From Corsica to the Fourth Rome.

Chapter 371: March into Liguria
At the same time, although Lawrence Bonaparte, who was stationed in Sardinia, could guess that his self-assertion would cause dissatisfaction from Paris and Versailles, he did not have much energy to consider the old king's thoughts during this period.

For Lawrence, there are only two priorities now:
One is to use the time of garrison in Sardinia to restore the administrative order of the island as soon as possible.

The second was even more crucial during the war - to equip his troops with new rifles produced by the Marseille Trifarrie Arsenal as soon as possible.

After Lawrence took over Sardinia, Major Trifali in Marseille also received an order to personally escort a batch of arms to Sardinia to assist the Wehrmacht soldiers in training this epoch-making new musket.

At the training ground on the plains north of Cagliari, Lawrence and his officers would personally supervise the training almost every day. After all, this army equipped with new muskets was Lawrence's biggest trump card during the Italian War, and there would be absolutely no room for error.

In the shooting area of ​​the training ground, Chief of Staff Berthier personally held a brand new musket, held his breath and aimed at a human-shaped haystack a hundred yards away.

The musket in his hand had a longer barrel and was slightly heavier than the smoothbore muskets currently in service. There was also a small iron sight on the top of the barrel. Apart from that, there was nothing special about it except for a line of small words engraved under the handle:
"Trifaly Rifle Model 1771, manufactured at the Trifaly Arsenal in Marseilles"

Aiming the crosshairs in the sight at the haystack that was only as thick as his little finger in his field of vision, Berthier pulled the trigger hard.

As a wisp of green smoke suddenly rose, debris instantly flew all over the haystack a hundred yards away, indicating that the bullet had hit the target accurately.

“It’s really amazing!”

Berthier simply cleaned the gunpowder holes, and then looked at the rifle in his hand with great interest. He had never imagined that such a deadly weapon could be born in the remote island of Corsica:
"It can accurately shoot at the enemy within a hundred yards. The key is that the shooting frequency is no less than that of the current smoothbore flintlock rifle. I can't imagine how many soldiers will die under this musket."

What shocked Berthier, a top student at the Paris Military Academy, the most was not the shooting accuracy of the musket. After all, the rifled gun had been invented for hundreds of years.

However, the firing frequency of rifled guns in the past was extremely low. Soldiers needed to carry a wooden hammer with them and hammer the bullet into the rifling of the barrel so that it could be fired normally. Even skilled veterans would take one or two minutes to complete a loading and firing.

The firearm in Berthier's hand, combined with the Minié bullet, can achieve accurate shooting while retaining the smoothbore gun's firing rate of two to three rounds per minute, which really surprised him.

Major Serurier on the side stared at the musket in his hand with a serious expression. He had heard before that the Corsican army was researching a new type of musket, but this was the first time he saw its power with his own eyes:

"It's really amazing. The enemy was completely defeated before they even got close. This gun may change the situation of all wars. If the shooting accuracy and frequency can be further improved, the line tactics may be swept into the garbage heap of war history."

Hearing the two French officers' generous praise, Major Trifali couldn't help but show a hint of joy on his face. After all, as the designer of this musket, his name was enough to be engraved in history.

"Having said that, there is still a lot of room for improvement in this rifle. Its reliability, weight, complexity, etc. can still be further improved," Major Trifari responded modestly.

Berthier asked curiously:

“What is the possibility of large-scale deployment?”

The officers around immediately came over. If this deadly weapon could be mass-equipped in the army of a European power, it would undoubtedly give it an advantage on the battlefield.

Major Cui Farley scratched his head, shrugged helplessly and said with a smile:

"It's very difficult at the moment. The most critical issue is cost. The sophistication of this rifle is far superior to that of a smoothbore rifle, so the production cost is naturally much higher. The Minié bullets used with it also need to be made manually, and the output is far less than that of lead bullets."

The production of ordinary spherical lead bullets only requires pouring a pot of molten lead from a perforated disc at a high altitude. The lead droplets will solidify in the air and naturally form a perfect sphere under the action of gravity.

The Minié bullet currently used in this musket is a conical projectile. The projectile itself requires a casting process to manufacture, and the wooden plug at the tail needs to be installed manually. Therefore, its cost has increased by more than several times compared to mass-produced lead bullets.

The more critical problem is that due to the material problems caused by metallurgical technology in the late eighteenth century, the service life of a rifled gun is much lower than that of a smoothbore gun, because during the firing process, the rifling inside the barrel of a rifled gun will be continuously worn out, causing the accuracy to continue to decline.

Historically, the rifling of a 17th century rifled musket would be almost worn out after about two hundred firings. Even in the 19th century, after advances in metallurgical technology, the service life of a rifled musket was only about three hundred rounds.

The Trifarrie Arsenal in Marseille has expanded to include more than a thousand craftsmen and apprentices. With the full support of Mayor Lawrence and Josep, so many craftsmen are working at full capacity regardless of cost, but their production capacity is barely enough to fully equip the thousands of soldiers of the Corsican army.

The officers were a little disappointed after listening to Major Cui Farley's explanation. It seemed that it was unrealistic to promote this rifle to the French Army in a short period of time.

The finances of the Kingdom of France were already extremely tight, and the Duke of Choiseul had continued to expand the military and prepare for war over the past decade. No matter how hard Louis XV tried, it was impossible for him to invest more in the army. After all, the daily expenditure of the Trifarrie Arsenal in Marseille alone was an extremely terrifying figure.

Lawrence was naturally not surprised by this conclusion. He had been paying close attention to the production situation of the Trifari Arsenal and knew how terrible the daily manpower and material costs of this arsenal were.

If it were not for the funds from the Corsica National Silver Company and the secret support from Mayor Josip, the Kingdom of Corsica would have found it difficult to maintain the daily operations of the arsenal even after the implementation of the agricultural tax reform bill, relying solely on its own financial strength.

“Productivity is everything.”

Lawrence couldn't help but sigh that the essence of war, in the final analysis, is a competition of national strength.

Even if one has knowledge and technology that is far beyond this era, one still needs a powerful state apparatus to realize it.

Now that the internal obstacles to Corsica's development have been completely removed, Lawrence is also thinking that Corsica's rapid industrialization process should be advanced.

As for the other major condition required for completing industrialization - primitive capital accumulation, Lawrence naturally would not think of achieving it by exploiting the interests of his own people.

During the time he was stationed in Sardinia, Lawrence was constantly thinking about what was the best option to provide Corsica with original capital.

By the end of September 1771, Lawrence had officially taken over Sardinia for nearly two months.

With the assistance of local Sardinian nobles and bureaucrats headed by Governor Bertrand, the unrest on the entire island did not last long. Order was restored within a few weeks, and the laws and regulations of the Kingdom of Corsica began to be gradually implemented on Sardinia.

Officials from various ministries of the kingdom also welcomed their busiest working months, especially the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Finance. They not only had to lead the implementation of agricultural tax reform and land reform bills in Sardinia, but also had to carry out unified liquidation and confiscation of the assets of the Savoy nobles.

According to the agreement between Lawrence and Governor Bertrand, the assets of the Savoy nobles, such as farmland, manors and other small and medium-sized assets, were all treated as collective property and disposed of by local town halls, while large assets such as mines and castles were uniformly nationalized and directly disposed of by the Ajaccio central government.

The Savoy lords on the island were undoubtedly extremely frightened and angry about this sudden collection and confiscation, but with the defeat of Lieutenant General Ethel, these colonial nobles could no longer stir up any waves, and they could only be forced to accept this reality.

The vast majority of Savoy lords were only allowed to retain their necessary personal luggage, and were then sent back to Savoy in batches by Lawrence.

Among the confiscated assets, what Lawrence cared about most were several giant silver mines, headed by the Argentiela Silver Mine.

You know, the scale of the Argentiera silver mine is even larger than the Ajaccio silver mine fabricated by Lawrence. If it is announced that these silver mines will also be managed by the Corsica National Silver Company, I am afraid that the Paris Stock Exchange will usher in a new investment frenzy.

However, since he was now overseas, Lawrence decided to temporarily place these large silver mines, like other mines, under the management of the Ajaccio central government.

For this kind of news that could stimulate the entire Paris and even the French financial community, Lawrence still planned to return to Paris in person and then find the right time to spread the news in order to make the most of this news.

In addition, Governor Bertrand also revealed a piece of news to Lawrence on the way:
Just before Colonel Bartram led his army to attack Ajaccio, a diplomatic mission from the Republic of Genoa arrived in Sardinia to discuss the sale of Corsica's legal claims with Governor Bertrand and Lieutenant General Ethel.

The Kingdom of Sardinia seemed to be certain that they could successfully annex Corsica in this Italian War, so they proposed a deal to the Republic of Genoa to purchase the de jure claim of Corsica in order to make their territorial annexation more reasonable.

After all, although the war between Corsica and Genoa entered a de facto truce after Lawrence led Corsica to submit to Louis XV, the Republic of Genoa had never recognized the independence of Corsica, nor had it sent anyone to discuss a formal truce between the two countries with Lawrence.

On the map hanging in the Governor's Palace in Genoa, Corsica was still a de jure territory of the Republic. Of course, the Governor of Genoa knew that it was impossible for them to suppress the Corsican independence rebellion launched by Pasquale Paoli and Lawrence Bonaparte, so for this group of profit-seeking businessmen, it was in the best economic interest to find a buyer for this illusory de jure claim.

Historically their buyers were the French, but this time the Genoese apparently made a deal with the Kingdom of Sardinia.

This also explained a doubt in Lawrence's mind - why Lieutenant General Ethel was able to recruit a Genoese mercenary group of thousands of people in such a short time. It seems that this was inseparable from the assistance of the Genoese diplomatic mission.

After listening to Governor Bertrand's report, Lawrence just smiled contemptuously.

Today, he is no longer the passenger of the White Rose who struggled to survive the pursuit of the Genoa warship, nor is he the Wehrmacht major who risked his life in order to lure the enemy deep into his territory.

The Republic of Genoa is now no longer qualified to be regarded as a worthy rival by the Corsicans.

However, since this tiny country has repeatedly stood in his way, Lawrence feels it is necessary to visit the Governor's Palace in Genoa in person.

By the end of September, the situation in Sardinia had basically stabilized.

Although the Kingdom of Sardinia continued to send envoys to condemn Lawrence Bonaparte's unreasonable act of annexing other countries' territories before the end of the war, neither Lawrence nor the Sardinians took the enemy's whining and howling seriously.

The Corsican army has also basically completed the training on the new muskets. The usage procedures of these rifles are not much different from ordinary smoothbore guns. The focus of training is also on teaching soldiers how to shoot accurately and improve their hit rate on the battlefield.

Seeing that the time was roughly ripe, Lawrence summoned his trusted officers and staff in the Council Chamber of the Royal Palace of Cagliari at the end of September to discuss the next plan of action.

Originally, there were two different opinions within the Corsican army regarding the next action plan.

The radicals, mainly the hot-blooded young men of the Privy Knights headed by Berthier, believed that they should take advantage of the opportunity when Colonel Bartram led an army of 10,000 to be defeated in Ajaccio, and take advantage of the weakness of the Sardinian military to attack Turin in the north, forcing Carlo Emmanuele III to completely abandon Sardinia.

The conservatives, represented by the calm and experienced Serurier, believed that the Kingdom of Corsica had already made their due contribution in the Italian War, and that the next step should be to focus on defending the two islands of Sardinia and Corsica. After all, the standing army of the Kingdom of Sardinia was estimated to still have about 15,000 people, more than twice the number of the Corsican army.

However, after seeing the power of the new rifles brought by Major Trifal, the original conservatives changed their minds and supported Lawrence's plan to lead his troops north to Savoy.

So the content of the meeting quickly changed from "whether to fight" to "how to fight".

Chief of Staff Berthier had apparently already privately drawn up a plan to attack the Kingdom of Sardinia, and he skillfully explained it to the officers and Lawrence based on the map:

"At present, there is only one route for us to march into Turin, which is to invade from the sea and quickly occupy the Sardinian Kingdom's seaport in Liguria - Vadolidore, and then go north across the hills and mountains of Liguria and attack Turin through the Po River Plain."

Lawrence analyzed it briefly and nodded in agreement:
"Well, the Kingdom of Sardinia probably wouldn't expect us to take the initiative to attack. Besides, Vadolidore is just a small seaport, and the Sardinian army won't station too many troops there."

"The Sardinian Navy was intimidated by the French Mediterranean Fleet last time. It is estimated that they will not dare to obstruct our landing operations during this period of time." Berthier added, pointing to the map.

Meanwhile, Serurier frowned and stared at the map on the table, analyzing calmly:
"But the only problem is that after landing in Vadolidore, our marching route in Liguria is basically fixed. The enemy can easily predict our marching route and deploy defenses in advance to occupy advantageous terrain. Even if we have more advanced weapons, I'm afraid we will inevitably have a bloody battle."

Liguria, a narrow coastal region, has rugged terrain and many hills. The Republic of Genoa has been preserved to this day thanks to its unique geographical advantage of being surrounded by the sea on one side and mountains on three sides.

In such complex terrain, the army could only march along fixed, flat roads unless its commander was willing to risk huge losses and morale pressure to cross mountains and hills.

This means that after the Sardinian army learned that the Corsican army had landed in Vadoli Dore, they were able to respond quickly and set up ambushes on the Corsican army's route in advance.

The officers and staff present all looked solemn. Even though the Corsican army had a huge advantage in equipment, no one dared to say that they were sure of victory against the main force of the Sardinian army.

And if this battle fails, it means that the Corsican army will be wiped out in northern Italy, the Sardinian army will take advantage of the situation to take back the two islands of Corsica and Sardinia, and the entire kingdom will be destroyed because of the failure of this battle.

Berthier's expression was also very solemn. He flipped back a few pages of the plan and said in a deep voice:

"It is indeed unwise to fight the Sardinian army directly in Liguria, but someone in the Army General Staff proposed a plan. We can split our forces after landing in Vadolidore, and send a small force to the north to launch a feint attack, attracting the main force of the Sardinian army and tying it up in Liguria. Our main force will go east through Genoa and then go north to Turin."

Everyone quickly looked at the map on the table. If this plan could be successfully implemented, the Corsican army would be able to bypass the main force of the Sardinian army and launch a rapid attack directly on the enemy's capital, Turin, via the flat Po River Plain.

"Who came up with this plan?" Lawrence asked with narrowed eyes.

"A captain of the army staff and a member of the Order of the Knights Conciliar, Andre Davout."

"Davu, what are his abilities?"

Berthier was in charge of the organization and personnel of the Privy Knights. He took out a data sheet from his briefcase and handed it to Lawrence, while explaining skillfully:

"Born into a military family in Annox, his grandfather, father, and brother are all officers of the Royal Cavalry. He is now 21 years old. He has received family military education since he was young and went to the Paris Military Academy for further studies at the age of 15. His grades in fencing, horsemanship, tactical command and other courses are close to perfect. He is taciturn but calm and decisive. He is loyal to the royal family and worships the Sun King Louis XIV. He was going to graduate from the military academy this year and join the Royal Cavalry, but due to family changes, he finally chose to join the Italian War with us."

After hearing this resume, even a professional soldier like Serurier couldn't help but nod his head repeatedly. It was no wonder that such a young man with excellent background, ability and potential would be selected by an elite corps like the Royal Cavalry.

Lawrence was also very satisfied with this candidate and plan, especially the surname Davout and Annox's noble birth. It is likely that this Andre Davout also has some blood relationship with the historical Marshal Davout.

“Of course, there is one more problem that needs to be solved in this plan,” Berthier added at the right time:
"We need to go east and pass through Genoa, but based on the relationship between Corsica and Genoa, the Republic of Genoa will most likely not allow our army to pass through their city so brazenly."

One staff officer suggested:

“What about the feasibility of diplomatic means to obtain military access?”

This idea was immediately rejected by the officers and staff present:

"It's not very realistic. For a tiny country like the Republic of Genoa, their commercial city is everything to the country. They will not allow foreign troops to pass through at will, let alone the Kingdom of Corsica, which has a blood feud with them. Moreover, if diplomatic communication is carried out, it is very likely that the news will leak out, causing the Kingdom of Sardinia to focus on the movements in the direction of Genoa."

Berthier had no choice but to compromise:

"In the worst case, we can go around Genoa, but going around the hilly terrain will slow down our march and make our plan more likely to be discovered by the Sardinians."

There was a brief silence in the government hall, and everyone turned their eyes to Lawrence sitting on the main seat.

If they cannot pass through Genoa, then there will be no point in dividing the troops in Vadolidore to contain the main force of the Sardinian army.

"No, we don't go around Genoa."

Lawrence gestured at the map for a moment and made the final decision:

"The main force of our army will march directly eastward to the city of Genoa, and then head north to Turin."

"But the Genoese will not agree to our army entering their city." Berthier reminded with a frown.

"If they have any objections, I will remind the Governor of Genoa that the war between Corsica and Genoa has not yet been declared over."