From Corsica to the Fourth Rome

September 3, 1770, was the third day Lawrence and his army were marching south from Propriano.

In the last days of August, instead of rushing to attack the town of Figari, Lawrence chose to station his troops in Propriano to assist Mr. Coggero and his Treasury officials in implementing the two ministries. bill.

Major Trifali and Major Serulier felt that this move was a bit of a delay in fighting at first, but when they followed the soldiers of the National Defense Forces into various villages in the town and saw the sincere smiles of the townspeople, the two majors also Gradually I realized Lawrence's intentions.

As a veteran of the National Defense Forces, Major Cui Fali was extremely emotional. In his memory, the previous soldiers of the National Defense Forces had a bad reputation among the rural people due to problems such as lax military discipline and excessive collection of taxes.

But now, when almost every town and villager looks at the soldiers in light blue uniforms, their eyes are filled with sincere respect and gratitude.

Even when the townspeople of Propriano heard that a rebel army in the south was trying to invade Ajaccio and repeal the two laws that had brought them liberation, hundreds of impassioned townspeople came Go outside the Wehrmacht garrison and want to join Governor Bonaparte's army to crush the vampires who are trying to re-shackle them.

If it were not for the fact that the Wehrmacht did not need new recruits for the time being, Major Trifali believed that Lawrence could easily recruit more than 2,000 volunteers in Propriano.

On the evening of the first day of September, with the people in the city reluctantly bidding farewell along the streets, Lawrence's army began to march towards the town of Figari, leaving only a few Treasury officials stationed in Propriano to continue the bill. Implement.

After two days of conventional marching, the National Defense Forces also arrived at a narrow pass about 40 miles northwest of Figari, where they encountered the first resistance from the southern rebels.

"Your Excellency Bonaparte, the scouts we sent to explore the enemy's fortress have returned."

Major Serurier galloped up to a high hill and reported with a serious face to Lawrence, who was observing the earthen rampart not far away:

"Their fortifications should be repaired and reinforced on the basis of a small medieval castle. I am afraid it is much stronger than the imagined temporary fortifications, and the number of garrison troops is estimated to be around 2,000. If there had not been a one-month siege , I think it will be difficult to capture this fortress.”

Lawrence on the side was holding a monocular telescope and staring at the fortress about 600 yards away. Listening to Major Serurier's slightly pessimistic report, he just nodded calmly.

As Major Serurier said, the original site of this fortress was a small medieval castle. Although the main wooden building of the castle has long since rotted and collapsed, the outer stone walls are still basically intact.

Even the damaged gaps have been repaired by the southern rebels using wood and clay, and a large number of shooting holes have been dug in the original walls to defend against counterattacks.

Moreover, the fortress is located on a steep hill and occupies a terrain advantage. If it is to be attacked by force, I am afraid that it will have to pay a heavy price to conquer.

For the National Defense Forces, which lacks heavy firepower, such a fortress cannot be captured in a short time.

"It seems that they are placing a considerable part of their defense power on this fortress."

Lawrence put away the telescope, handed it to a soldier beside him, stroked his chin and analyzed slowly:

"The scale of this castle is not enough to support two thousand permanent soldiers. In other words, the other party has temporarily added additional troops and is determined to keep us out of this city wall."

"I'm afraid that's true." Major Cui Farley looked at the fortress not far away with deep concern, frowned and added:

"Since the landowners can obtain a large amount of weapons and equipment from the outside world, they are bound to be able to obtain a large amount of material supplies. The material reserves in this castle should be quite sufficient. Even if we cut off the other party's supplies, they should be able to persist. Not a short time.”

Although the simple castle in front of them was not a golden city at all, the two majors still felt very embarrassed in front of the National Defense Forces who only had twelve six-pound field guns.

Major Serurier licked his lips, thought for a moment and then suggested:

"Your Excellency Bonaparte, I think we cannot stay at this fortress for too long. Perhaps bypassing this fortification and directly attacking the town of Figari is a feasible option."

As a veteran who has experienced the Seven Years' War, what Major Serurier is talking about is actually a tactic that has been popular from the mid-eighteenth century to the Napoleonic era, which is to ignore the opponent's fortress control area and directly attack the enemy with a large army. The capital forced the other side to surrender.

This is why in the Napoleonic era we often saw scenes of warring parties exchanging homes with each other.

Although he felt that this plan was too risky, Major Cui Farley could not find a better plan after thinking hard for a long time, so he nodded in agreement:

"Although we may face the risk of being attacked from both front and rear, with the combat quality of our army and conducting field battles with those temporarily formed conscription troops, our army is fully capable of fighting. And as long as we capture the town of Figari , this war is over once and for all.”

Faced with the unanimous proposal of the two adjutants, Lawrence shook his head firmly after thinking for a moment:

"This plan is indeed feasible, but the risk is still too high. Although the enemy army is a temporary levy force, it has numerical and defensive advantages after all. Moreover, once our army is defeated in the town of Figari, there will be no strategic depth at all. Word."

Major Serurier couldn't help but frown. In his eyes, this was already the best solution among all decisions at the moment.

Although the future Marshal of the Empire had the utmost respect for Lawrence, he obviously did not think that the military capabilities of Lawrence, a young governor, could compare to his own, a professional soldier who had experienced a great war.

"Your Majesty Bonaparte, what are your plans?" Major Serulier took a deep breath. After all, no matter what, any plan can only be turned into an order and issued to the army after passing through Lawrence's jaw.

"Launch the siege immediately."

Lawrence looked down at the thousands of National Defense Force soldiers below him, then looked up at the ancient fortress, and ordered unswervingly:

"Let the forward camp be stationed three hundred yards from the fort, with a feint attack every three hours. All the artillery should be moved to the front. The fort should be bombarded with artillery fire without interruption. The soldiers should be changed every twelve hours. The shelling and infestation cannot be stopped even at night.”

The two majors were stunned for a moment. They didn't expect that Lawrence would choose the siege that they thought was the least efficient.

"Your Excellency, you have also seen that in front of this fortress, it is difficult to capture it in a short time with our artillery alone." Major Serulier still refused to give up and persuaded eagerly.

Lawrence still shook his head, waved his hand to indicate to the two of them to pass on his order, and explained briefly:

"We don't need to use force to conquer this fortress at all. The strongest fortress is always one that cannot be conquered."

As the order was issued, the soldiers of the National Defense Force immediately took action. Just an hour later, six thousand soldiers had already surrounded the fortress in a pincer-shaped semi-encirclement formation.

At the front line, the soldiers had erected wooden bullet barriers and used the tools on hand to build some simple fortifications such as trenches and earthen forts.

The rebels in the fortress have also discovered the movements of the National Defense Forces. The double-layered city gate reinforced by iron sheets has long been closed tightly, and rebel soldiers holding muskets have already stood at each shooting hole on the city wall.

The soldiers standing behind the shooting holes looked at the black siege army and suddenly became nervous. Although they were told during training that the effective shooting distance of the muskets was not three hundred yards at all, their nervousness still made many The man raised his musket and fired indiscriminately.

The warlords in the castle were not very calm. They were jumping up and down inside the fortress with whips and anxious expressions. Whenever they encountered soldiers who were a little lax, they would mercilessly send a blood mark to the other side, trying to use this kind of violence. behavior to relieve inner tension.

After all, these so-called military governors are basically relatives of the landlords. They relied on various connections to get an official position in the army. It may be okay to let these people eat, drink and have fun, but let them Leading an army to defend the fortress is far beyond their capabilities.

The only ones who could really keep their heads clear in such a situation were the few foreign instructors who were sent to garrison this fortress.

But even Sir Robert himself does not have much say in this army. Coupled with the language barrier, these instructors are even less likely to have access to higher-level command authority.

The instructors could only stay in their respective companies and shout some simple commands to try to keep these low-quality soldiers calm.

However, as the twelve field artillery pieces of the Wehrmacht were deployed, the levies in the fort once again fell into a panic.

Although these small-caliber field artillery could not cause too much damage to the city wall, to these serf levies who had never seen a musket before, the roar of the twelve artillery salvos was simply like thunder. Especially the shaking sensation and splashing of gravel caused by the shells hitting the city wall made some conscription soldiers couldn't help but squat in the corner and tremble with their heads in their hands.

It can be said that the psychological shock these artillery brings to the enemy far exceeds its own power.

However, Lawrence, who was watching all this silently, knew that simply relying on the blow to the enemy's morale would not allow him to capture this ancient fortress at the minimum cost. What he still needed now was to wait for a perfect opportunity.

"His grandma's, is this a cannon? It's too scary!"

The skinny monkey squatted under the shooting hole with a horrified expression, only daring to stick out half of his head to look at the National Defense Forces camp not far away.

Just yesterday, Shouhou's unit received an order requiring their group of more than a thousand soldiers to go to this ancient fortress on the front line overnight for reinforcements.

Mr. Justin also learned early that the National Defense Forces were already heading south, and planned to focus their defense on this carefully restored ancient fortress.

"Oh my God, if I were hit by this shell, I really don't know how I would die."

After several rounds of shelling, a soldier next to the thin monkey said with lingering fear that he felt that the hairs all over his body were about to stand up.

Just as all the soldiers were bewildered and hiding under the cover of the battlements, the loud noise of the artillery bombardment suddenly stopped and was replaced by a faint sound of drums coming from the enemy's position.

Skinny Monkey closed his eyes and listened for a while. Although a serf like him had nothing to do with the term musician, he could still tell that the drumbeats were dense and short, and it sounded like a kind of music. A feeling of excitement.

As the drums sounded, a foreign instructor hurriedly rushed between the battlements and cursed at the soldiers in broken Italian:

"Idiots! Get up and prepare to defend! The enemy is about to attack!"

This instructor was obviously a real soldier who had experienced the baptism of war. How could he not recognize that these intense and intense drumbeats were a signal that the enemy was about to launch an attack.

Although it was hard to believe that the opponent would launch an attack so eagerly, the instructor couldn't care less and could only rely on muscle memory to order his subordinates to prepare for defense.

The soldiers hiding under the bunker looked at each other in horror. It was not until this moment that many conscripts experienced the fear of facing death for the first time.

Even though many of them had said carelessly to themselves, "It's better to just die", when they were about to face a real life-and-death fight, these recruits still had weak legs and couldn't help but hesitate.

"Damn beast!"

Seeing that the soldiers were still sitting under the bunker with their eyes broken, the instructor became even more furious. He directly raised his high-heeled military boots and kicked the nearest soldiers.

As five or six conscripts fell to the ground motionless with bruises and swollen faces, the remaining dozens of soldiers finally took action, but they just returned to their respective posts like empty shells that had lost their souls. It was as if they had finished saying hello to death.

"Brother, are you afraid of death?" A soldier suddenly asked the thin monkey beside him. His whole body was shaking, and he could hardly hold the musket in his hand.

Although Shouhou's performance was better than his, there was still a slight tremor in his tone:

"Afraid, who the hell isn't afraid of death? But what I'm most afraid of is that the death is unclear and useless. Just like now, even if I die, I have to kill that bastard landlord first. Then I can die happily."

The soldier laughed with a complicated expression, and the trembling on his body eased slightly:

"me too."