Chapter 119: "The Fall of Naples"

Before October 29, 1499, no one could have imagined that the royal family of Naples, who had retreated to Bilissilly, would launch a surprise attack on the city of Naples, which was occupied by the French.

It was indeed a surprise attack in the truest sense of the word, and despite the fact that the two sides were nominally at war, both the semi-open negotiations in which Normézi threaded the needle, and the non-aggression pact between the French and Cosenza that had already been signed, showed that relations between the two sides were not so bad as to be at war with each other, and that the hostility was made even more comical by the fact that the French had secretly supplied the Neapolitan fleet through the merchants.

So no one, whether it was Charlon or his generals, believed that the Neapolitans would suddenly attack them.

But these are not the most important things, it is their strong army that really gives the French this confidence.

Despite the disgraceful return of Charles VIII in Italy last time, no one can deny the fact that the French army is still the most powerful army on the continent today, especially after the successive victories of Louis XII in northern Italy, the arrogance of the French has become even more arrogant.

Even with the news that Maximian had captured Milan, Varese's heavy defeat of the Austrian army still gave the French army a formidable reputation.

Under these circumstances, even the famously cautious Charlon did not think that the Neapolitans would choose the path of enemy of the French army, which seemed to him to be unworkable, because it would be completely unprofitable for the Neapolitan court in exile.

On the contrary, until the Neapolitans suddenly attacked, Charlain was considering a request to open the Neapolitan land trade route to the Billy Silly, which made the Charlon feel that the interests of the French were weakened.

Charlain was still somewhat sure of such a condition, and at this time Naples needed to work with the French to balance the Aragonese at a critical moment, so he believed that under this pressure, the Queen Regent of Naples would choose to give in.

Even after Alexander had returned, Charlain still didn't think there was much of a problem, and it seemed to him that the Count of Montina might be more knowledgeable about current affairs than his half-sister.

But Alexander, whom he thought was well versed in current affairs, suddenly launched a surprise attack on his French army in Naples.

When the Neapolitan army had quietly assembled not far from the city, Charlaon was puzzled until he received a report that it was the Cosenza grenadier company that was leading the battle.

The Neapolitans apparently took advantage of the French treaty with them regarding the strict neutrality of Cosenza, and they easily sent their army to a short distance from the city, and then the Cosença entered the battle in the name of the queen's army.

"It's despicable." Sharron said this in a calm tone, at least the people next to him didn't hear how much anger was contained in it, let alone hatred, as if it were simply stating a fact.

In the early morning of October 29, the Neapolitan army suddenly attacked the French from Mount Juri, southeast of Naples.

Mount Sunday is named after the famous Sunday Church outside the city of Naples, this ancient building after the Egg Castle is the first church built in Naples, the monks who chose here built the church because of the strong and steep terrain here, although it has been abandoned for many years, but the Mount Sunday has become a sacred place in the hearts of Neapolitans, and even the remains of St. Anurius, the patron saint of the city of Naples, are said to be buried on the Mount Lord.

In addition to the part of the French garrison in the city, there was a garrison of about 3,000 men at the foot of the main day.

Charlain did not deploy almost all the French troops in the city as he did in Rome, because he learned the lesson of being surrounded by the allied forces in Rome and cutting off the way to the main French army on both sides of the northwest.

The French army in Rome did not want to abandon the city, but the road to the north had been cut off, and the allied forces had occupied the port of retreat from the sea, which forced Charlon to struggle in the city of Rome.

Although the capture of Naples went unusually well this time, Charlaon learned his lesson, and in addition to deploying more than 5,000 French troops in the fortress fortress in Naples, he arranged an army of 3,000 men at the foot of the Sun Hill not far from the city.

Scharron's idea was simple, if the enemy attacked, he could easily block the port from the sea, and if someone attacked from land, he could also use the army outside the city to contain the enemy first, and then buy him time to mobilize the various parts of the city.

Even Sharron, who had never despised any enemy, did not expect that the enemy in his mind was so different from the one he was about to face.

The Neapolitan attack first began from the main day, and when the Cosenza 1st grenadier company appeared in front of the French on the main day, the French patrols who had discovered the enemy had only time to report the enemy to the garrison generals, and then the Neapolitan army had already reached the French position.

Although surprised by the sudden attack of the Neapolitan army, the French did not appear to be too alarmed by this time.

To them, the Neapolitans had come to die, especially when from a distance they barely saw any decent long weapons of the enemy, and especially when there were hardly many spears that could be regarded as modern weapons against both infantry and cavalry, the French could not help but laugh at the fact that Naples had been so embarrassed.

Then the French attacked the enemy, and many of the French who had participated in the last expedition seemed to them to be brave enough to hold out until they rushed close and not run away.

And those Neapolitans behaved even more unhurriedly, they just saw the shadow of the French army and couldn't help but retreat, and then they simply began to retreat non-stop, which made the French laugh and follow them like a flock of sheep unhurriedly, because the French not only had to maintain the formation when they were advancing, but also knew that behind the Neapolitans was the main day, and they had no chance to escape.

The Neapolitans were soon driven to the foot of Mount Lord's Day, and then the French found that the Neapolitans, wearing flat helmets with a wide rim, had advanced behind a ruined trench centered on the old church of Mount Lord's Day.

The ditches looked like they had been dug freshly, and in addition to the ditches there was a wall along the edge of the old church that did not look very high.

The walls were made of excavated earth and gravel and did not look very strong, and the trenches could be crushed and filled with a single charge by cavalry.

So the French generals, after observing for a while and ascertaining that the enemy had only this means, and that the terrain showed that the enemy could not form a flank detour for him, even if he had reinforcements, launched the order to attack.

It was almost noon, and although it was already cold in October, the French generals felt the pleasant warmth of the sun on their faces as they raised their arms to give the order to attack.

It was the last moment of his day in which he felt a little comfort, and for the rest of the day, until it was dark early because of the late autumn, the French were completely plunged into a terrible nightmare.

The French troops, who were the first to attack, lined up in a neat formation not far from the church, and after being sure that the enemy would not come out from behind the low wall to meet them, they decided to attack the trenches.

They began to approach the trenches, and as they advanced, they made loud provocations in an attempt to galvanize the timid Neapolitans to engage them head-on.

And then from the moment the first shots rang out, the French had their nightmare.

The dense teams that could be reached without even aiming provided the 1st Corenadier Company of Kosenca with the most satisfying targets.

Soldiers, who were often subjected to corporal punishment during training because they could not hit the target at all, suddenly found that the French on the opposite side were so cute, because they were neither like the targets that could not be hit because they were not moving, nor like the Ottomans, who were numerous, but difficult to aim because of their swiftness, for them, the French on the opposite side were like they were in front of their guns, and the only thing to do was to shoot.

The grenadiers unceremoniously responded to the Frenchman's gracious invitation, and with the order they raised their muskets in the manner they had been trained to do, and then a shrill whistle sounded, which instantly drowned out the whistle that was still echoing in their ears.

When the first row of French soldiers fell, no one realized what was happening, and although the whole team seemed to be punched by an invisible enemy, the inertia allowed them to continue to move forward without stopping.

Then a second burst of gunfire rang out, which came from behind the breastwork on the other side of the church, because the terrain on the other side of the church was so high that the grenadiers standing behind the wall could even shoot bullets directly into the rear of the French formation.

With the wind whistling overhead, the French found themselves in the midst of a series of screams.

The French at the front were a little unable to hold on, they erected their shields to resist the oncoming bullets, but those bullets were obviously much more terrible than crossbow arrows, not only were they extremely powerful, they hit the shield and the debris flew around, and the terrible thing was that the huge penetrating power often pierced the shield directly, and then beat the people hiding behind to a bloody blur, and suffered heavy casualties.

The French generals were a little confused for a while, they had not fought with opponents with firearms, in their opinion, although firearms were fierce, they were as powerful as crossbow arrows at a long distance, and once they were rushed in front of the enemy, firearms and crossbows would be useless.

So although the enemy's firearms seemed to be a little too numerous and not a big deal, it was only after the battle that they realized that the power of these enemy firearms was far beyond their expectations, because the enemy was completely hiding behind the fortifications, and they were faced with a brutal slaughter.

Rushing over, as long as it was enough to rush through, the French generals kept telling themselves that the nearest soldier seemed to them so close to the ditch that they could rush in front of it if they fought hard.

Then the trumpets sounded hurriedly, and the French soldiers followed the trumpets and began a charge that seemed not far away.

The grenadiers were numb, some had blocked their ears with strips of cloth torn from their clothes, and some had simply lost consciousness of the repetitive sounds in their ears.

A lot of people have a numb shoulder that is no longer obedient, which is caused by different exchanges, shoulder strikes, and shots in the back seat.

A cracking sound rang out from the trench not far away, mixed with a series of screams, and the people nearby instinctively bent down and looked in the direction of the sound.

It was a soldier whose musket exploded, and at the moment when the hammer hit the anvil, although the spark ignited the gunpowder in the medicine pool, the projectile in the chamber was not pushed out of the barrel by the burning and exploding gunpowder, but burst out from somewhere, and the fragments of the rifle that were blown up directly ripped open the cheeks of the soldier who was close to his cheek, and then threw a small piece of flesh from his nose to the wall of the trench.

The bloodied soldier was holding his face and screaming, and someone had already grabbed him from the side and dragged him out of the trench.

Blood splattered on the body of the person next to him, but the soldier just looked down, and then turned around to see the musket handed over by the loader behind him, and he did as ordered, aim, and shoot!

The distance to the trench seemed like a short distance, but it seemed to the French soldiers that they would never be able to rush in front of it.

Although it seemed that he was about to succeed at one point, someone had already rushed to a short distance from the low wall by stepping on the corpses of his companions, and with a little more effort, he could rush over the low wall, and when he started a revenge massacre, he pushed out from behind the low wall and appeared in front of the French.

Those who rushed to the front instinctively realized the danger and stopped, but this did not allow them to escape their terrible fate.

With a dense sound, the bellows-like machinery erupted in a flood of projectiles at the same time, and a large number of French soldiers were killed at the moment before they could even see what was killing them.

The French army finally began to waver, some did not obey the order to retreat, and in the event of defeat, this terrible fear began to spread in the ranks.

The generals kept shouting louder and louder, until they had to draw their swords to threaten the retreating soldiers, but the slightly hesitant soldiers were immediately knocked down by the bullets fired from behind, which became the final straw for the complete collapse of the French army.

One soldier mustered up the courage to slam his shoulder on the chin of the officer, who was holding a threatening sword, and then ran forward while he fell, so that everyone began to run after him.

The officers could no longer stop more and more soldiers fleeing the battlefield, and when they saw some of their companions being chopped to the ground for trying to stop the deserters, the French generals finally knew that the tide was turning.

They also began to retreat, for whom the battle at the foot of the Lord's Day Mountain was over, and what they had to do now was to recollect the chaotic army as soon as they retreated.

What worried them was that the Neapolitans would pursue them without waiting for them to regroup their army, so the French immediately retreated in the direction of Naples, where they had to get rid of the possible pursuit and at the same time quickly re-stop the counterattack.

But they seemed to have been overly concerned, and the Neapolitans did not seem to want to pursue them, which made the French commander rejoice but also worry that this was a Neapolitan conspiracy.

The suspicion was soon proven, and just as they had finally slowed down to gather their army after a few miles, the French heard a chilling shout, a roar that many of them had never heard before, as if it were a barbarian from some wild land.

Then they saw an army that they had never seen before rushing towards them!

Alexander threw himself into the Balkans, and the timing was precisely the gap where the French had just stopped and had not had time to reorganize their army.

The French had to flee again, they kept running towards the city of Naples, and whenever they stopped a little, they would be pursued by the enemy behind, the Balkans, the army led by the knights of Cosenza, and later even the Neapolitan army began to drive the defeated enemy all the way to the city of Naples like the French before them.

When the French army finally fled to the city of Naples, the casualties along the way had already caused the French army of 3,000 men to suffer heavy losses, and it was almost impossible to defeat it.

Charlon, who had already received the report, sent a troop to meet the French, and although everyone was angry at the Neapolitan raid, Charlon was calm except for surprise.

He knew he had been fooled, or rather used, but anger and hatred in this situation did not solve all this trouble.

What he hopes now is to get the crippled French army back to Naples as soon as possible, and at the same time he wants to ask those people as soon as possible how many troops the Neapolitan army has, which can completely defeat 3,000 French troops in one day.

But what Charron didn't expect was that the reinforcements he sent were attacked shortly after leaving the city, and the losses were heavy!

It was only then that Charlain realized why the Neapolitan army had been unhurriedly following the French along the way.

They were buying time for their comrades who were preparing to ambush reinforcements in the city.

By this time, Scharlen knew that his superiority in strength had been wiped out with these two losses.

Sure enough, on 31 October, the Neapolitan army began a fierce attack on the French city of Naples, and to Charlon's surprise, the Neapolitan army seemed to be more numerous than he had previously calculated.

Even so, Charlon did not think that the Neapolitans could storm the city, until two days later, on November 2, the French finally fell into chaos with the sudden simultaneous outbreak of riots in different parts of the city of Naples.

On the afternoon of 2 November, the Neapolitan army bombarded Nabliado in Naples with artillery, and at the same time, with the help of the rebels in the city, they captured Nabliado in the evening of the same day, and then launched an attack on the whole city with Montina's army as the vanguard.

Naples, "fall"!