The Rise of the European Emperor

1515 is an unusual year. In the original history, Louis XII died this year. At the same time, the French and the Swiss turned their faces and hired German mercenaries. Together with the Italians, they defeated the mighty Swiss spearmen. The Swiss League was forced to declare permanent neutrality.

The Battle of Marignano, which changed history, announced the decline of the Swiss spear formation and also symbolized the rise of French artillery. The Swiss lost 11,000 people in World War I, and since then withdrew from the mainstream European battlefield stage and became a supporting role.

Of course, in that war, the French were not facing the main force of the entire Swiss army, but only the eastern Swiss coalition forces. The western Swiss states headed by the canton of Bern were bought by France with 700,000 gold coins because of their closeness to France. A total of 12,000 Swiss mercenaries withdrew from the battlefield, leaving only 20,000 eastern Swiss mercenaries to confront the French army and were defeated in World War I. Lost the great reputation of Swiss mercenaries.

However, because of Marin's crossing, this war is destined to be impossible. Because France and Switzerland have not turned their faces. Under Marin's intervention, the weak Habsburg family actually occupied half of Switzerland. In this way, the Swiss cannot be as arrogant as they were in the original history, and they dare not turn their faces against France. Even, had to rely on the power of France to seek to expel the Habsburg family's troops in Switzerland.

Since 10,000 Swiss mercenaries returned to the Swiss battlefield, the balance of strength in the Swiss battlefield has changed. Although the Habsburg family has more troops, field battles are really not Switzerland's opponents. Even a famous general like Frundsberg cannot compete with the Swiss Resistance Army because the combat effectiveness of his soldiers is too weak.

The 15,000 horses in the headquarters trained by Frundsberg himself all adopted the North Sea training method, and their combat effectiveness was naturally not inferior to that of Swiss mercenaries. However, the other half of the soldiers and horses are ordinary German mercenaries recruited and hired. Their combat effectiveness and fighting will are not very strong, and it is difficult to compete with the Swiss. Therefore, despite having more soldiers and horses, the Habsburg family army had to fall into a disadvantage and was forced to take a defensive position.

Fortunately, Marin took care of the Habsburg family and provided a large amount of cement. Dozens of cement fortresses were built on various arteries in the Swiss mountains, which were easy to defend and difficult to attack. In addition, the defenders were also equipped with a lot of matchlock guns, which greatly increased the defensive capabilities of the fortress.

At this time, the weakness of the Swiss was exposed-Swiss mercenaries mainly use spears, which are powerful in fighting in the wild, but their ability to attack fortifications is very poor.

Marin helped the Habsburg family build dozens of cement fortresses, guarding the east-west arteries in the Swiss mountains, which are easy to defend and difficult to attack. Therefore, even if the Swiss Resistance Army commander Zieger is very capable, there is nothing he can do about it. There is no way, who said that Switzerland is full of mountains? Just find a few key passes in the valley and build a concrete fortress that is larger than the devil's gun tower, which can withstand thousands of troops and make the ferocious Swiss spearmen helpless.

In fact, the previous "Battle of Lübeck" where the Swiss mercenaries suffered a disastrous defeat has already exposed the weakness of the Swiss mercenaries-fear of firearms.

But the Swiss still didn't pay attention. Moreover, in that battle, Marin used too many means to make the Swiss mercenaries lose in a daze. Instead, they didn't pay attention to the restraint of firearms on Swiss spearmen.

After all, the Swiss mercenaries are just a group of mountain people, who can't read a few big characters, and don't know what "arms restraint" is at all. Just like the Swiss spearmen, relying on the advantage of the spearmen to restrain the plate knights, they defeated and killed the Duke of Burgundy "Charlie the Bold", who had the plate knights as the main force, and became famous in Europe.

Since then, the Swiss have become extremely confident that their spearmen can solve all opponents. Little did they know that muskets and artillery were the natural enemies of the Swiss spearmen...

Historically, Swiss mercenaries have encountered two major setbacks - one is the Battle of Marignano that originally took place in 1515. In that battle, the French artillery used a cluster of 70 artillery pieces to defeat the Swiss spear charge .

And another event that made the Swiss completely withdraw from the stage of history was that Frunzberg, who was originally known as the "father of German mercenaries" in history, led German mercenaries to use dense matchlock guns in the Battle of Bicocca, Repelled the charge of the Swiss spearmen and won the final victory. Subsequently, in the Battle of Pavia in 1525, a large number of German mercenaries who used muskets directly defeated the French and Swiss mercenaries. ), and even captured King François I of France.

After the Battle of Pavia, the Swiss mercenaries completely withdrew from the mercenary arena. Because, German mercenaries replaced them. The German mercenaries showed stronger combat effectiveness, and the commission was cheaper (in fact, the Swiss commission was too high), so they naturally replaced the status of the Swiss mercenaries and robbed their business...

...

But now, in another time and space, the Swiss mercenaries have not yet withdrawn from the stage of history. Because they have not yet suffered a devastating blow. Even though the Swiss were defeated in the Battle of Lübeck, Marin did not kill a few Swiss mercenaries. Therefore, the roots of the Swiss are still there. In addition, Marin is good at intrigue and intrigue, which has led the Swiss to always think that they lost to intrigue and intrigue, rather than lagging behind in tactics and tactics.

For example, now, with more than 20,000 Swiss spearmen, Zieg is thinking all day about how to attack the more than 30,000 Habsburg family troops guarding the fortress...

Strange isn't it? The 27,000 Swiss spearmen actually thought about how to break through the fortress guarded by the 35,000 Habsburg family army. Obviously, the Swiss's self-confidence is not so strong.

But no matter how fierce they are in the wild, the Swiss are helpless in the face of the concrete fortress. Then they thought of French artillery...

Originally, King Louis XII of France planned to send out a large army to help Switzerland defeat and expel the Habsburg family's army in Switzerland after the autumn harvest.

Unfortunately, due to the autumn harvest rains in eastern and northeastern France, there is a lack of military rations. As a result, the plan of the French to help the Swiss attack the Habsburg family army was stranded. Louis XII had no choice but to say - let's talk about it next year.

Moreover, Louis XII also discovered that it seemed that the German mercenary general Gudendorf who was forced to accept his employment did not listen to his command very much. For example, Louis XII asked Guttendorf to lead an army to attack the Mistel Valley, and took advantage of the situation to attack the Graubünden region of Switzerland, attacking Frundsberg's army from behind...

As a result, Gudendorff's army did not work hard and seemed to be attacking, but only a few hundred soldiers were lost after the attack for several months (actually, the hundreds of people lost were deliberately hidden by Gudendorff). It's obviously acting like...

Not only Louis XII saw this, but also Chigurh. This also made Chieg realize that this year the French are hopeless and must rely on themselves.

And the Swiss are unwilling to wait until the end of the year. Who knows what will happen at the end of the year? After all, the French army and the Spanish army are facing each other in Naples, and they may not be free to support Switzerland.

Therefore, Chieg finally made a decision-to borrow artillery from the French, in order to use artillery to bombard the fortresses on the dozens of important roads, and clear the obstacles for the Swiss army to march eastward.

Chigurh has fought many battles with the French and knows the power of artillery. If more artillery were mobilized, they should be able to break through the small fortresses on the mountain roads. At that time, the road to the east will be opened, and Zieg will be able to lead his soldiers and horses around behind the enemy and cut off their supply lines.

As for the enemy going out of the city to obstruct it? When were Swiss mercenaries afraid of field battles?