Chapter 2348 I Don’t Want to Admit It Either

The not-so-long conversation with Zhukov was over.

Malashenko waited until he stepped out of the tent before he finally felt relieved. He understood the purpose of Zhukov's call for him. In short, there were two reasons.

First, to ask about the situation of the battle just now, to see the recovery of the combat effectiveness of the leader division after the rest, the mastery of the newly equipped technical equipment, and whether it can fully exert its combat effectiveness on the battlefield. The final question in the end was "Is the leader division currently ready for high-intensity frontal combat and play the role of a spearhead?"

Second, after Malashenko gave a positive answer, he arranged the combat mission.

The next combat mission, in Zhukov's words, was "the stage has been built for you, the props have been prepared for you, all the supporting personnel are in place and ready, now it depends on whether you can perform well in this leading role."

This is the tough battle that Malashenko has been looking forward to for a long time, which can show the real strength of the leader division. Only this kind of tough battle that can be remembered as "tragic" in the existing history, Malashenko feels that it is worthy of the current leader division to exert all its strength and go all out with 100%.

Compared with this, the small battle of killing the 502nd Battalion seems insignificant. Zhukov also congratulated Malashenko on his own behalf for his successful revenge for his deceased comrades. On behalf of the front headquarters, he also affirmed the leader division's regaining honor and washing away shame on the battlefield.

After all, this battle that caused the leader division to lose an entire elite heavy tank company and did not get any decent results, even Comrade Stalin asked Zhukov, who was dining with the leader, at the table in his spare time. At the end, he asked with great concern: How is the boy? Can you look at such a failure correctly and continue to lead the troops?

As Malashenko's consistent "firm supporter", Zhukov's answer at that time was definitely "no problem".

Comrade Stalin, as the highest strategic commander, did not know the following specific situation, but Zhukov, who was familiar with Malashenko, could not have been unaware of it.

On the question of "whether to still trust the command ability", Zhukov did not believe that Malashenko could be defeated by such a small setback.

The famous number one tank hero of the Soviet Union went through the mountains of knives and the sea of ​​fire, killed in the German stick formation, and crossed the mountains of corpses and blood. He had survived the difficult past of Stalingrad. Zhukov did not believe that Malashenko would fall here when he was so close to victory.

Losing a close friend was too sparse and common in the war years. Zhukov believed that Malashenko would definitely survive this.

In short, the task Zhukov gave to Malashenko this time was to prepare and reorganize the troops as soon as possible after returning. The troops that opened the attack channel on the front line will soon make a breakthrough, which is foreseeable. At that time, it depends on whether Malashenko and the leadership division can go down in history. This will be a battle that will open the road to Berlin. In political terms, it is most suitable for a special unit like the leadership division to take the first credit. This is also what Comrade Stalin meant.

Of course, Zhukov did not tell Malashenko so clearly and in detail.

It is not that he deliberately concealed something, but he did not want to put too much pressure on Malashenko. He wanted him to go into battle as lightly as possible and go all out. It was enough for him, the commander of the front as his direct superior, to emphasize the importance of this battle.

Therefore, Malashenko still didn't understand until he walked out of the front headquarters, got on the troop transport truck, and set off on the return journey with the soldiers who escorted him.

Why didn't Zhukov know that he was walking alone? If he really knew about such a big thing, it would be impossible not to have any reaction. Even if he didn't trigger it, he would have to criticize verbally and hit him hard. Malashenko knew that he couldn't avoid it, but the reality was that there was no such thing at all.

What caused Zhukov not to know about this? What was the real process of the matter?

Malashenko felt that this matter must be inseparable from Comrade Political Commissar. Comrade Political Commissar said that he went to the front headquarters to inquire about the news. After he left, he didn't know any details about what happened afterwards.

Malashenko guessed that the problem might be in this process that he didn't know about. Something that he didn't expect or was not in the plan must have happened, which led to such a big deviation between the final result and the initial expectation.

Malashenko, who has both emotional intelligence and IQ, guessed that there must be a problem, and the answer to this question must not be obtained from Zhukov.

Intuition told Malashenko that Zhukov probably didn't know how paranoid and stubborn he was at the beginning, so he should continue to be ignorant for the time being, at least until he figured out the truth of the matter.

After all, if possible, Malashenko didn't want to be dismissed from his position as division commander and sent back home at this critical moment.

But at that time, he was in a hurry and was afraid that the situation would change rapidly, and the bastards of the 502nd Battalion would run away or the leader of the division would not be able to fight. In order to avoid risks and to avenge Kirill, Malashenko decided to go alone.

Now I think about it, I can't say I regret it. Malashenko never regrets what he has done, and this time is the same.

I was just glad that I could continue to lead the troops to the final victory. Isn't this the final result that I have been dreaming of after fighting so hard? Malashenko couldn't think of any better and more satisfactory result than this.

As soon as the two troop transport trucks returned to the battlefield ruins after the war stopped, which was the resting place where the main force of the leader division was on standby and the place where the forward division was stationed, according to Malashenko's request.

Malashenko, who had urgent questions to be solved and was impatient, ran straight to the division headquarters tent as soon as he got off the car without saying a word. He strode in without looking back all the way, but he didn't expect that the first sight of the door would make him dumbfounded.

"How is Comrade Political Commissar? Tell me quickly, what's the situation?"

"Very bad, the lung sounds are more turbid than what I heard last week, and the lesions may have spread to the entire lung."

"I don't want to admit it, but the complete loss of lung function seems to be imminent. I mean Comrade Political Commissar may suffer from respiratory failure at any time, and then I don't know how to say it, but that is the foreseeable final result."

Looking at Comrade Political Commissar lying on the camp bed with his hands covering his chest, his face sallow and pale, and Lavrinenko standing beside him and talking anxiously with Karachev with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, Malashenko, who no longer cared to ask any questions, rushed forward in a flash.