The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 907 The Danube and the Volga Rivers: Mirror Mirrors

The roaring steam excavators, like ancient monsters, easily dug deep trenches in the black soil along the Volga River.

With a little work by the soldiers around with shovels and picks, a trench was completed.

The Han Chinese volunteers from the four provinces of Anxi looked at the 'big iron ox' with a mixture of awe and joy.

Some quick-thinking individuals have already realized that if this machine could be made more precise, then in the future, when thawing frozen soil for plowing, we wouldn't need oxen anymore.

"Today it's time for the people of Qinghe County in Huai'an Prefecture to step up their game. Let's not embarrass His Highness Prince Liao, nor the people of Huai'an, and let's live up to Lord Dong's expectations."

A big shot like the young master risked his life for our future safety, so we shouldn't hold back.

This time, we need to dig at least half a mile ahead, and make sure it's flat and level, so we can easily push the cannons over to blast those Rakshasa demons to death.

The Han people who went to work this time came from Qinghe County, Huai'an Prefecture, which is now Qingpu District of Huai'an City.

At this time, the Huaihe River region had not yet experienced Chiang Kai-shek's devastating floods, and the Grand Canal was still functioning, so it was not considered impoverished.

The reason these people from Huaihe River region were able to come to Anxi to settle and expand their communities was basically because they were attracted by Liao Wang Mo Zhouzhao, the grandson of a man from Huaihe River region, and Huang Han General Dong Jinfeng, who was also from Huaihe River region.

The recent death of Dong Jinfeng's eldest son in battle greatly shocked them and deepened their hatred for the Russians.

"We don't need the village chief to tell us what to do; we're all reasonable people and know what to do."

"Once we're on the battlefield, we won't be afraid of death. We certainly won't try to cheat or shirk our duties. You can rest assured!"

After saying that, these righteous men, working skillfully with the machines, continued to dig deeper.

Meanwhile, the Ross garrison on the distant bastion was helpless. They kept firing their cannons, but the fire was either blocked by the zigzag trenches or they could not hit the target at all.

Even if a shot occasionally hits, the presence of the gun shield prevents it from causing fatal damage to the steam excavator, and it can be repaired and continue digging.

Not to mention that while the excavators were digging, sharpshooters were also deployed to protect them. They were scattered in various places and used various forms of camouflage to precisely snipe the Russian artillerymen on the bastion when they fired their cannons.

More than one hundred volunteers from Qinghe County, Huai'an Prefecture, dug for half a day and advanced more than seven hundred meters.

This would normally take at least five days, but with a steam excavator, it was done in half a day.

You know, this battle would be a real headache even for Wei Qing and Li Jing, let alone Kutuzov.

In the afternoon, Yi Cong came to dig in Liuba Hall of Hanzhong Prefecture, Shaanxi Province, which is now Liuba County of Hanzhong City.

Although Liuba is known as the throat of the Qin and Han dynasties, it is really poor!
The mountains are high and the waters are treacherous; the poverty is heartbreaking.

In Dayu, Liuba Hall was abolished long ago because the people were moved away. During the Qianlong period, the entire hall had more than 20,000 people, but now only two or three thousand remain. The original Liuba City has been transformed into Liuba Town, which has the function of a post station.

These men who came from Liuba naturally know what it's like back in their hometown.

During the Qing Dynasty, women in Liuba were desperate to marry out of the area, and women from outside would rather be someone's second wife than marry into the mountains.

Now, every family has hundreds of acres of land, more than ten cattle and horses, and hundreds of sheep. They eat so much that even their farts are dripping with oil.

As for finding a wife, it's even simpler. If no Han Chinese woman would be interested in you, just follow the main force to Persia, to the Pashtun tribes (Afghanistan), or to eastern Asia Minor under the Ottoman Empire and plunder a few.

Even if you don't dare to use a knife and can't steal it, you can still buy one from someone who can steal it by using two horses or several hundred kilograms of flour.

After these Liuba people in Anxi got used to the climate and soil, they went from resenting the emperor for driving them away from their hometown to being grateful to the emperor for sending people to tie them up with ropes and bring them to Anxi.

Therefore, once they started, they dug forward like madmen, and in one afternoon they dug almost a thousand meters.

Now it was the Russians in the bastion who couldn't sit still. They gathered several hundred men, dragging a three-pounder cannon, and tried to take down the steam excavator.

As a result, even when these men from Liuba were exhausted from their work, they still pulled out their flintlock pistols and fought the Russians to the death when they saw them come out.

Killing a Rakshasa demon is worth five acres of land or equivalent goods. Those who kill many can even accumulate merit and become officials. Not risking your life is foolish.

Soon after, a huge whooshing sound came. It turned out that the artillery of the Great Yu in the distance had noticed the Russians long ago. After a round of calibration, the second round destroyed the Russian cannons.

At the sound of a whistle, the regular soldiers lying in ambush in the trenches leaped up and quickly killed dozens of Russian soldiers who came out of the bastion. The rest scurried back into the bastion in panic and dared not come out again.

Then it was simple. The next day, the army took over the work from the men of Liuba and dug breastworks in the trenches that could protect against bullets and ricocheting shells. Then they bombarded the breastworks with large-caliber mortars.

At the same time, sharpshooters began to approach the bastion, firing at the enemy artillery and snipers on it.

After two or three days of bombardment and sniping, either the bastion was breached and the army poured in, or the defenders in the bastion surrendered in despair.

Prince Balagejiang, inside the city of Tsaritsyn, watched everything outside through his telescope. He knew that Tsaritsyn could not be defended because the Khitans had steam excavators.

If the Khitans hadn't had this, given the pace of building a bastion at least every two months, they would never have been able to destroy the bastions along the Volga River.

Because the time available for combat here is no more than seven months a year; the rest of the time, the cold winds blowing from the Arctic are unbearable for anyone.

They dig in the summer, and the Rus' can slowly repair it in the winter. After several rounds of this, and a few years later, the war can be resolved peacefully.

But things are different now. This year, all the bastions on both sides of the Volga River will definitely be destroyed, and next year the enemy will be at the gates of the city. At most, we can hold out until the end of the year, after which morale will collapse and we will be unable to hold out any longer.

In response, Prince Balagdion wrote a letter to the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov, describing at length his difficulties.

But his purpose was not to complain, but to hope that Kutuzov would abandon Tsaritsyn and allow him to withdraw.

But Kutuzov's reply had no such intention; it was all just encouraging official rhetoric, which Prince Balagdion understood immediately.

For a fleeting moment, this renowned Russian general thought he might as well offer Tsaritsyn as a gift and surrender to the Khitans.

But just thinking about it, in the Third Rome, he was a prince of Georgian royal lineage, one of the top five generals in the empire, a distant relative acknowledged by the Tsar, and someone whose sons could marry princesses and whose daughters could marry into the royal family.

If he were to become a traitor, not only would the Khitans not give him this treatment, but his family and relatives in St. Petersburg and Moscow would also be executed by the Tsar.

As Prince Balagdion had predicted, by the end of October, before the cold winds arrived, the bastions on both sides of the Volga River had been largely destroyed, and more than 10,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in action, leaving only Tsaritsyn, an isolated city on an island in the river.

Undeterred, Prince Balagjion launched a probing attack in winter, intending to annihilate the remaining Da Yu garrison and then attempt to repair the captured fortress.

Then they heard shouts of "Broken bowls! Broken bowls!" rising and falling.

Thousands of soldiers with round, flat faces appeared out of the snow and ice like ghosts, indistinguishable to the Rakshasa but instantly recognizable to the Easterners.

This has almost become a common practice in Dayu. Whenever there is a task that requires holding the line in the freezing cold, the local soldiers from Lelang Town, Xinluohan Town, and Guangzhou Town in Liaoning are usually sent to guard it.

These Koreans can wear one less layer of cotton clothing than others in temperatures below minus twenty degrees Celsius, and they can move more quickly.

They can cook once every two days, and after two hot meals, they can basically not eat for about two days, which greatly reduces the pressure on logistical support.

Most importantly, they have extremely high tolerance and basically obey officers' orders unconditionally.

Therefore, even though the fighting strength of the Great Yu was not the strongest, no matter what kind of army it was, they were willing to recruit a group of them to do the hard labor.

When Prince Balagjun heard this accented Chinese, which he could tell was different from what he was hearing, his heart sank. He had dealt with these people quite a bit.

In Balagejion's view, these were the gray beasts among the Khitans, extremely hardworking, and he could not easily drive them away.

Meanwhile, in Belgrade, Liu Guoqing was also gritting his teeth and persevering.

After Li Xingtai led his cavalry away, the French army began frantically digging trenches and advancing towards Belgrade.

The defensive system of Belgrade consists of three parts: the eastern city, the western city, and the river island bastion.

To safely cross the Danube River from here, it is necessary to capture the island bastion. To capture the island bastion, both the east and west sides of the city must be captured. Without capturing one side, the island bastion cannot be taken.

Therefore, after Li Xingtai left, Liu Guoqing voluntarily abandoned Xicheng to consolidate his defenses. He burned everything he couldn't take with him, using the fire to delay the French advance for almost a month.

But then the French army began to bombard the city with artillery, firing more than 10,000 incendiary bombs into the eastern part of Belgrade within two months, so much so that the defenders' task was not defense but firefighting for a large part of the time.

By the time winter arrived, there was practically nothing left in Belgrade that could be easily ignited; the city was devastated.

However, this did not stump Liu Guoqing. Since there were no houses to live in, he led the garrison to dig dugouts.

He had already considered the lack of firewood for cooking. Before the French army's large-scale bombardment, he wrapped the firewood in oiled paper and put it in the city's waterways, so that he could simply scoop it out to cook.

The main problem now is actually the lack of ammunition, because more than 10,000 incendiary bombs fired by the French army caused one of the three main munitions depots to explode.

In addition, medical supplies began to be scarce, and many wounded soldiers could not receive proper treatment.

Despite the numerous difficulties, Belgrade should hold on until next summer without major problems.

In Moldavia, however, Napoleon's main force encountered a major problem.

The Argesh River, which originates in the southern Transylvanian Plateau, has extremely poor navigation conditions.

This river rushes down from the Southern Carpathian Mountains, its current swift, and it became famous in Romania for its abundant water resources.

Abundant water resources can be due to favorable water transport conditions or a large drop in elevation and rapid current, which can be used to build hydroelectric power stations.

The Argeș River is the latter; two hundred years later, most of Romania's hydroelectric power stations are located on its upper reaches.

What troubled Napoleon even more was that, due to the influence of the Black Sea, the Argesh River's flood season was in the spring, while the French army's operations began in July 1812.

After leveling roads, building simple pontoon bridges, and constructing small boats, the French army finally set off in late October.

After a month of arduous marching through the mountains, they were just about to emerge from the southern Carpathian Mountains, but by then it was deep winter, and the army had to rest.

In the spring of 1813, the Argeche River swelled, and the temporary roads and bridges built by the French army were almost completely destroyed. As a result, the French army had no choice but to salvage all the transport ships and continue to stay there.

This blockade lasted for four months, leaving more than 200,000 troops stranded on the middle reaches of the Arjesh River.

Of course, there was some action taken. Napoleon sent Marshal Udineau with 40,000 elite troops as the vanguard, heading towards Bucharest.

However, Marshal Udino's operation did not go very smoothly. One important reason was that the Xia Fan Three Guards, Liao Fan Left and Right Guards, and Anxi Army including Liang Fan Left Guard under Mo Gongze were no less than Napoleon's French army in terms of troop quality.

These three vassal armies together numbered around 25,000 men. In addition, Huang Renyong's Xiaowu Army, which was part of the western route of the expeditionary force against Russia, was also brought over by Li Xingtai. Mo Gongze had 35,000 elite troops under his command.

Even though Li Xingtai and Liu Guoqing of Serbia sent 12,000 men, and some others were killed in battle, Mo Gongze was still able to mobilize around 20,000 men.

If we include the Black Brunswick Legion that followed Mogonze, some volunteers who joined with German nationalist sentiments, as well as the cavalry, skirmishers, and militia of the Kingdom of Hungary, Mogonze had about 70,000 men under his command.

Therefore, upon receiving news that Udino was leading 40,000 French troops to attack, Mogongze did not flee but instead deployed his army at Pitesti to await Udino.

Pitshti is located 120 kilometers northwest of Bucharest and is a necessary route for those traveling from the southern Carpathian Mountains to Bucharest.

In April 1813, a fierce battle broke out between the two sides at Pitschti. Maurice deployed 15,000 troops from the three feudatories, plus 25,000 auxiliary troops, to fight against the French army of 40,000 against 40,000, and launched a fierce counterattack.

Udino was quite clever; he knew that although he was the attacker, it was Morgenthau who was currently in a hurry, because Morgenthau would not be able to defeat the 200,000 French troops once they arrived.

Therefore, Udino chose to set up his troops on the outskirts of Pitști, backed by the mountains, instead of launching an attack on the heavily fortified city of Pitști by Mogongze.

Mo Gongze had anticipated that Udino would not attack, and the General Staff's plan was based on the attacking side. So he immediately went out of the city to launch a surprise attack, not giving Udino time to build fortifications on the mountain.

The two sides fought a six-day battle, the key point being whether the Triple Army could capture one of the three hills occupied by Udino.

Once one is captured, the artillery can be pushed up the mountain, and the superior supplies of more cannons and shells can be used to defeat the French army.

Udino knew this too, but the three hills were not far apart and not very large, so they could not be heavily guarded. They could only rely on the strength of regimental-level units.

At the regimental level, the Three Feudatories Army far surpassed most of the French army.

Besides their equipment advantages, such as the Three Feudatories' needle-firing muskets, six-shot revolvers, and bayonets made of fine steel, they also had an advantage in the individual quality of their soldiers.

Because the Han Chinese who were willing to come to Anxi to settle were often not good people in their hometowns. Those who were honest farmers and good at farming would not take the dangerous path of settlement.

At the same time, when you arrive at the colony, you are required to have excellent personal qualities. To put it bluntly, you are not required to be good at reasoning, but you must be able to use your fists and swords to reason.

It's very simple. Colonization requires living among a large number of local people. You need to suppress and assimilate them. You can't make a living this way without being ruthless and having some tricks up your sleeve.

The largest source of immigrants to Anxi came from southern Gansu, northern Shaanxi, northwestern Shanxi, eastern Shanxi, and northern Hebei.

These areas have historically been complex in terms of ethnicity and religion, and the local people are known for their fierce and unruly nature, making them the best source of soldiers for the north.

With a combination of factors, the troops that could be drawn from the Three Feudatories' army to carry out a raid at the regimental level (thousands of men) were all tough opponents. The so-called elite French troops simply could not withstand their attack.

Therefore, by the second day of the battle, the central hill, the main target of the Three Feudatories' attack, had been captured.

Subsequently, Mogongze ordered Hungarian cavalry to intercept the French infantry, while tens of thousands of Romanian laborers carried the French bombardment from two nearby hilltops to deliver artillery pieces.

Udino hadn't expected the hill to fall so quickly, so he ordered the French army to launch a desperate counterattack. The two sides clashed fiercely at the foot of the hill several times, but to no avail, and the French army failed to recapture the hill.

On the fifth day, after the cannons of the Three Feudatories were transported up the hill, the French casualties increased dramatically, and they could no longer continue the attack.

Udino's dream of holding out for at least half a month until the main French force arrived was shattered, leaving him with no choice but to retreat.

Ultimately, Udino's French army suffered a crushing defeat, losing over eight thousand men.

Moggonze's losses were greater than the French army's, approaching 15,000, but the Sanfan army suffered only about 2,000 casualties. The Hungarians and Romanian auxiliary troops suffered the most casualties.

In early May 1813, the Argesch River finally calmed down, and Napoleon led his main force to approach Pietști. He severely punished Oudinot and took command of all the French troops.

In late May, the defenders of Pittsti could not withstand the attack of the main French force and retreated under the orders of Mogonze. Subsequently, the French army approached the outskirts of Bucharest.

Bucharest is not located on the Danube River, but rather on the Dönboviča River, a third-order tributary of the Danube.

This river flows through the city of Bucharest, and its abundant water resources have created a series of up to sixteen lakes of varying sizes in this sprawling city.

The city has a large number of churches that have been built since the 15th century, totaling more than 60. Most of them are built with solid stone, and each church is a fortress.

This is why Maurice did not evacuate Bucharest. He divided the area into the Denboviča River and sixteen lakes, connecting them with steam-powered gunboats to transport supplies, making it difficult for the French army, which had almost no riverboats, to take advantage of its numerical superiority.

Faced with this situation, Napoleon could only learn from his experience with Morgenroth at Tsaritsyn, slowly chipping away at each fortress one by one.

(End of this chapter)