Chapter 1016 The Greatest Courage and the Smallest Victory!

Borodino is a small village only 250 miles away from Moscow. The Russian army built complete fortifications near Borodino Village. The front fortifications alone are eight kilometers long. The right wing is close to the Moscow River; the left wing is connected to the impassable Utica Forest; the center is supported by the Kurganaya Highlands; and there are large tracts of forests and shrubs in the rear, which are convenient for concealing the deployment of troops and implementing maneuvers. While retreating all the way, the Russian army organized a large number of people to build positions in Borodino, while relocating the surrounding residents, destroying traffic roads and bridges, and clearing the fields. They tried every means to create obstacles for Napoleon and force the French army to fight the Russian army on terrain that was very unfavorable to them.

The strategic intention of the Russian side was to consume the French army in defensive operations, and Napoleon finally caught up with the Russian army. He also hoped to concentrate his own advantages and achieve the annihilation of the Russian army in one impact, which would become a de facto decisive battle.

But this was too difficult.

Napoleon was more than 500 kilometers away from the military station he established on the western border of Russia. Nearly 1/3 of the food and grass with the army was consumed by the draft animals pulling the grain carts. The entire Napoleon expeditionary force had 200,000 draft animals and more than 100,000 military horses. With their logistical transportation capacity, it was really difficult to maintain a front-line force far away from the military station or supply area for a long time.

In Russia, although it was summer, except for a few light convoys, most convoys could not pass due to muddy roads and the destruction of many highway bridges, and there were no pastures suitable for grazing.

There was another heavy rainstorm in Lithuania not long ago, which seriously stagnated the French army's march. So the French army had to abandon and consume a large amount of food and grass on the spot. Before arriving at Borodino Village, the French army had lost 20,000 war horses.

When they were about to plunder, they found that all the villages had long been deserted. The Russians had fortified their walls and cleared the fields, leaving no grain for Napoleon, and all of Napoleon's logistical support plans fell through.

The Battle of Borodino was launched under such circumstances. However, the first echelon led by Napoleon himself had less than 150,000 troops when they arrived at Borodino. As the main force of Napoleon's expedition to Russia, the initial strength of the first echelon reached 450,000.

However, due to the long front line and traffic environment, as well as the soldiers' fighting spirit and morale factors, there were only 150,000 soldiers who arrived at Borodino, and these 150,000 were all French troops. Including Napoleon's most cherished Guards Corps.

In the original time and space, Napoleon, who was eager to fight, relied on the French elite who were not as many as the Russian army in his hands to win the Battle of Borodino. It was a great bloody battle. The total number of troops deployed by both sides was nearly 300,000. The casualties on both sides were extremely heavy, especially the number of casualties of senior generals was even more shocking. It is likely that about 30% of the combatants were injured. The French army alone suffered 38 casualties and more than 30,000 casualties, while the Russian army suffered as many as 45,000 casualties.

However, in this time and space, although Napoleon still launched an attack on Borodino at the first time, the Borodino Battle in this time and space lasted for eight days, and the first two days were low-intensity battles. The Russians obviously knew that Napoleon was waiting for the arrival of follow-up troops, but they could not withdraw from Borodino as easily as in the previous battles.

Kutuzov, who had just taken over as the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, could not lead the Russian army to retreat.

This place is too close to Moscow. If the Russian army cannot resist the French attack here, Moscow will be difficult to save. This is a move that will seriously affect the morale of the Russian army.

The previous defeat of the Russian army had forced Alexander I to abandon his favorite general, the first Russian commander-in-chief Mikhail Bodanovich Barclay de Tolly, and invited Kutuzov, who was blamed and exiled to the Russian-Turkish border by Alexander I after the end of the Franco-Russian War in 1806, back again.

On August 30, Kutuzov arrived at the army.

After Suvorov's death, Kutuzov, who only had one eye left, had become a banner of the Russian local faction. The previous Russian commander-in-chief Mikhail Bodanovich Barclay de Tolly was a descendant of Scottish people. Although he joined the Russian army when he was less than 11 years old, was loyal to St. Petersburg, and made many contributions to Russia, this could not change his origin.

And Kutuzov was a thorough Slav. He also had inextricable ties with Russian predecessors such as Rumyantsev and Suvorov, although he was not liked by Alexander I.

Anyway, in the Borodino Battle of this time and space, the total strength of the French army was no longer less than the Russian army of more than 150,000, but far exceeded the Russian army.

The Rhine coalition that arrived on the last day of the battle allowed Napoleon's strength to break through to 250,000.

Napoleon's army exceeded Russia by more than half, but when the battle was unfavorable and the Russian army retreated one after another, Napoleon's army still couldn't catch up with the rapidly evacuating Russian army. Because the former lacked supplies, not only were the soldiers hungry, but the horses were also listless. But the Russians were well fed.

The result of this battle reported by the European Office was that Napoleon lost more troops than in the original time and space. In this battle, the "French Army" lost nearly 70,000 people. The lethality of flintlocks + hexagonal cannons + rockets was definitely greater than that of smoothbore guns + smoothbore cannons. The casualties of the Russian army were similar to those of the French army.

After the defense lines of the central and left wing positions were breached, they attempted to rely on the right wing commanded by Barclay himself to push back the French army, push Napoleon back to the original line, and recapture the lost fortresses and fortifications.

The Russian army fought with the French for a whole day and a half, and 40,000 of the nearly 70,000 Russian casualties were killed or injured because of this. After the battle, the village of Borodino was full of corpses. The weather that day was extremely bad, with continuous rain and strong winds. Napoleon looked at the piles of human and horse corpses and was silent, his face looked gloomy and terrible.

Napoleon clearly realized that the French army failed to deal a devastating blow to the main force of the Russian army, and the strategic task was far from completed.

"In the Battle of Borodino, the French army showed the greatest courage, but won the smallest victory." The total number of captured Russian soldiers was only 1,000, a number that was incredibly small.

But how many of these 70,000 "French troops" were real French? However, the 70,000 Russian troops were all real Slavs...

The European Office was not able to verify the former immediately, leaving Chen Ming with countless room for imagination.

The Battle of Borodino was over, and the next step was for Napoleon to enter Moscow. Does that mean that the day of Napoleon's defeat is approaching?

The Russian army fought and retreated on the front battlefield, clearing the fields and leaving no food for the French; the guerrillas behind the enemy lines were galloping, and their Cossack cavalry were also frantically harassing Napoleon's follow-up troops and transportation lines. The Don Cossacks led by Platov even crippled an entire French Sebastiani Division when it was alone.

These were all news from the European Office. Chen Ming felt that Napoleon was going to repeat the mistakes of history. Because although the Russian army suffered heavy casualties in the Borodino Battle, accounting for one-third of the total number of troops, the Russian army still has a large number of reserves that can be deployed at any time, and the logistics supply is safe and sound (in the Red Russian era, the government issued a commemorative coin for the Borodino Battle to commemorate the volunteers and reserves). Napoleon's transportation line is too long to maintain the supply of his existing troops. As long as the cold winter in Russia arrives as scheduled this year, it will be the French army, not the Russian army, that will suffer a devastating blow in a few weeks.

Chen Ming looked up at Central Asia on the map, and the army was about to take action. I hope this battle can bring good results to myself. Chen Ming believes that the Ottomans have already started to move, because Istanbul received the notice from the European Office earlier than Nanjing.

…

Central Asia is a good place, whether it is the vast Kazakh steppe or the Fergana Basin, it is a place with abundant water and grass. With the demise of the three southern khanates, a large number of Chinese people poured into the Fergana Basin and the Kazakh steppes, and large-scale ranches and farms sprang up one after another. In addition, there was cotton, which was in great demand domestically.

The cotton produced here did not need to be transported to inland China. There was only a super-large textile factory in Yili, and a series of textile factories of different sizes in southern and northern Xinjiang. These textile factories were all large factories that wrapped spinning mills.

In addition, there was the mining and development of a series of mines, including iron ore, copper ore, lead and zinc ore, and potassium salt, a natural fertilizer for agricultural production, and rare metal mercury. The development of the mining industry here laid a solid foundation for the rapid development of the military industry in the Northwest Military Region.

Coupled with the traditional export pillars of the seven khanates - livestock, cattle, horses and sheep, the people here still lived a very comfortable life. Not to mention that their per capita income was higher than that of farmers in the Han area, at least it was better than before.

At the same time, the logging industry in Central Asia was also developing rapidly. Although a lot of land here belongs to desert, wasteland and semi-arid climate, most of the land is grassland and pasture, farmland and forestland account for a small proportion, forest area continues to degrade, forest quality and productivity are both showing a downward trend.

But what era is it now? The 19th century has just passed 12 years, even in the most sophisticated Chen Han territory, many people do not know the harm of indiscriminate logging; or they know the harm of indiscriminate logging, but they can't resist the temptation of money in front of the interests.

There are fewer broad-leaved trees in Central Asia. The most common tree species here are mainly pine, birch, fir, spruce, larch, mountain poplar, poplar, cedar, willow, elm, maple, walnut, birch, Haloxylon ammodendron, etc.

Although the materials of these coniferous trees are generally soft, they all have their own different uses. For example, building materials, shipbuilding, furniture making and railway sleepers.

That's all money.

In China, logging in the forestry industry requires a license, and after logging, saplings must be planted. Both the procedure and the cost are much higher than those in the Seven Khanates. Therefore, although there are many forests in the north of Xinjiang, the development of the logging industry there is not as rapid as that in the Seven Khanates. In the current Seven Khanates, in any city close to the mountains and forests, there are less than ten large and small timber mills? And every family has a steam oven.

Such logging is absolutely destructive to the forest in the eyes of people in the 21st century. But in the current era, these large tracts of forests are the wealth given by heaven.

The pressure on the Seven Khanates is not small. They are next to Persia and Russia. If they want to develop and grow as soon as possible, wealth and funds are indispensable. Without factory machinery brought by money, where can they get muskets and cannons?

Chen Han's railway is to be built all the way to Yili. Apart from other things, the demand for sleepers alone is an astronomical figure.

The demand for wood in Chen Han has increased rapidly in recent years. In addition to being used in the shipbuilding industry, it is more consumed by the people. There are many precious woods, but the price has soared!

Because the country is stable and the national strength has increased. In other words, the world is peaceful, people's livelihood has been fully restored, and it has made great progress. The requirements for living and living naturally rise.

Therefore, this has raised the price of sleepers to a certain extent, and raised the price of northwest wood.

Many laws and regulations of the Seven Khanates were copied from Chen Han, but the biggest difference between them and Chen Han is that Chen Han's laws and regulations have been implemented one by one, while theirs are more of a face job.