Chapter 480 Holm

Kholm means "hill" in Russian.

It is indeed just a "hill", because the elevation of the entire town is less than 50 meters.

But it is a small hill in a vast wilderness full of swamps and woodlands. In addition, it is the confluence of two rivers. More importantly, the only solid road connecting Staraya Russa to the main cities in the southwest passes through Holm.

Of course, none of this matters.

At least not now.

The reason is that it is winter now, and all the swamps and rivers are frozen, which makes Holm accessible within a radius of several kilometers.

But the problem is: once the weather warms up, swamps, rivers, and woodlands will be insurmountable barriers for the army. At that time, Holm and the road across it will be particularly important.

A reconnaissance unit of the First Infantry Regiment arrived in Holm first.

This reconnaissance platoon used the skiing equipment that Qin Chuan seized from the Soviet army... The skiing equipment was enough for 80 people, but unfortunately only 50 people in the First Infantry Regiment could ski.

Qin Chuan can skate, but he only knows how to roller skate, so he didn't join in the fun.

The first thing the reconnaissance team did after arriving in Holm was to report to Colonel Slaine via the radio: "Everything went well, we have arrived in Holm. It is still in our hands, but the situation is not optimistic!"

"What do you mean?" Colonel Slaine asked.

"Uh..." The reconnaissance troops replied: "I don't know what to say, Colonel, you will know soon!"

Half an hour later, when Qin Chuan and Colonel Slaine and others arrived in Holm, they understood what "not optimistic" meant: there were broken walls everywhere, most of the houses were roofless and dark, and from time to time there would be a few Russian civilians like beggars sticking their heads out of the ruined houses and looking at the German army with horror; bomb craters several meters deep in the middle of the road were everywhere, so that people had to put wooden boards or other hard objects on them to pass through, and what was even more terrifying was that some bomb craters were covered with snow and looked like flat roads. If you stepped on them...

Several German officers came up and saluted Colonel Slaine. The leading major general introduced himself: "I am Hartmann, the commander of the 211th Security Division, welcome to you!"

"Colonel Slaine of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 21st Armored Division!" Colonel Slaine replied.

"21st Armored Division?" Hartmann looked puzzled.

"We are from the African Corps!" Colonel Slain explained, "We just landed nearby not long ago!"

Major General Hartmann suddenly realized: "Rommel's troops...Does our place look like Africa?"

The officers around him laughed.

Colonel Slain didn't have time to talk nonsense with them, and asked, "How many people do you have, General?"

Major General Hartmann was stunned, and then said seriously, "It seems that I should ask you this, Colonel!"

"Okay, General!" Colonel Slain replied, "We have a total of 2,135 people."

"Uh-huh!" Major General Hartmann nodded with satisfaction.

But Colonel Slain's next sentence made Major General Hartmann stunned on the spot.

"I think you must not know that an army of Soviets is coming in our direction!" Colonel Slain said, "This will soon become the front line!"

Not only Major General Hartmann, but also the officers around him were stunned.

"No, I don't know!" Major General Hartman replied, "We just withdrew from Staraya Russa!"

"I know!" Colonel Slain replied.

"I have a battalion!" Major General Hartman said, "But they are police troops!"

Colonel Slain certainly knew this. The meaning of the security division is that they are responsible for the security of the rear when the front-line troops attack forward. If there is any battle, it is against the guerrillas in the rear.

"I am from the infantry regiment!" An officer replied, "416 Infantry Regiment, one battalion, but most of them are wounded!"

"I am from the 1st Company of the 869th Mobilization Battalion!"

"I am an engineer from the 680th Road Construction Battalion!"

...

The officers reported their numbers one by one, and there were all kinds of people. In the last statistics, there were as many as 60 troops, either police troops and engineering troops with no combat experience, or defeated soldiers who withdrew from the front line and suffered heavy casualties and had no time to withdraw.

Although the total number of people was more than 2,000, it seemed that they could not help much.

"Very good!" Colonel Slain looked at Qin Chuan helplessly, and then said to Major General Hartman: "General, it seems that we should start to make some preparations!"

"No, no!" Major General Hartman replied: "Not us. Sorry, Colonel, we received the order to retreat..."

"Captain!" Colonel Slain ignored Major General Hartman, and said to Qin Chuan: "I think it's time to describe the situation to them!"

Colonel Slain was not a good speaker, so he gave this "arduous" task to Qin Chuan.

"Yes, Colonel!" Qin Chuan responded and jumped onto a shell box next to him, then shouted to the remaining German soldiers: "Guys, as the colonel said, the enemy has an army group, and we only have a few thousand people. This is a big challenge, isn't it? But I like it!"

The German officers and soldiers laughed.

"You may know better than us!" Qin Chuan continued, "The Soviets have skiers, and they move much faster than us. We can't outrun them. If you think you can, then you should hurry up now..."

Qin Chuan raised his head towards the road to the west of the town.

After waiting for a while and seeing that no one was moving, Qin Chuan continued, "Or, we can only defend this town and keep the Soviets out, let them blow the wind outside, who cares, the Soviets don't seem to be that afraid of the cold, don't you think?"

"Yeah!" The officers and soldiers responded.

"Let me emphasize it again!" Qin Chuan said, "This is our only way to survive. Unite and exert everyone's strength under the unified command of Colonel Slaine! For Germany, for victory, and for ourselves!"

"Yeah!" The officers and soldiers cheered in unison.

"Colonel!" Qin Chuan stepped down from the shell box and let Colonel Slaine take over.

"Well done, Captain!" Colonel Slain said as he walked up to the shell box and ordered: "I need you to count the numbers, equipment, supplies, and combat personnel of your respective units in the shortest possible time. Then, it's time to show the Soviets how powerful we are!"

"Yeah!" The German officers and soldiers cheered loudly, like medieval knights about to go to war.