open sea

Chapter 1180 Movement
This place is called Wulong, and it is one of the few places along the Kelan River where the terrain on both sides is flat.

Stationed here are four French mercenary brigades with a total strength of nearly [-]. The flat terrain helps them build bridges and cross the river to reach the opposite bank quickly. The advantage of the knights was to encircle the retreating Ming army.

Most of them are composed of Swiss and Holy Roman Empire Germans. Two brigades are from mainland France, one brigade of Swiss mercenaries and one brigade of German mercenaries.

Times have changed and everyone is changing with the times.

The Swiss Brigade is a mountain infantry unit composed of muskets, spears, and halberds; the German Brigade is a field infantry unit also composed of muskets, spears, and two-handed swords.

The two-handed swordsman among the latter is called Dubler. Dubler means double pay, and the basic establishment is 400 people. Later generations generally translate it as a company. In fact, this word has a closer meaning in German in this era. It is a small flag, which means that so many people can have one flag.

Each small banner has a hundred Dubre swordsmen mixed with spearmen, halberdiers, and musketeers. The opponent at the beginning of its creation was the Holy Roman Empire against the Swiss Army hired by the Kingdom of France.

At that time the Swiss used two-handed swords, so they also used two-handed swords; the Swiss wore cutouts, so they also wore cutouts.But later the Swiss were limited by the cost and replaced the two-handed sword with a halberd. They were still using the two-handed sword and created a two-handed sword that was more in line with the times.

The spear was lengthened by one foot, and the long sword was lengthened by one inch. Later, when the spear grew to its current size, the two-handed sword would be smashed into a sieve no matter what.

In the end, due to poor finances, the Doppler warriors who broke away from the empire and sought their own way became the main force of the Kingdom of France, active in the battlefield against the founder's great-grandson Philip II.

This has to mention the French's military thinking on mercenaries. They believe that one mercenary is equal to three people: one more French army, one less enemy army, and one Frenchman back to production.

The leader of the camp is the Count of France, Charles, nicknamed the Warrior. All the Swiss and German commanders are under his command. His mission is to bring the troops to the east of Velières as soon as possible, but the attack on the supply troops is very distressing to him. .

The Ming army with a size of less than a hundred attacked the supply team for some reason, destroyed clothes and food, and pushed shells, armor, and weapons into the river. His troops tried to go into the water to fish them, but the water was too deep and the temperature was too cold. The soldiers who entered the water floated up with frozen limbs before they could pick up the musket.

Consumables such as muskets, armor, and food are okay to say, but they are only used for repairs and replacements, and they are only destroyed. If the war lasts for a short period of time, they may not be needed at all, and if the war lasts for a long time, they will have a chance to let them use it later. Ship a batch.

What troubled Earl Shire the most was that the Ming army blew up a cart of gunpowder that he was responsible for transporting.

The Paris Gunpowder Preparation Office wished to stroke the bishop's bald hair again, so that he could scrape together nine hundred catties of gunpowder in addition to what was needed for the naval battle.

Those troublesome Ming soldiers had no idea that more than 900 catties of gunpowder was the great achievement of how many times the faithful men and women prayed in the church!
But this great achievement was ignited by the Ming army on the banks of the Kelan River and released a big flower.

"Tell the commander of the mercenaries, to cross the river, I need to get all the gunpowder out and blow up this bridge, the nearest bridge is far away, unless the Ming army marches faster than us, otherwise they will be deeply surrounded, Once you find them."

Earl Charles said to his followers: "They have nowhere to escape if they have less than [-] troops. It's time to call up the troops."

It took only four days for the French army to build a bridge over the Crane River that could accommodate troops and carts, which was an unparalleled feat in the eyes of the earl.

Although some soldiers suffered from frostbite due to the river water in winter, and more people suffered from cold and runny noses during field operations in this season, this is an affordable price.

The construction of the bridge has come to an end, and what is even more miraculous is that this morning, the two vehicles whose axles were broken due to the fast march were also repaired. Reached the other side within an hour.

This is very fortunate.

If it is delayed for a few more days, this army of nearly 5000 people will be dispersed into more than a dozen small troops to disperse around and collect supplies; Villages were requisitioned to make up for food consumption; if the requisition was over for another three days, a legion with a fairly modern form would degenerate into dozens or even hundreds of medieval squads, going deep into the village to plunder.

Collecting, requisitioning, and looting are the three inevitable steps for the army to fight against localities in this era, and many times they even go hand in hand.

Anyway, if you don’t rob the enemy, you will rob it. It’s better to rob and destroy the enemy first.

People always have to eat.

But Shire didn't know that on the unnamed low hill to the north and west not far away, a group of sentries staying there had been targeted by the Ming army who had touched the hill with their blunderbusses in hand. Hundreds of families Xu Jin dropped his hands in annoyance. The only crossbow in the Central Army with a rotten handle, waved his general flag Ma Bole and led the two small flags to raise a tiger squatting cannon and quickly advanced under the cover of the bird gun team to take the lead.

The enemy army in the sentry tower piled up with earth and wood on the unknown hill had spotted them and yelled in horror. The infantry under the tower raised their spears, the archers on the tower ignited the match, and a steel crossbow was placed on the low wall and shot over. The distance is particularly close, almost running a few steps can enter the range of hand-to-hand combat.

The bird blunderbuss with the Chinese character "Tianxia Taiping" cast and welded at the end of the barrel was fired with a volley of guns. The flag soldier who nailed the tiger palm cannon nails with a mallet was shot by the crossbow arrows, and his body was knocked back half a step. In the next moment, he took half a step forward and then dropped the mallet, and the half-squatting flag army behind him had already ignited the tiger squatting cannon.

There was a loud bang, gunpowder smoke filled the air, and the lasing particles pierced through and nailed the sentry tower.

Fifteen Beiyang Banner troops with an average weight of more than 130 catties straightened their thorns, and under the leadership of the small banner officer, they charged the crumbling French watchtower with a three-talented formation.

Xu Baihu, holding a waist knife in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other, sighed through his nose, looked at the chaotic French camp under the low hill, and shook his head.

The French army in the camp obviously heard the sound of the artillery, shouting in disorder in the camp, some people looked around with flags, and finally everyone's eyes gathered on their low hill, raising their fingers and terrified.

Xu Jinduan stood upright, watching the little flag officer holding the flag climb up the sentry tower: "These things are pretty good, but they are too noisy."

　Good morning!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)