At such close range, even the old-fashioned muskets in the hands of the Russian Empire were powerful enough to shoot down French soldiers.

Within the trenches, the French soldiers also suffered massive casualties, with cries and shouts echoing between the second and third lines of defense.

Both the Russian Army and the French Army were desperately fighting for control of the second line of defense, where life had become the cheapest commodity on this battlefield.

"Quick! Quick! Send more reinforcements!" Count Saken, ecstatic at seeing the battlefield stalemate, once again ordered reinforcements through the adjutant by his side.

Three regiments of Russian soldiers, led by three brigadier generals, marched from the city and joined the battle for the second defensive line.

With the addition of three regiments, the troops assigned to the offensive immediately increased significantly, and the battery on the mound continually attacked the French-occupied positions.

French soldiers either fell under the muzzles of Russian soldiers or perished beneath the battery fires.

Soon, the number of casualties in the second line of defense among the French Army exceeded five hundred, plunging the entire line back into a precarious state. Originally filled with hope for victory, the French soldiers felt the same fear amidst the fearless assault of the Russian soldiers, and they began to retreat involuntarily.

The Russian soldiers, spurred by the constant French withdrawal, steadily grew in morale, seemingly intent on capturing the second line of defense in one stroke.

Jerome Bonaparte, observing the distant battlefield from the Third Division headquarters, immediately gave orders to Major General Troche: "Major General Troche, it’s time to show me the strength of your Guard Division!"

"Yes!" Major General Troche solemnly saluted Jerome Bonaparte, then turned to lead his troops (including a battalion of the Battle Supervision Battalion and two regiments of the Guard Army) onto the battlefield.

Upon reaching the first and second lines of defense, Major General Troche immediately ordered a battalion of the Battle Supervision Battalion to take action.

He first loudly ordered the deserters to return to their positions, but those soldiers did not heed Troche’s command to return.

Then, Major General Troche immediately drew his pistol and shot the soldier running at the front, and the surrounding Battle Supervision Battalion likewise drew their pistols to deal the harshest punishment to soldiers attempting to flee the battlefield.

The death of dozens resulted in nearly a hundred French soldiers halting, looking at Major General Troche with fearful eyes.

"Think of your parents! Do you want to bring them so much shame that they cannot hold their heads up high?" Major General Troche loudly addressed the group of French soldiers trying to flee, "Or do you want your painstakingly earned pensions to be completely revoked?"

If mentioning the parents only made the French soldiers feel ashamed, then the threat of pension revocation was indeed the ultimate deterrent.

The expressions of most French soldiers changed from previous shame to panic; as French military men, they were all too aware of the Empire’s severe punishment for deserters.

Loss of pension, expulsion from the army—just one of these consequences would make their lives far worse than death.

After all, most of the French soldiers present were semi-professional military men,

and, aside from killing, these guys had no other skills.

Forcing them to compete for jobs with factory workers was simply too difficult for them.

Once expelled from the military, their future would be utterly insecure, and death would be inevitable.

"Those whom I just shot dead will not be counted as deserters! If they have descendants, their descendants will also be cared for by the military!" Major General Troche added.

Under Major General Troche’s blend of strictness and kindness, the fleeing French soldiers began to follow his orders and return to the second line of defense.

After Major General Troche’s Battle Supervision Battalion and the two regiments of the Guard Army were rapidly deployed to the second line, the French Army once again held firm within the defense line.

The previously advancing Russian Army was also gradually pushed back, with two of the three brigadier generals killed by French soldiers.

The bloody tug-of-war continued from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and as the sun set on the horizon, the temperature of the Crimea Peninsula abruptly dropped.

No longer able to withstand the casualties and the cold, the Russian Army began a gradual retreat, and Count Saken could only sigh in regret at this sight.

The Russian Empire retreated in waves to regroup behind the third line of defense, and the previously tense expressions of the French Army also relaxed.

Soon after, cheers erupted from within the second line of defense.

Brigadier General Troche, covered in Russian soldiers’ blood, broke into a smile, having finally fulfilled Jerome Bonaparte’s expectations by successfully defending the second line of defense.

Then, a staff officer from the Third Division headquarters appeared on the line to convey Jerome Bonaparte’s congratulations to everyone in the trench.

"Commander, Your Majesty requests your presence!" A staff officer whispered to Major General Troche.

"Understood!" Major General Troche responded calmly, handing over the task of tallying casualties to a brigadier general in his command, before leaving the position.

When Major General Troche arrived at the Third Division’s command post, General Bosskey, the commander of the Second Division, was also present before him.

"Commander Troche!" Bosskey greeted Major General Troche warmly.

"Commander Bosskey!" Major General Troche smiled and nodded back at Bosskey.

Then, Troche and Bosskey entered the headquarters, where they saw Jerome Bonaparte standing in front of a map of Crimea, gesturing back and forth with his hand.

"Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty!"

General Bosskey and Troche responded in unison to Jerome Bonaparte.

"You have arrived!" Jerome Bonaparte turned his head, smiling and nodding at them, then inquired about Brigadier General Troche’s casualty situation.

"Your Majesty, this time the casualties might be the most severe we’ve suffered since arriving on the Crimea Peninsula!" Major General Le Luomu said gravely to Jerome Bonaparte.

"I was already mentally prepared for this!" Jerome Bonaparte answered Troche: "I’ve seen the entire process at headquarters!"

Jerome Bonaparte gave a thumbs up and praised, "General Troche, you did well!"

"Your Majesty, you overpraise me!" Major General Troche bowed in response.

"General Bosskey, how about your side?" Jerome Bonaparte once again turned his head to General Bosskey.

"Our casualty numbers may not be optimistic either; the Russian Army was simply too reckless this time!" Bosskey shrugged helplessly.

"As long as we’ve held the position, we’ve succeeded. Our goal is to continually press..."

Before Jerome Bonaparte could finish, the rumbling of artillery sounded from outside the window. Jerome Bonaparte immediately paused, focusing his gaze in the direction of the artillery sound. It turned out the artillery in Bakhchisaray’s urban area was conducting a sweeping attack on the French Army’s second line of defense.

However, the intensity of the Russian Empire’s attack this time was far less than the previous one, so Jerome Bonaparte wasn’t concerned about the French Army’s situation at the second line of defense.

He continued the unfinished statement: "Our goal is to continuously compress the influence range of the Russian Army in Bakhchisaray, and engage them within the urban area!

At the same time, lure the defenders of Bakhchisaray to send out calls for reinforcements to Simferopol. Only by doing this can we achieve our strategic objective of encircling and intercepting reinforcements! Do you understand?"

"Understood!" General Bosskey and General Troche immediately responded.

"That’s all I have to say. Do either of you have anything to supplement?" Jerome Bonaparte asked Bosskey and Troche.

"Your Majesty, I remember there being more divisions involved in the siege of Bakhchisaray besides the Second and Third Divisions! Where is the other division?" General Bosskey asked Jerome Bonaparte with curiosity. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

"That division is currently here!" Jerome Bonaparte pointed to the high ground north of Bakhchisaray and replied to Bosskey: "As long as I occupy this vantage point, I can shell the urban area of Bakhchisaray, thus isolating the Russian Army at Bakhchisaray!"

"Understood," General Bosskey glanced at the location where Jerome Bonaparte pointed and nodded.

...

That evening, the statistics for the Second and Third Divisions were released, showing that in nearly 5 hours of battle, the two divisions suffered over 3,700 casualties.

Jerome Bonaparte was equally startled when he saw the figures before him.

Casualties of over 3,700 represented nearly one-tenth of the manpower of the Second and Third Divisions.

Experiencing several more wars of this intensity could effectively exhaust the Second and Third Divisions.

Their results were also commendable, as approximately 11,000 Russian soldiers (actually around 15,000) had been left between the second and third lines of defense. In nearly a 3-to-1 (or 4-to-1) ratio, France could be said to have fought an almost perfect war.

At the same time, the British Army positioned in the Saki region had also achieved a phase success. Under the strong firepower of the British Army (since Saki is closer to the coast, it can call for battleship support), 80,000 Russian Army troops in the Saki region had completely retreated into the fort and dared not show their faces.