Chapter 577 Yellow Peril? Yes, we are Yellow Peril, and it’s still very big!
At dawn on April 12, 1857, smoke rose from the Belibek Valley on the north bank of Sevastopol. Major von Schmidt, the staff officer of the Prussian Viewing Team, raised a monocular telescope, and the lenses showed that the Taiping artillery was carefully removing the picy cannonballs wrapped in layers of silk from the specially made shock-proof bamboo basket.
The artillery officer from Prussia almost laughed out loud and turned to Sardinian officer Besano and said, "These yellow men put silk shirts on the shells and placed them on bamboo couches, as if they were taking care of children. Is this the 'yellow peril' in the British people's mouth?"
An Austrian officer couldn't help laughing: "How could those Chinese soldiers look short and thin, how could they beat the Russians? The so-called 'yellow peril' is not just Viscount Palmerston creating public opinion for the new 'trade war'!"
The Sardinian officer looked very bad--his motherland also joined the war against the Russians with Napoleon III. Now, the prospects are very bad. He sighed and said, "But no matter what, you always have to defeat the Russians first?"
The Prussian major shrugged: "Maybe there is a negotiation. Our country's Prince Bismarck has recently gone to Paris!"
The Austrian nodded: "This is the last battle. If you can't defeat the Vienna system, you might be back!"
At the same time, in the "Maxim" fortress across the river valley, a group of Russian soldiers were pushing a 32-pound copper cannon into the cannon position. Admiral Nashimov's telescope swept across the coalition camp and stayed on the twenty-four cast iron cannons in the Taiping position. The barrels engraved with "Made in Jiangnan" were two circles thicker than the British Armstrong cannons, and the cannon car was fixed with shock absorbing devices mixed with bamboo and iron cables, like giant beasts curled up in the morning mist, vaguely exuding a dangerous aura.
"Admiral." A Russian Army Major General came to Nashimov, "The news from Admiral Orlov said that the Chinese possess some kind of magic shell."
"What magic shells? Say nothing!" The Russian Admiral glanced at his chief of staff, "Tell the young men that this is the last battle! If you repel this round of attack from the enemy, Russia will win a decent peace!" He turned his head and looked at the East, "The next war should happen in the East, not in the West."
"Fill the shells!" Li Kezhong, the artillery director of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Army Department, personally issued an order. The gunners worked together to lift the lead-shell shell wrapped in silk liner, weighing 64 pounds, and pushed it into the chamber.
After giving the order, he raised his monocular lens again. Through the lens, the battlefield where the morning mist was dissipated had already appeared in front of him. Outside the fortifications of "Maxim" fortifications were visible to the naked eye. Anyone who saw it had to take a breath of cold air.
The first line of defense is a five-layer deer fortress that is ten meters wide. These deer forts are made of sharpened tree trunks and are densely placed together, layer by layer, and it is difficult for anyone to get stuck in it.
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And all the Taiping Army officers rushed forward!
The battle lasted until 12 noon. When the Taiping Army and the French assault troops occupied Fortress No. 11,12,13 and attacked the exterior wall of the core fortress that had been bombarded with a huge gap, Nasimov's counterattack finally began!
Three thousand Cossack cavalry swept down the hills on the east side like a black torrent. The scimitar with silver edges split the formation of the French light cavalry that was guarding the flanks. The neighing sound of war horses and the sound of bones shattering into a symphony of death. Colonel Lecler, the French Fifth Light Cavalry Regiment, just held the saber of a Cossack knight, and the spear suddenly stabbed from the flanks through his body. The French army, which had lost command, began to disperse, and rushed to the rear like a flock of sheep swept away by a pack of wolves.
Under the impact of these French cavalry, the French infantry quickly retreated, exposing the left wing of the Taiping Army to the opponent.
In the command center behind, Prince Napoleon's lips trembled slightly, and he murmured: "Betray, betrayal, this is betrayal."
But Shi Dakai, who was on the side, was confident and said to the messenger: "Let Li Kezhong open fire on the Russians behind the back of the Russians to block their support!"
"Preparation!" Lai Yuxin's roar exploded in the smoke of gunpowder. Three thousand Taiping soldiers put the Pingmini rifles together, and the bayonets formed a thin silver line in the noon sun. Their movements were neat and uniform, as if they were practicing in the Tianjing University Fields - this was the elite trained by Luo Yaoguo using the French exercises.
The torrent of the Cossack cavalry began to accelerate three hundred meters away, and the sound of horse hooves rolled across the battlefield like muffled thunder. Dozens of wooden grenades with white smoke suddenly flew out of the Taiping Army formation. Although the explosion was not as powerful as the bitter sour shells, the advantage was that they were low in construction and were large in quantity. The only disadvantage was that they were too easy to get damp, and they needed to "boil" salt sugar on the front line and poured into the bullet body.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The grenade exploded in the cavalry formation, shrapnel flying, harvesting the lives of war horses and soldiers. The frightened war horses threw the cavalry off the horse's back, and the charge of the Cossack cavalry was in chaos.
"First row, release!" Lai Yuxin waved the order flag. One thousand Miner rifles fired at the same time, and the lead bullets tear open the Cossacks' uniforms and swept them off the horses in rows. The second row then stepped forward and another round of volleys. This Western-style round-fire tactic, combined with accurate gunshots and the effective range of Miner rifles, made the Taiping Army form a death barrier in the middle.
After the Cossack cavalry was repelled, the Russian army's neat bayonet formation also collided with the killing formation from the east, shattering like waves hitting the reefs. Bullets on the battlefield were like rain, and the sound of killing shook the sky.
When the Panlong flag of the Taiping Army was raised on the Maxim Fortress, Prince Napoleon saw a shocking scene in the telescope: the thin red line of the Taiping Army infantry, which was less than 1,500, remained unmoved. They even formed a temporary bunker in the Russian army's corpse, relying on this bunker to repel the waves of charges initiated by Nasimov, until the Taiping Army led by Chen Picheng captured the entire Maxim Fortress.
After this battle, a saying passed by the coalition watch team: "The Yellow Peril is not scary. What is scary is the Yellow Peril that can create picric bombs and arrange troops." Major von Schmidt added a more interesting footnote in his diary: "When these barbarians who stabbed the Cossacks with bayonets and began to calculate the ballistics with formulas, the "Yellow Peril" had become an important force in maintaining human civilization."
Chapter completed!