Chapter 1602: Henri's Wife Is a Queen

I Want to Study the History of the Song Dynasty. Lakeside—Danube battlefield, evening of October 12, 1700, Western calendar.

Boots rustled as they crossed the blood-soaked earth, crossed layer upon layer of corpses, crossed discarded and shattered muskets and bayonets, crossed abandoned and wrecked cannons and wagons — always pressing steadily forward!

A hundred thousand Austrian officers and men, from Archduke Henri at the top down to the lowest-ranking soldier, saw only rank after rank of infantry squares and group after group of cavalry formations, advancing in great strides across the land bathed in golden dusk light, toward the battle line where the Ottoman Janissary corps was still stubbornly resisting!

Cannonballs and bullets swept past like a gale; men fell to the ground from time to time, but the great army's advancing footsteps never once halted.

Several Austrian red-and-white battle flags, held before the ranks, snapped and danced in the wind, covered with powder smoke and bullet scars, as if telling how fierce today's Battle of Lakeside—Danube had been!

Today's victory belonged to Austria, belonged to the great Archduke Henri!

Austria's mountains and plains, at this moment, all seemed to be cheering for Archduke Henri and his victorious army! For this "Banker Archduke" and his army that looked, by any measure, a bit ragtag, had used a full day of bloody fighting to utterly rout and utterly shatter an Ottoman Empire army that outnumbered them by half, dealing the latter a devastating blow...

The Janissary corps, the pride of the Ottoman Empire, after today's bloody battle, had not only lost all its prestige — it was on the verge of ceasing to exist!

The attack so carefully organized by Mustafa Köprülü and Mustafa Kara had slammed straight into an iron wall! The Ottoman army's right wing fought a bloody twelve-hour battle against the two Austrian infantry divisions commanded by Count Eugene, from three in the morning all the way until three in the afternoon.

The elite troops commanded by Mustafa Köprülü and the two Austrian infantry divisions commanded by Count Eugene clashed back and forth for several rounds. By around two in the afternoon, the Ottoman Janissary corps had already suffered heavy losses and was falling back step by step under the Austrian army's pressure.

Unwilling to accept defeat, Mustafa Köprülü decided to stake everything on one throw, committing several thousand Tatar cavalry, who launched a ferocious assault supported by artillery fire and the Janissary corps... but the result of the assault far exceeded Mustafa Köprülü's expectations. The Tatar cavalry, skilled in mounted archery and also capable of shock charges, a match for Poles and Cossacks on the Eastern European steppe, had actually been repelled by two ranks of Austrian jägers drawn up in a single "thin line"!

The howling, galloping Tatar cavalry met the Austrian jägers' first volley at over 300 yards! Nearly 1,500 wooden-plug rifled bullets spun through the air, flying on very stable trajectories toward the Tatars' bodies and the warhorses beneath them. In the first volley alone, more than 300 men fell from their saddles! And the second and third volleys that followed immediately brought down nearly 500 more... If the charge had been made by strictly disciplined modern cavalry, casualties of ten-odd to twenty percent could still barely be endured. But how could steppe cavalry have such endurance? Three volleys of rifled fire completely stunned them, and the surviving Tatar cavalry no longer dared charge forward — they couldn't even flee fast enough!

And so the Tatar cavalry, whose formation had already been somewhat disordered to begin with, instantly fell into complete chaos!

Count Eugene immediately seized the opportunity, committing the only 1,000 light cavalry he had on hand, and launched a counterattack in pursuit of the routed Tatar cavalry, scattering the Tatars — who were accustomed to fleeing — in a single blow.

With the Tatar cavalry's cover gone, Mustafa Köprülü's Janissary infantry was suddenly plunged into crisis. Before, several thousand Tatar cavalry had been shielding them, and Count Eugene had been unable to maneuver freely; now, with the troublesome Tatars gone, Eugene's two infantry divisions could attack without restraint.

Moreover, the 1,000 light cavalry Eugene had on hand could also be used to charge the scattered Janissary infantry regiments... Under the repeated assaults of Austrian infantry and light cavalry, the infantry regiments under Mustafa Köprülü's command collapsed one after another, until finally Mustafa Köprülü could only gather his remnants and withdraw southward from the battlefield.

The moment Mustafa Köprülü withdrew, Count Eugene's two divisions were immediately freed up. He did not pursue Mustafa Köprülü's defeated troops, but instead led his two divisions eastward to attack, beginning to strike at the left flank of the Ottoman center.

And just as Count Eugene's two divisions had routed the Ottoman left wing and begun striking at the Ottoman center, the center army commanded by Mustafa Kara Pasha was also teetering on the edge of collapse.

That pretty boy John Churchill actually turned out to be quite good at fighting. First he feigned defeat step by step, luring Mustafa Kara to follow, then he used the woods in front of Pottsno Fortress to set an ambush — drawing five regiments of Janissary infantry and over a thousand Tatar cavalry into the woods, using the trees to disrupt their formations, then deploying a division of infantry north of the woods and inflicting heavy casualties on the Janissary infantry and Tatar cavalry...

But Kara Pasha, having suffered a severe blow, was still stubbornly holding on, gathering his remaining troops and relying on the field fortifications the Austrian army had left behind, and the woods he had reoccupied, to stand off against John Churchill.

John Churchill had too few troops to do anything about Mustafa Kara, but the attack Count Eugene's two divisions launched against his left flank threw him into disarray!

To resist Count Eugene's attack, Mustafa Kara had no choice but to commit every available soldier he had.

And just as Mustafa Kara was straining to fend off the pincer attack of Count Eugene and John Churchill, the Ottoman army's right wing was shattered by the three divisions commanded by Archduke Henri and Count Daun... This Archduke Henri must have stumbled into some incredible stroke of luck — the few men under his command, none of whom looked anything like famous generals, turned out to be one more formidable than the next once they took the field!

The short, squat Count Eugene could fight; the pretty boy Churchill could fight too; and even Count Daun, that blond, blue-eyed Germanic handsome fellow, turned out to be very good at fighting... Under his attack, the Ottoman right wing barely held on until three or four in the afternoon, then simply could not endure any longer, and like the left wing commanded by Mustafa Köprülü, it too was shattered!

But Count Daun did not strike at Mustafa Kara's right flank — his ambition was greater; he wanted to swallow Mustafa Kara's entire army in one gulp. So he, Archduke Henri, and Archduke Henri's son Karl led their troops in an advance against Kara Pasha's rear. Once their line of retreat was threatened, Mustafa Kara's army could of course only flee for their lives!

By this point, the outcome of the Battle of Lakeside—Danube was completely decided.

In this decisive battle, 100,000 Austrian troops had routed an Ottoman army of as many as 150,000 men!

Central Europe — no, the entire situation of Europe — would be utterly transformed by this battle!

The Battle of Lakeside—Danube was not yet completely over, and the Austrians, summoning their utmost energy, had already launched a full-line pursuit!

Now was the perfect moment to annihilate the enemy!

Archduke Henri and his son Karl von Mancini were also among the pursuing ranks. The hundred-thousand-strong army surged forward like a tide, and this overwhelming momentum made Archduke Henri almost forget his original aspiration — why should it be Archduke Henri, and not Emperor Henri?

Emperor... isn't that simply what one becomes when one's troops are strong and horses sturdy?

The Austrian army really did look like it could fight!

And Count Eugene, John Churchill, and Count Daun all looked like they could fight too... Strong troops, sturdy horses, brave generals — and with money besides, and the ability to govern a state — why couldn't he become Emperor?

Are emperors born of a special seed? At this thought, Henri felt something was off: Emperors... do have a seed! And I am of the emperor's seed!

Isn't my father the great Emperor of the East?

Just as Henri's head was heating up, his son Karl suddenly spurred his horse up beside him and shouted in Chinese: "Father, your son wishes to study the history of the Song Dynasty!"

"The Song Dynasty?" Henri was taken aback. What's so good about the Song Dynasty? It was weak as anything. If you're going to study, study the history of the Great Ming!

Karl, however, nodded and said: "I want to study the history of Emperor Taizu of Song, Zhao Kuangyin... how did he become emperor?"

End of full text.