I Became A Genius Of The French Royal Family [EN]: Chapter 271

< Blow the Trumpet of Defeat >

“We can definitely win!”

The Second Branch of the Yihetuan [also known as the Boxers, a Chinese secret society], having established itself in Hunan Province, was brimming with confidence.

Yi Bok-cheon, a prominent commander under Wang Qing, one of the Yihetuan’s leaders, raised his voice to rally the troops.

“We have gathered over 100,000 righteous soldiers. On the other hand, those immoral French troops number less than 30,000. Even if three of our soldiers face one of them, we’ll still have over 10,000 left!”

“Indeed. Our numerical superiority is overwhelming,” Wang Qing, the leader, and other commanders echoed, nodding in agreement with Yi Bok-cheon.

Except for two individuals.

The British officer dispatched by Nelson and the Qing officer commanding the government troops were biting their lips, their expressions uneasy.

The British officer, having received a translation of the meeting’s proceedings, stood up abruptly, his mouth agape.

“No! Have you not heard a word we’ve said! The Admiral explicitly told you not to engage the French!”

“General Myeongnyang [likely a reference to the famous Korean admiral Yi Sun-sin, known for his naval victories against overwhelming odds] also advised the same. The French are brutal and ferocious killing machines; confronting them head-on is pointless…”

“Tsk, tsk, have you ever seen such cowards? The Qing army’s defeat was simply because their soldiers were utterly incompetent, wasn’t it? Do you think our Yihetuan soldiers are like those demoralized and untrained government troops?”

“No, that’s not the point…” The Qing officer sighed deeply and sat back down.

He had tried to explain it several times, but these charlatans simply wouldn’t listen.

The Qing representative’s easy silence flustered the British side.

Nelson had explicitly ordered them not to fight the French, and he couldn’t understand what grounds these fools were using to make such a decision.

“No! Let’s at least hear them out! Why do you want to fight?”

“Listen here, foreigner. What was your name… James, was it? Anyway, don’t you know? Those Western devils are burning down every village suspected of being related to us and arresting key figures as they come. If we leave this as it is, we’ll be suspected of being afraid.”

“Ha… I’m going crazy. Then you should use that for media play to strengthen internal solidarity!”

“No, we’ve already said so much. If we don’t step up now, it will affect the morale of the soldiers. And do you think the food to feed them will fall from the sky?”

James was about to explode at their tone, as if they were humoring a child.

How could they be so short-sighted?

‘Admiral, I think your judgment was wrong.’

Nelson thought that even the most foolish people would follow orders.

However, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he had underestimated the Han Chinese of the Qing Dynasty.

It was a complete mess, but the biggest problem with these guys was that they had no intention of listening to others.

They didn’t even listen to the experiences of their own officials, so there was no way they would listen to the opinions of foreigners like the British.

“Listen! The strength of the French army is beyond anything you can imagine! So please, listen to us now!”

“Well, it’s not like we haven’t thought about it. I heard that the French unit that crushed the government troops is the highly renowned 2nd Corps, right? But the ones coming down now are the 3rd Corps, which came in after the war was over.”

“The idea that the 3rd Corps is weaker than the 2nd Corps is just wishful thinking…”

“And the reason the Qing army couldn’t do anything and was defeated is because their morale wasn’t very high from the start. But we are different.”

The Yihetuan soldiers were thoroughly indoctrinated with the phrases ‘Swords Cannot Pierce’ and ‘Divine Spirit Protects the Body’.

If you join the Yihetuan and complete the training with a pure heart, the strange weapons of the Westerners cannot harm your body.

And if you take a talisman [a charm or amulet believed to have magical powers] with the divine spirit before going into battle, the guns of the Westerners will miss you.

To James, it was utter nonsense, but the Yihetuan soldiers sincerely believed it.

“Well, let’s say you’re raising morale with those strange slogans. Every country uses various methods to boost the morale of its troops.”

In fact, the British army doesn’t do such pseudo things, but don’t they pray to God for courage?

“But surely you don’t really think that eating a piece of talisman will make bullets miss you?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you must be expecting that the soldiers’ morale will plummet the moment they realize this is a scam, right?”

“Don’t worry. Unless they receive a really big shock, they won’t come to their senses so easily.”

James sensed something more when he heard Wang Qing’s confident words.

“Come to their senses? Don’t tell me…”

“Ah, yes. The talismans they swallow have a miraculous effect that boosts courage. Didn’t we say Divine Spirit Protects the Body? The brave spirit is with the soldiers, so they will risk their lives to grab and hold onto the enemy.”

“Drugs…”

“It’s a divine spirit.”

Wang Qing patted James on the shoulder with a seemingly amiable smile.

“Put your worries aside and watch. The credit for the victory will naturally be shared with you.”

James could no longer speak at the antics of these foolish yet vicious swindlers.

Now that he thought about it, he could roughly guess why they were in such a hurry to fight.

The Yihetuan organization was structured with several leaders, not a clear central figure.

All of them were people who prided themselves on being mystical, clownish, and having great magical powers.

Of course, not a single one of them was a proper commander.

In fact, when the war broke out, not a single person was seen using their great magic to fight the enemy on the front lines.

They were just snobs focused on increasing their influence.

There was no doubt about it, considering they lightly ignored the advice to gather all their forces and aim for the enemy’s annihilation if they were really going to fight.

‘I have no obligation to join these crazy bastards in their end.’

He should sneak out of here tomorrow and flee south.

He, who was still making somewhat normal judgments, decided that he had to inform Nelson of this news as soon as possible.

He didn’t even want to imagine what the Admiral, who was bravely commanding the fleet at sea, would say when he heard this story.

※※※

The border between Hubei and Hunan, where the French army had anticipated a battle.

KWAH-KWANG!

The Yihetuan advanced bravely without yielding to the French army’s shelling that began as soon as dawn broke.

“Support Qing! Destroy the Foreigners! Support Qing! Destroy the Foreigners!”

“Let’s protect the country from the Western devils!”

As Wang Qing had confidently declared, the Yihetuan soldiers gradually moved forward despite the barrage of rockets and cannons.

The Yihetuan members didn’t care even if their bodies were torn apart by shells or their heads were blown off by bullets.

The Danmin [another name for the Yihetuan members] ran forward as if possessed, even as their comrades died beside them.

Of course, the fact that ‘Swords Cannot Pierce’ was nonsense was proven within just 10 seconds of the battle’s start.

But even so, the Yihetuan members didn’t care.

Jang Ran clicked his tongue as he watched this reckless charge unfolding in real time before his eyes.

He thought they might have some kind of clever plan, but they were really just ramming into them like this.

“Marshal, I’ve never seen guys throw themselves like this without caring about their lives.”

“Hmm… Could this be part of some kind of scheme? Were they really just empty-headed fools?”

“It seems they underestimated us that much.”

“I definitely heard it was a history book, but did I misunderstand something? Was there a mistranslation in the book that the British translated and brought in…?”

How could such a suicidal charge happen in the land of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms [a famous Chinese historical novel known for its strategic battles]?

Either the British translated it strangely, or it was all a lie from the beginning.

Jang Ran was newly dismayed at the fact that he had been deceived, whichever it was.

“Still, if they keep charging like that, disregarding their lives, some of them might even reach close range. It would be nice to have a weapon with a slightly better rate of fire.”

He heard that they were working hard to develop heavy machine guns that could fire bullets non-stop in the mainland, but they had not yet been introduced into actual combat.

Of course, even without such weapons, such reckless charges would not work against the well-trained French army.

What could they do with only about three times the number of soldiers when the difference in numbers was about 10 times?

The soldiers who came running while shouting strange slogans made passionate kisses with the dirt floor due to the concentrated fire from this side, and dyed the floor with their red blood.

“Tsk. It’s hard to watch with my eyes open.”

“It seems those guys have no intention of retreating.”

“…Are they really planning to kill them all here?”

KWAH-KWANG!

As soon as he finished speaking, the bodies of two Yihetuan members were blown into the sky in a bloody mist by a shell that exploded.

“I want to see the face of the opposing commander. What is he thinking as he commands?”

In fact, Ran had no intention of achieving an overwhelming victory in this battle.

No matter how he thought about it, he felt that winning a major victory in this battle would alert the enemy’s main force waiting in the rear.

If the enemy’s troops had all rushed in, this side would have accepted some damage and poured all its forces into annihilating the enemy.

However, the enemy’s judgment was so flawed that they had to fight with only about one-third of their forces.

If they overwhelmingly annihilated them here, the main force behind them would come to their senses and not fight them.

Then the 3rd Corps would have no choice but to be tied down in the Guangdong area.

It would disrupt the original plan to dismantle the Yihetuan group as quickly as possible and return to Beijing.

“I was going to pretend to cooperate and retreat without making it obvious if they just put up a little bit of a fight… These damn fools.”

He was going to pretend to respond appropriately because he thought there would be some kind of strategy, but how could he do that if they charged like dogs like this?

As the situation began to flow into an impeccable victory, shadows gradually began to form on the faces of the staff.

“Marshal, what should we do? It’s a historic victory atmosphere right now.”

“…Tsk. What should I do? Is there a way to retreat here without being suspected?”

“I don’t think so.”

What to do.

Maybe the guys weren’t stupid after all, and they were actually conducting a highly sophisticated psychological warfare to figure out this side’s strength from the beginning.

To sacrifice 100,000 soldiers for that?

Just as such absurd reasoning was circling in his head,

“…Hmm?”

The movement of the enemy troops, who were charging without fear of death, suddenly stopped.

What should he say?

It was like they had finally regained their senses.

The atmosphere of the battlefield suddenly collapsed as the enemy, who suddenly seemed to have rediscovered the fear they had forgotten, suddenly began to back away.

“Good! Now’s our chance!”

“…Yes?”

“Cease fire! In response to their retreating movement, we also retreat, pretending to be flustered!”

“Yes!”

The quick-witted staff quickly sent signals to the officers.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!”

The soldiers wondered what the hell this was all about while fighting, but they faithfully followed the orders for now.

“From now on, all troops! Retreat, pretending to be as flustered as possible!”

“All troops retreat! Retreat!”

“Ugh. Ughhh. The enemies are too strong. We only killed 50,000.”

“Ughhh. This is a disaster. We used up a fifth of our ammunition. Let’s run away.”

Marshal Jang Ran’s valiant 3rd Corps, which was trying to prove that the 2nd Corps was not the only one in France.