The sudden retreat of the Xia army was Fu Xinghua's handiwork. Lin

After a day of fierce fighting, he saw that trying to crush the main Russian army on the east bank of the Ural River was an almost impossible thing to accomplish in the short term.

The resistance of the Russian army was more fierce than he imagined, and he thought that the Russian army he faced would be as weak as the Russian army seven years ago, but now it seems that the blind assault will only provoke them to resist more fiercely, but if they are given time to retreat, they may take the opportunity to withdraw.

Moreover, after a high-intensity strong attack, the Xia army not only suffered heavy casualties, but the soldiers were also very tired, although they had undergone systematic training, their morale and will to fight were much higher than ordinary people, but they were also flesh and blood, and they also needed to rest and replenish their physical strength.

Facts have proved that Fu Xinghua's idea is correct, and the Russian army really seized this opportunity to prepare for withdrawal.

Daniel Zhang came over with a somewhat tired look at this time, he looked at the crowded Russian army camp, and said to Fu Xinghua: "Anxibo, are we going to let the Russian barbarians retreat west of the Ural River like this?" Perhaps we can attack them halfway, and even if we can't defeat them, we can still kill their morale and vitality as much as possible."

"Do you think the Russian army wouldn't think of that?" Fu Xinghua asked rhetorically, "Commander Zhang, you can take a closer look, the Russian army is still dedicating a lot of troops to guard against our attack, and when they start to retreat, I don't think they will give us a chance to attack halfway."

Daniel Zhang did not speak immediately, he picked up the monocular and looked at the Russian position, through the lens magnification and the bright light of the torches in the Russian camp, he could clearly see the Russian soldiers who were sent to the position to prevent their attack. Lin

After he put down the binoculars, his brows furrowed slightly, as if he was organizing the language to say something, Fu Xinghua took a step ahead of him and said: "Commander Zhang, you are right, I will not let them cross the river smoothly, I decided to transfer the artillery up when they cross the river, and launch an artillery bombardment on their pontoon bridge, as long as their pontoon bridge is blown up, then the Russian army left on the river bank will become a trapped beast."

"That's very good." Daniel Zhang's brows relaxed, he nodded, and said.

The movement of the Russian army was not fast, or rather, it was not easy for nearly 100,000 people to evacuate, and Tsar Alexei also realized this, and in order to prevent the Xia army from launching an attack on the way to disrupt their retreat plan, the tsar prepared to let his troops cross the river in batches.

He first asked the Chinese army to meet the Xia army's strong attack of the shooting corps and Western-style regiments to cross the river from the pontoon bridge overnight and return to the mainland for rest, and at the same time, the engineers in the army were also required to work overtime overnight to build a few more pontoon bridges on the river.

While the Russian army was preparing to withdraw here, the Xia army also had a tacit understanding and began to dig trenches on the spot, using the body of the grain carriage as a temporary wall to build a temporary camp.

While the soldiers set up temporary camps on the spot, Fu Xinghua finally got an exact casualty figure - under the strong attack regardless of casualties, more than 2,600 soldiers of the Xia army were killed, including the Korean brigade and the Japanese brigade.

Of the more than 2,600 soldiers, nearly two-fifths of the casualties were contracted by foreign soldiers, and the most important type of casualties was the grenadiers who rushed to the front, and as the main force of the attack, the grenadiers accounted for two-fifths of the casualties, and the casualties were mainly caused by artillery bombardment. Lin

Terrible shotgun.

As for how many Russian casualties they caused, this cannot be counted for the time being, because the bodies are all in positions controlled by the Russian army.

"Your Majesty, this is the casualty of the day's battle, please take a look." On the other side, in the Tsar's mobile palace, Grand Duke Miroslavsky walked in with a record full of crooked Russian letters and handed it over to the Tsar.

After reading the above records, the Tsar's face became gloomy to the naked eye, and he said: "The combat effectiveness of the Xia people should not be underestimated, and they can inflict such a large number of casualties on us as the defender when they attack against our firepower, which is simply a terrible army."

On this record, the Russian army has lost nearly six casualties

A thousand, if you add the seriously wounded and the wounded who survived only amputation, it would be more than six thousand.

Compared with the corpse of the Xia army found, the casualty figure is exactly three to one, and an average of three Russian soldiers must be killed in exchange for the life of a Xia soldier.

This is still a defensive war, as the defender, their casualties are greater than those of the Xia army, in addition to casualties, there are dozens of artillery pieces that are scrapped and unusable because the fire door is driven into a wedge, if this kind of battle damage ratio is passed out, European countries will only laugh at him The strength of the Russian *** team is really weak. Lin

Seeing the Tsar's ugly face, Grand Duke Miroslavsky considered his words for a while, but decided to divert the subject, he turned and whispered a few words to the guards guarding the tent, who glanced at the Tsar, turned and walked out.

After a while, the guard returned to the tent with a captured Type II rifle in his hand.

The guard's movements did not escape the Tsar's eyes, his eyes narrowed slightly, he looked at the rifle in the soldier's hand, which was obviously different from the arquebus, and said, "This was captured from the Xia people?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." Grand Duke Miroslavsky nodded, took the rifle from the guards, and showed it to the Tsar: "This musket is the standard equipment of the Xia army, they call it the Type II rifle, which seems to be taken from the meaning of the second year of Wu'an in the Xia people's domestic independence year, and it has been in service for sixteen years now."

The tsar bowed slightly, he also knew this small background, in fact, before the war, he also tried several times to find a way to steal this rifle through the spies lurking in the Xia Dynasty, but because there was no way to buy the local residents, and they Russians were very conspicuous, so not only did they fail to achieve their goal, but also folded in many spies who turned into merchants.

Moreover, Xia Jun has a high degree of secrecy about the rifle, even if he once expressed his hope that this kind of second-type rifle could be included in the national gift sent by the Xia Dynasty, he failed to do so, so that he has never been able to see this rifle with his own eyes until now.

And now, he finally saw it, albeit at a great cost of casualties. Lin

Grand Duke Miroslavsky continued to babble on about the rifle until the Tsar had become a little impatient, and the Grand Duke, who was interested in firearms, finally turned the subject to the rifle fire.

He pointed to the flintlock device of the Type II rifle and said: "I have seen all the captured Type II rifles, they are all fired with a flintlock device, and the soldiers of the Xia Army are used to loading gunpowder and projectiles in a small paper bag in advance, during the battle, they can directly bite open the paper bag and pour the gunpowder and projectile inside together, reducing the time for soldiers to pour from the powder powder and ammunition pack, I think this is a pioneering initiative worth learning, if we follow suit, the reloading time will be greatly shortened!"

Speaking of this, the Grand Duke was obviously a little excited: "Of course, the most important thing is this flintlock device, there are already weapons dealers in Western Europe who have installed this device on muskets, although its cost may be more expensive than arquebuses, but I dare to guarantee that in the future battlefield, flintlock pistols will replace arquebuses as the darling of wars, and the achievements of the Xia army are enough to speak for themselves!"

"Miroslavsky, you mean that we are also going to follow the example of the Xia people, imitate their muskets, imitate their tactics, and fight them?" The Tsar asked rhetorically, somewhat uncertainly.

"Yes, Your Majesty, that's what the minister thinks." The Grand Duke nodded, affirming the Tsar's rhetorical question.

The Tsar didn't answer immediately, he looked at the rifle in the Grand Duke's hand and fell into deep thought, the Grand Duke saw this, in order to prevent the Tsar from rejecting him, he hurriedly returned the rifle to the guards on the side, stepped forward and said: "Your Majesty, before making a decision, maybe we should first look at the gap between the arquebus and this Type II rifle, and then you can make a decision after reading it."

The Tsar nodded and agreed to the Grand Duke's suggestion, and Grand Duke Miroslavsky immediately ordered two of the best marksmen to be selected from the army, one with an arquebus and the other with a rifle, to compete together. Lin

The contest between the two soon attracted a large number of onlookers, who put down their packing and formed a circle in front of the Tsar's mobile palace, looking at the two shooting soldiers standing in the firing position.

Ten meters away in front of the two

Two targets were set up in each place, and although it was late at night, the scene was like daylight under the light of the torches of the surrounding soldiers.

The Tsar and a group of high-ranking generals stood in front of the palace and watched the two soldiers, while the Grand Duke stood next to the soldiers and presided over in person, and as soon as he gave the order, the two soldiers began to make preparations.

"Let's go!"

The arquebus soldier first picked up the powder dendrob, poured a little into the medicine pool and the barrel, and then took out a projectile from the ammunition bag and stuffed it into the barrel, took out the whole strip and compacted it, and after he compacted it, he also picked up the fire rope wrapped around the musket, blew it on one end of the fire rope, so that the spark on it lit up, and then put it on the medicine pool and pulled the trigger.

This Marksman is undoubtedly a battle-hardened soldier, and he has long mastered the skills of loading and shooting, and is able to complete the reload in the shortest possible time.

However, the shooting soldiers around him who used Type 2 rifles were different, although he had not used Type 2 rifles beforehand, but with his faster paper-wrapped ammunition technology and flintlock device, he had already raised his rifle for the second time and pulled the trigger after the arquebusiers fired a shot. Lin

It was not only the rate of fire that was a matter of the target, but it was clear that the arquebus was less accurate than the Type 2 rifle, which had both holes close to the middle of the target, but the arquebus's holes were significantly outward.

Arquebusiers, defeated.

The soldiers around them couldn't help but let out a burst of boos when they saw this scene, and at the same time, their eyes were full of fire when they looked at the Type 2 rifle, they were not stubborn guys, as long as the performance was better, they could not hesitate to abandon the old arquebus and use a more sophisticated flintlock pistol.

The Tsar, who was watching the whole process, saw this, although his face was expressionless, but he had already made a decision in his heart, he turned around and returned to the palace, Grand Duke Miroslavsky saw this and hurriedly followed, after they all entered the palace, the Tsar said in a deep voice: "The performance of these two rifles is indeed good, immediately send a batch of captured rifles back to Moscow, no matter what the cost, I want to have a new army fully equipped with flintlock pistols before the end of the year."

Hearing the Tsar's words, the surrounding generals were all dazzled, forming a new army, this is an opportunity to expand their power, but before they could speak, they saw the Tsar continue: "But before that, the Xia people have a saying that water in the distance can't quench the thirst now, the threat of the Xia army is just around the corner, leave two thousand usable rifles, and send the rest of the rifles back to Moscow, and the remaining rifles will select two thousand soldiers with excellent archery skills from the shooting army to form a new army, the name of this new army is called the Eastern Regiment, which is personally commanded by me."

When everyone heard this, they regretfully dismissed the idea of interfering and said in unison, "Yes, Your Majesty."

…… Lin

The day soon came, and the Tsar's orders were carried out, and Ivan Khovansky loyally selected two thousand elite soldiers of the Shooting Corps and handed them to the Tsar with the new rifles they had captured.

However, they have no chance to fight at present, because the tsar has been determined to withdraw to the west bank of the Ural River, and with the acquiescence of the Xia army, the Russian army began to retreat across the pontoon bridge in batches, perhaps in order to guard against the Xia army that was close at hand, the Russian army's retreat was very slow, and it was not until ten days later that it was finally coming to an end.

At this time, the tsar did not stay in the last retreat, he had already withdrawn to the west bank first, and made defensive deployments on the west bank, but also worried that the final withdrawal would be attacked by the Xia army.

As it turned out, his fears were indeed right, and after the retreat of the Russian army came to an end, the Xia army, which had been silent for several days, finally launched an attack, and they advanced under the fierce sound of military bugles, directly put their artillery in front, and bombarded the Russian army and the pontoon bridge over the Ural River indiscriminately.

Under the bombardment of the artillery of the Xia army, the Russian troops who remained on the east bank were bombed and cried and cried, hugged their heads and ran away, and most of the pontoon bridges were also blown up in the shelling, and the soldiers who were crossing the river on the pontoon bridge fell into the turbulent river, and they did not even struggle and shout, and they were swept away by the waves in a blink of an eye, and they were gone

Trace.

Immediately, the cavalry of the Xia army began to charge the Russian army in chaos, and under the cover of artillery fire, the cavalry of the Xia army easily crushed the Russian army, and wiped out all the nearly 10,000 Russian troops still stranded on the shore.

On the other side of the river, the Tsar and the Russian army watched in silence, although they thought it was a great shame, but they sadly found that they could do nothing but watch their friendly forces being annihilated. Lin

At this moment, the tsar finally realized why the Xia army waited until now to attack, and the annihilation of nearly 10,000 Russian troops in front of all of them would be a great blow to the morale of the Russian army on the west bank - the low-pressure atmosphere in the army at this time is enough to prove this.