The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 359: Russian Battlefield
The current territory of Poland is slightly larger than it was before the partition in 1772.

Mainly, the northern border expanded to the Gulf of Riga. Riga, the capital of Latvia in Zhu Jianxuan's previous life, and the areas to the west were occupied by Napoleon in one go a few years ago.

The southeastern border was restored to the Dnieper River, bringing the city of Kiev back into Polish territory.

Minsk in the central part of the country is of course still a Polish city now, and it is still two hundred kilometers away from the border between Poland and Russia.

After the east-west trunk railway across Poland was completed, Minsk, with its suitable location, became a railway hub and now also a command center for operations against Russia.

Riga in the north and Kiev in the south became sub-centers of the northern and southern fronts respectively.

Before the war officially began, Napoleon and his staff were in Minsk, discussing and formulating a step-by-step strategy.

And referring to the suggestions of the Indian theater, similar anti-scorched earth tactics were adopted to coordinate the attacks on Russia's inland areas.

On the day before the war officially started, that is, on August 6, the 22nd year of Tiangong, at the Eastern European Theater Operations Command Center in Minsk.

Napoleon issued a formal order to all generals and staff officers, and made a final reminder and request:
“The three-day period was up and the Russians still refused to surrender.

“At the same time, according to the intelligence from the Western Factory, the Russians are clearly not prepared to concentrate their forces and do not want to engage in a head-on battle with us on the battlefield.

"We can only follow the plan and use all possible means to deplete the Russians' manpower.

"So throughout the fall and winter of this year, our army's mission is to advance slowly into the interior of Russia with supplies, along with the railways and trains.

"The main force and the railway will advance synchronously. The corps will advance as far inland as the railway can be built before the land is completely frozen.

“At the same time, we will use the mobile vehicles on the front line to build dispersed mobile supply points in the areas around the railway supply points.

"Independent combat units can temporarily leave centralized railway supply points and operate within the range where mobile vehicles can provide support and supply.

"The independent team can leave the supply point and the main force and move around within a range of up to seven days.

"Everyone must remember not to rush into anything and not be cut off from supplies and support.

“Russian winters are extremely cold, and places that lose supply can suffer non-combat casualties at any time.

"Russian local nobles, officials, and landowners who voluntarily surrendered before our attack were able to retain most of their original wealth.

“But after surrendering, you need to register your property and pay the property registration tax according to the progressive tax rate set by the court.

“Only wealth registered by the court will be protected by the court and the army; unregistered wealth will not be recognized.

“At the same time, serfs were human beings, not the private property of nobles and landowners.

“Therefore, all serfs must surrender after the surrender, and their property must be registered and they will be completely liberated.

"At the same time as liberation, they were given a share of land and wealth to ensure that they could support themselves, rather than being unemployed after being freed.

“Nobles who refused to surrender would naturally not be recognized, and all their land and assets would be confiscated.

“According to the distribution method for ordinary nobles, what should be retained by the nobles will be returned to the court, and what should be distributed to serfs will be distributed to local serfs.

“The Air Force has three tasks: first, to support the ground army’s operations; second, to support the navy’s attack on St. Petersburg; and third, to completely destroy the enemy’s military supplies.

"If we could burn their unharvested crops in the fields in the fall, and their houses, clothes, and granaries in the winter.

“Then our army won’t have to take action directly. General Dong will help us get rid of a large number of Russian gray animals.

"By the summer of next year, when we launch a full-scale ground offensive, Russia may collapse as a whole and the war may end quickly.

“This way we can achieve ultimate victory at the lowest cost.

"The navy should be able to capture the Russian capital of St. Petersburg before winter. After losing St. Petersburg, the Russians may return to their former capital, Moscow.

“Alexander could even have fled directly to Moscow if attacked.

“So if possible, the Air Force would better turn Moscow into ruins before that!
"At least it will prevent the Russian Tsar Alexander from ruling Russia from Moscow."

At that time, the distance between Poland's eastern border and Moscow was only 400 kilometers, which could be covered by the combat radius of Ming Dynasty's conventional small bombers.

Russia's "Winter General" was of course very powerful. In history, he helped the Russians repel Napoleon and Führer Mustache.

But "General Winter" actually kills indiscriminately, and the Russians themselves also have to endure the attacks of severe cold.

It’s just that the Russians have the advantage of being home to the land. They are more adaptable to the cold climate and have more supplies than outsiders.

But if Napoleon ordered the Ming Air Force to burn all the food and houses in Russia starting this autumn, General Dong would have to kill a large number of Russians first.

After hearing Napoleon's instructions, the surrounding generals, staff officers, officials, and intelligence personnel all agreed very seriously and easily.

The Air Force Admiral from Daming said with a smile:
"I will turn Moscow into a crematorium. The Russians should choose another capital in advance, not the one we are all familiar with."

Napoleon couldn't help laughing when he heard this:
“I wish you all a successful start!”

The officers on the Eastern European battlefield did not feel too much pressure from this war.

For the French generals in Poland, the Russians were already defeated by them, and now they had the support of the more powerful Ming army.

There are also railways and motor vehicles to provide supplies, and flying machines to provide air support.

Ordinary soldiers also began to equip armored rifles.

This kind of war is a one-sided crushing. As long as you don't deliberately seek death, you can win this war no matter how you fight.

What they need to consider is to expand the results of the battle and reduce losses.

Historically, Napoleon's disastrous defeat in Russia was not because he was defeated by the Russians, but because he was simply not prepared for a deep invasion of Russia.

It was only because the situation on the battlefield was constantly changing and the Russians had refused to surrender to Napoleon that Napoleon turned the planned decisive battle on the border into an expedition to Moscow.

The Russians burned Moscow and refused to surrender. They used their vast strategic depth to drag down Napoleon, who was not prepared to begin with.

Now, with the protection and support of the Ming Dynasty, Napoleon already had a huge epoch-making advantage, and he also had to rely on railways and motor vehicles to advance steadily along the border.

If we are prepared to advance step by step, transforming local and grassroots institutions in the occupied areas while advancing slowly, the Russians will have no choice but to die.

By the morning of August 7, when the war in Eastern Europe officially began, the situation had indeed developed in this way.

The main force of the Ming Dynasty's Luji Air Force's Northern Force took off from a military airport near the city of Riga in the Gulf of Riga and cooperated with Qiu Lianggong's navy to attack the Russian capital, St. Petersburg.

The Ottoman Constantinople, hiding between two inland seas and two straits, could not withstand the joint attack of the Ming Dynasty's navy, army and air force.

St. Petersburg, which is only surrounded by the Gulf of Finland, could not withstand this new tactic. The main Ottoman army had never encountered a large-scale air raid, and the Russian army had never encountered one and had no combat experience.

The Russian Tsar and generals had heard that the Ming Dynasty had used flying machines on the European battlefield.

A huge mechanical bird made of unknown metal that can fly freely in the air and drop bombs from the air to the ground.

But at this time, the Russian tsar and generals, like the Ottomans and Shunzhi people, still had the thinking habits of the agricultural and handicraft era.

They naturally thought that a magical machine like an airplane must require the painstaking efforts of elite craftsmen to create it.

There definitely won't be too many of these extremely complex things.

Coincidentally, in the last European war, the Ming Dynasty did not directly deploy many aircraft, and its direct participation in the war was also very short.

So the Russians took some precautions but not much.

They built more solid walls around the open-air artillery platforms, and even built arched roofs on some of the artillery platforms, turning the open-air artillery platforms into gun muzzles inside the fortress.

But they had no way to carry out large-scale comprehensive construction, and no way to turn all the artillery batteries into fortresses.

Because the production of bricks and stones was limited in the handicraft era, the transportation capacity of the llama vehicles they used was limited, and the amount of fuel and bricks and stones that could be transported was also limited.

In addition, they thought that the Ming Dynasty would not have many planes, so they only turned a few of the most important open-air artillery positions into fortresses.

A large number of ordinary artillery batteries are still open-air, with at most some walls added.

But when the war really started, there were at least a hundred planes that appeared in the Russian sky for the first time.

And some of them are large and medium-sized bombers that have never appeared on the battlefield.

Kotlin Island, located in the Gulf of Finland, 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, can be said to be the gateway to St. Petersburg.

The famous Kronstadt Fortress is located on Kotlin Island.

The battle first broke out here, and the defenders here were also the first to see the Ming Dynasty's aircraft.

They were also the first to discover that their prior preparations were completely meaningless.

Hundreds of various types of planes suddenly descended from the sky and bombarded everything and people on the ground.

Small attack aircraft are responsible for dealing with open-air firing points, and small bombs directly overturn the objects and people on the artillery positions.

Then it circled in the sky, occasionally lowering its altitude and passing near the ground.

Machine gun fire drove away the crowds trying to assemble, making it impossible for the soldiers on the ground to organize.

Medium bombers were responsible for dealing with the fortified turrets, using heavy armor-piercing bombs to smash directly through the stone roofs.

The space inside the inland artillery position is small, and the bombs exploding inside are more lethal.

Soldiers on the open-air artillery positions might be seriously injured and escape, but soldiers inside the fortified artillery positions would be killed without a complete body.

Large bombers specifically target large buildings within the city and large fortresses inland.

Although Russian generals at all levels had made certain psychological preparations before the war, they also let their soldiers know that the Ming Dynasty had flying machines.

But when the war really began, a large number of huge metal machines suddenly appeared and bombarded the fortresses and military camps inside and outside St. Petersburg.

The soldiers in the fortress and the barracks were still stunned, and many of them could not help but make the sign of the cross and call on God.

Most officers also found that the preparations they made in advance were useless.

They had taken it for granted that the Ming Dynasty had only a few dozen planes as its trump card, and they had to be used on four battlefields: Russia, Shun, and the Ottoman Empire.

It would be great if we could have a dozen planes on the St. Petersburg battlefield.

As a result, they are now facing not just a dozen but dozens, hundreds or even thousands of aircraft.

A large number of aircraft were constantly patrolling in the air, completely suppressing all firepower on the ground.

The fortress that was once as strong as an iron wall has now become a passive target and a piece of waste that may be smashed at any time.

After gaining complete control of both air and sea supremacy, the Ming Army quickly landed on land and began to directly occupy land and take panicked prisoners.

In fact, the Russians are still luckier than the Ottomans.

Although St. Petersburg is a coastal city like Constantinople, it is surrounded by swampy muddy coasts instead of the rocky coasts of Constantinople.

The water depth under the walls of Constantinople is about six meters, and the water depth is ten meters at a distance of two hundred meters.

The Ming Navy's largest-displacement first-class battleships can now drive directly to the walls of Constantinople and fire. A distance of two hundred meters is almost as close as getting close to them.

In the Gulf of Finland outside St. Petersburg, the water is only two to four meters deep in most places, and the water depth decreases the closer to the land.

Only the main channel of the Neva River has a slightly deeper water depth, but when it reaches the city of St. Petersburg, the water depth of the river is only about four meters.

The Ming Dynasty’s first-class battleships could only sail to the vicinity of Kotlin Island at most, and had to stop on the centerline of the Neva River.

Then, from a distance of at least two kilometers, they bombarded the Kronstadt Fortress on land.

For the current Ming Navy's main guns, two kilometers is still a very close distance, and the enemy's firepower can hardly play any role.

The Russian artillery in the fortress could fire at a distance of two kilometers, but after the solid iron balls flew that far, they lost their accuracy and power.

When it hit the armor of the Ming warships, it only left some tiny marks and had no destructive power at all.

What's more, the Ming navy and air force would not give the artillery a chance to fire. The bombing and artillery suppression made it so that they could not fire more than a few shells.

The walls and artillery positions of fortresses and military camps were soon riddled with holes and shattered by large aerial bombs.

They only fired machine guns sporadically at the beginning of the war, and soon they were almost completely silent.

There are still a large number of soldiers alive in the fortress and the barracks, but now they can do nothing but hide deep in the fortress and howl in panic.

At the same time, the Ming Army landed directly with the support and cover of the navy.

Although Kotlin Island and Kronstadt Fortress are the sea gates of St. Petersburg, the fighting here did not delay the Ming Dynasty's momentum to attack St. Petersburg.

Since the fortress can be suppressed directly, it is only a matter of time to take it down. There is no need for the Ming army to wait until the battle is over before continuing to advance.

(End of this chapter)