King's Landing in France

Chapter 45

After molesting the priest, An Ning returned to his manor with Napoleon and Christina.

After a short lunch break at noon, Christina opened a literary salon in her garden in the afternoon.

An Ning is basically a layman in literature. If he wants to pretend to be a copyist, then he can only copy the texts that he was required to recite in middle and high school.

There must be something wrong with Zhu Ziqing's "Moonlight in the Lotus Pond" in eighteenth-century France.

It's even more wrong to play with Mr. Lu Xun's stuff. It's impossible for a French noble lady to care about how many ways to write fennel beans.

So An Ning didn't say a word the whole time in the salon, silently listening to those country nobles, and reading those extremely embarrassing limericks in front of Christina.

And Napoleon seemed to be a literary critic. After every nobleman finished reading, he would jump out and make a sharp comment in French with extremely non-standard pronunciation.

The nobles who had been sharply criticized by Napoleon were all furious and clamored to fight Napoleon.

Then they would quickly calm down as soon as they saw the tranquility of drinking tea next to Napoleon.

The prestige of An Ning's Duel King has been enhanced several times in the past six months, and it has become thunderous among the rural nobles.

Because of Napoleon's poisonous tongue, gradually everyone stopped speaking in the literary salon, and a good salon became a chatting tea party for girls.

When the men were bored, they played tennis in the garden.

Because of his short stature, Napoleon would suffer from playing tennis, so he ate snacks.

An Ning was captured by Christina to tell the story of the duel to the noble ladies, but she got along like a fish in water among a group of ladies.

Afternoon tea passes quickly, transitioning seamlessly to evening dance.

An Ning can't dance, so she can only sit and watch the dance.Napoleon can dance, but he doesn't want to dance, so he chats with An Ning.

However, the two have many topics to talk about, from mathematics to military affairs, and it is not boring.

Christmas is over.

Then came New Year's Day, and the last few days of 1780 went by without a trace.

In the second year, the Brienne Military Academy repeatedly taught the cadets how to drill the queue, and did not teach more advanced war theories at all.

Finally, An Ning understood that the goal of the Brienne Military Academy is to train non-commissioned officers. Non-commissioned officers do not need advanced military theory, as long as they can manage the big soldiers and let them line up well, it is enough. At most, they can teach individual combat skills .

However, the mathematics, history and other courses offered by the Brienne Military Academy obviously benefited Napoleon a lot.

Napoleon is the same as that written in the Napoleon biography that An Ning has read. He likes the story of Rome very much. He is a die-hard Rome fan. Whenever he comes to chat with An Ning about Rome with great interest, An Ning knows that he has read another biography about Rome. .

Napoleon’s own money was basically used to buy the biography of Rome, while the books of Rousseau, Montesquieu and others were basically bought by An Ning and given to him.

It can be said that An Ning watered Napoleon's understanding of the enlightenment thought with his own financial resources.

At the end of the school year, when the Brienne Military Academy held a full-year examination, Napoleon was No. 1 in the exam, and Anning was in the eleventh.

In fact, An Ning could have taken the first place, because he has too many advantages. French and Latin can be done by cheating, and mathematics has advanced knowledge of later generations.

But An Ning made a mistake on purpose and made a point control.

Because he didn't want his grades to surpass Napoleon's. As the saying goes, there is no sun in the sky, and there is only one sun in my heart, His Excellency Napoleon.

Unexpectedly, after the exam, Napoleon took the initiative to find An Ning and expressed his regret: "I always thought that you must have higher scores than me."

An Ning: "Exams also depend on performance on the spot. Your foundation is stronger than mine, so you performed better than me this time."

Talking about An Ning, she changed the subject: "What about the holiday preparations?"

There is no such thing as summer vacation at Brienne Military Academy, but there is a short vacation when you are promoted.

Napoleon shrugged: "Nothing to do, just stay in Brienne and read."

"Don't you want to go home and have a look?"

"What are you talking about? My family is in Corsica, and it takes me a long time to walk home. But you, it only takes two days to get to Paris from here. Don't you plan to go back and have a look?"

An Ning reminded Napoleon: "I am not from Paris. My home is in Caen, which belongs to the Normandy region, far away from Paris."

Napoleon let out an "oh" and suddenly laughed, "You keep telling me about the Enlightenment ideas in Paris, and interesting stories about Robespierre, Danton and others. I regard you as an old Parisian."

An Ning also laughed. Indeed, when he told Napoleon the story of himself and the future Jacobins, he would involuntarily use the tone of an old friend, as if he had known them for many years.

However, in fact, he has only known each other for a few months.

Napoleon added: "During my one-year stay in Brienne, my biggest dissatisfaction was actually that I didn't learn any art of war, and how the optics lined up. Corsica's independence cannot be won by queuing!"

An Ning shrugged: "Although you haven't learned any art of war, you have learned mathematics. Mathematics is the foundation of artillery. Artillery is something that can influence war. It is not an exaggeration to say that artillery is the king of war."

Napoleon said disapprovingly: "Isn't the artillery just a large rolling ball? How much impact can it have?"

An Ning raised his eyebrows. It was obvious that Napoleon, who was 11 years old, hadn't realized the importance of artillery. He was not at all the artillery general who knew how to use artillery well.

Speaking of which, most of the biographies of Napoleon do not mention the encounter between Napoleon and artillery. He seems to have become the second lieutenant of artillery in the blink of an eye. He is proficient in the use of artillery and has a soft spot for artillery.

An Ning: "I have been on the battlefield and personally experienced the tremendous psychological pressure that artillery can cause to soldiers. In addition to killing the enemy with high efficiency, artillery can also cause a strong blow to morale. It is quite fatal to an army with low cohesion."

Napoleon looked at An Ning: "Is that so? Since it's what you said, it should be true. But I still want to experience the morale suppression effect you mentioned for myself. Without personal experience, it's hard for me to understand your The statement is empathetic."

An Ning shrugged: "I'm afraid I can only wait for you to go to the battlefield. The military academy will not bombard the students with artillery, right?"

However, An Ning did not expect that she said this too early.

At the beginning of Briena's second year, the instructors took the cadets to a specially prepared bunker to experience what it was like to be bombed by artillery.

This teaching was undertaken by a battery of six twelve-pounder infantry guns of the garrison near Brienne.

These six cannons are new cannons redesigned by the famous French artillery general Giberval, and their firepower projection efficiency is higher than that of traditional cannons.

As a result, the cadets were nailed to the spot by six cannons, unable to move, and could do nothing but lower their heads and hold their heads.

After the shelling stopped, the disgraced Napoleon brushed the dirt from his hair and said to An Ning: "Now I understand what you said about the effect of the morale blow. It's just a battery of artillery. The scene of the guns firing together."

An Ning curled her lips: "A dozen cannons? No, no, artillery should be gathered together in large numbers like other weapons to achieve the desired impressive results..."

—Wait a minute, isn’t that a famous quote from Napoleon himself?
My goodness, how did I say that myself?
When An Ning stopped talking because of his own words, Napoleon asked, "Do you think a dozen cannons are not enough, how many guns are you going to use together? Dozens?"

An Ning shook his head: "No, no, if possible, we should gather hundreds of cannons together, so that the fierce firepower can directly disintegrate the enemy!"

Napoleon sucked in a breath of cold air: "If hundreds of artillery pieces are used together, the enemy will be finished."

An Ning: "That's right, the enemy will be crushed."

——Hmph, in this way, when I take the command of the concentrated artillery in the future, I will think that I was the first to propose it, so that my position in the First French Empire will be as stable as Mount Tai.

Every time Nahuang wins, he thinks of me.

perfect!

(End of this chapter)