Fox of France

Augereau's position was a bit far from Napoleon's main force, and the amount of food they collected was quite limited. Augereau knew that he had to act quickly enough to prevent more nobles from burning the grain in the granary. Therefore, he immediately divided the cavalry in his hands into teams of fifty people, and under the guidance of the guide, rushed towards several surrounding manors.

However, most of these manors have seen the thick smoke rising here, and some manors have also begun to burn their own granaries-in these manors, there are several Austrian soldiers stationed. Their task is not to protect the manor, but to supervise the manor in charge of burning the granaries when there was a danger of the French approaching.

But not all the Austrian soldiers were loyal to their duty. When they saw the smoke, many Austrian soldiers shouted at the guards of the manor: "Go, the granary is burning!" Mounted and ran. Once they ran away, who else in the manor would care about burning the granary? Those who have a close relationship with the nobles who have already run into the city quickly follow the soldiers. Of course, the burning of the granary is left to the people below.

But the people above ran away, and the people below saw the grain in the granary, and the first reaction was: before burning, move some to their own homes. After moving a little, they understood better - what to burn? What's the benefit of burning it? So naturally it doesn't burn.

In this way, Augereau quickly obtained a large amount of food. He sent someone back to suggest to Napoleon that it would be disadvantageous for the army to be too far away from an area where it was convenient to collect food. It is better to move the army over, first control all the nearby countryside, get enough supplies, and leave enough trouble for Austria, and even pretend to Italianize Austria. Look at the reaction of those Austrians.

Napoleon gathered the other generals for a meeting to discuss Augereau's opinion. In the end, Napoleon pointed out with great foresight:

"Austria actually has a huge weakness, that is, it has too many nationalities, too many languages, and its interior is full of various contradictions. Even when there is nothing going on, various rebellions often occur within it— - This is a country that is forcibly kneaded together, and has no real centripetal force. Their army is the most important and almost the only means of maintaining this country. So as long as we prove the cowardice of this army to the Austrian people , then the foundation of this country will continue to be shaken.”

"How can we prove the weakness of the Austrian army?" Napoleon continued. "A direct attack on those bastions will only expose our weakness. Instead, we must mobilize them and let them come out to fight us. From now on, Please forget about Vienna for a moment, let us first go to the Austrian countryside, mobilize and arm the peasants there.

As long as the Austrians had any political savvy they could see that they couldn't let us do this, and I reckon there would be a series of skirmishing cavalry and infantry battles after that. This requires us to continuously hit the Austrians in such battles. The Austrians could not but bow to us. "

Napoleon's speech was generally supported by the generals, so the French army began to leave the camp early the next morning. Grand Duke Karl immediately put all the soldiers into a battle state, ready to resist the French attack.

But the French did not launch any offensive action, but left the road to Vienna and turned directly to the north.

"Grand Duke, do you want the cavalry to give chase?" an officer named Fritz asked.

"Let the cavalry follow, but don't attack the enemy lightly." Grand Duke Karl replied, "Well, you take a thousand light cavalry and follow them."

So Fritz took a thousand light cavalry and followed.

Napoleon naturally noticed the thousand Austrian cavalry, and he said to Murat next to him, "I'll give you two hundred cavalry, can you drive them back?"

Murat looked at the team of Austrian cavalry, pouted and said, "No problem."

After saying this, Murat took two hundred cavalry and went to the rear.

Murat stopped on a small high ground with two hundred cavalry. The Austrian cavalry gradually approached. Karl did not let Fritz take the initiative to attack the French army. To be honest, relying on a thousand light cavalry to attack tens of thousands of French troops, the Austrian army did not have such morale. But there are only two hundred French cavalry in front of us, so what is there to be afraid of? Besides, if you don't expel these cavalry first, how can you continue to follow the French army?

Fritz observed the cavalry of the French army. This is a group of light cavalry like them, equipped with sabers, pistols and so on. He remembered that the cavalrymen who were defeated in previous battles all mentioned one point, that is, the French pistols can shoot in bursts, and they don't need to be reloaded in the middle, and they can fight until the end of the world.

Of course, Fritz didn't believe such absurd claims. He felt that the so-called continuous-fire pistol should be a double-barreled or even triple-barreled pistol made by the French. This allows two or three shots to be fired in succession. It's just that such a pistol is too bulky, and it may not be easy to use. Besides, now there are 1,000 people on my side against up to 200 people on my side. If I still dare not fight, how can I fight in the future?

Thinking of this, Fritz led his cavalry A over there. Out of caution, Fritz sent all the thousand men up, instead of dividing the troops into two halves, one half to attack the two hundred cavalry, and the other half to continue to follow the main force of the French army. Anyway, the main force of the French army is infantry, and it will only take a while, and they will not go far.

Seeing the Austrian cavalry rushing forward with sabers in hand, Murat led his own cavalry forward without showing any weakness. It's just that unlike the Austrian hussars who held their sabers high in their right hands and held a pistol in their left, Murat's cavalry held a revolver in each hand.

There is a little difference between the revolvers used by the cavalry and the civilian version. First of all, they are larger in size, not only the barrel is longer, the cylinder is also longer, and it is still rifled. Anyway, the revolver is loaded once on the battlefield, and with the Mini rounds, loading is not more troublesome.

A longer cylinder can hold more propellant, and a longer rifled barrel with more propellant can ensure a higher muzzle velocity and better trajectory of the bullet. Compared with the single-shot, unrifled pistol in the hands of the Austrian cavalry, (this kind of pistol is not guaranteed to hit when the distance between the two sides is only a few steps during the gladiatorial fight, and it can only bluff people in cavalry combat ) The revolvers of the French cavalry were already real killers.

When the light cavalry is in the hedge, the formation is relatively loose, which allows each rider to control his horse more freely. Murat rushed to the forefront. Opposite him, an Austrian brandished a saber and rushed straight at him. Murat pointed the revolver in his hand at the Austrian cavalryman, and fired two shots when the two sides were only about three meters away.

This approach has been proved to be the most efficient method after many drills on the exercise field, but it is not the approach recommended in the cavalry manual. This distance not only prevents the enemy's saber from reaching him, but also is within the relatively accurate shooting distance of the revolver. And firing two shots in a row can also effectively improve the efficiency of killing. But it is not easy to do this, he must have a very good judgment on the speed and distance of the two sides. If you don't pay attention and make a mistake in judgment, you will be the one who is unlucky.

Therefore, the cavalry manual recommends that when hedging, you can shoot at a distance of 15 meters. The first two shots are for horses, and the distance is closer before shooting people. Anyway, there are more bullets, which is safer.

The Austrian cavalryman was shot by Murat and fell headlong from his horse. But Murat didn't have time to worry about him anymore, and another Austrian cavalry rushed towards him. Murat calmly judged the distance between the two sides, and at the moment when the opponent raised his saber high, he fired two shots at the Austrian.

The cavalry on both sides rushed past. Fritz reined in his horse and turned his head. He found that at least a hundred dead people and a considerable number of dead horses had fallen on the battlefield just now, but looking at the opposite side, it seemed that there were still two hundred people.

This is of course an illusion. The French cavalry is not without losses, but in terms of the number of losses, the Austrians are definitely much more. And just now he really saw that the gun in the Frenchman's hand was really shooting non-stop.

"It feels like we are holding a saber and confronting a cavalry with a spear. And it's the kind that has a spear in his hand at any time, and stabs a person without needing to pull it out!" For the first time, Ritz felt that the French cavalry was really scary.

Murat organized the team and rushed towards Fritz and the others. Fritz hesitated for a while before, so that he lost the opportunity to slip away, and at this time he could only bite the bullet and hedge against the French again.

In a series of gunshots, Murat led the cavalry and crossed the Austrian cavalry again. Many corpses were left where the two sides intersected. This time, Fritz didn't stay to check the results, but turned around and ran back. Murat led the cavalry and chased after him...

Everyone was light cavalry, no one was much faster than the other, and Fritz ran away without turning a corner, but Murat had to turn around and chase, so he couldn't catch up with Fritz at all. But Murat still kept chasing after him. His purpose was not to catch up and destroy these Austrian cavalrymen-this was impossible, and Murat knew it very well. His purpose is actually very simple: to use the much fewer cavalry in his hands to chase the more Austrian cavalry to the vicinity of their bastion, so that the Austrians who watched the battle have a correct understanding of their own strength. know.