The Battle of Sadowa was the decisive battle in the entire Austro-Prussian War, and although the two countries did not concentrate all their armies here, none of the elite troops of the two armies had already been assembled.

The war turned into a tug-of-war from the beginning, and Prussia in this year did not have the prestige and domineering of later Germany, and they were still cautious in the use of troops.

The 7th Prussian Division was now in a life-and-death battle, in the dense woods, the Austrian two armies were flanking them, and if it were not for the complex terrain and the elite performance of the Mauser rifles, I am afraid that the left flank of the Prussian army would not be protected.

The tenacious 7th Division used their lives to delay the pace of the Austrians, and the silent soldiers brought the Prussians' tenacious character to the extreme, and no matter how great the casualties, their firing rhythm remained fast, accurate, and ruthless.

Thanks to the large number of rear-loading rifles in the Prussian army, the Prussians were able to fire three or four shots in the time that the Austrians fired a slow shot, and the rear-loading Mauser also allowed the Prussian army to reload ammunition in a lying and kneeling position, and even hide behind a tree to load the bullet.

It was with the support of this revolutionary weapon that the Prussian Seventh Division stubbornly withstood the attack of the two armies, held the jungle to the death, and also covered the left flank of the entire Prussian army on the battlefield.

The plight of the 7th Prussian Division is only a microcosm of the entire battlefield, and General Benedek is indeed a personal masterpiece, and the 200,000 Austrian troops under his command let him command like an arm.

The Prussian regiment fought too hard, and the Elbe Corps and the First Army swept forward village by village, and every meter advanced required huge sacrifices. In the end, King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who was watching the battle further from the rear of the headquarters, could not stand it anymore, and he issued a strict order to General Moltke, ordering the First Army to speed up immediately, and the chief of the general staff had no choice but to order the First Army to accelerate its advance to the battlefield.

But they never expected that General Benedek would insidiously use a large number of smoke grenades, and the First Army Corps would soon be covered in smoke, and before they could rush out, the Austrian artillery cluster began to fire intensively.

It was a dense fire that did not need to be aimed at all, and the Austrian artillery only had to fire wildly at the smoke belt, and the casualty figures of the dizzy First Army began to climb wildly.

Old Moltke was almost mad, but after all, he was only a chief of staff, he could order everyone on the battlefield, but he couldn't sneer at the king, and he could only accept the king's chaotic orders.

"Charge, the 1st Army accelerated the charge, must rush through this smoke belt...... Under the strict order of old Moltke, the two divisions in the smoke belt began to charge with their eyes closed, and soon rushed out of that smoke belt of death.

However, he did not expect that General Benedek had arranged an elite army outside the smoke belt early, and when the Prussian army had just appeared, the guns and artillery on the position were fired, and the Prussian soldiers were swept down.

The inertia of history is sometimes so tenacious, even if Xiao Letian, the butterfly that crossed the butterfly desperately flapping its wings, the events that should have happened in history still stubbornly want to squeeze to the front of the stage, and the difficulties encountered by the Prussians in the Battle of Sadova in the Austro-Prussian War have all gone through a lot.

"Oh, old Moltke, my friend, this war has not only been prepared by you for many years, but I have also been prepared for a long time, and it seems that you are not as prepared as I am for this fateful confrontation...... Hahaha, I'm sure to crush your ...... before the Second Legion arrives"

In the general headquarters of the Austrian rear, General Benedek was personally drawing a map on the map, and when he saw that his troops had completed their mission, he was in a good mood and even had the leisure to whistle.

Just when he was excited about the defeat and retreat of the imaginary Prussian army, suddenly a report from the commander of the guard company came from outside the headquarters: "Report to Your Excellency General, the herald sent by the Thorn Flower Division has arrived, asking for the general's summons..."

"Well, the Thorn Flowermaster, why did they send heralds? Didn't they build a defensive position for so long? Why else would they have let the cavalry report on the military situation instead of using telegraph lines?"

Surprised, the whispering General Benedek shouted "Let him in......"

The curtain of the military tent was lifted, and a sweaty cavalryman walked into the headquarters and gave a military salute: "General, the Thorn Flower Division was blocked by the enemy on the Stone Bridge Heights, and we did not capture the heights for an hour of bloody fighting, please send reinforcements to the general...... Count Tablis said that they don't need you to come to their rescue, but I hope you can plan ahead and set up another line of defense behind them......"

"We ...... There's a good chance that we, the Thorn Flowerer, won't be able to complete the task..."

With a snap, General Benedek crushed the red and blue pencil in his hand, and the sharp graphite tip pierced into his palm, and red blood dripped onto the map.

"What do you say? Say it to me again? It's almost twelve o'clock at noon, and you haven't even taken a little high ground? Are you pigs and dogs? Or is Prussia having an army to stop you?"

The general's scolding was so ugly that the herald's face turned red like a pig's liver, but he couldn't refute it, so he could only whisper, "I'm sorry General, we failed to live up to your expectations...... Stone Bridge Heights... There are only two battalions of troops on the stone bridge heights, and the leader is still Chinese, that is, the Ryukyu Prime Minister who went to war with the French, Xiao Lotian..."

"Xiao Letian?" Benedek was stunned, and it took him three seconds before he found the Ryukyu prime minister who had humiliated the French from his memory bank.

"How could it be him? He actually joined in? Didn't intelligence analysis say that he was just here to watch the battle?"

It's not that Xiao Letian's fame is not big enough, but General Benedek never imagined that a group of Chinese would actually be mixed into the battle for hegemony in the hinterland of Europe, and they were so deeply mixed.

"Damn, how much benefit did Prussia give to these Chinese? Actually let them work so hard, otherwise who wins and who loses between Prussia and Austria is a matter of business to you Chinese..."

For a whole morning, Benedek listened to the good news all morning, until now he was actually deeply stabbed by Xiao Letian's thorn, and he didn't know how to get a sudden sense of ominousness in his heart.

The staff officer next to him looked at the commander-in-chief who changed color, looked at each other, and then tentatively opened his mouth to persuade, "Your Excellency, General, it is just the strength of two battalions, even if the Thorn Flower Division has a small setback, but the final victory will definitely be ours, and the old earl is not easy to ...... with his peers."

"No, no, no, this battle is so important that the future of Austria depends on today. If we lose this war, I'm sure our names won't be on the list of future world powers..."

Benedek's heavy tone infected the people present, Austria is originally a country of mountains, and the speed of nurturing and developing without maritime interests is very slow, if it were not for the lingering power of the Holy Roman Empire for thousands of years, it is estimated that Britain and France would not look at them squarely now.

The only thing Austria can rely on today is the army, and the glorious army, which has been inherited from the time of the Holy Roman Empire, is the last force for Austria to shock Europe. If the army was defeated, Austria's national fortunes would fall to the bottom.

General Benedek's worries, in real history, are reality. Austria, which had lost the Austro-Prussian War, had its fortunes in a state that had never recovered, until after the First World War, when the national parliament even abolished the Habsburg family of succession to the throne and established a republic.

Later, in the Second World War, Hitler even annexed the whole of Austria until the end of World War II, when it was liberated by the Allies.

But Austria was once strong, the Holy Roman Empire once ruled all of Europe, they also had dreams of hegemony, and they also fought for the dream of the nation.

In this battle of national fortunes, General Benedek will not allow defeat, he will definitely not allow the dreams of an entire nation to be shattered in his own hands.

He stared at the map with blazing eyes, and said hoarsely, "The assault plan has been launched in advance, we can't wait any longer..."

Just as the Austrians were about to start the operation, it happened that in the Prussian headquarters on the opposite side of the battlefield, information about the bloody battle of Shiqiao also came.

"What do you say? you speak louder......" Old Moltke's chief of staff rushed to the door of the headquarters and grabbed the Ranger by the collar, spitting angry saliva in his face.

"Did the Oriental Task Force dare to go into battle without my orders? They actually set up defenses on the Stone Bridge Heights? The strength of their two battalions tried to withstand the attack of the Thorn Flower Division? And you just said that they ...... They've resisted? There are still gunshots coming from them?"

The Ranger who was smashed by a string of question sentences was speechless, just nodded frequently, "Yes, yes, yes...... Yes, I sentry to the edge of the battlefield according to the routine plan, and found the guard post of the Thorn Flower Master a kilometer away from the Stone Bridge Heights, I will not be mistaken, I have seen the badge of the Thorn Flower Master......"

"There are too many enemies, the whole battlefield is controlled by countless guard posts, I can only observe from a distance, what appears in the telescope is the military flag of the special battalion, and there is also a strange Chinese character military flag, I think it must be Chinese own flag......"

"The sound of artillery on the battlefield was like thunder, the sound of gunfire was like rain, and I could even hear the shouts of people when they charged at a distance of one kilometer, and the battlefield was murderous...... I'm also a veteran, and I can feel how fierce the fight is inside... Sir...... Those Chinese are really desperate, they are really fighting..."

Old Moltke suddenly saw darkness when he heard this, and his body shook and almost fell, and the cavalry in front of him hurriedly helped him to sit down, and at this time Bismarck couldn't sit still, so he quickly took out a silver wine jug and let the chief of the general staff take a sip.

Old Moltke sighed, "Xiao Letian, this is true, no matter whether we win or lose, we already owe people a favor that can't be repaid... Benedek is really good, he caught this fighter too well......"

Bismarck said with anxiety on his face, "Do we still have any reserve cavalry?" send them out, we can't let Xiao Letian die here, that will cause diplomatic disputes...... Even if there is no dispute, if the world sees that our Kingdom of Prussia can't even protect the foreign diplomats who came to help, it will make all the elites lose confidence..."

"Reserves, cavalry?" old Moltke rubbed his temples in pain, "In Sadova, our two corps have a total of 120,000 people, and the Austrian army on the opposite side has as many as 220,000, where do you let me go to find the reserves...... What's more, just now His Majesty ordered me to speed up the assault, and now that the front is already in a bitter battle, even if I want to draw out the army, I can't get them out of the battle..."

"What the hell is going to be done? damn it......" Bismarck anxiously spun back and forth in the command like a trapped beast. And just then, another Ranger rushed in sweaty.

"Report...... Report to the commander, the Austrian army suddenly launched a local counteroffensive, and the 7th Division was attacked by a battalion of enemy troops...... Now that the Austrians are riding the victory, our left flank is going to collapse..."

Note: The details of the Battle of Sadowa in this chapter are all true, in fact, in the process of great power competition, countries like Austria also had their own dreams of becoming a strong country. But unfortunately, their dreams were shattered, and only a few strong people were allowed to survive in the harsh law of the jungle.

However, all powerful countries have stepped on the corpses of countless countries to ascend to power, and this cruel reality may not change for tens of millions of years. It's a pity, but it's also helpless.

This book was first published from 17K Novel Network, the first time to see the genuine content!R405