On May 25, 1673, the sky was once again covered with clouds, indicating that a heavy rain was coming. The fastest update Yang Liang hated this kind of weather the most because the road was muddy and was not conducive to the army's walking. You should know that there are very few hardened national defense roads on the east coast that connect important nodes, the so-called first-class national highway.

But no matter how difficult it is, it has to go, because the situation does not wait for anyone! According to the latest news, more than 50,000 French troops led by Viscount Tirener have stabilized the situation in the Nijmegen area, and then divided a side division to advance westward and headed straight to the Breda Fortress. It seems that they are planning to eat the large area of ​​Limburg-Brabant commons in one bite; and more than 50,000 French troops led by the famous Prince Conde, after occupying Arnhem, Amersford, Narden and other places, the troops pointed directly at the fortress of Arnhem, Amersford, Narden and other places.

Utrecht, the most important city in the southern part of the United Province; the last way was led by Louis XIV's childhood friend, François de Boutville, Duke of Luxembourg, and composed of the army of Archbishop Münster and the Elector of Cologne. It was a scale of tens of thousands. Starting from the German region, it deviated from the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, and Upper Essel in the northern part of the United Province; as for King Louis XIV, he led 25,000 of the most elite troops to take charge of the overall situation.

The French army's strategic deployment was divided into three groups and conquered cities and land everywhere. It seemed that an old cat was not in a hurry to kill mice. It was undoubtedly a very despised by the Dutch. For this reason, it was not that no one had raised any objections. For example, Prince Conde and Viscount Tirener, who had been in the battlefield, hoped to retain only one or two fortresses at key nodes for the retreat of the army, and destroyed all the others to save the guards' forces, advance quickly, conquered the Hague and Amsterdam, and achieve the final victory of the war.

At this time, Louis XIV's confidant, Delois, the Minister of Defense, appeared. Seeing that the French army was in a state of power, he had regarded the occupied area as France's territory. He hoped to control more official positions and made suggestions to King Louis XIV, requesting to deploy a large number of garrison troops in the cities that had been captured and to build defensive fortifications.

To be honest, this suggestion is actually quite suitable for Louis XIV's appetite, so this conceited king affirmed Delois's opinion and formally ordered Marshal Vaubon (whose lord is very good at creating) to realize this intention. In this way, the French army of Viscount Tirena and Prince Conde were forced to disperse a considerable proportion of them to divide the Dutch towns that occupied the land, which seriously weakened the French army on the front line, and the offensive slowed down suddenly. It seemed that they were not in a hurry to march into the Dutch capital The Hague and the largest city of Amsterdam.

The Limburg-Brabant area where Major Yang Liang and others are located is now facing the army under Viscount Tirena. On May 23, a panicked Dutch messenger brought "bad news" from the east. A French team of more than 15,000 people set out from Nijmegen and headed westward towards the Breda Fortress, the core town of the commons. It seemed that they were preparing to take over the western half of the Dutch Brabant.

This partial division dispatched large groups or small groups of troops along the way to occupy all Dutch towns within its scope of vision, so when they arrived at the city of Breda Fortress, there were only less than 10,000 people, but it still made the Dutch tremble and could not raise the will to resist. The above news was told by Frank Banning, the highest commander of the militia group in Behenopzom, told Yang Liang. Then they generously raised 40,000 gusts of excavation to Yang Liang's troops, and asked them to lead their troops eastward immediately to support Breda Fortress.

Yang Liang was speechless about this. He was very clear about the solidity of the fortress of Breda. This large-scale and stone-like fortress is synonymous with impeccable appearances throughout Europe. As a result, the Dutch were so embarrassed that they had to send out a message to all places to lead their troops to the fortress to "respond to the king". What the hell is this? Are the seven or eight thousand people in Breda Fortress all pig heads?

However, "it's hard to violate the fate", who made Yang Liang and others hired by the Dutch now, so everything has to be obedient. Furthermore, Frank Banning, the highest military commander of Behenopzom, also brought five hundred militias to advance east with Yang Liang and others to rescue the Breda Fortress. So what else can everyone say? Take action!

The army was dispatched at noon on the 25th. Due to the rain and unacceptable weather, Yang Liang's troops had already fallen ill before departure, so there were only about 2,000 people who were able to enter and go east. With them, there were more than 900 Swiss mercenaries. The mountain people wearing leather armor, carrying coercines and spears were tragic, and they looked very dissatisfied with the end of this eastward battle, which aggravated the dark clouds in everyone's hearts, which made Yang Liang cursed in his heart, which was a shaking morale!

Frank Benning also had a look of his father-in-law dead, but who made the military information from Breda Fortress very urgent? Therefore, he could only select five hundred relatively reliable militiamen from Behenopzom, and traveled east with two mercenaries to rescue Breda Fortress.

They did not walk fast along the way, perhaps because the road was muddy and difficult to walk. However, Yang Liang also maliciously speculated that the reason why they walked on this road that was only two days away was like climbing, and they could sit and watch the fall of Breda Fortress, and then they could immediately turn to the factors that flee back to the guards of Behenopzom. After all, small-scale civilian groups such as Dutch militia are the least morally unconventional. In their eyes, national safety and national justice are not very important. They only care about whether their wealth and interests can be preserved and whether their religious beliefs can be maintained. Other than that, nothing else, otherwise why do you think there will be so many Dutch towns along the way that they will fall?

Speaking of this, we have to mention the policy that Louis XIV insisted in this war, that is, before and after the expedition, Louis XIV repeatedly emphasized that the military disciplines of each unit must be strictly restricted, and the soldiers must not be killed or robbed the residents of Dutch towns along the way, so that the soldiers must not discredit his "noble kingly demeanor." For this reason, he sent officials to some small villages that suffered losses due to the passing of the French team, and even sent officials to pay compensation to the villagers; in addition, every local noble who complained to him that he was affected by the military operations of the French team received gifts from Louis XIV. For example, after a lord of the Netherlands sent someone to explain to Louis XIV the damage caused to his manor by the French team, he immediately gave him a portrait of himself inlaid with jewelry worth more than 12,000 Liver.

Objectively speaking, both the nobles and ordinary people of the Netherlands enjoyed great benefits because of Louis XIV's "noble behavior", which made them very admire them because the French army did show a good military discipline this time that was different from the army of other countries. This made more people begin to fear the power of the French king, and also slowly weakened the local resistance in the Netherlands.

How much of this weakening has reached? We may take a look at it from several interesting examples. For example, after Nalden, who was close to Amsterdam, was captured by a small group of French vanguard cavalry, four French cavalry went out to pick fruits and vegetables. When they walked outside another small city, the officials of the city were panicked and even gave the keys to the four cavalrymen, which was speechless! You know, this small city may flood the seawall gates across the country. Later, local officials found that the French army did not arrive, so they asked the keys back from the four cavalrymen and closed the city gate. There was no one else.

For example, when Prince Conde and Viscount Tirena attacked Dutch towns in the Rhine area, many riverside fortresses surrendered without a single shot, including famous military fortresses that were funded by the Netherlands and Zelan and spent more than fifty years to repair continuously. However, these strong castles, together with the food, weapons, and war horses inside, became the trophy of the French. How serious was this surrender trend? For example, many local officials in the Netherlands saw one or two French cavalry companies passing by from afar and handed over the keys to the city gate; the French team had not arrived yet

Many officers left the city and fled. In this matter, the "benevolence and righteousness" of the French king can be worth thousands of troops. Otherwise, the fortress fortresses built in southern Netherlands to guard against the Spaniards was not conquered by the French without bloodshed. It is no wonder that the Netherlands and Zeeland provinces doubted whether the three provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland and Ethel had any ulterior py deals with the French. The French team opened the door to welcome thieves and led wolves into the house. Anyway, they were not the ones who suffered the damage. Let the French team harm the Netherlands. Isn't it good to let the French team harm the Netherlands?

Yang Liang and others passed several Dutch towns along the way and found that the local residents were only panic, but they did not have much of their strong determination to drive the French invaders out of the country. This is very interesting. If you look at the mental state of the five hundred listless Behenopzom militia beside you, you will understand that they only care about their families and property in the small town and are indifferent to the future of the Republic, which makes Yang Liang and others feel chilled. People without patriotism are terrible!

On the morning of May 27, when the army with a population of about 3,500 finally "difficult" to a Dutch town less than 15 kilometers from the Breda Fortress, news of the fall of the Breda Fortress came, which made everyone feel a little confused: the fortress that the country has invested a huge amount of money to resist for two or three days. Is this a dream?

After this, everyone had no choice, so they turned their attention to Frank Benning, the highest commander of the trip. As a result, this man also "remained the expectations" and immediately ordered the entire army to turn back and return to Behenopzom to defend as fast as possible. After all, the order I received was to reinforce the Breda Fortress, but who made the fortress fall before they arrived? Therefore, it was normal for them to return to the starting point and do their original defense mission, and who could not criticize them too much.

The retreat speed of 3,500 people was extremely fast, which surprised Yang Liang because he saw the originally listless and low-spirited militia suddenly became energetic and began to carry out the retreat mission with full enthusiasm. This made him once again realize the so-called "responsibility" of the petty citizens. They were not even reliable on the battlefield for the honest peasant children!

The retreat process was not smooth, because they carried a large amount of baggage, artillery and other debris, so the speed of action was really not very fast. Although the main force of the French army is still trying to control the situation of the Breda Fortress that he had just obtained, and it is impossible to send many troops to the surrounding towns to quickly receive the towns, the westward advance of a few vanguard cavalry is also inevitable, which undoubtedly caused a lot of trouble to Yang Liang and the others.

At noon on May 28, hundreds of French cavalry galloped from the east along the traffic road, and it seemed that they were divided into one of the troops from various towns. They were also surprised when they saw this retreating force, but they did not have much fear. Because they had achieved too many victories along the way, captured too many towns, and defeated too many enemy troops, including Dutch regular troops, militias, German mercenaries, Swiss mercenaries, South Netherlands mercenaries, etc., but no one has ever caused them too much trouble.

Therefore, under the command of the officers, this French cavalry, which was about 300 people, first sent representatives to demand the troops surrender. However, without Yang Liang's words, Frank Banning refused directly. What a joke, if you want to surrender, you have to wait until I return to Behenopzom. If you agree on the conditions, you can surrender. How can you play this now?

After seeing the "Dutch people" refuse to surrender, the French were first stunned, then furious, and then they were knocked out of their heads by anger and rushed towards them directly under the leadership of the officer. At this time, the Swiss mercenaries, who had been unsatisfied with their uncles for the past few days, played a role. Under the command of the officers, they quickly raised their spears and barely resisted the angry French cavalry. Then, Major Yang Liang seized the opportunity and transferred two companies in the infantry battalion of the Zhongguo Army. He went forward and shot a volley of guns, directly knocking down dozens of French cavalry.

The mezzanines among the Swiss mountain people were not idle at this time. Under the urging and cursing of the officers, they quickly loaded the muskets, and then fired freely under the cover of the spear jungle. They also killed and injured some French cavalry and completely dismantled their offensive.
Chapter completed!