Charles VIII summoned all the generals and immediately started a meeting of the life and death of the French army, and the French army needed to immediately come up with decisive measures to break the current predicament, otherwise it is likely that all the French army, including the French king, will be buried here.

Now the situation of the French army is embattled, and there are enemies everywhere. The land and sea routes home were blocked by the Italians, and the French mainland was sacked by the British, and the Italian inhabitants were very hostile to the French army, eager to tear them apart and skin, and the French army itself was depleted by the outbreak of the epidemic, which lost most of its combat strength and morale. In this desperate situation, Charles VIII could only gather his generals to discuss a way back to France, and did not dare to continue to dream of conquering Italy or consolidating the existing occupation.

Charles VIII's huge head, slightly shaking, his face was slightly pale, and his eyes were a little sloppy, obviously he hadn't slept well for a long time, and he asked Angus, the oldest and wisest of the generals present, with difficulty: "General Angus, you see the current situation, what can we do to return to France safely?" ”

Angus's eyes were black, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was obviously unable to sleep day and night, and he replied in a hoarse voice: "Your Majesty, our present situation, with a lack of food and clothing, and a mutiny among some of our soldiers, the most likely strategy to implement is to retreat to France lightly, abandon all baggage, and simply take food and grass and the necessary weapons with us, and quickly retreat all the way to the Alps, where we will fight to the death with the blockade of Milan!" Time cannot be delayed any longer, otherwise, we will not need the enemy to attack at all, and we will collapse on our own, and then we will have to be captured! ”

After hearing this, Ryan was very angry, and looked at Angus angrily: "Old fellow, don't be alarmist here!" If it weren't for the outbreak of the epidemic in our French army, which lost so many troops out of thin air, and even Tiger died because of the epidemic, how could those Italian soft-footed shrimp be the elite opponents of our French army? Now that the epidemic has weakened and been controlled, and the combat strength of our soldiers is slowly recovering, as long as our morale is restored, then ten of these soft-footed soldiers in Italy are not enough for us to fight! As for the lack of food and clothing, it is even easier! Let's just grab it! Anyway, we have robbed all the way before, and those untouchables dare not resist! What's more, even if we don't rob them now, will they be grateful and stop being hostile to us? ”

After listening to Ryan's rebuttal, the French King shook his head imperceptibly, obviously disagreeing with Ryan's statement, but he didn't speak first, but looked at the rest of the generals and asked them to talk about their opinions. When the rest of the generals saw that the King did not speak, but looked at them, they naturally knew that they intended to let them express their opinions and find a good way out of the current predicament.

Ryan pondered for a moment and said: "Your Majesty, the minister agrees with the old General Angus even more, at present, the morale of our army is completely gone, all kinds of ordnance and strategic materials have been consumed, and many soldiers have just come out of the shadow of the epidemic. ”

As a Swiss mercenary, Tedler knew that it was time to express his position and explain his opinion: "Your Majesty, the minister also thinks that it is better to consider breaking through at present, the allied forces are strong, even His Majesty's French mainland has been attacked by the British army, and at present, we are encountering heavy resistance in Italy and constantly being attacked by local rebels, in this case, our soldiers are already exhausted, and it is really not suitable to fight for a long time!" ”

Angus saw that the rest of the generals agreed with his opinion, so he immediately said: "The state and low morale of our soldiers are on the one hand, on the other hand, more importantly, in addition to the lack of food and clothing, we also seriously lack the rest of the various military materials, such as armor, ordnance, etc., these have been lost after such a long time of our campaign, and there have been logistics supply lines one after another, and they can barely make up for the losses, but now the back road is cut off, once we have a large-scale battle, Then there will be no more ordnance supplies, and then we will not be far from destruction! ”

When Charles VIII heard this, he also heard the meaning of several generals, and knew that they all agreed to rush to the Alps immediately before the Allied encirclement line was closed, fight to the death with the Milanese army, and then take the opportunity to break through, so he concluded: "Several generals have thought very carefully, our current situation is indeed not easy to fight for a long time, and the Allied army has received military technical support from Spain, and the strength of the current Italian army should not be underestimated, compared to the combat power when we first arrived, it is simply a world of difference, At this time, if we continue to fall in love here, we will probably die in Italy without a place to be buried! Now we will begin to arrange the retreat, and we must arrange a proper and slow retreat, so as not to give the enemy a chance to take advantage of it! If these Italians had seized the opportunity to defeat us in one fell swoop on the way to retreat, we would have died a tragic death in Italy! ”

When the generals heard this, they also knew that the King had made up his mind, so they retreated to arrange the retreat. In the middle, only Angus's eyes were always red, and at last there were tears floating in his old dim and wrinkled eyes. It turned out that after making the decision to retreat lightly, Angus was already very clear that his artillery unit was finished. Although the artillery soldiers can still move with the large army, the bronze cannons that France has accumulated for so long and worked hard to build are bound to be discarded here, and can the artillery that has lost its artillery still be called artillery? However, Angus also knew in his heart that the current situation, the artillery and those ammunition, could no longer be brought back, they were so heavy, and the price to pay to move them was so great, that it was impossible to carry these burdens over the mountains and mountains in a hurry now!

Angus endured the great grief in his heart, and ordered the soldiers to pull out all the artillery and ammunition, place them in the open space, and then let the soldiers hold the arranged fuses, and the people stood far away, and began to light the fire. I heard a loud bang, the earth shook several times, and the artillery ammunition that had been placed in the open space before emitted a huge fire, illuminating the surroundings even brighter, and then the smoke of gunpowder filled the air, and all the artillery and ammunition were burned and destroyed. Since Angus knew that it was impossible for these guns to be brought back to France, there was no possibility of leaving them in Italy to support the enemy, so he had to endure great grief and destroy them all.

Angus, for his part, was able to endure his grief and destroy his beloved artillery, but it was impossible for the French king and the rest of the generals to abandon the huge treasures they had previously looted in Italy, so they had to bring these booties back to France, so that they could not come to Italy in vain.

Angus looked at the behavior of the King and the rest of the generals, and felt a sense of powerlessness in his heart, not knowing what to say, they had already reached the point where their lives were in danger, and they actually wanted to bring this treasure back, and it was typical to ask for wealth rather than death. But he didn't want to say anything more, even the wise King knew that it would be in vain for him to say more, so he went back to his tent to rest.

Charles VIII looked at the mess in front of him before the retreat, and his heart was full of wireless melancholy. Thinking that at the beginning, he came to Italy with more than 30,000 soldiers across the Alps, how high-spirited, how majestic, the whole of Italy prostrate at his feet without the slightest resistance, and he also dreamed of conquering Italy in one fell swoop, winning the beauty Carrier who made his heart move, and then conquering the whole of Europe, driving the barbarians of the Ottoman Empire out of Europe and restoring the glory of the Holy Land. And now, the French army has fallen into such a tragic situation, not only is there no hope of conquering Europe, but even he and the French army under his command will flee Italy in a hurry, and they will be buried in Italy if they are not careful. How does this make Charles VIII's heart not painful, how can it not be painful?

However, no matter how much it is deplored, it is irreparable, and the current situation facing Charles VIII is also very critical. Now the legions formed by the alliance have begun to advance on their side, and the Italians and resistance troops along the way have provided all kinds of convenience and intelligence to this Allied army, which has made the French blind in Italy, and the enemy has become clairvoyant, and the French army has nothing to hide in front of them. If the French continued to delay here, they would be in a deeper quagmire, and the army would be in an extremely dangerous situation, so it would be necessary to prepare for a decisive retreat, and then quickly return by road.

Charles VIII lifted his spirits a little, then he didn't think about it anymore, and immediately made more detailed arrangements for the retreat, especially the treasures looted all the way, which should be carefully and properly arranged, Charles VIII thought about transporting this batch of treasures back to the country, and then with this huge wealth, France will soon be able to restore strong production capacity, and then be able to cast more artillery and armor equipment, and when the time is ripe, he Charles VIII can take the invincible French army to conquer everywhere, be careful, control, don't overindulge, there will always be a chance to conquer Europe. Thinking so, Charles VIII felt a little better, and then ordered his soldiers to take care of the goods more carefully.

When the preparations were ready, Charles VIII arranged for a retreat in batches, and slowly retreated to France, and this time he also began to become cautious, not daring to take too big a step, nor daring to be careless and not to detect the way ahead, so he sent many cavalry to reconnoiter the way ahead, and carefully let the troops retreat in several waves in turn, so that the last troops would always be ready to meet the battle.

However, although the French army retreated in a relatively timely manner, the Allies had long ago colluded with each other, and under the strong leadership of the British, many preparations had been made before the alliance was concluded, so the actions of the Allies could be said to be very rapid and quick and effective, how could they let the French army go so easily? In particular, the local residents of Italy can be said to be gritting their teeth for the French army, they can be said to be impatient to quickly assemble on the side of the French army, and many Italian resistance troops and civilians often harass the French army, making the French army advance very slowly, all of which seems to say that the defeat of the French army is assured!