Chapter 810 Storm

On the morning of April 9, the storm became so fierce that the sound of the first round of coalition artillery bombardment was almost drowned in the howling wind and pounding rain.

Sevastopol was completely shrouded in the smoke of artillery fire and morning rain and fog, and the people in the city had no way of distinguishing which direction the shells were flying from. So much so that some residents and officers thought the coalition fleet was firing.

At this time, the confused and frightened crowd came back to their senses, and they were helpless and ran wildly on the streets looking for any place to hide. Many people flocked to the Nikolai Fortress, the only reasonably safe location in Sevastopol.

However, it soon became a busy shelter. Frightened people continued to pour into the fortress, and it was overcrowded in a short time.

In the center of Sevastopol, bombed-out houses were everywhere, the streets were filled with rubble and broken glass, and cannonballs were bouncing around like rubber balls.

Tolstoy, who was in the city, noticed: a sick old man was being carried across the street by his son and daughter. Cannonballs exploded next to them. An older woman followed them looking panicked... some young girls. Wearing beautiful clothes, she leaned against the railing of the art gallery and exchanged glances with the soldiers stationed there. Next to them three businessmen were talking - whenever a shell exploded, they crossed themselves and shouted: "God bless! God bless! This is worse than hell!"

In the General Hospital, the Nobles' Chamber in Sevastopol, thousands of wounded were brought in, leaving the nurses overwhelmed. In the operating room, while Pirogov and other surgeons were performing amputation operations, a wall was hit by a shell and fell down, but Pirogov ignored it and continued to operate.

At that time, the coalition forces had no intention of avoiding hospitals and residential areas. Some of their shelling targets were military or civilian, so many of the injured in the first round of shelling were women and children.

The fourth bastion was a key target for shelling by the coalition because it was only a few hundred meters away from their fort. Therefore, when the first round of shelling began, the defenders had no time to react. The shells fell almost as soon as the cannon fired. It's over their heads.

After finally waiting for the first round of bombardment to end, Tolstoy hurried towards the fourth bastion. Previously, his 11th Artillery Brigade was transferred to the Fourth Bastion to garrison, which greatly annoyed the future writer. Because he originally applied to be transferred to Kornilov's headquarters to serve as a staff officer, so that he could free up a lot of time to write.

But the superiors directly threw him to the front line, directly in the fiercest battle.

"I'm so angry!" He wrote in his diary, "Especially since I'm sick now (cold). No one seems to have thought that anything I can do would be better than being a cannon fodder, and being a cannon fodder is the most useless thing for me!"

Fortunately, after recovering from the cold, the writer immediately cheered up and began to like the fighting life in the Fourth Bastion. He worked as a quartermaster at the Fourth Bastion for four days every eight days, and lived in a simple and clean house on the main street of Sevastopol for the rest of the time.

While on duty, he had to sleep in a small room inside the bunker, where there was a camp bed and a table. A clock and a statue of the deity embedded with an illuminated lamp.

The literary giant was always accompanied by his personal serf Alexei while he was serving in Sevastopol. In fact, Alexei has been accompanying him since he was in college. The image of this serf will appear under the name "Alyosha" among many of his works.

When Tolstoy was on duty, Alexei would carry his rations from the city, often at great risk to deliver them.

The coalition bombardment of the Fourth Bastion continued, and at least two thousand grenades fell on the Fourth Bastion every day. Tolstoy was frightened at first, but the writer quickly overcame his fear. When he was first sent to the bastion, he complained that he was cannon fodder, but two days later he wrote in his diary:

"The fascination caused by danger continues. I can observe the soldiers and sailors who live with me up close, as well as all the specific details of combat. All of this is so endearing that I don't want to leave here!"

For ten days, the coalition's shelling never stopped. After this large-scale shelling ended, the Russian army counted 160,000 artillery shells. Sevastopol was bombed, destroying hundreds of houses and killing and wounding 4,712 soldiers and civilians.

Of course, the bombardment was not one-sided. The Russian army also invested 409 cannons and nearly a hundred mortars to fight back. A total of 88,751 cannon shells and grenades were fired in ten days.

However, due to the gap in industrial capabilities, the Russian army soon discovered that there was insufficient ammunition and could not sustain high-intensity artillery fire back. So the enemy was ordered to fire back only once every two shells fired.

Captain Edward Gage of the British Royal Artillery told his family: "The tenacity of the defense is equal to the ferocity of the attack. If things can be done only by intelligence and bravery, then the Russian army is no worse than others. But it has to be said Their firepower is relatively weak. Although they still made our gunners suffer a lot and caused us to suffer more casualties, it is obvious that our firepower is stronger... But even so, I don't think shelling is possible. It has continued. Since the bombardment began, our soldiers have only taken shifts every twelve hours, which makes everyone exhausted..."

The weakening of the Russian army's firepower allowed the coalition forces to take the initiative. The density of shelling became higher and higher, and the mamelon head fort and the fifth bastion were almost completely destroyed. Kornilov predicted that the coalition forces would launch an attack soon, and eagerly replenished troops to the front line, leaving most of the soldiers hidden in underground bunkers to prepare to ambush the attacking coalition forces.

But what puzzled Kornilov was that the infantry of the coalition forces never showed up. It was probably because the Russian army's tenacious resistance made the coalition leaders discouraged, because the Russian army continued to repair and build even under intensive artillery fire. New fortifications, obviously this is not someone who will give up easily.

As a result, the top leadership of the coalition hesitated again. Canrobert publicly expressed his frustration. He supported reducing the artillery bombardment of Sevastopol and instead occupied other areas of Crimea because he really did not want to waste precious troops. Wasted in brutal battles.

In addition, General Adolphe Niel, the commander-in-chief of the French Army Engineers, also believed that the bombardment should be suspended, but the reason was that he received a secret instruction from Paris, asking him to deliberately delay the siege plan and wait for the arrival of Napoleon III.

At that time, the prodigal emperor was preparing to copy his uncle's great achievements and prepare to "conquer personally" to personally command the battle...