Dominate the Country

The waiting time always passes very slowly.

From mid-November to the end of November, Chen Ming felt restless every day. The five words "nails in the butt" can sum up his heart.

He was extremely anxious to know what happened to Napoleon. In psychology, this phenomenon can be analyzed in a long and grand way.

During this period, the battle report from the Northwest seemed boring to Chen Ming's eyes.

There is nothing to say. The Russian army on the Eastern Front was completely inactive, with only their cavalry units wandering outside the fortresses. They even gave up the siege on the west coast of the Caspian Sea. When Chen Han's reinforcements moved from Persia to Xihai City, Petrovsk Port, the military port city of the Russian Caspian Fleet, had already been abandoned by the Russian army.

Although Petrovsk Port is a "very young" port, it was a newly built port by the Russian army after the end of the last Sino-Russian war. Naturally, the purpose is to keep an eye on the West Sea, whether from land or water. Therefore, the Russians still worked very hard when building Petrovsk Port. But now the Russian army abandoned this place without hesitation.

The Port of Petrovsk is located about 100 kilometers north of the West Sea, and about 100 kilometers to the west is the Vladikavkaz Fortress, the most important military base of the Russian army in the Caucasus.

The latter is also the primary target of the West China Sea Defense Force after receiving reinforcements.

When the Eastern battlefield reached 1813 AD, the Russian army's defeat was irreversible. A large number of small towns and villages were captured by Chen Han, although a considerable number of Russians had already chosen to leave. However, in the vast area from the Ural River to Astarahan, the Russian army failed to retain control of the next town.

It can be said that in the entire eastern region of the lower Volga River, the Russian army only stayed at Guryev Fortress, and in the eastern region of the Volga River Basin from Tsaritsyn down, there was no large-scale military garrison within a distance of 800 miles.

Throughout the lower reaches of the Volga River, the Russians made the same choice as they did in the Ural River Basin - to give up.

Their choices were only nodes, from Guryev Fortress to Astrakhan, to Tsaritsyn, and then to Vladikavkaz Fortress.

From the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, from the Caucasus to the Urals, in such a vast area, there are only four places where the Russians really hold on.

Even Stavropol, the gateway to the Caucasus, and Rostov, a wealthy and important city, were abandoned by the Russians. There is no way, who allows Meloyarsky to have only so few troops?

He currently only has 40,000 men in his hands. After excluding a large number of cavalry, 30,000 infantry are distributed among four strong fortress groups. The number of troops cannot be said to be large. Guliyev Fortress has the largest number of defenders, only about 10,000 people. Anyway, Russia's entire eastern battlefield was ruined.

Meloyarsky's only hope now is that the main force of the Russian army in the west can be transferred to the eastern battlefield before the Chinese break through the Guryev Fortress, Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn and Vladikavkaz Fortress.

But Meloyarsky still subconsciously ignored the Ottoman Empire. Russia looks down on the Ottomans.

They were severely defeated by the Ottomans in their early years, then joined forces with Austria to defeat the Ottomans, and finally were able to suppress the Ottomans alone. The Russians spent hundreds of years and witnessed with their own eyes the decline and decline of the powerful Ottoman empire. the whole process. Although the Ottomans won the last war, the Russians and no one in Europe believed that the Ottomans were really stronger than Russia. They won only because they had a powerful and invincible ally in China.

As Russia's mortal enemy, the Ottoman Empire took action more than a month earlier than Chen Han. Just as Chen Ming originally thought, Selim III received the news of Napoleon's attack on Russia earlier than he did.

More than 100,000 Ottoman troops, led by Alandar Mustafa, pushed back toward Ukraine based on the lower Danube River. At the same time, the Ottoman Muhammad Ali Pasha led 50,000 Ottoman troops to land on the Crimean Peninsula, and together with the Ottoman troops on the peninsula, they launched a fierce attack on the Russian army. The latter's purpose is obviously to completely swallow up the entire Crimean Peninsula. In this battle against Russia, a major strategic goal of the Ottomans is to counterattack the dark coast of Ukraine and completely turn the Black Sea into a lake for the Ottomans.

If Russia loses the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, and then loses the Black Sea, the huge losses will make Russia's three hundred years of efforts come to nothing in an instant.

In addition to its territory in the west, Russia's land boundaries in the east will directly regress to the early 16th century.

The Russians, who consider themselves the successors of the Roman Empire, will not completely abandon the Black Sea, let alone a powerful fleet that they carefully manage in the Black Sea. In this Ottoman counterattack, their warships almost never came out of the Bosporus and headed north.

Russia's powerful Black Sea Fleet is now willing to have a bloody battle with the Ottomans, but the Ottomans are obviously not prepared to use their newly revived naval power to fight the Russians. In the eyes of Istanbul, as long as the Ottoman Empire completely captures the Black Sea coast and the Crimean Peninsula, Russia's Black Sea Fleet will be a fish in the bottom of the pot. Because no matter how powerful the fleet is, it is impossible to drive the battleship to the shore!

Therefore, it is not only the eastern front that needs reinforcements, but also the south. Especially the northwest coast of the Black Sea, which belongs to Ukraine.

Napoleon marched from Poland to Moscow, taking the Lithuanian route. Ukraine was not part of the battlefield, but Ukraine was also extremely empty. Alandar Mustafa led the Ottoman army to rampage, so don't be too happy eating meat in the past few months.

As the granary of Russia, Ukraine's status is obviously very important. And they are in the west of Russia. If Napoleon is driven out of Russian territory by the Russian army, the Ottomans who are now living happily in Ukraine may be able to share a lot of pressure with Napoleon.

Chen Ming did not receive the news from the European Office until November 28th. He had no idea that Napoleon had repeated the mistakes of history and returned in defeat in the expedition to Russia. However, Napoleon, who fled back from Russia in a panic, did not bring only 20,000 or 30,000 troops as in history, but brought back a full '200,000' French army!

Napoleon's external propaganda was 200,000 French troops, but the actual estimate was no more than 150,000, and the greater possibility was 120,000 or 130,000. Two hundred thousand French soldiers died in Russia, as did fifty thousand Poles and almost all Italian troops...

Of the six hundred thousand troops that attacked Russia before, only one-third could escape alive. The city of Warsaw was filled with wounded and sick soldiers.

This was an indistinguishable defeat!

The whole of Europe was shaken, and the cornerstone of the empire that Napoleon had just established was mostly hollowed out.

The European Office was full of "amazement" about Napoleon's defeat in the secret report. This undefeated European general threw half of his capital in the ice and snow of Russia.

When Napoleon chose to withdraw from Moscow, the Russian army under Kutuzov began to pursue him. Wittgenstein led 50,000 Russian troops to threaten the left wing of the French army, and Chichagov led 70,000 troops to attack the right wing of the French army. The Russian army's counterattack was very sharp.

And Napoleon wasted two whole weeks in Moscow in vain-after Napoleon occupied Moscow, he thought that the Tsar would take the initiative to seek peace, so that he could take the opportunity to get out of this war. Unexpectedly, after waiting and waiting, the Tsar remained indifferent. At this time, bad news came from the rear. The French army suffered a major rout in the Spanish battlefield, and even Madrid was lost. And the entire Portugal was taken by the British. The domestic situation in France was also unstable, and the royalists were ready to move.

Napoleon could no longer wait, and he took the initiative to propose peace to the Tsar, but Alexander I was indifferent to this. He was determined to use the complete victory of the war to wash away the humiliation suffered by Russia. As a result, Napoleon stayed in Moscow for 2 weeks in vain, seeking peace in vain, and nothing was accomplished. Seeing that the weather had entered October, the weather was getting colder and colder, and the winter in Russia was coming. Napoleon "realized" that if he delayed any further, he would only sit and wait for death, and he finally made up his mind to retreat.

History has undergone a big fluctuation here. Chen Ming clearly remembers that Napoleon in the original time and space waited in Moscow for a whole month before choosing to retreat. But in this era, Napoleon only stayed in Moscow for 2 weeks.

He didn't know what made Napoleon change. After reading the war report, Chen Ming already understood why Napoleon's army still had 200,000 soldiers left, instead of 20,000 or 30,000. Napoleon retreated half a month earlier than in history, which prevented him from losing all his capital in the ice and snow of Russia.

In the original time and space, for the disastrous defeat of Napoleon's expedition to Russia, many people in later studies attributed the main reason for the failure of the war to Napoleon's arrogance and the correct response of the Russians - fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, but some people said that Napoleon's waiting in Moscow for a month was the most important reason for his disastrous defeat.

Because Napoleon's army in the original time and space not only had to face the difficulties of supply and cold weather, but also had to face the devil of "infectious diseases".

In the 19th century in the original time and space, the medical and health conditions in the European army were very poor. Typhus is a common disease in Poland and Russia, and it often occurs at the turn of summer and autumn, and the epidemic is particularly serious. The Russians destroyed the infrastructure along the way during their retreat, and the climate accelerated the reproduction and spread of various parasites. Typhus is one of the worst acute infectious diseases. The pathogen exists in the feces of lice, and this chain of infection was not known to the medical community until the 20th century in the original time and space.

The disease caused a large number of soldiers in the expeditionary force to fall, and the wounded and sick added to the overall burden of the expeditionary force, further dragging down the logistics supply of the expeditionary force.

But in this time and space, Napoleon's army was obviously not too threatened by the disease.

Individual cleanliness and tidiness have long become common sense for the Eastern and Western armies, which will reduce diseases and reduce the chance of infection after injury.

Perhaps this is also a major reason why more French soldiers escaped.

During Napoleon's retreat, 10,000 Prussian troops surrendered to the Russian army and joined the Russian counterattack. The Austrian army, which also lost less than half of its troops (20,000 troops left), chose to flee directly.

The two armies first fought a fierce battle in Maloyaroslavets, and Maloyaroslavets changed hands 8 times in one day. Napoleon lost more than 10,000 soldiers and finally captured Maloyaroslavets.

Ten days later, the Russian army caught up again. The expeditionary force fought another battle with the Russian army in Vyazma. Although the Russian army was repelled, more than 5,000 casualties were suffered.

Napoleon should be thankful that he arrived in Smolensk and the main force had rested for four days before Russia began to snow and the temperature dropped rapidly.

In history, Napoleon did not expect to march in the ice and snow when he evacuated Moscow. He did not bring enough cold-proof and warm clothing. In addition, the food and grass were exhausted, and he was hungry and cold, and the order began to be in chaos. The French army looted everywhere in groups of three or five to find food and fuel. As long as a horse fell, everyone rushed to grab food frantically. Many people often killed each other for a piece of bread and a potato. At this time, the Russian cavalry rushed up and cut off heads. It was too easy. The French army abandoned countless corpses along the way, and a large number of failed desertions. Many wounded and sick were directly abandoned, and even the carts full of looted materials were left on the roadside without anyone paying attention. When Napoleon finally retreated to Smolensk, there were less than 60,000 troops following him.

But now, Napoleon left Moscow two weeks in advance. Even if Napoleon was not as urgent as in the original time and space on the way of retreat and wasted a few days on the road, the expeditionary force that faced the Russian ice and snow climate was an army that had already rested for four days.

At this time, Napoleon still had more than 200,000 main corps.

Smolensk was built on both sides of the Dnieper River, with the city divided into north and south and connected by bridges. It has always been an important military fortress, and there have been many offensive and defensive battles. It is surrounded by strong walls and moats. Napoleon's first major battle against Russia took place in Smolensk. Now this is like a reincarnation.

However, the French horses did not have anti-slip nails installed on their hooves, so it was very easy to break their legs on the snow. In addition, the temperature dropped sharply, and they froze to death in the severe cold, so that the combat effectiveness of the cavalry was greatly reduced. Many cannons and ammunition carts had to be abandoned.

So when Napoleon's army rushed across the Dnieper River, they had a fierce battle with the Russian army. After a hard fight, they finally broke out of the encirclement. Many French soldiers were killed or drowned in the river. Many carriages loaded with spoils were also forced to be abandoned.

But there are still 700 miles from Smolensk to Lithuania, and Napoleon suffered a lot in the following days.

When Napoleon pushed to Lithuania, he finally had a foothold, but the 200,000 troops he publicized did not convince any European politician at all.

No matter how Napoleon clamored, one fact was undeniable-the Napoleonic Empire was fundamentally shaken.