The Rise of the European Emperor

Under normal circumstances, in order to deter the enemy, the party sending troops will falsely report the number of troops and deliberately exaggerate to scare the opponent. Among them, the most classic is that Cao Cao went south with an army of more than 200,000, claiming to be 800,000, which scared Soochow to pee. Had it not been for Sun Quan to slash the side of the table with a knife, maybe Soochow would have surrendered long ago, and there would be no classic Battle of Chibi later.

However, the French did the opposite this time. In order not to alert the Spaniards, France, which had clearly summoned an army of 60,000, declared to the outside world that it was an army of 30,000.

The size of an army of 30,000 is too much to attack the Duchy of Milan. But Louis XII can't help it, he can't say it is 10,000, can he? 60,000 troops and 80,000 civilian husbands, a total of 140,000 people, can you say that 10,000 troops take out 10,000 civilian husbands? Are people really that bad at counting? Therefore, he said that only 30,000 troops are already the limit.

In order not to irritate Spain, Louis XII publicly declared that this was a matter for France and the Principality of Milan, and hoped that other countries would not intervene. Of course, France doesn't want to be troublesome...

This statement seems to be a warning to other countries not to intervene in this matter, but it also declares to the outside world-I am trying to seize the Duchy of Milan. Interested, don't worry...

The Spaniard was really relieved, but of course, he didn't completely let go of his guard. For example, they still told the garrison of the Kingdom of Naples to be careful. But that's all.

The main reason is that it has been a coincidence recently that the attention of the Spaniards has been attracted by Zimbabwe's gold, so they really don't care about other things. Now, the Spanish imperial court has been arguing and is about to stage a full-scale military action in order to carve up the interests of the Zimbabwe empire.

No one is stupid. Once the Zimbabwe Empire falls into the hands of Spain, it will definitely produce a huge amount of gold every year. According to estimates by the Spanish colonists at the mouth of the Save River, the gold used in Zimbabwe's annual trade with Arab merchants is estimated to be worth tens of thousands of gold coins. Add in the value of ivory and copper ore, and that's even more. It is a pity that Zimbabweans do not understand the true value of commodities, and are fooled by Arab merchants with cheap cloth, glass and other commodities, and the expensive Jinsha is also sold at the price of cabbage.

According to the report of the spies who went deep into Zimbabwe to spy on intelligence, the production technology of the black people in the Zimbabwe Empire was extremely backward. Taking gold mines as an example, the gold production of Zimbabweans is still at an extremely backward level of gold mining. Most of the ore in the gold mine has not been fully utilized and developed. Because Zimbabweans don't know how to use gold ore to smelt gold at all...

Similarly, Zimbabwe's domestic copper resources are very rich, but they don't know how to smelt copper. Therefore, they can only trade copper ore with Arab merchants. Moreover, the copper ore that is traded is rich ore, which makes people salivate...

After discussion, the Spanish ruling and opposition parties agreed that if Spain occupied Zimbabwe and made good use of the gold ore that the locals could not use, it should be able to produce gold worth more than 300,000 gold coins per year. In addition, the rich copper mines in Zimbabwe can also be used to smelt a large amount of copper. Because copper prices in Europe are very expensive at present, it is very cost-effective to develop copper mines in Zimbabwe. Not to mention, Zimbabwe is also rich in ivory resources.

Of course, Spain is not yet a centralized country, but divided into two regimes: the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon. Moreover, the kings of the two countries are not the same. Currently, the king of Castile is Juan III, while the king of Aragon is Juan III's father Ferdinand II.

In addition to the different monarchs, there are also differences of interests between the courtiers of the two countries.

For example, the ministers of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon almost fought over the rights and interests of the gold mines in Zimbabwe this time.

The nobles of the Kingdom of Castile believed that the Spanish voyages were all driven by Queen Isabella I, and the Kingdom of Aragon was just a ride. Therefore, the interests of Zimbabwe should mainly belong to the Kingdom of Castile.

But the nobles of the Kingdom of Aragon quit. They strongly demanded that the benefits be shared equally. Moreover, their leader, Ferdinand II, still had a great influence on King Juan III of Castile. For this reason, the nobles of the two major kingdoms in Spain are busy arguing about the division of future interests. For the military actions of the French, I paid a little attention to it.

Then, Louis XII happily discovered that his march into Italy was not interfered by the Spaniards...

This time, because more than half of France's military force was mobilized, Louis XII also went into battle in person, preparing to conquer himself. In any case, Louis XII did not think that his 60,000 army would fail this time.

Moreover, before leaving Paris, John Lafite offered another trick to Louis XII according to Marin's instructions - bluffing...

Because Louis XII took away most of France's elite, Paris, France at this time was actually very empty. If England takes the opportunity to invade, it will definitely cause great harm to France. Even if Paris cannot be conquered, it can still harm the vast area of ​​northern France.

Therefore, John Lafite suggested to Louis XII to recruit 20,000 civilian husbands and leave some loyal noble generals. These 20,000 civilians were simply trained, put on a show, stationed outside Paris, locked in a military camp, and deterred the enemy.

The Habsburg families in England and the Netherlands saw the "20,000 troops" stationed outside Paris, so naturally they did not dare to invade easily...

After hearing this, Louis XII was overjoyed, adopted John Lafite's suggestion, and asked his confidant Earl Duert to stay in Paris, responsible for leading the 20,000 pretending civilians, plus 4,000 real defenders, to control the city of Paris. In this way, Louis XII can safely lead an army of 60,000 to go south to Italy.

This time, Louis XII fully learned the lessons of the previous two marches into Italy. He ordered that the soldiers were not allowed to find female daughters when they went to Italy, lest the whole army be infected with syphilis like in the expedition of Charles VIII. Had it not been for syphilis, Charles VIII would have taken control of the Kingdom of Naples that time.

As for the second southern expedition, the French army lost to Gonzalo de Cordoba's musket phalanx. And this time, Louis XII also made full preparations - he brought enough cannon fodder infantry to attract the enemy's firepower. As for the most precious French knight, he intends to use it at critical moments. If it is in the wild, it is used to charge from the side without a musketeer, avoiding the deadly enemy of the plate armor knight-the musket...

Surrounded by 20,000 French knights, Louis XII came to Lyon, the largest city in the southeast, and waited for other soldiers and horses to join them. Once the soldiers and horses from all walks of life are assembled, the army will march eastward, preparing to cross the Alps and enter Italy...

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