I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1116 Mara Farm Tactics
At this moment, the Red team had just put away their battle formation and was in its most chaotic stage. Suddenly, they were attacked by the opponent and could not resist at all, so they had to withdraw from the village again.

Then, the Blue Force's artillery quickly changed positions and, with the help of hot air balloons, calibrated their targets to ensure they could accurately hit the small village.

Soon, relying on their numerical superiority, the Red Army rallied and launched another attack on the village.

The Blue team still couldn't hold out and abandoned the village.

The red team captured the village, but was then bombarded by cannons...

After being pulled back and forth three times, the gunfire gradually subsided, and the exercise seemed to be over.

The military leaders immediately began to discuss it, clearly shocked by the remarkable effectiveness of this "death farm tactic".

Yes, this was a tactic that Joseph proposed a year ago. It was actually copied from the "Marat Farm" tactic of later generations, but in order to avoid misunderstandings by the Notary Public Investigation Bureau, it was renamed "Death Farm".

The specific implementation is very simple: deliberately abandon one's own position to lure the enemy to occupy it. Then, use a pre-calibrated artillery cluster to inflict heavy casualties on the attacking enemy forces.

Although this era lacked artillery beacons of later times, it also lacked rapidly mobile motorized infantry. Therefore, during the intervals between enemy attacks and retreats, fire corrections could be slowly completed using "human-powered methods."

Shortly after, the military academy's Dean of Academic Affairs personally led the commanders of both sides to report the results of the exercise to Joseph: "Your Highness, the Red Team suffered more than one-third casualties and had no effective means to counter the Blue Team, so they were judged to have lost. The Blue Team suffered fewer than one hundred casualties and won the exercise."

Joseph smiled and nodded: "It seems that the various legions are already very proficient in coordinating the use of hot air balloons and the 'death farm' tactic."

Sitting in the back row, Murat, who wasn't very familiar with artillery, frowned and whispered to Marmont beside him, "This tactic is extremely effective, but it shouldn't be too complicated to train. Our enemies will learn it quickly on the battlefield. We need to prepare some countermeasures in advance."

The artillery commander of the French First Army, Marmont, smiled and waved his hand: "This tactic looks simple, but only we can implement it at the moment."

"Oh why?"

Marmon pointed to the hot air balloon that was slowly descending: "Because no other country has a high-altitude reconnaissance battalion."

The key to the "Death Farm" tactic is to start shelling immediately after our troops withdraw from the position in order to inflict maximum damage on the enemy.

"Once the enemy completes its defensive deployment, not only will the lethality be greatly reduced, but the position may even be handed over to the enemy."

"Of course, we must not fire too early, or we might accidentally hurt our own people."

"The only way to accurately determine the timing of firing is to observe from hot air balloons and notify the artillerymen."

"Furthermore, when the enemy retreats to reduce artillery damage, we must immediately launch a counterattack to expand our gains. This also requires intelligence from hot air balloons."

Upon hearing this, Murat's eyes lit up: "A hot air balloon is the most amazing piece of equipment I've ever seen! Hmm, the last thing that gave me this feeling was riding a cannon."

An hour later, more than 2,000 soldiers entered the training ground and began a skirmish group combat exercise.

Murat watched through his binoculars as the skirmishers, lined up in formation hundreds of meters long, fired their volleys and advanced in an orderly fashion. He said to Marmont, "Recently, His Highness the Crown Prince has been spending a lot of time at the General Staff Headquarters, either inspecting the troops or... Is war about to break out?"

“Yes, I heard they’re going to send troops to Egypt.” Davu, who was sitting on the other side, leaned over and said, “It shouldn’t just be Egypt. All four army groups have started to intensify their training, and they even inspected the logistics supplies last month. I think the opponent will most likely be Britain.”

Marmon nodded: "I've heard news that there have been changes on the Portuguese front..."

Murat immediately made a gesture of waving a saber: "Really? I can't wait!"

As the group was talking in hushed tones, an officer quickly walked up to the reviewing stand, handed Berthier a “telegram” from the Sharp signal tower, and whispered a few words of report.

The Chief of the General Staff frowned and immediately turned to Joseph, saying, "Your Highness, we have just received news that the Marquis of Talavera has launched an attack on Lisbon with 4 soldiers. The Portuguese royal family has likely already fled Lisbon."

Joseph didn't seem too surprised. When Juno reported last week that the main Spanish army had suddenly left Coimbra, he had guessed that Talavera might be heading to launch a surprise attack on Lisbon.

"The British were preparing to withdraw from the Portuguese front," he folded the telegram and sighed, "and the Spanish just gave them a hand."

"However, this is indeed the best strategic choice for Madrid. I never expected the Marquis of Talavera to have such a brilliant strategy."

This time, Juno passively helped Spain withstand the Anglo-Portuguese forces on the main battlefield, yet he couldn't find anything wrong with Talavera.

The Western army seized this opportunity and quickly occupied large swathes of territory in southern Portugal.

This forced the Portuguese royal family to flee to South America, and Britain, bound by its obligation to protect Portugal, could not go too far in reducing its military presence on the Iberian Peninsula.

But now that even the Portuguese royal family has fled, Britain can legitimately withdraw its troops.

Going forward, the effect of Spain's bloodletting on Britain will be greatly reduced.

However, Joseph was unaware that this was not Talavera's idea, but rather a strategy proposed by Joaquin Black, who was then an unknown battalion commander in the engineering corps.

Yes, he was the governor of the three Spanish provinces of Juche and Villarreal who established the Spanish General Staff in history and defeated the governors of the three Spanish provinces during the resistance against Napoleon's invasion.

He was also one of the key generals who dethroned Joseph Bonaparte from the Spanish throne.

Of course, he was far from being a match for the famous French generals of that time, and was chased and beaten by Soult and others all the way, and was eventually captured by Jouché.

After the skirmish group exercise concluded, Joseph gave a speech to the military cadets, then canceled his plans to observe the next day's exercise and returned to Versailles Palace overnight.

Early the next morning, officers Berthier, Moreau, Lefebvre, and others gathered in Joseph's drawing room to discuss the strategic plans for the Iberian Peninsula.

“If Wellesley stays behind the Torresvedras defenses, only 10,000 troops are needed to hold off Talavera’s attack,” Berthier said. “Unless Madrid can add more than 20,000 more troops.”

Lefebvre shook his head: "They have to devote a lot of energy to stabilizing the situation in Portugal, so it's impossible for them to send more troops."

“If we want to wear down the British as much as possible,” Moro said, looking at the Crown Prince, “then we have no choice but to encourage Madrid to retake Gibraltar. They certainly can’t refuse.”

(End of this chapter)