The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1419 Rye
The British-Turkish coalition force of more than 500,000 may sound scary, but in fact, hundreds of kilometers of the Danube River need to be defended. Although the Sofia area in the west is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it also requires the deployment of a certain number of troops to prevent sneak attacks.

With the participation of the Kingdom of Greece in the war, it is impossible to leave the Eastern Thrace region empty.

In the end, Baron Raglan could only mobilize 70,000 to 80,000 men on the front battlefield. The Ottomans sent only the old, weak, sick and disabled, or they were just temporary conscripts. If that was all, it would be fine, but what was even more terrible was that these so-called troops were not only of low quality but also short of numbers.

At this time, the Redwood Army became the main force on the front battlefield, which made Baron Raglan curse.

The Ottoman Empire's top brass didn't really want to fool the British, but they simply didn't know what the situation was like at the bottom. Although there was only a wall between them, the inside and outside of the city were two different worlds.

The war started again, and as soon as the fighting started, the battlefield was covered in blood and smoke. Countless limbs, weapons, internal organs, and military flags were left on the battlefield.

With the sound of a desolate horn, the soldiers on both sides began to retreat. The world became quiet, and the battlefield was left to crows and wild dogs.

Suddenly a corpse began to shake. A man pushed the corpse away with great effort, walked towards a dead Ottoman squad leader, tore off the silver ornament on his cap badge and stuffed it into his coat pocket.

Then he picked up his gun from the ground and limped back to the Russian position.

There were many people like him on the battlefield. Later, people crawled out from the pile of corpses one after another. Everyone tacitly did not attack each other, but left the land as quickly as possible as if something terrible was about to happen.

Of course, there would be no such thing as zombies in this world, but in the 19th century it would cause panic among ordinary people.

At night the man was hanged on a stake along with other deserters. As punishment for their cowardice, they would be hung on the stake all night.

If they were still alive the next day, it meant that God had forgiven them.

The man's name was also Nicholas, which was said to be to commemorate the Tsar's accession to the throne. However, the same name did not mean the same thing. Nicholas was a serf from birth.

He was illiterate and had never left his master's manor. The farthest place he had been to before was the birch forest to the north of the manor.

Nicholas was taught to be grateful since birth, but the injuries on his body have never stopped since he started working at the age of eight.

Some are because of clumsiness, some are because of breaking farm tools, some are because of laziness when working, some are because of offending the owner, some are because the owner is too idle, and some are because he doesn't know why.

Nikolai only knew that all the serfs on the farm were like this. He still remembered that when he was 14 years old, he was weeding in the fields and heard his sister's screams and Master Getmanov's laughter from the stable not far away.

Nicholas picked up the sickle and was about to rush forward when he was stopped by his father and the men in the village. The housekeeper also came over with his men.

An old man in the village advised.

"We Russian serfs are like the rye in the field, tenacious and resilient, able to thrive in any adverse environment, but we will eventually mature and learn to bow our heads and remain humble."

Nicholas' nails pierced the thick calluses, and drops of blood dripped into the soil and into his heart.

Over the next decade, Nicholas became the same as the others, working with lifeless eyes, accepting punishment, marrying and having children, and accepting his fate.
Until one day, the Tsar's conscription officer came to the village, and Nicholas was stopped by the conscription officer on his way home.

The conscription officer pinched his face with a leather glove, opened his mouth, and after a careful examination, he punched Nicholas in the chest twice. "Now you are a soldier of His Majesty the Tsar. From now on, you only need to remember two things: obey my orders and be loyal to His Majesty the Tsar."

His Majesty the Tsar wanted to fight a holy war, so he naturally needed a lot of people. Soldiers from various farms gathered together like streams.

However, before arriving at the military camp, they had nothing and were still even wearing tattered leather coats and shoes woven from grass, wood and hair.

On the way, people kept falling behind and dying. On the first day, it was a lame man from a neighboring village. On the second day, it was a father and son from Upper Sichoya Village. On the eighth day, it was old Ivan, who used to be the village blacksmith, but he was too old.
The heavy carriage plowed two scars on the frozen soil that was about to melt, and Nicholas followed the team with one footstep deep and one foot shallow.

After an unknown amount of time, they finally arrived at the military camp, where they received their first full meal and their first decent clothes in their lives.

On the way to the front line, he passed by an unknown village and a beautiful girl gave him an unknown little flower.

This was the happiest day in Nicholas' life. He seemed to have found the true meaning of life.

However, the battlefield was cruel, and countless people died every day. Nicholas wet his pants the first time he went to the battlefield, but he soon found that others were the same as him.

The scene of a group of Tsarist soldiers hiding in the trenches with their bare buttocks drying their pants was quite a sight, but no one laughed at themselves, after all, everyone was bare-butted.

Soon Nicholas became sad again, because the veterans said that a service lasted twenty years. If there was no war during this period, it would be fine, but if a war broke out, less than 1% of the people would survive to the end of the military service.

If this is true, he may never see his father, mother, wife, or his three children again.
At that moment, Nicholas thought of escaping, escaping back to his village and continuing to be a serf.

But he quickly gave up the idea, because the Russian army never showed mercy to deserters, and no one could escape the pursuit of hounds and Cossacks.

The war had been going on and off, from the beginning of the thaw to the blooming of flowers. If there had not been this war, I would have been sowing rye, right?
The sound of a bird's song brought Nicholas back to reality. It was already the next morning. Thank God he lived another day.

However, the war was not over. After getting a piece of black bread that was harder than a stone, he was pushed to the front line again.

Amid the huge roar, Nicholas watched his comrades around him being blown into the sky one by one, and the blood mist blurred his vision.

He didn't know how many shells the British had, he only knew they fired like this for several hours every day.

The shelling stopped, but Nicholas did not let his guard down. Instead, he was extremely nervous because the Ottomans were coming.

Sure enough, a group of Ottomans in rags rushed up, waving scimitars and rifles with ferocious faces, and following behind them were the Ottoman new troops wearing double-breasted jackets.

The Ottomans at the front shouted all the way, and by the time they reached the Russian line, they had run out of strength.

However, Nicholas and his companions were still not prepared to fight with bayonets. A burst of gunfire rang out and the Ottomans fell down in groups.

No one knows whether he was shot or collapsed from exhaustion.