Forty-eight years of Qianlong

Chapter 490 Too Many Prisoners

On September 1790, 9, because too many prisoners of war were captured, Zhao Xin only sent a small-scale attack force consisting of ten armored vehicles and two infantry battalions in the morning to deter the fleeing Russian army.

However, to the surprise of the North Navy, the news of the fall of Zima has spread rapidly within the Russian army after overnight fermentation.Compared with the cavalry who could move quickly, the Russian infantry in charge of the rear, after seeing the armored vehicles of the Northern Navy approaching, gave up resistance after a little hesitation, and sent someone to contact them about the surrender.

Facing the situation on the battlefield being attacked from both sides, and the Siberian wilderness that is about to enter winter, the panicked Russian army has understood that surrender is the only way out.

To the Easterners, being captured on the battlefield is a very shameful thing, and some would rather die in battle than be taken prisoner.However, for Westerners, if they cannot be defeated or escaped, they must surrender. As long as they are not traitors, no one will despise or punish themselves for it.

As a result, the attacking troops stopped after only twenty kilometers.There is no way, more and more Russian troops have surrendered in the company system, and the Beihai Navy, which has only more than 1000 people, is really at a loss when facing thousands of enemy prisoners.

After hearing the news from the headquarters in Kutulik Village, Zhao Xin could only send a cavalry battalion to escort the prisoners back first.Then he hurriedly sent a report to Zhang Jingxuan who was sitting in Irkutsk, asking him to hire civilians among the new immigrants and low-level citizens as soon as possible, and build a temporary prisoner-of-war camp two kilometers east of Usoliye.

Zhang Jingxuan who received the telegram was taken aback by the number of prisoners of war above, knowing that it was another big victory.Now he has no intention of confronting Zhao Xin, so he hastily summoned the secretary of the city government, Markovic, to issue an announcement in the city immediately, recruiting carpenters, stonemasons, blacksmiths and other strong laborers with a wage of two Beihai silver dollars a day. Quickly rushed to Usoliye and reported to the Sixth Regiment of the Beihai Navy, which was responsible for the backup mission.

Don't forget that many towns in Siberia were formerly prisons, so the settlers in the city were very familiar with building prisons.

At the same time, Wu Siyu, who is in the Yaksa prisoner-of-war management camp, received news from Zhao Xin on August 8 that he had sent a team and was on his way.In order to test the backbone of the future "Cossack Kingdom", Alexander Pugachev and his 28 loyal subordinates were also accompanying him.

From a year ago, the former Don Cossack cavalryman, 35-year-old Krutogrove officially changed his name to Alexander Ivanovich Pugachev, and his identity was Yemelyan Ivanovich. The eldest son of Pugachev's legacy among the people.

In fact, Pugachev's eldest son Trofim is still alive and is 25 years old this year.Unlike East Asian countries, which killed the whole family of the conspirators, the Russian Senate refused to prosecute Pugachev's family 15 years ago because they did not participate in the riots.

However, Ekaterina II will obviously not forgive them. At present, Trofim, his two sisters, and Pugachev's two wives are being held in Keksgorm Castle on the Baltic Sea coast. Freedom of movement is severely restricted.

In history, this family has gone through seven generations of tsars, and they have never received amnesty in their entire lives.It is said that Pugachev's son lived to be 126 years old and did not die until 1901.

Turn your gaze back to Kutulik Village.

Beginning in the morning of September 9st, the North Navy separated those Russian captives who were still able to move into groups of 1 people. Every ten people tied their right arms together with ropes, and then they were escorted by an infantry platoon with live ammunition. Usolier departs.

Because there were a large number of wounded among the prisoners of the Russian army, the medical soldiers of each company of the Northern Navy first classified the injuries of these people, and those who did not need treatment for the time being were transferred in a small carriage; Those who are dying can only be rescued first.

The reason why Zhao Xin did this was not to pity the enemy, but that once a large number of wounded soldiers died, it would probably cause the disease to spread and even affect his own soldiers.

Since ancient times, wounded infection is not actually the culprit that causes the mass death of wounded soldiers, but infectious diseases are.Before the great development of modern military medicine, dysentery, malaria, typhoid and pneumonia were the most common infectious diseases on the battlefield, and even smallpox.

The management of prisoners of war is a subject of knowledge, and it does not mean that once the enemy is arrested, it will be over.Whether it is preferential treatment or transformation, the purpose is to disintegrate the morale of the enemy and make them give up resistance.Some people naively think that mass murder or brutal torture can deter captives, no matter whether it is ancient or modern, it is extremely undesirable.Nothing to gain but to inspire violent hatred and mass revolt.

The reason is very simple, 30 years in Hedong, 30 years in Hexi; if you can do the first grade of junior high school, others will one day do the fifteenth grade.

All prisoners of war have to go through a series of cognitive adjustment processes such as shock, humiliation, escape, resistance, adaptation, return, and worry from the early stage of captivity to the late stage.How to dispel their humiliation faster and avoid group resistance is an extremely urgent matter for the Beihai Navy.

What Zhao Xin did was to treat the seriously wounded, and it was under the watchful eyes of the captives.

For the medics of the Northern Navy, the six years of war have provided them with a large number of different types of injury cases.Some early medical soldiers have now become the backbone of hospitals or medical stations in various places in Beihai Town, and they are very good at handling emergency injuries.Hong Tao once said that the battlefield is the best "school" for surgeons.

However, when the medical soldiers of the North Navy used medical equipment that was very different from this era, and used antibiotics to eliminate the infection of the wounded, it quickly aroused the great interest of several Russian military doctors and other prisoners. They gathered around the temporary surgical tent to watch.

Petrovich Rudakov was an infantryman of the Astrakhan Grenadier Regiment. During the battle on August 8, he was hit in the abdomen by a stray bullet.When he was carried into the tent in a coma, the military doctor of the North Navy who was in charge of treating him quickly cut away the black and yellow military uniform and linen bandages that had been stained with blood and unknown substances, exposing the wound that had begun to inflame and swell .

In recent years, military doctors in various European countries generally used wine and lead water to treat wounds locally; the former was used for sterilization and debridement, and the latter was an anti-inflammatory agent.Of course, in this era, things like sulfuric acid, vinegar, quicklime, turpentine, salt, mustard, cream, butter, olive oil, etc., will be used for wound treatment.And tourniquets, tape rolls made of waste cloth, sponges, etc. are also the main medical "equipment" of field hospitals.

After two days of fighting between the Russian army and the Beihai Navy, there were many wounded, either by bullets or by shrapnel. As long as they were not dead, they could be dealt with in time, either amputated arms or legs.As for those who were shot in the torso, of course they couldn't cut them in half, so they could only do simple wound treatment and wait to die.

Although vascular ligation was invented by French surgeons as early as the [-]th century, in fact, until the early [-]th century, the most commonly used means of hemostasis in battlefield rescue were still boiling oil and a soldering iron, and officers of noble origin were eligible to enjoy wound healing. Top with a thick layer of animal fat or a honey treat.The reason for doing this is that there is no time to suture the wound, and the second is for speed.

As for those who were amputated, it was also common for burns to destroy the nearby skin flaps that could be used to cover the wounds, resulting in gangrene, tetanus and erysipelas infections.

At this time, the Russian captives who were responsible for carrying the wounded outside the tent were talking in low voices, and neither the soldiers nor the military doctors who were in charge of guarding them could understand what these people were saying at all.

"God bless. Poor Petrovitch, I'm afraid he won't make it through."

"Yes, he was shot in the abdomen, and the poison of the gunpowder is probably going to reach his brain."

"Tell me, Dr. Erskine, is Petrovitch still alive?"

The so-called Doctor Erskine was a middle-aged man in his 40s. He was silent at the moment, frowning tightly, with a thoughtful expression on his face.

The first thing that aroused his curiosity was that the doctors in the tent were all wearing light blue coats and hats, and masks of the same color on their faces, and at the same time, they were all wearing a pair of very thin ones that seemed to be made of rubber. gloves.

Next, a scene that surprised him appeared.The military doctor of the Northern Navy first used a pair of strange-looking pliers to hold a piece of snow-white cotton, and then dipped some unknown transparent liquid to wipe around Petrovic's wound.

"Wine?" Dr. Erskine dismissed his idea quickly, for he could smell no wine at all.Immediately afterwards, he saw that the Chinese doctor used a transparent tube filled with some liquid and a thin needle, and gently inserted it around the wound.

"My God! Why did the Chinese prick poor Petrovich with a needle?!"

"This is a real crime. I was shot yesterday, and I will get an injection today."

Hearing the Russian prisoners' voices getting louder, the North Navy military doctor in the tent suddenly said "shut up", as if they had a heart, and the prisoners immediately stopped talking.

Immediately afterwards, the most shocking scene occurred.A military doctor picked up the scalpel he had prepared and slashed at the wound on Petrovich's abdomen. As the blood flowed down the abdomen, the faces of the Russian soldiers outside the tent turned green.

But laymen watch the excitement, and experts watch the way.Dr. Erskine was shocked to find that after the doctor injected the liquid in the transparent tube into the wound around the wound with a plunger, even though a big gash was cut by a sharp knife, Petrovic was completely unaffected. reaction.

Immediately afterwards, during the few minutes when Erskine and the prisoners almost stopped breathing, the military doctor of the North Navy used a pair of shiny silver curved pliers to poke through the open knife edge, and after a while , only heard a "clang", it seemed that something was taken out of Petrovich's stomach.After that, the incision is sutured, medicines are applied, injections are given, and bandages are performed.

When the military doctor beckoned someone to take the wounded away, a Russian prisoner who walked into the tent suddenly asked in a daze, "Doctor, can poor Petrovich survive?"

Although the military doctor of Beihai Navy couldn't understand what the other party was saying, he still understood something from the begging eyes.So he pulled off his mask, smiled at the prisoner, and nodded.

"Ha! Petrovitch is all right! He's saved!"

At this time, the Russian captives outside the tent suddenly showed joyful expressions, and one guy said: "I knew it! I knew it!"

However, there are still people who are worried. I only heard a 50-year-old veteran say: "Don't worry, what will happen, we have to wait for Petrovich to wake up to find out. He was stabbed in the stomach, my God! I've never heard of such a thing."

But not a single word of the crowd's discussion reached Dr. Erskine's ears.At this moment, it was as if lightning flashed across his mind, followed by countless thunderclaps.

"God! What kind of medicine is that?!" He was sure that he had just seen a miracle in surgical medicine.

It is said that the slow development of military medicine before the mid-nineteenth century was due to the fact that those surgeons who dared to be accompanied by blood and who were good at sawing arms and legs were regarded as butchers by the world and were looked down upon for a long time.

We must know that surgical anesthesia in modern medicine will not be invented until after the 1840s, and the syringe will not appear until 1853.Ever since, all invasive surgical operations depend on the dexterity of the surgeon's hands and feet, the sharpness of the surgical tools, and the stability of the mentality, so that the pain of the injured can be reduced.

In this era, surgeons generally believe that "gunpowder poison" is the culprit of fatalities for those wounded with limb muscle penetration, bone shattering or foreign body implantation caused by bullets or artillery shells, so the only method they can take is amputation.

As a doctor who graduated from "Leiden University in the Netherlands", Herman Erskine was a follower of Hippocrates and Thomas Sydenham (the founder of clinical medicine and epidemiology). He believed that The surgical treatment method I have mastered is already the most cutting-edge technology in clinical medicine in Europe today.

We must know that in the [-]th and [-]th centuries, the Tsarist Russian Empire and the Netherlands had extremely close ties in the field of medicine.Many Dutch doctors came to the Tsarist Russian Empire to practice medicine and promote medical education. Many of them entered the court to serve the Tsar and nobles, which greatly promoted the establishment of Russia's first medical school and hospital during the Peter I period.

However, today's scene made Herman Erskine very curious about the orientals in dark green military uniforms before him. He already felt that these Chinese from the far east seemed to be far more powerful than Europeans. More advanced clinical medical technology.

Thinking of this, Dr. Erskine walked into the tent unconsciously, and said to the military doctor who performed the surgery in an excited tone, "Your Excellency, can I stay here to help? I am also a doctor."

"Ah?" The two military doctors looked at each other, wondering what this golden-haired Rakshasa was talking about?
At the same time, Zhao Xin, who had a headache and had to slow down his attack because he had captured too many prisoners of war, unexpectedly received a report from the front. The Russian army sent a messenger, saying that there was a letter from the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, It needs to be submitted to the top officer of the Northern Navy.

More than an hour later, the courier was taken outside the temporary headquarters in the village of Kutulik.This person was a young cavalry captain. To be on the safe side, after Sheng Haizhou accepted the letter on Zhao Xin's behalf, the cavalry captain did not leave. He wanted to take Bei Haijun's reply back to report.

After Zhao Xin received the letter, he recognized that the sealing seal on the envelope was exactly the same as that on the surrender letter he had received before, so he opened the letter with confidence and read it.After a long time, he finally understood the two pages written in fancy Cyrillic, the main content of which was that Rumyantsev wanted to negotiate with the Northern Navy on surrendering for the lives of tens of thousands of officers and soldiers under his command. , I hope that the Beihai Navy can send equivalent negotiators to come forward and put forward preliminary surrender conditions.

Rumyantsev's conditions were: [-]. The two sides ceased fighting, and the North Navy would not launch an attack on the Russian army until the relevant treaties or detailed rules were negotiated; [-]. The two sides can send personnel to negotiate specific details and the date of troop withdrawal in the village of Kutulik or Irkutsk.

Heh heh, what are you thinking about?Zhao Xin showed a sneer at the corner of his mouth after reading it.What the hell is this? If Yenisesk is not taken down, this battle will never end!

Today, Tsarist Russia’s greatest military force west of the Yenisei River is the enemy in front of it. If it is not won in one go and Rumyantsev wins a respite, this battle will become meaningless, and the North Navy is cleaning up. After Tsarist Russia turned around to deal with the Manchu Qing strategic plan, all previous efforts will be wasted.

"Send a report to Pan Xiucheng's department to closely monitor the movement of the Russian army. If the enemy tries to cross the Oka River, they must be severely punished and they will never be allowed to cross the river."

"Send a report to the Lu Shou Mountain Department, let them speed up their progress, and must conquer the Ilimsk fortress before September 9."

"Send a report to Huji to ask the third regiment and the Ainu battalion not to stay after capturing the Bratsk fortress, and quickly move north and west along the Angara River, and arrive in Yenisesk before September 9."

After Zhao Xin finished speaking the contents of the telegram, the confidential staff also wrote the telegram. He signed it, and then said to Li Rui, the staff officer: "This time, you will be in charge of the contact with the Russian army."

Li Rui pointed to his nose in disbelief and asked, "Me? I've never done it before!"

Zhao Xindao: "It's because you haven't done it before that you are asked to come forward. There must be a first time in everything, and you can't point me to everything."

Li Ruili hurriedly saluted and said, "Please give me instructions."

"Two requests." Zhao Xin got up and walked a few steps back and forth in the room, stopped in front of the map and said, "If you want to talk, you can talk, but we have to talk today, and there must be a result. Surrender or continue fighting? If If they want to surrender, they are given 24 hours to lay down their weapons and surrender unconditionally from [-]:[-] p.m. on this day, otherwise our army will launch a devastating attack on them and they will bear the consequences.”

Li Ruidao: "What if the Russian army asks them to talk with them?"

"Then you go, I will ask the cavalry battalion to send you a company." Zhao Xin smiled and said: "In a word, they must not delay!"

(End of this chapter)