Chapter 1615

Seeing general Gagan's tongue tied and at a loss, I could not bear it, so I took the initiative to help him out: "marshal, you see, the Bulgarian national flag is very special. In the upper left corner of the white, green and red horizontal strip, there is a small box with a red background, in which is a yellow lion."

Zhukov's attention was really attracted by me. He raised his telescope and looked at the flag floating on the border checkpoint for a while. Then he said to me with a smile, "Rita, let me explain to you the meaning of this flag: white symbolizes everyone's love for peace and freedom, green symbolizes the main wealth of agriculture and the country, red symbolizes the blood of the warrior, red symbolizes the freedom of life White is the traditional color of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia. The lion with the crown in the upper left corner is the symbol of the royal family

After explaining to me the different meanings of several colors on the Bulgarian national flag, Zhukov was in a better mood. He looked at Gagan and said, "OK, comrade Gagan, send scouts as soon as possible to find out what's going on across the street, do you understand?"

After listening to Zhukov's words, Gagan immediately realized that he had passed the test. He gave me a grateful glance and then replied, "I understand, marshal. I will arrange people to go to the opposite side to investigate as soon as possible."

Seeing that the front line here was calm, Zhukov was not interested in staying any longer, so he took me to the defense area of the 37th army. Sha Luoxin may have been informed in advance by Gagan, so after shaking hands with Zhukov outside the door, he asked carefully, "marshal, do you want to go to the front?"

Zhukov was surprised by saroshin's proposal. After a moment's silence, he said unexpectedly, "I want to hear how your preparations are going."

Saroshin respectfully invited Zhukov and me into the headquarters, and then asked his chief of staff to introduce to us the current situation across the border. Standing in front of the map on the wall, the chief of staff faced us and said, "Comrade marshal, please allow me to introduce to you the situation opposite the defense area of our group army."

After finishing his opening remarks, he pointed to the map with his stick and said: "according to the reconnaissance, there are two lines of defense established by Bulgaria in the front of our attack. The enemy has deployed three infantry divisions and a tank division, as well as several artillery regiments in this area. Except for a few old-fashioned reconnaissance planes, no fighters or bombers have been found."

After the chief of staff finished, Zhukov asked saroshin with a smile: "Comrade General, I want to know how long it will take you to break through the line of defense of the Bulgarian army after the battle starts?"

After hearing this question, shahrohin leaned forward and whispered a few words to the chief of staff who had just sat down. Then he stood up and said, "Comrade marshal, if the infantry launch a charge, I believe it will take ten minutes at most to break through the line of defense of the Bulgarian army."

"Ten minutes?" When Zhukov heard this, he immediately laughed, "Comrade General, I want to know why you are so sure?"

"The reason is simple." Sha Luoxin replied solemnly: "according to the accurate data I know, the three infantry divisions of Baojun have only 20000 soldiers, half of whom are recruits; There are less than 50 tanks in the tank division, almost all of which are No. 3 or No. 4 tanks eliminated by the German. Not to mention our new tanks, even a T-34 tank battalion can beat them. In addition to a small number of 105mm howitzers, the rest of the artillery's more than 100 guns are 37mm war defense guns. "

When saroshin finished with a series of Bulgarian Army data he knew, Zhukov nodded with satisfaction and said, "general saroshin, it seems that your reconnaissance work is very good. I believe that the strength of Israel's armed forces can not stop your attacks at all. "

We stayed at the 37th army headquarters for more than half an hour. After listening to their reports, we rushed back to the front army headquarters. On the way back, Zhukov didn't speak. Instead, he closed his eyes slightly and thought with his back against his chair.

As soon as the car arrived at its destination, he immediately opened his eyes, pushed the door open, got out of the car and walked quickly towards the building.

Seeing Zhukov enter the headquarters, tolbusin, who is chatting, stops talking and instinctively turns his eyes on Zhukov. Tolbuhine also stood up and asked with a smile, "Comrade marshal, you are back!"

Zhukov just nodded on his face, went straight to the communication room, and yelled at the signalman inside: "get me through to the Kremlin immediately."

After the phone was put through, Zhukov said to the microphone, "Comrade Stalin, I just came back from the inspection of the 37th and 57th army. I have a new idea. I want to report it to you immediately."

"Go ahead, comrade Zhukov." Stalin said kindly.

"Comrade Stalin, if the Ukrainian third front army does not continue to advance after going out to the front lines of rushchuk, Razgrad, Shumen and Varna, then the front of torbhuin must extend along the Danube River to turnu Severin. In this way, the defense task of Malinowski's troops in the area of turnu Severin will be relieved."

Zhukov said here, pause for a moment, want to hear if Stalin has any different opinions. Stalin just said "Hmmm" without any comment, so Zhukov went on to say: "after tolbuhine's troops come out to the turnu seveling and karafat sections, they can cross the Danube River with a group army to cut off the railway line from Belgrad to Salonica, and occupy Belgrad, palachin, kenyarewac, karafat, etc Lom is on the line

"Comrade Zhukov," Stalin heard here, and finally put forward his own question: "can you tell me, what is the purpose of doing this?"

Zhukov answered with confidence: "Comrade Stalin, the reason why I suggest the Ukrainian third front army to carry out this kind of deployment is to ensure the smooth implementation of the second front army's attack on Hungary's comrades in arms, to assist the people's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, and to force the Germans to give up Greece."

After waiting for Zhukov to finish, Stalin remained silent for a moment, and then said, "Comrade Zhukov, your opinions coincide with some ideas of the General Staff Headquarters for the future. Well, I will immediately pass on these suggestions to Comrade Antonov, so that they can seriously refer to them when making the campaign plan for the liberation of Yugoslavia. "

Perhaps it was Zhukov's advice to Stalin that made the Supreme Commander make the final decision. Antonov personally informed Zhukov the next morning that the attack on Bulgaria was scheduled for 11 a.m. on September 8.

…………

On the morning of the 9th, Zhukov took me to the 57th group army again. Together with Gagan, he was at the frontier observation station, ready to watch our army cross the border of Bulgaria.

According to the plan, our army will fire on the enemy's position at 9 am. After two hours of artillery preparation, the 53rd infantry division of the 37th group army will take the lead in charging into the Baojun position on the other side of the border.

Half an hour before the shelling began, Zhukov, who was sitting at the table drinking tea, put down his tea cup, picked up the telescope on the table, stood up and said to us with a smile, "I'll take a last look at the quiet border. It won't be long before our shelling will break the silence."

"Comrade marshal," Gagan looked up at Zhukov and said with a smile, "as long as the enemy does not lay down his arms and surrender to us, our artillery will break the silence sooner or later."

Zhukov went to the lookout, raised his telescope and looked into the distance. After a while, he suddenly exclaimed, "what the hell is going on? What's going on? "

When I heard Zhukov's gaffe, I thought something was wrong. I grabbed the telescope in front of me and rushed to it. I carefully looked through the telescope at the enemy's position and saw that it was quiet everywhere. I could see everyone in the trench. There are only a dozen soldiers on duty at the border checkpoint, but instead of walking up and down the road as they did just now, they are on both sides of the road. They looked as if they were preparing for a review.

"Comrade marshal, what happened?" I think something must have happened to make Zhukov so impolite. But after watching for a long time, he didn't seem to see anything else except that he didn't find the enemy in the position, so he asked curiously, "have you found anything?"

"Our shelling is about to begin." Zhukov put down his telescope, pointed to the distance and said, "but we can't see any target we should shoot. What I saw, just like that day, was a peaceful life. The chimneys in the city were smoking. There were farmers busy in the distant farmland, and we didn't find the troops we wanted to attack. "

"Comrade marshal," Gagan said after listening to Zhukov's words, "maybe the enemy is afraid of being attacked by us, so they all hide..."

"Come on, comrade general, don't talk about such ridiculous reasons again." Without waiting for Gagan to finish, Zhukov impolitely interrupted his words behind him, and pulled him to the lookout, pointed to the frontier guard in the distance and said, "look, those soldiers are standing on both sides of the road, like they are preparing for war. I think they are more prepared for inspection. What's more, the obstacles on the border have been cleared away. "

When I heard that the obstacles on the border had been cleared, I quickly raised my telescope to the road connecting Bulgaria and Romania. I found that the tripod and wooden fence in the middle of the road had been pushed to both sides of the road. At the moment, even an ordinary civilian car can smoothly cross the road and enter Bulgaria directly from Romania.

"What the hell is going on?" When Gagan saw this, he was dumbfounded.

"Call the artillery immediately and order them to stop shelling temporarily." Zhukov told Gagan: "before attacking, we should first find out what happened."

Taking advantage of Gagan's call to the artillery, Zhukov dialed the headquarters of the front army, and tolbusin, who answered the phone, said, "I said that Comrade commander of the front army, something unexpected happened in the front of the 57th army."

"Unexpected things?" Perhaps frightened by the tone of Zhukov's words, tolbuhine hesitated and asked, "don't you know what you mean, comrade Marshal?"

"Our shelling is about to start, but on the other side of the border, we can't find the target." Zhukov said with some tears and laughter: "moreover, the enemy has cleared the obstacles on the border, which seems to have opened the border to us."

"What, the enemy opened the border to us?" Torbusin was startled by Zhukov's words. After a long time, he asked carefully, "is there any conspiracy?"

"Where there is a conspiracy." Zhukov said in a tough tone: "Comrade torbhusin, you should immediately call the other two commanders of the group army to find out what is going on there. If it is the same situation, then cancel the shelling and directly send small troops into Bulgaria to find out what happened. " After Zhukov called, he asked general Gagan standing in front of him, "have you ordered the artillery to stop shelling?"“ Yes, comrade marshal. " Gagan nodded, then added: "I've given the order to the independent motorized infantry 5th brigade to send a motorized battalion into dobridge to find out what's going on there." More than ten minutes later, in the observation center, we saw dozens of tricycles full of commanders and fighters driving along the road towards Bulgaria. When the guard soldiers in the post saw our motorcycles passing by, two soldiers immediately came forward and quickly raised the railing beside the post so that the motorcycles could pass smoothly. The motorcade of our army slowed down intentionally when passing through the sentry post. The commanders and fighters on the motorcade kept a high degree of vigilance and pointed their guns at the soldiers standing on both sides of the road. But the soldiers turned a blind eye to the muzzle of the gun and raised their hands to salute our soldiers with a smile“ You see that. " Zhukov pointed to the motorcade passing through the border post, looked at us and said, "the Baojun doesn't want to fight us at all. Their border line has been completely opened to us." Zhukov waited until the motorcade passed the post and drove along the road to dobridge in the distance. Then he turned to the table, picked up the phone and connected to the headquarters of the front army. He asked tolbuhine, "Comrade General, what's the situation with the other two army groups? Have they found the enemy?"“ "Marshal," tolbuhin excitedly reported to Zhukov, "according to the reports of saroshin and shlieming, the Bulgarian army has opened its border to us, and their vanguard troops are crossing the border and advancing into Bulgaria." Half an hour later, the commander of the motorized battalion who led the troops into the city reported to Gagan on his walkie talkie: "Comrade commander, when we entered dobridge, we met an infantry division in Bulgaria. All their officers and men lined up on both sides of the road. As soon as we saw our motorcade appear, the military band began to play music and welcome our army. "“ What about the residents? " Hearing this, Zhukov couldn't help interrupting and asked, "did they show any panic?" Gagan immediately relayed Zhukov's words to the battalion commander: "major, comrade Marshal asked you, did the residents of the City show panic when they saw you enter the city?"“ No, no, "the battalion commander reported excitedly," seeing our army entering the city, the residents spontaneously took to the streets and welcomed our army with bread and salt according to Slavic tradition. "“ Major, have you found out what's going on in the city? "Gagan continued." why do they allow our troops to enter Bulgaria? "“ Yes, comrade commander. " The major quickly replied, "it was the division commander of the Bulgarian army who told me that he had received orders from his superiors today not to carry out combat operations against the Red Army." After figuring out what was going on, Gagan put down the phone, looked at Zhukov and asked, "Comrade marshal, what shall we do next?"“ Comrade general, are you confused? " Seeing Zhukov's smiling but speechless expression, I quickly said to Gagan, "next, of course, order the main force to continue to march towards Bulgaria!"“ Yes, it should be Gagan replied in a hurry, "I'll give orders to the troops." When Zhukov and I returned to the headquarters of the front army, he immediately reported the incident to Stalin, and finally asked, "Comrade Stalin, since the Bulgarian army has not opened fire on us and opened the border voluntarily, what should we do with these troops?" Stalin thought for a while, and then said: "tell the troops that the Bulgarian army is our friend now, and we should fully trust them, so don't disarm them, and don't adapt them, and let them stay in the same place to maintain law and order." At the end of the call with Stalin, Zhukov issued two new orders in succession: "first, from 6 pm, the mechanized 4th and 7th armies began to operate. Their task is to surpass the infantry troops entering Bulgaria in the daytime at night and continue to advance in depth. 2、 The Black Sea Fleet moved closer to the port of Varna, where they sent the infantry divisions ashore and tried to capture the submarines that the German army had docked here. "