There was no suspense in the result. This vanguard regiment composed of more than 300 Cossack cavalry was completely wiped out by the Ming army scouts, and not even one of them escaped.
No matter how good your equestrian skills are, no matter how fast your war horse runs, it cannot run faster than a bullet.
The effective range of the improved new sniper rifle has already exceeded 800 meters. Special shooters like Zhu Cijiong can even hit targets one thousand meters away.
The military technology of the Ming Empire was evolving at an alarming rate.
Since there was no early warning from the forward cavalry, the 60,000 Cossack cavalry, who were the vanguard of the entire Northern Route Army, encountered two cavalry divisions of the 1st Cavalry Army led by Zhu Cijiong on the edge of the Kazakh grassland, and a fierce battle broke out between the two armies.
At the beginning, the Cossack cavalry actually used their superior strength to divide their troops and outflank them, trying to complete the encirclement of the Ming army.
The Ming army did not disappoint the Cossack cavalry. They actually dismounted and formed a formation, waiting for the Cossack cavalry to surround them.
After the Cossack cavalry completed the encirclement of the Ming army on all sides, they immediately launched a large-scale attack on the Ming army's defensive formation, and from the very beginning there was a large-scale fierce attack by the entire regiment.
But the result was completely beyond the Cossack cavalry's expectations.
Facing the intensive artillery fire and rifle firepower of the Ming army, the Cossack cavalry could not get close to within a hundred meters, so they could not even use muskets, not to mention sabers and spears.
In the end, the Cossack cavalry invested heavily in the front and launched a general attack at all costs.
This time, a considerable number of Cossack cavalry finally broke into the Ming army's defensive formation.
However, just when the Cossack cavalry couldn't wait to lower their spears, draw their sabers, and prepare to break into the Ming army's defensive formation and start killing, tongues of fire suddenly broke out in the Ming army's defensive formation.
These tongues of fire were like flaming whips in the hands of the God of Death. Wherever they passed, the Cossack cavalry fell off their horses and died tragically on the spot.
Needless to say, these flames are the masterpieces of the heavy machine guns assigned to the cavalry. The heavy machine gun has now become the standard equipment of the Ming army. As the only mobile combat army of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Cijiong's cavalry regiment has a higher equipment rate of heavy machine guns.
Each cavalry regiment has a heavy machine gun company with 9 heavy machine guns.
According to this ratio, a cavalry division has 9 heavy machine gun companies and a total of 81 heavy machine guns.
The two cavalry divisions have 162 heavy machine guns, and one can imagine the intensity of their firepower.
Anyway, the Cossack cavalry surged forward wave after wave like a sea, but under the heavy machine gun fire of the Ming army, they fell down one after another, their flesh and blood flying everywhere.
Oh my God, this is a 13.2mm large-caliber heavy machine gun.
Not to mention people, even war horses will be torn into pieces directly for you.
There's really no way to describe that scene in words, it was so miserable.
After this large-scale charge, the remaining Cossack cavalry were immediately scared to death.
Yes, that's right. The Cossack cavalry, which has always been known for its bravery and prowess in battle and has been rampant in the Eastern European grasslands for hundreds of years, was frightened by the heavy machine guns of the Ming army this time and turned around and ran away.
Unfortunately, the Cossack cavalry had no chance to escape.
Zhu Cijiong's military talent was already quite good, and his many years of expeditions here and there have provided him with a wealth of practical experience. It is no exaggeration to say that Zhu Cijiong is now definitely one of the famous generals in the world.
As a famous general, how could Zhu Cijiong leave a way for the Cossack cavalry to survive?
While the two cavalry divisions were fighting with the Cossack cavalry, the other two cavalry divisions had already outflanked them, directly cutting off the Cossack cavalry's retreat.
In the end, 60,000 Cossack cavalry were wiped out by the Ming army.
When the sand spread back to the Kyrgyz steppe, the Northern Route Army's head coach Prince Karl of Sweden and deputy head coach Morozov were immediately eliminated. These were Cossack cavalry, 60,000 Cossack cavalry, just gone?
Morozov was frightened by the news and immediately stated that he would withdraw his troops and return to Moscow.
At this time, the national power of Tsarist Russia was still very weak, and the nobles were in power, the imperial power was weak, and the entire country was loose and weak, so Morozov cared more about the interests of his own family.
Before sending troops, Morozov thought he could take this opportunity to improve his family's reputation.
In a hundred years, my family may have the opportunity to replace the Romanov family as Tsar.
But as soon as they entered the battle, Morozov discovered that the Ming army was more ferocious than he had imagined. Let alone gaining reputation, he might die on the battlefield, and the Boris family would also be destroyed.
So Morozov quit and immediately stated that he would lead his army to retreat.
In the end, Prince Carl tried every means to persuade him to stay before he gave up the idea.
Prince Karl's ideas are still different from Morozov's.
To put it bluntly, Morozov is a politician. This time he sent troops just to gain his reputation, or to let the Boris family actually control the military power of Tsarist Russia in preparation for usurping power.
But Prince Carl was ambitious because he studied under the famous general Thorstensen.
Prince Carl not only wanted to use this Eastern Expedition to make brilliant military exploits, so that after returning home, he could rely on this military exploit to take over the throne from his cousin. Then, Prince Carl also wanted to lead the Swedish Army, which had triumphed in the Eastern Expedition, to go south again.
, to continue the unfinished work of Gustavus II.
What great cause? Of course it is to unify Europe!
Precisely for this reason, Prince Carl did not want to withdraw his troops in despair.
Because withdrawing troops and returning home in such a dejected manner, not to mention continuing the great cause of Gustavus II, even his cousin Christina may not be willing to return the throne to him.
Having said that, Prince Carl does have two brushes.
After the 60,000 Cossack cavalry as the forward corps were completely wiped out, Prince Karl immediately realized that the firepower level of the coalition forces was completely unable to compare with that of the Ming army. Whether it was artillery or muskets, they were completely crushed by the Ming army, so he continued to fight with the Ming army.
The Ming army carried out large-scale field battles in order to seek death.
After realizing this, Prince Karl changed his tactics and began to build a large number of bastions.
In just half a year, the coalition forces built a thousands-mile defense line from the city of Ufa at the southwest foot of the Ural Mountains in the north to the city of Astrakhan on the northwest coast of the Caspian Sea in the south. This line of defense consisted of more than 3,000 large and small ridges.
Fort composition.
There are a lot of gaps between the bastions and the bastions, so the Ming cavalry can come and go freely without hindrance.
However, it is wishful thinking for the Ming army's logistics supplies to pass through this line of defense.
The servant tribes such as the Junggar tribe and the Torgut tribe, as well as the cattle and sheep carried by the Ming army could not get through either.
In other words, you can pass the Ming army, but don't even think about passing the logistics, livestock, and cattle.
The herdsmen and cattle and sheep of the servant tribes had to go through, but they had to clear the fortress first, or at least clear a gap several hundred miles long in the coalition's thousands of miles of defense line.
This time Zhu Cijiong was in trouble, a bit like a lion biting a hedgehog.
Because the bastion is really difficult to fight, using artillery fire to clear the ground is a waste of artillery shells.
A small bastion with a diameter of less than 100 meters and a garrison of only 100 people would consume thousands of artillery shells. According to this ammunition consumption, the ten bases of ammunition of the cavalry corps would not be able to sustain it for long.
Just let the cavalry dismount and attack, it's not impossible to win with the advantage of firepower.
But the casualties of the Ming army will definitely not be small. How many soldiers must be sacrificed for more than 3,000 bastions?
Therefore, Zhu Cijiong couldn't think of a good solution for a while, so he could only use it up temporarily, so the northern battlefield fell into a stalemate.
…
Just when the northern front was in a stalemate, Li Yan also led the 5th Cavalry Division and the 6th Cavalry Division of the 2nd Cavalry Corps to the city of Samarkand and joined the 7th Cavalry Division and the 8th Cavalry Division stationed there.
At the same time, shocking news also reached the city of Samarkand.
The emperor of the Sawifa Empire in the Persian Plateau, Abbas II, did not wait for the arrival of the army led by Sultan Murad, the 17th generation of the Ottoman Empire, and sent troops eastward into the Pamir Plateau.
Looking at this posture, Abbas II’s goal is clearly the Indian Peninsula.
Now Li Yan was also in a dilemma. Should he return to India to attack the Persian army?
Or stay in Samarkand and wait for the arrival of the Ottoman army led by Murad?
Or should the troops be divided into two groups, one going back to India and the other staying in Samarkand?
Feeling at a loss what to do, Li Yan could only send a telegram to Chongzhen who was far away in "Haijiao City".
Chongzhen quickly replied, asking Li Yan to ignore the Persian army that had already rushed to India, and stationed in Samarkand to wait for the arrival of the Ottoman army and the European Crusade Expeditionary Force.
The reason is also very simple. Samarkand is already the limit of the Ming Dynasty's logistical support.
Going further west, the logistics of the 2nd Cavalry Corps led by Li Yan could not be guaranteed.
Without logistics, no matter how well-equipped and brave an army is, they have no chance of winning.
Chongzhen even specifically told Li Yan not to care about the gains and losses of one city or one pond. Once the Ottoman army or the European Crusade Expeditionary Force's offensive was too fierce, they could abandon Samarkand and even the entire Central Asia region and retreat directly to Ili.
Once in Yili, the Ming army's logistical support distance would be greatly shortened, and the situation would be completely reversed.
After receiving a call back from Chongzhen, Li Yan was completely relieved and stepped up war preparations in Samarkand.
However, what surprised Li Yan was that not to mention the European Crusades, even Murad's Ottoman army had not yet come over. From the middle of the 27th year of Chongzhen until the end of the 27th year, no enemy army was seen.
arrival.
Well, reality is often more exciting than jokes, and the current situation has undergone unexpected changes.
When Abbas II led the expedition of the Vifavid Empire, the entire Persian plateau was emptied.
As a result, the slow-moving Ottoman Sultan Murad had other ideas. Instead of spending a huge price to go to Central Asia to fight an unpredictable war with a country he had never met before, it would be better to take advantage of the situation and destroy Sawi.
The French Empire incorporated the entire Persian Plateau into the territory of the Ottoman Empire. This was a great feat that the previous sixteen generations of Ottoman Sultans failed to accomplish.