1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 702 I'll Take a Gamble Too

"Tell all the troops! I don't want any prisoners from the Maine Brigade or this damn First Mercenary Regiment! Including their officers! I will make them pay double for the blood debt they owe me!"

Liang Yao was furious when he learned that the Northern Army of the Maine Brigade and the First Mercenary Regiment had massacred all the prisoners of war from the Mexican Militia Brigade.

The war with the Northern Confederacy had been going on for some time, and the two sides had fought no less than a hundred battles of varying sizes, including the two major battles of the Kearny Forts and the Battle of the Platte River.

Although the Western Army won more battles than it lost, it was basically the Western Army that captured prisoners from the Northern Army.

However, the Union Army captured a total of 64 Western prisoners in some small battles, especially in railroad raids and harassment campaigns. These captured Western soldiers were basically captured by the Union cavalry while repairing railroad tracks, and most of them were engineers.

When it came to treating enemy prisoners, both Liang Yao and McClellan maintained the bottom line that a modern army should have, and no vicious incidents of massacring prisoners of war occurred.

Until those bastards from the Maine Brigade and the First Mercenary Regiment broke that line in northern Kansas.

"If we weren't in a hurry to have a decisive battle with McClellan's Omaha Army, I would take the men from Sacramento to North Kansas and send these worse-than-pigs-and-dogs to hell!" Sartre was also furious.

Although they were angry, the senior military officers present were still able to distinguish between priorities and primary and secondary conflicts.

The Maine Brigade and the First Mercenary Regiment, which were short of ammunition and medicine, could no longer cause any big waves. The top priority now was to defeat the main force of the Northern Army in Omaha.

"Based on our analysis of the intercepted telegrams, I think McClellan will break out in the near future. The only direction they can break out is Des Moines, which is our eastern suburbs defense line." Kruger got back to the point. "We should immediately strengthen the defense of the eastern suburbs defense line."

Both the North and the South used plain text to transmit messages without any encryption, so the Western Army could also receive the telegrams sent by Washington to McClellan at the same time.

This is also the reason why Liang Yao sent troops to destroy the railway leading into Omaha, but did not destroy the telegraph lines in Omaha.

The telegraph lines in Omaha were damaged, and Liang Yao and his men were more anxious than McClellan and Lincoln. They thoughtfully sent out signalmen to help them repair the telegraph lines as soon as possible.

It is no exaggeration to say that the telegrams sent by Washington are the most important and reliable source of intelligence for the Western Army.

Of course, Washington also knew that their telegram had been intercepted by Sacramento.

But there was no other way. Without telegraph communication, they had to use the most primitive method, which was to have the messenger soldiers ride fast horses to deliver the letters. If they really did this, the messenger soldiers would only have to go back and forth between Washington and Omaha once or twice, and the war might have been over.

"Deploy all the machine guns to the positions on the eastern outskirts of Omaha, and have them under the unified command of the machine gun regiment. If McClellan comes out of the city to fight us, the machine gun regiment will take the lead. We must fight them close by! Destroy as many of their manpower as possible. Washington, can you and your machine gun regiment do it?" Liang Yao made the latest deployment.

He wanted not only to defeat McClellan's Omaha Army, but to annihilate it completely!

Before the battle, Omaha City had 4 soldiers stationed there, which was later increased to more than 7. Liang Yao deployed a total of 5 troops on the Omaha battlefield.

The Western Army's encirclement of Omaha was thin in appearance but large in content, and it relied entirely on the quality of its troops and more advanced weapons to maintain the encirclement.

Due to the numerical disadvantage, it was easy for the Western Army to defeat McClellan's Omaha Corps, but it was difficult to wipe it out completely.

Liang Yao wanted to use machine guns to reap the lives of the Northern Army's soldiers, to narrow the gap in numbers between the enemy and us as much as possible, and to create more favorable conditions for the subsequent infantry units to completely wipe out the Omaha Corps.

"Guaranteed to complete the mission!"

The head of the machine gun regiment, Washington, puffed out his chest and assured Liang Yao in a resounding voice. The machine gun regiment had never participated in a major war, and as the head of the machine gun regiment, Washington had been waiting for an opportunity.

When Washington heard that the machine gun regiment could take the lead this time, he was very excited. He was afraid that if he responded too late, the opportunity to take the lead would be snatched away by other troops.

All the machine gun units are under his command, that’s 114 machine gun groups!

The only drawback was that two regiments of the 103rd Brigade were still fighting in northern Kansas. If these two regiments were on the Omaha battlefield, 12 more machine gun groups could be added.

"Go and prepare. Transfer the machine gun crew on the western suburbs position to the eastern suburbs position." Liang Yao instructed Washington.

"Whether we can completely wipe out the Yankee's Omaha Corps depends on the performance of your machine gun unit."

"Yes!" Washington saluted Liang Yao and happily went to transfer the gun team.

"McClellan is only likely to break out from the eastern suburbs position. What if, I mean, what if McClellan does not take the usual route and breaks out from the western suburbs position? Wouldn't it be too risky to transfer all the machine gun crews to the eastern suburbs position for concentrated use?" Elvis was a little unsure.

From the telegrams exchanged between Washington and McClellan, they could only conclude that McClellan would break out in the near future.

McClellan was not stupid. He knew that the telegram sent to Washington would be intercepted by the Western Army, so McClellan did not mention the specific details of the breakout in the telegram.

"The greater the risk, the higher the reward. Robert Lee's gamble on the Eastern Front paid off, as he wiped out two Yankee legions. If he had been timid and unwilling to give it a try, how could he have achieved such a good result?" Liang Yao has made up his mind.

"Besides, the 102nd Brigade, the Utah Militia Brigade, the Los Angeles Militia Brigade and the Tijuana Militia are still stationed in the eastern suburbs. If McClellan breaks out in the direction of the eastern suburbs, we can just drive them back to the city."

If McClellan really did something unconventional and broke out from the western suburbs, his troops would have to cross the river at least once and make a detour to Des Moines.

Although doing so can catch them off guard, the risk is too high.

Based on Liang Yao's understanding of McClellan, McClellan is a relatively law-abiding person and is unlikely to take such a big risk.

At noon, Napoleon III's special train arrived at Waterloo Railway Station. Liang Yao and a group of senior officials personally welcomed Napoleon III at the railway station.

During the Crimean War, Liang Yao and Napoleon III had frequent correspondence and gave each other gifts, so they could barely be considered pen pals.

Although Liang Yao had seen photos and portraits of Napoleon III, this was the first time he saw Napoleon III in person.

The first time Liang Yao saw a photo of Napoleon III was in the German chapter of the junior high school history textbook. Napoleon III appeared in the textbook in a very disgraceful way, and the accompanying photo was also a photo of him surrendering and being captured after the Battle of Sedan.

Liang Yao was still young at that time, and his understanding of historical figures was superficial and very stereotyped. Naturally, his first impression of the king of a fallen country was not very good.

Only as I grow older and gain more experience, and my understanding deepens, do my views on historical figures gradually change.

Although Napoleon III's military achievements were unremarkable, his contribution to the industrialization and modernization of France was greater than that of his uncle Napoleon.

The 50 billion francs demanded by Germany after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War was a great humiliation to France and Napoleon III himself. However, the fact that France was able to pay off the huge indemnity of 50 billion francs in just three years was, to some extent, a recognition of Napoleon III's achievements during his 22-year reign (four years as president, 4-1848, and 1852 years as emperor, 18-1852).

(End of this chapter)