Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 688 The Battle Loss Ratio Caused by Weapon Generation Difference
Jia Shi, who had climbed onto the roof, used binoculars to observe the area outside the city. The indigenous tribes' camps consisted of tents, which didn't look fireproof.

It's May now, and the spring wheat and other crops in the fields have all been ruined. The tribe's livestock are eating the crops at will. Although the farmland outside the city doesn't belong to the mixed brigade's soldiers, it still breaks their hearts to see it like this.

“Remember the names of these tribes. Once we drive out the Russian army, we’ll settle accounts with them one by one,” Jia Shi said, turning his head. Everyone nodded silently.

The original city wall was not high, just a three-meter-high earthen wall, which could be climbed with a little effort.

The mixed brigade has been busy dismantling buildings outside the city and clearing the firing line for the past few days. Temporarily raising the city walls is not feasible, so they can only try to maximize their firepower advantage to inflict casualties.

"How are the ammunition reserves?" The 3rd Battalion of the 1st Regiment was responsible for about 500 meters of the city wall. The three teams took turns on duty. One team was resting, another was digging soil outside the city wall, filling sandbags and piling them up on the wall, and the third was on guard. Time was limited, and there wasn't much they could do. It was all the fault of the damned Anxi Army. They hadn't made any preparations beforehand, and probably hadn't expected the Russian army to attack.

"The specimen preparation unit has delivered three basic loads of ammunition! Only one basic load of shells for the new mortars has been provided. There are three thousand hand grenades, though." The deputy commander in charge of logistics replied immediately, his tone not very satisfied.

"That thing makes a loud noise, but its destructive power is negligible." Jia Shi was not very satisfied. The hand grenade, made from local materials, even with a pound of black powder inside, still had little to no power.

The main problem is the manufacturing process; it's simply impossible to achieve the maximum potential of black powder. When the mixed brigade set off, each soldier was equipped with four hand grenades produced by the research and development department's arsenal. These are used up one at a time, and there's nowhere to quickly replenish them, so they're used very sparingly. As for rifle bullets, locally produced ones are no good either; the purification process wasn't up to standard, and the pelletizing wasn't done properly, so they're just made do.

Three days have passed since the enemy surrounded the city from all sides, yet they have not launched an attack. Occasionally, cavalrymen will come to the city walls to show off their power, but they will keep a distance of more than 500 meters and refuse to come any closer.

"Hurry up, don't be afraid of hard work. The more we prepare now, the fewer people will die when the fighting starts. It's not worth slacking off now and losing your life later. The local women may smell a bit strong, but if we win and take them back, we can wash them more often and they'll be fine to sleep with." Jia Lian shouted loudly, his tone very relaxed and casual. The somewhat somber atmosphere eased a bit, and many officers and soldiers laughed along.

After nightfall, the soldiers fell into a deep sleep. The city gates were quietly opened, and dozens of men slipped out to secretly dig holes and bury things under the city walls in the dark.

Jia Shi had been on guard on the city wall, and only after seeing that everyone who had left the city had returned did he feel at ease enough to go back and get some sleep. He had only slept for about an hour when he was suddenly woken up by his adjutant, You San.

"Sir, the enemy is about to attack." Upon hearing the soldier's report, Jia Shi instantly snapped out of his daze. Without even wiping his face, he strode out of the tent and climbed the earthen wall.

Swarms of natives, carrying ladders, gathered two kilometers outside the city. Behind them came Cossacks on horseback, shouting loudly, seemingly supervising the battle, or perhaps driving them away.

The natives had a variety of weapons, including flintlock muskets, matchlock guns, bows and arrows, long-haired barbs, and scimitars.

Mortar team leader Jia Lin jogged over: "Uncle Shi, should we give them a rapid six-round burst?"

"Mortar shells are precious; it's not worth using them on them. Pass the order: one team guards the city wall, the second team rotates, and the third team is in reserve. Remember to bring plenty of grenades!"

Locally produced cast iron grenades are actually quite troublesome, requiring ignition, unlike those brought from the mainland which only require pulling the fuse.

It was called a grenade, but it was just a homemade bomb; it was enough to defend the city.

The horns sounded, and the natives approached the city walls from all sides. Jia Shi estimated that there were at least two thousand natives facing him.

The fact that they could send out two thousand soldiers at once shows that this tribe was not small, with a population of at least around one hundred thousand. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to deploy two thousand men for the first attack.

The commander appeared, checked the preparations, and instructed Jia Shi: "There's a city gate on this section, so you absolutely cannot make a mistake."

"Please rest assured, sir. If anything goes wrong, I'll cut off my head." Jia Shi was very confident and answered decisively.

The commander looked helplessly at the city gate and said, "Let's just block it up with sandbags."

"No, sir, I was thinking of launching a counterattack. These are just natives, a bunch of rabble." Jia Shi was genuinely confident, after all, he had secretly done something behind the scenes last night.

"Alright, I'll go check elsewhere." The battalion commander said and left. The three infantry battalions were responsible for three sections of the city wall, totaling more than 1,500 meters.

Jia Shi wasn't bragging; he was well-prepared. His reserve force was stationed below the city walls, ready to block the gates at any time.

Most importantly, the enemy had no artillery, while the Russian Imperial Guard Cavalry should have had artillery, but it may have lagged behind. Or perhaps they lacked confidence in their firing range and dared not deploy more than a thousand troops.

The artillery observation posts on the city wall signaled with flags, and the artillery positions inside the city wall were the first to react. Boom! Boom! Boom! Thirty-six bronze cannons fired projectiles weighing six and twelve pounds each at the outside of the city.

The Russian army did not bring up its artillery, so the artillery units inside the city opened fire indiscriminately, trying to kill as many natives as possible who were being used as cannon fodder.

The solid shot was too weak; it caused a brief commotion in the formation, but they quickly regained their composure and continued their advance. It seems these natives are quite resilient even under artillery fire.

The artillery continued firing, tearing the native soldiers' formation apart once more, only to rebuild it again, their advance less resolute than before.

Although the casualties from the three rounds of shelling were not great, they dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the natives, especially the wails of those who had fallen but were not dead behind them, which made the people in front tremble.

"Faster! Faster, even faster!" They had already started jogging, and their formation had become much more scattered.

The native soldiers advanced to a small mound, which meant they were about 200 meters away when the rifles on the city wall opened fire.

Firing from a high vantage point is far more effective than artillery fire. The mortars have ceased firing; the main guns need to cool down, and we must also be wary of Russian artillery appearing.

The Russian artillery did not appear, but the natives who rushed to the city walls suffered heavy casualties under the barrage of gunfire. In a mere two hundred meters, the soldiers on the city walls fired five volleys of gunfire—an astonishing rate of fire.

On a high platform some distance outside the city, Russian Commander Korolev stared in disbelief at everything below. Was this the rate of fire a musket could achieve?
He glanced around instinctively, but no one could answer his question.

"General Rumyantsev warned me not to take any risks when facing the Zhou Empire's regular army. It seems there was a reason for that."

Korolev muttered to himself, while the noble officers around him, who had been so confident in front of the troops, now wore very serious expressions and pretended not to hear.

"It's all those natives' fault for being too slow, giving the enemy plenty of time to prepare," Romanov complained. No one else chimed in, and Korolev pretended not to hear.

It can only be said that royalty still had privileges, especially in Tsarist Russia, an empire with serfdom.

The natives' attack quickly crumbled under the rapid volleys of gunfire, and they turned and fled one after another.

Romanov said, "I'll personally lead the supervisory team up and kill them." Korolev couldn't play dumb anymore and raised his hand, saying, "No! Unless you want these natives to turn their guns on us."

Romanov said, "They dare!" But as he said that, his already pale face turned even paler, as if he had been gang-raped by more than a dozen women the night before.

"Send word to the natives to launch another attack. Any family that doesn't contribute will face our ruthlessness," Korolev said calmly. Cannon fodder should be prepared to be cannon fodder. The idea of ​​only wanting to profit without putting in any effort won't work in Tsarist Russia. Tsarist Russia has always been the one taking advantage of others. And they're the ones who feel worse watching others profit than suffering losses themselves.

Jia Shi, standing on the city wall, roughly counted the corpses left on the ground; there were at least three hundred. This didn't even include the casualties from artillery fire further away, or the wounded who had retreated.

The power of the breech-loading rifled rifle was still overwhelming. The enemy had no artillery, and just thinking about it was terrifying. How many lives would have to be sacrificed to make up for it?

"We have six wounded, all from arrows, but no fatalities," the adjutant reported. This casualty ratio was to be expected. The natives below the city had virtually no chance to fire their arquebuses, as they were well taken care of by the soldiers on the city walls. Some archers, however, were able to get closer and fire a few shots.

This was only the area defended by the three battalions; the casualties in other areas were probably similar. Assuming that each battalion suffered 300 casualties, a mixed brigade of nine infantry battalions would have suffered 2,700 casualties in one incident.

If the attack intensity remains at this level, how many natives can fill the gap?
It can be said that the natives were almost powerless to fight back. Would the natives still be willing to continue to be cannon fodder and die?
Jia Shi's guess was answered three hours later. As expected, the leaders of the various indigenous tribes were unwilling to continue the attack and demanded that the Russian artillery come up to suppress them, otherwise they would be throwing their lives away.

The Russian army did not tolerate these native leaders. After publicly killing the most troublesome leader, the native leaders became docile and launched another attack before noon, which was even stronger than the first wave.

However, there wasn't much difference. Faced with the overwhelming technological advantage in weaponry, the native soldiers were practically no different from those who had come to their deaths.

The officers and soldiers of the mixed brigade then realized something: they were actually quite strong. They had known they were strong before, but they hadn't realized they were this strong.

Just like during Operation Desert Shield, the US military prepared 50,000 body bags, but barely used any before Saddam Hussein was defeated. This proves once again that anyone claiming to be the world's third strongest is a complete idiot.

Only that seemingly harmless rabbit, who always loves peace, is truly ruthless and taciturn, and when he strikes, he means certain death, having defeated two of the world's third-ranked people.

Before nightfall, the natives launched another attack, which was repelled once again, ending the first day of fighting.

After three attacks, at least five thousand corpses were left outside the city. Jiang Ping, the brigade commander of the mixed brigade, ordered the signalmen to use flags to notify the other side that they could come and collect the corpses, and that we would not attack.

The main concern was the hot weather; people were worried that the corpses wouldn't be disposed of in time. The unpleasant smell was secondary; the real fear was the potential for an epidemic.

As expected, the natives sent people to collect the bodies. Finding that the city had not been attacked, more and more natives came to the city and took the bodies of their people back.

Jia Shi attended the brigade headquarters meeting that evening.

"Don't let your guard down after the day's victory. We can't afford to lose, not even once. We must be extra vigilant tonight to guard against a night attack by the enemy."

After the meeting, Jia Shi returned to the camp, gave some instructions, and then went to sleep. He hadn't slept much last night and hadn't slept at all during the day, so his eyes were almost too heavy to keep open, and he fell asleep as soon as he lay down.

The first half of the night passed peacefully. The crescent moon in the sky had some brightness, but it wasn't very noticeable.

It was getting dark in the latter half of the night, and the sentries on the city wall couldn't see very far.

After being woken up, Jia Shi checked his pocket watch; it was two in the morning. He was already late and needed to hurry to his shift change.

The regular patrol team was ready to go. After handing over the duties to his deputy, Jia Shi personally led the patrol team on patrol.

Upon reaching the foot of the city wall, the sentry asked for a password: "Password!"

"Han Hai, give the order!"

"Hanfeng!"

The patrol team climbed the city wall. Jia Shi vaguely sensed something was wrong, so he stopped and stared intently into the distance. However, visibility was limited at night.

"Who has good eyesight? Look in the distance, isn't there a big lump moving?" Jia Shi asked, startling the second team leader on night duty.

"Officer Jia, I have good eyesight, let me take a look."

After watching for a while, the second team officer said, "That's definitely not right!" He then put the whistle in his mouth and blew it hard.

The soldiers sleeping beneath the city wall were startled awake, scrambling out of their earthen huts and rushing up the wall with their rifles. The nearby defense zones were also alerted, and sharp whistles echoed across the city walls.

It seemed a bit late. After just one volley of gunfire, the enemy had already rushed to within about 100 meters of the city walls and was firing back at the walls with muskets. Some soldiers were hit and fell.

However, the section of the city wall that Jia Shi was responsible for defending was an exception, and his pre-prepared contingency plan came in handy.

"Pull the fire!" The rope buried underground taut under the tension, and a wall of fire was blasted out along the hundred-meter line with booming explosions. The continuous explosions overturned the enemy soldiers charging at the forefront.

After their fierce momentum was dealt a heavy blow, they stagnated and fell into chaos, and the infantry on the city walls began to fire fiercely with volleys of gunfire.

The walls in other defensive sections were also intact, but there were more casualties than during the day. Jia Shi's three battalions, on the other hand, suffered no casualties.

After repelling the enemy's night raid, Jia Shi left a detachment to continue the defense, while the rest went back to sleep. The outcome of the battle is certainly unclear at this point.

After daybreak, Jia Shicai could see clearly that the minefield, which was laid out in a line every hundred meters, was something he hadn't thought he would need for a while, but it was only used in an emergency last night.

There were no landmines in other defense zones last night, but the battalions still used up a lot of mortar ammunition, firing quickly and fiercely, which played a huge role.

It's no exaggeration to say that if the battalions hadn't received mortar support last night, it would have been impossible for the city walls to be breached, but the casualties would have been enormous.

Even so, the entire brigade suffered over a hundred wounded and eight killed in action last night. This can be considered the first time the mixed brigade has experienced such heavy casualties since entering Anxi.

(End of this chapter)