Shaoken never expected that the so-called fall into the pit would not only apply to the upcoming attack of the Brazilian army, but also to the Red Army, which had already launched a counterattack on the Caucasus Plain. (8)

On May 1o, the Red Army broke through the passes of the Caucasus after making great sacrifices. The next day, the main force of the Red Army, led by Chernyakhovsky, rushed north from the Kuba line, and together with some of the troops crossing the Caspian Sea, they repelled the enemy in front of them.

Two days later, the Red Army occupied Grozny, and more than 20,000 Red Army troops were pursuing the Axis Army in a fan-shaped manner.

On May 16, Comrade Stalin made a passionate speech in Moscow, defining this attack as a "Soviet counterattack". In addition to the Central Asian Special Front, the main forces of the three fronts of the South Flank began to take action. General Yellemko, the commander of the Stalingrad Front, who was responsible for defending the left wing of Stalingrad and guarding the front line from Stalingrad to Astrakhan, acted the fastest and directly sent two armies to attack south to cooperate with Chernyakhovsky's offensive. However, General Vatukin's Southwest Front and General Rokosovsky's Don Front were concerned about the advantages of the German army, but only sent 1-2 armies to restrain the attack.

Stalin was very dissatisfied with this, but he could not use Vatuting and Rokosovsky for the time being. He also knew in his heart that the reason why Yelemenko acted so quickly was not because he had no risk in military judgment, but because his usual slogans in political speculation were shocking, and his chest was loud but he couldn't do anything. Of course, Yelemenko was still a little cunning. He didn't suffer any losses in the Don River series of battles, so he couldn't take him away.

However, Zhukov and Vasilevsky both believed that there was a prerequisite for Yelemenko to behave in a sloppy fight. He relied on Malinovsky and Cuikov to fight. Now, one of the two men formed an independent army (the implicit commander of the reserve front), and the other blocked the Scherna cluster in Central Asia. Therefore, both of them warned Yelemenko's reckless behavior and told him not to be so impulsive.

But the situation was much beyond Zhukov and Vasilevsky's expectations. The Kleistry Front, which confronted Yelemenko's troops, began to retreat. He ran out more than 15 kilometers in one breath and directly gave up the entire north of the Caucasus grassland. Then Yelelemenko commanded the troops to advance rapidly, and it was his troops who controlled the largest area.

The dissatisfied Yelemenko reported to Moscow, implying that Zhukov and Huasilevsky suppressed themselves. Stalin himself was in his heart, so he was naturally dissatisfied with such a conservative style. However, he knew that Zhukov had always worked hard and it was not easy to fight, so he did not cause trouble for Zhukov, but scolded Huasilevsky and asked him to "change his ideas and control the counterattack."

Upon learning that the wind direction of Moscow changed drastically, Rokosovsky immediately dispatched two armies to attack. By May 2o, the Red Army had occupied half of the Caucasian grassland and even overwhelmed the Volgatonsk line, only more than 2 kilometers away from Rostov.

This situation made Stalin very happy, so he didn't care about Rokosovsky's initial wait-and-see situation. Instead, he stopped in front of the map and watched. After looking again and again, he asked Vasilevsky: "If we can take Rostov, can we lock the Germans in the Caucasus?"

"It's theoretically, but there are actually many difficulties."

"If you have any difficulties, tell me."

"First, the German army has an exit in the Caucasus, that is, crossing the sea through the Kerch Peninsula to the Crim Peninsula; Second, there are too many German troops locked in the Caucasus, and the Caspian Army in Klester has about 50,000 troops, and there are more than 20,000 puppet army and other servants to cooperate in combat; Third, Rostov will definitely face the strong impact of the German army, and there is the armored army of the Hot cluster in the north; Fourth, Rostov is the headquarters of the German Southern Army Group, and it is difficult to capture; Fifth, the German army has the power to control the sea, and the Asian Sea, and the Black Sea, and they can use the navy to calmly dispatch troops..."

"According to your opinion, Rostov doesn't need to be beaten? It's useless to beat him?"

Hearing the obvious displeasure in Stalin's tone, Vasilevsky sighed and said in another way: "It's not that you don't fight, but that you can't fight too much. We can set a small goal first: strive to concentrate 100 or even more troops in the Caucasus and eat 200,000-250,000 German troops. In order to achieve this goal, we cannot fight too quickly, but should advance slowly, driving away some German troops, either retreating through the direction of Rostov or through the Kerch Peninsula, and wait until there are still about 10,000 left in the closed encirclement."

Stalin was full of joy and wanted to eat all the 6o-70,000 Axis Army. After hearing what Huasilevsky said, his heart suddenly felt cold. The meaning of eating a German army group and severely damaging a group of troops was completely different.

"Other thing that cannot be ignored is that the German army continued to launch a fierce attack on the central front, and our army could no longer resist it. The comrades even found the American SS Division in the attack sequence..."

"Wait, the two American divisions who surrendered on Cape Verde?"

"It's mainly this group of troops, including the American soldiers captured by the German army during the African Battle."

"Okay, Roosevelt's own troops didn't take good care of them, but came to attack us." Stalin said, "Retaliation, especially focusing on dealing with this American lackey."

Huasilevsky smiled bitterly: "But the American soldiers seem to have good combat effectiveness when fighting, and they are well equipped and supplies. I don't know if they were brainwashed or what, but in short, they are not afraid of death when fighting!"

"This is really, this is really!"

When he heard Huasilevsky talk about the Central Front, Stalin was silent: in order to increase troops to Central Asia and the southern wing, he continued to draw the central army. So far, the vanguard of the German army had rushed to the front lines of Yekaterin Arbor and Chelyabinsk. In more than a month, if the situation of the war had not been fundamentally reversed, the entire central passage would be closed by the German army. By then, although the north and south lines of the Soviet Union were still connected in depth, the actual transportation channel was broken. Do you still expect that the broken place in Central Asia will continuously import equipment and supplies to the southern wing? The rugged road will sooner or later kill people.

The Northern Line also has similar situations. The north and south lines must be based on their own industry and agriculture to meet the needs of war. This is obviously a little difficult for the Red Army, which has concentrated more than 10,000 troops.

Now the German and Red Army are like "tightening each other" in Go. Whoever can't hold it in will lose.

However, Hoffman was not afraid that Stalin would be more nervous than him. Not to mention that he had the Thor Hammer, he was not afraid that the Caucasus's 6o-7o-10,000 troops were really surrounded by the Red Army. The Asian Sea and the Black Sea could provide enough supplies and supplies. If the Red Army wanted to solve the problem of 6o-7o-10,000 troops, the Red Army would not think about it if it was not prepared to suffer 2o-10,000 casualties. It was difficult for the Germans to lose this number, but it would not be hurt. If the Red Army lost 2o-10,000 more, he would not know where Stalin could find the army to resist him.

In history, before Normandy 6, Germany had permanent losses of more than 10,000 on the Eastern Front (death, missing, captured and unrecoverable injuries). Now the number is only over 10,000, and most of the captured personnel have been brought back, so there are more reserve troops, which not only gives Hoffman the strength to open fire in South America, Africa, and the Middle East, but also has the ability to withstand a relatively significant failure.

Of course, with his original intention, he didn't even want to sacrifice this 50,000 yuan, so the order issued by Manstein to Klester was very clear, quickly shrink and fight inside.

Stalin did not get along with Huasilevsky in the end, but only ordered: "I hope to win a victory in a short period of time, and then we have the capital to fight the next step, so I don't care whether it is 250,000 or 50,000, but the key is that I want a victory, a major victory!"

"Yes, Comrade Stalin, we will do our best!"

On May 22, the Red Army on the South Road occupied Maikop and the Red Army on the North Road occupied Elista. Currently, half of the Caucasus area occupied by the Red Army was worried that although the German control defense zone was gradually shrinking, there were no signs or intentions of the German army to withdraw from the Caucasus area. Instead, resistance and short-term assaults became more and more frequent and more powerful.

What's even more troublesome is that although their attacks in the past twenty days have achieved great results on the map, they have few results. Most of the Germans can only talk about "repelling". If the Germans do not take the initiative to retreat, they will not catch a few prisoners, and their losses will be considerable.

Chernyakhovsky's attack spearhead has been exhausted. The casualties after advancing into the Caucasus have exceeded 10,000, and Zhukov has replenished his troops twice in a row. The casualties of Cuikov, who blocked the mouth, have exceeded 30,000, forcing Zhukov to give him another army, but the strength of the Scherna troops in the basin has not been reduced much, because Iran has continuously replenished 50,000 people. After the airborne division was transferred to the Arabian Peninsula to make defense, the German army in Iran has dropped to only more than 50,000, but even so, the more than 70,000 troops left by the Chernyakhovsky offensive cluster is still more than enough.

After intense dispatch, the Turks finally stocked up more than 20,000 troops on the northeastern border. However, facing the Red Army, which was only one-third of them, the Turks had only the idea of ​​defense and had no intention of taking the initiative to attack. They waited for the Germans to retreat the Red Army before rushing out to make a profit. Now they heard that the Germans retreated step by step in the Caucasus, so they dared not make this idea.

On May 23, Guderian arrived in Rostov and reported to Marshal Manstein.

The first thing he said when he arrived was: "Thunder Hammer Army has been prepared and can carry out the mission!"

Manstein nodded and brought Guderian to the front of the map: "This is my main attack direction for you to consider..."

ps: I can't stand my body today, I can only update two times, thank you for your support...8
Chapter completed!