On September 1, 1790, because too many prisoners of war had been captured, Zhao Xin only sent out a small attack force consisting of ten armored vehicles and two infantry battalions in the morning to act as a deterrent to the fleeing Russian army.
However, what surprised the North Navy was that the news of the fall of Jima had spread rapidly within the Russian army after fermenting overnight. Compared with the cavalry that could move quickly, the Russian infantry in charge of the rear gave up resistance after a slight hesitation when they saw the armored vehicles of the Northern Navy approaching, and sent people over to contact them about the surrender.
Facing the battlefield situation of being attacked from both sides and the Siberian wilderness about to enter winter, the panicked Russian army has understood that surrender is the only way out.
For Easterners, it was a shame to be captured on the battlefield, and some would rather die in battle than be taken prisoner. However, for Westerners, if you can't fight or run away, you must surrender. As long as you are not a traitor, no one will despise or punish you for it.
As a result, the attacking troops only advanced 20 kilometers before stopping. There was no way around it. More and more Russian troops were surrendering in the form of companies. The Northern Navy, which had only a thousand people, felt really unsure when facing thousands of enemy prisoners.
After the headquarters in Kutulik village learned the news, Zhao Xin could only send a cavalry battalion to escort the prisoners back first. Then he quickly sent a report to Zhang Jingxuan, who was in Irkutsk, asking him to hire cadres among new immigrants and lower-class citizens as soon as possible to build a temporary prisoner of war camp two kilometers east of Usolye.
After receiving the telegram, Zhang Jingxuan was shocked by the number of prisoners of war above, knowing that it was another great victory. He no longer had any thoughts of confrontation with Zhao Xin, so he hurriedly summoned Markovich, the secretary of the municipal government, and asked him to immediately issue a notice in the city, recruiting carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths and other strong laborers at a salary of two Beihai silver dollars per day. He quickly rushed to Ussolye and reported to the Sixth Northern Marine Regiment, which was responsible for the reserve mission.
Don’t forget, many towns in Siberia were formerly prisons, so the settlers in the cities were very familiar with building prisons.
At the same time, Wu Siyu, who was in charge of the Yaksa prisoner-of-war management camp, received news from Zhao Xin on August 28 and had sent a team of troops and was on their way. In order to test the key elements of the future "Cossack Kingdom", Alexander Pugachev and his 1,500 loyal men were also traveling with him.
Starting a year ago, the 35-year-old Krutogrove, a former Don Cossack cavalryman, officially changed his name to Alexander Ivanovich Pugachev, and his identity was Yemelyan Ivanovich Odd Pugachev's eldest son among the people.
In fact, Pugachev's eldest son Trofim is still alive and is 25 years old this year. Unlike East Asian countries that exterminated the whole family of rebels, the Russian Senate refused to prosecute Pugachev's family members fifteen years ago because they did not participate in the riot.
However, Catherine II obviously will not forgive them. Trofim, his two sisters, and Pugachev's two wives are currently imprisoned in Kekesgorm Castle on the Baltic Sea coast, and Strict restrictions on freedom of movement.
Historically, this family has been through seven generations of tsars and has never received amnesty in their lifetime. It is said that Pugachev's son lived until the age of 126 and did not die until 1901.
His eyes turned back to Kutulik Village.
Starting from the morning of September 1st, the Northern Navy separated the Russian prisoners who were still able to move into groups of 500. Each ten people tied their right arms with ropes and were escorted by an infantry platoon with live ammunition. Depart for Usolye.
Because there were a large number of wounded among the Russian prisoners, the medical soldiers of each company of the Northern Navy first classified the injuries of these people. Those who did not need treatment for the time being were first transferred on a few carriages; as for broken arms, legs, or even lives, Those who are in critical condition can only be rescued first.
The reason why Zhao Xin did this was not to pity the enemy, but because once a large number of wounded soldiers died, the disease was likely to spread and even affect his own soldiers.
Since ancient times, injuries and infections have not actually been the culprit causing mass deaths of wounded soldiers, infectious diseases are. Before the development of modern military medicine, dysentery, malaria, typhoid, and pneumonia were among the most common infectious diseases on the battlefield, and even smallpox was present.
The management of prisoners of war is a science, and it does not mean that you can capture the enemy and be done with it. Whether it is preferential treatment or transformation, the purpose is to undermine the enemy's morale and make him give up resistance. Some people naively think that large-scale massacres or cruel torture can deter prisoners. This is extremely undesirable, both in ancient and modern times. It achieves nothing but intense hatred and mass rebellion.
The reason is very simple, thirty years to the east of the river, thirty years to the west of the river; if you can be in the first grade of junior high school, others will one day be in the fifteenth grade.
All prisoners of war must go through a series of cognitive adjustment processes such as shock, humiliation, escape, struggle, adaptation, return, and worry from the early days of capture to the later stages. How to quickly dispel their sense of humiliation and avoid group resistance is an extremely urgent matter for the North Navy.
Zhao Xin's approach was to treat the seriously wounded, and in full view of the prisoners.
For the medical personnel of the Northern Navy, the wars in the past six years have provided them with a large number of different types of injury cases. Some of the early medical soldiers have now become the backbone of hospitals or medical stations in various places in Beihai Town, and they are very good at handling emergency injuries. Hong Tao once said that the battlefield is the best "school" for surgeons.
However, when the medical soldiers of the Northern Navy used medical equipment that was very different from that of this era, and used antibiotics to eliminate infections in the wounded, it quickly aroused great interest from several Russian military doctors and other prisoners. Everyone gathered outside the temporary surgery tent to watch.
Petrovich Rudakov was an infantryman of the Astrakhan Grenadier Regiment. During the battle on August 29, he was hit in the abdomen by a stray bullet. When he was carried into the tent in a coma, the North Navy military doctor responsible for the treatment quickly cut open the black and yellow military uniforms and linen bandages that had been stained with blood and unknown substances, revealing the wounds that had begun to become inflamed, red, and swollen. .
In these years, military doctors in various European countries generally used wine and lead water for local treatment of wounds; the former was used for sterilization and debridement, and the latter was an anti-inflammatory agent. Of course, in this era, sulfuric acid, vinegar, quicklime, turpentine, salt, mustard, cream, butter, olive oil, etc. are all used for wound treatment. Tourniquets, tape rolls made of waste cloth, sponges, etc. are also the main medical "equipment" in field hospitals.
After the two days of fighting between the Russian army and the North Korean navy, there were many casualties. They were either hit by bullets or injured by shrapnel. As long as they were not dead, they could be treated in time, either by sawing off their arms or legs. As for those whose torsos were shot, of course they couldn't be cut in two, so they could only perform simple wound treatment and then wait to die.
Although vascular ligation was invented by French surgeons as early as the 16th century, in fact until the early 19th century, the most commonly used hemostasis methods for battlefield treatment were boiling oil and soldering irons. Only officers of noble origin were eligible to enjoy vascular ligation. Apply a thick layer of animal fat or honey. The reason for doing this is firstly because there is no time to suture the wound, and secondly it is for speed.
As for those who have had their limbs amputated, the burning often destroys the skin flaps that can be used to cover the wound, leading to gangrene, tetanus, and erysipelas infections.
At this time, the Russian prisoners who were responsible for carrying the wounded outside the tent were all talking in low voices, but neither the soldiers nor the military doctors responsible for guarding them could understand what these people were saying at all.
"God bless you. Poor Petrovich, I'm afraid he won't make it."
"Yes, he was shot in the abdomen. The poison of the gunpowder may have reached his brain."
"Tell me, Dr. Erskine, can Petrovich be saved?"
The man called Dr. Erskine is a middle-aged man in his forties. He is silent at the moment, frowning, and has a thoughtful look on his face.
The first thing that aroused his curiosity was that the doctors in the tent were all wearing light blue coats and hats, and masks of the same color on their faces. At the same time, they all wore extremely thin masks on their hands that seemed to be made of rubber. Gloves.
Next, a scene that surprised him appeared. The military doctor of the Northern Navy first used a pair of strange-looking pliers to hold a piece of snow-white cotton, then dipped it in some unknown transparent liquid and wiped it around Petrovich's wound.
"Wine?" Dr. Erskine quickly dismissed his idea because he didn't smell a trace of wine. Then, he saw the Chinese doctor using a transparent tube filled with some liquid and a thin needle to gently insert it around the wound.
"Oh God! Why did the Chinese stick a needle in poor Petrovich?!"
"I'm going to suffer a lot now. I got a shot yesterday, and I'm going to get a shot today."
Hearing the voices of the Russian prisoners getting louder and louder, the North Korean military doctor in the tent suddenly said "Shut up", as if he had a tacit understanding, and the prisoners immediately stopped talking.
Then, the most shocking scene appeared. I saw a military doctor picking up the scalpel that had been prepared and cutting the wound on Petrovich's abdomen. As blood flowed down his abdomen, the faces of the Russian soldiers outside the tent turned green.
However, laymen see the excitement, and experts see the door. Dr. Erskine was shocked to find that after the doctor injected the liquid in the transparent tube into the wound around the casualty using a piston, even though a large gash was opened by a sharp knife, Petrovich did not show any signs of it. reaction.
Immediately afterwards, during the few minutes when Erskine and all the prisoners almost stopped breathing, they saw the Northern Navy medic inserting a pair of shiny silver elbow pliers into the open incision. , just heard a "clang", it seemed that something was taken out from Petrovich's stomach. After that, it’s all about suturing the incision, applying medicine, giving injections, and bandaging.
When the military doctor waved for the wounded to be carried away, a Russian prisoner who walked into the tent suddenly asked blankly: "Doctor, can poor Petrovich survive?"
Although the military doctor of the Beihai Navy couldn't understand what the other party was saying, he still understood something from the pleading eyes. So he pulled down his mask, smiled at the prisoner, and nodded.
"Ha! Petrovich is okay! He's saved!"
At this time, the Russian prisoners outside the tent suddenly showed expressions of joy. One guy said: "I knew it! I knew it!"
However, there are still people who are worried. I only heard a veteran in his fifties say: "Don't worry, we have to wait until Petrovich wakes up to know what will happen. I had a knife in my stomach." God! I've never heard of anything like this."
But not even a word of the crowd's discussion reached Dr. Erskine's ears. At this moment, lightning flashed across his mind, followed by countless thunders.
"Oh God! What kind of medicine is that?!" He was convinced that he had just seen a miracle in surgery.
It is said that one of the important reasons why military medicine developed slowly before the mid-19th century was that surgeons who dared to work with blood and were good at amputating arms and legs were regarded as butchers by the world and were looked down upon for a long time.
You must know that surgical anesthesia in modern medicine was not invented until the 1840s, and the syringe did not appear until 1853. Therefore, all invasive surgical procedures depend on the surgeon's dexterity, the sharpness of the surgical tools, and the stability of his mentality, so as to reduce the pain of the injured person.
In this era, surgeons generally believed that "gunpowder poison" was the fatal culprit for those injured who had muscle penetration, bone crushing, or even foreign body implantation caused by bullets or artillery shells, so the only method they could adopt was amputation.
As a doctor who graduated from the "Leiden University in the Netherlands", Herman Erskine is a follower of Hippocrates and Thomas Sydenham (the founder of clinical medicine and epidemiology). He believes that The surgical treatment methods he has mastered are already the most cutting-edge technology in clinical medicine in Europe today.
You must know that in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Russian Empire and the Netherlands had extremely close ties in the medical field. Many Dutch doctors came to the Tsarist Empire to practice medicine and promote medical education. Many of them entered the court to serve the Tsar and the nobles, and vigorously promoted the establishment of the first medical school and hospital in Russia during the time of Peter I.
However, today's scene made Herman Erskine very curious about the Easterners wearing dark green military uniforms in front of him. He had already felt that these Chinese people from the distant East seemed to have far more abilities than those in Europe. More advanced clinical medical technology.
Thinking of this, Dr. Erskine unconsciously walked into the tent and said in an excited tone to the military doctor who was doing the surgery: "Sir, can I stay here to help? I am also a doctor."
"Ah?" The two military doctors looked at each other and wondered, what is this golden-haired Rakshasa talking about?
At the same time, Zhao Xin, who was having a headache because he had captured too many prisoners of war and had to slow down his attack, unexpectedly received a report from the front. The Russian army sent a messenger saying that there was a personal letter from the commander-in-chief of the Russian army. It needs to be submitted to the top commander of the North Navy.
More than an hour later, the messenger was taken outside the temporary headquarters in the village of Kutulik. This person was a young cavalry captain. For safety reasons, after Sheng Haizhou came forward to receive the letter on Zhao Xin's behalf, the cavalry captain did not leave. He wanted to take the Beihai Navy's reply back and report it.
After Zhao Xin received the letter, he recognized that the seal on the envelope was exactly the same as the one on the surrender letter he had received before, so he opened the letter with confidence and read it. After struggling for a long time, he finally understood the two pages of text written in fancy Cyrillic. The main content was that Rumyantsev wanted to negotiate a surrender with the North Navy for the sake of the lives of tens of thousands of officers and soldiers under his command. , hoping that the North Navy could send equal negotiators to come forward and put forward preliminary surrender conditions.
Rumyantsev's conditions were: 1. The two sides ceased fighting, and the North Korean navy was not allowed to attack the Russian army before the relevant treaty or details were negotiated; 2. The North Korean navy withdrew from Zima, and the two sides used the village of Kutulik as the dividing point; 3. Both sides can send personnel to negotiate the specific details and withdrawal date in Kutulik Village or Irkutsk.
Humph, what good things are you thinking about? After reading this, Zhao Xin showed a sneer on his lips. Where is this guy? If we don’t take down Yeniseisk, this battle will never end!
Nowadays, Tsarist Russia’s largest military force west of the Yenisei River is the enemy in front of it. If it is not taken down in one fell swoop, giving Rumyantsev a chance to breathe, this battle will become meaningless, and the Northern Navy is trying to clean up After Tsarist Russia's strategic plan to turn around and deal with the Manchus, all previous efforts would be in vain.
"Send a report to Pan Xiucheng's department and closely monitor the movements of the Russian army. If the enemy tries to cross the Oka River, they must be severely beaten and they must not be allowed to cross the river."
"Send a report to the Lu Shoushan Department and ask them to speed up their march and be sure to capture the Ilimsk Fortress before September 10."
"Send a report to Hu Ji and ask the Third Regiment and the Ainu Battalion not to stop after capturing the Bratsk Fortress, and quickly move northward and westward along the Angara River to reach Yeniseisk before September 20."
After Zhao Xin finished describing the contents of the telegram, the confidential staff officer also wrote the text of the telegram. He signed it, and then said to the staff officer Li Rui: "You will be responsible for the contact with the Russian army this time."
Li Rui pointed at his nose in disbelief and asked, "Me? I've never done this before!"
Zhao Xindao: "I asked you to come forward just because you have never done it before. There must be a first time for everything. You can't just point your fingers at me."
Li Ruili quickly saluted and said, "Please give me your instructions."
"Two demands." Zhao Xin stood up and walked back and forth in the room for a few steps. He stopped in front of the map and said, "You can talk if you want, but we have to talk today, and there must be a result. Surrender or continue to fight? What if? If they want to surrender, then starting from 3 p.m. today, they have 24 hours to lay down their weapons and surrender unconditionally, otherwise our army will launch a devastating attack on them and bear the consequences at their own risk."
Li Rui said: "What if the Russian army asks them to go to their place for talks?"
"Then you go, I'll ask the cavalry battalion to send a company to you." Zhao Xin smiled and said: "In a word, they must not delay the time!"
(End of chapter)
