An Ng's office is located in the northern part of the middle section of the hollowed-out mountainside building complex. It hangs alone in the recess of a cliff of more than 200 meters. Surrounded by green trees and vines, standing in front of the window, you can overlook Xuan Huong Lake in the distance, which is a pleasant scenery.
At ten o'clock in the morning, An Yi read today's newspapers and handled more than ten urgent official duties. General Du Yi, Minister of National Defense, came to visit.
"So, the Germans are about to lose their support?" An Yi asked thoughtfully after reading the dossier submitted by Du Yi, with his right elbow on the desk, his chin raised with his palm, and he pondered for a long time.
"The building will collapse!"
Du Yi nodded heavily: "Judging from the current situation, Germany has once again staged the tragic scene it experienced in the last European War. Facing the dilemma of fighting on the east and west fronts, failure is inevitable."
"yes!"
An Yi let out a long sigh: "Who prevented the Germans from seizing the opportunity to capture Moscow in the autumn and winter of 1942, march straight to Kazan, and completely eliminate the Soviet regime? Since Hitler was arrogant and arbitrarily decided to attack the Soviet Union in the Mesopotamia region
If our army takes action, the result is already determined!"
It turned out that what Du Yi sent today was the latest situation report on the Soviet-German battlefield. Although An Yi had already seen the General Staff's analysis of the war situation and the deduction of the evolution of the future war situation, the focus of the intelligence department was different.
Although the Anjia Army released all the German prisoners of war and sold a large amount of weapons and equipment to the Germans, the thing is so strange. When you have your way, you can attack or defend with ease, and you can even fight when the opponent's troops and weapons and equipment are higher than yours.
You can still be invincible! But when you are unlucky, you will choke even when you drink water, and everything you do will backfire!
Nowadays, Germany is having bad luck. Italy's sudden betrayal on the Western Front directly led to the defeat of the Third Battle of Moscow. The German army finally stabilized its position under the Soviet attack, but a new disastrous defeat caused all previous efforts to be wasted and the war situation took a turn for the worse.
At the end of August, the Soviet army concentrated the Leningrad Front, Volkhov Front, Northwestern Front and Kalinin Front to launch an attack on Leningrad.
At the beginning of the battle, Soviet assault groups successfully broke through the German defenses, penetrated 50 kilometers deep into the German army within three days, and once broke into the urban area of Leningrad.
The German Army Group North concentrated its tank troops and launched a counterattack against the Soviet flank, successfully encircling the Soviet assault group. On September 29, the Soviet Army's 23rd, 42nd, 55th, and
The main force of the 67th Army was wiped out in the Pushkin and Korpinno areas. 290,000 people were captured, more than 900 tanks were lost, and many senior generals were killed.
The victory in the Battle of Leningrad made the top German army full of confidence in victory.
Marshal Guderian, the commander of Army Group South who replaced Manstein in commanding the war on the Eastern Front, hoped to annihilate the main force of the Soviet army through a defensive counterattack after luring the enemy to attack, and proposed to implement a bold operation codenamed "Counterattack".
Its purpose was to encircle the Soviet army and annihilate the effective forces of the Soviet Voronezh Front, Southwestern Front and Don River Front by detouring to the Volonai and even Liski areas in the upper reaches of the Don River.
However, Hitler chose the more traditional "Operation Lightning" to crush the Soviet troops in the Kursk Bulge. Guderian had no choice but to accept this idea. For "Operation Lightning", Guderian enlisted the help of the
After Hitler dismissed Manstein's opinion, he proposed two options:
One is to launch an offensive campaign early while the Soviet army is not yet stable, and the other is to wait for the Soviet army to attack first. After it is tired and exhausted, and its energy is exhausted, the German army will then counterattack and attack the Soviet army's retreat.
Guderian was more optimistic about the latter, but Hitler flatly refused, believing that it would be too risky for the Soviet army to attack first, and it would be safer to strike first.
For this decisive battle, the German government used gold, machine tools, and mechanical equipment as settlement units to order 4,300 Leopard and Tiger tanks from Nanhua. These two tanks were related to the transfer from Germany to the Nanhua government.
The manufacturing technology was later used by the Nanhua Military Industrial Group's tank and tractor enterprises in the subcontinent. Before the launch of the Kursk Battle, a total of 2,198 tanks were delivered through the Black Sea East Coast Railway connecting the north and south of the Caucasus Mountains.
The Kursk salient is like a fist. It extends from the Soviet front line. Its front is about 410 kilometers long, but its bottom is less than 115 kilometers. Moreover, after rigorous reconnaissance, many organized Soviet troops were found in the salient.
station, Guderian planned to encircle and annihilate the heavy Soviet army group in the entire salient through a coordinated attack from the north and south wings. Once this battle is successful, the German front will be greatly shortened and the mobility of the German troops will be greatly increased.
At this time, the situation in Europe and North Africa changed dramatically. In early August, the German Afrika Korps, under the leadership of Marshal Rommel, forcibly disarmed the more than 800,000 Italian troops in North Africa. This was used as a threat to force the Italian government to provide the Afrika Korps with the power to sustain the Afrika Korps for half a year.
of combat supplies, barely saving Tunisia and Libya. However, Rommel declared that if the maritime supply line could not be opened within the next six months, the Afrika Korps would be completely wiped out.
On the one hand, Hitler was in great need of Libyan oil. On the other hand, Rommel's Afrika Korps was an elite force in the German army. Once they ran out of ammunition and food and surrendered to the Allies, it would greatly affect the morale of the German army.
Under this circumstance, Hitler believed that it was necessary to stabilize the war on the Eastern Front as soon as possible, and then turn to the Western Front to drive the Allied forces from the Apennine Peninsula to the sea, open up maritime connections with North Africa, and at least withdraw Rommel's troops to Europe.
The mainland, therefore, issued a combat order on October 15th, deciding that before the official arrival of winter, the German army would jointly launch a pincer offensive with Army Group Center and Army Group South to destroy the Soviet army in the Kursk salient. The operation code name
It is called "Lightning", which means that the German army relied on a thunderous strike to gain the strategic initiative on the Soviet-German battlefield.
Before the launch of the battle, General Model's Ninth Army, which belonged to the German Army Group Center, was in the northern part of the Kursk salient. The army had 21 German divisions and three Hungarian divisions, totaling 340,000 people, including
Six tank divisions, with a total of 1,190 tanks and more than 1,600 artillery pieces.
In the middle of the salient is the Second Army of the German Army Group Center. This combat group, which has not been restored to its original form for a long time, has 120,000 people. They will play a supporting role in this offensive. Their main task is to maintain the gap between the German troops north and south of the salient.
contact.
To the south of the protrusion is Army Group South, which Guderian personally commanded, including the Eighth Army and the reorganized Fourth Armored Army.
The Fourth Armored Group has jurisdiction over the 52nd Infantry Corps, the 48th Armored Corps and the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, with a total of 250,000 men, 2,100 tanks, and more than 2,540 artillery pieces;
The Eighth Army has twelve divisions, 160,000 men, 729 tanks and 380 artillery pieces.
In addition, there are twenty divisions deployed on the flanks of the above-mentioned assault groups, supported by the aviation forces of the Fourth and Sixth Air Forces. This brings the total offensive strength of the German army to 1.29 million, including artillery and mortars.
There are approximately 24,000 vehicles, 5,800 tanks and self-propelled artillery, and more than 4,900 aircraft.
Why is the German army said to be unlucky?
At 7 o'clock in the morning on November 6, just before the official launch of the German offensive, the Soviet army suddenly and unexpectedly covered the German positions with artillery fire, causing great damage to the tank units of the German Army Group Center and Army Group South that were preparing to attack.
The casualties forced the start of the battle to be delayed by four hours.
As the war progressed, the German army made extremely slow progress in the face of the Soviet army's tenacious defense. This gave the Soviet army time to assemble its troops to deploy defenses and launch a counterattack.
The turning point of the battle occurred in the Prokhorovka region.
General Vatutin, who participated in the Third Battle of Moscow and was transferred to the commander of the Voronezh Front in early August, commanded the Soviet army to resist the German advance towards the Oboyan area from the front, and at the same time launched continuous counterattacks on both wings. Although these counterattacks were met again and again.
It failed, but it prevented the Germans from attacking their main target with all their strength.
Seeing that the German Fourth Panzer Group was still unable to achieve a breakthrough from the front, Guderian had no choice but to order the unit to achieve a breakthrough from the right wing first, that is, dispatching the Second SS Panzer Corps to turn to the Prokhorovka area in the northeast. In the next two days,
Here, the German army's attack went relatively smoothly. They captured the city of Prokhorovka in one fell swoop, and the climax of the Battle of Kursk was staged.
In the early morning of November 21, tank troops from the Soviet Union and Germany met unexpectedly and launched attacks on each other almost simultaneously. More than 2,000 tanks fell into a melee.
In the battle, the 88mm gun of the "Tiger" tank purchased by the German army from Nanhua had obvious advantages over the 75mm tank gun of the Panzer IV tank, while the 76mm gun of the T-34 tank also purchased by the Soviet army from Nanhua had a clear advantage at the same distance.
However, it was unable to pose a threat to the German army. A large number of Soviet tanks were destroyed by German tanks beyond the combat distance.
In this day's tank battle, although the Germans destroyed more Soviet tanks with relatively small losses, they failed to capture Prokhorovka. Subsequently, the Soviet reinforcements that arrived one after another weakened their defense line.
will be stronger.
According to information obtained by the intelligence department, the Soviet army lost more than 900 tanks in this battle, most of which were absolute losses. Similarly, the German army lost more than 430 tanks, including many "Tiger" tanks.
This directly resulted in the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army being unable to achieve its goal of capturing favorable terrain or defeating the German 2nd SS Panzer Corps, and both forces were weakened during the battle.
On the same day, the Soviet army's powerful reserves launched a counterattack across the Kursk line. The guerrillas from the three Baltic countries, Belarus, and Ukraine behind the German army continued to attack, destroying thousands of kilometers of railway lines connecting the German army's front and rear.
.
At the same time, the Soviet army once again concentrated nine armies to attack Leningrad, forcing Hitler to draw troops from the Fourth Army, the Ninth Army, the Sixteenth Army and the reorganized Third Tank Army as strategic reserves in the center.
support.
The war situation affected the whole body, and once again evolved into a decisive battle that swept the entire Soviet-German battlefield.
In the early morning of the 24th, the Soviet army carried out an artillery bombardment of the German positions in the Orel salient for more than two hours. Subsequently, General Sokorovsky's Western Front and General Popov's Bryansk Front
The front-line troops began to attack. The German army resisted tenaciously, causing heavy casualties to the Soviet army.
The next day, the 70th, 13th and 48th armies of the Soviet Central Front commanded by General Rokossovsky also joined the attack.
Faced with a full-line attack by the Soviet army, Model had to ask Hitler to abandon the Orel area on the morning of the 27th and withdraw the German troops to the "Hagen" defense line. Although Hitler was very reluctant, in order to preserve his strength, Model finally
Still agreed to the retreat plan.
On the southern front, when the German army broke away from the Soviet army on the 23rd, Stalin asked the Soviet army to launch a counterattack immediately. Although Zhukov applied for an extension on the grounds that the troops needed to rest for a period of time due to continuous fighting, Stalin refused.
The Soviet counterattack began on the 26th.
The Voronezh Front and the Steppe Front were responsible for this offensive, with a total strength of 900,000 troops and more than 3,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery.
At seven o'clock in the morning, nearly 10,000 Soviet artillery units fired, and a large number of artillery shells poured into the German positions. The bombardment lasted for more than two hours, and finally ended with a salvo of Katyusha rocket launchers. Then tanks and infantry began to attack. At
The German soldiers who survived the shelling were unable to stop the Soviet advance. The Soviet army quickly broke through the German first line of defense. After a day of fighting, the Soviet assault groups advanced an average of fifteen kilometers in depth towards the German army.
In the ensuing battle, the German defense was extremely tenacious. Although the Soviet tanks continued to break forward, the infantry was entangled by the Germans. Progress was slow.
As of midnight today, when the report ends, the Soviet Southern Attack Group has advanced toward the outskirts of Kharkov in the southwest, and has advanced southward to the German army's Voroshilovgrad-Kaminsk Shakhtinsky-Molo
The Zovsk-Zimlyanskaya-Krasnoalmysky defense line, Germany's oil fields in the North Caucasus, and Ukraine's coal and iron mines are all under serious threat.
"It seems that our deal with the Germans can no longer last much longer! Your intelligence department must race against time to get the machine tools and mechanical products we need from Europe!"
An Yi had a clear understanding of the situation and said: "In terms of shipping, allied navies can enter the Black Sea from the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea at any time. The Germans have captured warships from Greece, Yugoslavia, Turkey, the Soviet Union and other countries, as well as purchased from Italy, etc.
The existence of the Black Sea Fleet, which was pieced together in various ways, is getting shorter and shorter.
"On the land side, as the transportation hub Rostov is increasingly threatened, our railway transportation with the Germans is already facing a serious crisis! Tell the Germans that Rostov will be the lifeline for Germany's survival and must be defended at all costs!
Otherwise, once Rostov falls, our food, oil and other strategic materials will not be able to be delivered to Germany, and the German army will accelerate towards defeat!"
Du Yi understood: "For more than a year, in exchange for the weapons and equipment and strategic materials such as rubber, oil, and tungsten we provided, the Germans looted the Soviet Union's industrial bases from east to west. All machinery and equipment, including the Soviet Union's During the economic crisis, a large number of machine tools and production lines imported from the United States were all dismantled and packed, and nominally shipped back to Germany for production in selected locations. In fact, they were all sent to my country via rail.
"In addition, machine tools and production lines disassembled from Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and other countries were also sent to our country via sea and railway, and took root in Indochina, the subcontinent and West Asia, and became our country's factories. It can be said that,
This is the best of times. Almost every day, more than fifty factories and companies open in our country. Otherwise, we would not be able to provide Germany with so many tanks in such a short period of time!
"However, it was the nearly open and crazy plundering by the Nazi government and army that led to instability in the German rear, riots and riots in both cities and rural areas, and the German army had to allocate a large number of troops to suppress the resistance of workers and farmers.
, eliminate the guerrillas that have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain."
"Only the Germans have to take the blame!"
An Yi warned: "Although our transactions with the Germans are almost an open secret, no one has caught them after all. We must take precautions before they happen and eliminate all possible ways of leaking secrets!"
"Don't worry!"
Du Yi confidently said: "All the machinery and equipment shipped back to China have been archived, all appearance features have been removed, and repainted and repainted. Experts and skilled workers hired back from Europe have also been inspected and repainted.
Distribution, Western European experts and workers used Soviet equipment, and the Soviets used Western European machinery.
"Time waits for us!"
An Yi said with emotion: "Although we have hired no less than tens of millions of technical talents from Europe and the United States in the past few years, as long as the world war is over, at least half of them will be gone. Fortunately, our skilled technical workers will follow the footsteps of Europe and the United States.
Expert internships improve skills quickly and have little impact.”
At this time, Shen Fengdao opened the door and walked in, nodded to Du Yi, and reported to An Yi: "According to air force reconnaissance, the Japanese troops in Palembang are retreating to Lampung Port. At the same time, the Japanese troops in Lampung Port began to transport
Citizens and supplies arrived on Java Island. The Intelligence Department of the General Staff judged that the Japanese army was ready to abandon Sumatra."
An Yi stood up excitedly: "Let's go to the command hall in front and take a look... Who would have thought that Sumatra, which the Japanese army had been operating for several years, could not even hold on for half a month..."
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