It was late at night, and the sporadic sound of artillery could still be heard in the distance. The Neman River in front of us was flowing quietly, and everything was so peaceful, as if this place had nothing to do with the war.

Lieutenant Colonel Kalashnikov led the guards to inspect the battlefield. This was a routine night patrol. The surging Neman River turned a corner here, and its flow slowed down a lot.

Almost everyone believed that this would be the main offensive point of the French army. Before the war, 8,000 troops were deployed to defend here.

But what is surprising is that the French would rather attack where the river is fast than attack here.

The French offensive had lasted for half a month. Under the precise bombardment of French artillery, the Russians also suffered heavy casualties. In order to hold on to the key points, General Barclay had no choice but to begin to mobilize troops from both wings to concentrate in the center of the battle line.

As the French attacks became more and more fierce, the Russian troops on both flanks became weaker and weaker.

Lieutenant Colonel Kalashnikov had 2,000 men at the time of the launch, but now there are only 800 men left. These 800 men have to defend an area of ​​two kilometers in front.

He couldn't imagine how long he could last if the French army really attacked here. It was estimated that it would take one night at most. Kalashnikov had prepared the fastest horse for himself. As long as he saw that the momentum was not right, he would

He immediately mounted his horse and fled.

Although he was ready to escape, he still patrolled conscientiously. After all, the war hadn't started here yet, so he could just be a monk and hit the clock for a day. When he heard this ancient Ming Dynasty proverb for the first time, Kalashnikov still didn't understand it.

What does it mean.

Later, a businessman from the Ming Dynasty helped him explain it. He thought this sentence made sense. He specially learned the pronunciation of the Ming Dynasty Mandarin and always said this sentence whenever he felt melancholy.

Whenever he said this, people around him would look at him with admiration.

The lieutenant colonel can actually speak the Ming dialect. In the whole of Europe, the Ming Dynasty is a mysterious country. It is said that there is gold everywhere. In the prosperous Ming Dynasty, everyone wears silk clothes and every family has a bicycle.

People who have been to Daming said that there is a button hanging on the wall, and as long as you press the lamp above your head, it will light up. The light is brighter than the brightest kerosene lamp.

Anyway, in Europe, the Ming Dynasty is synonymous with prosperity and advancement. The nobles in the upper class are proud that they can speak a few words of the Ming Dynasty.

There are even people with Ming Dynasty characters tattooed on their bodies.

One of his soldiers had two characters tattooed on him. When asked what they meant, he said he didn’t know, but he thought it was cool anyway. Later, after asking a Ming businessman, he found out that the two characters were called soy sauce, which is a condiment used in cooking.

The soldier didn't feel any discomfort when he had the name of the condiment tattooed on his body. No one here could recognize the Ming characters anyway. As long as he thought it was cool, that's it!

Kalashnikov quickly finished patrolling the two-kilometer-long front. Looking at his watch, it was already one o'clock in the morning. Kalashnikov decided to go to bed. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.

Suddenly, the big wolf dog led by the soldier started barking at the river.

The leading soldier raised his kerosene lamp and looked into the river.

There was no moon, and the entire Neman River was pitch black. It was hard to see what was in it. However, there seemed to be "swish" and "swish" sounds in the river.

"Click!" The soldier loaded the bullet and looked at the river with vigilant eyes. But it was too dark to see clearly what was in the river.

Before he could see clearly what was in the river, Kalashnikov saw a flash of light on the other side of the river.

Before he could react, a wave of air blew him up. As he flew up, he heard a loud "bang" in his ears.

The chest tightness was severe, and he wanted to shout loudly. But he found that he could no longer shout, and his body fell heavily to the ground. The huge pain made his mind unusually clear.

Soon, an orange flame flashed in front of his eyes. The smoke accompanying the flame blew out Kalashnikov's face, and then endless darkness swallowed him up.

At 1:05 in the morning, the French cannon began to bombard the Russian position opposite.

According to the locations marked during the day, the shelling was short but intensive. Orange flames shot into the sky one after another. You could even see people flying up in the air with the orange flames as the background.

The bombardment lasted only ten minutes, and a green firework exploded in the sky on the other side.

The first batch of landing troops, a thousand people, successfully landed on the other side. These one thousand people were all Napoleon's Royal Guards.

They held box cannons in one hand and short swords in the other.

It was dark, very dark! With such visibility, long-distance shooting was out of the question.

They touched the trenches and opened the way with grenades when they saw strongholds. They used box cannons to attack those further away, and used daggers when they got closer.

They are all elites in the army, not to mention shooting and fighting. Their opponents are just ordinary Russian troops of 800 people.

Although the Russian army put up a tenacious resistance, the Russian soldiers were either killed by grenades or shot by box cannons in their strongholds. Occasionally, a few people would have their throats slashed with sharp daggers.

The battle only lasted until a little after four in the morning, and no gunshots were heard from the position. French voices were everywhere!

The ferry carried groups of soldiers across the river, and the engineering units began to build pontoon bridges.

The entire process of crossing the river went very smoothly, and the casualties of the Praetorian Guards were incredibly low.

"There were eighty-three casualties, including thirty-one killed in action. Twenty-eight were seriously injured, and the rest were lightly injured." Napoleon read the battle report from the front and nodded with satisfaction.

This is a casualty figure that he can accept. The only remaining thing is to see whether the engineers can erect the pontoon bridge as soon as possible.

As long as the pontoon bridge is erected, the large army can cross the river. The 600,000 French troops will encircle the 200,000 Russian troops. Without these 200,000 Russian troops, the new Russian Empress will surely surrender to her.

If the Russians don't surrender, it doesn't matter. At worst, they can fight to Moscow. It's only July now, and there are still four months before the cold Russian winter. Four months is enough.

Pull out this last nail on the European continent. No matter how much the British incite, no one will jump out to join the anti-French alliance.

As for the damn British, as long as France develops for a few years, it will eventually develop a huge naval fleet. Then we will settle the score with the damn British!

It is also damnable that the Ming Dynasty, that lion-like country, actually used Joseph as a monkey. France was even willing to offer shares in the Suez Canal in exchange, but it still could not get the support of the Ming Dynasty fleet.

Allies! Bullshit allies!

The British are right when they say that there are no friends between countries, only eternal interests.

At dawn, more than 10,000 French people had boarded the other side. The Nieman River is not a natural chasm like the Dnieper River, but a small river only thirty to fifty meters wide. It is not difficult to build a pontoon bridge on it.

The engineering troops carried out construction at the fastest speed.

At dawn, the Russians reacted. If the opening on the front was not blocked quickly, the French would surge behind the Russian army.

On the frontal battlefield, hundreds of thousands of Russian troops were already locked in a stalemate with the French army. It was simply impossible to retreat quickly now.

"The number of French people is equal to ours. We must organize a death squad to take back this front." Barclay stared at the map closely.

He thought that by organizing a death squad of 30,000 people, he would surely be able to recapture this one-kilometer gap in the front line.

But Barclay didn't know that what he was facing was not 200,000 French troops, but 600,000 French troops armed to the teeth.

At nine o'clock in the morning, the hastily organized Russian army began to attack.

The Russians were very brave. They held their rifles with bayonets in their hands, shouted and began to charge.

"Ula...!" The dull Ula sound was like a bear's roar, and a patch of earthy yellow dots appeared on the ground.

Napoleon watched all this through his telescope. There were now 20,000 French troops on the other side of the river. Moreover, two simple pontoon bridges had been erected on the Niemann River.

Troops are rushing towards the other side through the pontoon bridge in a steady stream. Although the heavy artillery cannot cross the river for the time being, the mortars have no problem.

The sounds of "Ulha" came one after another like waves from the other side of the river.

Amidst the intensive gunfire, row after row of Russian troops fell to the ground. Mortar shells continued to explode in the crowd. From time to time, someone was blown up, and then some fell to the ground with missing arms and legs.

A wail of pain.

However, the French position was soon subject to large-scale artillery fire. Not only were there mortars, but also rocket launchers. It seemed that in order to fill the gap in the front line, the Russians were willing to go all out, and even deployed heavy rocket launchers.

come over.

With the bombardment of heavy rocket launchers, the French army began to suffer a large number of casualties. A heavy rocket launcher shell survived and landed on the simple pontoon bridge that had just been erected.

The pontoon was crowded with soldiers crossing the river. The huge explosion caused dozens of people to fly bloody. The mangled corpses were blown up twenty to thirty meters high, and a rain of blood fell from the sky.

"Your Majesty the Emperor! Please go into the trench. Rocket launchers are being used on the opposite side. It's too dangerous." The attendant's face turned pale. The heavy rocket impact point was less than 500 meters away from Napoleon.

Napoleon wiped a handful of blood from his face and looked at the attendant!

"Did you see this? This is the blood of French warriors. My soldiers are fighting bloody battles, but you let their emperor hide in the trenches?

I will be with my soldiers, warriors! I, the Emperor of France, am with you. Together we will conquer Russia, and I will fight with you to Moscow."

"Long live! Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"

"Long live His Majesty the Emperor!"

"Long live!"

The soldiers roared excitedly. There are not many opportunities to fight side by side with His Majesty the Emperor. It is also very rare for a country to have such an iron-blooded emperor.

His Majesty the Emperor is commanding operations under artillery fire, so what can he do as an ordinary soldier?

The French soldiers ran across the pontoon like crazy and rushed to the other side. When the French soldiers on the other side heard that His Majesty the Emperor was fighting alongside them, their morale increased greatly.

With the artillery support of heavy rocket launchers, the Russians had already rushed to the French position. Soon hand-to-hand combat broke out on the position, and the soldiers of the two ethnic groups desperately poured out their human cruelty on each other.

The bayonets on the rifles pierced each other's bodies. The sound of "puff" and "puff" of the white blade entering the body came one after another. Some people kept falling in a pool of blood, and some people kept letting out horrifying screams.

The Russian troops rushed into the French position continuously, and the French troops also rushed into the position continuously. The first group of people fell, and the following group followed.

The soil on the battlefield was soaked with blood and became silky smooth. It was slippery when people stepped on it, and they would fall to the ground if they were not careful. As long as you fell to the ground, there would be a shining bayonet poking at you.

On the short one-kilometer front, both sides invested 50,000 people in fighting. Mortars could no longer bombard the positions, and they could only attack the enemy's rear team.

Many mortar shells were used up, and the artillerymen simply picked up their weapons and rushed to the battlefield.

There are corpses everywhere on the battlefield, corpses piled on top of each other. In many places, they have been piled up in several layers, and the piles are more than one meter high.

The soldiers started poking each other with rifles through the wall of trampled corpses.

Various artillery shells fell on the offensive route of the rear teams of both sides. Countless people were torn to pieces by the explosion before they could reach the battlefield.

At such a critical moment, Napoleon's Praetorian Guards were sent to the battlefield again.
To be continued...