Boom boom boom.
Rumbling artillery fire turned over the barren land on the Central Asian plains.
In the steppe belt of the Eurasian continent, war has lasted for almost thousands of years in this area.
After you sing and I appear, the powerful forces will fight in this area.
And now.
The more powerful weapons brought power that made the entire grassland tremble.
This is barbarism bred by civilization.
This is the tragedy of the nomadic tribes.
In the distance of the battlefield, there were scouts from the Kazakh Khanate wandering around. They looked at the battlefield in front of them with their mouths wide open, and they could not hide the shock on their faces.
Many people know it.
The days of steppe warriors skilled with bows and horses were over.
Whether the Chinese win or the Russians win.
Tribes on the grasslands will be forced to submit to these world-famous barbaric forces.
And now it seems.
It is the Chinese who want to win.
Dozens of howitzers were spitting out tongues of fire.
The Chinese gunners had taken off their shirts and were shirtless, pushing grenades into the barrels one after another, and then fired the deadly shells.
The Ming army's infantry was also ready for the final assault.
Infantrymen were organized into companies.
Forming skirmisher assault groups, the shouters attacked the Russian trenches ahead.
All three barbed wire fences have been broken through by the Ming army's forwards.
Now there are only a few trenches left that can stop the Ming army infantry from advancing.
The officers of the Ming Army, holding command knives in one hand and revolvers in the other, led their soldiers, used grenades to clear the way, and rushed into the Russian trenches.
The Russian army launched a desperate resistance.
Carrying a rifle with a bayonet and braving a dense barrage of pistol bullets, he rushed towards the Ming army and started a fierce hand-to-hand fight with them.
Such hand-to-hand combat did not last long.
Human beings have limited physical capabilities.
After about ten minutes, the Ming infantry was able to take over most of the battlefields and place the sun and moon flags on the positions.
However, some of the troops with heavy losses retreated, but even so, the subsequent Ming army assault groups would immediately attack to prevent the Russian army from counterattacking.
The close combat between the two sides revolved around the Russian defensive positions.
The Ming army attacked vigorously.
The Russian army fought to the death and refused to retreat.
In fact, they have no way out.
Wars are breaking out on all fronts, and they have gradually been separated from each other.
And their counterattack was ineffective.
No matter what method they use.
Skirmishers, horizontal formations, columns, square formations.
In the face of the Ming army's absolutely superior firepower.
The Russians, who were not afraid of death, could not break through at all.
They suffered heavy losses.
The Russian commander-in-chief Musayev watched helplessly as the forward position was turned into a pot of porridge.
The expected war in which the Russian army relied on superior fortifications to cause huge damage to the Ming army did not occur.
Instead, the Chinese used new weapons and new tactics to gain an absolute advantage on the battlefield with far fewer numbers than the Russian army.
It has been three days since the Ming army started attacking!
these three days.
The fighting hardly stopped for a moment.
The Ming army took turns to attack, while the Russian army could only resist desperately on all fronts!
Even if they have more people, the opponent's firepower is too strong. In order to offset the opponent's superior firepower, they must gather more people.
This resulted in the Ming army attacking in three shifts.
Most of the soldiers on the Russian side have not slept for several days.
After days of fierce fighting, the Russian army fell into extreme exhaustion.
Although the Russian army is still maintaining its basic front, the casualties are too great!
The Ming army lasted for three days and was under almost non-stop bombardment.
The death toll of the Russian army has exceeded 10,000!
A temporary field hospital not far from Musayev's command post.
Soldiers whose arms and legs were blown off by bombs could be seen everywhere.
In addition to tying the aorta with a rope to prevent further bleeding.
They actually had no way of getting any medical help.
Let alone here, even if they are in Moscow now, most of them will die in pain.
The doctors were trying in vain to disinfect the wounded soldiers with alcohol and the like.
Priests were offering final prayers and comforts.
Because of Zhu Daohua’s contribution.
The medical treatment in this era is much more advanced than that in another time and space.
European armies imitated the Ming army and established a basic battlefield rescue system, as well as the basic antibacterial drug allicin, and the concept of alcohol disinfection.
These things have saved at least hundreds of thousands of lives.
In the several wars in Europe that gathered hundreds of thousands of troops, epidemics such as plague and cholera did not occur. This was also due to Zhu Daohua's promotion of medical progress.
However, for Russia.
First of all, their economic strength does not allow them to purchase large quantities of allicin produced in Guangdong. Although imitations have appeared in Europe, they are not something that Russia can afford on a large scale.
As for the battlefield rescue system.
It is also completely inferior to the Ming army on the opposite side.
It is not as good as Britain, France and other countries.
Therefore, a large number of wounded people could only cry and howl, and now most people no longer look to God.
A young soldier murmured for his mother.
When I was dying, I felt like I was lying in my mother's warm embrace, and I couldn't help but smile.
Pain can cause hallucinations.
But some people can just die.
Those who are still alive will suffer even greater pain.
Desperation spread among the Russian troops.
All Russian soldiers believed it.
This is their burial place.
Musayev closed his eyes in pain.
Then he turned around and walked into his command post.
As soon as he opened the door curtain and went in, he heard a heated argument.
The argument was so intense that Musaev even saw two officers drawing swords at each other.
"We can't wait to die here! We have to break out! Break out!!!"
"Where to break out? Where can we go?"
"We want to return to Europe! Damn it, we Russia is a European country! Asia should not be where we came from!"
"Lost! The war has been lost! Continuing to fight will only cause unnecessary casualties! We still have more than 20,000 Russian soldiers here, and their lives should not continue to be consumed in this war that is destined to fail!"
"You are surrendering!"
"No! I am preserving my strength for the empire! The Ming Dynasty is an opponent we cannot defeat! We should not look to the east!!"
"Don't look to the east? Have you forgotten the double-headed eagle on the national emblem?"
"The double-headed eagle of Rome is just coveting Asia Minor. Can Rome defeat the Han Dynasty of the same era?"
The extremely heated debate made the atmosphere in the command post somewhat tense.
There are those who advocate breaking out of the encirclement and those who advocate fighting to the death.
But no one advocated surrender - because everyone was smart and knew that surrender would definitely lead to death.
Because the Ming army on the opposite side cannot consume its own military rations to feed tens of thousands of Russians.
A cheaper approach would be to give every Russian soldier a bullet.
Fight to the death or break through, Musayev
"... Let's break out. We have already lost. There is no point in continuing to fight. Even according to the most optimistic estimates, the opponent's casualties are only 40% of ours! But you and I both know that the opponent's casualties are probably not To twenty percent of our army! A ratio of five to one! Gentlemen, we are going to trade the lives of five Russian soldiers for one former Qing soldier who was deported to the border by the Chinese Emperor! Is it worth it? It makes sense ?"
The person speaking was Major General Holcutt, the commander of the 12th Army.
He is a veteran of the Russian Empire.
He fought for the empire for more than thirty years.
A mop of white hair attests to his extensive resume.
But at this moment, the eyes of the Tsar's loyal wolfhound were filled with darkness.
His spirit was on the verge of collapse.
The fatigue of not sleeping for three days came over me.
At the same time, there was also the psychological impact caused by the huge casualty exchange ratio, which made this veteran almost unable to hold on.
Now he is just holding on to do things.
he knows.
The Russian Empire is over—it is not that it will be destroyed, but the ambition of the empire to dominate is no longer there. Although the territory in Asia is not as valuable as that in Europe, it is basically frozen soil.
But the fur trade in Siberia, the colonial plunder of Central Asia, and the trade with China have always been important supplements to the Russian Empire's finances - otherwise, how much tax revenue can be collected from the land cultivated by serfs on the Eastern European plains? .
Without Siberia, the tsar would probably have to compromise with the big landowners in the country. By that time, there would be no tsar with absolute authority in the Russian Empire, and it would become a loose feudal country.
This was the impact of the loss of Asian territory on the political system of the Russian Empire. Holcutt did not dare to guess what the weakening of the tsar's power would bring to the entire empire.
But there is now another acute problem that the Russian Empire cannot solve.
As an elite officer of the Russian Army, how could he not see the crisis in the entire Russia!
The pattern of war has undergone earth-shaking changes!
Under the bombardment of howitzers and the ultra-high rate of fire of breech-loading guns, the numerical advantage of the Tsar's gray animals is no longer an advantage! !
The Russians cannot win the war with bayonets. Russia now has no breech-loading guns and not much explosives!
And these things don’t require tens of millions of serfs.
But industry!
Millions of industrial workers and a large number of factories are needed!
these things.
Is it something the Russian Empire can possess?
"Now we can only break out! We need to break out!" Several senior officers also spoke out in favor of breaking out and escaping.
"The Ming army has not set up defenses on the other side of the Syr Darya River. We can retreat at night under the cover of darkness!"
"These Chinese have been attacking for three days in a row. They must be tired. They can't catch up very far!!"
At this time, Musayev knew he had to come forward.
Breaking through will kill most of the Russian soldiers.
"The Chinese are just waiting for us to break through! The reason they didn't set up defenses on the other side is to give us the illusion that we can break through. There is a saying in the Chinese military art of "surrounding three sides and letting go of one side."" Musayev said coldly. He said, "The Ming army has tens of thousands of war horses, and each of their soldiers has at least two horses. Their mobility is far greater than ours! So we can't go far at all..."
"Those who can go far... We still have 10,000 Cossack cavalry intact. Their maneuvering speed is not inferior to the Ming cavalry!"
A Russian cavalry general in the headquarters proposed what was probably the only feasible breakout plan.
Abandon the infantry and only take away 10,000 Cossack cavalry!
Musayev looked at the man with a dark face and said solemnly: "Abandoning more than 10,000 infantrymen, do you want me to go to a military court?"
"Martial court? General, do you think going to a military court is the most terrifying thing? The most that a military court can do is strip you of your rank and send you home. But if you leave all the main forces of the Russian Empire in Central Asia in Sir By the river, what force should we use to defend the Western Kazakh grasslands and Western Siberia?"
Musayev was stunned when he heard this.
The officer had a point.
There are 10,000 Cossack cavalry, plus the Russian defenders at the fortresses in Central Asia and Western Siberia, then Russia still has at least 20,000 more soldiers to protect Western Siberia!
"If we can keep 10,000 cavalry, then we can at least use Orenburg as our base camp and continue to fight with the Ming army on the Kazakh grassland!"
the officer shouted!
"If we have 20,000 troops in our hands, and we can coerce the Kazakhs to surrender to us and deal with the Chinese, at least we can keep part of the land west of the Yenisei River!"
After hearing this analysis, everyone in the headquarters turned their attention to Musayev.
The decision to abandon more than 10,000 infantrymen may not have been made by them. They do not need to bear the responsibility. Musayev is the one who bears the responsibility. But although most of them are not cavalry officers, as senior officers, they also have horses, at least Life can be saved.
Karma
Musayev was silent. After a long time, he raised his head and looked at the officers who were looking at him expectantly, with a wry smile on his face: "You are right, the Russian Empire needs these 10,000 cavalry, but as a Commander, I will not abandon my men. I have made a decision now. Ten thousand cavalry will break out across the Syr Darya River to the west tonight. I will stay and command the rear. So, is anyone willing to join me?"
A group of Russian officers looked at me and I looked at you, but no one spoke...
"The Russians have shrunk to the last line of defense. What are they going to do?"
"There are at least more than 20,000 guns in the trenches. If such a dense force rushes forward, there will be heavy casualties. It is better to bombard them with artillery!!!"
"They are about to break out? Can they run away?"
"Just run! If you run out of the trenches, you are seeking death!"
Inside the Ming Army command post.
The staff officers are conducting analysis based on the war situation they just obtained.
"After fighting for so many days, the Rakshasa ghosts are no longer able to fight. They can't resist for too long. In the end, they will either surrender or break out." Yang Yuchun said to Chen Dewang beside him.
"Surrender is impossible. We can't afford to support so many people, and they know this too!" Chen Dewang stared at the map: "They will definitely break through!"
"Breakthrough? They still have 20,000 infantry, can they escape?" Yang Yuchun shook his head.
"But they still have ten thousand Cossacks!"
"Abandon the infantry and lead the cavalry? Does the Russian general dare to make such a decision?"
"I don't know, but if these more than 10,000 cavalrymen escape, I'm afraid it will be a big trouble!"
Just as the two were talking.
A staff officer hurried in to report: "General, Chief of Staff, the Rakshasa ghosts have broken through! Their cavalry is crossing the Syr Darya River!" (End of this chapter)
