Chapter 428: The Death of the Cossacks (3)

"Huh! Only 4,000 cavalry returned! Although he didn't bring cavalry this time, there was also a regiment of infantry, which had already prepared a blocking position, and made trenches inside and outside the city, waiting for Cliff's 20,000 troops to come back, fight a positional battle, and solve Cliff in a battle.

As a result, they didn't like it, so they only sent 4,000 people back and continued to run to Yili.

It's a bit embarrassing, my pants are off, you just show me this!

"Hit! Give me a clean way to eat them. "Four thousand is four thousand, then he has no bones to eat, Yang Dongfang was afraid that these Cossacks would run away, and he sent dozens of horsemen to rush to the front of this group of returning reinforcements and shoot provocations.

These dozens of horsemen were so deep that they ran away after pretending to be pressed, and they fired two or three hundred meters away, and returned with a shout.

Sure enough, it was found that the Chinese army dared to dance on the tip of the knife, Guan Gong played with a big knife in front of him, and the Cossack cavalry roared and pursued the provocateur sent to the door.

Of course, the result was the loss of dozens of people, and the more they chased, the more annoyed they became, and they also let people flee back to the opponent's trench position.

Seeing that the Chinese army had pulled the troops outside the city to set up defenses, the leading Russian generals immediately ordered the troops to rest for half an hour, carefully inspected the opponent's position, and finally launched an attack.

"Command! Withdraw all the Maxim Gatlings from the first trench and block the enemy's retreat into the second trench for ten minutes! Don't use machine guns lightly! ”

The regiments and battalions that received the order put away their machine guns and saw that the Russian attack was blocked with only half of its strength, rifle bullets kept being fired, and the Cossack cavalry kept falling.

At this time, the leading general found that the rifles of the Chinese army were very different from the Russian army, not to mention the bullets, the reload speed was extremely fast, and there were not many combat forces, but they repelled their first wave of attacks.

The Cossacks, who have always been fierce, encountered setbacks and met opponents, so they secretly guessed that it was no wonder that it was difficult for the Chinese army to take Almaty so quickly, it turned out that the guns were fast.

The reorganized troops were assembled, and the attack was launched again, this time the Russian army invested more men and horses, almost two-thirds, and sure enough, this time it had an effect, and the Chinese army, which had fired a shot, actually withdrew from the trenches and retreated to the foot of the wall.

It was a retreat, not a defeat, the Russian generals saw through the telescope that the Chinese army had an infantry aisle, and the Chinese soldiers retreated in an orderly and calm manner, and they were not defeated, let alone scattered on the grass like lambs, so their troops rushed through the first trench and could not trample and slaughter the Chinese soldiers.

"Very smart Hua Jun! The Orientals were really masters of civil engineering, and they could come up with such a trench arrangement, and if the infantry of the empire had learned this trick, it would have been much easier to deal with the infantry attack of the Ottoman Empire...... It's a pity that we are cavalry, we have no obstacles, nothing can stop our horseshoe charge. ”

Just when the Russian army thought that it would soon be able to force the Chinese army to withdraw from the second line of defense and retreat into the city, suddenly the gunfire became more intensive, and people kept being shot and falling off their horses, looking at the commanders so distressed.

Soon the second wave of attack was repulsed, the casualties reached about 800, the leading generals bited, regrouped, all put into it, and from themselves into battle, raised the command knife, swore to die, the Cossacks fought bloody, this time must rush into the city, cut off the head of the Chinese army.

"That's it!"

Seeing that the commander on the opposite side went into battle in person, and with an angry face, Yang Dongfang read it gently, and the regiment commanders and battalion commanders in the city also read it: "It's okay!" Machine guns ready, fire with all your might! ”

All the muskets fired, constantly firing, the Cossacks in a straight line of casualties, but they were still desperately pounding.

"Sudden ......!"

Then Makqin also opened fire, dozens of fire snakes swept away, and a large number of war horses fell in an instant, raising sand and dust, and the corpses were tired in rows, mixed with people and horses.

How could the Cossack cavalry be willing, pay such a large casualty and see that they were about to succeed, and suddenly such sharp firearms appeared, they were unwilling, they were the overlords of the steppe, they have always been the ones who beat others, and now even the enemy has not cut a single one.

They are unwilling!

The surviving Cossack cavalry continued to charge, because the commander above had not given the order to retreat, and they had to continue to charge forward, facing the most violent firearm onslaught.

It's not that the Russian army leading the army doesn't want to retreat, but it knows that it's useless to retreat, the Chinese army has this kind of firearms, where can you escape.

And at this moment, he had a kind of consciousness that as soon as this thing came out, the cavalry would die.

The cannons came out, but they still couldn't stop the edge of the cavalry, and the Minnie rifle came out, and it didn't either, but at the moment, this thing, such an efficient weapon, as long as it was a row, it could beat the cavalry's advantage to the scum.

The smoke of gunpowder dissipated, the battlefield was bloody, the strong smell of blood covered up the smell of sulfur, all 4,000 Cossacks were killed, and the Chinese army was wounded dozens of people, but at this time Cliff did not know what was happening here, and still advanced towards Yili.

It was not until a day later, when the whole army was trapped in the vicinity of Yili, that instead of the news of the restoration of the city came from the direction of Almaty, the Chinese army appeared on the northern rear flank of Yili, blocking the direction of his other retreat.

If Cliff left with the cavalry at this time, then he could still save his life, but he didn't do this, but left Yili with all the generals, he wanted to see how the Chinese army captured Yili from his own hands, and what the real combat effectiveness of the Chinese army was.

He still felt that he had tens of thousands of people, and there was no problem in holding the first half of the year, after all, the Chinese army really entered Yili and other areas not 100,000 troops, but about 20,000, which was less than himself, why should he abandon the city and leave, and give up the large tract of land that he had finally extorted from the Qing Dynasty.

So this turned on the Chinese army to calmly surround Cliff, the armies of both sides were set up on the north bank of the Erie River, and the Chinese army trapped the Russian army in the east and west, and first repaired the trenches to let the enemy break through.

Then set up artillery to prepare for a general attack, in fact, the Russian army on the south bank of the river originally had a strategic place that echoed from afar, but after Yang Dongfang arrived, in an instant, Cliff withdrew everyone across the river, losing the last chance to break through.

The winter on both sides of the Yili River is white, and on the surface of the river, there is intermittent freezing, but most of them will not freeze, Yang Dongfang walked on both sides of the river with a cadre of school officers and brigadier generals, and sighed: "What a beautiful and magnificent river and mountain, are you willing to give it up?" ”

"I don't want to!" The cold wind was biting, and everyone knew that His Majesty the Emperor didn't take them out to see the scenery, so they shouted one by one.

"Yes! We don't want to, we don't dare to do it, in the past, we always promised that the Celestial Empire was a big country, a country of all nations, and the sky was round and the land was round, with our China as the center, and we always disdained the externalization of the surroundings.

Look down on here today, look down on there tomorrow, throw it away every corner and corner, always don't cherish it, don't you know that every inch of mountains and rivers and every inch of blood are all desperately fought by the ancestors.

It is these corners and corners, once lost, future generations will use countless blood to take it, so of course we are unwilling, we have to make a good start, from today we start to care about the world, not only food and vegetables, from today we will pick up the lost mountains and rivers piece by piece, we have to keep picking up, only to the corners of the world ......! ”

There was a biting cold in the air, but everyone's hearts were pulled by Yang Dongfang's chat.

"Go ahead! Go and use our cannons to tell others what is called China and what is the Chinese Empire! Cut our soil within cannon range, go! End this battle as soon as possible, and we will go back to Chengdu, Beijing, Jinling, Xi'an, and Guangzhou for the New Year! ”

Erie's cannon fire was a perfect end to 1866.

With Yang Dongfang here, what kind of small cannon is playing, directly bombarded with heavy artillery!

The sound of the earth shaking the mountains echoed in the Ili River, and the shells smashed on the Russian army's detached positions and in the city, but the ice that flowed down was cracked and dissolved, and the huge gunpowder swept off the Russian army's position, and all the city walls were knocked down, and the low wattle mud covered the earth wall, which collapsed in an instant.

That's when Cliff realized he was wrong.

The Chinese army did not want a siege, they wanted to really attack, they wanted to bury themselves and their troops here.

They have large-caliber heavy artillery, oh my God, how did the Chinese army do it, how did they get heavy artillery to such a hellish place.

At this time, Yili was not too developed, and there was really nothing to call except for the economic vitality brought by inland commerce.

So Cliff didn't like this place.

"General! Our army suffered heavy losses, the heavy artillery of the Chinese army destroyed the defenses we had worked so hard to build, the city walls were also blown down, and we had no cover at all. ”

Cliff looked at the lieutenant colonel who came in to report, and his mood was also extremely anxious, listening to the number of casualties, knowing that he had misestimated the Chinese army this time, he was annoyed, but he was still very calm, and only when the casualties of the troops reached more than 2,000, he said: "Break through!" Break out now! The necessities immediately stand out. ”

It's really not a good decision at this time, but Cliff has no other way, otherwise by tomorrow, his soldiers will have a mental breakdown, and the day after tomorrow they will not have to fight, they will all become lambs and surrender directly.

Surrender, which the Cossacks could not tolerate, they were great warriors who would rather die in battle than surrender.

Cliff arranged for men to break through in both east and west directions at the same time, and rushed out of the city under artillery fire.

Yang Dongfang watched all this on the other side of the river, and said lightly: "It's too late to break through now!" ”

How could Cliff's little trick escape Yang Dongfang's eyes, it is clear that the east and west are breaking through at the same time, but in fact, the west is the real and the east is virtual.

Watching Cliff use cavalry to open the way, Yang Dongfang guessed it, but he didn't remind the officers below that this battle was surrounded and annihilated, and let them play freely.

The Cossacks rushed out bravely, but it really surprised the Chinese army in the east, and the surprise that the Russian army broke through a little early and decisively.

Since it is a cavalry, there is no need to be polite, the person in charge of the east directly asked each regiment to show the real guys, and there was no hiding it.

The fiery serpents swallowed, the bullets rained down, like harvesting wheat, and the Cossack cavalry was thrown off their horses one by one, and the war horses kept falling to the ground, and the dense single act blocked the cavalry.

Not sparing a trace of place, the corpses were kept at a certain distance and formed a corpse belt, the Cossack cavalry was still rushing up, Cliff had no choice, and his cavalry also had no choice, rushing out to live, not rushing out to die.

The cavalry is an eagle under the steppe sky, and galloping freely without open space is equal to waste.

Until all the Cossack cavalry was killed, Cliff still could not break through the Chinese position.

When the corpse provided his infantry with an offensive front trench, a trench made of corpses, the Russian army lay in the corpse trench and changed color, and many people vomited.

Either Cliff is a ruthless man, at this time he can only force the infantry to continue to break through, he is not without musketeers, but very few and not too many, at this time there is a chance to shoot through the corpse trench to provide cover for the charging soldiers.

The Russian infantry died worse than the cavalry, and under the frantic strafing of the machine guns, they didn't even have a chance to run or retreat, and they killed a wave when they came up.

It wasn't until it was almost dark that the Russian army stopped attacking, they were tired, they didn't have the ability to launch a breakthrough, the night was so dark, and their fate was the same as this night, it was already decided.

And the Chinese army is numb, this time the number of people killed may be much more than before, and the mechanical fire has long ceased to treat the Russian army as a human being.

It snowed in the middle of the night, it was very heavy, it was exceptionally quiet, the snow covered the imprint of the ground, the city of Erie became a lonely boat, the second day the Russian army did not break through, the third day did not, and on the fourth day the white flag was raised......

(Recommended new book - God-level Emperor System of the Three Kingdoms!) ）

(End of chapter)