To illustrate: During the Peninsula War, the Celtics secretly sent people to lobby many French marshals and generals who fought in Spain, including Sirte, Xuche, Victor and others, and seemed to have poor results.

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It has to be said that the suggestion of "Captain Gibson" did indeed touch on Bellsford's heart. Before the war, the commander of the Eastern Defense Line of the coalition did not want the Spanish army to compete with the elite Desay Division, but only asked the well-trained Spanish infantry to come to Portugal to cooperate with the coalition forces to fight together, so that the powerful cavalry could raid the rear of the French.

But as a result, the three-man group who was afraid of the war and Galicia, who was reckless, messed up all his pre-arrangements. Perhaps Galicia himself had thousands of reasons and was helpless to avenge his relatives, but this was a war between countries. He could not be entangled in personal grudges, and he could take the lives of 10,000 soldiers in the army to take risks.

On the Iberis Peninsula, villages and towns are looted by the army at every moment, and the people are slaughtered by soldiers. The murderers are either French or British. Even the Portuguese and the Spaniards are doing bad things to their own people openly and secretly.

The destruction of the "Northern Corps" was not only frustrated by the Spanish's own confidence in resisting France, but also seriously affected the morale of the British and Portuguese coalition forces. After winning this battle, the Desai divisions had no worries at least in the short term. They could go deep into Portuguese territory, attack Evora arbitrarily, or go around the city, cooperate with Marshal Massena's Portuguese army to raid behind the Torres-Verdas defense line, and even siege Lisbon.

Bellsford was not worried about the first choice. He knew clearly that the actual combat effectiveness of the more than 30,000 Eastern coalition forces (5,000 British troops, 10,000 Portuguese guerrillas, and 20,000 Portuguese guerrillas) was far less than that of the 20,000 French troops under Desai, but it was more than enough to defend with a strong fortress. Unless Desai really brought 560,000 troops.

However, two things that Bellsford did not want the least: one is that the 20,000 troops of the Desai Division gave up besieging the Evora Fortress, and redirected to the Torres-Verdas defense line, cut off the contact between the British front and the rear, cooperated with the Portuguese army to attack inside and outside, and destroyed the "Willington Line"; even if this is not the case, if Desai directly leads troops to Lisbon and then sieges the city, it will completely disrupt General Wellington's strategic deployment and put its own side in a complete passive manner.

In order to cooperate with the Northern Front operations of the main force of the coalition forces, Bellsford must leave the Desay Division under the city of Evora. Regarding the optimistic fantasy of the coalition command that had exceeded reality, the coalition command had severely damaged and encircled this elite French division. Bellsford had put it behind his head. The top priority is how to prevent 20,000 French troops from passing through the Evora defense line, or delay the opponent's marching pace until the battle on the Northern Front takes a major turn and can send more reinforcements to the Eastern Front.

At this time, General Bellsford finally accepted the suggestion of "Captain Gibson" in the letter. He decided to let his deputy, Portuguese General Paul Coelo, lead 3,000 Portuguese regular troops and 17,000 guerrillas, from the western Portuguese border to the Evora area, blocking the Desay Division layer by layer, demanding to do everything possible to delay the French marching until the end of July.

General Paul Coelho, who was in the face of the situation, said: "Your army must act in groups as a scattered way, and use the mountains, dense forests and rivers to block the French army layer by layer. It is mainly to destroy the enemy's traffic lines and floating bridges. Then, it is also an important goal. Remember, General, I don't care about the number of enemies annihilated by your army...

During the execution of the mission, all commanders of the troops are not allowed to fight in love or attack without authorization. Regardless of the outcome of the battle, the time for the exchange of fire between the two sides is strictly controlled within 1 hour; they are not allowed to fight positions with the enemy, and try their best to avoid encounters. If a unit is entangled or besieged by the superior French army, other friendly forces are not allowed to rush to reinforce, and the commanders of the unit must decisively disperse the breakthrough...

In short, you must adopt all the tactics that the guerrillas are good at, delay the time the Desai division arrives at the city of Evora, and consume the fighting spirit and confidence of the French. In addition, you must also preserve your own strength with kindness and not engage in meaningless battles."

After sending away General Paul Coello's blocking troops, Bellsford seemed to be uneasy. He released 3,000 Portuguese regular troops and 3,000 guerrillas from the Evora barracks, allowing them to scatter within 20 kilometers of the Evora Fortress, and inspected day and night, strictly preventing French intelligence spies or small groups of French troops from attacking.

Like other British commanders, General Bellsford did not allow 5,000 direct British troops to participate in the most dangerous blocking battles, or to take on the most difficult patrol tasks. Tens of thousands of Portuguese officers and soldiers in the coalition seemed to have no objection. After all, the Portuguese were defending their own territory, and all the hardest-working British troops obeyed all the dispatches of General Bellsford.

However, those British officers who were leisurely and slack in the city of Evora began to complain privately again, saying that General Bellsford was too partial to give his compatriots a chance to make meritorious service.

...

The victory of the Desai Division encircled and annihilated more than 10,000 Spanish troops was reported to the Portuguese Legion for the longest time. When both Evora and Cadiz received the news, on July 24, Massena and others saw the battle report sent by Duke Khruna in the command post of the army. At this time, the main force of the Portuguese Legion had just arrived at the Almeda Fortress and surrounded him.

It’s not that Desai was not concerned about the marshals and generals of the Portuguese Legion (of course this component is not ruled out), but that the division commander was too polite to his subordinates and was unwilling to risk his life to pass through the actual control area of ​​the Spanish guerrillas alone.

On the Iberis Peninsula, except for the jurisdiction of the Duke of Hruna, the Catalonia-Aragorn region with good security has a complete arm-plate signaling system. As for other places, most of the mountainous countryside are controlled by Spanish guerrillas. Even if the French army installed signal base stations in the wilderness, it would not last long. Perhaps in less than a night, they would be completely destroyed by the Spanish.

Therefore, during the Peninsula War, all the French troops conveyed intelligence were full-time messengers, and these messengers became the most dangerous troops among the French army. Full-time messengers traveling between the French army were easily ambushed and captured by guerrillas. Usually after seizing the intelligence they carried, the Spanish would put the French messengers to death in an extremely cruel way.

Therefore, it was not until a French army (Sirte unit) who was ordered to go north to reinforce the Portuguese army that Desai ordered the messenger to go with the reinforcements to the Almeda Fortress to deliver this late victory.

On the way to the command post of the Legion, Marshal Ney, who had just won the battle of the Coa River, felt very happy. At least he could show off his bravery to the "lustful old guy" later. Although Marshal Ney did not agree with the commander's strategic deployment, as the forefront of the Portuguese Legion, his Sixth Army successfully performed his duties and completely cleared the periphery of the Almeda Fortress.

In the area of ​​the Koa River, Marshal Ney personally led 6,000 troops (including 2,000 cavalry), braved the storm and launched a fierce offensive overnight, defeating more than 10,000 British and Portuguese coalition forces commanded by General Hill (historically, Belsford served as the commander of the army), causing the Almeda Fortress to be completely isolated and helpless. After the war, Marshal Ney claimed in his battle report that 530 casualties in the French army, but killed and injured 60 officers and 1,200 soldiers of the coalition, and seized a military flag (regiment level).

The Battle of the Coa River was the first battle in Portugal when the French invaded Portugal, and it was also the first battle between the French Portuguese Legion and the British-Portugal Allied Forces. Although the scale of the battle was not large, it was of great significance to both sides: the British-Portugal Allied Forces tested the strength of the French army for the first time, learned about the opponent's combat effectiveness and combat methods, and was convinced that it could not defeat the enemy head-on; while the French army completed the first step in seizing the Almeda Fortress - cleaning up the periphery.

However, Marshal Ney's good mood did not last long. When he arrived at the Legion Command, he entered the door and found that Marshal Massena, General Renier (Second Army), General Juno (Eighth Army) and others had all arrived, smoking cigarettes from Catalonia one by one, without saying a word. The atmosphere of the command post seemed quite dull and depressing.

Ney was a little nervous at the beginning, thinking that Marshal Massena was leading everyone to attack him. He deliberately tampered with the military newspaper about the battle of the Coa River. In fact, Ney's troops only killed and injured less than 600 coalition officers and soldiers, and the casualties of the enemy and us were almost the same. As for the so-called British flag seized, it was also a British flag that a British officer kept privately.

It was not until Marshal Massena's chief of staff sent a battle report to him to read that he realized that it was a trouble caused by the little bastard Desey. In the battle of Caishi Town, it was of course a good thing to encircle and annihilate 10,000 regular Spanish troops in one fell swoop. It was not only the glory of the Desey Division, but also the high morale of 70,000 Portuguese Legion officers and soldiers.

But the problem is that since the entire Portuguese army launched on May 31, in the past two months, it has successively captured the city of Rodrigo and cleared out a series of wars outside the fortress of Almeda (including the battle of the Coa River), but has eliminated more than 6,000 Spanish or coalition soldiers. This is still the absolute superior force of the army of 70,000 people, and the results of the battle include a lot of water.

At the same time, the Desai Division, which only one-third of the Portuguese Legion's strength, was able to encircle and annihilate more than 10,000 regular Spanish troops, including 3,000 cavalry, in just over 10 days, rather than the poorly equipped guerrillas, and their casualties were ignored.

With this friendly army's battle report, Ney also felt that his old face was dull and no longer considered fighting with the commander. He asked Massena directly: "Prince Eslin, is the battle report of Little Desai true? He actually encircled and annihilated more than 10,000 regular troops? How is this possible?"

Massena threw down the cigarette butt on his finger and nodded, saying, "At the headquarters of the Spanish rebels, the war situation notice issued by the Cedesan Parliament confirmed the authenticity of the results of the Desai Division in the Battle of Caishi Town. In addition to the real numbers of the Desai Division's troops, it is not the 560,000 people promoted by Cadiz, but only about 20,000."

He pointed to the battle report held in Ney's hand and reminded: "After this battle report, it was the messenger sent by Little Desai to report the battle of Caishi Town. After you read it, you will dispel all your doubts."

First, the massacre incident was used to provoke internal strife between the enemy through spies and lure the Spanish army into the ambush circle set in advance. With the three-dimensional defense with barbed wire, trenches and chest walls as the core, the French army repelled three crazy attacks from Spain in a row. After successfully cutting off the enemy's retreat on the side of the canyon, the last time the entire line counterattacked, and encircled and annihilated the one who did not let go.

Ney kept turning the pages. After reading it in a hurry, his first feeling was that Little Dercy was too bad and too insidious. One conspiracy after another appeared one after another, making people unable to defend themselves. Not to mention that the poor General Galicia would be deceived, even if he put himself in Caishi Town to command the Spanish army, he could not save the danger of the entire army's destruction.

Ney wiped away the sweat flowing from his forehead and found a seat at will. Like other generals, he took out the cigarette in his arms. He was so depressed that he started to suck his mouth. Ney also knew the true feelings of everyone. Including himself, everyone felt ashamed and angry after being slapped in the face nakedly by this battle report. In addition, the marshals and generals present had to hold back their laughter and exaggerate the glorious victory of the Desay Division to their respective subordinates, so as to encourage the morale of the army.

Fortunately, Ney, Massena and others had good private relationships. The so-called shame and anger were more self-disturbing about the failure of the Portuguese Legion to achieve abundant results.
Chapter completed!