The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 577 Yellow Peril? Yes, we are the Yellow Peril, and we are big!
At dawn on April 1857, 4, smoke rose from the Belbek River Valley on the north bank of Sevastopol. Major von Schmidt, a staff officer of the Prussian War Observation Group, raised a monocular telescope, through which he saw the Taiping Army artillerymen carefully taking out picric acid shells wrapped in layers of silk from a special shockproof bamboo basket.

The Prussian artillery officer almost laughed out loud, and turned to the Sardinian officer Besano and said, "These yellow people put silk shirts on the shells and put them on bamboo couches as if they were taking care of children. Is this what the British call the 'yellow peril'?"

An Austrian officer couldn't help laughing: "Those Chinese soldiers look short and thin, how could they possibly defeat the Russians? The so-called 'yellow peril' is just Lord Palmerston creating public opinion for a new 'trade war'!"

The Sardinian officer's face was not very good - his country also followed Napoleon III to join the war against the Russians. Now it seems that the prospects are very bad. He sighed and said, "But no matter what, we have to defeat the Russians first, right?"

The Prussian major shrugged: "Maybe we have to negotiate. Our Prince Bismarck recently went to Paris again!"

The Austrian nodded: "This is the last battle. If we can't defeat the Vienna system, maybe we should go back!"

At the same time, in the "Maxim" fortress on the other side of the valley, a group of Russian soldiers were pushing a 32-pound copper cannon to its position. Admiral Nakhimov's telescope swept across the Allied camp and paused for a moment on the twenty-four cast iron cannons in the Taiping Army's position. The barrels of the cannons engraved with "Made in Jiangnan" were two times thicker than the British Armstrong cannons, and the cannon carriages were fixed with shock-absorbing devices made of bamboo and iron ropes, like a giant beast crouching in the morning mist, vaguely exuding a dangerous atmosphere.

"Admiral," a Russian major general approached Nakhimov, "Admiral Orlov sent a message saying that the Chinese have some kind of magic shell."

"What magic shells? Nonsense!" The Russian admiral glared at his chief of staff, "Tell the boys, this is the last battle! After repelling this round of enemy attacks, Russia will win a decent peace!" He turned his head and looked east again, "The next war should take place in the East instead of the West."

"Load the shells!" Li Kezhong, the artillery director of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Army Department, gave the order personally. The gunners worked together to lift the 64-pound lead-shell shells wrapped in silk lining and pushed them into the chamber.

After giving the order, he raised his telescope again. Through the lens, the battlefield after the morning mist had dissipated appeared in front of him. Outside the "Maxim" Fortress, layers of defensive fortifications were visible to the naked eye. Anyone who saw it would gasp.

The first line of defense is a five-layer stakeway that is ten meters wide. These stakeways are made of sharpened tree trunks, densely placed together and stacked layer by layer, making it difficult for anyone trapped in one to climb out.

The second line of defense is composed of twelve semi-underground bunkers, each of which is equipped with several twelve-pound copper cannons - don't underestimate these twelve bunkers and the twelve-pound copper cannons assigned to the fortresses. The position of each fortress and each cannon is carefully calculated in order to form cross fire against the enemy trapped in the stockade defense line.

In the previous rounds of offensives, the British and French troops trapped in the pigeon line were killed by the cannons with shotgun shells.
The third line of defense was the fortress, which was several meters high. The outer side of the wall was piled with hard granite, and the inner side was filled with gravel and sand. Every fifty meters on the earth wall was a gun position, on which a 32-pound cannon was mounted, which could be used to fire at the attacking cannons from a high position!

At 9:07, the first test shell whistled past the Malakhov Hill and hit the outer wall of the Russian fortress exactly. When the dark green flames exploded on the granite wall, the whispered conversations about the Yellow Peril in the spectator seats came to an abrupt end - the several-meter-high outer wall of the fortress shattered like porcelain, and the Russian gunners and bronze cannons on it were blown into the sky by the huge impact cannon produced by the explosion of picric acid!
"How can this be?"

"What did they hit?"

"A bunch of stupid Russians piled shrapnel on the gun emplacements."

Observers from various countries who were watching the fun quickly imagined a group of "stupid" Russian bears.

"boom"

Another loud noise!
This time the shell landed near Fort No. 50, less than 11 meters away from the outer wall of the "Maxim" fortress, and blew up another extremely elite huge blue-yellow fireball. According to Luo Yaoguo's instructions, a 64-pound picric acid shell was filled with 10 kilograms of picric acid explosives, which almost caught up with the 155 shells used in World War I and World War II in history, and the power of picric acid explosives was no less than the military explosives at the time.

After witnessing the explosion of this shell, all the officers of the "great powers" in the spectator seats were silent. This "yellow peril" seems to be a bit "disaster"!

"boom"

Another shell landed very close to Fort No. 11, and the huge green-yellow fireball had already affected the fort itself. Corrosive smoke poured in through the firing holes, and the Russian gunners inside let out shrill screams.

"The damn information provided by Orlov was actually correct!" Nakhimov clenched his fists tightly. The Tsar's Secret Service had not produced any accurate military intelligence in all these years, but this time it was actually correct!

The Chinese really have magic shells!
"Admiral, our fortress can't hold out!" The chief of staff at the side had cold sweat all over his forehead.

"Concentrate fire, three rounds, Fortress No. 3!" Li Kezhong ordered again.

Twenty-four heavy guns roared in succession, and the picric acid shells whizzed towards the No. 11 battery. The moment the shells exploded on the battery wall, dark green flames mixed with unburned picric acid explosives rushed into the battery. Mikhail, the only surviving Russian gunner in the battery, was about to turn around and escape when he saw that his copper gun was vaguely melting, the barrel was twisted and deformed, and the gun carriage was cracked in the high temperature. Corrosive smoke poured in through the firing hole, causing the young Russian gunner to suffocate instantly. Suddenly, the ammunition box in the battery was ignited, and the serial explosion lifted the entire fortification into the air, and rubble and human body parts fell like raindrops.

Russell, a war correspondent for the British Times, wrote down in his shorthand notebook: "Chinese gunpowder turns granite into magma. This is a fatal marriage of magic and warfare!"

In the core fortress of "Maxim Fortress", Admiral Nakhimov's hands were shaking as he held the telescope. His "solid" fortress was designed based on the power of black gunpowder, and he never considered the power of this "magic gunpowder"!

"Pass, pass on my order, everyone evacuate Fort Maxim!" Nakhimov said in a hoarse voice.

"Admiral, are we going to abandon the fortress?" asked the chief of staff.

"No, we can't hide in the grave and wait for death. We have to fight back!" Nakhimov gritted his teeth, "Use the bayonet!"

The bombardment continued as if calling a roll. The 24 64-pound cannons under Li Kezhong's command were not firing randomly, but concentrating their firepower to clear the way for the Taiping infantry's attack. According to the bombardment plan, the first target was the No. 11 battery, then the No. 12 battery, and then the No. 13 battery. After these three battery batteries were destroyed, the road to the core of the fortress was opened - without the firepower of the 3-pound cannons on these battery batteries, those stakes were easy to destroy, just use nitre grenades to blow them up.

After destroying the three artillery forts, it was time to bombard the core fortress of Fort Maxim. The granite wall was still not strong enough for the 3-pound picric acid shells. Firing 64 shells would definitely create a huge gap.

Once the core fort of the fortress is broken, it will be time for the Taiping Army and French infantry to launch a bayonet charge!
At exactly eleven o'clock, three scarlet flares pierced the smoke.

Division commander Chen Picheng, holding a command flag in his hand, was the first to jump out of the trench - the trench used as the launching point for the attack had long been dug under the noses of the Russian army's stake line by the Taiping Army soldiers who were most skilled in earthwork.

While the artillery was bombarding just now, the Taiping Army's engineering brothers had already used nitrate grenades to blow up hundreds or thousands of stakes, opening up an attack channel several dozen meters wide.

Chen Picheng stuck the flag into the ground as an indication of the attack route, and at the same time raised his arms and shouted: "Taiping Army, forward!"

As his command flag was hoisted, three thousand Taiping soldiers wearing masks (to protect against the poisonous fumes of picric acid) and holding rifles with bayonets began to charge.

Of course, the officers came out first, followed by the soldiers. Someone grabbed Chen Picheng by the waist and threw him back into the trench: "Master Chen, don't compete with us for the chance to sacrifice your life!"

Chen Picheng waved his hands and feet, cursing and trying to stand up. His personal guards had not held him down just now, Luo Yaoguo had already told him that Chen Siyan was now the division commander and could not always be the first to charge! So several personal guards and staff officers held him down. The officers and soldiers of the First Division of the Taiping Expeditionary Army poured out around him, and the slogan that Chen Picheng shouted first resounded throughout the battlefield: "Taiping Army, forward!"

And all the Taiping Army officers rushed to the front!
The battle lasted until noon. When the Taiping Army and the French assault troops occupied forts 11, 12 and 13, and attacked the outer wall of the core fortress where a huge gap had been blasted open, Nakhimov's counterattack finally began!

Three thousand Cossack cavalrymen swept down from the eastern hills like a black torrent. The silver-rimmed scimitars split the formation of the French light cavalry who were covering the flanks. The neighing of horses and the sound of bones breaking intertwined into a symphony of death. The sword of Colonel Leclerc of the 5th French Light Cavalry Regiment had just blocked the saber of a Cossack knight when a spear suddenly stabbed from the flank pierced his body. The French army, without command, began to disintegrate, rushing to the rear like a flock of sheep scattered by wolves.

Under the impact of these French cavalry, the French infantry quickly retreated, exposing the Taiping Army's left wing to the enemy.

In the rear headquarters, Prince Napoleon's lips trembled slightly, and he murmured: "Betrayal, betrayal, this is betrayal."

But Shi Dakai on the side was confident and said to the messenger: "Let Li Kezhong fire at the Russians from behind to cut off their reinforcements!"

"Ready!" Lai Yuxin's roar exploded in the smoke. Three thousand Taiping soldiers leveled their Minié rifles in unison, their bayonets forming a thin silver line in the midday sun. Their movements were in unison, as if they were training in the Grand Parade Ground in Tianjing - these were the elite troops trained by Luo Yaoguo using the French drill manual.

The torrent of Cossack cavalry began to accelerate three hundred meters away, and the sound of horse hooves rolled across the battlefield like thunder. Dozens of wooden-handled grenades with white smoke suddenly flew out of the Taiping Army. Although the explosive power was not as strong as the picric acid shells, they were cheaper and more numerous. The only disadvantage was that they were too susceptible to moisture, and nitre sugar needed to be "boiled" on the front line to be poured into the shells.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The grenade exploded in the cavalry formation, shrapnel flew, reaping the lives of horses and soldiers. The frightened horses threw the cavalry off their backs, and the charging Cossack cavalry suddenly fell into chaos.

"First row, fire!" Lai Yuxin waved his flag. A thousand Minié rifles fired at the same time, the lead bullets ripped through the Cossacks' uniforms and swept them off their horses one by one. The second row followed and fired another round of volleys. This Western-style round-shooting tactic, coupled with accurate marksmanship and the effective range of the Minié rifles, allowed the Taiping Army to form a death barrier in the middle.

After the Cossack cavalry was repelled, the neat bayonet arrays of the Russian army also collided with the killing array from the east, like waves hitting rocks. Bullets rained down on the battlefield, and the sound of killing shook the sky.

When the Taiping Army's Panlong flag was raised at the Maxim Fortress, Prince Napoleon saw a shocking scene through the telescope: the thin red line of Taiping Army infantry, which numbered less than 1,500, remained motionless. They even piled up the bodies of the Russian soldiers into a temporary bunker, relying on which they repelled the waves of charges launched by Nakhimov until the Taiping Army led by Chen Picheng captured the entire Maxim Fortress.

After the battle, a saying spread among the Allied Observation Group: "The Yellow Peril is not to be feared. What is feared is the Yellow Peril that can make picric acid bombs and deploy troops." Major von Schmidt added a more interesting footnote in his diary: "When these barbarians who stabbed the Cossacks with bayonets began to use formulas to calculate ballistics, the 'Yellow Peril' had already become an important force in maintaining human civilization."

(End of this chapter)