Although Joseph did not give any advice to Di Mourier, he was a very clever man himself, and he soon discovered that his target was actually similar to that of the Duke of Braunschweig opposite. So he began to secretly discuss with the Duke of Braunschweig about the retreat of the Austro-Prussian army.

After that, the Duke of Braunschweig began to retreat slowly, and Di Mourière also pretended to follow. Almost escorted them back past Verdun, and followed them to regain Veron.

The recapture of Verdun was naturally another great achievement, for which Di Mourier was also highly praised by the parliament and the government, and for a time, his popularity almost caught up with that of Lafayette.

The Duke of Braunschweig quickly withdrew with the Prussian army to Koblenz. It is said that the young Duke Karl proposed to the Duke of Braunschweig that the withdrawal of troops in this direction would give the French complete freedom to operate in Belgium, but the Duke of Braunschweig did not take his advice. For if the Duke of Karl had been advised, it would have been of more help to the Austrian army in Belgium, but at the cost of the Prussian army having to take more risks. The old marshal was, after all, the marshal of Prussia, and his first consideration was the interests of Prussia.

After the Duke of Braunschweig's army had retreated, Dumourier had his army recuperate for two days before preparing to join the Belgian battlefield. Everyone took the time to take a good rest.

Napoleon was an idle man, and he spent half a day studying the map alone, and then came to Joseph to discuss his opinion. But when he entered Joseph's temporary quarters, he saw Joseph's face gloomy, as if something was unhappy.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? Napoleon asked. At the same time, he noticed a letter on Joseph's desk, and then asked, "Is it the troublemaker Lucien who has caused something?" ”

Joseph glanced at Napoleon and thought, "Isn't it your credit that Lucien will become a troublemaker?" You taught him every day, 'Don't be cowardly, just do it', isn't it you who caused him to do this? ”

"Let me say, Joseph, Lucien is the one you taught to be a troublemaker. You know that he is a naughty man, and he taught him a lot of skills, and it is strange that he doesn't cause trouble...... "Napoleon didn't care what Joseph thought at all, and directly sued the wicked first, and used a beautiful preemptive defensive attack to put this cauldron on Joseph's head.

"Lucien is fine." Joseph shook his head, "Since Mr. Cano has promised me that he will take Lucien well, then he must look good." ”

"Also, just with that silly boy at Lucien, playing tricks with Mr. Carnot, it's really not enough to see." Napoleon also admired Kano's ability and character.

"Then why aren't you happy?" Napoleon asked again.

"That fellow from Kravière, taking advantage of the Austrians' capture of Verdun, played his tricks again and made a lot of money, while we were not in Paris, and Mr. Carnot was too busy to get in the car......"

Napoleon knew that Joseph and Carnot had made a fortune on the free ride in Clavier's public carriage. I also know how much I can earn when I get in the car. So he also sank his face and said: "This guy with no conscience didn't wait for us to get in the car...... Someday, I'm going to hang his head on a lamppole! ”

……

After two days of rest, Di Mourier began to turn in the direction of Belgium with his army.

Because of the high morale, the French army marched quite quickly, and in late October, the main French army entered Belgium. At the beginning of November, the French army reached the vicinity of the Jemapou Heights, where Austria was defending the main force in Belgium. As long as this high ground is taken, the whole of Belgium will definitely be in the pocket of the French army.

At this time, the Austrian army guarding the heights numbered about 25,000 men and more than 40 artillery pieces of various kinds. And Dumourier now has in his hands, excluding the troops used in other directions, and can be directly used to attack the Popema heights, the total number of troops is about 45,000. The number of artillery was more than double that of the Austrians.

But that doesn't mean they're guaranteed to take the Primema Heights. Because, in the words of Josephus, "in most cases, defense is a more powerful mode of warfare than offense".

The French army, especially the Volunteers-based one, had high morale, but it was not really well-trained. Military skills are not even an exaggeration to say that they are miserable. Such an army is not a big problem for defense, but it is quite troublesome for offense. If nothing else, they struggle to even keep the queue moving. If they follow the usual way, they need to stop and form a whole line every twenty or thirty steps forward. Such an approach would mean that the army would move more slowly, not unacceptably in the East, where artillery and musket fire were limited, but here it would mean that they would have to endure more artillery and rifle volleys, and the resulting greater casualties.

On the march to Belgium, Joseph and Napoleon proposed a new method of warfare, that is, the column attack.

The so-called column attack method means that the army approaches the enemy in multiple columns, rather than in large horizontal formations.

Columns run one after the other, and in terms of queues, it is much easier to keep a column than to keep a horizontal line. Even the untrained Volunteers were able to move forward quickly in columns. Moreover, in the face of enemy fire, the area directly exposed by the column to enemy fire is also much smaller than that of the horizontal line, and at least when under gun fire, the losses will be much smaller. Of course, if it is hit head-on by a solid shell, the possibility that the entire column will be killed by one shell is not impossible. However, the accuracy of the artillery of this era, to achieve such an effect, can only rely on luck to a large extent.

In addition, the column had a weakness, and that was that the use of such tactics required a fairly high morale. Because in the horizontal line, the soldiers who walk in the first row, although the chance of surviving the battle is smaller than that of the later rows, it is not without the chance of surviving. But in the column, the soldiers who rushed to the front would definitely be aimed at and shot by so many guns in front of them, and there was almost no chance of survival. The fighter at the front leads the whole team, and his role is quite important, if he does not show courage and determination, the whole attack may be chaotic.

But the vanguard is almost certain to die, and it is not easy to be brave and resolute when you know that you will die. But for today's French, this is not too much of a problem. First, the morale of the volunteers was already high; Second, because of the ignorance of the offensive and combat of the volunteers, they lacked a real understanding of how dangerous it was to be in the vanguard. And Joseph, Napoleon, and Di Mourière, none of them would tell them. On the contrary, they will only emphasize what the Motherland expects of them, and the glory of being the vanguard.

Of course, it is not possible to just let the soldiers line up in a column and crash head-on. This kind of one-shot attack must be launched at the right time.

"We must strike this decisive blow again when the enemy is relatively tired." Di Mourier prepared a commando of four thousand people, and then said this to Joseph.

Early the next morning, the French launched round after round of attacks on the Austrian troops on the high ground. However, relying on the advantage of the terrain and the well-arranged artillery, by about two o'clock in the afternoon, they repelled five or six attacks by the French in succession.

"Joseph, have you counted the number and frequency of firing of each gun on the enemy's gun emplacement?" Sitting on a large rock, Dumourier looked at the Austrian positions in the distance and asked Joseph.

"Counting them, if they hadn't hidden some of the cannons, they would have had forty-five cannons. By now, each cannon has been fired many times, the least of them twenty times, and the most one, forty-three times. Now the rate of fire of all cannons has decreased. ”

"After firing so many times, their barrels should have been hot a long time ago. It's almost time! Dumourier stood up, and his guards led him with his horse.

Dumourier jumped on his horse and ran towards the assault team. Joseph also hurriedly jumped on his horse, followed behind, and casually gave Napoleon a look and told him to hurry over.

Dumourier rode to the front of the commandos and gave a pre-battle speech to the commandos:

"The children of the fatherland, the children of France, before you are the army of the most despicable feudal princes in Europe, who are afraid that the wind of French freedom will blow into their country, and they fear that their people will also say: 'Why can't we be as free and equal as the French?' So these despicable fellows were united, and they said to each other: 'Come, let us come together, come and destroy France, destroy their revolution, make them slaves again, and make slavery in this world forever!' 'My children, they want to overwhelm us, destroy us, trample us under our feet, take away the fruits of our labor from our presence, take away our wives and children! Can we agree? ”

"Can't!"

"Can't!"

"Down with the feudal princes and destroy all tyrants!"

First, the nurses who were arranged among the soldiers shouted, and then the soldiers also shouted.

Di Mourière waited for the shouting to subside a little, and then shouted: "Well, children, children of France! For the sake of France, I command you, France orders you, for the freedom of all Frenchmen, for the sake of all French wives and children, please follow me, follow this veteran of France who is now before you......"

After saying that, he pulled the reins with his left hand, and the warhorse man stood up. Di Mourier grabbed the horse's belly between his legs, drew his saber with his right hand, and slashed forward: "Forward!" Advance! ”