Chapter 932

"Report to the commander." After gazing at each other, Gaidar and political commissar Xia Ping said to me with some pride, "there are at least more than 300 corpses of the Communist aggressors on the ice in front of our riverside position, and there are at least hundreds of injured people who fled back. But we only killed less than 200 people, and almost all of them were caused by German artillery

I was very surprised by the results of the fourth regiment. In my imagination, although the fourth regiment was in a defensive position, it would lose at least one battalion under the German artillery attack. I didn't expect that the casualties would be so small. After I asked them to sit down, I was a little surprised and asked, "commander gedar, why are the casualties of your regiment so small? You know, the German artillery is not weak?"

Gaidar replied with a smile: "Comrade commander, when the enemy's shelling started, our officers and men temporarily hid in the basement of the building near the river. When the enemy's shelling is over, return to their respective positions. "

"The regiment did the same, but their casualties were far more than yours. As the hidden building was hit by German artillery fire, teams of officers and men were buried under the collapsed building To his answer, I said dissatisfied: "the question I want to make clear is: why do their commanders and fighters hide in the basement of the riverside building and suffer heavy casualties, while you suffer very little?"

Hearing my question, political commissar Xia Ping stood up and said to me, "Comrade commander, please allow me to report to you." Seeing that I nodded in agreement, he went on to say, "you don't know that the houses near the river are stone buildings, almost all of which are made of big stones, so the damage in the shelling is much smaller than those brick and concrete buildings in a cluster. Alas, it's a pity that after the war, zaborosh, like Stalingrad, may never find a century old building. "

After listening to Xia Ping's words, I just want to ask why there will be no more centenary buildings in the city after the war. Hearing the cold explosion outside, I immediately understood the meaning of Xia Ping's words. At the end of the battle, it was estimated that all the buildings in the city were either destroyed by German artillery bombardment or became ruins in the air raid. Those buildings with a long history could not escape the fate of ashes.

As it was getting dark, the gunfire outside gradually stopped. First, I called chejerikov and asked him about the situation of the first regiment's defense area. Shejerikov said with relief in the microphone: "Comrade commander, the German charge has been defeated by us again, and the enemy who rushed into the city has been basically eliminated by us..."

Hearing his report, the stone hanging in my heart finally fell to the ground, and my mood became relaxed. Before putting down the phone, for the sake of safety, I specially told him: "at night, we should send troops to guard near the floating bridge to prevent the Germans from rushing across the bridge again at night."

"Yes, comrade commander." "I'll immediately arrange for the troops to be on guard at night," he replied quickly

I put down the phone and listened to the sound of no guns outside. Then I said to the two people in front of me, "I want to see the position by the river. Which one of you will accompany me?"

Gaidar and Shapin's face immediately appeared embarrassed. They looked at each other again and simply made eye contact for a moment. Then Shapin said with a smile: "Comrade commander, in my opinion, you don't want to go. If you want to know about the frontier situation, I'll call the frontier commander and ask him to report to you in detail. The same is true! "

I shook my head and said firmly, "no, I'm going to see the position by the river myself."

"Look, comrade commander." Xia Ping pointed out the window and said, "it's getting late. When we get to the river, we can't see clearly."

I understood that Xia Ping was worried about my safety, so I didn't blame him. Instead, I said with a smile, "political commissar Xia Ping, just now you didn't let me go to the river because there was an enemy attack. Now that the enemy's attack has stopped and you say it's going to be dark, it's not clear that you don't want me to check your regiment's positions! "

Listen to me, Xia Ping knew that his delaying tactics had no effect, so he said with a bitter smile: "well, comrade commander, since you insist on going to the river, I'll go with you! As for comrades in charge, let him continue to command the troops. "

We walked along the traffic moat of the street, and the further we went, the more craters there were. Several sections of the traffic moat were blocked by fallen bricks and stones, so we had to climb out of the traffic moat and pass through the middle of the smoky buildings.

But as we approached the riverside position, the strange smell of blood and smoke in the air told us that there had been a fierce battle not long ago.

"Comrade commander," a soldier who didn't know where to come from stood in front of us and reported straight to me, "Sergeant a geifu, deputy platoon leader, reported to you that our platoon is cleaning the battlefield." With that, he stood motionless in front of me, waiting for my order.

"Take a moment, comrade Sergeant!" I asked politely, "do you have a lot of work to do?"

"Yes, comrade commander." Ah gei Fu replied positively, "we just collected the bodies of our comrades and put them in the corner of the house. We will bury them after we have cleaned up the bodies of the Germans."“ Are you casualties in the battle? " Seeing the soldiers' bodies neatly placed in the corner of the room in the distance, I couldn't help feeling sad. I tried to control my mood and asked Sergeant a geifu in a smooth tone: "where is the platoon leader?"“ Our platoon sacrificed 19 people, injured 11 people, the platoon leader died in the battle After answering my question, azif asked, "are we allowed to continue, comrade commander?"“ Of course, that's enough to say, "I answered him in a flurry," go on with it! " We came to the position by the river and walked along the heavily bombed trench. Xia Ping was deeply afraid that I could not understand the situation on the position, so he explained to me as he walked: "Comrade commander, this position we are in is on an earth slope by the river. In front of it is a gentle bank, and then past it is the frozen Dnieper River. On the other side of the river is the German position, but they don't seem to worry that we will rush through. They don't even have simple fortifications. The army's camp and tents for storing materials are not far from the river. " At this point, Xia Ping sighed. Before I asked him why he sighed, he said, "it's a pity that we don't have long-range artillery, otherwise we can bombard the enemy's assembly areas and let them taste the strength of our artillery." After hearing what he said, I could only reply with a bitter smile: "although your division has two artillery battalions, under the current situation, they must be deployed in the East and south of the city to deal with the armored assault that may be launched by the German army."“ Comrade commander, "Xia Ping looked around and saw that all the soldiers except Yushchenko were keeping a distance from us. He asked me in a low voice," do you really think the German army will attack zaborosh from the East and the south at the same time? "“ Yes, commissar Xia Ping In response to his suspicions, I replied without hesitation: "you can see that the two German attacks seem powerless, but there is a huge conspiracy hidden in them. Manstein took the initiative to withdraw from zaborosh in order to lure more of our troops into the city, so that he could fight a beautiful encirclement and annihilation. Today, although only our army entered the city, in other directions, the German army has made great achievements, even successfully cutting off the transportation and supply lines of the sixth group army. In this way, it doesn't matter how many troops are surrounded in the city. The German army's priority is to eat us as soon as possible. "“ Is the situation really so dangerous, comrade commander? " Xia Ping was shocked by what I said. He asked in a somewhat impolite way, "is it the fate of being encircled and annihilated by the German army that finally awaits us?" In order not to cause his panic, I deliberately understated: "don't worry, political commissar Xia Ping, things have not reached the most dangerous moment, we still have the chance to turn defeat into victory." After hearing me say so easily, Xia Ping's face showed a smile again. He raised his hand to wipe the sweat on his forehead and said happily, "Comrade commander, I'm relieved to hear that." After inspecting the positions of the fourth regiment, I returned to my own army headquarters. Seeing me back, kirilov and vetkov's faces were smiling with relief. After I had drunk the tea from Vitkov, kirilov handed me a thick stack of paper and said, "Comrade oshanina, take a look at this. It will be very helpful for our next battle." I took the stack of paper, did not immediately look at it, but curiously asked kirilov: "Comrade political commissar, what did you give me?"“ What else can it be? "Kirilov's face showed a trace of discontent." don't you want to find the war report of general petrevsky, commander of the 63rd infantry army? These are all the war reports reported by the general when he was fighting in the Dnieper region. I've sorted it out for your convenience. "“ Thank you, comrade political commissar. " When I heard that the stack of paper in my hand actually recorded the fighting experience of Petrovsky in those years, I immediately got excited. The current situation is so similar to that of him at that time. As long as I read all these information, I believe I can work out a detailed plan for breaking through the encirclement as soon as possible.