Chapter 971: Frontline City

While the German Führer, Akado, was agonizing over his allies, the Soviet leader, Stalin, clearly had fewer things on his mind. At this moment, he was focused on his Moscow defense line and was making great efforts to stop the Soviet officials in the city from fleeing.

After all, Moscow was no longer a safe place. On the entire German-Soviet front, the fragile defenses and scarce troops here inspired no confidence. Everyone believed that the German army could capture Moscow within a month. In this general environment, any way to leave Moscow seemed exceptionally precious. But as the German army drew closer and closer to Moscow, the ways to leave this city became fewer and fewer.

The roads were crowded with refugees who had fled from the city. The citizens, with their families in tow, looked with sallow faces at the soldiers who were standing on both sides of the roadbed, watching as group after group of them, shouldering their rifles, walked numbly towards Moscow. These soldiers had to use their flesh and blood to stop the iron torrent of the German Wehrmacht. Everyone knew what their fate would be.

These troops of Stalin were stopping the scattered citizens from leaving Moscow. Many were turned back at the checkpoints, or were directly detained as laborers to help the troops move supplies and dig trenches. The Soviet Union had urgently produced a batch of individual anti-tank rifles as the “ultimate weapon” to wear down the German armored forces in street fighting.

The Soviet army in the direction of Moscow, relying on millions of women and children, had strengthened their defense line. In a miracle of less than 20 days, they had built a large number of anti-tank obstacles, had set up 3,000 temporary machine gun shelters, and had dug a full 30 kilometers of various trenches.

And now, the Soviet civilians who had completed such a massive project were being ordered to share the fate of their positions, to not be allowed to leave Moscow even in death. The complaints were loud, but useless. The scattered troops who had come from all four corners were blocking the roads. If anyone tried to leave secretly, upon discovery, both the neighbors and the escapees would be executed on the spot. An iron-fisted rule governed this city that was about to become a hell. Any attempt to make a living was stifled by the harsh discipline.

These civilians, huddled in the wilderness, had no tents and no food. They had lost their supply of drinking water and had not had a full meal for several meals. Because most of them were women and the elderly, these people did not even have the courage to try and take a detour through the wilderness.

In a checkpoint that was entangled with barbed wire, blocking all who passed through, a Soviet second lieutenant frowned as he looked at the scene before him. The soldiers behind him held their rifles, pointing them at a large, endless crowd of refugees. And these refugees, on the other side of the barbed wire, were waving the valuables they had on them, just begging the garrison here to let them leave.

“Let us go! My husband died in battle in Ukraine. Can’t you even spare his child? I beg you! Have a heart! We are only women and children!” a woman shouted, waving the money and gold jewelry in her hand. She pressed herself against the prickly barbed wire, letting the sharp barbs scrape open the skin on her chest. The bloody marks made her chest seem even whiter, a sickly, suffocating pallor.

Another old woman, also pressed against the barbed wire, pleaded with the soldiers opposite her in a desperate voice, “My God, you are as old as my grandson. I don’t know where he is now. I have to go and find him and bring him home…”

Further in the distance, a slightly weaker voice was shouting loudly, “We sent our sons to the front, and we ourselves were dragged away to dig trenches. Now we have given everything we can to the motherland, and you still want us to die with those officials? Let us pass! Let us pass!”

“Silence! Silence! If you shake the barbed wire again, we will open fire!” a young soldier shouted, terrified by the scene before him. He held his Mosin-Nagant rifle, and one could see its muzzle trembling without stop. A veteran beside him worked the action of his PPSh submachine gun, and the atmosphere became even more tense.

After all, not all soldiers were willing to open fire on their own people, let alone women and children who had no combat capability. Looking at these old, thin women holding their children, these soldiers really had the heart to throw down their weapons and push open the barbed-wire fence in front of them.

Crack! The commander of the checkpoint, a Soviet second lieutenant, raised his revolver and fired a shot into the air. The scene immediately quieted down a lot. Behind this second lieutenant, a group of Soviet sailors in their striped shirts coldly raised their weapons.

Two soldiers, kneeling on one knee, loaded the Maxim heavy machine gun and aimed it at the soldiers and the unarmed people in front of them. Seeing the sailors who were guarding this place rush out from the tent by the side of the checkpoint, the ordinary soldiers who were guarding the gate quickly gave up the idea of opening the gate and letting the people go. They could only hold their weapons and stand in a standoff with the crowd.

“Listen to me! Everyone, listen to me! Comrade Stalin has given the order! Anyone who leaves Moscow without orders will be hanged for treason! So don’t force me to give the order to open fire! Go back! Go back!” the second lieutenant shouted, holding his pistol and trying to persuade the crowd of refugees opposite him. The result seemed to have little effect.

Although the crowd had finally quieted down, they were far from dispersing. Instead, they sat on the road and began to sob softly. But the atmosphere had been eased, so the dark muzzles of the guns were also lowered, and the frightening scene began to fade away.

Honk! Honk honk! A German Mercedes drove slowly down the road. When this car passed the crowd of people sitting on the ground, its speed had to be slowed down. The people in the car kept honking the horn, urging the old, weak, women, and children to get out of the way so that he could pass quickly.

Not long after, the civilians, who were accustomed to giving way, had moved out of the road, and this car had also slowly driven to the front of the checkpoint. The second lieutenant frowned and looked at the car with hesitation. He had been watching it from behind the barbed wire from the moment it had appeared, and had been watching it until now.

When he was still a colonel, the German Führer, Akado, had given many high-ranking Soviet officials Mercedes cars. These cars were not only a luxury item back then, but also a symbol of official status. It was said that Stalin also had one, but from the beginning of the German-Soviet war, he had stopped riding in that luxurious German car.

Nowadays, this kind of car was rarely seen. After all, everyone had to pay attention to their status and influence. But there was no doubt that this kind of car was a good thing in the Soviet Union, and one of the most reliable sedans. The person who was driving it must have chosen such a car because of the durable reliability of a German car.

The second lieutenant watched as the car came to a steady stop in front of the barbed wire. The beautiful, teardrop-shaped headlights were almost touching the barbed wire. The black body of the car shone in the sun. Listening to the regular and powerful breathing of the engine, one knew this was definitely a good car.

“Sir! Please show your papers and state your business here!” Admiring the car was one thing, but carrying out one’s duties could not be delayed. It was unknown who was sitting in the car. It was best to follow the rules.

“Hello, Second Lieutenant,” the driver’s side door of the car was pushed open from the inside. A middle-aged man in a captain’s uniform jumped out of the car, in the midst of the crowded people. He handed a black pass to the checkpoint commander through the barbed wire. “In the car are the overall head of the Soviet industrial production wartime dispatch general bureau, and his family. They have been given special permission by Comrade Stalin to go to Chelyabinsk to urge the production of tanks.”

The people who could get a legitimate pass to leave Moscow were undoubtedly Stalin’s trusted confidants. To be given special permission to leave at a time like this was to go to various places across the country to gather strength for the defense of Moscow. As for whether these people would work as diligently as Stalin thought after they had reached those places, no one knew.

In any case, looking at the current situation, the military and political bigwigs who had left a few days ago seemed to have achieved limited results. But these were not things a small second lieutenant like him needed to worry about. So he handed back the black pass, saluted at attention, and ordered his soldiers to open the barbed-wire barrier.

As the barbed-wire barrier was moved aside, the civilians behind the car once again fell into chaos. They tried to rush through the barbed wire with the car and to leave this terrible, ghostly place. But their efforts were clearly in vain, because before the barbed wire was moved, the experienced checkpoint soldiers had first set up another barbed-wire “defense line” behind it.

“Why can they leave!” “There are women and children in the car!” “Let us go! Let us go!” Cries and shouts were everywhere, accompanied by the threatening gunshots and curses of the soldiers. The car’s engine roared as it drove past the checkpoint and towards the second outer checkpoint in the distance. And the pitiful common people were, as was to be expected, left behind.

After closing the first barbed-wire barrier, two soldiers silently lifted the body of a scantily clad woman who was lying on the ground. She had just rushed to the side of the car and had been shot and killed by the captain in the driver’s seat. No one felt sorry for her, and even the crowd of civilians had not fallen into chaos.

Everyone watched as the car drove away without any obstruction, with the soldiers standing at attention and saluting beside it. A woman in her thirties stared at the soldiers in the checkpoint with anger and cursed with hatred, “Just you wait! The Germans are not far from here! They are really not far!”

On the outskirts of Moscow in May, one could already hear the rumbling of the German cannons. This capital city of the Soviet Union had finally become a fortress on the German-Soviet front.

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