prynovel 34. Denikin is still here?
34. Denikin is still here?
During this break, players showed amazing enthusiasm. They tirelessly cleaned up the battlefield or chatted with all sorts of NPCs. In this highly free and incredibly realistic game world, they were having a blast even without any quest guidance—it was practically like a "classic version of World of Warcraft Online".
As night fell, the players reluctantly logged off to rest. Rochester, meanwhile, led the Righteous Army and the main force on their return journey, their destination being Commander Sokolov's camp.
The team originally numbered only 700 men because reinforcements failed to arrive, but after a fierce breakout battle, only 400 men remain.
After marching for some time, they finally arrived at a place a few dozen kilometers from their starting point.
Suddenly, the sound of horses' hooves came from afar. The troops fell silent instantly, all heads turned toward the sound, and all eyes were fixed on the edge of the dark forest.
It was a beautiful warhorse, carrying a man galloping towards them. The rider wore a familiar military uniform, but his chest and head were pressed tightly against the horse's mane, his hands hanging limply at his sides. He approached the troops hiding in the woods, getting closer and closer, but never slowing down—or rather, the mad horse never stopped. It seemed to be running at full speed, kicking up clouds of yellow dust behind it, while the rider's body swayed violently with the horse's movements.
Rochester's pupils contracted sharply as he sensed something was wrong.
Immediately afterwards, the sound of a second hoof ripped through the night sky.
A suppressed commotion arose within the troops.
"Another horse...it runs really fast."
"Which unit is this?"
Rochester's unease grew stronger. He suddenly charged out of the woods and blocked the road. A brown warhorse galloped towards him, its nostrils flaring with heavy white breath. Upon seeing Rochester, it slowed down, its hind legs buckling as it collapsed to its knees. The rider tumbled off the horse's head, landing with a dull thud. His hands lay out awkwardly, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Rochester rushed to the man's side as fast as he could.
Blyuchel and Yeremenko also realized the seriousness of the situation. They signaled the troops to be quiet and then rushed out of the woods to surround Rochester.
Yeremenko immediately checked the warhorse and quickly discovered that its belly was covered with thick, scarlet blood.
Rochester and Blyuchel together flipped the rider over. The man's mouth gaped open, and he gasped, broken words escaped his throat: "Ro...Ro...Commander...he...Dun...Nickin...!"
The soldier's eyes went completely extinguished after uttering the name "Dunigin." Rochester quickly examined the body; the knife wounds on his shoulder and chest were jagged and bleeding profusely, and his back was covered with congealed dark purple bloodstains.
Yeremenko and Blyucher looked at Rochester, awaiting his decision. Although nominally the three were of equal rank, in this battle, Blyucher and Yeremenko had completely come to regard Rochester as their supreme commander.
The phrase "Company Commander Rochester," which was often on his lips, has invisibly transformed into the heavier one—"Commander Rochester."
"Rochester in command..."
"It was Denikin, and his Don Cossack army."
Denikin, the White Army entrenched in southern Ukraine, expanded so rapidly that Vladimir had to make it the focus of the nation's work at the time.
He delivered a famous speech entitled "Let's All Fight Against Denikin"
One of the passages reads as follows:
"Now foreign capitalists are desperately trying to use Denikin's offensive to restore the shackles of capital. Just as they helped Kolchak in the past, they are helping Denikin with officers, supplies, artillery shells, tanks, and so on. The entire strength of the workers and peasants, and the entire strength of the 'Redwitt Union,' should be mobilized to defeat Denikin with all our might."
This White Army once occupied most of Ukraine and advanced northwards with unstoppable momentum, heading straight for Moscow, and at one point became the regime's biggest threat.
Logically speaking, the Don Republic should have already declared its secession from and broken with the Southern Russian government by this time.
More importantly, in Rochester's historical memory, Denikin should have fled to Britain with his family in April 1920.
But now, Ukraine is basically occupied by them?
What the hell is going to appear here at this time?!
Is this right? This isn't right!!
Could it be that his time travel had caused a huge shift in the world line? Rochester scratched his head in frustration. If history were to follow its course, Kiev should have fallen by now, and then been recaptured by Budyonny's First Cavalry Army.
But none of this happened; Budyonny instead entered Zhytomyr ahead of schedule.
Hmm...it seems some historical facts can't be directly copied and applied as a reference...
Just then, a third horse came into view.
The rider, covered in blood, tumbled from his swaying horse and roared at the three men present, "The villages of Sicheslav, Berestin, Dachinoye, and Petrovo-Krasnosilia... have all rebelled!"
"In the square in front of the church in each village, gallows were immediately erected, and anyone who fell into the hands of Denikin's White Army would be hanged. When Denikin's troops arrived in Petrovo-Krasnosilia, they used sabers to hack, strangle, and shoot people, and drove them away on horseback. When they encountered outsiders, whether old men or old women, they were all killed without mercy."
"They had many wooden crates filled with shells and bullets—these were all sent by the French... They were truly insane. They set many villages ablaze, and our soldiers were tortured terribly. The enemy hanged them from trees. Some units fled separately to various places, some to Zaporige, some to the Black Sea, and some to Kherson, but they all died at the hands of the enemy."
"Avenge us...avenge us, Rochester!"
[A teammate's request]
[Avenging Commander Sokolov]
[Reward: Personal Ability Points, Power Armor from Sokolov]
Even without a mission, Rochester would avenge Sokolov's blood debt.
"What do we do now, Commander Rochester?" Blyucher asked Rochester hesitantly. "We only have... four hundred men now. If Commander Sokolov..."
Blücher is right.
They want revenge, but the current forces are far from capable of doing so.
He currently has no intelligence on the enemy, and according to his memory, Denikin could not possibly be here.
Moreover, Timoshenko had already shown him what a general's individual combat strength was like. If even Commander Sokolov couldn't defeat him, then Denikin's fighting strength...
We must never act impulsively.
Hatred consumes reason and only makes the situation worse.
After much deliberation, Rochester suppressed his anger and gave the cold command:
"Everyone turn around and return immediately to report the situation to command."