Located between Bologna and Rimini, Ravenna, like many Italian cities, dates back to the Roman Empire, where it was once the central capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, and it was also known as the Byzantine of Italy – but it was chosen as the battlefield for battle, in large part because it was located on the coastal plain of the Adriatic Sea, with a wide field of battlefield, which was quite advantageous for both cavalry and artillery. The cavalry, of course, refers to Louis XII's Edict Knights, who suffered their greatest defeat in a century at Fornovo during Charles VIII's invasion of Italy – the first time Giulio Medici faced the cold and brutal edge of war, even though he was only a papal envoy and was regarded as a vassal of Borgia.

But after that battle, the knights of the Edict, with the great help of the new king, Louis XII, refurbished themselves and their horses. Simply increasing the thickness of the plate has proven unfeasible, but in addition to the previous craftsman who has already figured out the method of cold forging and heat treating it again to enhance the strength of the armor, there is another craftsman, who was stimulated by the heavy reward received by the former, and he meditated for several days, and finally got inspiration from the cockle shell that the child was playing with in his hand, and made radioactive ribs on the armor by cold forging - the front breastplate had six ribs on the top and bottom and left and right, and the ridges on the back rose high and spread out to the sides. It's like wings that have lost their feathers and bones.

These protruding surfaces have about one-fifth of an inch of ribs, which can play a role in reinforcing ribs when facing spears, swords or projectiles, and can enhance the strength of the armor under the same thickness, and the arc-shaped depressions formed by the convex ribs can also guide some deadly striking forces along the ribs to the shoulders, ribs, and waist gaps to be lost, so as not to cause too much damage.

The knights of the edict immediately tested this new idea, and the results were gratifying, although they could not ignore the pellets of muskets in the same way that they ignored arrows, but the damage to the armor used as targets was still within the range of the knights compared to the tragic experience at the Battle of Fornovo.

The third craftsman also put forward his new idea, which was to further raise the front chest of the cuirass to form a structure like a chicken breast, reducing the force surface of the musket projectile, and this idea was also accepted after testing, but the knights did not want to be called a chicken-breasted knight, so it was renamed "dove breast". ”

Louis XII also intended to obtain a musket from the Italians, and his emissaries sought out Leonardo da Vinci, who was said to have invented it, but he flatly denied it, although those in the know said that it was one of his Assassin friends who had used it, which Louis XII was warned by the Assasin Assassins when he wanted to go further, much to the chagrin of the King of France. The knights persuaded the king that the new weapons might be sharp enough, but the great battle was just around the corner, and they could not spare time to familiarize themselves with and practice them, so Louis XII finally put the matter in his plans for the future.

However, as the Edict Knights said, the battle was not won or lost by one or two delicate knick-knacks, and although the Edict Knights suffered from muskets in the battles of Fornovo and later with the Spaniards Chenilioni, they were only vigilant, but did not think that such weapons could drive the Edict Knights, so proud of the French, from the battlefield in one fell swoop. That's what they think, that's what they think, and they're determined to prove it with a victory.

After the harvest season had passed, and before winter had arrived, the twenty-five thousand men of the French and the twenty-one thousand men of the Holy Alliance had finally met on the plains of Ravenna.

No, to be precise, it should be their artillery, the eyes of Hesse were the first to meet, since the smaller, lighter, or more powerful artillery was sold to every corner of the world by the so-called Spaniards, the Grand Duke and the King, and the cardinals spent a large part of their expenses on it, and in order to meet this war, Louis XII and Leo X spared no expense -

General Cardona, who was a Spaniard, squinted behind the roaring artillery, he did not see the king's banner.

"Have you found the king?" He asked the people around him.

And the man beside him was a priest of the Order of Mercy, who held up a monocular, and looked through the banner at the soldiers below, "No," he said, "I don't see the king, and it is very likely that Louis XII will not be on this battlefield." ”

"It's also possible, after all, this battlefield is something we have already decided, Charles VIII was once a prisoner of our Duke of Terranova, and it is clear that Louis XII is not willing to give me this opportunity." Cardona said.

The lame joke was only exchanged for a polite smile from the monk, but as Cardona had intended, he handed the telescope to the Coalition commander and returned to his master.

His master was a boy who was only eleven years old - Cosimo Medici the Younger, although he had been canonized as the Grand Duke of Nuoro, he should have at least appeared in such a place after he reached adulthood, but Giulio Medici, who was supposed to be here, had to stay in Rome as a pillar of the Church because of the assassination of Leo X, but if the person who was the commander of the Holy League was Gonzalo of Spain, not Cardona of Spain, he might still be able to deliver trust, but Cardona, although he swore to the Holy Father, But as he said, he had not suffered a heavy blow and had no considerable honor, and it was worrying that such a mediocre man would face the fierce and cunning Louis XII.

So Cosimo Jr. recommended himself to his guardian and de facto father.

He didn't go to Ravenna alone, that would be a joke, he took with him five hundred musketeers, a thousand infantry, all from Nuoro and Gardis, and surrounded by the Assassins of Assasin and the monks of the Order of Mercy.

In the hands of little Cosimo there was another telescope, which was given to him by his father, the Cardinal Medici, before leaving, and he held it up and looked towards the positions of the French, just like the monks before him, he could not see the king's banner, only the dense surging soldiers, and their commander-Gaston de Fois, a young man with curly red hair, who wore a full suit of armor, but did not wear a helmet, and little Cosimo moved the telescope to the left and right—from here, He could see the arrangement of the French, Gaston was young, but in terms of arrangement, he had a talent that the Spaniard Cardona could not have—more than 20,000 soldiers were arranged in an orderly manner along the banks of the river under his command—about 8,000 Gascony's crossbowmen and Picardy's pikemen, as well as the Angjou nobles of Naples, and the 4,000 mercenaries who had been offered to Louis XII—from musketeers, infantry, crossbowmen, and spearmen, all in one place, united into the left flank of the battle line, The right flank was handed over by Gaston to nearly a thousand knights of the Imperial Order, with two thousand light cavalry, and some reserves.

At the forefront, there was still artillery, thirty small cannons constantly roaring, Gaston seemed to feel that it was not enough, and built a larger platform, aiming the large artillery that was ready to be used to bombard the walls of Ravenna at the cavalry of the Holy Alliance—the large cannons used to bombard the walls were completely different from the small cannons, and they fired even iron shells, although the iron cannonballs at this time were only solid iron balls, But the iron meant that they didn't fit as tightly as hard-to-polish stone bullets, and the thrust from the gunpowder could be applied entirely to the cannonballs—they had been facing stone walls, but were now being used against weak flesh and blood, with predictable results—Cardona watched as a black iron cannonball bounced and dragged out of his position a bloody trail on which at least thirty heavy cavalry and their horses had stood.

This violent blow can not only discourage the enemy, but also provoke their anger, and the light cavalry on the side of the Holy Alliance actually rushed forward without Cardona's order, and this time it was in the arms of Gaston, and the knight of the edict who was sharpening his sword rushed forward, and the two cavalry teams were immediately entangled.

Cardona couldn't help but curse loudly, the Spaniards only had more artillery than the French, and he had ordered the reserve artillery to come forward, although he did not carry large artillery because he had come to support Ravenna, but the dense firing could make up for this weakness, and as long as a gap was opened, he believed that the enemy would be defeated. But now the cavalry is engaged with the enemy, and the artillery salvo will only cause casualties to the enemy and himself at the same time - this is his inadequacy, neither in the Spaniards nor in the Italians, his prestige is not as high as Gonzalo, so that many people do not believe in him, on the battlefield it is simply the worst nightmare, without a strong leader, everyone has their own ideas, their own tactics, their own voice, and the result is that they must be broken by the enemy individually.

Not to mention, the knights of the edict were originally the most warlike horses in the whole of Europa, and the heavy cavalry of the Spaniards had no way to fight against them, not to mention that in order to fight against the muskets, the armor of the knights and the armor of the horses were repaired, which made the original plan of the Spanish heavy cavalry - chopping the horses, completely failed to achieve the results they wanted, they fell off their horses one after another, like ripe fruits, after the battle, after statistics, twenty-eight cavalry captains, eleven were killed, Seven were captured, the rest were wounded in varying degrees of severity, and nearly three hundred of their cavalry were killed.

Of course, Cardona couldn't have counted them at this time, but he had eyes to see that there had been a frightening void on the left flank of the Holy Alliance, which should have been filled with thousands of heavy cavalry, but now it had been ruined by those stupid and arrogant cavalry captains.

At this time, the mediocre commander made another mistake, and he was still stubbornly demanding that the reserve artillery come forward, trying to use the artillery to contain the attack of the Imperial Knight.

He may not have been wrong, because when the left wing of the Spaniards suffered a great defeat, their right flank, that is, the artillery of the Gascony crossbowmen was more powerful than ever, even if it was only small artillery, but those crossbowmen had rare iron armor, and their courage was as weak as leather armor, and under the threat of artillery, their line was shattered in an instant, and everyone was retreating in a panic, fleeing, and behind them were the pikemen of Picardy, who put down their spears under the orders of Gastonto force these cowardly people to face their enemies anew – and as a result more deaths, it is not a question of lack of courage, nor of skill or ability.

The range of the bow and crossbow is clearly incomparable with artillery.

But Cardona's mistake was that he didn't realize that since the range of the bow and crossbow could not be compared with the artillery, the speed of the knight of the edict was completely unequal to the speed of the artillery, and the cannon was still halfway through, but the knight of the knight had already eliminated any enemy who dared to stand in their way, and rode into the position of the coalition army, which was the empty spot that Cardona had seen earlier.

As the Knights of the Edict began to storm the flanks and rears of the Holy Alliance's army, Gaston began to reorganize his crossbowmen and pikemen for a second assault on the Spanish position.

Seeing that the army of the Holy Alliance was about to be defeated, a group that had not been taken to Cardona's heart suddenly appeared behind the Edict Knights - they were none other than the musketeers from Cadiz and Nuoro, who were musketeers but also agile cavalrymen, who rode their horses like a game, maneuvering deftly around the Edict Knights, constantly throwing small iron balls that burst when they landed.

The little iron balls, when they burst, either caught fire or emitted bursts of intense pungent smoke, and no amount of armor could stop the smell from spreading, and they also had horses—the animals' sense of smell was more sensitive and more unbearable, and once the knights lost control of the horses, their power was greatly reduced.

Bayar, the leader of the knights of the Imperial Decree, was a young man of calm temperament, loyal and forgiving, but such a man could not help but be aroused by this vile act, and he endured the smoke and shouted the name of the king, leading several other cavalry who had not yet been affected by the smoke to attack the shameless enemy.

Seeing this, the cavalry of Cadiz fled as quickly as possible, and the hoplites were indeed no match for these vile bastards in speed, and the knights of the Edict were about to turn around when the cavalry followed with a clatter.

Bayar trembled with anger: "Where are our crossbowmen? He shouted.

"Still fighting!" One of the knights replied that Bayard had to expect Gaston, his friend and commander, to take notice.

Gaston noticed, he commanded a part of the crossbowmen to attack the left flank of the Spaniards, the cavalry line here has been destroyed by the Imperial Knights, only scattered infantry and spearmen, they saw the enemy in front and behind, and the idea of surrender had long been raised, so these crossbowmen did not encounter much resistance, they can be said to be easily embedded in the weak link of the Spaniards, and were about to join the Imperial Knights.