The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 145: Just Two Horses
Seeing the looks of the three men, Teng Yuzhao felt a little relieved. It seemed that their attack on the eastern area of ​​the concession occupied by the Russians should be very smooth.

Pan Jinshan did not salute Teng Yuzhao, but like Wang Decheng, he clasped his hands together and bowed deeply to Teng Yuzhao.

Because his left hand was injured and hanging in front of his chest, Pan Jinshan just clenched his hands in front of his chest.

Wang Decheng spoke first, and said sincerely, "I thank you for saving my life. From now on, I and my brothers will follow your lead."

Wang Decheng's words made Teng Yuzao slightly stunned. The meaning of these words could be understood in many ways, one of which was naturally that he was willing to follow Teng Yuzao.

Glancing at Liu Shijiu standing aside and seeing Liu Shijiu winking at him, Teng Yuzao knew there must be something going on. He hurriedly stepped forward, stretched out his hand to help the two of them up, and said to Wang Decheng with a smile.

"Captain Wang, you are too kind. I, Teng, will not be left behind in killing the foreign devils. I cannot thank you for saving my life. This is my duty."

Pan Jinshan also sincerely said to Teng Yuzao, "I also thank you for saving me. If you hadn't arrived in time, my life would be in jeopardy, but the East Bureau would have been in danger."

As he spoke, Pan Jinshan was about to pay his respects to Teng Yuzao again, but was stopped by Teng Yuzao.

"As I said before, it is my duty to rescue Dong Juzi."

Teng Yuzao said to the two men with concern, "Captain Wang, Captain Pan, both of you are injured and need medical treatment urgently. You should rush back to Tianjin City immediately to treat your injuries and gather the scattered troops to prepare for another battle."

"Military."

Pan Jinshan said hesitantly, "I am stationed here at Dongjuzi under the order of General Nie. How dare I leave without General Nie's order?"

Teng Yuzao smiled and took out Yu Lu's warrant and showed it to the two men. "This is Yu Zhongtang's warrant. I can take General Nie to issue the order. We will leave this to our vanguard army. Captain Pan can rest assured. Besides, I have something else I want to ask you two for help."

With Yu Lu's warrant, Pan Jinshan naturally couldn't say anything. However, when Wang Decheng heard that Teng Yuzao wanted them to do something, he hurriedly asked, "What is your business? Just tell me. I will do my duty as yours."

Teng Yuzao spread his hands and said, "Although the results of this battle have not been counted yet, our casualties are not small. There are already 500 to 600 seriously injured soldiers sent back. Many of these seriously injured soldiers urgently need to be sent to the Beiyang Medical and Pharmaceutical Storage General Hospital for treatment, but I have a lot of things to do here."

"Not only does Dongjuzi urgently need troops to conduct a comprehensive search to prevent any foreign devils from escaping the net and causing trouble in secret, but we also need to prepare to deploy to meet the enemy immediately. The coalition forces from Dagukou are still coming, and we must prepare early. Therefore, I'll have to trouble you two to help with the transportation of the wounded."

When he heard that they were going to help the vanguard army transport the wounded, Pan Jinshan immediately agreed, not to mention Wang Decheng.

Teng Yuzhao was anxious for Pan Jinshan, Wang Decheng and their men to leave quickly. Not only did he still have a lot of things to do, but many things would be very inconvenient if these two men and their men did not leave.

The casualties of the vanguard army in this battle were indeed not small, with more than 200 people killed in action, and a close number of seriously injured. There were more than 300 lightly wounded, and that was not all. Teng Yuzhao estimated that there should be some lightly wounded who did not have time to return. If all of them were counted, the casualties would probably be close to a thousand.

There was no time to delay in treating the wounded, especially the seriously injured. Pan Jinshan and Wang Decheng were both impatient people. They set out without even taking a break. They asked their subordinates to carry the captured weapons, ammunition and supplies off the vehicles, and then carefully carried the seriously injured onto the vehicles, and then hurried to Tianjin City.

Teng Yuzao wanted to give them some dry food for the journey, but the two men declined. Liu Shijiu stopped Teng Yuzao and said with a smile.

"Don't worry about lunch. Not only have they eaten, but the assault team has also eaten. In a Russian barracks in the farm, we found not only several large granaries full of weapons and ammunition, and canned white and black flour, but also a Russian bakery filled with baked bread and black biscuits, as well as a lot of smoked and pickled pork, and some grilled sausages. These guys ate so much that their mouths were full of oil, and many of them even had the Russians' black biscuits in their arms."

Teng Yuzhao knew clearly that the black dry biscuits that Liu Shijiu mentioned should be the rye biscuits that the Russian army often used as wartime rations during this period.

In fact, Teng Yuzao had noticed a long time ago that not only Pan Jinshan and Wang Decheng's men had bulging arms, but also the people in the assault team, which made Teng Yuzao feel quite unhappy.

Not to mention Pan Jinshan and Wang Decheng's men, the vanguard army has discipline, and the discipline requires that all captured items must be turned over to the public. It's just that Teng Yuzhao never said it out loud. When he heard that the things in their arms were just foods like black bread and pickled meat, the unhappiness in his heart finally dissipated.

If it was just some food and the soldiers took it and ate it, or even hid some for themselves, there would be nothing wrong with it, unless there was a food shortage. Normally, there is no need to pursue these small matters.

Although in most people's impressions, the grassroots soldiers in Russia during the Tsarist era were mostly "gray cattle" in the eyes of officers, and their social status was extremely low. It was a luxury for them to have enough food on a daily basis, not to mention other treatments.

However, in many historical records, although the food of Russian soldiers was not as rich and luxurious as that of wealthy countries such as the United States and Britain, for the Russian soldiers, most of whom came from rural farms at the time, the food supply for each soldier in the army was still relatively sufficient. The standards stipulated in writing were even higher than the food supply of the early Allied Red Army in the future. Each person had a wartime supply of 800 grams of black bread per day.

It is said that during the fiercest fighting period, a Russian soldier's daily food standard included 1 kg of rye bread or 700 grams of rye biscuits, 100 or 200 grams of oats or rye cereal for porridge, 250 grams of vegetables or 20 grams of dehydrated vegetables, plus 20 grams of butter or lard for bread. In addition, there were 6.4 grams of tea plus 20 grams of sugar or 0.7 grams of pepper. When the fighting was the most intense, soldiers often got some pickled pork and canned meat. On the best days, they could even reach a standard of 615 grams of meat per person per day, which is more than jin of meat per day.

However, how much of these supplies that are required to be distributed to the soldiers can actually be distributed to the soldiers depends on the greed of the officers and the efficiency of the Russian army's transportation system.

Under normal circumstances, it was a common phenomenon at the time for Russian military officers to withhold rations from grassroots soldiers. The shortage of supplies made the Russian military's logistics department unreliable. It was basically stipulated that if half of the supplies for the front-line soldiers reached the hands of individuals, it would be a blessing, especially for the higher-priced meat.

Although, according to historical records, the Russian military logistics department regularly delivered tens of tons of meat, flour, canned food, vegetables and other supplies to the front line, but in reality, the meals of Russian soldiers were truly worthy of the title of "gray cattle" compared to the young soldiers of the United States, Britain and other countries.

This time the Russian army's food is so rich. Perhaps this is because the "trophies" the Russian army has plundered along the way are rich enough, and they disdain to withhold the soldiers' food. Or perhaps today's battle is not only related to whether they can open up the Dagukou channel to the British, French, German, Japanese, Italian, and American concessions in Hexi, but also to whether the Russian concession can be guaranteed security. Because of the great importance, they have to provide their soldiers with rich and sufficient food supplies.

Teng Yuzhao guessed that what Liu Shijiu and his men seized should be the Russian army's lunch today.

Seeing that Teng Yuzao didn't say anything, Liu Shijiu thought that Teng Yuzao blamed them for only caring about their own food and not bringing the food back, so he smiled and said.

"Sir, there is still a lot of food. Liu Yuxuan and his men are right behind us. They have brought a lot of good things with them."

Seeing that the seriously injured had been placed on the carts, Pan Jinshan and Wang Decheng led their horses to Teng Yuzhao. Both of them felt a little embarrassed and wanted to speak, but no words came out when they opened their mouths.

Liu Nineteen said with a smile, "Rui Guang, Fu Quan, don't be embarrassed. Just say whatever you want to say. I can see that our masters think highly of you two."

Pan Jinshan's courtesy name was Ruiguang and Wang Decheng's courtesy name was Fuquan.

Seeing the expressions of the two men, Teng Yuzao was also a little surprised, and said with a smile, "Two brothers, after this battle, we are good brothers as close as family. If you have anything to say, just speak up."

Pan Jinshan said embarrassedly, "General, according to the rules, we should not take any of the spoils this time. But let's forget about other things. Brother Wang and I really like these two horses. We want to take them away as our mounts."

Hearing that they wanted to take back the two war horses they were leading, Teng Yuzao couldn't help but laugh, "Brothers, don't just say two horses, even if you have any captured items that you like, feel free to ask for them. I will never refuse."

The war horses that the two men were leading were both tall, with shiny golden coats. They should be the mounts of Russian officers.

However, in Teng Yuzhao's eyes, these two horses should be the Don horses that existed in large numbers in the Russian army.

The so-called Don horse is actually a horse of mixed bloodline between native Russian horses in the Volga River basin, Arabian horses, Akhal-Teke horses and Karabakh horses. It can be said that this is a horse breed that was unconsciously improved by the Russians.

The greatest feature of the Don horse is its amazing endurance.

The Don Horse was originally used as a warhorse for the Cossack cavalry. These horses lived on pastures on the grasslands. Since they could only eat the grass below after scraping off the snow and thin ice on the ground all year round, they had long adapted to all kinds of incredibly harsh climates and were relatively easy to raise.

The Don horse is usually 155 to 160 cm tall at the shoulder and can be reddish brown, black, brown, gray or chestnut. The coat color is mostly golden chestnut, which is mainly influenced by the Akha-Teke horse.

The Don horse has a prominent chest, well-developed muscles, a long back, and solid, strong legs.

Although the Don horse was a very good war horse, it was still much inferior to the Spanish horses that young Christian had given him.

When they heard that Teng Yuzhao agreed to let them ride the two war horses, Pan Jinshan and Wang Decheng were very happy. They said goodbye to Teng Yuzhao happily and hurried back to Tianjin City with their men, guarding more than a hundred carts with seriously injured soldiers.

Wu Peifu also went to Tianjin City with Pan Jinshan and Wang Decheng.

Wu Peifu went to the Governor-General's Headquarters to deliver the victory report to Yu Lu. Although the detailed results of the battle had not yet been counted and would not be delivered until later, the battle here had to be reported to Yu Lu as soon as possible.

Not only did Teng Yuzhao want to let Yu Lu know the battle situation here in time, he also had some selfish motives.

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(End of this chapter)