red moscow

Chapter 2744

With the order from Colonel Del, Sokov had an imperial sword and could go to any recruitment office in the city to recruit the new soldiers he needed.

Coming out of the headquarters, Sokov called Konstantin and Zhukov to his front, waved the order in his hand to the two, and then said: "I have obtained the authorization from the commander and the chief of staff to go to any recruitment office in the room to recruit new soldiers. Who of you is willing to go with me?"

"I!" the two answered in unison, and took a step forward at the same time.

After the two exchanged a glance, Constantine chose to withdraw: "Comrade Company Commander, I think it is better for Second Lieutenant Zhu Kewen to accompany you. He is from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Having him by your side can solve a lot of unnecessary troubles."

When Sokov heard this, it seemed to make sense, so he nodded in agreement: "Then Lieutenant Zhu Kewen will lead the second platoon to act with me."

After the second row had assembled, Sokov asked them to board the truck parked nearby.

Zhukov came over and said to Sokov, "Comrade Captain, there are only 35 people in our platoon. We don't need so many trucks."

"Lieutenant, have you forgotten what we are going to do?" Sokov reminded him, "You can't let the new recruits come back on foot."

After Sokov's reminder, Zhukov immediately understood the other party's intention, and ran back to his subordinates and shouted at them: "Four people get on a car, and the remaining seats are for the new recruits we recruited."

The first place the convoy went to was a recruitment office two kilometers away from the headquarters.

According to Sokov's idea, there should be a long queue at the door of the conscription office. All men who meet the enlistment requirements will rush here to line up and ask to join the army to participate in the war against the German attack.

But when they arrived at the recruitment office, they found that it was deserted. Under the recruitment advertisement on the wall, there was only a listless soldier standing.

The soldier saw a convoy stop in front of him. After a group of soldiers got off the vehicles, two officers leading the convoy came over. One of them was an officer from the Ministry of Internal Affairs wearing a blue hat. He couldn't help but look a little flustered and hurriedly explained himself: "I'm sorry, commander, I'm a little too tired these two days. I just took a nap. Please don't punish me."

Sokov couldn't help laughing when the soldier said that. He felt that the soldier regarded him as someone who was checking military discipline. He quickly raised his hand and patted the soldier on the shoulder, and asked with a smile: "Comrade soldier, I want to ask you, is this the recruitment office?"

"Of course, Comrade Captain." Seeing that Sokov was not going to punish him but just asking for directions, the soldier felt more at ease and quickly answered truthfully: "This is the recruitment office."

"If this is a conscription office, why can't I see any residents coming to enlist?"

The soldier shrugged his shoulders and said helplessly, "Comrade Captain, when the war first broke out, there were indeed residents eager to join the army, and they lined up in long lines at the recruitment office every day. But as time went on, all those who could join joined the army, and the rest had their own jobs, so the recruitment office became deserted. To be honest, from the 15th of this month to today, it has been more than a week, and only more than a hundred people have been recruited, and these new recruits are still living in the nearby school."

Hearing that there were more than a hundred recruits at this recruitment station, Sokov was secretly delighted and quickly asked the soldier: "Comrade soldier, is the person in charge of this recruitment office here? I have something to ask him."

"Yes." The soldier nodded and said, "After you enter the door, walk straight along the corridor. There is a meeting room at the end of the corridor. The person in charge is in there."

After Sokov thanked the soldiers, he walked in with only Zhukov and two soldiers.

We walked along the corridor and arrived at the conference room at the end.

Looking through the open door, an officer was sitting behind a desk piled with various paper documents. Perhaps no one came here, he was looking down at something. Hearing footsteps in the corridor, he stood up and asked Sokov, who was walking over, "Comrade Commander, who are you looking for?"

Sokov saw the political rank on the other party's collar badge clearly. It was a first-class political instructor, equivalent to the rank of captain, one level higher than himself. He quickly stood at attention, raised his hand to salute and said, "Hello, comrade first-class instructor, I am Captain Sokov, the commander of the special company of the 37th Army Headquarters, and I have been ordered to come here to receive new recruits."

After saying that, Sokov took out the order signed by Colonel Del and handed it to the other party.

The first-level instructor took the order, looked over it for a long time, frowned and said, "Comrade Captain, I'm so sorry, I haven't received any orders from my superiors, and I can't hand over these new recruits to you."

Sokov said patiently: "Didn't you see that the order I handed you was signed personally by Colonel Del, the Chief of Staff of the Army Group?"

"Comrade Captain, once we have recruited a certain number of new soldiers, we will directly hand them over to the recruiting personnel at the front headquarters, who will then assign them to the various army groups." Unexpectedly, the first-level instructor still refused to cooperate: "This order was only issued by the commander at the army group level. It is of no use to me."

"Comrade First Instructor," Sokov was a little unhappy when he saw that the other party was still unwilling to hand over the new recruits to him after reading the order, but he still said patiently, "You may not know that General Vlasov, the commander of the 37th Army, is also the commander of the Kiev garrison. His position was appointed by Comrade Stalin himself. In other words, we are not only recruiting soldiers for the 37th Army, but also replenishing personnel for the garrison headquarters to maintain urban security."

After hearing what Sokov said, the first-level instructor seemed very hesitant. He didn't know whether he should hand over the more than a hundred recruits in his hands to Sokov as the order said; or stick to the principle and hand over the recruits to them after the recruitment personnel from the other army headquarters arrived.

"Comrade First-Class Instructor," Zhu Kewen said anxiously, seeing that the person in charge of conscription did not agree to hand over the new recruits, "I suggest you call your superiors immediately and report the situation here to them and hear what they think."

The conscription officer was of a higher rank than Sokov, so he could take the initiative. But the person who spoke at this moment was Zhukov. Although he was only a second lieutenant, the blue military cap he wore indicated that he was from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The conscription officer dared to offend someone from the headquarters, but not from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He said nervously, "Comrade second lieutenant, please wait a moment. I will call my superiors right away to hear their opinions."

Seeing the conscription officer start to make phone calls, Sokov couldn't help but cast an approving look at Zhukov. If the person who came here with him was Constantine instead of Zhukov, he was afraid that the other party would continue to fool him with official language.

Soon, the call was over. The conscription officer put down the phone and said to Sokov with a bitter face, "Comrade Captain, the superiors have agreed to hand over all the new recruits here to you." He picked up the order on the table and continued, "You need to keep this order, otherwise I will not be able to report to my superiors."

Sokov originally planned to take this order and go to several more recruitment offices to recruit new soldiers. If he could really recruit hundreds of new soldiers here, there would be no need to go to other recruitment offices. So he readily agreed to the other party's request and kept the order signed by Colonel Del.

After the conscription officer put away the order signed by Colonel Del, he picked up the roster on the table and said to Sokov, "Comrade Captain, the new recruits live in the school behind. I will take you there to receive them."

When we arrived at the school where the new recruits lived, an officer and two militiamen in plain clothes with rifles came up to us. They looked at the person in charge of the recruitment and asked, "Comrade First-Class Instructor, how come you have time to come here today?"

The conscription officer pointed at Sokov and Zhukov and said, "This is Captain Sokov from the 37th Army Headquarters. He is here to receive new recruits."

Upon hearing this, the officer immediately asked, "According to the orders of our superiors, shouldn't we hand over the recruits directly to the recruiting personnel of the front army headquarters?"

"Stop talking nonsense and follow orders." The conscription officer said impatiently, "Call everyone out."

More than one hundred new recruits in new uniforms lived in three classrooms. After receiving the order from the officers, they immediately ran out. Because they had not received systematic military training, they were crowded together in a mess and did not even know how to line up.

Fortunately, Lieutenant Zhu Kewen led his men forward and instructed the recruits on how to line up. After a long time, the recruits finally lined up.

"Comrade Captain," Zhukov returned to Sokov's side and whispered, "These new recruits have not received any military training. Are they able to perform their daily duties if they are directly incorporated into the army?"

"Take them all back first. We can talk about the training later."

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After the line was completed, the officer in charge of the recruits began to call the roll. The recruits whose names were called walked out of the line and were taken to the truck parked nearby by the soldiers from the second row who had just arrived.

"Grigory Romanov!"

"Here!" a young recruit answered loudly and then walked out of the queue.

When Sokov heard the name, he was shocked and wondered if this Romanov was the Romanov he knew. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but look at the other person a few more times. From the other person's tender face, he could vaguely see the shadow of the later celebrity.

Sokov began to mutter in his heart. He remembered the famous Romanov, who had just turned 18 when the Great Patriotic War broke out and then joined the army. He was discharged from the army in 1946 and joined the Soviet Shipbuilding Industry Ministry. He graduated from the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute in 1954. In the s, he was highly regarded by Brezhlev and replaced Shelepin to take an important position. Later, at his daughter's wedding, a drunk broke several pieces of court tableware borrowed from the museum, and he lost the opportunity to climb to the top.

Seeing young Romanov board a truck with the help of his companions, Sokov made up his mind to find a way to keep him by his side and try to ensure his safety. If anything happened to him, it might affect the future course of history.

"Comrade Captain," Zhukov saw that Sokov's eyes were fixed on the new recruits boarding the train, and couldn't help asking curiously, "Why do you keep looking at those new recruits?"

Sokov naturally wouldn't tell Zhukov that among these new recruits there was a future big man, and one who was almost at the top. He could only perfunctorily say, "The war is imminent. I think these new recruits may be sent to the front after being incorporated into the army. I wonder how many of them will live to see the day of victory."

"I think it should be quite a few." Although the current situation is not favorable to the Soviet army, Lieutenant Zhukov is still full of optimism: "I believe that once we completely crush the German attack on Kiev, we can launch a major counterattack and drive the enemy out of our land, so that we can achieve the final victory."

"It's not enough to just drive them out of our territory," Sokov said to Zhukov. "We also need to attack their lair and completely destroy their war capabilities, so that they don't wait until they recover and launch a new attack on us again."

"Comrade Captain, you are right." The conscription officer heard the conversation between Sokov and Zhukov, came over and said with a smile: "It is not enough to just drive the Germans out of our land. We must go straight to their lair and beat them until they surrender completely. Just like in the First World War, we must make them surrender unconditionally and sign a surrender document."

When Zhu Kewen heard what the conscription officer said, he immediately felt like he had found a soulmate, and quickly said to him, "Comrade First-Class Instructor, how long do you think it will take us to defeat the enemy?"

"I think the Battle of Kiev will be a turning point." The conscription officer said confidently: "Although our army has been retreating in the early stages, we don't have to retreat anymore after we retreat to Kiev. Our strength here far exceeds that of the enemy, and we are on the defensive. It will be no problem for us to defeat the enemy."

Seeing that the two were so optimistic about the current war situation, Sokov couldn't help but smile bitterly in his heart, and secretly said that he hoped that they could still say such things a month later.

Soon, the roll call of the new recruits was completed, and the officer handed the roster to Sokov: "Comrade Captain, this is the roster of the new recruits, please keep it."

Sokov took the roster, flipped through it, and handed it to Zhu Kewen: "Comrade Lieutenant, keep this!"

After doing all this, Sokov turned around and saluted the conscription officer: "Comrade First-Class Instructor, thank you!" After lowering his hand from his forehead, he shook the other party's outstretched hand and said, "See you later!"

On the way back to the army headquarters, Zhukov asked Sokov: "Comrade Captain, with the addition of these new recruits, the total number of our company has reached 200. How do you plan to allocate the troops?"

"I plan to divide the entire company into four platoons," Sokov said. "After the personnel are assigned, I will ask the chief of the security department to send me two more officers to serve as platoon leaders of the third and fourth platoons respectively."

"Comrade Captain, you have considered it very carefully." Zhu Kewen said approvingly after listening to him: "We have too few officers. We should ask our superiors to replenish us as soon as possible. With enough officers, it will be more convenient for you to command the troops in the future."

(End of this chapter)