The acquisition of the rank of general and the successor of the commander-in-chief of the Stalingrad Battle made Chu Sinan feel unprecedented pressure while being happy. After all, this time, he only commanded more than 200,000 troops to fight. Now, the 200,000 troops have added a "one" to the front, which has become one.

A million army is an unprecedentedly large combat force, and the enemy he is facing is almost three-quarters of the total strength of the German army's eastern front battlefield. ￣￣ Central cluster in the right wing direction, the B Army Group in the front, and the A Army Group in the south. From the current point of view, the A Army Group in the south has the most severe threat to Chu Sinan. The offensive they launched in the direction of Kornikovo has seriously threatened the entire Stalingrad battle encirclement. In the front direction, the B Army Group in the short term seems to have no actions, but this cannot be a reason to be careless. As for the threat from the central cluster, Chu Sinan is not very worried. After all, in that direction, the Western Front and the Southwest Front are also strong, and they can support the war on the Southern Front in a very short time.

At the Stalingrad Battle Command, Chu Sinan held a two-day consultation with Zhukov, Cuikov, Meletskov and a large number of combat troops. After this consultation, Chu Sinan organized a new organization of all participating troops based on the existing fronts of the Battle of Stalingrad based on the current battlefield situation.

The specific group contents are as follows:

First, the Don Front Army led by Zhukov was adapted and organized into the first cluster of the Stalingrad Campaign. The subordinate units were divided into three major corps according to the types of troops, namely the First Guard Infantry Corps, the Fifth Tank Corps, and the Twenty-First Artillery Corps. This aspect of the adaptation was implemented in accordance with Zhukov's requirements. According to his statement, this unity will be more conducive to the unified dispatch of troops and the cooperative combat between various troops, so as to maximize the combat advantages of various troops.

In terms of future combat target arrangements, Zhukov's first battle cluster will target the German troops in Stalingrad and the suburbs. They will compress all German troops entrenched near Stalingrad and far suburbs into the city in the next one to two months, and at the same time, use powerful ground air defense firepower and aviation troops to cut off the German troops' ground and air support as much as possible.

In order to enhance the assault capabilities of the First Battle Cluster, Chu Sinan personally ordered two artillery divisions to be drawn from the former Stalingrad Front Artillery troops guarding the east bank of the Volga River to enrich Zhukov's troops, so that they could fully exert the power of artillery combat.

After this, Zhukov's first battle cluster will have an unprecedentedly huge artillery force. Its artillery corps has more than 2,200 artillery, rocket launchers, and mortars. The number of powerful Katyusha rocket launchers is more than 300.

Second, in response to the Volga Front Army led by Meletskov, Chu Sinan ordered it to be adapted into the Second Battle of Stalingrad Campaign, and its specific adaptation method was the same as that of Zhukov's Corps.

In the direction of the attack, the Meletskov Corps was exactly the opposite of the Zhukov Corps. Their attack direction was on the periphery. Starting this month, the Meletskov Corps would advance westward along the Don River while blocking the German troops on the southern front. They also tried to capture the Rostov and Vorosilovsk areas, thereby blocking the German Army Group A in the Caucasus region and completely intercepting the return of the German troops.

In order to ensure the combat effectiveness of the Meletskov Corps, Chu Sinan ordered the Sixth Armored Army to be transferred from the Zhukov Corps to advance southward and enrich the artillery corps of the Meletskov Corps to greatly strengthen the strength of the Soviet Army's armored corps.

Third, the Caucasus Front Army commanded by Cuikov was reorganized into the Third Campaign of the Battle of Stalingrad. At the same time, three reserve troops were allocated to enrich the strength of the department. The combat mission was to carry out assaults along the Black Sea coast to the northwest, and to strive to meet with the Meletskov Corps in Rostov, and finally put the entire German Army Group A group into pockets.

To be honest, when Chu Sinan and Pan initially revealed his plan, his three legion commanders were surprised, Zhukov, Cuikov, Meletskov, and so much so that everyone had just appointed the corps staff. In the view of everyone, the most reasonable approach should be to try their best to ensure the soon-to-be-received victory, that is, to further strengthen the siege of the German army in the inner area of ​​Stalingrad, and ultimately try to wipe out them. In this stage of war, it is feasible to find opportunities to expand the results of the war, but this limit should not be too large. Otherwise, with the current Soviet troops in the region, they will face an overload of burden.

Turning back to Chu Sinan's plan, he actually acted as a decisive battle with all the German troops on the southern front, and wanted to eat Manstein's entire A-group Army Group in one bite. To be honest, with the current strength, this is not impossible, but in contrast, the encirclement in the direction of Stalingrad will be greatly impacted. Although the entire A-group Army Group is much more important than the Sixth Army, the former is much more important, but that battle has not officially started. After all, who can guarantee that this encirclement will be formed? In terms of weighing the trade-offs between insurance and unknowns, everyone thinks that it is more realistic to concentrate all efforts to eliminate the German forces in the Stalingrad encirclement first.

Faced with everyone's doubts, Chu Sinan seemed full of confidence. In the battle headquarters, he faced the battle map of the entire war zone and explained his views in detail to all the legion representatives attending the meeting.

Chu Sinan admitted that in this battle arrangement, he wanted to force Manstein to make a choice. ￣Does it be based on his weak forces and passive battle situations to fight the Soviet army, or to give up the plan to rescue the Sixth Army and instead retreat the troops westward.

Chu Sinan made a careful analysis of Manstein's A-Group Army, Paulus's Sixth Army, and Weix's B-Group Army. Through the analysis, he pointed out that after the previous stage of war, it can be seen that Paulus's Sixth Army has been completely besieged in Stalingrad City and suburban areas. According to the information provided by the intelligence department, the German Sixth Army has at least 300,000 troops, and after the previous stage of battle, their troops should be lost at about 100,000 troops. Most importantly, after the siege of nearly half a month, their military supplies should be consumed quite large, and the logistics supply area is short of

, this unit with a force of more than 200,000 will greatly reduce its combat effectiveness. At the same time, due to the formation of the Soviet encirclement and the loss of air supremacy in the Stalingrad area, even if this unit occupied the entire Stalingrad, it would be unable to cross the east bank of the Volga River. They had no ships and supplies to build temporary ferry bridges. So in this case, all they could do was break through and break into the western front area controlled by Zhukov's army. Of course, they could also choose to advance southward and strive to join the German army of Manstein, but in that case, they could just fall into Chu Sinan's trap.

Regarding the German army of Manstein, Chu Sinan analyzed that their troops were about 500,000, and after the previous stage of the battle, their troops were also about 100,000. From this point of view, their troops were significantly better than the Meretskov Corps. At the same time, their troops were better than the Cuikov Corps, but they were almost the same as the comprehensive strength of these two corpses. Once these two Soviet corps advance to Rostov and Vorosilovsk, then there were only two decisions that Manstein could make, either concentrate the main force to block the assault of these two Soviet corpses, or still focus on the front line of Stalingrad, and take the opportunity to open up the passage to Stalingrad, and finally join the German army of Paulus.

If Manstein chose the former, voluntarily withdraw from the southern battlefield and move westward with all his might, then everyone will be at peace and the three major Soviet corps can free up their hands and slowly remove the Germans from Paulus's troops, and at the same time, they will regain control of the North Caucasus region.

If Manstein chose the latter, there is no doubt that his landlords would be able to successfully open up the passage to Stalingrad and join with the German troops of Paulus. But by then, Manstein would find that he had led the German troops to the deep quagmire of Stalingrad.

Indeed, after joining the Sixth Army, the strength of Manstein could soar to nearly 600,000, and its strength has far exceeded the sum of the total strength of the two corpses of Cuikov and Meletskov. But don't forget that with the successful breakthrough of the Sixth Army, the Zhukov corps, which lost its target mission, would pounce from the direction of Tolmosin like a tiger chasing prey in blood. The Zhukov corps was the largest Soviet corps in the Battle of Stalingrad, and its total

The force is nearly 500,000, which is a large stone that Manstein cannot swallow or even chew. The joint combat of the three major corps will inevitably build an insurmountable steel defense line in the narrow area of ​​the North Caucasus from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, and lock Manstein's troops and Paulus troops in a cage. This is not only the case, don't forget that Chu Sinan has a large number of reserve teams in his hands, and among these reserve teams, the former Stalingrad Front, which has just been enriched.

Judging from the above analysis, Chu Sinan hoped that Manstein could choose the latter path, because in that case, the famous German general became a wanderer who had fallen into the mud. His attempt to hook another shoe with one foot and ended up in the mud could only make him fall into the mud pond.

After listening to Chu Sinan's analysis, the generals suddenly realized that this was obviously a strategy to attack the west: Mingli looked at the Soviet army in the future to implement a full-line siege against the German army of Manstein, but in fact, the real purpose of the operation was to force Manstein to retreat westward, thereby further strengthening the encirclement of the German troops of Stalingrad.

With this recognition, the three corpses in the direction of Stalingrad in the Soviet army immediately started to move. Starting from July 21, the troops expected to be deployed in the first phase of the war will begin to be urgently mobilized. A large number of infantry, tanks and transport vehicles are frequently dispatched in the vast pavement areas west of Stalingrad, north of the Caucasus Mountains, and west of the Volga River. The Soviet air force responsible for reconnaissance and transportation in the sky will also be constantly commuting. This will be the largest scale, the Soviet troops participating in the war, the most fruitful Soviet troops, and the most fruitful results since the opening of the Soviet-German War. No soldier or officer dares to make any mistakes in this battle. Otherwise, what awaits them will be the ruthless verdict in the military court.

On July 30, Manstein returned to the command of the Group A Army Group from Berlin with full anxiety. Now in his heart, in addition to helplessness, there is more helplessness.

During these days in Berlin, in addition to making repeated suggestions to the head of state, he also received a lot of bad news that made him deeply anxious. Among these bad news, the failure of the North African war was undoubtedly what worried him the most.

Just as the battle between Stalingrad on the eastern front was in full swing, a silent and tremendous change was quietly approaching the same fierce battle between the two sides.

Originally there, General Rommel, who was commanding the German and Italian coalition, had always been singing triumphantly and gloriously. In just a few months, he led his armored troops from Tripoli to Alexander and Suez. The troops of the Allies, mainly British and American, who fought with him, were beaten to a great extent and were in a mess.

However, as the battlefield advances, his offensive gradually becomes the last. In the past June, Rommel and his troops were blocked in the Alamein by the coalition commanded by British commander Montgomery and could not move forward any further. At the same time, a newly formed American troops, the First Armored Army, commanded by Patton, landed in French Morocco in the rear of Rommel. They cut off the return of Rommel's German troops.

In less than ten days after Manstein was in Berlin, the General Staff received seven telegrams from Rommel for help, which shows how the war in North Africa was getting tight.

In his heart, Manstein was very worried about Rommel's old friend, and at the same time, he was also sad for him. Manstein has always admired his old friend's military talent and outstanding vision, but this time, he might have failed. There is a very famous saying in the East, "A clever wife cannot cook without rice." Rommel faced this situation at this time. After the early consumption of the North African battle, all the troops he controlled were only 50,000 and 550 tanks. His enemy, the Alamean United Army led by Montgomery, had nearly 200,000 and more than 1,000 tanks. This was a battle with extremely uneven strength. In that endless desert area, even if the God of War came, he might not be able to save the German and Italian coalition forces from defeat.

But then again, Manstein was also very clear that under the current circumstances, it was impossible to increase troops to North Africa. In Europe, the Western Front was short of troops. If we wanted to ensure the safety there, we would never mention the issue of withdrawing troops. And the Eastern Front, the damn Eastern Front, this is a very troublesome place for Manstein to think of it. Faced with the growing military strength and logistics supply of the Russians, the war on the Eastern Front has become increasingly tense. Manstein even believed that under the current circumstances, it would be a blessing to be a natural person if the German troops could organize defense well. As for the purpose of drawing troops, it would be like a joke. At present, the only thing the great German soldiers could do was just wait for the destruction of the North African Legion.

Putting aside those upset things, Manstein also gained two good things this time in Berlin.

The first was that the head of state finally accepted a suggestion from many generals in the army and implemented a general mobilization of war across Germany. On the same day that Manstein left Berlin, Goebbels, who served as propaganda minister, delivered a speech through radio, calling on all German citizens to accept the overall war policy and devote all resources and strength from the country to this war.

In Manstein's view, this policy should have been implemented long ago. It is undeniable that the reason why the Soviet army was able to recover in a short period of time after experiencing major initial losses was because they had been adopting this policy. Whether it is industry, agriculture, whether it is transportation or manufacturing, they must first consider serving the war and first meet the needs of the army. This is the strategy adopted by the Russians.

During the process of commanding the war on the Eastern Front, Manstein noticed a strange phenomenon countless times, that is, the Russian residents in the occupied areas could not collect excess food. In some areas, a family even had only one day's food ration. Their food was collected by the army, and under the influence of the grain distribution system, their food ration was distributed regularly every day. In this case, the German troops not only could not obtain the food they urgently needed from the occupied areas, but also had to distribute their own reserves to the surrendered Soviet soldiers and civilians.

As a soldier, Manstein believed that the Russians' practice was despicable and inhumane, but at the same time, he had to admit that this practice was indeed the most effective in consuming enemy materials in war and adding pressure to the enemy's logistics support.

Now, Germany has finally begun to implement this policy, which is the best way to ensure the continued war. But what Manstein couldn't guarantee is that this policy was implemented too late?

In Berlin, another gratifying gain for Manstein was that the Head of State finally accepted his suggestion, gave up the struggle for the Caucasus region, and instead allowed him to lead his troops to attack Stalingrad and lift the siege encountered by the Sixth Army. With this order from the Head of State, Manstein finally had some spirit. He had already thought that as soon as he returned to the cluster command, he would order his Fourth Armored Army to advance northward quickly, and together with the Fifty-Seventh Armored Army and the Second SS Armored Army, jointly launching an assault on the Soviet positions outside Stalingrad, striving to break through the Soviet encirclement in the shortest time.

However, wasn't the order from the head of state a little too late? Manstein still had no way to know.
Chapter completed!