The Army of the "Undying"

Derrison was wrong. The Royal Guard Legion that came to intercept them numbered only 14,000 men, and they were avoiding villages along the way, so no one noticed them at all.

Even if a Prussia noticed something amiss, by the time he reported it, the Royal Guard Legion would already be upon him.

After Joseph learned of the large-scale mobilization of the Prussian Army, he knew they were definitely heading for Ratibor. Given the Royal Guard Legion ' Forced March speed, the ambush was practically guaranteed to succeed.

This is the advantage of the siege and reinforcement tactic – I know you will definitely take a certain route to reinforce, so I can launch a targeted attack on the reinforcements.

Soon, a straight Infantry Line appeared in the Prussia soldiers' line of sight, slowly advancing towards them to the War Drum.

Derrison saw that only about 70% of his soldiers had completed their formation, but he had no choice but to order them to engage the enemy immediately.

Fortunately, the Hussars reported that the French Army only about 10,000. His side, with the Fenn Legion plus two regiments of Grenadier, had a strength of nearly 9,000. Even if their formation was not well-organized, they should still be able to delay them for two hours.

Once his main force was in formation, he could launch a counterattack against the France with superior numbers—he had more than 17,000 soldiers behind him!

The sound of the French Army grew closer. In front of the Prussia line formation, Second Lieutenant Olive of the Prussia Royal Jäger Battalion was crouching behind a clump of dry grass, his eyes fixed on the flag bearing the "Sword-Bearing Dolphin" emblem in the distance. If he remembered correctly, it seemed to belong to the 2nd Royal Guard Legion of France.

He estimated the distance between the two sides, loudly ordered the soldiers around him to hold their ground, and then slowly raised the Pozztan M1741 Jäger Rifle in his hand.

This gun was an improvement on the M1741 Flintlock Gun. Its most distinctive feature is that it has rifling in the barrel, which allows the bullet to spin and thus achieve a straight trajectory.

In the era of Smoothbore Musket where accuracy at 30 meters was entirely based on luck, this was undoubtedly a highly sophisticated weapon. However, due to its extremely high cost and laborious loading process, it was only equipped by a small number of elite Jäger.

Olive was one of them.

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

Killing this guy would definitely be a serious blow to the morale of the France behind him.

He licked his lips and squinted at the young drummer.

At a distance of about 80 paces, Olive felt the breeze beside him and, confirming it wouldn't significantly affect the bullets, decisively pulled the trigger.

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

With a loud "bang!", the strap of the drummer's War Drum snapped off, and the drummer fell backward as if he had been hit in the face with a hammer.

Second 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, put the cover on, then stood the gun upright, poured in Gunpowder, tamped it down, and then loaded the cartridge.

Then he pulled out a hammer from behind him and began to forcefully hammer the cleaning rod. This was a persistent problem with Rifled Gun; because the diameter of the bullet was slightly larger than the muzzle, a hammer had to be used to force the Bullet in.

However, after he had only struck twice, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye that the drummer he had just hit was struggling to his feet!

"Oh my God!" Olive's eyes widened instantly. "What happened?!"

He was certain he had hit the guy in the chest; the fact that the drum band had broken was proof of that.

At this moment, there wasn't a single drop of blood on the drummer's chest—blood would be very noticeable on France's white Military Uniform —he bent down to tie his drum straps, 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 with a puzzled expression, gritted his teeth, and fired the last bullet. Then he raised the gun again and aimed.

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

Flames spewed from the muzzle of the M1741, and the officer swayed 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, bewildered, took a few steps back, abandoned his chance to fire again, and turned to run away.

The Prussia Jäger around him also began firing, but except for one who accidentally hit an enemy soldier in the neck, the others got back up after being hit—at this time, the Jäger manual required aiming at the enemy's chest and abdomen, because the target was larger.

The Prussia Infantry stared in astonishment at the Jäger as if they had seen a ghost, and retreated in panic behind them.

However, they soon learned the reason, because they themselves had encountered the same situation.

When the French Army Infantry Line closed to within 50 paces, the officers gave the order to fire a volley.

With a series of crackling explosions, black Powder Smoke obscured the battlefield, and nearly a hundred French Army soldiers fell to the ground.

But soon, through the Powder Smoke, the Prussia soldiers could vaguely see that most of the wounded France had stood up again, leaning on their rifles.

The Prussia looked at each other in bewilderment. The enemies were clearly not wearing breastplates or anything like that, yet bullets just wouldn't kill them.

Chaos began to appear in the already crooked Prussia line formation; some soldiers even forgot to reload and started making the sign of the cross in prayer.

Davout watched in disbelief as his Orderly Officer stood up, grimacing. Although the General Staff Headquarters had repeatedly said that the "Bulletproof Insert" could withstand bullets, he had never really trusted such a thin thing.

The Orderly Officer pressed his abdomen, pulled out the insert, and then lifted his clothes.

Davout immediately noticed a large, dark bruise on his stomach, but it was clear that the bullet had been deflected. He then looked at the shrapnel on the ground, which had developed spiderweb-like cracks and a raised section at the back.

The drumbeats beside him suddenly quickened, and after long hours of training, Davout reflexively turned to order the soldiers:

Stop moving forward.

"Prepare--

"...

"Shooting!"

Thousands of Percussion Cap Gun spewed flames almost simultaneously, instantly creating numerous gaps in the Prussia line formation.

For a moment, many Prussia soldiers turned to look at their wounded comrades, as if waiting for them to get back on their feet.

However, apart from bloodshed and wailing, no miracle occurred.

The Royal Guard Legion quickly launched a second volley.

This time, apart from the two Prussia Grenadier, the rest of the soldiers actually turned and ran away in fear.

The elite Prussia Guard Corps Infantry collapsed after the enemy's second volley!

It would be difficult for anyone to maintain the Courage to continue fighting when facing an invincible enemy while suffering heavy casualties themselves.