Chapter 427 Preparing for the Battle of Tula

Tula, this is a city that is extremely important to Russian history and has an almost legendary existence.

Tula, 190 kilometers south of Moscow, is the hometown of Leo Tolstoy, a famous writer in Russian history. It is also the most important strategic arsenal in Russian history.

During the Russo-Swedish War, Peter the Great, the founding emperor of the Russian Empire, personally visited Tula and ordered the city to be armed as a strategic factory. The muskets, flintlocks, and pistols produced by the Tula Arsenal were renowned for their fine workmanship and excellent performance. Widely acclaimed.

As the manufacturers of these high-performance weapons, the weapons technicians of the Tula Arsenal were also highly praised and favored by Peter the Great for their outstanding work. He ordered the weapons technicians of the Tula Arsenal to enjoy the status of the aristocracy of the Russian Empire. Various privileges.

Since then, various artillery shells, bullets and finished light and heavy weapons have become local specialties of Tula, a city with a strategic weapons factory.

With the expansion of Peter the Great and the continuous expansion of the territory of the Russian Empire, Tula gradually began to transform from a border city into a deep hinterland city in Russia.

The change in strategic position has led to a change in the production tasks of the Tula Arsenal, from the original small arms and ammunition manufacturing with little technical content to a forging workshop for various advanced weapons and artillery barrels, while also retaining part of the original small arms manufacturing industrial base.

A series of key reforms made Tula the largest strategic arsenal city in Russia. At its peak, Tula supplied more than half of the Russian army's small arms and equipment and gave birth to many famous arms business families. In Russian history, The once-magnificent Demidov family started in Tula and became extremely wealthy and spread throughout Europe.

Even after the crimson wave of the October Revolution swept across the entire Russian land and completely changed history, Tula, which shoulders the responsibility of the entire Russian strategic arsenal, still maintained efficient operation to produce light weapons for the Red Army, and was called by Chinese soldiers The Mosin-Nagant rifle, also known as the water rifle, is a proud product of the Tula Arsenal.

Now, this strategic arsenal under Moscow, which is extremely important to the entire Soviet Red Army, is under siege by the German army.

After obtaining a certain amount of necessary supplies, Guderian regained his life in the cold winter. He led his German Second Armored Group to mobilize the absolute main force to launch a swift and fierce offensive against Tula. At the same time, he was equipped with a large number of Marshal Bock's special deployment. The incoming air force of Army Group Center provides air superiority guarantee and ground attack.

The general offensive against Moscow launched by the German Army Group Center on December 1, 1941 could be said to be a desperate effort that gathered all the offensive power that the German Army Group Center could muster at that time.

The 4th Army of the German Army Group Center, whose operations were delayed due to insufficient preparation time, was unable to launch a fierce attack northward toward Moscow with Guderian's 2nd Armored Group in accordance with the established combat plan.

After learning the news, Guderian once sent a telegram to Marshal Bock requesting to postpone the date of the operation. He would wait for the 4th Army on his flank to be ready before launching a fierce attack together. At the same time, Guderian could still get some troops to rest in the rear and wait for replenishment. The troops within come to support and increase the overall attack energy.

However, Marshal Bock emphasized in his return to Guderian that there was little time left for them. Hitler, the head of state far away in Berlin, had no patience to wait any longer. Hitler expressed his bluntly to Marshal Bock on the phone. own dissatisfaction.

Hitler could not understand why his German army, which had galloped across Russian land for more than 800 kilometers, showed a snail-like offensive speed in the last thirty or forty kilometers.

Hitler even roared at Marshal Bock on the phone, demanding that he must end everything before 1942, because Hitler had heard from some rumors that inadvertently flowed into his ears that the German troops on the front line could see the Kremlin. The red five-pointed star on the top of the palace.

This kind of rumor, which Marshal Bock considered extremely irresponsible, aroused the most primitive desire to conquer in his heart. Hitler, who was already impatient, repeatedly emphasized that he was ready to review the German troops in Moscow, and even ordered the preparations. A professional German engineering demolition force was formed, preparing to blow up the Kremlin, which symbolized the supreme power of the Soviet Union, after entering the city, thereby declaring the complete collapse of the Bolshevik regime.

"This is a contest between ideologies. The Bolsheviks must be resolutely, completely, and without any trace left! I think the troops you lead have the ability to complete the orders I have given, and I have no doubt about it! "

After learning from the phone call to Marshal Bock that the instructions of the Führer were copied intact, Guderian understood that he and his Second Armored Group had been pushed to the edge of the cliff. In the end, Guderian had no choice but to hold on. Scalp took over the task of the lone force going deep into Tula, and launched an attack on his own without covering the flanks of the friendly forces who were not fully prepared.

Guderian, who launched a fierce attack on Tula, achieved quite impressive results in the early stages of the battle.

The Tula garrison and the armed workers' regiment in the city, which had high morale but was poorly equipped, could not withstand the fierce German offensive. After losing many fronts one after another, they began to be forced to retreat into the city.

Guderian, who always insisted on setting up the field headquarters in a place where he could hear the roar of artillery fire from the front line, was extremely bold. He directly set up the headquarters of his second armored group in Yasnaya Polyana, seven kilometers south of Tula, and moved into the former residence of the great Russian writer Lev Tolstoy to start daily command tasks and office work.

Guderian, who was in a hurry because of the stern instructions of the head of state Hitler, knew that time was running out, and ordered the German siege troops that were attacking Tula to speed up the pace and attack intensity to complete the scheduled combat mission as soon as possible.

But what Guderian didn't know at this moment was that a powerful Red Army iron fist that was urgently transferred to Tula by Zhukov had received additional equipment and was making final preparations before the battle.

On the same day as the German Central Army Group launched the general offensive, that is, December 1, it received the additional equipment and crew promised by Zhukov before.

He originally thought that he would receive some old and broken tanks discarded by other troops, or even zombie tanks with dead people, but facing these brand new tanks quietly placed on the flatbed of the rail car, even though Malashenko claimed that he had made all the preparations, he couldn't help but be stunned on the spot.

"Comrade commander, why are the barrels of these T34s so long?"