As Rokossovsky tore up the telegram, the commanders present forgot about the matter and listened intently to Malinin assigning combat tasks to his troops. Only Sokov seemed a little absent-minded, still thinking about this inexplicable clear telegram.
Rokossovsky noticed something strange about Sokov, but he did not point it out in public. After Ma Lining finished assigning the task, he stood up and asked, "Do you have any questions?" After saying this, he waited for a moment, and when no one spoke, he announced, "Since everyone has no questions, then Let’s break up the meeting and go back to our respective units to prepare for battle.”
Seeing Sokov also standing up and about to walk outside, Rokossovsky stopped him specifically: "Major Sokov, stay, I have something to say to you." He was walking outside. When the officers heard Rokossovsky say this, they involuntarily slowed down and cast envious glances at Sokov.
After all the officers in the meeting had left, Rokossovsky came to Sokov and asked with concern: "Misha, I saw that you were a little absent-minded during the meeting. Is there something on your mind?"
"Needless to say, Comrade Commander, he must have something on his mind." Ma Lining interjected: "He must be thinking about when we will remove the 'agent' in front of his job title and let him legitimately be an agent. A true teacher." As soon as Ma Lining finished speaking, there was a burst of good-natured laughter around him.
After the laughter stopped, Sokov shook his head and said: "As long as I can defeat the fascist invaders, whether I am a division commander or a battalion commander, it is the same to me. I am thinking about other things."
"Something else?" Rokossovsky's face showed a curious expression: "Can you tell me what it is?"
"The telegram, that clear telegram." Sokov looked at Rokossovsky and said: "I think this telegram appeared very strange, and it happened to appear just when we were preparing to take advantage of the victory."
"Major Sokov, I think you should forget about the telegram." Orel said with a serious expression: "I think this is a conspiracy by the Germans to try to disrupt our combat deployment."
"Misha, I think General Orel is right." As soon as Orel finished speaking, Malinin continued: "The Germans must have seen us breaking through their Zizdra defense line, and they hurriedly We were unable to deploy enough troops to fill this gap, so we came up with this fake telegram to confuse our hearing and prevent us from sending troops to advance deep into their defenses in time. In this way, they would have enough time to Deploy new troops to strengthen their defenses."
If other commanders questioned this clearly coded telegram of unknown origin, they would definitely be criticized or even scolded by the group army leaders. But Sokov was in a different situation. Not only was he an excellent commander who had repeatedly made military exploits on the battlefield, he was also the son of the old comrades of these leaders, so everyone showed enough patience with him.
After Rokossovsky waited for Orel and Malinin to finish speaking, he looked at Sokov and asked: "Misha, do you think there is anything wrong with this telegram?"
"I can't tell." Sokov remembered that he had watched a German TV series in later generations. In it, there was a female telegraph operator lurking inside the German army. In order to transmit information to the Soviet army, because there was no communication code, she had to use Fortunately, she finally met a Soviet reconnaissance team, and the information was successfully passed on. Sokov vaguely felt that the clear coded telegram received by Rokossovsky might be of a similar nature: "I think this may be information sent by comrades lurking within the German army who risked their lives. , we should pay the necessary attention.”
After Sokov finished speaking, Rokossovsky couldn't help but fell into deep thought. He felt that his handling of this clear telegram seemed a bit too hasty. After thinking for a while, he raised his head and said to Malinin: "Comrade Chief of Staff, call General Zhukov and report the telegram to him. By the way, ask if we have any guerrillas near Korenevo." Activity."
When Malinin turned around to make a call, Rokossovsky asked Sokov strangely: "Misha, if according to what you said, it was our comrades lurking inside the enemy who risked their lives to send out the intelligence. Why did he use clear code instead of password?"
"Comrade Commander," Sokov immediately replied after hearing Rokossovsky's question: "According to my judgment, some emergency incident may have occurred, and the operator responsible for sending the report was unable to do so due to various reasons. This intelligence cannot be sent out. The comrades who obtained the intelligence did not know the password, so they could only use this most dangerous method to send us a warning."
"Comrade Chief of Staff, is the call connected?" Rokossovsky waited for Sokov to finish speaking, and immediately turned to ask Malinin, who was dialing the phone. Seeing the other party nodding to indicate that the call had been connected, he stood up and walked over to In front of him, he took the microphone and said: "This matter is of great importance. I should report it to General Zhukov personally."
But when Zhukov's voice came out of the receiver, Rokossovsky immediately said into the receiver: "Hello, Comrade Zhukov. I have something important to report to you. A few hours ago, we received A clear telegram stating that the enemy had deployed an armored division in the forest near Korenev..."
"I also received this telegram." After Zhukov waited for Rokossovsky to finish speaking, he asked noncommittally: "Comrade Rokossovsky, what do you think of this matter?"
"My comrades in the headquarters and I all believe that this is a conspiracy by the Germans, an attempt to slow down the pace of our army's advance so that they can gain valuable time to transfer troops from other areas to fill the gap opened by our army. "Gap." After Rokossovsky finished stating his and other army group leaders' views in one breath, he hesitated for a moment, and then said with difficulty: "But..."
"But what?" Zhukov asked briefly: "Does anyone have a different opinion?"
"Yes, Comrade General." Rokossovsky stared at Sokov sitting beside him and said into the microphone: "Major Sokov feels that the content of this clear telegram may be real."
After hearing this, Zhukov gave a brief order: "Give him the phone, I want to talk to him."
As soon as Sokov put the receiver to his ear and said: "I am Sokov..." Zhukov quickly interrupted his words and asked directly: "Major Sokov, tell me Your guess."
"Comrade General," Seeing that it was Zhukov who personally asked about the matter, Sokov could only bite the bullet and tell his guess: "I think it may be a comrade in our army lurking inside the enemy who has obtained this top-secret information. According to According to the regulations of underground work, he should hand over this information to a specialized telegraph operator for dispatch. The reason why we see a clear telegram, according to my analysis, may be that something happened to the telegraph operator who sent the telegram, such as sacrifice or death. He was arrested, and the comrade who obtained the information did not know the password of the radio station, so he had no choice but to take risks and send this clear telegram."
"Your analysis is very reasonable." Regarding Sokov's statement, Zhukov thought it was reasonable and asked Sokov to hand the microphone to Rokossovsky again. He then told Rokossovsky what to do with the telegram: "Immediately send out scouts to the forest area near Korenevo to conduct reconnaissance and find out what is going on. Since the German army is an armored division, No matter how hidden they are, there will always be clues, do you understand?"
"Understood, Comrade General." Rokossovsky replied resoundingly, then asked: "Then our attack in the direction of Bryansk should be temporarily postponed for a period of time, and wait for the reconnaissance results to be fed back before taking action. Offensive action, okay?”
"The attack in the direction of Bryansk will be postponed for 24 hours." Zhukov said after a moment of silence: "When the time is up, regardless of whether the scouts have fed back reconnaissance information, they must immediately launch an attack on the German defense line in the direction of Bryansk."
