory positions. They must be disadvantageous to war. When our army retreats, they can also quickly form new defenses in these places. "

"You're right, Rita. But have you ever thought about how the commander should mobilize his troops in the dark night, especially in the area under heavy German artillery fire? It is said that it is a retreat, but under such specific conditions, it is easy to turn into a collapse and flight without planning and organization, and our army may collapse in the whole line at that time! " I was speechless and fell to my seat. Ginger is still spicy. Rokosovsky and his family have rich experience in fighting for more than ten or twenty years. However, I only read a few history books and visited military forums for a few years. How ridiculous it is for me to reach the same military level as them.

My mind unconsciously began to wander, so that I did not hear what tasks rokosovsky assigned to the commanders at the meeting. It was not until the voice of a dispute between rokosovsky and a colonel that I was pulled back from the state of being too empty.

"... the new soldiers feel very uncomfortable about the air raid, and most of them have been alive." but in this way, the battle is not over, and the commanders are dead. " The colonel, wearing a green collar, said, I recognized him as the commander of the 126th infantry division, but I didn't remember his name. I looked down at my badge and found that I was still wearing ina's summer uniform with a skirt. There were four triangles on the red badge.

"I don't care if I die!" Rokosovsky clapped the table and roared: "now what soldiers need is not a commander, but courage. If the soldiers can't rush forward, it's useless to have a group of generals standing behind them. "

I look at two people blankly, isn't arranging a task, how suddenly to have a dispute? If you want to persuade me, I've just been away from my mind. I don't know what happened and I can't persuade you; If you don't advise me, I'm just in the middle of them. It's hard for me to hear them arguing.

When it was not time to persuade or not, the political commissar stood up and said, "well, comrade commander, don't fight. It's time for the commanders to go back to the army." Then he turned to the 126 division commander and said, "Comrade Maximov, you should go back too. You should carry out mobilization work in the team. As soon as the day dawned, you should enter the position of the 50th cavalry division and help them defend well."

"Yes Colonel Maximov saluted the commissar and commander, then left the conference room with the other commanders“ Rita Rokosovsky called my name and said with concern: "there is no heating in this room, and you wear so little. Be careful not to catch cold. Go and change your clothes quickly."“ Yes I promised to salute him and quickly ran out of the house to change clothes in the dormitory of the cooking class. Night passed, morning came. The roar of the battle never stopped. I learned from the operations department that the German infantry, under the cover of tanks, artillery and aircraft, attacked our army from several directions at the same time. As a result of the shelling at night, our counter attack forces suffered a lot of losses and had to turn to comprehensive defense in the face of the fierce attack of the enemy. The bad news came one after another. First of all, the German infantry, under the cover of tanks, defeated the 126th infantry division of Colonel Maximov at one stroke, and surrounded the cavalry division of general Iliev in a forest of less than two square kilometers. The position of the 18th Infantry Division was once occupied by the German army. With the cooperation of general katukov's first brigade of close guard tanks, the counterattack troops finally recaptured the position after three hours of fierce fighting. At the same time, the German army concentrated four divisions in the Istra area and launched a fierce offensive against the 78th infantry division of Colonel beloborodov I went to rokosovsky's office with a stack of war reports I just received. As soon as the door was opened, the only person in the room was the commander, who was on the phone. I stood at the door listening to a few words, and immediately recognized that it was general kazakov who was speaking. He was now staying in the 289 anti tank regiment in the spas lyuhovsky region to command the battle. Rokosovsky yelled into the microphone: "Comrade kazakov, report it quickly. How's the situation over there? What is Comrade stavsky doing when he went to the 289 regiment to interview him? "“ Report to the commander The voice of general khazakov on the other side was not small. "The German army concentrated a large number of tanks and bombed our positions under the cover of aircraft. The 289 regiment lost nearly half of its artillery in the morning's battle, and the rest were still fighting doggedly with German tanks. As for Comrade stafsky, "when he said that, the other side stopped for a moment, and then said," he's counting the junckers that are bombing our positions... Now he's counting the 27th. "“ Can you hold on? " Asked rokosovsky anxiously“ Please rest assured that in the morning's battle, we destroyed more than 20 German tanks. Now the remaining artillery ammunition is still sufficient. It should be no problem to hold on for another day. "“ Hold on, general kazakov. I'll send the 58th tank brigade to support you immediately. " Putting down the phone, rokosovsky sat down on the chair in silence. His face was livid and silent. He took out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and pulled out one of them on the spot. I hesitated for a moment, slowly went to his side, called out: "Comrade commander!" He looked up at me and asked me in a slightly hoarse voice, "what's the matter?"“ This is the war report I just received. Please have a look. " With that, I handed over the stack of war news in my hand“ Put it on the table Instead of reaching for it, he asked me to put it on the table next to him. After I put the war report on the table, he sighed and said, "actually, I don't need to read it. I know what it is. It's all bad news. The skilmanovo campaign we launched this time was far beyond the expectation of the German army. They never thought that we would dare to launch a counterattack under such circumstances, so they were caught off guard. But they have an absolute advantage in both military strength and equipment. In just one or two days, they have assembled enough forces to fight back. "“ What's next? " I couldn't help asking“ What else can we do? " Rokosovsky gave a wry smile, and then said: "the battle of skilmanovo is over. Although the German aggressors were badly injured, our army suffered a lot of casualties. From today on, our counter offensive has come to an end, and we have returned to our former defensive state. "