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Stalin's tone became a little milder, and he realized that he should not interfere with the front-line generals too much: "Comrade Konev, I can understand you, but we have no choice now. How can we win the final victory by losing the battle? I can Considering your difficulties, how about I lower your requirements, and just wipe out one division of the Chinese, how about it? Could it be that even half of the mission can’t be achieved?”
Konev said with great difficulty: "Yes, Comrade Stalin, I will do my best!"
After hanging up the phone, Konev couldn't help but sigh.
Without Stalin's interference, Konev would almost certainly have chosen to withdraw as soon as he saw it and retreated. However, the order of the Supreme Leader put him in a dilemma. In fact, Stalin did not give the order directly. He first called Kuznetzo husband to inquire.
Kuznetsov had originally ambitiously wanted to annihilate the 88th and 99th Divisions of the Nanjing Army, especially after learning that Vatutin had successfully annihilated the [-]th Brigade of the Nanjing Army, he was even more impatient. After Beijing annihilated the price of the [-]th Brigade of the Nanjing Army, he began to retreat faintly. At this moment, Stalin called and made him terrified. He dared not take back his original bold words. In the end, he was cruel, Assure Stalin that "as long as the Eastern Military District goes all out, the task can be completed."
Stalin was very satisfied with this, praised and encouraged him a few words, hung up the phone, and then called Konev to inquire.
When the [-]th Brigade was wiped out by the Soviet army, there was a small disagreement in the frontline command of the Nanjing Army.
"Actually...the [-]th Brigade doesn't need to fight!" Xiao Yao said quietly, "It is best to surrender collectively!"
"What?" Jiang Weiguo was taken aback, "You asked the [-]th Brigade to surrender collectively?"
Xiao Yao nodded: "In this way, the Soviet Army must be more proud and confident to easily obtain such a major battle result. In comparison, an enemy brigade was wiped out by our own side and an enemy brigade surrendered to our side. Obviously, the latter is more It can prove that the enemy army has been defeated.
What we want is for the Soviets to think that we are retreating and have no fighting spirit, don't we? "
Jiang Weiguo was furious: "It is better to let the [-]th Brigade surrender collectively than to let their entire army be annihilated! Anyway, they still die in battle with dignity and vigor! Surrender collectively? This is a shame! This is a stain!"
Xiao Yao said helplessly: "I know, but if the [-]th Brigade fights too hard and makes the Soviet army exhausted to eat them, then the Soviet army will not be willing to take advantage of the victory to pursue , they will be timid!"
Jiang Weiguo waved his hand: "Stop talking about this proposal!"
Xiao Yao did not insist, in fact, he also knew that this proposal was extremely inappropriate, in order to lure the enemy, sacrificing one of his own brigades would be extremely painful, if the brigade were to surrender en masse, it would be a humiliation for oneself.
Victory or honor, which one is more important to the army?In fact, it's hard to say.
An army that has been defeated and lost the war, no matter how much it maintains its honor, the defeated army will not be able to speak bravely, and an army that wins victory by humiliation will probably not be looked down upon.
The victory and honor of the army are equivalent to human life and dignity.
Dignity is of course more important than life, but dignity is based on life. Otherwise, how can there be such an inspirational story through the ages?Xiao Yao only thinks about the problem from a purely rational perspective, so the conclusion is hard to accept.
On the battlefield, the situation is changing rapidly, and there are many uncertain factors and accidents, coincidences, and accidents.
The [-]th Brigade of the Nanjing Army was completely annihilated by the Soviet Army. It was undoubtedly a victory for the Soviet Army. It could lure the Soviet Army to take advantage of the victory and pursue the Nanjing Army. As a result, the Soviet army gave up the idea of pursuing the victory.
This is a contradiction.
Due to various factors, Konev had to order a counterattack across the board in a helpless situation in which he could not help himself, with the task of annihilating the 88th and 99th Divisions of the Nanjing Army.
After making the decision, Konev approached Vatutin alone: "Comrade Vatutin, I have an important task for you!"
Seeing Konev's serious expression, Vatutin said solemnly, "Comrade Konev, please give me an order!"
Konev opened the map: "Comrade Vatutin, the core unit of your 15th Army is the 64th Army, and the Eastern Military Region will go all out to fight the Chinese, but I am always worried that there will be major hidden dangers in the rear.
The Eastern Military Region is too large. Although there are many troops in the military region, it is... impossible to defend against!No matter when, we have to stay behind.
According to the current situation, the reserve forces of the military region must be mobilized. However, I plan to transfer the 64th Army to Novosibirsk in the name of rest and reorganization, and at the same time transfer tens of thousands of well-trained soldiers from other troops to the 64th Army. , and then allocate one-third of the supplies to the 64th Army, you take the 64th Army to leave here, go to the Novosibirsk area, and strengthen the defense there!"
Vatutin said in surprise: "If we do this, wouldn't the city be short of strength? We need to have enough strength to complete the task assigned to us by Comrade Stalin!"
Konev shook his head: "This task cannot be completed at all, and I can't make the mistake of focusing on one thing and neglecting another.
I plan to fight a few games, and then shrink the troops back in the name of the unfavorable battle situation. Although Moscow is definitely not happy, I am sure that the Chinese will raid our military area from behind. As long as my judgment is correct, Nothing will happen to Moscow, even if I am dismissed, as long as the stability of the Eastern Military Region can be maintained, it will be worth it!"
Vatutin couldn't help admiring Konev: "Comrade Konev, don't worry, I will complete the task!"
Konev's decision was later considered to be full of controversy. On the one hand, he consolidated the rear of the Eastern Military Region in a far-sighted manner, and did not let the situation completely get out of control and worsen. On the other hand, he indirectly committed the dispersal of troops. The mistakes made by Vatutin and Kuznetsov did not join forces together, and did not concentrate their greatest efforts to attack the Nanjing Army, thus laying the ultimate disaster.
Objectively speaking, Konev is still playing steadily. His intention is: to consolidate the rear, not to be confused by the victory in front of him, and at the same time "play a few symbolic games" to complete the crossover to Stalin.
Konev's eyes were not always on the battlefield of Qiecheng. He also paid close attention to the 37th Army of the Nanjing Army that was aggressively attacking the rear of the Eastern Military Region and the 77th Army of the Nanjing Army that was withdrawing. His intuition told him that the enemy must planning something.
It's just that Konev kept a secret. After all, he couldn't predict things like a god and predict the future. He underestimated the ability of the Nanjing Army to "retreat for a decisive battle", and also underestimated Kuznetsov's desire for quick success and quick profit.
In the beginning, Kuznetsov wanted to wipe out the two divisions of the Nanjing Army simply for the sake of making a name for himself, but now, after receiving Stalin's urging call, he wanted to "realize boasting in front of the leader." Haikou".
It was completed, and the scenery was infinite. If it could not be completed, Stalin was furious, and Kuznetsov trembled when he thought about the consequences.
The previous Kuznetsov was only chasing fame and fortune, but now Kuznetsov desperately wants to achieve his goals because of the fear of Stalin, and the "motivation" stemming from fear has suddenly increased greatly.
After receiving the information that the Soviet army's reserve force was basically going to the battlefield to participate in the battle, there was a burst of suppressed cheers in the front headquarters of the Nanjing Army.
"Konev was finally fooled!" Xue Yue breathed a sigh of relief, but his spirit was still tense.
"We can start the next step!" Yang Jie also let out a sigh of relief. He also did not dare to take it lightly, because the final victory is still far away and full of variables.
The 201st, 202nd, 203rd, 204th, and 205th Divisions of the Nanjing Army, which were far away in North China, began to march northward on a large scale, with a total force of about 13, preparing to participate in the Battle of Lake West. However, due to the backward level of mechanization, the five The teacher is not fast.
At the same time, the 77th Army, which had left the Huxi battlefield, also received new orders.
Chapter 488 Heavenly Furnace Tactics (1)
Konev felt more and more uneasy, and his keen intuition told him that great danger was approaching.
After the annihilation of the 17th Brigade of the Nanjing Army, due to various active or passive, objective or commander-in-chief reasons, the Soviet army on the West Lake battlefield was almost fully mobilized, with Kuznetsov's 40th Army as the main force, exceeding the The 88 Soviet troops marched southward, intending to wipe out the 99th and [-]th Divisions of the Nanjing Army, and at the same time severely inflicted damage on other units of the Nanjing Army, in order to completely defeat the Nanjing Army in front of them.
With such a huge combat target, basically all the reserves in Konev's hands were sent up.
Because Stalin was displeased with Konev's "too conservative, negative, and pessimistic prudence and calmness", he appointed Kuznetsov to be responsible for the next actions, which made Kuznetsov essentially become the leader of the Soviet army. Konev, the commander-in-chief of the front line, had no choice but to cooperate as best he could.
Knowing that Konev had transferred the 64th Army to Novosibirsk, Kuznetsov was very annoyed. He believed that Konev was "smart" and "weakened the strength of the Soviet army on the battlefield west of the lake, which may lead to the failure of the Soviet army." , so he strongly asked Konev to transfer the 64th Army back, but Konev refused.
The reason why Konev transferred the 64th Army was even against Stalin's order, because he had a strong premonition that the Nanjing Army was likely to launch a sneak attack on the rear of the Soviet Eastern Military Region.
In the high-level command organization of the Soviet army, the cracks of "discord among generals" are constantly expanding.
An angry Kuznetsov found Konev himself: "Comrade Konev, please forgive me, you transferred Comrade Vatutin away when you urgently needed troops on the western battlefield, this is a serious irresponsible behavior! How can we achieve victory without sufficient troops?"
Konev was also very unhappy. He was very annoyed at Kuznetsov, who more than once took the initiative and directly contacted Stalin, which caused him to fall into a great passivity: "Comrade Kuznetsov, I To tell you the truth, your plan to wipe out the two divisions of the Chinese people is simply impossible to realize! The two divisions of the Chinese are actually two armies. Although we surpass the Chinese in terms of strength, But you can only fight defensive wars, offensive wars, attrition wars, protracted wars, blocking wars, and pursuit wars, and you can’t fight encirclement wars and mass annihilation wars!" He made a metaphor, "It’s as if I have five companions now, and you have three. A companion, I have more people than you, in a fight, I can defeat you, but I can't subdue you all, understand?"
Kuznetsov was furious: "Comrade Konev, on the contrary, your lack of confidence and timidity is the reason why our army can't win the final victory! If it really fails, the biggest reason is your indecision. Poaching behavior! You also said that our strength does not have an overwhelming advantage over the Chinese, but you still transferred Vatutin at a critical moment. Isn’t it contradictory? Your reasons really make me unconvinced! "
Konev was angry about it: "You didn't cause this! What you are doing is not in our plan at all! If we do what I say, we will be sure to win, and we can continue to consume Chinese people, but you Eager for quick success and instant benefit, it is difficult to ride a tiger now!"
"Seize the opportunity, attack decisively, and annihilate the enemy army as much as possible. Am I doing it wrong?"
"You are right, but you are not doing it right! Because you have no real timing! You are reckless!"
"Comrade Stalin taught us many times that we must attack, attack, and attack again! We cannot be passively beaten! How can we win the final victory by always fighting defensively? Victory can only be obtained through offense!"
"Don't talk about such high-sounding empty words! It is very dangerous to launch an attack when the time is not ripe! Look at it, we used a full eleven divisions to annihilate a Chinese brigade! You actually want to annihilate the Chinese Two divisions, that's six brigades! Comrade Kuznetsov, I advise you to be more rational and down-to-earth!"
"Comrade Konev, you are wrong! Our army surrounded a Chinese brigade, and the Chinese still had a large number of troops outside the encirclement. Our army had to use a large number of troops to stop it, but I surrounded two divisions of the Chinese. The Chinese There are not many troops outside the encirclement, and there are not many surrounded. Our army does not need so many troops to block the Chinese peripheral troops, and we can use more multiples of troops to participate in this gathering and annihilating battle! Not to mention , our army has just wiped out a brigade of Chinese people, and the morale of the Red Army is high. It is time for us to take advantage of the victory and pursue and expand our results! We should take a bigger step!"
"This is all your subjective assumption!"
The two went from arguing to arguing, and from arguing to arguing, and finally broke up unhappy.
Although he was not optimistic about Kuznetsov's battle plan at all and was very dissatisfied with Kuznetsov himself, Konev still cooperated with Kuznetsov with all his heart.
Compared with Kuznetsov, who can only talk about wars on paper, Konev is obviously more practical. Logistical preparations, mobilizing troops, boosting morale, organizing attacks... Most of the affairs are still undertaken by Konev, especially organizing attacks. Nev paid a great deal of effort to implement more and more perfect infantry coordination, which made the Soviet offensive fierce and violent, and the artillery and infantry cooperated very closely. If it weren't for Konev's efforts, Kurz, who can be called a contemporary Ma Su, would have Netsov, the progress of the Soviet army will be greatly reduced, and the price paid will be doubled.
However, because of this, Konev became more and more disturbed, and he wrote very clearly in his diary: "...I fell into a difficult and difficult situation, and Kuznetsov insisted on going his own way. I want to keep attacking, and there are more and more signs that this behavior is becoming more and more dangerous. I can hardly stop him, because the Supreme Leader supports him. I have to cooperate with him, but I know very well that the more I cooperate with him, The more the troops advanced, the more dangerous the situation became, which made me a dilemma.
I don't want to ruin the troops, so when I was not willing to cooperate with him (Kuznetsov), he felt very dissatisfied, thinking that I was passive, delayed, and affected the battle situation, but he still said behind my back that I was jealous of him , I don't want to see him make great achievements, it is simply ridiculous; when I am willing to cooperate with him, I feel that I have become an 'accomplice'.
This unresolved torment makes me feel extremely painful!"
Konev was very shrewd, but he couldn't help but send his troops to the brink of destruction at this time.
The 88th and 99th Divisions of the Nanjing Army, which were surrounded by the Soviet Army, had more than six times the number of troops of the [-]th Brigade, and they were well prepared because of careful planning, so that although the Soviet Army surrounded these two divisions, they could not gnaw at all. On the contrary, these two divisions continued to launch counterattacks, shocks, and counterattacks in the encirclement of the Soviet army, making the encirclement of the Soviet army in a situation where it could be broken at any time.
"Kuznetsov trapped two crocodiles in a net that could only catch sturgeon (the most common fish in the USSR), and not only did he not want to let go in time, he actually wanted to catch the two crocodiles!" Kogne The husband sarcastically behind his back.
Konev's analogy is very vivid. The two crocodiles in Kuznetsov's fishing net are constantly struggling violently, but Kuznetsov doesn't want to let go at all. He ignores one thing: his fishing net not only cannot trap Those two crocodiles, he himself may even be killed by those two crocodiles.
The 88th Division and the 99th Division rushed from left to right and launched multiple breakout attacks, each time "failure". Kuznetsov, who only kept tightening the encirclement circle, did not realize one thing at all: his encirclement circle It is constantly moving south without knowing it.
The breakout operation of the besieged Nanjing army was actually a ulterior motive. It was a military operation to lure the Soviet army to move south.
The breakout of the besieged Nanjing army is like this: Concentrate on the attack to the south, and after moving a certain distance, "wait" for the Soviet army to catch up again and close the siege again. Then the old trick was repeated, and the Soviet army was constantly dragged southward by the Nanjing army in a passive way, and began to break away from the Soviet army's original territory in Qiecheng.
It is impossible for a grain of sand to see the entire desert, and it is impossible for a drop of water to see the entire ocean. It is the same on the battlefield. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are fighting in a crisscross pattern. It is impossible for any one of them to see the entire battle situation, even if the two sides Although the senior generals in the army have various sources of information, and although they can see the aerial photos taken by reconnaissance planes, they can still only have a glimpse of the entire battle situation. Compared with intelligence, they rely more on experience, thinking, and judgment.
When ants break out in war, people can see it clearly, but ants don't know it. When people break out in war, God can see it clearly, but people don't know it.
In the hearts of many people in later generations, the battlefield should be like this: a huge plain, the offensive troops of the attacking side lined up neatly, roaring like a military parade, and the defensive troops of the defending side formed a defense line like a Great Wall. Fighting to the death, the commanders of both sides can have a bird's-eye view of the entire battlefield from a high place, and have a clear overview of the entire battle situation, and then make various effective and timely judgments and commands.
But in fact, just a few thousand people fighting can completely fill a person's vision. Whether it is Genghis Khan or Napoleon, they can only see a small part of their hundreds of thousands of troops on the battlefield.
It is impossible for the commanders of either side to take the entire battlefield into their eyes, because the scale of the battlefield is much larger than ordinary people imagine, and the terrain is complex and changeable. Incomplete.
In later generations of film and television dramas, the battlefield is very clear, but that is not the real situation at all, it is just specially arranged by the director to increase the grandeur of the picture.
What the generals on the battlefield really do is: they can only see a few thousand people fighting at the most, but they have to command tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people to fight in a vast area with extremely different terrains. Most local battles are invisible.
Generals must rely on the data on the battlefield to form an overall image of the battlefield in their minds, and know every detail, and then make judgments and commands. This ability can only be developed through rich experience.
The difficulty is that the data and data obtained by the generals are not all reliable. The reports sent by different troops at different times have large errors, and may even be inconsistent. Humans make mistakes, and even if it is correct, there will be error.
Even for a regiment-level unit, the information reports generated within half an hour are stacked with hundreds of pages, and the battlefield information generated when tens of thousands of people fought in different places is completely overwhelming and vast.
Therefore, there are many staff officers in the command organization of each army. Their responsibility is to screen and screen from the huge amount of information, and to come up with the core information that they think is the most correct and important in the shortest possible time, and gather it in front of the chief officer. The chief officer will make tactical adjustments based on the information.
In the movie, it is simply unrealistic to send a heroic scout deep into the enemy's rear, and the commander makes decisions about the entire campaign based on his intelligence.
How much information can a mere scout get?On the battlefield, to a large extent, both sides are trying to figure out the situation of the other side, and they don't know whether it is true or not.
The 36 tactics of Sun Tzu's Art of War are memorized by ordinary people catchy, because these military tactics seem not complicated, but in fact, it is very complicated to apply them on the battlefield.
The tactics themselves are indeed relatively simple, but the real difficulty is to use them freely on the battlefield.
When future generations read military history, the situation of the two warring parties will be clearly annotated on paper, so every descendant has the ability to talk about war on paper.
But in actual combat, some tactics that seem to be very simple in the eyes of future generations are great achievements for the generals in them.
The huge battlefield is a complex Lushan Mountain. The commanders of both sides participating in the battle are in a state of "not knowing the true face of Lushan Mountain, only because they are in this mountain".
Everyone knows how to talk on paper.
Why can later generations be so precise when commenting on a certain war or a certain battle?Because at that time, all kinds of information on both sides of the war were presented in front of future generations at a glance, just like playing chess, the movements of the other party were all in their own field of vision.
But during the war, neither warring party knew the other side's situation, and even with intelligence data, it was impossible to be [-]% sure of the enemy's situation.
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