King's Landing in France

An Ning couldn't help reminding Napoleon: "You are a Corsican, not an Italian. Corsica belongs to France. You don't need to be so excited about the dignity of Italian food."

Napoleon: "Well, it was my fault, but Italian food is really delicious, the kind that makes life suddenly brighter!"

The Frenchman Napoleon continued to maintain the dignity of Italian cuisine reluctantly.

Ballas: "These are all good! You can even take a few Italian chefs to Paris, and then you can have a big banquet, and then I will try the creamy risotto you have always recommended!"

An Ning: "Mr. Ballas, I think I have made it very clear that I will not leave my soldiers at this time."

Ballas gritted his teeth and used his trump card: "Now that you return to Paris, you will surely become the most powerful person in Paris! At that time, all French troops will be dispatched by you!"

An Ning: "Sounds a bit attractive, but I am satisfied with the number of troops I am commanding now, and the officers under me are probably barely enough to command such a number of people."

Ballas: "You will lead the whole of France and win one victory after another, just like the conqueror Alexander (or Yinskandar) in history!"

An Ning: "I don't need to go to Paris, I will continue to win and conquer."

Anyway, An Ning has already made up her mind. In such a complicated and turbulent Paris, whoever wants to go will go, and I will stay away anyway.

Balas sighed long in the face of the unrepentant peace.

He took a step back and said, "Then, I hope to mobilize an army of about 10 people from the southern region to the capital."

An Ning glanced at Lazar Kano, who shook his head silently.

So An Ning also categorically rejected this request: "No, our army has no plans to go to Paris at present. Of course, in the future, if the situation in Paris is really dangerous, our army will go to Paris.

"But this timing will be decided by ourselves."

Barras: "All right! All right! I'll tell your friends in Paris exactly how you feel!"

An Ning laughed directly. His friends in Paris are all good buddies with the same goals. Even if they listened to Ballas' report, they probably wouldn't say anything.

An Ning: "Go ahead and say hello to Maximilian (referring to Robespierre) for me, and say hello to Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna and give him some souvenirs."

Chapter 187 Two Veterans Join Forces to Attack

Because of the imminent war, the streets of Milan were filled with chills.

Because the policy implemented by An Ning in Milan gave the Italians a lot of autonomy, and also promised the Italians that after they have their own armed forces and can defend their own land, the French army will withdraw from the entire territory of Milan.

So most Italians really regard the French army as liberators.

In fact, Napoleon in another history was also regarded as a liberator by Italian independents at the beginning, but the republics established by Napoleon were actually French puppet states, which were quickly seen through by the Italians.

So the Italians set off a counter-flag as early as Napoleon attacked Vienna.

But An Ning didn't intend to do this at all. He was going to use an advanced form of imperialism: using economic power to grab benefits.

For this reason, what he values ​​​​is the right to issue coins, and other powers other than the right to issue coins, the Italians will give them what they want.

Because of this, in the city of Milan, the Italians are actively joining the army, preparing to fight the invaders with the French against the Austrians.

You know, Italy in this era is not the weak chicken that was pushed back by the Ethiopian black uncle later.

Italy in this era is quite capable of playing.

Especially when the Italians are wearing red military uniforms.

It happened that Lazar Cano also temporarily came to Milan from the south of France, and An Ning entrusted Lazar Cano with the task of organizing the Milan Republic Army.

Kano did not refuse. Although he only stayed in Milan for a month at most, and then returned to the south of France to take charge of the rear work, he still had the duty to take over the task of reorganizing the Republic Army.

It took Lazar Cano a month to form tens of thousands of Italian Sequoias.

However, similar to the main problem facing the French army under An Ning, the Italians also lack officers.

Most of the Italian nobles are in collusion with the Habsburg Shinra.

After all, Shinra is limited by the times, and there is no way to establish a ruling structure that truly touches the grassroots. It still has to rely on the local wealthy elites.

Then these local wealthy families were treated as traitors and hanged street lamps in the republicanization movement that started after An Ning occupied Milan. Those who did not hang up also packed up and ran to Austria.

In the European army of this era, the officers are generally nobles, and Milan is no exception.

Therefore, the Republic Army formed by Milan has a lower proportion of officers than the French Army.

The French army is already very bad. Each officer has to manage [-] to twice as many subordinates as the Austrian army. The situation of the Milan Republic Army is even worse.

The reason why the French army was able to fight so bravely and show such high quality with such a low proportion of officers was purely because of the spirit given by the Great Revolution.

But it is not clear whether the Italians in Milan can have the same performance, whether they can force their high morale and desire to fight to offset the shortage of officers.

As for the precision shooter company that An Ning used as a secret weapon, the training process went very smoothly.

The newer breech-loading rifles performed exceptionally well, even at a distance of 200 meters with a decent hit rate.

In terms of rate of fire, the breech loading makes this weapon even faster than those muskets, and the firepower projected by a company of troops is like a regiment.

The point is that this is not simply an increase in projection.

The frontal width of a regiment of line infantry is much greater than that of a company.

This company has such a terrifying firepower that it is even hoped that the enemy who is attacking in front of it will be disintegrated by the density of firepower alone.

As for the advantages of breech loading in shooting posture, this weapon is especially suitable for skirmish tactics.

Traditional muskets, because there must be an action of compacting the bullets with a cleaning rod when loading, you must stand upright when using a musket - at least you have to squat.

There is no way to load a musket in a prone position.

So the war in this era is in the form of "queuing and shooting", where everyone stands in line and shoots each other.

Not so with the breech-loading gun, a weapon that can fire and reload while lying on its stomach.

So this weapon is especially suitable for scattered skirmishers. Originally, skirmishers rely on loose formations to reduce casualties when shooting against line infantry. If these skirmishers lie on the ground and do "Voldemort", then Just think about how hard it is to get hit.

In short, this improved breech-loading rifle has basically no shortcomings except low output and high cost.

After watching the drill of the special shooter company, An Ning made up his mind to forcibly promote the popularization of this weapon.

In the history of another time and space, the rear-loading rifle gradually became mainstream after the 1830s. At this time, humans have built a large number of railways, invented the telegraph, and made great progress in industrial production.

The development of industry has made the production cost and man-hours of breech-loading guns lower and lower, and finally made this weapon popular on a large scale.

Now that An Ning wants to forcibly advance the large-scale application of breech-loading guns, basically he can only rely on money.

If you want not to waste money, you can only rub the entire industrial chain with your hands.

An Ning couldn't do such a heaven-defying thing.

In contrast, the feasibility of using money is even higher.

An Ning planned to form an elite shooter company first, and then distribute these shooter companies to various brigades to be responsible for killing the enemy's officers with precise and fierce firepower in front of the infantry in their own line.

The newly formed elite shooter company is the verification of this idea. Whether it will continue to be implemented depends on how effective this company can be in the next war.

An Ning is looking forward to this very much.

After all, this is the advanced technology that I, a traverser, have fiddled with for the first time.

It would be great if this thing could make the enemy drink a pot after it was put into actual combat.

While An Ning was busy inspecting the troops and actively preparing for the war, Paul Barras still did not completely give up persuading An Ning to return to Paris.

But An Ning refused to enter, no matter what Balas said, he shook his head firmly and refused to agree.

As time went by, the announcements of the declaration of war from Austria and the Kingdom of Sardinia were finally sent to Milan-this is not accurate, and the announcement of the declaration of war should naturally be sent to the capital of the enemy country.

But Anning received the declaration of war several days earlier than Paris.

Everything was sent along with the announcement of the declaration of war, as well as the latest news from the Austrian commander obtained by the spies of the spy department.

The Austrian army that An Ning had to face was divided into two parts, one part was the remnants of the original Austrian army deployed on the fortress of Mantua and along the Mincio River.

After these remnants have been replenished during this period, the strength of these troops has returned to 5000. In addition to the 4000 defenders in the fortress, the overall number is [-].

The commander of this unit is still Marshal Beaulieu, a veteran in his 70s.

The Austrian Legion mobilized from the Yin side gathered at Trent, an important transportation hub in the Alps.

This force was led by Marshal Wumze.

This is also a veteran in his 70s.

According to reconnaissance, Marshal Wurmze's army in Trent was preparing to pass through the Adige valley at any time.

Moreover, Marshal Wumze may send out a force to go south from the road on the west bank of Lake Garda, an alpine lake in the Alps.

Due to the constraints of terrain and traffic routes, Anning is now deploying troops on the west bank of the Mincio River north of Mantua Fortress. The supply route must pass through Brescia, which is close to the Alps. Once the Austrian army goes south through the west bank of Lake Garda, they can Directly cut off the retreat of the security forces.

Therefore, An Ning had to divide into considerable troops to defend the mountains on the west bank of Lake Garda.

Nevertheless, Anning's forces on the Mincio River front still had a significant advantage.

Chapter 188 The Snake of Changshan

While An Ning was confronting the Austrian army on the Mincio River, Massena was facing the front. General Corli, the coach of the Sardinian Kingdom, led the forward of the Sardinian Army to the Fortress of Cheva.

Massena had only the original Italian Legion, plus some supplementary troops, a total of 5000 people. Annin's order to him was to hold the transportation line from Nice to Savona.

Although the main supply of An Ning's army now relies on Milan City to provide, the military supplies produced by the factories in Milan City are not particularly sufficient. The only things that can guarantee open supply are food, grass and military uniforms that can be produced with the production capacity of daily necessities.

Therefore, An Ning's army still has to rely on part of the ammunition and gunpowder provided by France.

This line of communication is very important, and An Ning repeatedly told Massena to guard it.

Massena himself, as an Italian, once served as a sailor on a merchant ship in the Mediterranean Sea, and also traveled all over northern Italy as a merchant.

He was originally a warrant officer guide of the Italian Legion, and he was very familiar with the terrain along the seaside.

So Massena made a bold decision: "Before the main force of the Kingdom of Sardinia comes up, start from Carcare and strike Milesimo!"

At this time, Milesimo's Sardinian army had 500 people, and Massena went up to 1 people at once, so the Sardinian kingdom gave up this key point to the French army with little resistance.

Immediately afterwards, Massena sent cavalry to reconnaissance in the direction of Cheva along the road, and then discovered something: the forwards of the Sardinian Kingdom in the Cheva Fortress were actually only 5000 people.

And Massena is very familiar with the terrain of Cheva Fortress. This fortress is a series of fortresses arranged on the ridge from north to south. It has a very strong resistance to attacks from the east.

But when attacking from the east, if a force is split to attack from the south, Cheva Fortress can be easily breached.

Therefore, Masséna made another decisive decision: to force a march to attack Cheva.

The [-] French troops galloped mightily along the mountain road to Cheva, and caught General Corley of the Kingdom of Sardinia who had just arrived here not long ago by surprise.

The French army under Masséna was basically watching the show in the battle before An Ning. This army saw other troops making military exploits and successes, and they couldn't hold back.

The army of the Kingdom of Sardinia that Massena faced was a traditional army of the Kingdom.

Yes, it is the kind of troops that will be defeated once the formation is broken up. The desire of each leader to participate in the battle is extremely low, and it is all driven by the officers served by the noble lord.

The combat effectiveness of this kind of army is about the same as that of the Indian army during the self-defense counterattack against India—even inferior to the Indian army. After all, the Indians at least hold the Lee Enfield rifle, which is much more advanced than the musket.

The defense of the fortress was quickly breached, and General Corley had to lead the remnants back to Mondowe.

With all his strength, Massena continued to march towards Mundo, and did not garrison along the Corsa Gallia River until he received the news that the main force of the Kingdom of Sardinia's army had arrived from Turin.

At this time, the Kosagalia River is in the dry season-the source of this river, like most rivers under the Alps, comes from the melting snow on the mountains.

It is now December, and the surface of the Kosagalia River has shrunk considerably.

Even so, it is better to have a river as a barrier than to directly defend a place without any barrier.

Massena knew that as long as he resisted until February next year, when the snow on the Alps began to melt in spring, the Corsa Gallia River would become wider and the water flow would become more rapid.

As long as you stick to it until then, your situation will be greatly improved.

So Masséna began to build fortifications along the river wantonly, posing a decisive battle with the enemy across the river.

※※※

Anning was overjoyed when news of Masséna reached Anning's headquarters in Brescia.

"Okay! Really good!" He shouted several times.

Sure enough, Massena was capable of fighting. This early attack to catch the enemy by surprise seemed like a fierce general at first glance.

Sure enough, the strong in history will also be strong here.

So An Ning wrote a commendation letter, and at the beginning of the letter, he shouted: "Long live the third division!"

The third division was that of Masséna.

After writing An Ning, I came to my senses. In the future, Masséna’s teacher will be called Long Live Teacher, right?