"This should be the baggage abandoned by the enemy." More than ten kilometers east of Behenopzom City, Lieutenant Wu Yiqun climbed up a high ground, pointed to the messy things on the ground, and said with a guess.

It was full of various military supplies, including camping equipment, combat ammunition, and even muskets and artillery, demonstrating the panic and chaotic situation of the enemy when retreating. These supplies were also soaked in muddy water at this time. Although the terrain here is high, the water situation has not decreased in the past two days, and it still has not been effectively controlled. It may be that the upstream area failed to block the seawall gap and close the sea gate in time, so even the materials on the high ground could not escape the bad luck.

A soldier waded into the muddy water on the ground, walked to a pile of wooden barrels with one foot deep and one foot shallow, pried open a wooden barrel with a crowbar, and then turned his head to report: "Sir, you are all gunpowder, but you have been soaked in sea water, so you may not be able to use it."

Then, he opened some wooden barrels. Except for a few dozen pickled herrings filled with foul smell, most of them were gunpowder and flour. They were soaked in sea water without exception and could no longer be used. In addition, a few wooden boxes with water exposed on the top were also opened, and there were mostly iron projectiles inside, and there were sometimes some cannon sighting and weighing equipment. This should be the baggage abandoned by the enemy's artillery troops.

The "crash" sound attracted everyone's attention. Yang Liang looked at him and saw dozens of Swiss mercenaries who had just come down from the boat picked up some armor from somewhere, and then gestured on himself with joy. The armor was obviously simple breastplate, which seemed to be the equipment of the French cavalry. I don't know why they all fell into the water. In fact, I realized that when there was a flood between the sky and the earth and the ground was almost impossible to walk, only fools retreated back in armor and picked up their Swiss mercenaries. Because this armor was of great value to them, and it was a wealth for them to use it for themselves or trade it out in the future.

"It's really like a mountain of defeat..." Yang Liang gently stroked a bronze cannon stuck in a mud pond with his right hand, looking at the corpses of more than ten suspected Philistines who were floating on the water not far away, and said with a complicated look: "It's a pity that they were not defeated by us, nor by the Dutch, but by the 'General Flood'. When he really thinks about it, only the invincible 'General Flood' can defeat the French so miserably and so thoroughly."

"Search it carefully. There is a village in front of me, but it has not been flooded much. I suspect there are French people there, so go and take a look." Major Yang Liang jumped up from the muddy water, climbed onto a small boat made of pine wood, and ordered.

Soon a company commander came to his order. He brought about two platoons of musketeers, and the boaters were all skilled Dutch people, so he quickly approached there. There were some cattle and horse corpses floating on the water at the entrance of the village, but this did not constitute any obstacle at all. They carefully avoided these obstacles and began searching one by one.

In fact, what Yang Liang had guessed before was correct. Some of the houses did have some French soldiers who had not yet withdrawn. Some of them were wounded and some stayed to take care of them. After being surrounded by the flood, they had to stay there because of inconvenience in walking and made a living by inspecting the food left by the Dutch residents in the village. It was also very difficult.

After seeing the officers and soldiers of the East Coast approaching, these people wisely did not resist and all surrendered. They kept asking the East Coast if there was food and clean drinking water. It seemed that they had reached the end of their lives.

Major Yang Liang frowned and gave these people some rye bread and fresh water, then reorganized them all, sent a Swiss mercenary to guard the temple, and asked them to hand them over to the city of Behenopzom as the only nearby city of upscale that was not occupied by the French. This time, their militia were also ordered to dispatch, but they were mostly responsible for the task of saving disaster victims and collecting materials, and they would not go to the front line to fight.

After searching the village, Yang Liang ordered the troops to continue moving forward. A total of more than 3,000 people, they took more than 100 boats or rafts, walked on the water that was originally farmland and grassland, and advanced eastward at a slow speed.

Along the way, they also encountered some towns under the control of the French. For large cities with complete defense facilities, they did not immediately capture them, but instead sent people to monitor them, while focusing on the large number of small villages and towns that were easy to capture, and achieved good results.

As of July 3, they had recovered more than 20 Dutch villages and towns (but did not send people to stay, but instructed the local Dutch residents to govern themselves), fought fourteen different battles, killing and wounding more than 2,000 French troops, and their own casualties were only two or three hundred. Most of them were casualties caused by close accidents when searching for villages and towns, and the results were extremely brilliant.

Frank Banning was extremely shocked by the sweeping force of the East Coast army, and at the same time, he deeply felt the extent to which this overwhelming flood changed the situation of the war due to Louis XIV's brainless order, and the small French troops scattered in various Dutch towns were completely divided and isolated by the flood, without supplies, and had no communication. They were all enemies. It was nothing strange that they were beaten into the water by the Dutch who had been prepared.

For example, at this moment, one near-shore ship after another began to sail from the dock outside Behenopzom, sending a large amount of food, drugs, military funds and money to the shore, supporting all the Dutch troops who were planning to rise up to resist the French rule. Major Yang Liang's troops at this moment (the third mixed battalion + part of the Zhongguo * Army + Swiss mercenaries) was the only united and combat-effective force in the nearby area. Therefore, he received assistance from the materials supported by Zelan Province, which was restored to combat effectiveness as soon as possible. He took advantage of the French that the French did not react and quickly marched eastward to attack the French troops scattered around the country, and accumulated small victories to great victory, which made a great victory.

This is no joke! It has been several months since the war broke out. Look at the Dutch army and mercenaries in various provinces. Who can kill, wound and capture more than 2,000 French soldiers in a few days? After all, the French army in this era is still very effective, well-equipped, high morale and rich experience. Since the Battle of Rocluir became famous, there have been major wars almost every year (such as assisting the Austrians to fight the Ottomans, assisting the Venetians to fight the Ottomans, the Heritage War, the Second Anglo-Dutch War, interfering in the British Civil War, etc., too many), and can be said to be a proud force.

Therefore, if you want to defeat such an army head-on, you must have a place that is obviously beyond the other side. There are no Dutch people. Although there are people on the east coast, they are too few, so they cannot achieve significant results against the French. Therefore, only in the huge chaos caused by this flood and beasts, Yang Liang and others can rely on the initiative to seize the initiative and fight the fewer one step faster, divide and defeat the French troops trapped in various places, and achieve the results of annihilation of 2,000 enemies. This result is already enough to be presented to the desk of Prince Orange, the commander-in-chief of the United Provinces of Amsterdam.

On July 4, the troops led by Yang Liang and others caught up with a French cavalry unit that was struggling in the mud and water. The number of people in this unit was about a thousand people. They also found the people on the east coast who were chasing by boat and raft, and they were suddenly panicked. They were originally elite riders galloping on the endless fields, but they were trekking hard in the waist-deep flood. The horses that were originally available for wading had already died at this time, and thousands of people became complete infantry, with only a small number of muskets (gunpowder and bullets were also scarce), and most of them had only sabers or spears, which were very sad.

In this state, it is naturally impossible to compete with the East Coast army. Therefore, after a prominent infantry company fired several volleys from a distance with a rifle, these French cavalry suddenly collapsed. Some people fought their lives and rushed to the high place next to the road with their hands and feet, hoping to rely on the houses and trees to resist, while others stayed in despair, waiting for an unknown fate. They really couldn't run anymore, they were cold and hungry, and were extremely exhausted. As long as the East Coast people promised not to harm their lives, they actually didn't mind surrendering.

Therefore, after a not-so-hard battle, the thousand cavalry, which were originally very difficult on the plain, disappeared into the battle sequence of the French team. Except for more than 200 people who escaped in the chaos, most of them handed over their weapons and surrendered, becoming prisoners.

At noon on July 5, after handing over the French cavalry captives to a group of Swiss mercenaries to bring them back to the rear, Yang Liang continued to lead his troops forward and rushed to the direction of Breda Fortress. At this time, perhaps the sea gate had been closed, perhaps the earth had absorbed sea water, or perhaps the sun had evaporated or drained smoothly, the flood level had receded a lot, causing a large number of small boats in the army to strand, and only the raft could barely float on the water surface, which greatly reduced the mobility of Yang Liang and others.

Moreover, this place is not far from the Breda Fortress where the French army is heavily stationed. Since the flood broke out, the French troops, which were dispersed, have also described it as slowly fleeing back to gather. Although many people abandoned their weapons, even took off their military uniforms, and disguised themselves as Dutch people to flee to the Breda Fortress, they eventually went back. Viscount Tirena picked up thousands of dull and embarrassed soldiers like he picked up rags. There were also a large number of well-stocked military funds in the fortress. If they were to rectify it, they could defend against the attack from the Dutch army.

Yang Liang knew in his heart that if the counterattack was not reached, if there were no strong reinforcements, it would have basically reached its limit. Because several days have passed, the flood level has gradually decreased, and the French have slowly recovered from the chaos and continued to fight. Although the French are still at a disadvantage (because the territory they occupied is in the floodplain), it is probably difficult to meet the situation of a thousand miles of collapse before. Maybe Yang Liang would suffer a small loss in less than 3,000 people on hand, so let's slow down for the time being and see what the rear says. If no new reinforcements arrive, then forget it, don't continue to tease the French.

As for defeating the French army and regaining lost territory, please, we are just mercenaries to help, can we fight the cruel French for some money? Besides, the key point is that the current large-scale counterattack of tens of thousands of people launched by Prince Orange from the middle is the key point. They are well equipped, have a large number of people, have sufficient supplies, and are highly motivated. Although their combat skills may not be very high, with careful preparation, they should be able to use the flood to counterattack the French army and recover many lost territory. This is the key point. Our side division is just a scheming. This time, we took advantage of the situation to counterattack and attack more than 20 kilometers, killing and wounding more than 3,000 French troops. It is already worth the salary. What else do you want? Help you siege the city in blood and take down the Breda Fortress? That is impossible!

Based on this consideration, in the next few days, Yang Liang, in addition to sending a few elite troops forward, used Minnie guns with a long range to attack small French troops. In such a floodplain where both sides were more difficult to move, Minnie rifles with long range and high accuracy took advantage of the shooting, and often made small French troops run away with their heads in their arms. The main task of helping a group of nearby Dutch residents evacuate the floodplain and flee to the west to receive food and water, which gave him and his troops a certain reputation.

After doing this, on July 7, he even began to consider whether to retreat for a distance, because their supplies were starting to be difficult to deliver. This was mainly because most of the flood had basically receded, leaving only some yellow mud soup that was beyond the ankle and knees on the ground. This was impossible to sail or take a car, which was really worrying. Therefore, it was more reliable to retreat for a record to get supplies nearby. Yang Liang felt a toothache. This flood like mud can block people's ears and noses. In such yellow mud soup, not to mention cavalry and carriages, even people might fall to the ground while walking. This battle was even a fart!
Chapter completed!