Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 461 038 Solovyov defeats the Polish birdmen (Part )
But to set up an ambush like this, you need to pretend to be convincing enough. It is not as simple as described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That is just a theoretical basis.

As for the details of actual implementation, Solovyov had seen some strange content in the Guards library before.

When Meng Huo was captured for the seventh time, the burning of the rattan armor army was described relatively clearly. However, he saw that there were still many details to be supplemented. In order to make the enemy see the real thing, it really took some effort.

Therefore, at this time, Solovyov put the unpaid military pay into the baggage.

Compared with the rewards that Russian soldiers receive for meritorious service, this amount of military pay is considered a small amount of money. The brothers are using their own wages to fish, but perhaps those Poles do not have the ability to get it yet.

After the deployment was completed, Solovyov asked the "baggage troops", which were actually a mixture of cavalry and artillery soldiers, to prepare their horses and wait in the temporary tent camp.

The weather now is no different from winter. Even if we are marching and need to spend the night on the road, we can sleep outdoors.

The tents were already worn out and worn out, so it was time to replace them with a new batch. This was especially welcome to the veteran soldiers.

So they actually camped on the road, stretching out for a long distance in the valley.

If an experienced person is not careful, he will find out that it is fishing.

But Massena, in the spirit of "even if his fellow believers die, he would rather die than himself", tricked this team of newly recruited Polish soldiers into giving chase, and did not arrange any capable commander.

Even if they sent someone like the recently killed Polish corps commander Colonel "Paris", they might notice something.

The Polish army always fought with courage and hatred for the Russians and did not pay attention to this matter.

Along the way, they tracked the Russian army's marching trajectory all the way to the river valley. When they saw the Russian army's camp, they didn't say anything else and just let the lancers in front charge forward.

However, this firefight was not very exciting. They captured two camps in a row, but only seized a lot of scraps, a small amount of rations, and a few cannons.

So, the commander of the Polish army, Skredowski, didn't care about anything else and just chased after them.

If Bao Hong knew about this, he would probably think that it was a narrow road for enemies to meet on the battlefield.

However, Solovyov strictly restricted the actions of the troops in the forest and did not let them rush forward rashly at the first moment.

However, with the two heavy cavalry regiments and two Cossack regiments currently possessed by the 3rd Division, these Polish birdmen can be easily torn into pieces.

"Don't worry, guys. Wait until the Hunters engage them, lure these 'birdmen' inside and disconnect them from the infantry. Then we can take action."

Relying on his experience in leading troops, he discovered that these Polish troops were indeed poorly trained and poorly organized, especially the infantry currently detected by the Cossacks.

Many of these infantrymen fell behind during the march, and a lot of them were taken in a day ago.

But their equipment was good, and Napoleon was still willing to provide equipment to his vassal state. They were all relatively new second-hand 1777 improved rifles. As for the equipment they used, they were all new products taken out of the Prussian warehouses.

This way, it looks good, but if you only look at the current queue, it is easy to be fooled.

Perhaps Massena also thought so. This old soldier could allow the French army to rest and recuperate. If the Poles won, he would get some credit. If they lost, he would not suffer too much loss and could preserve his strength.

Although some warlords have cunning ideas, Napoleon is indeed using the troops of vassal states in some minor areas. The task of ensuring the rear transportation lines is often the responsibility of the armies of Württemberg and Baden. During wars, some tasks are the responsibility of the Bavarian Army and the Polish Corps. The Saxon cavalry that recently turned against him has outstanding combat effectiveness, even comparable to some standard French cavalry regiments.

Under such circumstances, even if the battle failed, Massena would probably not be criticized, as he did not fight on the front line and needed to carry out Napoleon's personal task of ensuring the safety of his flank.

If it fails, it can also test the current strength of the Russian army.

So now these Poles began to advance along the river in marching columns.

When they opened the baggage wagons and saw the rubbish they saw, they were quite disgusted.

But when they seized silver rubles hidden in a cart of rubbish, as well as some rum and canned meat in the second camp, the Poles no longer thought that the Russian army was bluffing or had any conspiracy, but actually abandoned their supplies and fled in panic.

However, at times like this, the rear guard troops also need to perform.

The grenadiers of the 21st Jager Regiment and the Lithuanian Regiment, such a strange combination, appeared in front of the Poles.

In order to make it look more realistic, Solovyov also arranged two hussar squadrons to provide cover.

This time the Poles also realized that the Russian army still had a rear guard here, and it seemed that its scale was not small.

There was a regiment here, and the Polish cavalry did not rush to attack, but waited for the infantry regiment to arrive before launching the attack one after another.

"It seems that their commander still has some brains, but this is enough to attract them here."

"Captain, but if we let the Poles launch an attack and we retreat to the next camp, isn't that a bad idea?"

"Bao Hong, this is a way to lure the enemy deep into our territory. If a fight really breaks out, the fighting power of the Jagers will still be stronger than these Polish recruits. Besides, there is also the Tafred Regiment behind us. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Speaking of which, you are quite cunning. No wonder when I was in the Guards Cossack Regiment, some ladies mentioned you as Solovyov with 'fox eyes'."

"I'm not surprised about this. Those girls love to gossip behind people's backs, and we can't control it."

As for the Polish soldiers, they were still advancing deeper, and because they saw silver rubles and some good things in the baggage, although not much, they were worth paying attention to.

This made the Polish army's already not very neat formation even more chaotic.

"It's not the right time yet. If you want to send a signal, just look at the optical signal machine on the top of the mountain. When they see the red flag waving, the infantry will launch the attack."

"What about the cavalry?" "Bao Hong, go to the cavalry commander Peter Palen now and ask him to lead the cuirassiers and dragoons to cut off the Poles' retreat. Also, you must tell the two Cossack commanders that when the enemy flees, just block their way. We must kill more enemies this time!"

As for whether to capture them alive or chop off their heads, that is up to you, captains.

Count Peter Paalen was the second son of the regicide. Since none of his brothers were actually involved in the conspiracy, they were not implicated. Only a lot of their property outside of their hometown in Courland was liquidated.

At this moment, he received the order brought by Bao Hong and roughly understood the meaning.

"Well, according to 'Old Man Misha', we want to annihilate the enemy completely! But it seems that these Polish birdmen have about the same number of troops as us. Their appetite is too big."

Having said that, he also put on a cavalry breastplate and appeared in person at the forefront of the Little Russian Cuirassier Regiment.

"Brothers, if this battle goes well, I will apply for the Order of St. George for all officers who have made contributions, and for the newly established medals for all soldiers! We must wipe out these Polish bastards!"

After hearing this, and considering that the Russian army now finally has pensions, annuities and retirement pay for various levels of honors, these cuirassiers became excited.

In the previous Battle of Eylau, which was as big as it was, they were almost held hostage by Baron Sacken until the very last moment and were not sent to the battlefield. They were only tasked with guarding the flanks in the rearguard battle, so they suffered no losses, but also did not make any contributions.

This time, although the scale of the battle was far smaller, the size of the Russian and Polish armies was almost the same. If they could be completely wiped out, the bonuses and medals would probably not be low.

Moreover, the brothers' military pay this month was used as bait to be divided up by these Polish birds, so naturally they had to be taught a lesson.

So, when the Little Russian Cuirassiers and the Courland Dragoons attacked from their ambush, they slashed at the Polish troops at the rear of the team with their swords.

This powerful impact force was so strong that even if the elite French troops formed a battalion formation to meet the enemy, they would probably have to break several phalanxes in succession before they could stop.

But the Poles in the front team were unaware of this situation at this time. They were still chasing the Chasseur Regiment that was luring the enemy, and their formation was already in disarray.

Solovyov was secretly pleased with himself. This method was indeed useful, even though it was just an excuse.

But not everyone could understand, his adjutant asked.

"General, why are you luring the enemy like this?"

"I just borrowed the method that Paulus used to command the Roman army to defeat the Macedonians. The Macedonian phalanx, which was once invincible, defeated the Romans in the first battle. However, it was broken up by the broken terrain during the pursuit. It was unable to maintain its formation, and unlike the era of Alexander the Great, it did not have infantry to cooperate with, so it was defeated by the reorganized Romans. Don't think about innovation in tactics, that's just deceiving. You must first learn the military theory thoroughly before you can combine it on the battlefield."

He now looks a bit like Suvorov in his middle age. He has begun to teach these young officers skills, and this is the kind that he does from time to time during daily life and battles.

However, he was not that mature. Although he had strange nicknames like "Old Man Misha" among the officers, he could not suppress the self-satisfaction of the young people.

Of course, he did think of this, and the Poles, who had poor military discipline and lacked restraint, naturally had a disorganized formation.

The rest is up to the grenadiers to handle.

The Polish troops in front were still chasing the luring chasseur regiment, and did not notice that they were surrounded by Russian heavy cavalry from the rear. They also did not notice that although Solovyov was very martial in setting up the battle formation, he was particularly unmartial in changing the hats on the soldiers' heads.

Moreover, there was no time to observe carefully. After the 21st Jager Regiment retreated and reorganized, it joined forces with the Tafred Grenadier Regiment.

The commander of the Polish army did not notice this, but just thought that the Russian army might have sent a chasseur brigade to fight.

Since they are all light infantry, just launch a bayonet charge directly.

This idea was probably because the French army often ran away during skirmishes, and they learned the French's fashionable new tactics, but forgot that the Russians were very cunning and would not retreat easily.

Another point is that when Solovyov was fighting, he did not have a fixed routine when he wanted to take the initiative to attack. It was not like when he was defending, he had a set of iron barrel turtle formation that he used to death and was particularly difficult to penetrate.

Therefore, when the Russian army launched a counterattack, the Poles realized that the clown was actually me.

As a result, these Polish soldiers were defeated by the bayonet charge after a round of volleys from the Russian army, and their formation collapsed like melting snow.

"That's bad. We were hoping to hold off the Poles, but now we're afraid it'll take us a whole day to catch these 10,000 pigs."

Peter Palen had already led the heavy cavalry to crush the resistance of the Polish army in the rear, and the two Cossack regiments were now only concerned with driving away the enemy and capturing prisoners.

They didn't even have a chance to change weapons. They just kept attacking with sabers, sometimes even chopping off the hands of surrendering Polish infantrymen, thus killing them with their heads.

Anyway, the enemy was to be eliminated, and Solovyov really didn't care about the method of eliminating the enemy.

As for the Polish resistance, he himself underestimated the intensity of the battle. It took a whole morning for the Polish ragtag army of more than 10,000 to lure the enemy into battle, but the decisive battle ended before nightfall.

Seeing the captives and enemy heads all over the mountains, it was indeed a glorious victory.

There were even cases in some rivers where Poles fled to the river bank and were eventually driven into the river by Cossack cavalry and drowned.

"Sir, do you want to write a battle report and send it to the commander-in-chief now?"

"That's not necessary. General Melas almost defeated Napoleon. His luck in Marengo was really bad. There's no point in sending out the battle report in advance. After we win, we need to count the results of the battle, withdraw the troops to Ostrolenka, and then send the news to Count Langgeron. We must also forward it to the emperor. It's been a long time since we have such a glorious victory of annihilating more than 10,000 enemies."

Of course, it was unlikely that he would be promoted to a higher rank after the battle report was sent to St. Petersburg. This "young general" was only promoted during the anti-French coalition war, and the generals only looked at seniority.

It was probably some kind of medal awarded by Alexander, and the 3rd Division achieved such great results this time that even Baron Sacken, who was recuperating in the hospital in the rear, would be rewarded.

After all, the 3rd Division's strong combat effectiveness depends on the style of the division commander, and Commander Solovyov simply strengthened this trait.

(End of this chapter)