artillery arc

Chapter 435: Captain Vasily Knows a Little About Deception

Ten minutes later.

Battalion Commander Hans looked at the company commander and asked, "Where's Rokossov?"

The captain of the first company shook his head: "We didn't catch them. The enemy fled in all directions, but we found the body of a senior officer."

As he said this he took a step back and two soldiers came over on a stretcher carrying a body that had been blown beyond recognition.

Judging from his military rank, he was a lieutenant colonel. His map bag was still hanging on his body, but the briefcase was nowhere to be found.

Hans asked: "What's going on? Where's the briefcase? That's the most important thing!"

The company commander turned around and shouted something, and immediately someone brought up a briefcase. It could be seen that the shoulder strap of the briefcase had been cut off by shrapnel or something else.

Hans snatched the briefcase, opened it and quickly flipped through it, and found a lot of messy documents inside.

Hans didn't understand Ant language and couldn't understand what was written on it.

But he vaguely felt that this was very important!

At this time, the communications platoon leader ran over, stood at attention and saluted: "Communications are connected!"

Hans immediately stuffed the things in his hand to the company commander: "Pack all of these, including the documents and maps, and send your most trusted people in an armored vehicle - no, take them to the division headquarters in a tank! Wait, don't leave, take this body with you!"

The company commander turned and left, and Hans picked up the phone that had just been unreachable: "Connect to the division headquarters! Yes, division headquarters! Forget the regiment headquarters, I want to talk to the division commander directly, it's an emergency!"

----

after an hour.

Schultz, commander of the 16th Armored Grenadier Division, watched as the staff officer who understood Ant language opened the briefcase and looked through the documents inside.

He watched the staff officer pick out a document, his brows twisted into a knot.

Schultz asked hurriedly: "Is this an important document?"

"No," the staff officer shook his head. "This is the list of gifts that General Rokossov bought for the socialites in Yekaterinburg this month. It was written to...the Office Supplies Procurement Office of the Equipment Committee. It seems that this Rokossov has made a lot of money."

Schultz sneered: "Isn't this just like the generals of the Empire, such as Grand Duke Meyer?"

In Plossen's army, it was common to talk about Grand Duke Mayer's luxurious life, especially among officers from Junker aristocratic families, who even secretly encouraged their subordinates to talk about it.

Obviously, this shopping list makes the image of Rokossov more concrete.

Schultz: "These things related to Rokossov's life will be handed over to the Imperial Intelligence Department to study and see what else."

----

At this time, in the First Mobile Army's command post, Vasily whispered to the general's personal guard, Sergeant Gregory, "I made up a lot of things that can enhance the sense of reality. But I didn't dare tell the general, and I didn't put it in the file when the general checked it."

Gregory frowned, "You're doing this again. Come on, you boasted before that the general shot down a plane with a pistol, but now everyone is convinced that the general shot down four planes with a pistol.

"But...what did you write?"

Vasily smiled evilly: "We can definitely make the Prosen people believe that the dead man is the general's confidant! Don't worry, we will succeed in deceiving the enemy this time!"

----

At the headquarters of the 16th Armored Grenadier Division of the Plossen Army, the staff officer unfolded a letter that was folded in three parts and looked at its contents with a frown.

Schultz: What is this?

"A sonnet," the officer replied. "It's well written, but I don't know who this Shushanna in the poem is."

Schulz: “Who wrote the poem?”

"General Rokossov... at least his name was signed. I don't know whether he wrote it himself or his staff wrote it for him."

Schultz: "Okay, okay, I'm not interested in how Rokossov makes money or picks up girls. Let's find the key documents!"

The staff officer put down the poem and said, "Let me look through the map bag first. Maybe there is some key information on it."

"You should have looked in the map bag first!" said Schultz.

Staff Officer: "I think it's better to look at the documents first to confirm the identity of this person and the authenticity of the intelligence he is carrying. If it's false intelligence, we will be misled if we look at the map directly."

As he said this, he opened the map package, took out a map and unfolded it, and his mouth immediately opened into an O shape.

Schultz looked from a distance and vaguely saw the direction of the arrow on the map. He thought it was a retreat plan, so he asked, "Why, Rokossov wants to run away?"

"No," the staff officer shook his head. "I thought so at first glance, but when I look closely at this map, there are many problems. For example, there are too few supply stations. Such a small number of stations cannot guarantee the retreat of a large army. In addition, there are many black areas on this map. Look here and here. These black bars should cover some key text."

Schultz took two steps forward, stood next to the staff officer, and looked at the map closely. "There are indeed a lot of blackened parts," he muttered.

The staff officer said: "Not only are they blacked out, but according to the grammar of the Ant language, these blacked-out parts should be the predicate or subject parts. If they are blacked out, the entire sentence becomes unclear.

"Our confidentiality department handles confidential documents in the same way. This is definitely not an evacuation plan, definitely not!"

Schultz touched his chin and said, "Rokosov is cunning and treacherous. He likes tactical deception and is very good at it. But now he has concentrated so many tanks, there is no way to deceive him——"

Suddenly, Schultz felt a tingling sensation on the back of his head: "I see, this is Rokossov's tactical deception! He used a small force to retreat to deceive our aerial reconnaissance, making us think he was going to run away! But in fact he was preparing to attack!

“According to the files on Rokosov sent by the High Command, he liked to personally scout the direction of the breakthrough before attacking, so our armored grenadiers battalion seized the opportunity to attack him!
"Look in your map bag, there should be an attack plan!"

The staff officer put down the retreat plan and looked through his map bag, but couldn't find the offensive map. He looked up and spread his hands to Schultz: "There is no offensive map!"

"How is that possible?" Schultz came up and looked through it himself, and indeed there was no offensive map in the entire map package.

"No!" He slapped his thigh, "How could there be a fake retreat map in this map package? There is definitely something wrong! It must be--"

Schultz suddenly remembered something and shouted, "Bring the body in! Quick!"

Soon, the body of "Rokossov's confidant" was carried in, and all the belongings on his body, including the pistol he was wearing, were placed in a frame next to it.

Schultz rummaged around and found a box of matches.

The matchbox was crushed and many matches fell out of the holes. The entire matchbox was almost empty.

Schultz: "Look at this matchbox! This man was seriously injured and couldn't open the matchbox anymore, so he crushed the matchbox and took out the matches!"

The staff officer who understood the Ant language suddenly had an idea and took a look at the map bag: "There are bloody handprints! He opened the map bag! And the bloodstains in the bag can also explain it!"

Schultz grabbed the corpse's hand and said, "Look! His nails are burned black! He burned the map that showed Rokossov's real plan!"

At this moment, everyone in the room was full of respect for the deceased enemy officer.

Schultz put down the man's hand and gently took off his hat: "Rokossov's confidants are all such people. No wonder he can always win battles."

The chief of staff asked, "Should we bury him with honor? This will also boost the morale of our troops and inspire them to compete with the enemy."

"No!" Schultz shook his head. "We only wrote our speculation in the report, and they may not believe it. Evacuate the body as well, and have the army headquarters send it to the rear by plane! This way the intelligence department will agree with our judgment! Find the craziest driver and evacuate all of them!"

----

The First Mobile Army Headquarters, the entire headquarters was preparing for the retreat, but Vasily was temporarily on leave because he had just completed the deception work and produced a basket of false documents.

He leaned against the wall and watched the people in the headquarters busying themselves, and suddenly laughed.

Gregory asked, "What are you laughing at?"

"I'm telling you, this deception is my best work, and it's several orders of magnitude more deceptive than before! The enemy will definitely be fooled. I even want to suggest that the general not set up a rear guard and just go for it!"

Vasily's face was full of pride as he spoke.

Gregory shook his head. "The general wouldn't do that. Our general is very strange. He seems to be very reckless in battle, but he is actually quite conservative in many areas and has many preparations. He wouldn't leave no rearguard."

Vasily: "Yes, he won't. And he will be at the back himself, do you believe it?"

"I believe it." Gregory smiled. "Then Bucephalus and I will protect the general's safety."

Vasily: "I thought it was the loyal tank 422."

"Only the loyal chariot will give us a steel grave,' only Plossen sings. The general won't sing that. I have been through life and death with the general so many times, and I tell you, he never intended to die in a charge, not even once! He made a desperate charge when he firmly believed that he would come back alive."

Gregory looked from afar at Rokosov, who was being held in position by Pavlov to review various plans related to the retreat.

"After you have been to hell many times, you can tell which men are determined to die," Gregory said. "For example, in Agsukov, I could see that the crown prince was no longer prepared to live, and I think the general saw it too. And the general's father, the old man had a strong smell of that. But Alexei Konstantinovich Rokossov never had the same atmosphere of wanting to die."

Vasily was shocked: "I have to write this sentence in my notes. When someone writes a biography of the general in the future, I will give it to him. It must appear in the general's biography."

Gregory shook his head: "No, I'm just a rough guy."

"I know, you spelled the word atmosphere wrong just now."

"What? Is it spelled wrong?"

"Yes, and to die, which is also spelled wrong."

Gregory cursed, then smiled and said, "Then please revise it to be more literary."

"I will."

(Gregory's words in this chapter are all revised versions by Vasily)
(End of this chapter)