I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 448: The Immortal Army

Of course, Drissen guessed wrong. The Guards Corps sent to intercept them numbered only 1 people, and they were avoiding the villages all the way, so no one noticed them at all.

In fact, even if some Prussians discovered something unusual, by the time they reported it to him, the Guards Corps had already taken over.

When Joseph learned that the Prussian army had a large-scale mobilization, he knew that they were definitely heading for Ratibor. It can be said that with the rapid march speed of the Guards Corps, an ambush would basically not fail.

This is the advantage of the tactic of besieging a point and attacking reinforcements - I know that you will definitely take a certain route when you go to reinforce, so I can launch a targeted attack on the reinforcements.

Soon, a straight line of white infantry appeared in the sight of the Prussian soldiers, and they slowly pressed towards them accompanied by the sound of neat military drums.

Seeing that only about 70% of his soldiers had completed the formation, Drissen had no choice but to order them to meet the enemy immediately.

Fortunately, the hussars who were in charge of reconnaissance reported that the French army had only about 1 soldiers. His Fein Corps, plus two regiments of grenadiers, had a strength of nearly 9. Even if the formation was not in order, it should still be possible to delay the French for two hours.

Once his main force has completed its battle formation, he can launch a counterattack against the French with superior forces - he has more than 1 soldiers behind him!
The French drumbeats were getting closer and closer. In front of the Prussian line, Lieutenant Olive of the Prussian Royal Chasseur Battalion was squatting behind a clump of dry grass, his eyes fixed on the flag with the "Sword-carrying Dolphin" emblem in the distance. If he remembered correctly, it seemed to be the Second Regiment of the French Royal Guard.

He estimated the distance between the two sides, loudly ordered the soldiers around him to hold steady, and then slowly raised the Potsdam M1741 hunting rifle in his hand.

This gun was improved from the M1741 flintlock rifle. Its biggest feature is that there are rifling in its barrel, so the bullet fired can spin and thus obtain a straight trajectory.

This was definitely a high-tech weapon in the era of smoothbore rifles where accuracy at 30 meters was entirely dependent on faith. However, because it was very expensive and difficult to load, it was only equipped to a small number of elite hunters.

And Olive is one of them.

He quickly selected his target, who was the closest drummer, who looked to be about eighteen or nineteen years old and was very tall.

Killing this guy would certainly deal a serious blow to the morale of the French behind him.

He licked his lips and squinted at the young drummer.

The distance was about 80 steps. Olive felt the breeze beside him, and after making sure it would not affect the bullet, he pulled the trigger decisively.

The distance was a little far, but he had absolute confidence in his marksmanship.

With a loud "bang!", the strap of the drummer's snare drum on his chest broke, and the drummer fell over with his head tilted back as if he was hit in the face by a hammer.

Lieutenant Olive whistled triumphantly, stood up, pulled out the cleaning rod, poked the ashes in the barrel, then poured a little gunpowder into the firing chamber, pressed the cover plate, then stood the gun upright, poured in the gunpowder, pestled it, and then stuffed the bullet in.

Then he took out a hammer from his back and began to hammer the rod. This is a chronic problem of rifled guns. Since the diameter of the bullet is slightly larger than the muzzle, you have to use a hammer to smash the bullet in.

However, just after he struck twice, he caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye that the drummer he had just hit was struggling to stand up!

"Oh, God!" Olive's eyes suddenly widened, "What happened?!"

He was sure that he had definitely shot the guy in the chest, and the broken drum belt was proof of that.

At this time, there was not a single stain of blood on the drummer's chest - blood would be very conspicuous on the French white military uniform - he lowered his head to tie the drum strap, pulled out a spare drumstick, quickly caught up with the infantry line, and began to beat the drum again.

Olive looked at the gun in his hand in confusion, gritted his teeth and fired the bullet to the bottom, then raised the gun and aimed again.

This time the drummer was blocked by the officer next to him, so he simply aimed at the French lieutenant.

The M1741's muzzle spurted out flames, and the officer's body tilted and fell to the ground, but less than three seconds later, he stood up again with the help of several soldiers. "Impossible! This is absolutely impossible..."

Olive took a few steps back in confusion, gave up the chance to shoot, turned around and ran back.

The Prussian chasseurs around him also started shooting one after another, but except for one man who accidentally shot the opposing soldier in the neck, the others climbed back up after being shot - the chasseur drill at this time required aiming at the enemy's chest and abdomen because the target was larger.

The Prussian infantry looked at the chasseurs in surprise, as if they had seen a ghost, and retreated behind them in panic.

But soon they found out the reason because they themselves encountered the same situation.

When the French infantry line was 50 steps away from them, the officers gave the order to fire a volley.

As the sound of "crackling" explosions rang out, black smoke covered the battlefield, and nearly a hundred French soldiers fell to the ground.

But soon, the Prussian soldiers vaguely saw through the smoke that most of the French who were shot stood up again, leaning on their guns.

The Prussians looked at each other in confusion. Those enemies were obviously not wearing breastplates or anything like that, but bullets could not kill them.

Chaos began to appear in the already crooked Prussian line. Some soldiers even forgot to reload and began to make the sign of the cross and pray.

Davout looked at his messenger who stood up with a grin on his face, and he was also a little bit unbelievable. Although the General Staff repeatedly said that the "bulletproof insert" could resist bullets, he still didn't trust such a thin thing.

The herald pressed his abdomen, pulled out the insert there, and then lifted up his clothes.

Dawu immediately saw a large black bruise on his stomach, but it was obvious that the bullet had been blocked. He turned his head to look at the plug on the ground, which had already cracked like a spider web and had a bulge at the back.

The drumbeats beside him suddenly quickened. After long hours of training, Dawu instinctively turned around and ordered the soldiers:

“Stop moving forward.

"Prepare--

"...

"shooting!"

Thousands of percussion cap rifles spewed out flames almost at the same time, and a large number of gaps suddenly appeared in the Prussian line formation.

For a moment, many Prussian soldiers turned to look at their comrades who had been hit, as if waiting for them to stand up again.

However, apart from blood and wailing, no miracle happened.

The Guards Corps quickly launched a second round of volleys.

This time, except for the two Prussian grenadier regiments, the rest of the soldiers began to turn around and flee in fear.

The elite Prussian Guards infantry collapsed after the enemy's second volley!
It is difficult for anyone to maintain the courage to continue fighting when facing an invincible enemy while being killed in large numbers.

(End of this chapter)