Chapter 1248: What Does a True Dragon Fear from a Pack of Wolves?

An army was marching through the mountain forests of the Ardennes plateau!

It was a very large and modern army: infantry in white uniforms, cavalry wearing breastplates and helmets, artillerymen hauling 6-pounder field guns, and supply troops driving baggage wagons — together they formed an endless marching column. Vast and mighty, with neither head nor tail in sight, men and horses numbered in the tens of thousands. The vanguard had already neared the small town of La Roche in the middle of the Ardennes, while the rearguard had just left the small border town of Sedan in eastern France.

The Prince de Condé, who should have been attending the wedding of Charles II and the Mancini noblewoman at the royal palace in Turin, Savoy, was in this very column. He rode an Arabian horse, wore the white woolen uniform of the new French army, and had a tricorne hat on his head, with no armor of any kind to protect his body.

The Prince de Condé was not the only one without armor. The adjutants and staff officers following behind him, as well as all the officers and soldiers marching on foot, were likewise equipped with no protective armor — in its place was the standardized white woolen uniform.

This new French army, personally forged by the Prince de Condé, had a very low armor rate. Only the heavy cavalry tasked with charging into battle were equipped with breastplates and helmets; everyone else, including the light cavalry and dragoons, was entirely unarmored.

And while the armor rate was drastically reduced, the rate of firearms equipment was greatly increased. The ratio of flintlock musketeers to pikemen had been raised to 5 to 1 — that is, five flintlock musketeers for every one pikeman. Moreover, this pikeman no longer belonged to an independent pike company, but was mixed in with the flintlock musketeers, taking part together in "line volley fire."

The reason for this arrangement was that, in the fierce Ming-Qing wars, the Prince de Condé had discovered that when the smoke on the battlefield grew too thick, cavalry could use the cover of the smoke to maneuver on the field and thereby achieve the effect of a sudden attack.

In such circumstances, the flintlock musketeers simply had no time to seek the protection of the pikemen — if they had not been mixed together! So they could only fix bayonets to their flintlocks, form square, and fight to the death!

Of course, the desperate resistance of the flintlock musketeers often proved effective — but in that case, what were the pikemen doing?

Watching the flintlock musketeers, who were paid less than them, go fight the enemy cavalry in bloody combat?

So the Prince de Condé had at one point wanted to abolish the pikemen entirely; it was only because of Turenne's opposition that pikemen were retained in the new French army.

Another great reform the Prince de Condé brought to the new French army was replacing matchlock muskets with flintlocks — an extremely expensive reform! But absolutely worth the cost, because in the Ming-Qing wars, flintlock units had always been able to crush matchlock units.

And the drastic reduction in armor was precisely to save the limited military funds and spend them on re-equipping with flintlocks and socket bayonets...

After completing this evolution in equipment, the tactics of the French army's infantry also underwent a comprehensive upgrade. The dense four-rank line became the most basic combat formation, while flintlock fire and bayonet assault became the infantry's most common means of engagement.

However, the evolution in equipment and tactics was not the greatest gain the Prince de Condé had obtained from the Ming-Qing wars... His greatest gain was that his level of campaign organization had been enormously elevated!

Before participating in the Ming-Qing wars, the Prince de Condé had never commanded a war of national annihilation, nor had he commanded a campaign with more than 50,000 participants, nor had he commanded long-distance mobile warfare across a very vast battlefield.

The Prince de Condé of that time only knew how to use terrain to deploy troops in formation, using 20,000 men to defeat 30,000. He did not know how to command all the armies of France to win a war involving many European military powers!

But now, the Prince de Condé already knew what to do!

He already knew that the cities and bastioned forts of the Spanish Netherlands were utterly fragile before new-style explosive shells and parallel siege trenches!

Therefore, seizing cities and fortresses was not the key to France winning the war — the key to France winning the war was to force the Dutch Republic to submit as quickly as possible...

To achieve this strategic objective, the French army had to invade the homeland of the Dutch Republic in the early stages of the war, and moreover had to approach Amsterdam!

It was hardly possible to rush toward Amsterdam through the bastion-covered northern Spanish Netherlands and the western Dutch Republic. The only option was a great flanking maneuver: pass through the desolate and remote Ardennes plateau, enter the territory of the Archbishop of Cologne, who had already been bought off by France, and then pass through the territory of the Bishop of Münster into the province of Gelderland in the Dutch Republic.

That's right — pass through the Ardennes plateau! The same route the German armored forces took into France in World War II... except in the opposite direction. This time it was the French passing through the Ardennes forest, then borrowing passage through two German ecclesiastical states, and striking into Holland with lightning speed!

According to calculations, this great flanking maneuver would cover about 100 French leagues, or roughly 800 li, and at a marching rate of 50 li per day it would take 16 days; if they could manage 80 li, then 10 days.

And these 10 to 16 days were the critical window of time that would decide the fate of France, and indeed all of Europe.

To gain as much time as possible, Louis XIV had spent a fortune arranging an extravagantly luxurious wedding in Turin for Charles II and the Mancini noblewoman.

Now all of Europe believed that Louis XIV and the Prince de Condé were in Turin, and that war would not break out for the time being... when in fact, both of them were already at the front!

150,000 men of the new French army and nearly 20,000 French cavalry had been divided into three routes. The northern army, commanded by the Viscount of Turenne, Turenne, totaled 60,000 men and would strike out from Calais and Amiens into the northern Spanish Netherlands — the purpose of this force was to draw the attention of the Spanish army in the Spanish Netherlands and of the Dutch.

King Louis XIV of France would personally lead 40,000 troops into the area between the Duchy of Lorraine and Franche-Comté, cutting the passage between the Duchy of Lorraine and Franche-Comté, while simultaneously posing as if about to launch a full-scale attack on Franche-Comté, and at the same time intimidating the Duchy of Lorraine into remaining neutral.

And the 70,000-strong army commanded by the Prince de Condé would pass through the densely forested Ardennes plateau... The fate of France rested entirely on the Prince de Condé's route!

If his 70,000 troops could reach the walls of Amsterdam and The Hague before the Dutch completed their mobilization, then the Dutch States General would have no choice but to accept the arrangement of "France dominating Europe, Holland dominating the seas" — and this was no empty talk. The Dutch would have to demolish their western fortress complexes and forever leave the door open to the French army!

Of course, France would also guarantee Holland's security on land! If Holland and England went to war again, France would stand on Holland's side...

And once Holland submitted, the Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comté would be no trouble at all — at most a month or two and France would take them all.

If Austria then wanted to enter the war, that would be exactly what France desired. The French armies advancing south from Holland and north from Franche-Comté would swallow up the Duchy of Lorraine and Luxembourg, and the era of French hegemony in Europe would truly arrive!

Just as the Prince de Condé was calculating how to fight Austria again after defeating Holland, the rapid sound of hoofbeats came from ahead, drawing nearer.

The Prince de Condé looked up and saw a dispatch rider galloping toward him. He found the marching column where the Prince de Condé was, and one of the Prince's adjutants spurred forward, ascertained the situation, then turned back to the Prince de Condé and reported loudly: "Your Highness, the vanguard has occupied the old castle of La Roche! The road to the Electorate of Cologne is now completely open!"

Thanks be to God!

The Prince de Condé made the sign of the cross over his chest — the Spanish had placed a small number of garrison troops in the Ardennes, half of them at Bouillon on the French border, and half at La Roche in the middle of the Ardennes.

Earlier at Bouillon, the French had used stealth and night attacks to catch the Spanish off guard, taking the Spanish castle in a single night. Now La Roche had fallen just as easily, which showed that the Spanish in the Spanish Netherlands were not at all prepared for war.

Now it remained to be seen how well prepared the Dutch were.