Chapter 67: The Siege of Kiev
The nobility of Poland is a weird bunch.
No, it would be more accurate to say that they are a group of freaks who grew up in the warm bed of aristocratic republicanism and the weak Polish monarchy. The entire history of Poland can be summarized in one sentence: how a group of freaks was trained.
In Ulyanovka, the numerous nobles who had come over formed a union even before they arrived and, using their cavalry, continually intimidated us into agreeing to their terms.
To be more informed, it's about reducing taxes. Incidentally, there is a river near the territory and several fields that have been occupied by the neighboring village, but they originally belonged to their ancestors. They hope the empire will mediate. More straightforward nobles directly demand certain lands or villages near the border as rewards for sending troops, and they will manage their own territories themselves. As nobles, they and their serfs will be exempt from taxes.
Some Polish nobles had no land and rivers, but their claims were even more absurd. They did not allow imperial officials to enter their territory, in their private territories they had the highest judicial power, without the need for imperial officials to manage, anyway, every New Year's Day, they would send two or three carts of grain and one or two bags of zloty as a year's tax. Later, when the empire went to war, they just called out and took people and horses to kill. This is simply a replica of the Zygmunt family.
One Zygmont family died, and then countless Zygmont families emerged, still united as one. Their demands were diverse, but they all revolved around one central point: even if they merged with the empire, they wanted to ensure a certain degree of independence, or even complete independence.
As a slave of a lost country, but without the self-awareness of a slave, this is my deepest realization over the past decade or so. No wonder Valens was furious. I couldn't bear it anymore and made a demand to these Polish cavalrymen gathered in Ulyanovsk, a very reasonable demand: out of the need to identify friend and foe, the Empire will reorganize the Polish Winged Cavalry in Ulyanovsk!
"Where can we find leopards?"
"What is a leopard?"
"We don't have breastplates, you provide them? Haha, okay then."
"Feathers are very expensive!"
This is how Poles reacted to the reorganization of the Winged Hussars: they bluntly stated that as long as the Empire paid, everything was fine.
I think it's very good for the Polish people.
Do you have leopard skin cushions?
That's easy, just find a piece of cloth and it's done.
Cuirass, who stipulated that winged cavalry must have cuirass.
Feathers, this is even simpler, now the birds that produce beautiful feathers have become rare goods, feathers are indeed expensive, but which rule says that winged cavalry must be equipped with feathers! Chicken feathers can also be used!
"Using chicken feathers? Isn't that bad?"
"We don't need feathers, that's fine, just go back home, we don't need cavalry with non-uniform attire, lest they get mistakenly hurt."
So, before the arrival of the 5th Spartan Legion and the 10th Rheinstein Legion, I armed two thousand three hundred seventy-five famous Polish Winged Hussars. It was those leaders and slightly wealthy ones who hired people to pluck bird feathers for them. The most classic image of the Winged Hussars, who once roamed Eastern Europe, is a helmet with a crest on top, wearing half armor, with a large black feather decoration inserted behind their back, wearing a leopard skin or leopard pattern cloak, holding a long spear with a flag, a saber in its scabbard, and a long sword beside the saddle. However, in my past life, when people mentioned Winged Hussars, they immediately thought of a person riding on horseback with two rows of bird feathers behind their back. To be honest, those two rows of bird feathers are actually the Winged Hussars.
When I got here, looking at those Polish guys shaking the chicken feathers on their saddles, the Polish winged hussars who shook two centuries also made me come up with it. I hope those Poles can understand that they are no longer the past Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth that made empires fearful, but just a group of poor worms that are nothing at all.
Many people understood my meaning, the Poles are not fools, some chose to be more reserved, speaking in a lower tone, and the serfs who built the ferry crossing point for Walens finally got their fill during this time.
By the time the 5th Sparta Regiment and the 10th Reinforced Regiment arrived, both regiments arrived at Ulyanovka on schedule. After merging the two regiments, we let them rest for a day and set off in the direction of Kiev with the Polish Winged Hussars who came to assist or drag their feet.
This march of over ten thousand people was commanded by the one-eyed old general I met on Augustaplatz in Constantinople, who asked me to call him Kristini.
Just on the road, Uncle Zimisya brought us good news.
The main force of the army marched for five days, covering a distance of 180 kilometers, and before receiving news that the Russian army under Lukichev was retreating to Kiev, they took the lead in dispatching cavalry to cut off the enemy's rear route. Lukichev was caught in a small town called Uzin, and the Russians launched two successive breakthroughs, but both were blocked by the vanguard troops who had been besieged. After Zhimysky and his main force arrived, Lukichev ruthlessly abandoned his infantry and broke through with a small number of cavalrymen, while the rest of his followers were either killed or dispersed.
In this battle, Lukich's Russian army lost 1,200 men, and the Polish cavalry sent by the northern landlords to assist in the fight lost more than 2,000 men, with no prisoners taken. Lukich's army had at least 5,000 men, yet there were no prisoners taken, which is somewhat inexplicable, unless the Poles ate some kind of brain-damaging food that day and became mentally handicapped, or...
On the eleventh day of our march, we passed through Uzin and saw a desolate battlefield. As a battlefield and as a necessary passage to Kiev, the large trees on the open plain were hung with Russian corpses, Polish cavalrymen subordinate to Russia.
The Poles, who had thought that with the help of their king they could play a republican comedy, were now thoroughly cowed. This small victory was not just a minor good thing, but a major one.
The wavering towns of Tarashcha, Volodarka and Skvira on the Dnieper Highlands sent their eldest sons with family cavalry to join the imperial camp in a symbolic gesture of allegiance. The combat effectiveness of these people is not worth mentioning, but they have pledged their loyalty, and the logistics supply from Ulyanovka to Kiev has an additional layer of guarantee, which is strategically significant.
Lukichev retreated to Kiev, taking with him a third of the garrison, which resulted in heavy losses and a severe shortage of troops in the city. In order to further deplete the defensive forces within Kiev, Zymovskiy, who had an army of 18,000 men, did not launch a fierce attack on Kiev from the start.
Three artillery regiments were deployed in the south of the city, five artillery regiments on the high ground in the northwest, and two eight-pounder batteries fired day and night into the city.
On the second night of the siege, he organized a nocturnal attack, but not on Kiev itself, rather on the northern shore where a pontoon bridge was set up. Two infantry regiments protected two artillery batteries, cutting off the right bank of Kiev from the outside world, and secretly deployed five Cossack regiments and two infantry regiments on the right bank. After dawn, Lukichev saw that the roads on the right bank were occupied by people, and also saw that the Empire had only sent two regiments and two artillery batteries, so he was moved by greed.
On the fourth day, Russian troops sent out a surprise attack in the early morning. However, Lukich did not directly rush to the artillery position, but rather used his brain, pretending to raid the infantry camp, and instead divided his troops into two routes, attempting to attack the emperor at the floating bridge of the camp.
The defenders of Kiev were originally few, with more than 6,500 defenders. Lukich took out over a thousand and now another thousand have died, the casualties are not light. Since that day, the Russian musketeers in Kiev don't know if they were heavily wounded or thoroughly scared, but they no longer care about the outside of the city. They usually come out to shoot a few cold shots, but now they don't even dare to show their heads. But basically, as soon as someone shows their head, the Empire has more than a dozen muskets firing over, not killing them but scaring them half to death.
On the sixth day of the siege of Kiev, more than 10,000 reinforcements arrived.
Zhimis Zhia immediately convened a military council and introduced us to the situation of the Kiev direction army after two small victories.
The Russian army lost no more than 3,000 men, and the Polish vassals of Russia lost over 2,000. We lost 1,300 killed or wounded, and the casualties of three legions are also evident on paper. Several squadrons of light cavalry suffered the most losses, with a full-strength force of 2,750 reduced to 2,423, almost an entire regiment was destroyed. The infantry battalions of the three legions each had some losses, averaging around 20-30 casualties per battalion. One six-pounder cannon was lost and two howitzers were damaged, but 538 horses were captured, making it a very good victory.
