Arc of Gunfire

Ten minutes later.

Battalion Commander Hans looked at the first company commander: "Where is Rokosov?"

The first company commander shook his head: "We didn't catch him. The enemy suddenly dispersed, but we found the body of a senior officer."

As he said this, he took a step back, and two soldiers came over on a stretcher carrying the body that was blown beyond recognition.

Judging from his military rank, he was a lieutenant colonel. His map bag was still hanging on his body, but his document bag was missing.

Hans asked: "What's going on? Where is the file package? That is the most important thing!"

The first company commander turned around and shouted, and someone immediately brought the document package up. You could see that the strap of the document package was cut off by shrapnel or something else.

Hans grabbed the document package, opened it and quickly flipped through it, finding that there were many messy documents inside.

Hans didn't understand Antese and couldn't read what was written on it.

But he vaguely felt that this was very important!

At this time, the communication platoon leader ran over, stood at attention and saluted: "The communication has been cleared!"

Hans immediately handed the things in his hand to the first company commander: "Pack all these, including documents and maps, and send your most trusted people to the division headquarters in an armored vehicle—no, in a tank! Wait a minute, don't leave, and Send this body together!"

The first company commander turned and left, and Hans picked up the phone that had just failed to get through: "Answer the division headquarters! That's right, division headquarters! Don't worry about the regiment headquarters. I want to speak directly to the division commander. There's an emergency!"

————

after an hour.

Schultz, the commander of the 16th Panzergrenadier Division, watched as the staff officer who understood Ant language opened the document package and flipped through the documents inside.

He watched the staff member pick out a document and his brows knitted into knots.

Schultz hurriedly asked: "Is this a very important document?"

"No," the staff officer shook his head, "This is the list of gifts General Rokosov bought for the ladies of Ekaterinaburg this month. It is written to...the Office Supplies Procurement Office of the Equipment Committee. It seems that this Rokosov Sov made a lot of money."

Schultz sneered: "Isn't this just like the generals of the empire, such as the Grand Duke Meyer."

In the Prosen army, it is very common to talk about the luxurious life of Grand Duke Meyer, especially the officers from the Junker aristocracy, and they even secretly encourage their subordinates to talk about it.

Obviously, this purchase list made Rokossov's image more concrete.

Schultz: "These things related to Rokossov's life will be left to the Imperial Intelligence Department to study and look at other things."

————

At this time, in the command post of the First Mobile Group Army, Vasily whispered to Sergeant Major Grigory, the general’s personal guard: “I made up a lot of things that can enhance the sense of reality. But I dare not tell the general that I didn’t do it when the general inspected it. Put it in the file."

Gregory frowned: "You're doing this again. Don't be like this. You boasted before that the general shot down the plane with a pistol, but now everyone is convinced that the general shot down four planes with a pistol.

"But...what did you make up?"

Vasily smiled evilly: "We can definitely convince the Prosen people that the dead man is the general's confidant! Don't worry, we will definitely succeed in bullying the enemy this time!"

————

At the headquarters of the 16th Panzergrenadier Division of the Prosen Army, the staff officer opened a three-folded letter and frowned at the content.

Schultz: "What is this?"

"Sonnet," the staff officer replied, "it's pretty good, but I don't know who Shushanna is in the poem."

Schulz: "Who wrote the poem?"

"General Rokossov...at least it was signed by him. I don't know if he wrote it himself or if it was ghostwritten by a staff member."

Schulz: "Okay, okay, I'm not interested in how Rokosov makes money or picks up girls. Find the key documents quickly!"

The staff officer put down the poem and said, "Let me look through the map package first. Maybe there is some key information on it."

"You should have looked through the map bag first!" Schultz said.

Staff officer: "I think it's better to first look at the documents to confirm the identity of the person and the authenticity of the information he carries. If it is false information, we will be misled by looking at the map directly."

As he spoke, he opened the map bag, took out a map and unfolded it, his mouth immediately opened into an O shape.

Schultz looked from a distance and vaguely saw the direction of the arrow on the map. He thought it was an evacuation plan and asked, "Why, Rokosov wants to run away?"

"No," the staff officer shook his head, "I thought so at first glance, but if you look closely at this map, there are many problems. For example, there are too few supply stations. Such a small number of stations cannot guarantee the retreat of a large army. Furthermore, There are many blacked-out places on this map. Look here and here. These black bars should cover some key text.”

Schultz took two steps forward, stood next to the staff officer, and looked at the map at close range.

"There's definitely a lot of blacked out parts," he muttered.

The staff officer said: "Not only are they blacked out, but according to the grammar of the Ant language, these blacked out parts should all be predicate or subject parts. If the entire sentence is blacked out, the meaning will be unclear.

"This is how our classified department handles classified documents. This is certainly not a retreat plan, certainly not!"

Schultz touched his chin: "Rokossov is cunning and cunning. He likes tactical deception and is very good at it. But now that he has concentrated so many tanks, he can no longer deceive -"

Suddenly, the back of Schultz's head felt numb: "I know, this is Rokossov's tactical deception! He used a small force to retreat and deceived our aerial reconnaissance, making us think he was going to run away! But in fact he was preparing to attack !

"According to Rokosov's file sent by the headquarters, he likes to personally scout the direction of breakthrough before attacking, so our Panzer Grenadier Battalion took the opportunity to hit him!

"Look in the map bag quickly. There should be an attack plan!"

The staff put down the retreat plan and looked through the map package, but found no attack map. He raised his head and spread his hands to Schultz: "There is no attack map!"

"How is that possible?" Schultz came up and rummaged around in person, and found that there was indeed no offensive map in the entire map package.

"No!" He slapped his thigh, "How could there be a fake retreat map in this map package? There is definitely something wrong with this! It must be -"

Schultz suddenly remembered something and shouted: "Bring that body in quickly! Quick!"

Soon, the body of the "Rokossov's crony" was brought in, and the fragmentary items on his body, including the pistol he wore, were all placed in the frame next to him.

Schultz rummaged around and found a box of matches.

The matchbox was crushed, many matches had fallen out of the crack, and the entire matchbox was almost empty.

Schultz: "Look at this matchbox! This man was seriously injured and could no longer open the matchbox, so he crushed the matchbox and took out the matches!"

The staff officer who understood the Ant language had an idea and picked up the map bag and looked at it: "There are bloody fingerprints here! He has opened the map bag! The blood stains in the bag can also be explained!"

Schulz grabbed the corpse's hand: "Look! His fingernails were burned black! He burned the map that recorded Rokossov's true plan!"

At this moment, everyone in the room was full of respect for the deceased enemy officer.

Schultz put down the man's hand and gently took off his hat: "Rokossov's cronies are all people like this. No wonder he can always win the battle."

The chief of staff asked: "Do we want to give him a grand burial? This will also boost the morale of our army and stimulate the fighting spirit of our soldiers to compete with the enemy."

"No!" Schultz shook his head, "We only wrote our speculations in the report, and they may not believe it. Evacuate this body together and let the Army Headquarters send it to the rear by plane! This way the intelligence department will agree with our judgment. ! Find the craziest driver and deliver them all! ”

————

The entire headquarters of the First Mobile Army was preparing for the retreat. Vasily was on temporary leave because he had just completed the deception work and produced a bunch of fake documents.

He leaned against the wall and watched the people in the headquarters working, and suddenly smiled.

Gregory asked: "What are you laughing at?"

"Let me tell you, this deception of the enemy this time is my greatest masterpiece. It is several orders of magnitude more deceptive than before! The enemy will definitely be deceived. I even want to suggest that the general does not set up a rear guard and just let it go!"

When Vasily spoke, his face was full of pride.

Gregory shook his head: "The general will not be like this. Our general is very strange. He looks very reckless in fighting, but in fact he is quite conservative in many places and has many preparations. He will not leave a rear guard."

Vasily: "Yes, he won't. And he will be at the end himself, do you believe it?"

"I believe it." Gregory smiled, "At that time, it will be up to me and Buscephalus to protect the general's safety."

Vasily: "I thought it was the loyal Tank No. 422."

"Prosensus sings, 'Only the loyal chariot will give us a steel tomb,' but the general doesn't. I have followed the general through life and death so many times, and I tell you, not once did he prepare to die in a charge. Not once! He made a desperate move when he firmly believed that he would come back alive."

Grigory watched from a distance as Rokossov was held in position by Pavlov to approve various plans related to the retreat.

"When you come back from hell many times, you can tell which men are determined to die," said Grigory. "For example, in Agsukov, I could see that the prince was no longer prepared to live, and I thought the general I can see it too. There is also the general's father. The old man has a strong sense of death, but Alexei Konstantinovich Rokosov has never had the same atmosphere of death. "

Vasily was speechless: "I have to write this sentence in my notes. If someone writes a biography of the general in the future, I will give it to him. It must appear in the biography of the general."

Gregory shook his head: "It's better not to do it anymore, I'm just a rough guy."

"I know, you spelled the word atmosphere wrong just now."

"What? Did you spell it wrong?"

"Yes, and die, that's also spelled wrong."

Gregory cursed, then smiled and said: "Then please revise it to be more literary."

"I will."

(Gregory’s words in this chapter are all modified by Vasily)