The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 615 The War Begins

Sir Henry Harding was the governor of the British Indian colony at this time. He participated in the Napoleonic Wars and defeated the main force of the French army commanded by Soult with [-] remnants in the Peninsular War.

Sir Henry Harding found the Prussian forces too dispersed at the Battle of Linney, but neither Blucher nor the Prussian Chief of Staff Gneisenau refused to listen to the wild words of a young man in his early twenties.

As a result, the Prussian army was directly defeated by Napoleon's flaws, and could only withdraw from the battlefield first.

Sir Henry Harding lost his left arm in this battle, but he did not surrender or withdraw from the battle. Instead, he endured the pain of his broken arm to catch up with the Prussian army and urged the opponent to return to the war.

Blücher paid great respect to this brave young man, and finally the Prussian army arrived in Waterloo as planned, giving Napoleon and his empire a final blow.

The Duke of Wellington called him the bravest Englishman. In recognition of his achievements, the Duke of Wellington presented Napoleon's sword to Lieutenant Colonel Henry Harding.

It's just that this brave soldier never participated in the war after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, but devoted himself to politics.

It was not until the eve of the outbreak of the Sikh War that he was recommended as the Governor of India.

Because although the war launched against the Sikh Empire at that time was applauded in the country, no one was sure that this powerful enemy could be dealt with.

The Sikh Empire once ruled by Gilant Singh definitely deserves the title of a strong enemy.

To give a more intuitive example, the financial revenue of the Sikh Empire in 1839 was as high as 5000 million rupees, which was close to half of that of the Austrian Empire in the same period of history.

The exchange rate between the florin and the rupee is very close, about 1 to 1.09.

At that time, the defense expenditure of the Sikh Empire was as high as 45%, so Gilant Singh's new army weapons and equipment can be called "luxury".

The 1826 new army has more than 60 French artillery pieces and [-] Delvigne-[-] rifles. The literacy rate of soldiers is as high as [-]%, far exceeding that of the European army at the same time.

There is also a 300-member French instructor corps, including many senior officers who participated in the Napoleonic Wars, and even directly hired French as the commander of the army.

In addition, Gilante Singh can also recruit about 3.5 tribal armed forces and nearly 1 fanatics.

However, all these brilliance disappeared with the death of Gilante Singh, and the continuous turmoil in the country made those tribes who were subdued by him before begin to obey.

Local landlords and officials began to join together to fill their own pockets, and the state's finances declined rapidly.Ethnic conflicts and religious conflicts also broke out here, a large number of population loss, land barren, bandits everywhere, business shrinkage.

On the other hand, the status of the army continued to improve, and the financial support requested continued to increase. In 1843, the emperor had no money to spend 40 rupees to repair the garden.

The military association organization "Casar" controlled the national politics to a certain extent and purged a large number of officers who were loyal to the royal family.

However, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. At this time, the Sikh Empire can still assemble an army of 6 people.

Henry Harding, brave as he was, was not a fool.He refused to accept London's order to advance directly to Punjab, but chose the relatively safe method of building high walls and accumulating grain.

On the one hand, this is due to Henry Harding's personal caution, and on the other hand, it is also because the two main combatants in history have already died in battle.

A veteran died on the way to put down the chaos, and Hugh Goff lost his life on Kalimantan Island.

Without the interference of these two powerful factions, Henry Harding chose a completely different style of play from the history. He planned to surround the Sikh Empire to death, using fortresses and bunkers at every step.

The French staff officers in the Sikh army discovered the British intentions at the first time, but due to the chaos within the Sikh Empire at that time, it was not until a few months later that the high-level officials discovered that Henry Harding was going to surround them to death.

The Sikh Empire once again fell into chaos, and finally the faction of Queen Regent Jinda prevailed.

Then he hurriedly declared war on the United Kingdom, led by Degar Singh and Lal Singh. The two men served as commander-in-chief at the same time, and the operation of commanding the troops separately was confusing.

But in fact the two men were from different factions, so they wanted to kill each other more than the British.

On the other hand, Henry Harding also lamented the poor combat power of the Indians. He even suspected that the Indian soldiers in front of him were not as good as the Spaniards.

This strengthened Henry Harding's strategy of shrinking back, but what made him depressed was that he had not seen a single Sikh soldier after waiting in the fortress for almost a month. On the contrary, many locals risked their lives to sell goods and act as coolie.

Since the Sikh Empire has extorted and extorted over the years, the people have long been in dire straits. Compared with working as a coolie for the Sikh army, the remuneration for working for the British is much higher, and at least they can have enough food.

There are not many people waiting to watch the fireworks, but a month is indeed too long.

Both Degar Singh and Lal Singh hope that the other party can fight the British to the death and then reap the benefits of the fisherman, so they are not willing to be this early bird.

Historically, it was Lal Singh's troops that collided with Hugh Gough's vanguard, but now the latter is in ashes.

Henry Harding was determined not to hold out, because he felt that it was not wise to rush into the hinterland of the enemy's country with a group of assholes.

So the two sides were exhausted like this, but soon the supplies of the Sikh Empire could not keep up.Degar Singh and Lal Singh had to agree to attack the British army at the same time.

Finally seeing the army of the Sikh Empire, the British army in the fortress was quite excited, because as long as the battle is over, they can return to their respective areas to become toubob.

But this excitement soon disappeared, because the firepower of the Sikh army far exceeded the imagination of the British army.

Historically, the British army was stunned by the Sikh artillery. At that time, Hugh Goff used his experience to judge that bringing 20-30 artillery pieces was enough to defeat the opponent.

As a result, the other party brought more than 200 artillery pieces, which were directly smashed to pieces by the employees of the British Indian colonial army and the East India Company.

At this time, although Henry Harding ordered the construction of city walls and fortresses, Ah San's architectural level could only produce some superficial things.

As soon as the war started, the British army fell into a great disadvantage. The walls and fortresses they relied on could not provide them with much protection.

In fact, French goods were quite scary at the time. Although there were many antiques from the French Revolution period, they were not blocked by the old-fashioned city walls temporarily built by the Indians.

In fact, Henry Harding didn't think of this either, he just hoped to reduce the loss a little.

I didn't expect the opponent's firepower to be so fierce. Fortunately, he specially transported some siege artillery, at least not too much in terms of power.

The artillery battle between the two sides was clearly dominated by the Sikhs, so Hudja Singh and Lal Singh were a little swollen.

The two ordered to prepare to attack the city at the same time. Whoever defeated the British first would be the future leader of Kasar.

(End of this chapter)