I Am the Crown Prince in France

Because Her Royal Highness the Princess of the Two Sicilies is coming to Paris for a trip, the French Guard, as the Paris garrison, will naturally be responsible for escorting her along the way.

The commander of the French Guard, Bessonval, became the busiest person.

He had to hurry up before the princess arrived and make all the officers and soldiers remember every step of greeting, guarding and escorting her along the way.

There must be no room for error in this kind of thing. Therefore, he had to keep an eye on the troops in person, follow the preset route when the princess came, and rehearse the entire process of welcoming the escort repeatedly, so that he could feel at ease.

He suddenly felt a headache when he thought about the arrival of the Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

The French Guards lined up in three columns and walked quickly along the path outside Paris. Just when they were about to arrive at the scheduled meeting point, there was a sudden loud noise from the southwest, and the advancing queue suddenly felt like frightened rabbits. stopped.

Besonval frowned, he could hear that it was the sound of cannon.

Why is there a cannon in this damn place?

As if in response to his question, there was another roar in the distance.

The soldiers of the French Guard had already picked up their guns in their hands and looked around to guard against possible attackers.

Bessonval gestured to the officer beside him. The latter immediately sent two hussars to conduct reconnaissance in the direction of the cannon fire.

After more than ten minutes, the cavalry returned, reined in their horses and shouted:

"Report, the Paris Police Academy is conducting artillery training!"

"Paris Police Academy? Artillery training!" Bessonval couldn't connect the two for a long time, and asked doubtfully, "Isn't the Paris Police Academy in the Saint-Antoine district?"

"General, they say this is their training ground."

Bessonval couldn't help but narrowed his eyes. As the commander of the Paris garrison, he didn't know that there was a training ground equipped with cannons in the southern suburbs of Paris!

In fact, we can't blame him. With the level of information in this era, if we don't deliberately send people to conduct reconnaissance, sometimes two armies pass by each other more than ten kilometers apart without discovering each other.

There are no enemy troops around Paris, so the French Guards naturally won't just do a reconnaissance tour.

Therefore, the training base of the police academy has been put into use for a month and a half, and they did not find out until this time they happened to pass by here in order to familiarize themselves with the route to welcome the princess.

Besonval lowered his head and thought for a while, then told the officer beside him: "Send the order, rest where you are. Let's go over and take a look."

…

In the training base of the Paris Police Academy.

Berthier looked in shock as he watched nearly two hundred police officers follow the beat of drums and skillfully formed an infantry line. Another messenger shouted: "Keep the line!" and ran past the team on horseback.

On the left side of the team were two four-pounders.

Opposite them were more than a hundred police officers with white cloth strips tied to their arms.

The "white team" seemed to lack training. Only two-thirds of the people lined up in two thin lines, while the remaining one-third were sparsely scattered in front of the lines, constantly moving toward the opposite defense line. approaching.

Following the instinct of a soldier, Berthier shook his head and said to Dubois: "If the white side doesn't organize its team, I'm afraid they will be defeated."

The latter smiled and shook his head: "Alexander, there is no problem with their queue."

"Queue?" Berthier frowned. Where is the queue for "White Team"? This is obviously because the officer failed to restrain his soldiers...

Suddenly, he felt something was wrong.

Although the "white team" looked chaotic, the scattered police officers in front of the line always maintained the same pace, seeming to form a barrier in front of the infantry line.

Immediately, "Blue's" cannon roared. Of course, this was just a drill and there was no reloading of projectiles.

Several instructors nearby who were responsible for assessing casualties made a quick judgment, and one of them told his assistant two numbers. The latter immediately signaled for training, indicating that the shells passed through the scattered formations of "White", causing only 2 deaths and 4 injuries.

"They are dying. I think they need more training." Berthier couldn't help but shake his head.

"Please read on patiently," Dubois reminded calmly.

After "Blue's" cannon fired two more times, "White" changed.

The drum beat suddenly accelerated, and the chaotic police officers at the front of the team roared:

"dash forward!"

"Break through the enemy formation!"

"Don't be afraid, come on!"

The chaotic team began to run, and the "Blue Team" immediately greeted them with a volley of flintlock rifles.

However, since the White Team was spread out, the shots only did limited damage to them. More than three-quarters of the "White Team" police officers rushed to a place only thirty meters away from the "Blue Team" infantry line.

"Stop!" As the officer of the "White Team" gave the order, dozens of police officers stopped at the same time and raised their flintlock guns.

"emission!"

A puff of smoke rose from the scattered queue. The close range salvo instantly caused the "Blue Team" to lose seven or eight men.

Just as the "White Team" began to reload ammunition, the "Blue Team" fired back again. The "White Team" who had just rushed forward was immediately sentenced to 3 deaths and 6 injuries.

Just as the "Blue Team" infantry line was entangled with the opponents whose lines were not neatly aligned, the "White Team" infantry line behind them had quietly arrived less than 50 meters away from them.

The scattered "white team" police officers suddenly retreated and "integrated" into their own lines at an extremely fast speed.

Immediately, the police officers on the "white team" line raised their guns, while the "blue team" on the opposite side was in chaos due to the previous exchange of fire.

"emission!"

The neatly lined up "white team" fired a volley, causing the "blue team" to become increasingly chaotic.

When the infantry lines shoot at each other, whoever has an orderly formation and a unified firing pace will have the upper hand.

The "Blue Team" subsequently suffered more and more gaps in the team under constant fire from the opponent. Finally, when the casualties reached one-third, it was judged to have failed by the instructor responsible for assessment.

Berthier turned to stare at Dubois, his face full of disbelief - why did the "white team" with the messy queue win? Their number is even slightly smaller than the opposite!

From the first day of military school, he was taught that "the infantry line must be kept neat and orderly. If there is chaos, it is better to stop shooting than to form a team first."

He was sure that the exercise just now was very formal and there was no favoritism at all, but why did the side with the messy queue win?

Dubois explained to him: "This is called the 'skirmishing attack tactic'. It was invented by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"Skirmers? This is impossible..." Berthier had a question mark on his face. The Austrians often use skirmishers, but they do it for the convenience of mountain operations. I have never heard that this can overwhelm the opponent's neat infantry lines. ah.

Joseph, who was sitting in front watching the exercise, felt a little ashamed and said to himself that this was a tactic created by Emperor Na, so I just copied and pasted it.

However, he still turned his head and smiled like a little fox: "Major Berthier, if you want to know more about this tactic, you can come to the Paris Police Academy often. Oh, there are many other new tactics here. , maybe you will also be interested.”

…

As soon as Bessonval saw the wall of the Paris Police Academy training base from a distance, he was stopped by several people in police uniforms: "Police academy training, no approaching!"

An officer urged his horse forward and said proudly: "This is the commander of the French Guard, General Besonval. Who is in charge here? Let him come over."