A heavy snow suddenly fell in the middle of the night, and when the window was opened, the icy cold wind immediately blew in his face, which made Louis XII, who was still lying in bed, shiver.

The snow fell a little suddenly, and the dirty streets that had been gray all day before were dressed in silver overnight, and the houses looked like pieces of cheese from a distance.

Looking at the snow outside, Louis XII was a little surprised at first, and then couldn't help but let out a soft sigh, he remembered his former territory of Orleans, in his memory Orleans was a humid and rainy place, it always rained there in winter, the cold and humid climate made the castle of Orleans not so comfortable, and sometimes even at night because of the uncomfortable humidity and could not sleep.

So seeing this snow, Louis XII couldn't help but think that he had the impression that Genoa should not have such a big snow, but looking at the snowy scene outside, the King of France felt a little magical.

"Your Majesty, I heard that the weather has been very cold in winter for the past few years, and it has snowed in some places even in October." The king's attendants helped the king to put on it, and only after finding a thick cloak to cover the king over did they open the door.

Several generals who had been waiting outside the bedroom immediately stood up to greet the king, and looking at Louis XII, who was wrapped all over his body, de Boweken, Count of Proswan, hurriedly walked a few steps, and the expressions of several generals behind him also showed a faint trace of worry.

"What happened?" Louis XII noticed the strangeness in the expressions of his generals.

"Your Majesty, it's snowing," said de Bauwicken, as if fearing that the king would not fully understand, and then explained, "that many of our soldiers do not have enough winter clothing, and we never thought that the winter here would be so cold. ”

Louis XII paused, looked at de Bowicken and the others, muttered a little, and waved them to follow him out of the house.

The town of Tarot Valley is a place very close to Genoa, there is a relatively smooth road leading to Genoa, and in this distance of less than 10 fats, the terrain is gentle, and there is no place to defend, so it can be said that Genoa is now under the noses of the French.

Because of this, Louis XII did not rush to attack Genoa, and he sent people to offer Genoa the conditions for the surrender of the city, which the French king hoped to occupy this important city on the western coast of the Mediterranean without bloodshed.

Louis XII thought that the Genoese could be persuaded because, as far as he knew, Genoa was in a very bad situation.

Genoa's national power has long since its defeat in several wars with Venice for trade in the Mediterranean, and although there has been a brief revival in recent decades, life has generally been good.

In particular, a dozen years ago, a governor of Genoa, who was from the Cargino family, made a decision that surprised many Genoese after several failed attempts to quell rebellions in the overseas colonies.

The governor believed that Corsica, as a Genoese colony in the Mediterranean at that time, had a role to play, and that Genoa had to invest a large amount of money in Corsica every year, which was a big burden for Genoa, which had been in decline over the years.

For this reason, the governor simply sold Corsica to Aragon, who had just finished the Reconquista.

The reason why the Genoese at that time did not say yes was that Corsica was so close to Sardinia, and although it still seemed to echo Genoa, the Genoese did not think that they could compare with the Aragonese who coveted Corsica.

So after careful consideration, the governor of the Cargino family at that time considered Corsica to be more of a burden to Genoa than a profitable place, so after some bargaining, Genoa sold Corsica to Aragon.

Today's Genoa, although it is still an important port on the west coast of the Mediterranean, has long lost the sharpness and strength that it could compete with any maritime power.

Louis XII believed that there must be many of the Genoese who were willing to accept his rule, which made him naturally think that it would be best to be able to occupy the city-state peacefully, because although several days had passed, he was still bitter about the damage caused by the previous war with Montina.

After finally repelling the Montinnes with almost twice as many forces, the French did not take advantage of the victory to pursue their enemy, because the French found that they had paid a much higher price than they had thought.

The Genoese soldiers of the Montina retreated but always protected the retreat of the entire army, which gave them a chance to get out of the battle, while the French heavy cavalry, which attacked the Agri musketeers head-on, eventually defeated the enemy, but paid a surprisingly heavy price.

So much so that when de Bowicken gave the order to pursue, with the exception of a few heavy cavalry who were able to carry out the order, most of the rest had either died in front of the line that the French soldiers regarded as hellish, or had survived but were wounded and could not continue the battle, or had been beaten so badly that they were completely unable to organize themselves when it came time to pursue.

The heavy casualties of the French army had caused Louis XII to fear that he might no longer be able to withstand the Austrian army that might follow, and he knew that if that were the case, the only thing he could do was to simply abandon Alexandria and quickly retreat westward, and perhaps his only option was to flee back to France in disgrace, as Charles VIII did.

But what the French did not expect was that the Austrians did not take the opportunity to attack.

In fact, the Austrian army, which had first reached Alexandria from Turin, halted its advance at a great distance from the French, and they built fortifications and fortifications, as if they were preparing to wear them down with the French.

The French apparently wasted no time, and after sensing that the Austrians did not seem to have any intention of attacking, Louis XII quickly mobilized enough troops to attack the Montinas.

Montina's defeat gave the French army, which had been in a disadvantageous situation, a respite, and perhaps because they had been frightened by the previous defeat at Varese, the Austrian army still tried to wait until the armies of Turin and Milan met before engaging the French.

Louis XII seized this opportunity accurately, taking advantage of the Austrians still being strained, first repelled the Montina with superior forces in one fell swoop, and then quickly mobilized all forces to advance towards Genoa, and now the French army was almost under the city of Genoa, if they could persuade the Genoese to lay down their arms, then the French army could occupy Genoa before the Austrians arrived.

What made Louis XII more confident that he would be able to capture Genoa was the secret treaty that Alexander had proposed to him, brought by Normezi.

The French king was apparently a little confused about Alexander's goal of asking the French army to defeat the Austrian army before the arrival of 1500, but Louis XII was pleased that he was willing to take the initiative to lift the siege of the French army in Naples.

The strength of the Austrian army of nearly 50,000 men was always a concern for Louis XII, so it would have been great for Louis XII to keep the Montina neutral at this time, and at the same time to rescue the thousands of French troops who were besieged in time.

Alexander, while offering neutrality, was even willing to pay the French to teach the Austrians a lesson, which Louis XII saw as Alexander's revenge on Maximian.

It is clear that the Austrians' unreliable actions at the critical moment infuriated Alexander.

As for Alexander's emphasis on the French army to defeat or inflict heavy losses on the Austrian army before the arrival of 1500, it is more a question of the deadline of the agreement between the two sides.

No treaty was indefinite, and Alexander's request made Louis XII realize that the agreement with the Montinas would only last until the end of 1499, that is, only a month.

Beyond this time, it was possible that Montina's army would again intervene in the affairs of northern Italy.

To Alexander's conditions, Louis XII's answer was an attack on the Austrian army.

On December 1, 1499, the French army totaled about 33,000 men and launched a pre-emptive attack on the Austrians in the direction of Turin.

For the French attack, the Austrian army was somewhat hasty.

With the addition of about 10,000 Austrian troops in Kotscha, the strength of the Austrian army had reached nearly 50,000 men, which not only gave Maximian confidence, but also gave all the countries concerned about northern Italy high hopes for the victory of the Austrian army.

Even Alexander VI had to admit that the situation of the French seemed to be a bit bad this time, and although Montina's army seemed to have avoided the French army due to cowardice after the defeat, the overwhelming superiority of the Austrians still made many people not look favorably on Louis XII.

But on December 1, the French launched an offensive in the direction of Austrian Turin.

The French first launched heavy artillery fire on the Austrian troops.

This was a tactic never used by the French before, and instead of allowing artillery to hit the approaching enemy first after the battle had begun, the French concentrated all their artillery fire as soon as the Austrians entered the battlefield and preemptively rained down shells on the densest part of the Austrian formation.

At a close enough distance, the French artillery directly extended its muzzle and aimed at the enemy on the opposite side, and as the shells swept through the open space between the two sides, several flesh gaps filled with scarlet blood mist and flesh residue immediately appeared in the Austrian army's formation.

Subsequently, the bright armor of the French heavy cavalry appeared on the position, accompanied by flags with different patterns, and the French cavalry launched the first attack on the Austrian army with the sound of loud horns.

Louis XII stood on a high ground and looked at the battle line in the distance, he was now at leisure, for the French army was not commanded by him, but by the Count of Lanceger of Brittany.

Louis XII inherited the crown of Charles VIII, the country and even his wife, but he wisely knew that he did not inherit the military talent of his predecessor.

Compared to all his peers, Charles VIII was the most capable general of European monarchs, and the most capable of generals, while Louis XII was more adept at using his abilities as a king at court than on the battlefield.

So the French king was relieved to hand over command to the Count of Langserger, the most reliable soldier in his wife's domain, and this battle was only the beginning of the long Italian war that the Count would engage in as commander of the French army for many years to come.

Listening to the rumbling of artillery on his own position, and seeing the smoke and dust rising from the enemy's position, Louis XII couldn't help but shake his head slightly.

He beckoned to his attendant, who immediately handed a musket to the king.

It was a strangely shaped musket, with a striking appearance of a lack of a fire rope and a firing mechanism made up of a seemingly complex pile of parts, while the markings and numbers engraved on the handle indicated that it was a weapon used by the Agri musketeers in the Montina army.

"Your Majesty, this gun fires far faster than the arquebuses we use." One of the attendants reported, "This is probably the reason why the Montinas have caused us a lot of casualties. ”

"That's probably it," said Louis XII, raising his musket and aiming at the enemy's position, which was obviously impossible to shoot at a distance, and then pulling the trigger.

"Smack~"

The sound of the crisp bolt hitting the fire plate was faintly heard, and the king slowly lowered the musket, which was not loaded with gunpowder and projectiles.

"We'll have to make this weapon at once," Louis XII said, looking at the enemy in the distance, knowing that the battle would not end anytime soon, since the enemy on the other side was no less than he did.

What made Louis XII concerned was when the Austrian army in Milan would come.

Maximian apparently cares too much about Milan, or rather he cares too much about his influence in Italy.

Immediately after reclaiming Milan from the French, Maximian was eager to publicly announce his recognition of Ludvico as Duke of Milan in Milan, apparently with the intention of expanding his influence in Rome.

And Milan is the most important city in northern Italy, and Maximian must not allow the French to take it away from him again.

Because of this, Maximian became troubled, and he was eager to find Louis XII for a decisive battle, especially after receiving reinforcements from 10,000 men, and the emperor wanted to take the opportunity to thwart the French plan to invade Italy.

However, the fear of the possible loss of Milan and the defeat at the Battle of Varese made Maximian unable to move forward, even when he heard that the French and Montina's army had fought fiercely in the town of Tarot Valley, he was afraid that Montina's army would not be able to contain the French army because of its scarcity, so that when he arrived on the battlefield, he was likely to be defeated by the French army one by one, and did not make the decision to take the opportunity to quickly advance and flank the French army.

Maximian, on the contrary, hoped to join up with the Austrians in Turin as soon as possible, and then attack the French with absolute superiority.

And when it finally became known that the French had suffered heavy casualties in Tarot Valley and had to use 10,000 men to defeat the Montinas, Maximian had not had time to reminisce about regret, and the French had already launched the first attack on the Austrian army in Turin.

"Defeat the Austrian army before 1500," Louis XII, who was standing on a high place, frowned slightly as he looked at the musket in his hand, which was a whole generation ahead of his own army, "Is the Count of Montina going to intervene in Lombardy again after the arrival of 1500?" ”

Thinking of the possibilities that could arise at any moment, Louis XII looked at the Neapolitan who was standing not far away, waiting to be summoned.

After a while, he motioned for his retinue to bring Normezi over.

"Go and tell the Count of Montina that I promise his terms."

On 5 December, after a full month of siege, more than 7,000 French troops, led by Charlon, surrendered to the Queen Regent of Naples, Queen Jossa Cosenza.

In accordance with the armistice signed by both sides, the French troops, having surrendered all their artillery to the Neapolitan army, boarded the ship from the port of Naples on 6 December.

Destination, Genoa.