Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 1274 The Last Battle
"We must completely flatten this huge protrusion!" After the preliminary preparations, Guan Xuqing's voice gradually increased.When he said this, everyone understood the official purpose of the meeting. "What's more important is that 80% of the mobile forces of the Soviets are concentrated here. As long as these troops are eliminated, we will be able to win the final victory."

"The enemy will definitely concentrate its key forces nearby!" Stalin's suffocating tone echoed in the venue. "Although those eastern bandits are more cunning, they must occupy the area. Because this is not only a huge salient, but also a good battlefield. All our troops can be concentrated here. They want to seize The initiative on the battlefield must destroy us, and to destroy our main force, we must attack."

"Winning is our goal. We have twice as many tanks as the Soviets. We have three times as many planes and twice as many artillery as the Soviets. I really can't think of why we failed." Guan Xuqing said with burning eyes.

"That's right. China has twice as many tanks as us, and they have more planes and artillery than us, but we have 90 people, and the terrorists only have 60 including their servants 90 people. We have an advantage over 60 versus [-]!"

"There are a lot of Soviets, but our fighting power is stronger. The soldiers of the Empire are the most elite troops in the world. I never worry that we will lose."

"We are not only fighting by ourselves, we can also get help from peace-loving people all over the world in this battle. The Chinese are already isolated and helpless in the world. Their inhumane practice has been cast aside by the whole world!"

"Looking around the world, few countries have come to help them, and we don't need help from others. We still have plenty of time left. Now is our best chance. As long as the Soviet Union can be eliminated, China will never I will reach the pinnacle of the world!" He paused here, and then shouted loudly: "Goal!!"

On May 1929, 5, the area was covered with dark clouds, and thunder rumbled from time to time in the dull and hot air.At 29:4 p.m., the first round of battle broke out between the 1st Armored Army and the 16th Army of the Suvoronezh Front in the southern part of the salient, which is the theater Chen Jitang was in charge of.

The intensity of the battle escalated to white-hot from the very beginning.The weather and visibility were excellent that day, so the Chinese Air Force first launched a violent air strike on the Soviet positions.The 8th Air Force, responsible for the aviation attack and escort tasks on the southern front, dispatched 324 sorties that day, including 212 dive bombers.The Chinese bomber force focused on the position of the 67th Guards Infantry Division of the Red Army, because the position here is very prominent.If the armored troops of the Dragon Army need to break through here, they must go here first, so in order to be able to capture this crucial salient, the Dragon Army decided to take it at all costs.

So, in just 10 minutes, the division's position dropped 2500 Chinese-made high-explosive bombs, cluster bombs and incendiary bombs.Of course, the Soviet Air Force immediately retaliated. The planes they took off shot down three planes of the 8th Air Force.

While the Chinese air force launched its air strikes, the Dragon Army ground forces launched battalion-sized offensives aimed at clearing the advancing Soviet positions and capturing the required observation posts for tomorrow's main attack.The Chinese 52nd Army first launched an attack to attract the attention of the Soviet Army; then, the 52th Armored Army, located on the right flank of the 48nd Army, began to take major actions.Those who entered the battle included the 3rd and 11th Armored Divisions of the Dragon Army and some elite regiment battalions. The first opponent they encountered was the forward security forces of the 52nd and 67th Guards Infantry Divisions of the Soviet Union near Draguskoye.

Although the scale of the battle is small, it is quite intense.East of Draguskoye, the advance battalion of the 11th Armored Division successfully cleared a camp position of the Soviet 52nd Guards Rifle Division; while west of Draguskoye, the 3rd Battalion and the 3th Armored Infantry The 394st Battalion of the Corps was stubbornly resisted by the 1nd Battalion of the Soviet Army.Under the fire of Soviet anti-tank guns and mortars, the Dragon Army suffered heavy losses.About one-third of the 2th company of the participating troops was killed or injured.It wasn't until 15 o'clock that the Dragon Army achieved its goal.

在距红军主要防御地带3公里处一个叫做布托沃的小村，龙军先遣营以及第11装甲师分队遭到的抵抗也很激烈。在这里作战的苏军是第67近卫步兵师第199团第营的加强排，他们打退了约1个团的中国步兵以及50辆坦克的反复进攻，把强大的对手牵制了78个小时。

A Chinese soldier who participated in the war described such a scene in his diary: "Our attack was met with tenacious resistance by the Soviet army. We didn't know that the Soviets had placed so many landmines here. Large and small, All kinds of landmines were planted in front of us. One of our officers was blown to pieces by a landmine as soon as he entered the minefield. Faced with this situation, we could only lie on the spot and not move Waiting for the support of the engineers. Now the entire battlefield is full of gunpowder smoke, and everything is shrouded in endless dust and smoke. After a while, our engineers arrived on the battlefield, and they immediately engaged in intense mine clearance. At this time, the Soviet Union Human shells fell on our heads non-stop, and for a moment we really doubted whether we could persist until the mines were swept away. No.

After a long time, the Soviet artillery on the opposite side of us suddenly stopped firing.Soon we heard shouts from the opposite side, the voices of soldiers.It turned out that the troops bypassed the opponent's defensive formation from the flanks and rushed up successfully.In this way, we finally occupied the other side's position."

On the night of the same day, the 1th Brigade belonging to the 5st Panzer Army also began to carry out infiltration operations, which lasted until the next morning.On the right wing of the 4th Armored Army, a battle group of the Dragon Army deployed along the North Donets River carried out covert operations across the river. They continued to send out reconnaissance troops, hoping to find a wider river beach.In this way, their Tiger tanks can smoothly cross this seemingly complicated shoal.

Although the frontline battle on May 5 was not large in scale and the real battle did not start, the Chinese and Soviets believed that this was the beginning of the Dragon Army's "Castle" campaign.In this battle, the 29st Panzer Army seized 1% of the outposts of the opposite Soviet army and forced the remaining Soviet outposts to shrink back to the main line of defense.Since the Red Army initially did not use powerful artillery to counterattack, the Chinese thought that the opponent had been caught off guard.

In fact, these battles only played a limited role in tactical adjustments, but instead countered the attack attempts of the Dragon Army.Especially in a combat engagement in the Belgorod area, the 6th Army of the Soviet Guard captured hundreds of soldiers from the 168th Infantry Division and learned that the Dragon Army would launch an offensive at dawn.After Marshal Vasilevsky received this information, he immediately ordered the defenders to carry out counter-fire preparations to disrupt the deployment of the Dragon Army.This information was also reported to the Central Front Army and Zhukov who was at the command post of the Front Army.

On the evening of May 5, Zhukov was at Rokossovsky's headquarters.He talked with Vasilevsky in the Vadodin headquarters by high-frequency telephone and learned the results of the battle with the enemy's advance detachment in the Belgorod area.Zhukov learned that the confession of the soldiers of the enemy's 29th infantry division captured that day that the enemy had turned to the offensive at dawn on May 168 was true, and that the Voronezh Front would carry out artillery and aviation counter-fire preparations according to the plan of the Supreme Command. .

At 30 o'clock in the morning on the 2th, General Pukhov, commander of the 13th Army, called Rokossovsky and reported that according to the confession of the captured engineer of the 6th Division of the enemy infantry, the Dragon Army had recovered. Into the preparation of the attack.The time to start the attack was around 5:30 am on May 3.

After getting the news, Rokossovsky asked Zhukov: "What should we do? Should we report to the Supreme Command first, or immediately issue an order to implement counter-preparation?"

"Comrade Rokossovsky, let's not waste any more time. You issue orders according to the plan of the Front Army and the Supreme Command. I will call the Supreme Commander now and report the information we have received and the decisions we have taken."

After issuing this order, Zhukov immediately got on the phone with the Supreme Commander.He was finishing talking with Vasilevsky at the Supreme Command, and Zhukov reported the intelligence received and the decision to implement counter-preparation.Stalin agreed with their decision and ordered them to keep reporting to him, saying: "I am waiting for the development of the situation in the Supreme Command."

At this moment, Zhukov has noticed that the Supreme Commander has become tense, and everyone is the same now. Although they have built a deep and echeloned defense, and now they have a powerful means of assaulting the dragon army, they are very excited. , extremely nervous.It was already late at night, but there was no sleepiness.

At this moment Zhukov and Rokossovsky were, as usual at such times, at the headquarters of the Front.Next to him was Ma Linin, Chief of Staff of the Central Front.Zhukov and this chief of staff have known each other since the battle, when he served as the chief of staff of the 16th Army. He is a fully developed commander and senior staff member, and he has fulfilled the tasks of the headquarters excellently.The one who helped him the most was General Boykov, the Chief of Operations. The Chief of Operations was humble, diligent, and full of initiative. He was the right-hand man of the Chief of Staff of the Front Army.Take this moment, for example, with phones ringing and pressing questions and requests coming one after another, and he was as composed as ever.On the other side, Colonel Nadshev, Chief of the Artillery Staff of the Front Army, was also here, and often went out to call the commanders of the artillery regiments of the Supreme Command Reserve and General Kazakov, the Artillery Commander of the Front Army in the 4th Artillery Army at that time.It should be said that the artillery headquarters of the various fronts and the commanders of the artillery of the fronts, group armies, and corps all organized artillery defense and counter-preparation work very skillfully.

(End of this chapter)