The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 826 The Brave Men of Huai River

"Woo~~!"

A red-hot lead bullet, with a long trailing sound, grazed past Han Zaibai's ear. He lay prone on his warhorse's back, narrowly escaping death.

Just as he was feeling relieved, the warhorse let out a miserable cry, and a large piece of its right ear was knocked off.

When the warm horse blood splattered onto Han Zaibai's face, it was already cold and sticky, which made his heart clench suddenly.

"White Dragon, hold on, forward, keep going forward!"

Braving the strong winds from the galloping horse, Han Zaibai roared, clenched his flanks, and firmly controlled the reins with his right hand.

The warhorse, Bailong, in pain, was already preparing to turn and run away—a biological instinct. However, Han Zaibai's shouts and control, honed through countless training sessions, had instilled in Bailong an instinctive obedience to human commands and a trust in its two-legged companion with whom it had spent every day.

As the horses' hooves pounded down, white salt and black soil flew up and down!
Han Zaibai was the first to break through the Cossack cavalry's firing net. When he felt the bullets weakening, this valiant cavalryman from Xuxikou, Suzhou, Anhui (near Huaibei City) immediately straightened up from his horse. He swiftly took out a seven-dou horse bow from the left side of his warhorse and pulled out arrows from the right side.

'Boom boom boom boom!'

Han Zaibai raised his right hand like an eagle, and his warhorse, Bailong, galloped in an arc to facilitate Han Zaibai's side-stepping shot.

Under the immense thrust of the bowstring, the arrow shaft trembled rapidly in the air, like a living carp leaping over the Dragon Gate.

'what! '

Fifty meters away, a Cossack with a big beard screamed, dropped his carbine, and clutched his throat, swaying from side to side on his horse.

Another Cossack suddenly jerked his head upwards, and a black arrow shaft pierced his eye socket.

The immense impact forced his eyeballs out of their sockets, and blood gushed out along with various milky white fluids, spraying all over the ground.

"Kill you, Tatar!" This was a five-man squad. Seeing two men hit by arrows, the other two roared and charged forward, brandishing their sabers.

But Han Zaibai's third and fourth arrows came out in quick succession, one of which pierced the throat of the third Cossack, shooting him directly off his horse.

The fourth arrow pierced the chest of the fourth Cossack, but not deeply. Although the Seven-Straw Bow was already quite hard among horse bows, its killing power was still somewhat insufficient.

The Cossack roared and, enduring excruciating pain, charged towards Han Zaibai. Han Zaibai sneered, calmly placing his horsebow on his left side and reaching for his waist with his right hand.

'Bang bang bang bang bang bang!'

Six gunshots rang out, a standard six-round burst from a revolver. The Cossack who had rushed forward trembled several times. He held up his saber, his eyes wide with anger, shook his head twice, and then closed his eyes unwillingly before falling headlong off his warhorse.

The remaining Cossack cavalryman, witnessing all this, was terrified. With a scream, he spurred his horse and vanished before Han Zaibai could launch his attack.

"Old brother, I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you again." Han Zaibai didn't chase after him, but looked at Bai Long, who was panting heavily and whose horse-like face was half soaked with blood, and sighed with some heartache.

Then, hardening his heart, he spurred the white dragon toward the place where the battle was most intense.

This was a fierce encounter. Four hundred Cossack hussars from the Ijum Hussar Regiment of the Tsarist Rus Empire clashed violently with more than four hundred guards from the Seventh Huaibei Light Cavalry Regiment of the Divine Lightning Left Guard of the Seres Empire in the Karageye Lowlands west of the Ural River.

This is a large saline-alkali depression, or salt desert, where the surface is covered with a layer of fine white salt crust, making it look like a white desert from a distance.

In this salty desert, there is almost no vegetation, so there is no possibility of cover. The moment the two sides discover each other, the battle must begin.

Instead of rushing into the center, Han Zaibai roamed the outer perimeter, using his bow and arrows to take the lives of enemy soldiers.

This is the standard tactic of the Great Yu Imperial Guards cavalry: the light Imperial Guards cavalry are generally equipped with two carbines, one six-revolver, two sabers, and one long spear (only carried when not on reconnaissance missions).
He would shoot with a carbine from a distance, then follow up with a saber to slash and hack, while the six-shot revolver was used for self-defense at extremely close range.

Elite light cavalry, usually non-official officers with the rank of captain, were equipped with a rifled musket, a six-barreled revolver, two horse bows, forty arrows, and a saber.

These elite light cavalrymen would not charge in directly to engage in hand-to-hand combat with sabers, as the casualties would be too great. They would usually stay on the perimeter and use bows and arrows for precise shooting.

Even in this era, a skilled archer who can fire a rapid-fire series of arrows from horseback with great accuracy is still far more powerful than a musketeer.

The most elite light cavalry of the Great Yu could fire fifteen arrows in one minute, while the mounted carbine could only fire one, and its accuracy was not as good as that of the bow and arrow. The difference between the two sides was obvious.

Therefore, in the Great Yu Dynasty, archery on horseback, apart from not being used for large-scale use and for launching projectiles at enemy troops in battle, was still widely used by elite cavalry and was much more effective than carbines in skirmishes and dogfights.

Of course, among the entire 170,000 cavalrymen of the Great Yu Dynasty, there would be no more than 5,000 who could shoot accurately from 50 or 60 meters away on horseback.

The warhorses they used were far more demanding than those of musketeer cavalry, so the cost of training them and the probability of finding them were much higher than those of musketeer cavalry.

On the battlefield where the two sides were fiercely fighting, neither side's cavalry had time to reload their carbines. The revolvers of the Dayu cavalry and the flintlock pistols of the Shaluo cavalry had also been fired. Nearly a thousand men were frantically hacking at each other with their sabers on this open salt desert.

"Army Guards, assemble!" Zhang Tianxing, the colonel deputy commander of the 7th Huai River Cavalry Regiment of the Divine Lightning Guards, a native of Zhiheji, Bozhou, Anhui, roared and raised the regimental flag of the 7th Regiment high.

The sun, radiating rays of light from one side, spreads outwards like a saber.

"The heroes of Huai River will never disgrace His Majesty!" With a roar, Zhang Tianxing, whose body was half-stained with blood and whose right eye was covered by thick blood and could barely see, raised the regimental flag and was the first to rush out.

"Long live the Emperor!"

Before they were blinded by rage, the elite cavalrymen from Huai River, who could hear Zhang Tianxing's commands, spurred their horses and formed a horizontal line.

They roared and charged with Zhang Tianxing toward the Cossack hussars who were also gathering on the opposite side.

This is the mark of elite cavalry: they are not misled by anything on the battlefield, they can hear the commander's orders, and they can fight in formation even under great pressure.

Not far away, Colonel Ivan Semyodorovich Dorokhov, commander of the Izyum Hussars, had also gathered about two hundred Cossack cavalrymen.

"The warriors of the Third Rome will never retreat!" Colonel Dorokhov roared, raising his banner and launching the attack from the front.

"For His Majesty Caesar, hurrah!" The Cossack cavalry behind him also formed a relatively neat line.

The two armies were only fifty or sixty meters apart, and they could even hear each other's shouts. At this distance, the cavalry could arrive in an instant, and the most tragic scene unfolded.

The two cavalry colonels met first, and Dorokhov slashed at Zhang Tianxing's hand holding the flag with his sword.

Zhang Tianxing yelled and pulled the military flag he was holding down, causing Dorokhov's saber to strike the flagpole directly.

Dorokhov was overjoyed. To make them easy to carry, these flagpoles wouldn't be chosen to be particularly sturdy, since they were too heavy. With a swing of his sword using the momentum of the horse, he was sure he could cut down the flag on the other side.

On the battlefield, the meaning of a military flag being cut down is self-evident.

Sure enough, the regimental flag of the 7th Guards Regiment was broken in an instant, and almost at the same time, Zhang Tianxing's saber slashed at Dorokhov's hand holding the flag.

In a flash, Dorokhov hesitated. "At least I cut his flag first," Dorokhov comforted himself, letting out a painful scream as he pulled his hand back, allowing the other side to cut his flag.

Just as both sides' flags were cut down, Zhang Tianxing suddenly pulled, and the flag of the 7th Huai River Light Cavalry Regiment of the Divine Lightning Guard reappeared in his hand.

It turned out that Zhang Tianxing had already tied the top of the regimental flag with a hemp rope. He had practiced this skill of losing the flag and then pulling it back for a long time.

"Bah, you stupid barbarians!" Zhang Tianxing cursed, raised half of his military flag high, and charged out from the side just as the enemy's cavalry was about to reach him.

Dorokhov, too, skillfully controlled his horse and avoided being directly charged and killed by hundreds of cavalry. However, the banner of the Ijum Hussars had already been trampled to pieces by the chaotic hooves of the Seresian horses.

"Cunning Tatars!" Dorokhov roared angrily, about to give chase to Zhang Tianxing, when suddenly an arrow flew towards him.

With a soft thud, the arrow pierced Dorokhov's shoulder blade, causing him to nearly faint from the pain. Fortunately, it wasn't deep in his flesh. He turned around and saw a cavalryman on a white horse, wearing red armor and a red helmet, looking at him with a horse bow.

Dorokhov also came from a military family. His father was a minor nobleman who participated in the two Russo-Turkish Wars and retired with the rank of major. Therefore, Dorokhov had extensive battlefield experience, especially in cavalry.

He realized that anyone who could still appear on the battlefield with a bow and arrow at this time was either a backward barbarian or a top expert who wielded a bow and arrow even better than a musket.

Clearly, the Seris Empire was not some barbarian state.

A sense of being locked on by the enemy washed over him, and his sixth sense began to frantically warn Dorokhov. Under the threat of death, he could no longer care about anything else and quickly escaped the attack range of the white-horse-riding, red-armored archer.

'boom! ’

The two groups of cavalry clashed violently.

Of course, it's not a head-to-head collision or a horse-to-horse collision. No matter how well-trained the warhorses are, they are still living beings and won't actually ram into each other like that. Therefore, at the moment of impact, they will involuntarily create gaps.

But even the best can make mistakes. Often, when a warhorse tries to avoid a path, it ends up heading in the same direction, which can be troublesome.

Blood splattered everywhere, and the screams of men and the neighing of warhorses mingled together. In such a violent collision and in such a confined space, one could swing a sword without any skill and still not miss.

Sixty or seventy warhorses fell to the ground, the knights were dazed and confused, the broken and crippled horses were crushed beneath them and then trampled over by countless hooves.

Those that weren't knocked over quickly broke through, but the entire team was like an onion with a layer of skin peeled off.

Zhang Tianxing circled around, cut down a lone Cossack cavalryman, and then returned to his warriors to organize the next charge.

Meanwhile, Dorokhov on the other side was being chased by Han Zaibai and had no chance to turn around and organize the attack.

The Cossacks, having lost their commander, quickly descended into chaos. They rallied together, only to be completely routed by the next charge of the Huaibei Regiment's knights.

Many more panicked upon seeing that the regimental flag was missing, and the battle on the open plain, with over four hundred cavalrymen facing off against another four hundred, began to turn into a one-sided affair.

"Help me get rid of that guy and let me regain command!" Colonel Dorokhov shouted to seven or eight of his cavalrymen as he fled.

"You, come and help me cut this damned arrow shaft in half!"

Upon receiving the order, these Cossack cavalrymen almost immediately determined who to drive away; on this battlefield, being flashy often meant being deadly.

But Han Zaibai was experienced and highly capable. He immediately turned his horse around and rode back. The Cossacks charged over, but their warhorses were no match for Han Zaibai's white dragon.

This horse was a purebred warhorse raised by the emperor at the Shandan military horse farm, comparable to the Akhal-Teke horse. The price of a pound of its meat was almost the same as a tael of silver.

After running back for more than ten meters, Bai Long suddenly took a slightly curved route again. Han Zaibai, as if on cue, immediately picked up his horse bow and took advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn sideways.

'Bang! Bang!'

'Bang! Bang!'

Two groups of two arrows were fired backward in quick succession, followed by screams as three Cossacks fell to the ground.

Undeterred, they gave chase, and then two more arrows rang out, and a Cossack was struck in the forehead and fell from his horse.

A bad feeling came over them, and an elderly Cossack suddenly cried out, "The Great Khan of the Mongols is here! The Great Khan of the Mongols is here!"

This shout seemed to awaken the fear that had been hidden in their blood for hundreds of years. The remaining seven or eight Cossacks turned and ran without the slightest hesitation.

Instead, Han Zaibai spurred his horse and chased after them, using the speed of his warhorse to catch up and kill another Cossack. The Cossacks were now even more terrified and ran even faster.

Han Zaibai slowly moved his arm to relieve the soreness, and then immediately headed towards Colonel Dorokhov.

Colonel Dorokhov, enduring the excruciating pain in his shoulder blade, was pulling out his military flag from his spare warhorse when he saw the sharpshooter in white armor on a white horse close in again. Terrified, he didn't dare linger and turned his horse to leave.

At this point, the Ijum Hussar Regiment could no longer hold on. The Cossack cavalry, who were still barely able to chase and fight each other, began to flee, while the Huai River Cavalry Regiment pursued them relentlessly.

After an unknown amount of time, Han Zaibai ran out of arrows, and his arms ached so much that he could no longer draw the bow. He could only chase after the enemy with his saber. As he crossed a hill, he suddenly encountered several cavalrymen he had never seen before.

These cavalrymen wore tall black hats with a snow-white feather-shaped weapon standing upright in front. They wore blue half-sleeved robes over their hats and red shirts underneath, lined with various gold pendants and patterns. The collars of their shirts were opened particularly high and were trimmed with gold along with the cuffs.

Han Zaibai immediately realized that the Russians' more elite cavalry had arrived.

Sure enough, these cavalrymen were more skilled at operating carbines. Unlike the Ijum Hussars, they did not launch a fierce attack right away. Instead, they often moved out in groups of a dozen or so, with a high degree of coordination and discipline.

"Push them forward and drive them back! Old Bai, go up to the top of that mountain and see if the Rakshasa army is coming!"

Deputy Regiment Commander Zhang Tianxing shouted loudly, and the knights of the 7th Cavalry Regiment charged forward, successfully driving the thirty or forty newly appeared cavalrymen down the hillside.

Han Zaibai rode the nearly exhausted white dragon to the top of the mountain. He looked into the distance and couldn't help but gasp.

Just a kilometer or two away, countless military flags blotted out the sky, and the black-clad crowd stretched as far as the eye could see. The cavalry guarding the two flanks were densely packed, like ants scattered across the plain.

The contrast between the white salt crust on the ground and the black military uniforms is striking.

Han Zaibai then realized that they had chased too far and almost crashed into the Russian army. No wonder the cavalry they had just encountered were so elite; they were very likely the Russian Imperial Guard Cavalry Regiment.

"The Rakshasa army has arrived! I see at least 20,000 of them!" Han Zaibai shouted at Zhang Tianxing.

"Go, go, go quickly, go back and report to General Chen!" Zhang Tianxing excitedly shouted, "Leave the best-condition warhorses for the Ninth Company, let them follow the Rakshasa main force!"

At the end of October 1802, the 27th year of the Guangzhong reign of the Great Yu Dynasty in China, which was the 7th year of the Jiaqing reign of the Qing Dynasty, the beginning of the tenth month of the lunar calendar.

Major General Mikhail Barclay led 40,000 to 50,000 elite Russian troops through the Karagiye salt flats, but refused to go any further when they were only 90 kilometers away from Guryev (Atyrau).

He hid 30,000 of his main force, using only 15,000 vanguard troops to control several small rivers and a high ground east of the depression as outposts.

If they continue, the army will completely leave this salt desert. If they are defeated, they will have to cross the entire salt desert when they flee, which would truly be suicide.

Therefore, Major General Mikhail Barclay will not advance an inch until supply depots are established in the salt desert and temporary supply ports are set up for the Astrakhan naval vessels.

If he doesn't advance, Chen Jinchuan, the vanguard commander of the Great Yu army and the vanguard among the vanguard officers, will not be dispatched. The Great Yu army is already planning to besiege the enemy's stronghold and attack reinforcements, so there is no need for them to risk entering the Salt Desert.

Moreover, it is already October, and the temperature on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea has begun to drop below ten degrees Celsius, with nighttime lows even approaching zero degrees Celsius, essentially eliminating the window of opportunity for combat.

"If the Russians don't come, I won't go either. Let's just wait and see who can outlast whom!" Chen Jinchuan ordered his men to hold the wooden fortress that had already been built while sending someone to report to Li Xingtai.

Yao Ying, the military commander in charge of logistics and military affairs, said with a smile, "The Russians think that only they are accustomed to the bitter cold and are not afraid of the fierce northwest wind. Little do they know that our Han people are also the most resistant to hard battles. It's time to let them see it!"

(End of this chapter)