I Am Louis XIV

   Chapter 192 Saint Denis (11)

Brussels is the largest city in Flanders. It once belonged to the French, Spaniards and Netherlanders, and because of its crucial geographical location, it has been madly contested by many forces, and every contender will do his best labored to add a layer of armor to it, so that when Louis could see it, he saw a mighty fortified city, with double walls, prominent bastions, lobes between them, There are also simple fortifications around the city walls. Although it can be seen that these fortifications were made hastily, as long as they are still made of stone and mortar, they can still cause a little trouble for the French army.

But Viscount Turenne and Captain Vauban never thought about wasting the lives of the soldiers from the very beginning. Speaking of which, Viscount Turenne was a little more complicated, because His Majesty the King said jokingly before the war. If they can try to avoid the casualties of their soldiers in the next battle, the king will give them a discount on the pension of the number of casualties of the soldiers that may normally be attrition. Talking with gold and silver is a kind of humiliation. On the contrary, a king who is too eloquent will be despised, and even considered to have deliberately deceived his subjects, such as diamond pins, embroidered coats, horses and guns, except for the last one. , what the king used to reward his ministers was similar to what he gave to the royal wife.

It is not surprising that the king has such an order. Their king has always been so merciful, so on the battlefield, Viscount Turenne gave way to Captain Vauban. After all, Captain Vauban's tactics are the least damage, that is, progress It must be very slow, but who will come to the rescue, the people in Brussels must be expecting that Leopold I, who is also of the Habsburg line, will send his army, or the Dutch people who are dead and toothless, but they I don't know, the Dutch are now being dragged to the sea by the British, and even if they can rescue their army, their army is far inferior to their navy. As for Leopold I, that proves his greed and Before the stupid document was destroyed, he did not dare to act rashly—it was because the king was still too young. If it was Philip IV or Ferdinand III, he would not care what kind of agreement he had signed with France before. At this time, they will defiantly send troops to stifle Louis XIV's ambition in the cradle.

Leopold I may still be hesitant, even though Sweden has made a pact with France, but he has Denmark, Switzerland and... British Parliament, and the Church of Rome, what has been lost in fraud and force, can be taken from the negotiating table It might be possible to come back - but all of this will have to wait until the dust settles. When the French are exhausted, the coalition forces will hold the line, and France will inevitably make concessions - Under such thinking, it is impossible for Brussels to get reinforcements.

When Louis repeatedly considered the operation after the capture of Brussels - the capture of Flanders is not difficult, the difficulty is the rule and management after that, the princes of the Netherlands, the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland, Italy will definitely reach out... Whether it is to contain The development of France is still to cut a piece from this fat and good meat - if Louis is willing to compromise, then even Leopold I will leave the cries and pleadings of Spain behind, but if he is taking Lille Before, Louis was not very sure, so now he is unwilling to give up even an inch of land! Here will be the sound of the French Flemish horn, and the French attack will begin.

However, as if to deny the description of Viscount Turenne and the king in the carriage, what the king and ministers saw in the tent was not encouraging. In the horizontal trench that had been dug, a line of sappers first erected a log. And the parapet of stones, and then began to dig a longitudinal trench under the parapet. In order to ensure that the trench would not collapse, there were people behind him who held wooden blocks to support it - and the engineer was carrying a huge basket behind him, which was used to hold the excavation. When the ditch crossed the parapet, they used flat baskets filled with dirt as shields, and the stone bullets whizzing down from the city wall tumbled, smashing the dust and splashing, but there was no way to hurt the people below.

   "Why do I feel like I'm back at Versailles," murmured the king.

   "The civil engineering at Versailles is over." Another courtier replied that he had supervised this huge project in Versailles, but he said that the scene is similar to Versailles now.

"These may be more spectacular than Versailles," said the king, because before the king came, Captain Vauban had also assembled a large number of equipment needed for construction, piled up in mountains of wood, thatch, and coaches. Pickaxes, shovels, axes and mallets, rows of stakes were driven into the dirt by sappers, and ropes were tangled around each other, forming an evacuated but long line of defense, beyond which was a line of vigilant cavalry, who needed to be on the lookout for cavalry in the city The defenders attack, but also beware of reinforcements coming.

Brussels is divided into upper and lower urban areas, the upper city is the palace and the castle, the lower city is the residence of the commoners and merchants, and the outside is an endless plain. Today, this green-like wilderness has been destroyed, and it is twelve feet wide. The trenches that even twenty-four-pound cannons can bring in are slowly and steadily approaching the gate of Brussels. Of course, the Brussels people will not be so handicapped. They first used trebuchets and artillery. After it didn't work, the city gates opened, and the defenders of Brussels rushed out, but the king's guards rushed forward immediately. Brussels had cavalry, but they could not compare with the guards in terms of horses and firepower. After the gunshots, shouts, and the faint smoke disappeared, the defenders of Brussels retreated back to the city, and the guards did not chase - the so-called pursuit of victory, going straight to the city gate, only the heavy cavalry with strong armor and thick armor dared to try , even the city wall of Lille, there are caves on both sides, and there are organs above that can drop short spears and stones, such as Brussels, and there may be preset pipes for pouring kerosene at the top of the long passages, wearing only breastplates Guards of the Guards, the result of a reckless intrusion is only one death.

But their job was to drive away the defenders who might get in the way of the trenches and wear them down, and they quickly returned to their positions, and no one was hurt, and the king raised his hand and waved his hat at them, and so did they Do - and this happened two or three times after that, until another dawn came, and the French ditch continued unshakably to a second parallel ditch, the first about two thousand feet from the walls of Brussels, and the second ditch. The ditch was only six hundred feet long, and when he got here, Captain Vauban ordered the guns to be put in place. There were twenty twenty-four-pounders here, and eight thirty guns that the Marquis of Lois had brought from Orleans with all his might. When the three-pounder artillery and twenty-eight black holes were aimed directly at the city walls of Brussels, they could not help but feel dissatisfied and despair, but these stubborn Brussels people did not decide to surrender. The king's messenger returned and said that they only hoped that the French The king was merciful enough to allow their women and children to leave the city that was about to be covered in gunpowder and cannonballs, and Louis did.

So when the sun was most abundant, the city gates of Brussels opened, and carriages streamed out, filled with wives and sisters of dignitaries, their daughters, mothers, and underage children with them. Together, they were led by only two knights, and behind their motorcade were terrified civilian women whose husbands, fathers and sons, either voluntarily or conscripted, remained in Brussels.

After these people left, the artillery finally made the first heavy roar. At this time, the women and children were not far from Brussels. When they heard it, they wept loudly, "Arrange them to go to Waterloo." Louis said. , In the past, for defense, the buildings near Brussels, all outside the city walls, were burned and demolished. Without mercenaries, only the team of women and children could not go far. "They will be grateful to you." Lois The Marquis said it was not a complete compliment.

"I don't care about that," the king leaned against the armrest of the seat. "Whether it's cursed or grateful, how can you sit on the throne without such awareness." When you need to consider more and more things, you have to simplify many things into data. Every decision he makes will affect the fate of tens of thousands of people. The joys and sorrows of individuals are always as small as one in the sea. A grain of sand - or, when you stand on a high level, it is difficult for you, and you rarely care about the thoughts of the people at the bottom. In order to ensure that his people will not suffer, Louis has exhausted the last. With a little strength, how can you pay attention to the enemy? He said that only because they were right in front of him.

With this command, the king refocused his attention on the battlefield. Under Vauban's order, the heavy artillery focused on three fortresses, first the stones, then the soil, the rubble, and the coat of Brussels was destroyed. Stripped away little by little, supporting this consumption was the King and the Marquis of Lois, who brought in a large quantity of shells, artillery, and other munitions that Captain Vauban could keep firing—even if the barrels were red, he The soldiers were only ordered to pour water up, and the shelling continued all night, and when another dawn came, the French army and the defenders drew closer again, when Captain Vauban replaced the heavy artillery with mortars.

Some of these mortars were brought in from France, and some were confiscated from cities such as Lille. This type of mortar originated in the thirteenth century and used stone bullets. Its shape is more interesting than the artillery that the king saw Now, if the king's artillery is a tall adult, then the mortar is a baby or a young child. Their caliber and the length of the gun body are only about 1:12. They look short and stupid, but Don't think that they are old and short and useless. Although they have a short range, they have a great power and angle of fire. Captain Vauban used this type of artillery to attack the defenders who were hiding behind the concealed wall. A parabola crossed the sloping embankment, the parapet, and directly hit the personnel and artillery inside—there were more than thirty original mortars and the collected mortars in the French army, and the shells fell on the defenders like hail. As soon as the soldiers on the ladders and wooden towers, holding binoculars, saw that the bastion was showing signs of weakness, they immediately reported loudly that Captain Vauban would adjust the frequency and intensity of the shelling accordingly.

At this time, when the infantry came to charge, it was also the time when they suffered the most losses. Captain Vauban took the lead, climbed the inclined embankment in a few steps, climbed over the parapet, and fell into the moat below. The moat in Brussels is very strong. Unfortunately there was only a few feet of water in the accident, which soaked one's leggings and boots, but had little effect on the battle, with hundreds of soldiers trailing behind Captain Vauban, grenadiers waving their hands. He threw the powder cans into the bastions and lobed horns with the ropes inside, and with tragic screams, several defenders were killed.

The battle that followed was the real test for these soldiers. Death was completely different from poetry and drama. The wounded would howl in pain, and the dead would be silent, as if they were enemies and comrades. In an instant, the life is gone from them, and the night before, the people who were still joking with you, grabbing jerky, discussing which bohemian woman is prettier, just came straight down, their souls left The body, the body will rot, stink, and eventually turn into a pile of black soil.

It's just that at this time, no one can think of it so much. For several years, the rigorous and rigorous training has played a role at this time. They rushed forward bravely and calmly, not even paying attention to the people around them. Even if they were hit, killing the enemy was the only thought in their minds, "Fight for the king!" they shouted.

  The flames rose at this moment, and Captain Vauban saw the two lads collapse.

  The fortresses on both sides of the bastion found that the bastion had been lost, so the defenders inside did not hesitate to turn the muzzle and shoot at it. Fortunately, Viscount Turenne had already commanded the follow-up artillery to follow.

After obtaining a bastion, Captain Vauban immediately ordered the mortars to be transported up. Between each bastion, in order to ensure the coverage of the shooting surface (musket), there is only two hundred feet. This distance is suitable for the use of mortars. The adjacent bastion was suddenly hit several gaps, and more French soldiers climbed up like ant colonies. Although the defenders also tried to raise their muskets to stop them, there were also French soldiers on the occupied bastion. The soldiers were firing at them, while the French artillery continued to roar.

   (end of this chapter)