By noon the next day, the Bagrationi Legion had once again encountered large numbers of Russian Soldiers frozen stiff along the roadside.
In less than half a day, they had gathered over a thousand corpses.
They were the prisoners Kościuszko had released earlier.
There were no villages within a hundred kilometers of this area. The Polish Army had confiscated all the prisoners' food and blankets. Without food, there was no heat, and they would freeze to death in less than three days.
After driving back the Poles, the Russian Soldiers' morale had begun to rise. Yet when they saw these half-naked corpses killed by the brutal cold, they suddenly felt the chill in their own bodies multiply severalfold, and once again grew pessimistic about the war's prospects.
By the time they reached the upper reaches of the Iput River, a hundred kilometers away, they had already lost more than 1,200 men to cold and disease.
The good news was that the other three main Russian legions had finally reached the Bryansk region and deployed along an east-west line, preparing to encircle the Polish Army once more.
Kutuzov had scattered all the Cossack light cavalry. At most three more days, he estimated, and they would be able to "bite" the Poles' tail, slowing their escape.
Thus, the Polish Army and the Russian Army began a race for life and death across the frigid Ruthenian Plain.
Meanwhile, following Saint-Cyr's plan, the Madalinski Legion finally rendezvoused successfully with Kościuszko at the town of Pochep, more than seventy kilometers southwest of Bryansk.
The Madalinski Legion, deployed far ahead of the main force, had exhausted all its supplies. Each soldier received only half a pound of frozen horsemeat and a loaf of black bread a day. In the Polish Army's temporary Camp, Kościuszko first instructed