Chapter 181: Turning Back (Part 2)

“Retreat?”
Erminga’s sudden shift in thinking left everyone around him thinking their ears were playing tricks: “We’re retreating?”
“That’s right! We must retreat immediately and decisively to save our main forces!”
Erminga said in a fierce tone, “I am responsible for the entire army.”
Yet aside from Erminga, no one saw the need to retreat. The situation was improving, and the French forces seemed to be in the upper hand on the battlefield.
Two entire brigades had been deployed in this battle, yet most of the artillery had not yet fired, and even sixteen infantry companies had not fired a single shot so far.
Although the Black Flag Army’s forces were advancing fiercely, they were scattered. Aside from the 111th Regiment, they had not dealt any fatal blows to the French forces.
Moreover, one of the staff officers felt it necessary to remind Colonel Erminga, “We came here to change the situation in the Tokyo region.”
“But the Black Flag Army has three times as many troops as ours. So far, they have deployed far more forces than we have. Under these circumstances, I can only make a difficult choice.”
“But…”
“But what! Obey orders!” After collapsing under pressure, Erminga became extremely brutal. He even threatened to beat the staff officer with his cane: “This is the commander’s order. I am the highest commander on the battlefield.”
His nervous behavior and actions terrified everyone. After all, he was indeed the highest commander on the battlefield, and his past reputation had led some staff officers to revere him.
Yet retreating from the front lines was already the most difficult task. Even for the French forces, breaking free from encirclement by thousands of enemy troops was extremely hard.
Furthermore, learning from past wars where ammunition and supplies were wasted excessively, the French had gathered an abundance of supplies this time, along with enough ammunition for a major battle.
Now, these supplies had become a burden for the French retreat, with signs of chaos everywhere: “Throw away the flour! Throw it away! Take as much ammunition as possible, and… if there’s extra wine, distribute it to the soldiers.”
Among the supplies Erminga discarded were 150,000 Mexican eagle coins prepared for this battle. These hard currency coins were meant to pay indigenous soldiers and purchase supplies in the Black Flag Army’s control areas. But now, box after box of silver coins was thrown into the river at Erminga’s orders, without even being given to the soldiers.
Some captured weapons were also abandoned immediately. The French retreat was clearly detected by the Black Flag Army: “The enemy is retreating! They’re retreating!”
The French artillery fired randomly without a clear target. After initial losses, the Black Flag Army realized the French were preparing to retreat. They surged forward like a tide, creating even greater obstacles to the French retreat.
“The enemy is retreating?” Liu Suiyun couldn’t believe it: “They’re retreating?”
“Yes, they’re retreating!” Liu Yu had already anticipated this outcome: “This is our chance!”

Liu Suiyun was stunned. He had experienced countless battles, but none had been as dramatic as today’s. The French forces were clearly still in control on the battlefield—so why did they suddenly retreat, abandoning even their heavy supplies? “What’s going on?” His mind couldn’t conceive of Liu Yu making such a judgment in advance. “Was it the Erminga Brigade that collapsed first?” “Yes, they were the first to retreat!” Reports from the front lines were encouraging: “We’ve captured over twenty horses alone, plus several carts full of flour!” Now, Liu Suiyun admired Liu Yu immensely—his strategies were truly divine! How did he know that attacking the Erminga Brigade would cause the French to collapse? The Erminga Brigade was truly incompetent. Hearing the numbers of these spoils only made him even happier; perhaps the loot captured this time would last the Black Flag Army for ten days or half a month—he wasn’t aware that the Erminga Brigade had even abandoned over a million silver coins. Liu Yu grabbed the telephone and said, “Ignore the spoils. Keep attacking fiercely, push our troops forward. Don’t worry about disorder in the ranks—we must repeat the miracle of Shanxi.” “Repeat the miracle of Shanxi!” With such orders, all the Black Flag Army soldiers understood that this battle wasn’t just a regular fight for spoils but a massive annihilation campaign like the one in Shanxi: “Abandon the spoils! Full-scale attack!” Sima Tai and Ye Chenglin both raised the flags of their units, determined to launch a devastating assault. “Don’t spare a single Frenchman!” … “God! How did so many Black Flag Army soldiers appear out of nowhere?” The French had no organized plan for retreat. Erminga tried to command the troops in a rough manner, which only led to more protests. After several bullets flew near the headquarters, even some officers who had initially opposed him now feared for their lives. They decided to retreat, but others still fought desperately. “If we retreat, we’ll lose thousands of soldiers and millions of francs worth of supplies. Colonel, I suggest halting the retreat and organizing resistance on the spot!” A major loudly opposed Erminga’s plan: “We must hold our ground!” “We must retreat!” Erminga’s voice was louder and more confident. “Do you want to repeat Napoleon’s tragedy in Moscow? We must retreat!” “We must hold our ground! We have four mountain guns that are too heavy to move with the troops—these are eight-inch artillery pieces!” “I don’t want to carry those heavy guns either.” Erminga reacted immediately: “I am the commander now! Staff officer! Push the guns into the river!” He reacted exactly as history had shown: “At this difficult moment, we must make the hardest choice! Push the guns and ammunition into the river and use mules and horses for troop mobility.”

The major could no longer understand Erminga; before he could even speak, a group of artillerymen, urged on by the staff officer, were using all their strength to push all four 80-mm guns into the river.
“Use more force! More force!”
The bare-chested laborers exerted every ounce of their strength; the gun carriages dug deep into their skin as they shouted loudly, pushing the 80-mm guns up the slope with all their might. With a thunderous sound, the four guns were pushed into the river without even firing a single shot on the battlefield.
Along with them went boxes of eagle silver and ammunition, and the mules that had been pulling the gun carriages were freed to serve as vehicles for the troops’ retreat.
Yet the retreat became increasingly chaotic. Even Erminga realized this from the harsh commands being given: “Abandon any heavy baggage! We must take painful actions.”
Some Vietnamese laborers asked, “French sir, throw it all away? We can take anything with us!”
But soon, several mortar shells sent them disappearing, and the French army began retreating in large groups, with two infantry brigades moving side by side.
Thanks to years of tradition, this was the only bright spot for the French army, but the Black Flag Army attacked them like ants, constantly.
Under pressure, the French were forced onto the main roads, where people crowded together and horses collided; many supply vehicles were abandoned, causing great trouble for the retreat.
“We must retreat! Retreat as quickly as possible!”
Erminga declared loudly to his soldiers, “We can retreat to Danfeng—there are still our positions there!”
“Retreat!”
A messenger rushed over with Nigri’s message: “Colonel, this is a message from General Nigri!”
“We have enough troops, and the enemy has also suffered heavy losses in the recent battles. They certainly cannot sustain a full-scale attack. A counterattack will change the situation in our favor. I see no need to retreat.”
“Go back and tell the major general that I am now the commander of the entire force. I must choose the action that is best for the troops. He is too ill to understand the situation!”
Without giving Nigri any face, the troops set off, retreating under a hail of bullets as the Black Flag Army pursued them from all sides. People fell constantly.
Nigri, on his stretcher, was also under fire, but he managed to write a note on paper while still in bed: “Please act in the best interest of France, as I cannot observe the battlefield personally and must entrust military command to you.”
Amid the crowd, the messenger handed the note to Erminga. Seeing the chaotic state of his troops’ retreat, Erminga hesitated for a moment, but soon a group of Black Flag Army soldiers appeared on the hill to the left, firing several bursts of bullets, which made Erminga resolve to retreat once again: “Retreat! Retreat!”
Bullets rained down, and the medical units became the most vulnerable. The Black Flag Army attacked them from all directions, leaving many French wounded abandoned on the roadsides.

Nigeri found the situation worsening by the moment; his whole body ached, but the gunfire from all directions reminded him that he had to take action.
“According to my advice, we can deploy troops in a triangular formation along key routes to clear anything that might hinder us, observe the enemy’s movements, and keep a reserve force. All units should be under the command of the headquarters to launch a determined counterattack—so we won’t need to retreat. Of course, Colonel Ermingar can make better judgments by personally commanding the battle, which is why I offer this suggestion, but it’s just my personal opinion.”
However, according to French military tradition, once command was handed over, Colonel Ermingar now had complete freedom of action. Although Nigeri had a higher rank, he could only offer suggestions within the system.
“Colonel! Colonel! A message from General Nigeri!”
Amid the crowd, a messenger found the furious Colonel Ermingar: “I’ve read it!”
After reading Colonel Nigeri’s orders, he said coldly, “I’ve already ordered the troops to retreat, and I’ll continue to order them to do so!”
There was no turning back.
“Bayonets! Break through with bayonets!”
On the roads were tens of thousands of French troops, arranged in several tiers, retreating frantically toward Danfeng. It had to be admitted that the retreat was poorly organized, but the French junior officers and sergeants were extremely brave, especially the Foreign Legion, which set a good example in this regard.
Even Colonel Ermingar, in a fit of anger, personally directed the troops to open a path, but a considerable amount of equipment was abandoned.
In fact, even shells, gold coins, and artillery pieces were pushed into the river—indicating just how much important equipment the French had discarded.
Their breakout attempt, relatively speaking, was fairly successful.
All of the Black Flag Army units were unprepared for Colonel Ermingar to turn and flee—indeed, they couldn’t possibly be prepared.
In history, every French force they had encountered fought with great tenacity. Even if not completely annihilated, they would suffer two-thirds casualties before being defeated.
But today, it was a situation they simply couldn’t understand. The French forces had only suffered one-tenth casualties, yet the entire French army was retreating like a tide, even faster than in their best-case scenarios.
They had abandoned all their equipment, catching the Black Flag Army off guard. Even though Liu Yu had repeatedly warned them to be prepared for the French to suddenly flee, it wasn’t until they actually retreated that the Black Flag Army realized the French had run away.
This was impossible! None of the French forces they had encountered before had ever done such a thing—abandoning even their equipment and fleeing on the spot.
After all, even during the Battle of Shanxi, the French only retreated after suffering heavy losses on land and at sea, with their infantry nearly exhausted.
So who could explain what was happening now? Were they fighting against native infantry from Tokyo?
Only upon getting closer did they realize it was indeed French troops.

It was precisely this hesitation that led to inadequate pursuit by all troops, especially since no unit managed to overtake the French forces; they could only follow closely behind and deal severe blows, occasionally inflicting heavy cuts as well. Even so, the French were not faring well—more and more supplies were being left behind along the way. Some particularly important supplies had to be taken back, but under these circumstances, everyone knew that it was pure luck if their troops could escape. As for the laborers and local infantry from Tonkin, they often scattered, with many simply kneeling on the ground and raising their guns in supplication to the Black Flag Army: “Lord of the Black Flag Army, the French are ahead; we were all captured…” Thus, the further they ran, the fewer troops they had left, not to mention the local Black Flag Army forces drawn by the sound of gunfire, which was like throwing salt on France’s wounds. “A great victory! A great victory!” Even though the final outcome was not decided, the captives, scattered supplies, and flags along the way showed just how miserable the French had been, which made Liu Suiyun particularly pleased: “We must hurry up and take Hanoi as well.” Liu Yu, however, lacked confidence in such bold claims: “It’s not painful enough to hurt the French!” Along the way, he saw that the French had abandoned supplies worth nearly several million francs. Under the leadership of Aymar, the French had achieved similar feats to those of the Qing army. Liu Suiyun seemed to understand what he meant: “Not enough?” “If we capture these two brigades, I don’t see how the French can recover!” If the battle in Shanxi wasn’t enough to hurt the French, now that two entire brigades had been wiped out, Vietnam would likely remain a source of pain for France for life. The battle in Ethiopia wiped out Italian forces, leaving them helpless for the next forty years. “A dull knife may kill slowly, but killing them all at once is even faster.” For Liu Yu, time was running out: “We need to deal with the French as soon as possible!” “The problem is still insufficient troops,” Liu Suiyun immediately pointed out the core issue: “We don’t have much of an advantage over the French.” “Eliminating a few of their infantry battalions shouldn’t be a problem.” Despite the battle seeming to be heading toward a decisive defeat, Liu Yu remained quite frustrated. Although the outcome might well be the French retreating in disarray, leaving behind thousands of corpses and captives, Liu Yu wanted more than that. Of course, even these results would send shockwaves through Paris. After all, France had already shed too much blood in Vietnam with no visible results so far—the only achievement being that the Black Flag Army had reached Cochinchina. In fact, the thing Prime Minister Ferry regretted the most was starting this war, but there is no remedy for regret. Once he had stepped into this quagmire, he could only go to the end, unless that path led to certain death. In any case, this battle would declare to Prime Minister Ferry and all of France one thing: this path leads nowhere; turn elsewhere.

It was just these eight words. Feri and his ministers needed the blood of thousands to understand: “If we wipe them out completely, then we can gain complete control…”
Liu Suiyun was deeply moved by these words. Suddenly, he had an idea: “Commander?”
“Hmm?”
“I have an idea.”
“Speak!” Liu Yu said promptly, “It had better contribute to the battle situation.”
“I’ll boost the morale of my troops.”
“No problem. I can provide enough resources and medals.”
“No! It’s the First Battalion of Hanoi we mentioned before.”
“The First Battalion of Hanoi!”
“That’s right!”
Among the various pursuing troops, news suddenly spread: “The first infantry battalion to enter Hanoi will receive the honors of the First Regiment of Hanoi and the Hanoi Battalion, while the second force to enter Hanoi will become the Second Regiment of Hanoi!”