At this time, if the last reinforcements from the Hexi Corridor and Hezhong are included, the garrison strength of the entire pan-European region reaches 400,000 men. However, both Xiao Xuan himself and Zhou Dayong, who was in charge of the European region at this time, focused their forces and efforts on both sides of the West River in the west and even on the southern European region that had not yet been completely swept away. The reason is simple: only these places exist with relatively reliable organization and discipline, and even the remaining high-quality handicrafts and human resources, which may resurge at any time into a force with sufficient threat.

At this time, although Eastern Europe had been freed from early ignorance through the spread of civilization, and the per capita iron production may not be much inferior to that of the late Ming Dynasty, and the quality may be superior, but on the whole it is far from being comparable with the Russia of Peter the Great or Catherine, who was facing the rapid development of national power. Even if Eastern Europe is given a few years, it is unlikely that a sufficiently threatening force will emerge, which is fundamentally different from the rest of Europe.

Therefore, in terms of the layout of encirclement and suppression, about 300,000 of the 400,000 troops were placed in the west, and only about 100,000 troops were placed in the eastern European region. Among these 100,000 people, there are about 20,000 or 30,000 servant troops composed of local people who have been elected in the middle of the river, and the core main force is only 780,000 people.

Because the intended target was the opponent in Eastern Europe, and like the nomadic armies in many places, the main body of these armies was not firearms or artillerymen, but the main force of archers with horses and feet, which was to a large extent more similar to the cavalry force of the Song Dynasty.

In two or three years, there are still differences in conditions, and the strength of the 26th to 30th armies of these revolutionary armies cannot be comparable to the elite combat capabilities of the volunteer troops in those years, but after having decent conditions for the selection of soldiers, these people have become standard elite archers who can barely use a strong bow with one stone and two fights with one stone and skillfully use a strong bow with one stone under the necessary training investment. Although the ability to fight at night or on horseback was not as strong as that of the main volunteer forces, it was sufficient to play a necessary role in most cases against opponents in Eastern Europe, whose main object was cavalry.

After a considerable proportion of the main forces were used to reinforce the operations in Western Europe, the insurrectionary forces in Poland and Russia were also greatly weakened at this time, and the total number of troops in the war was only about 100,000, and because the basic conditions of the people were far inferior to those in Western Europe, many of the troops of the temporary uprising, even after more than a year of preparation, still only had some arquebuses and even cavalry guns that were of inferior quality than before. Armor and shields, which were not very high-proportioned, were either made of armor or simple wooden shields, or smuggled from Sweden or elsewhere.

The news brought by the return of many troops from Western Europe also reassured many of the resistance forces and nobles in the Polish-Lithuanian Federation and even in Russia. According to the opinion of the generals who have fought the enemy on a large scale, the defending infantry group of the strong enemy in the east is a very good opponent who is very good at fortifications and explosives, but their shortcomings are also obvious. In addition to the fact that the level of firepower and training is obviously inferior to that of the elites who have made people tremble in the first expedition to Europe before, they are also more conservative in terms of command and operational initiative. As long as you have enough horseskin to maintain effective maneuvering, you will be able to remain invincible against such opponents.

This impression was especially certain when some information came from the front lines that the new reinforcements had come in to try to reconquer Eastern Europe, although they had horses, were mostly leading them rather than marching on horseback.

Through a lot of raids, reconnaissance and tentative encounters along the way, the Eastern European coalition forces also found that these people also made the mistake of dividing troops for the sake of logistical convenience, which was not much, and the 100,000-strong group, which also included many dissident servants, was only about 30,000 or 40,000 core main forces on each road after the division of troops, which seemed to give the Eastern European coalition forces the expectation of regrouping enough forces to at least trap the enemy in the new battle.

Therefore, the Eastern European coalition forces, which had always had a tradition of being proactive, did not have much concern, and in addition to the necessary forces to guard the direction of the Western Front, they soon concentrated a cavalry force of 70,000 or 80,000 troops, and first completely surrounded the invading enemy from the south in the hinterland of South Russia in a very short time near autumn.

The army, which did not have much training in night battles, did not hesitate to launch a cavalry charge when the sky was just beginning to brighten, and mixed the really powerful elite with a large force of troops. If the defenders are not strong enough in firepower, there is a high probability of being broken through.

During the attack, many people were a little unimpressed when they found that there were not too many heavy firearms pointed at them, but more than some Tatar-like bows and arrows.

Perhaps the northern minorities have been in decline for too long, and even in the peak of the Mongol era, they relied more on the advantages of command and organization than on the real sense of well-trained strong soldiers, and in the eyes of many civilized Europeans in this era, the bow and arrow may have a decent rate of fire or flexibility, but the lethality and power are somewhat too low. Even for many ordinary war horses whose specifications are not very large, they do not have the ability to quickly lose their combat effectiveness in a short period of time.

However, when the dense rain of arrows began to shoot a hundred and fifty paces away for the first time, they personally felt a completely different killing effect. Those heavy arrows, which are close to triple and double, can quickly render a horse without much protection ineffective after being shot, even when thrown at maximum range. There was no perfect iron armor, and only some soldiers in simple armor would be shot down immediately after being hit, something that had never happened before when they had fought other Tatars in the steppe.

It's just that maybe the distance is too far, and even the combat method of projectile will not have a high hit rate in the first place, and the casualties of the cavalry in the attack from the rain of arrows thrown over are not many. The Eastern European coalition forces, which were good at cavalry warfare, also paid attention to minimizing the risk of casualties in relatively dispersed formations during the offensive.

However, when the horse team at the front approached a distance of about seventy or eighty paces, the situation was completely different, and those arrows that were not much inferior to the middle and lower class crossbows continued to knock down the elite soldiers rushing in front one after another with an unimaginable rate of fire, density, and even hit rate, and it seemed that barely decent protection did not play much role.

(End of chapter)