Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

The French were preparing to retreat, and even the Cossacks had detected their movements, but the Allied forces did not choose to pursue them immediately, but instead sent people to scout and find out the situation.

As a result, the French had already retreated and were preparing to flee, and the reconnaissance cavalry sent by the Allied Forces did not discover them in the first place.

Solovyov couldn't help but complain. According to what Barclay had told him, he already knew what kind of people these high-ranking officials of the coalition forces were.

Although the old man Blücher had intermittent mental illness and did not look very smart, and the discipline of the Prussian army was very poor, he now looked much better than the slow-witted Schwarzenberg.

After all, he really has to go there when something happens, but now there is a big problem. He is always the slowest to receive orders from the headquarters. To convey a message, the old man doesn't like to use optical communications, so it must be conveyed accurately. His brain really needs Gneisenau as an external brain to help him.

Now he has realized that the French are retreating, and the actions here have been blocked.

Napoleon left Reignier, Poniatowski and MacDonald to guard the rear in Leipzig, and Victor was responsible for picking them up.

In addition, Le Gourbe on the opposite bank was responsible for driving away the Austrian troops operating west of the river and ensuring that the French army could retreat along the main road.

But the organization of the retreat was very chaotic. Fortunately, there was a Le Gubu on the other side of the river. He was thoughtful enough to send an adjutant over to inquire about the order of the retreat and also requested the appointment of a commander.

Napoleon's retreat was obviously a little foolish. His arrangements were not detailed, he did not prepare a pontoon bridge, and his organization was even chaotic.

The person who is thinking about this problem now is Legubu on the other side of the river.

This is Moro's best friend. He is a staunch republican, but he refused the honorary title.

The emperor himself even did something big, making the general sit on the bench for a long time and even placing him under house arrest in Jura.

Although he felt a little embarrassed, Napoleon still agreed to the suggestion and asked Berthier to pass it on.

Napoleon was an expert in mathematics. There was also a mathematician in the south of a certain peninsula who redefined rounding.
They didn't seem to have anything in common, but they seemed to be surprisingly consistent on one issue: they always had engineers under their command who were panicking and wanted to blow up the bridge.

Even when the French army was retreating and the Guards had already crossed the river, the Allied forces' reaction was still extremely slow.

On the contrary, Bennigsen, who arrived later, now had 50 cannons and seemed to want to intercept them.

The number of coalition forces was so large that the communication order was completely chaotic, and now they are still a giant who walks with a limp.

If France had the kind of drunk Russian engineers, the situation would probably be different.

Now, what is needed is a drunk engineer, but the French suddenly show up with Le Gubu.

Solovyov also didn't know how powerful the butterfly effect was. Apart from the fact that he defeated Russia's two traditional rivals in Sweden and Türkiye respectively, it might have little impact on the European continent.

But he used to be in a pop troupe, and there were also Polish scenes in the march that made people’s hands sore.

As the Allied forces moved slowly, Solovyov also received an order to move closer to the gates of Leipzig.

This time the coalition forces were all on this side of the river, with hundreds of thousands of troops facing one or two bridges, and their reaction was so slow.

Napoleon was probably going to run away, and he was going to do it very quickly.

Schwarzenberg just sent an order to Giulai on the other side of the river, and the Hungarian probably didn't stand a chance.

After all, after Napoleon decided to cross the river, he pulled out all his elite troops and sent the Young Guards to the flanks.

Although the Russian and Prussian armies are generally no longer afraid of the French, the Austrians are still afraid of the enemy. Lecourbe is blocking the Austrian army on the opposite bank, and today he has received support from Bertrand and the Young Guards.

The Austrian army had no way to stop the French retreat.

Seeing that Napoleon was about to escape again, the monarchs had no time to worry, but they only launched an attack in the direction of the city gate.

Napoleon ran so fast because the French army still had combat capability but lacked artillery shells, and was resting in the city of Leipzig. Except for the wounded, they probably took away everyone they could, and they even moved quickly.

As long as they don't encounter any problems themselves, the coalition forces probably won't achieve much success.

If Solovyov knew the casualty ratio between the Allied and French forces, which was about 2 to 1 if no prisoners were taken, he would probably be even more shocked.

What a stupid commander it takes to let the war turn out like this.

Schwarzenberg was probably really good at using pig tactics, otherwise he would not have been able to capture most of the prisoners taken by the French in Dresden, who were Austrians, and the number was even exaggerated.

Now the allied forces just need to continue pursuing the retreating French.

However, the French, who were serving as the rear guard, were still using cannons to block the advance of the coalition forces.

Solovyov didn't want to fight such a stupid battle, so he approached Bennigsen's army and soon met the Stroganov father and son.

The father now commanded a division and was in front of Bennigsen's corps.

"Misha, I haven't seen you for a while, how have you been?"

"I'm fine. But it's rare to see you and your son go into battle like this, except for Raevsky."

"It's always good to go to war with your sons, but it's a pity that your children are too young."

"Count, I am younger than you and married later. Katya is also very young. There is a big difference."

The count's son performed well in the battle and even killed a French cavalryman's horse. He was much better than those noble sons who only knew how to cause trouble in Petersburg.

There is one thing: Stroganov has been favored as an imperial merchant for six generations.

He also came from a merchant family and had always been an aristocrat, so he had always been a "royal merchant".

He was born into a smuggling family and helped Menshikov do business in the northern port. In the eyes of others, he was always a "swindler".

However, this does not affect the Count's family's friendship towards Solovyov. These are all things of the past.

"What should we do now?"

"I don't know either. I think our Austrian commander-in-chief must have some brilliant ideas."

Fortunately, Bennigsen could not become the commander-in-chief, otherwise he would have done a lot of gambler-like tricks and caused a lot of trouble.

The Russian army was also eager to attack the river. Platov's Cossacks crossed the river that separated the Austrian and Russian armies, and were chasing some lagging French troops.

But he was soon beaten back by French artillery fire. If Napoleon were allowed to escape now, he would probably only lose a small number of troops in the end.

Solovyov also saw that Bennigsen tried to fire at the French troops in the city, but the accuracy of these 50 cannons was obviously not good enough. "Damn it, our artillery has not improved much."

"But what can we do? When we were in Warsaw, our artillery was supplemented with many newcomers. Unlike your troops on the front line, many of these gunners are still rookies."

This is purely a systemic problem, but these new gunners are better than the veterans in one respect.

That is, although their shooting is not accurate, their reloading speed is not slow due to their youth, strength and enthusiasm.

This rate of fire was probably enough for this battlefield. Solovyov watched in surprise as a large number of shells headed towards the city gate.

"Looks like he's doing pretty well."

"But that's it. You won't attack?"

"If everyone is crowded here."

At this time, Solovyov no longer had the idea of ​​competing for credit. He thought of Wittgenstein, who fought very badly in Lützen, but still won the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle, which represents the highest honor in Russia.

I am still short of the First Class Order of St. George. If I get it, it would mean that I will have one more person in addition to the four people who participated in the War of 1812 and received the full set of medals.

As for this highest honor, he thought of his master, Marshal Suvorov, who won it by winning battles throughout his life, and Bagration won it by risking his life in battles in the past.

Sometimes the standards for awarding medals are really hard to explain.

When the Allied forces finally approached the city wall and the bridge, they also saw the French retreating.

They retreated very quickly, and after crossing the river they took every opportunity to escape. It was obvious that it would not be easy to catch up with them this time.

When Solovyov was at the Berezina River, he did so because he thought it was meaningless to pursue an enemy who was desperate, and there was no point in competing for credit there.

Now that I'm here, I can see how stupid our friendly forces are.

For him, it probably doesn't matter if he wants to take credit.

"Let them go forward. Chasing the French here will only consume our forces on a narrow battlefield."

"Why do you say that, Count?"

Little Count Alexander was still asking himself, his name came from the Tsar, maybe the emperor was his godfather.

"We are all crowded here, the road is difficult to pass, but we are blindly vying for credit. This farce is like a performance in front of the emperor. If we really want to defeat Napoleon, we have to go to the Rhine River, not continue fighting here."

However, there were also tough guys in the city. After entering the city of Leipzig, the Allied forces engaged in a fierce battle with Poniatowski's Polish Army.

Speaking of which, the Poles are not bad as infantry. They are also good at using cover, and even the remaining cannons on the streets can be put to use.

For a while, the speed of the coalition forces' pursuit slowed down, and they could only mobilize more artillery fire and Russian Guards equipped with breech-loading rifles to carry out targeted elimination of these Polish gunners.

The Poles are still resisting stubbornly. After all, the cowardly king of Saxony is still their monarch. Now the Grand Duchy of Warsaw has only been occupied, not abolished.

With this momentum, the other side is a narrow road for the Poles, no wonder they are fighting so hard.

It was this kind of battle that bought Napoleon precious time to retreat.

In fact, although they are both cannon fodder, the Poles are really useful.

Even Prince Poniatowski, who was stabbed in the left chest above his heart with a bayonet and had multiple gunshot wounds, was still commanding his troops to fight to the death.

Compared with the previous battles in Wachau and the village of Raozui, even in the city of Leipzig, the battle was even more brutal because of the tenacious resistance of the Poles.

The Allied artillery fire was quickly organized, causing considerable losses to the Poles.

But even so, after fierce artillery battles and hand-to-hand combat, the Allied forces finally drove the remnants of the Polish army to the river.

Retreating only on the bridge, where the Poles were still crowded, Prince Poniatowski and some Polish Lancers attempted to swim across the river, but were hit by crossfire on the river.

It is even difficult to tell which side's bullet hit the Polish prince and French marshal.

He and his horse disappeared into the river. Some officers who managed to cross the river tried to look for their commander, but the Russian army soon caught up with them.

These Poles could only break through with tears, and then there was another loud noise.

Seeing that most of the remnants of the Polish army had already crossed the river, Legub finally blew up and destroyed the bridge.

He did not dare to fight any longer, but simply concentrated all the cannons he could use and bombarded the coalition forces that had chased them to the river.

Even General Platov, who attempted to cross the river in pursuit, was wounded and had to be escorted to the rear for treatment by loyal Cossacks.

The coalition forces' pursuit was temporarily stopped. Even now, the Austrians could not believe that the French were defeated this time without Archduke Karl.

Of course, the Austrians performed poorly, but the Russian and Prussian armies performed admirably in the battle.

In order to achieve victory, the Russian casualties alone were close to 30,000, and their total losses exceeded 60,000, while the French losses, including prisoners, were less than 40,000.

With this result, it would be embarrassing enough even if the coalition forces issued another communiqué.

But Napoleon always failed, and his army would never appear in Saxony again.

In the past, this emperor had led armies from more than a dozen countries into Russia, but now the situation was reversed.

In addition to being betrayed by his relatives, the Danish king, who is still unwilling to forgive the British, is still stubbornly on the French side. Even Napoleon could not find any allies on this side of the Rhine.

His defeat was much more tragic than that of the Romans in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

"It always looks like a win, but"

Solovyov also entered the city of Leipzig, but he was not happy at all.

Although he caught up with the battle, due to the miraculous command of the coalition forces and the fact that he saw that everyone was just slacking off, he probably didn't get much credit this time.

If we want to deal with Napoleon in the future, we may have to cross the Rhine and enter Paris to solve the problem.

But there is also a friendly reminder, that is, the Ardennes Forest is not suitable for passing through. (End of this chapter)