The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 899 We will no longer be dogs for Easterners
Major General Raevsky's cavalry was among the best in the entire Rus' Empire, with 6,000 of them coming from the 3rd Don Cossack Cavalry Division, known as the Thunder Army.

This was the most elite cavalry division among all the Cossacks, which had achieved a brilliant victory during the Russo-Turkish War, where 4,000 light cavalrymen used wolf pack tactics to defeat 30,000 Ottoman infantry and cavalry.

The remaining two thousand men were drawn from the Independent Guards Lancers Brigade of the Russian Empire, headquartered in Warsaw.

The soldiers of this cavalry brigade were mostly recruited from Poland and Lithuania. They were descendants of the Winged Hussars who identified with the Great Slavic ideology, were well-versed in cavalry warfare, and belonged to one of the elite cavalry units of the Tsarist Rus' Empire.

The family of Major General Raevsky, the commander, was a prominent noble family in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth hundreds of years ago. Peter the Great's maternal grandmother came from their family.

With the thunderous sound of hooves, Major General Raevsky led eight thousand cavalrymen swiftly through the anti-cavalry fire net formed by the Dayu shrapnel, suffering relatively few losses.

This highlights the limitations of artillery at that time; otherwise, machine guns would have been the true weapon that enabled nomadic peoples to sing and dance.

Even at this point, the cavalry's mobility was still formidable; they had many ways to evade even shrapnel.

Moreover, the quality of steel at that time could not be compared with that of decades later, resulting in a short service life for the cannon barrels. After ten rounds of firing, the accuracy of most cannons would be greatly reduced.

Eight thousand cavalrymen scattered like sparrows in an organized manner, while the Dayu artillery's shrapnel shells pounced on them like cats.

Although he could always catch and kill one or two sparrows each time, it was not fatal to the entire flock of sparrows.

With only two hundred meters to go, Major General Raevsky ordered the mournful bugle call to be sounded.

Clad in light blue trimmed battle robes, draped in black and gold cloaks, and wearing tall black hats, the Royal Guard Lancers Regiment named after Catherine II charged forward swiftly.

They were originally designed to deal with cuirassiers; their sharp lances could easily knock cuirassiers off their horses and kill them, or even pierce their necks.

It is also very effective at stabbing infantrymen at this time.

Major General Raevsky was very confident in this. His lancers were the best inheritors of the Winged Hussars and were the kings of cavalry in Eastern Europe. In his mind, they were far more powerful than the Cossacks.

But at that moment, he heard a series of very dense and rapid gunshots.

'Clap clap clap clap clap!'

Almost without interruption, it sounded like the Khitans' favorite festive firecrackers exploding violently.

'Do the Khitans really think they can scare our warhorses, which aren't even afraid of cannons, with firecrackers? They can't be that stupid, can they?'

Major General Raevsky was puzzled when he looked up and saw his most trusted cavalry officer, Colonel Pavlo Petrovich, tumbling down the hillside.

"My God, who fired so many shots at Pavlo? How did he become like this?" the major general shouted in shock.

Colonel Pavlo Petrovich's chest was covered in blood. Although his hands were still tightly gripping his rifle, his abdomen was completely rotting, and his body was almost severed in two.

Immediately afterwards, a chorus of cries and screams came from the hillside, and countless cavalrymen and their horses collapsed to the ground in agony.

Some people shouted "Hurrah!" but quickly disappeared into the dust and smoke, never to be heard again.

Major General Raevsky felt a chill run down his spine. Had the Khitans come up with some new weapon? He quickly spurred his horse and led several hundred cavalrymen to attack.

Upon reaching the artillery platform atop the hill, Major General Raevsky witnessed a scene that haunted him even in his later years.

The Khitan infantry lined up behind the breastwork, only their heads showing as they fired at the cavalry, while several small-caliber cannons continuously spewed out shrapnel.

But they could not stop the rapid advance of the endless cavalry. Khitan infantrymen were constantly cut down by sabers. But soon, the voice that Major General Raevsky could not forget rang out.

Dense, seemingly incessant flames began to erupt from the gaps in the Khitan's breastwork.

'Pa pa pa pa'

As a soldier cranked the handle, bullets shot out rapidly. The dozen or so cavalrymen in the lead didn't have time to dodge and were immediately hit, their bodies riddled with bullets like tattered cotton.

That firepower was equivalent to at least three or four hundred soldiers firing at the same time.

'Clap clap clap clap!'

More machine gun fire erupted, the bullets even denser than the shrapnel from artillery. The Cossacks roared and charged desperately, but were met with a merciless reaping.

Just then, the artillery of the Great Yu spotted Major General Raevsky observing from afar. A shrapnel shell came flying over, and a group of cavalrymen around him immediately fell down. Even the major general had half of his ear cut off by a steel arrow.

"Withdraw and prepare for the second attack!" Blood streamed down Major General Raevsky's neck, but his eyes were redder than the blood on his neck.

"Send the militia from Saratov and Voronezh up and tell them that you have captured the Khitan artillery positions. Give each of them ten poods of rye and oats, and give them two more poods for every Khitan artilleryman you kill."

Major General Raevsky was determined; he knew he had to capture this artillery position, otherwise, given the firepower the Khitans had displayed today, Tsaritsyn would certainly not be able to hold out.

The pood was a unit of weight in Tsarist Russia, most commonly used for grain. One pood was equal to forty Russian pounds, or a little over thirty-three kilograms.

The 10,000 Cossack militiamen who had just arrived from the south village were ecstatic when they heard about the bounty.

Keep in mind that at that time in St. Petersburg, a factory worker's daily wage could only buy 1.5 Russian pounds of black bread.

Based on 30 days, that's about 45 Russian pounds a month, which is a little over 1 pood.

Unlike other imperialist powers, Tsarist Russia had a weak domestic industry and a high illiteracy rate. Therefore, workers who could work in factories in Tsarist Russia were actually considered to be half-skilled workers.

To the nobles, these workers were only slightly better than serfs, but at the very bottom, a worker was a remarkable individual, a capable person who could escape the threat of hunger.

The reward given by Major General Raevsky was equivalent to a year's salary for a factory worker in St. Petersburg.

No, it's more than a St. Petersburg factory worker's annual wage, because it's 10 poods of rye and oats, not 10 poods of black bread with sawdust.

"For Caesar, Hurrah!"

Cossacks from the countryside of Saratov and Voronezh, raised along the Don and Ural rivers, charged madly toward the artillery positions of Da Yu, one after another, for ten poods of rye and oats.

"Damn it, he's so damn despicable!" Guan Tianpei muttered, not knowing what to feel.

"They'd risk their lives for just three or four hundred catties of grain."

"Men, give them a good beating! Show no mercy! Beat these bastards until they hurt, or they'll keep eyeing our Anxi for a few hundred pounds of grain."

"These Rakshasas brought this on themselves. Eight years ago, we let them go, and His Highness the Crown Prince condescended to give them a way out, but they turned around and betrayed us. If we don't teach them a lesson, they won't know who's in charge!"

Limbs and severed bodies lay scattered on the ground, and corpses piled up one after another, their blood soaking the mountainside.

The Cossack militiamen who charged forward lay dead on the ground like sugarcane. After an unknown amount of time, the gunner of the hand-cranked machine gun had a swollen arm before he suddenly felt the pressure ease. It turned out that these cannon fodder Cossack cavalrymen no longer dared to come up.

Taking advantage of this rare respite, the nineteen-year-old machine gunner, Captain Xiang Rong, discreetly gulped down two mouthfuls of saliva.

The scene before my eyes was terrifying. The machine guns could even penetrate steel plates. One can only imagine what kind of damage those charging cavalry would suffer.

Right before his eyes, a perfect human liver, looking almost identical to the pig liver on the butcher's chopping board in Bukhara, lay quietly on the ground.

The fascia connecting the liver lobes is clearly visible, and the surface is covered with a layer of yellow fat similar to chicken fat. It seems that the owner of this liver lives a very good life. Ordinary people don't have this much fat accumulating in their livers.

"The enemy is here again! The Rakshasa are here again!"

Suddenly, Xiang Rong, who was wiping his mouth with his sleeve when he was scraped hard by a button, realized that the ground was trembling. He shouted loudly and summoned the loader and operator to quickly reset the machine.

"Quickly, turn the speed up to the maximum. If you let even one Rakshasa cavalryman escape, you're as good as dead!" Xiang Rong frantically urged the loader and the crank operator.

He did his best to suppress the shaking of the machine gun and accurately shot down the Rakshasa cavalrymen who were rushing towards him from afar.

"As long as the battle is fought, we will live; if we die, we will die!" Guan Tianpei drew his sword and, holding a revolver, had already arrived at the front line.

The two thousand soldiers of the First Regiment of the Left Divine Lightning Guard, who were known as the elite of the Imperial Guards, more than half of whom were surnamed Mo or Chen, displayed their most valiant fighting spirit, unleashing a barrage of shells and bullets upon the Russian cavalry.

Zhuge Liang's crossbow machine guns kept firing.

The needle-firing guns fired volley after volley.

More than sixty cannons fired grapeshot all over the sky.

A Polish lancer thrust his two-meter-long lance forward, striking a grenadier beside Xiang Rong. Xiang Rong, however, didn't even flinch, continuing to fire towards the densest concentration of cavalry in the distance. The wounded grenadier screamed, drew his revolver, and unleashed a torrent of bullets until he was certain the charging Polish lancer was dead, then closed his eyes in relief.

More than two hundred Cossacks charged in from a place with only one machine gun, knocking dozens of infantrymen away, and were about to rush in and start killing.

"Pull out!" At the critical moment, a lieutenant of the Imperial Guard pulled the cord of the explosives without hesitation. "Fifth Grand Uncle, your descendants will never disgrace you!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Lieutenant Mo, along with dozens of Cossack cavalrymen and several of his comrades who were caught in the blast, were all blown to pieces.

They flew everywhere, here and there, in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

Seeing this, the infantrymen who had just been knocked away, even with blood still flowing from their mouths, howled and frantically rushed over to plug the gap.

They broke bayonets, emptied their revolvers, and finally drove the Cossacks out.

Major General Raevsky sighed in despair. The Khitans' weapons, capable of unleashing devastating attacks, were too powerful. He had sent thousands of cannon fodder in just to allow a few elite cavalry units to charge in.

Once we get inside, we've won the battle, but...

"The Khitans' new weapons will dominate the battlefield, and the era of line infantry and cavalry is coming to an end."

Major General Raevsky sighed in anguish, drew his saber and swung it forward. His orders were to take the artillery position; he could not simply retreat.

Unfortunately, the situation on the battlefield was beyond Major General Raevsky's control.

With the artillery holding out for so long, Mo Gongling had already deployed his troops. Three thousand cavalry from Xuzhou Town, Jiangsu, after repelling the Russian artillery's attempt to advance, circled around from the rear.

Major General Raevsky's cavalry was already exhausted, and now, attacked from both sides, they quickly retreated in disarray, leaving behind thousands of corpses.

Without the harassment of the Russian cavalry, the Da Yu artillery could move forward continuously, forcing Kutuzov to move the Russian artillery behind the eastern town (Kirova town), further reducing the threat to the Da Yu infantry.

Now it was the Dayu infantry's turn to unleash their full potential, especially the units equipped with needle-firing muskets.

Sometimes they all transformed into skirmishers, fighting in skirmish lines, and sometimes they assembled as line infantry to launch a regimental charge.

The Russian troops couldn't win by firing squads, and they didn't gain much advantage in hand-to-hand combat either, and were forced to retreat step by step.

At 4 p.m., the 2nd Brigade of the 2nd Guards Rifle Division of the Russian Army, which later became the Pavlovsky Guards Rifle Regiment, was blocked west of Dongzhen.

The 11th and 17th Imperial Guard Regiments of the Left Dragon Cavalry of the Great Yu Dynasty, along with a portion of the Beiting Border Defense Army, launched a massive attack on them.

Major General Guan Tianpei of the 4th Artillery Brigade directly under the army group also commanded the artillery to bombard the rear of Pavlovsky's Guards Rifle Regiment.

More than three hundred explosive and solid bullets directly cut Pavlovsky's Guards Rifle Regiment into three parts, throwing their command into complete chaos.

Forty minutes later, the overstretched Guards infantry brigade of more than 7,000 men was routed, with over 4,000 killed. Many soldiers had to wade through the knee-deep, icy Volga River in temperatures of five or six degrees Celsius to escape with their lives.

This scene became the last straw that broke Kutuzov's spirit, and he began to withdraw his troops, attempting to rely on the eastern town for a final defense.

An hour and a half later, as darkness fell, the two sides had been fighting for more than eight hours. Not only were the Russian troops exhausted, but Da Yu's army was also too tired to continue fighting.

It was a drizzly winter day in a region at the same latitude as Ulaanbaatar, even colder than Harbin. The soldiers had been fighting in the mud all day; even the toughest of them couldn't withstand it.

Moreover, even if he could still fight, Mo Gongling would not continue his attack.

Continuing to fight under these circumstances would likely cause countless people to fall ill in the next two weeks. Stabilizing the front lines and taking a short rest is the most important thing now.

The battle broke out again in the early hours of the following day.

After yesterday's fierce fighting, the Russian army has basically lost the courage to launch an offensive and can only rely on the fortifications they have built to put up a stubborn resistance.

At 11 a.m., a deafening roar of cheers erupted from the village of Kolobovka.

Just as Dongzhen was suppressing the Russian army, Mo Gongling boldly transferred 3,000 cavalrymen from Xuzhou Town in Jiangsu and 3,000 cavalrymen from Datong Town in Shanxi, totaling 6,000 men, to assist Song Wentian's troops in attacking Northwest Village.

Northwest Village is about three kilometers away from East Town. It would only take the cavalry ten minutes to get there. The incident happened so suddenly that Kutuzov had not yet had time to mobilize troops to provide support. Northwest Village was already in a critical situation.

After Kutuzov transferred the reserve troops, the Russian troops in Northwest Village were driven out of the village for the third time, and everything was beyond repair.

"I made a mistake. Even though I had overestimated the fighting strength of the Khitan Imperial Guards, I never expected them to be this strong."

Kutuzov admitted his mistake, admitting that he underestimated the gap between the Russian Guards and the Great Yu Guards.

This gap is even larger than the apparent gap in national strength between the two sides; it is not simply a matter of quantity, but also of quality.

Kutuzov had previously estimated that even if the Great Yu was more than ten times stronger than the Rus', the difference between the two sides would be at most twice as great when they reached the Rus' doorstep.

Indeed, there is a difference of two times, but this is not in quantity, but in quality.

Dayu possessed machine guns, needle-firing guns, shrapnel shells, nitroglycerin explosives, and a large number of steamships weighing tens of tons capable of transporting goods on the Volga River. Each of these items had a revolutionary advantage.

Therefore, when Kutuzov estimated the size of the Great Yu to be twice that of the Rus', and left only 110,000 elite Russian troops to guard the eastern town, defeat became inevitable.

Because if the eastern town is severely suppressed, it will affect Kutuzov's support for the southern and northwestern villages, just like it is now.

"The cavalry losses were too great, and Major General Raevsky must take responsibility for this situation!"
"If our Guards Lancer Brigade and Thunder Cossack Cavalry Division were still intact, they could quickly reinforce the battle at Kolobovka village."

Kutuzov's cronies began to shift the blame, placing the responsibility on the defeated Major General Raevsky.

Kutuzov quickly shook his head. "Don't talk about this anymore, it's pointless. The Yellow Peril has really arrived!"

The Russian general took a deep breath. "More than five hundred years ago, the Mongols established the Golden Horde with their indestructible armor and unbreakable crossbows, enslaving us for three hundred years."

Today, the Khitans will once again use their new weapons to enslave us.

"But we will never yield!" someone suddenly shouted from behind.

Kutuzov turned around and saw that the speaker was Lieutenant General Peter Essen, a German nobleman of Latvian descent, but at this moment Lieutenant General Essen acted more like a Russian than a Russian.

"The Third Rome is not Kievan Rus'. Times have changed. We will no longer be the dogs of the East. We will take control of our own destiny!"

Lieutenant General Essen's words resonated widely, and all the officers roared, vowing never to be dogs of the East again.

Yes, they are actually quite clear that their ancestors were not forced into humiliation and became slaves of the Mongols, but rather willingly became dogs of the Golden Horde.

"Yes, the Slavs will no longer be someone else's dogs, so we must preserve our strength and drag the war into winter, plunging the Khitans into the terrifying threat of the Winter General."

Kutuzov also shouted a few words. The Battle of Kirova was about to be a crushing defeat. If they didn't use this method to stabilize morale, the people's hearts would fall apart.

“Peter, I need you to take command personally. The Khitan forces are not strong enough to surround us. We can retreat, but we must wait until nightfall.”

At this time, after the fall of Kolobovka village in the northwest, the Khitans will surely deploy their artillery on the high ground outside the village to bombard our positions.

We must hold on, do everything we can to hold out until nightfall, or we'll be in serious trouble.

Northwest Village is about three kilometers away from East Town, and the effective range of the six-pounder cannon is a little over one kilometer.

Moreover, Dayu not only had six-pound cannons, but also eight-pound and twelve-pound cannons. With just a slight movement, they could directly bombard the Russian troops in Dongzhen across a small stream.

"Marshal, I will definitely complete the mission!" Lieutenant General Peter Essen not only has the ability to talk big, but he also has the courage to take on the mission at critical moments.

After Lieutenant General Peter Essen left, Kutuzov looked at Lieutenant General Louis Langron.

This was also a French nobleman in exile who gained Alexander I's special trust by refusing Princess Charlotte's offers of service twice, in 1792 and 1794.

"Although the Khitan army cannot surround us, they will definitely use cavalry to flank and intercept us."

"Lieutenant General, I request that you lead the 6th Hussars Division of the 4th Army Corps to search for the Khitan cavalry and ensure that we are not intercepted or pursued by them tomorrow."

Although the cavalry of the Great Yu had not performed well, Kutuzov understood one thing: a powerful army cannot be crippled.

If the Khitan cavalry did not demonstrate strong combat power, then the most likely scenario is that they were accumulating strength, waiting to deliver a fatal blow during their retreat.

(End of this chapter)