Fox of France

Chapter 101 , Stealing heads and throwing blame

Augereau was the first to jump over the enemy's trenches and parapets on horseback, and chopped down a frightened rebel with a single knife. At this time, more cavalry also rushed in, and the enemy army was in a mess and fled everywhere.

Augereau knew that he must hurry up and attack continuously, and must not give the enemy any time to regroup. Napoleon's order to him at the time was: "Pay attention to the battlefield, and if you find any enemies who may reorganize, attack them immediately and disperse them before they reorganize!"

Augereau looked around on the horse, and through the gunpowder smoke, he saw in the distance a man in a general's uniform who was fleeing on horseback. Augereau urged his horse and chased after him, shouting: "The one with the tasseled hat in front is Dracotri!"

When the cavalrymen behind him heard this, they all rode their horses and chased after the man in the general's uniform. Regardless of the distance, he beat there with the carbine in his hand.

Dracotli heard the shouts behind him, "Dracotli is the one with the tasseled hat, don't let him get away" and "Life or death, don't let him go away". Turning his head and looking back, he saw a group of cavalry chasing him.

Dracotri knew that the red tassel on his hat stood out in the crowd. So he urged the horse to run wildly, and at the same time tore off his hat and threw it on the ground.

Augereau, who was chasing behind, saw it clearly. He wanted to shout: "The one without the hat is Dracotelli." But he immediately found that among the fleeing people in front, there were many who had lost their hats. There is really no distinction at all. Fortunately, Dracotri wore a red cloak in order to pretend to be graceful, so Augereau then shouted: "It is Dracotri in the red cloak!"

Dracotri heard this, and quickly threw away the cloak... In the next period of time, he threw away the wig one after another, threw away the saber, threw away... and the few remaining He finally got rid of Augereau's pursuit, but because Augereau has been biting him tightly on the back, he naturally has no chance to do anything to gather the army and regroup. So the rebels collapsed as a whole. All the people, from General Dracotelli to the groom, fled in all directions.

After many years, those armies armed with ideals and beliefs can have a very remarkable characteristic, that is, even if the team is completely dispersed, every soldier knows his goal and can continue to continue voluntarily and independently. fighting. If you are scattered by the enemy's steel torrent on the front line and fall behind the front line, you will automatically become a guerrilla and continue to fight. But in this era, there is no such army. As long as most armies lose their organizational system, they will immediately lose any willpower to fight actively. The shoulder pole can also capture the enemy of several acres of land in one go (after the Battle of Crossing the River, a small soldier from a children's regiment in the Eastern Daqiguo set such a record). At this time, the rebels fell into such a state.

For example, Augereau, after losing to General Dracotelli in a long-distance equestrian competition, (no way, one of the biggest hobbies of General Dracotelli of noble origin is hunting foxes on horseback. His The level of equestrian skills is better than most cavalry.) On the way back to the army alone, (his comrades were also left behind by him) alone encountered at least two hundred defeated troops, and then he relied on a A horsewhip, (weapons and other things were thrown away by Augereau in order to reduce the load when he was chasing General Dracotelli. Of course, before that, the target he was chasing had already thrown away these things) All these routs were captured.

It didn't take much effort for Augereau to bring back the two hundred or so captives. Generally speaking, it is much easier to drive a group of people than a group of sheep, let alone a group of pigs. If there were not more than two hundred people here, but more than two hundred pigs, even if Augereau had three heads and six arms, there was absolutely no way to escort them all back.

But Augereau pursued too far, and took so many captives back, and there was a little delay on the road, so it was already evening when he hurried back.

Seeing Augereau driving so many captives back alone, Napoleon was so shocked that his jaw almost hurt his instep. Then he immediately nicknamed Augereau "The Collie."

After defeating the rebels, Napoleon asked his troops to pursue them as far as possible. As a result, his own troops also dispersed, so Napoleon had to wait another day on the battlefield before gathering his troops again. Although those returning troops never brought back more than 200 captives alone like Augereau, they still brought back a total of almost 3,000 captives. Napoleon believed that there were still more scattered troops not far away. It's just that he no longer has the time to do this kind of thing of catching piglets all over the mountains and plains.

The news of victory will always wear quickly. I believe that at this time, the French troops in other nearby cities will soon know the news of victory. If their heads were a little smarter, they would definitely be able to judge that the rebels staying in Angers must have fled to the Vendée. And he only needs to be thicker and act faster, and he might be able to "liberate Angers" before Napoleon. Therefore, Napoleon felt that he could no longer waste his time catching piglets.

So he threw all the three thousand captives to Fouché, took the army around him, and rushed towards Angers.

Halfway on the way, Napoleon ran into Davout who had been sent out to carry out the harassment mission. At this time, Davout was walking back with the captured horses and a lot of Page, George, and Banner. Napoleon did not hesitate to hand over the large army to Davout to lead, but he himself rode on the horse and rushed to Angers with Davout's cavalry.

Napoleon traveled day and night, almost ran away his horses to death, and finally arrived in Angers. At this time, Angers was completely an empty city-there were no enemy troops or citizens in the city, only ruins and unburied corpses.

In the early morning of the second day after Napoleon "liberated" Angers, another group of French cavalry appeared in Napoleon's binoculars. Napoleon asked people to hoist the tricolor flag that had been prepared a long time ago on the top of the city hall, and then used the astronomical telescope on the window sill on the third floor of the city hall to triumphantly admire the expressions of those comrades who ran a step slower.

"Master, why do you twist your neck like this?" Orderman Eto'o asked.

"Ah, of course it's because of the inverted image of the damned telescope!" replied Napoleon, squinting one eye and twisting his neck.

Although the commander of the cavalry was indeed surprised and disappointed after seeing the tricolor flag, he still came to the city hall and congratulated Napoleon on his great victory in a very gracious manner.

At noon the day after the officer's departure, Davout arrived at Angers with the main force. He was accompanied by Joseph Fouche, the commissioner sent from Paris.

"Commissioner Fouche, I didn't expect you to come so fast." Napoleon looked at Fouche and thought to himself: "He has rushed over so quickly, and he has dealt with so many prisoners? Could he have taken all those prisoners? Did it click?"

Fouche seemed to see what Napoleon was thinking, and replied with a smile: "I think there must be a lot of things to deal with in the newly recovered city here, so I quickly dealt with the things over there. , and rushed over."

Napoleon did not ask Fouché how he managed it so quickly. That was a matter within the purview of Fouché, not his turn.

"I sent all the peasants in the rebel army to the mines, and asked them to use labor to atone for their crimes. As for the nobles, these traitors naturally do not deserve to live in the world. So after being tried by the revolutionary court, they They were all sent to the guillotine." Fouche still explained. (Although the Revolutionary Tribunal is called a court, its procedure is much simpler than that of ordinary courts. It can have no defenders, it can prevent the defendant from speaking, and it can conduct group trials. Therefore, the efficiency of issuing death sentences in batches is particularly high. A bit No slower than Lincoln's court later sentenced Indians to death.)

"This is what they deserve." Napoleon said. After seeing the broken Angers, Napoleon felt that these guys were not wronged at all for their heads being chopped off. Peasants or nobles?"

"It's easy, just look at their hands," Fouche replied.

Farmers who often engage in heavy physical labor have calluses on their hands. But Napoleon asked again, "And what if he is a merchant or some other respectable person of the third order?"

"Then he is a traitor of the third rank, and he deserves to be killed as a nobleman," Fouche replied.

"Then how many nobles are there among the captives?"

"After you left, we captured more than 5,000 captives, and together with the ones captured before, we found more than a hundred nobles from it—those guys have horses, so they run faster. Well, by the way, Master Bonaparte, do you know that there is a big fish that almost slipped through your fingers."

"Who?"

"The rebel leader Dracotelli," Fouche replied, "he was captured by Lieutenant Colonel Davout. It was just that he was wearing a soldier's clothes from the corpse, and he lost his horse—the horse The horse was too tired when he ran away, and died on the road. After Davout caught him, he just regarded him as an ordinary soldier. But he can't escape my eyes."

Having said that, Fouche seems a little complacent.

"Then what about the leader of the rebels? Did he also go to the guillotine?"

"Not yet. He knows a lot, so we sent him to Paris. But he is destined to be guillotined. What is your next move, Monsieur Bonaparte?"

"First of all, let the troops rest for a period of time. After all, the battle consumes a lot." Napoleon replied, "As for the rest, it depends on the needs of the Republic."

...

By this time, news of the victory had also reached Paris. In the Ministry of War, after seeing the good news, Joseph immediately went to Kano, intending to temporarily recall Napoleon. Lest he plunge headlong into the quagmire of the Vendée. Because Joseph knew very well, don't look at Napoleon who just won a big victory and killed the nobles who participated in the Vendée rebellion. But this is just a tactical victory. The basic contradictions in the Vendée region have not been resolved, let alone the contradictions, and the people who constitute the contradictions have not been resolved.

So if Napoleon marched into the Vendée, he would probably be able to occupy those towns in the Vendée very smoothly. But then he is very likely, even sure, to fall into endless security battles. Since ancient times, security warfare has been the most difficult thing to fight. If he really fell into such a state, then Napoleon's fame just because of his victory would be ruined. This is not a good thing. So Joseph now plans to help Napoleon accept it as soon as he sees it, and quickly transfer Napoleon away from the Vendée.

So where is the best place to transfer? In Joseph's view, the first choice is naturally the direction of Italy. Although the history in his previous life was not very good, Joseph still knew that Napoleon started his business in Italy (because he had seen the painting "Napoleon Crossing the Alps".) Besides, as a As for the mixed people, Joseph also knew that in later generations, the two nicknames of the Italians (Spaghetti and Italy) knew that in a certain war in later generations, unlike the prisoners of other countries, the Italian prisoners were Mu, Rather than using a to calculate.

So you see, on the frontal battlefield, the opponent is still Yidali, this is simply—is there a more ideal place than this?

As for the second, it is not bad to go back to the north to fight against Austria and Prussia. They are naturally stronger than Yidali, but Joseph has seen their fighting power with his own eyes, and they are basically "so-so". Fighting them is at least better than fighting a security war.

With that in mind, Joseph knocked on Kano's office door.

"Come in." Kano's voice came from inside. Joseph went in by himself and saw that Cano had put on the general's uniform again - because of Napoleon's victory, Cano's rank had been raised back.

"General, congratulations." Joseph said, "The general's uniform looks better."

"Hahahaha..." Kano laughed, "Joseph, if you are willing to lead troops out to fight, you can also wear the general's uniform. Well, speaking of it, Napoleon should soon be He was promoted to Brigadier General. Next time you see him, you need to salute him first, hahaha..."

"It's nothing." Joseph said indifferently, "What if he is a brigadier general? I'm still an official academician of the French Academy of Sciences."

"Ah, this is indeed an enviable honor." Kano said, "Up to now, I am only a probationary academician... However, in this respect, you are indeed better than us. Ah, Joseph, come to find me Me, is something wrong?"

"Lazar, I think maybe we should transfer Napoleon to a place where he is more needed." Joseph replied.

Today and tomorrow are single updates, with a single chapter of about 4,000 words, and double updates will resume on Monday.

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