The Prussian army underestimated the amount of material reserves in this city. After all, this was once the location of the frontline headquarters designated by the French Emperor, so in the early days of the war, logistics supplies were still biased here.
Rifles, artillery, bullets, artillery shells, weapons, medical supplies... and even telegraph wires for communication are stored in three hundred kilometers of storage!
But it is very regrettable that the food reserves are very scarce, and there is simply not enough to sustain the 170,000 troops living here!
A very strange phenomenon occurred on the Metz battlefield. After every bloody battle, these French troops always risked their lives to clean up the battlefield. The trophies on the corpses were necessary to maintain their lives!
The Prussian army launched two surprise attacks in one night, causing great damage to the East City defense line but also leaving corpses everywhere!
Of course, when the Prussian army retreated, they could not abandon the bodies of their injured comrades and companions. However, in the bloody battle, the corpses of many comrades were buried under the rubble and suppressed by wood and bricks!
These fish that slipped through the net are the trophies of the French army!
Two young soldiers crawled on the ground, using various obstacles to cover their bodies. They quietly approached each corpse.
The comrades in the rear were on high alert, and the crosshairs of their rifles were looking for possible lurking gunmen!
"Look... there is a severed hand here... a pure gold wedding ring? Maybe he is an officer, at least a non-commissioned officer. He must have something good..."
Holding the severed hand that was blown to pieces on the ground, the soldier took off the ring and stuffed it into his trouser pocket, and then searched among the surrounding bricks. Sure enough, after a while, he found the owner of the severed hand under a pile of bricks.
This is a sergeant. The lowest rank in the Prussian army can also serve as a squad leader. Under special circumstances, he can also serve as a platoon leader level officer!
In this era, to be able to serve as a platoon leader and also own such a huge gold ring means that this person's family should have been well-off or even close to the middle class in Prussia!
Maybe the father is a lawyer, or an experienced accountant. Anyway, such a family has already escaped the level of hard labor. As long as they are given a little luck and time, there is absolutely no problem in blending into the middle class!
But it is a pity that the war took his life, and the high hopes that the family and his wife had placed on him have all come to nothing.
The French soldiers have no time to think about all this mess. It has nothing to do with how many people at home are crying whether the enemy is alive or dead. The most important thing at the moment is the spoils of war!
"Look...chocolate...it's such a big piece of chocolate!"
"There is a silver jug here, and there is half a jug of spirits in it! He is indeed a rich man, and he can drink spirits on the battlefield... He will give it to our company commander later. He is injured and needs this thing..."
"Oh God... look, it's a can... is this the legendary can imported from the Chinese?"
"Yes, you are stupid. There have never been canned fruits in Europe, only meat..."
At this moment, a popping sound suddenly came from the distance, and then the bullet grazed their heads and hit the wall!
"Be careful...the enemy has sharpshooters...get back quickly...maybe they are here to snatch the body too..."
"Shoot! Fire...suppress the enemy..."
Gunfire rang out again on the battlefield that had been quiet just now, but this time there was no infantry to launch a dense charge, only the gunmen from both sides hiding their bodies and shooting at each other!
"Get back quickly... don't stay any longer... do you want to die?" the platoon leader behind shouted anxiously.
But these two young soldiers seemed to be really poor and hungry. They were still cleaning the battlefield regardless of the danger.
"Give us a little more time... This wave of enemies seems to belong to an elite group, and they all have good things with them..."
Search for corpses in the scattered ruins, and then search for any usable loot, even a cigarette or a biscuit.
The most popular trophy among soldiers is the Chinese compressed biscuits! Those pieces taste very good, heavy oil, heavy sugar, heavy salt... For soldiers who are seriously exhausted, such heavy taste is in urgent need!
Before this war, compressed biscuits were the most important goods exported by the Chinese to Prussia. In July last year alone, Ryukyu sent four merchant ships to transport these military rations!
Xiao Letian even signed an agreement with Bismarck to invest in building a factory specializing in the production of military rations in Hamburg. However, due to the short time frame, the factory was not put into production until the outbreak of the war!
But this does not prevent the Prussian army from using a large number of compressed biscuits as military rations. This thing is so easy to carry, and one piece is enough for a soldier's basic energy consumption for a day.
The defenders of Metz all knew that the Prussian soldiers would carry these rations with them, so when it came time to clean the battlefield, they would not miss any corner.
The two sides continued to engage in gun battles, and the two soldiers simply refused to withdraw because they wanted money rather than their lives. At this time, new orders came from behind the French lines.
"The company commander is here. The company commander was carried over on a stretcher..."
The soldiers on the scene suddenly became restless, and soon a veteran company commander with gray temples was carried to the front line!
"If I say something, you should repeat it and tell it to those Prussians..."
"Tell them...we will not dishonor the bodies of the victims...we will protect their remains..."
"But we need military rations. If you still care about the bodies of your comrades... just... make a deal with us..."
"An hour's ceasefire... We will only take food... nothing else will be moved..."
"Otherwise...we will never let you collect the body smoothly...just say...translate the original words!"
The result was very surprising. After the company commander's transaction conditions were conveyed, the gunman hidden on the opposite side actually stopped shooting!
The old company commander sighed and covered the wound on his stomach with his hand. "Look... I was right... those gunmen came to take the bodies of their comrades... home..."
"Go home...how nice it is to go home..."
There are always some unexpected hidden rules in war, especially there are countless invisible rules for the disposal of corpses!
The more elite the troops are, the stronger the comradeship is. They will never abandon the corpses of their companions and let the enemy humiliate them!
The two soldiers cleaning the battlefield could guess from the trophies on the dead bodies that this unit was still highly regarded in the Prussian army because they found a lot of precious Eastern military rations!
For example, canned meat, canned fruit, compressed biscuits... and even spirits!
Such an army would never leave the body of its brother alone on the battlefield, so sporadic gun battles broke out like this!
And such a gun battle will never appear in the general headquarters' plans. This is entirely the behavior of the grassroots troops themselves!
