The natives of Europa also have outstanding military strategists!

Major General Chen Chongguan, Vice-Governor of the Atlantic, Governor of Macao, and General of the Atlantic Mercenary Army, now believes this with certainty: the natives of Europa are not easy to deal with! Although their military technology is backward than that of the Ming Dynasty, the level of organization and training of the army is far inferior to that of the Ming Dynasty. But the battlefield is the best classroom, and endless wars will inevitably produce outstanding military strategists.

Now, Chen Chongguan has met one of them - the prince of England "Long-legged Edward".

The Atlantic Coalition (theoretically composed of the five nations of the Ming Dynasty, Castile, Portugal, Genoa, and the Holy Roman Empire, as part of the Five Kingdoms) was slowly moving eastward along the winding Thames River. On the wide river, four New World-class capital ships and thirty Kirk ships split into two columns and went upstream, approaching London, the capital of the Kingdom of England.

"Your Excellency the Governor, they are to the north of us! Approximately...... Fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men, including knights, pikemen, and longbowmen, were marching parallel to us 20 miles away. ”

Prince Josan of Castile, riding a tall and handsome Andalusian horse, went forward as he reported in Latin to Chen Chongguan what he had just discovered.

"This army bears the Three Lions of the Plantagenet dynasty, and the leader of the army is probably Prince Edward, a brilliant commander who has changed the face of the English army."

Prince Chausan is Prince Edward's nephew, and although he has never met his uncle, he knows his deeds.

"During these years, he trained an army of longbowmen and pikemen. The soldiers were hired hillbillies from England who had a tradition of playing with bows and arrows. ”

Bows and arrows were not knights' weapons. The knights of Europa did not play mounted archery, and they were generally reluctant for commoners to play with bows and crossbows, if they had them. The knight lord is not very good at power. But there are always exceptions, Genoa, Venice and England being exceptions.

The first two were civic states, there was no knight class, and "civic democracy" was practiced, and of course citizens were not forbidden to hold bows and crossbows, and the merchants of these two countries did not have so much effort to practice longbows, so crossbows became popular. The knights of England were all conquerors from Normandy, and at first they were not very numerous, and it was impossible to suppress the Anglo-Saxons. So they allowed the subordinate Anglo-Saxon superiors to have bows and arrows and to exist as a kind of "quasi-aristocracy". The practice and possession of bows and arrows gradually became a part of English life. As a result, the crossbowmen of Genoa and Venice became famous, and the English longbow later became a militaristic weapon.

However, it was not England's longbow that made Chen Chongguan's brow tighten, this weapon that gave Europa knights a headache was very popular in the East. What made Chen Chongguan feel prickly was the opponent's tactic of "luring the enemy deep". The banks of the Thames were unfortified, all the castles on the banks were abandoned, the towns and farmhouses were set on fire, the nobles and the people hid and carried out harassing attacks from time to time. Every night is the culmination of this harassing activity! And the squire knights sent out to reconnoitre. And they are often shot with hidden arrows! Along the way, more than two dozen Portuguese and Castilian squire knights have been lost.

Even more worrying was the fact that the English were gathering large armies, and their numbers were growing. It has always been 20 miles north of the coalition army, parallel to the eastward march with the coalition army, but it has never had the intention of going south to fight. And once the main forces of the coalition army went north. They will also move north at the same time to avoid a decisive battle with the coalition forces.

Obviously, the commander of the other side is very calm. He's waiting for the perfect moment to make a move.

"Is it possible for Edward to abandon London?" Chen Chongguan asked with a frown.

"Yes," replied Prince Josan. "London is just a small city with a population of 30,000 or 40,000 people, and if you give up, you will give up."

England in this era was a big rural village. Stone castles are everywhere, not a single big city, even London, a densely populated metropolis in later generations, is now only a small city of thirty or forty thousand people, half of whom are still servants and retinues of the English royal family and nobles. It was therefore very easy to empty London, and it was not of much value to occupy it - if the opponents were the Eastern Roman Empire, the Holy See, Venice and Genoa, and occupy their capitals, the war would be over. But in the face of England, which was made up of a bunch of hillbilly knights and serfs, it really didn't make much sense to occupy London.

If you want to force the knights of England to submit, you must crush their main force, otherwise the war will drag on endlessly.

However, it was not easy to force the main force of the English knights to fight a decisive battle, because the knights were more mobile, far exceeding the combined forces dominated by infantry. Moreover, the number of Portuguese and Castilian squire knights in the coalition army was too small to be used for reconnaissance and cover, and they could not be scattered far away to kill people and set fires, forcing the knights of England to protect their civilians. Besides, most of the commoners of England had bows and arrows, and only knights with chain mail might not be able to please them.

As for the overthrow of the Plantagenet dynasty and the establishment of another king of England...... Liang Chongru explicitly vetoed Chen Chongguan before he set out for the campaign.

It's okay to knock the unfamiliar native princes of Europa, but it's a bit of a hassle to abolish them. Today the king of England can be abolished, tomorrow the king of France can be abolished, and the day after tomorrow it may be the turn of Alfonso X of Castile.

Don't you provoke public anger?

Now Daming has just gained a foothold in Europa, but he is not qualified to offend so many people. Moreover, the Ming Dynasty still has to use these Europa kings to consume Kublai Khan's strength!

……

"No, no, that's not good!"

"The enemy is only five thousand, we will soon have twenty thousand, why abandon London?"

"Are the knights of England still afraid of the hillbillies of Switzerland and the Black Forest?"

"That's just some infantry!"

Just when Chen Chongguan was a little helpless. His opponent, the long-legged Edward, seems to be in a lot of trouble. In a castle not much stronger than a cottage, a group of knights in chain mail are clamoring for battle.

Knights, of course, have a bit of chivalry that doesn't know whether to live or die. I don't like Prince Edward's way of avoiding war and saving his life. In the past two days, the news of the abandonment of London has spread among the army again. The longbowmen and pikemen who paid for the war didn't care, as long as they could get paid. But the knights of the earth, who thought they had some honor, could not bear it any longer, and at last came to their prince in droves to theorize.

After a battle, the capital was lost - although there was nothing of value in the capital, but there was the face of a valiant English knight there!

Prince Edward was still moody, his gaze slowly swept over a large group of hillbilly knights, and finally fell on his uncle, the Earl of Cornwall, who proclaimed himself Holy Roman Emperor.

This "emperor" and the current King of England, Henry III, were good brothers...... Almost confused, they are all ambitious and incapacitated, and they all set their sights on the European continent, which is like a quagmire. One wants to be emperor, the other wants to reclaim Normandy (which was once the domain of the English crown). As a result, they were all delayed for life by these two unrealistic goals.

But the Count of Cornwall was much more popular among the English nobility than his hapless brother - after all, he had a chance to become Holy Roman Emperor! Although this opportunity is now getting slimmer.

"Uncle, you also think you can't give up London?" Prince Edward looked at his uncle and asked, "London is just a small city, and it is on the banks of the Thames, under the threat of enemy warships...... I think you know that their battleships are loaded with weapons called 'cannons' that can destroy walls and fortresses! ”

"We can beat them in the wild!" The Earl of Cornwall was an old man who, like Henry III, had been battle-hardened and suffered numerous defeats in French soil.

"We can strike at night!" The Earl of Cornwall, who had lost the battle and had gained experience, already had a clever plan for restraining firearms. "The muskets and cannons of the Seris are only as powerful as they are fought in line during the day. If we attack at night, the knights dismount and fight, quietly approach, storm their strongholds, and then settle the battle with swords and shields. The knights are highly skilled, and the musketeers and mercenaries of the Seris must not be opponents......"

"So, how many knights are you going to take with you to battle?" Prince Edward seemed interested.

"I have a hundred knights and six hundred squire knights to fight, and another three thousand knights or squire knights. With these people, I'm sure I'll win! ”

The Earl of Cornwall wants to defeat the 5,000 coalition army with 3,000 knights!

Prince Edward sneered in his heart: if it can be a melee, it is possible for the fool of the Earl of Cornwall to win. Because the knight's martial arts are definitely stronger than the mercenaries. But will the enemy be so easily thrown into chaos? The discipline and organization of the mercenaries was better than that of any knightly army, let alone the knights commanded by the Earl of Cornwall. But it's better to let some of these completely obsolete knights die! The future of England, it is enough to have musketeers and pikemen!

"Alright," Prince Edward nodded, "let's do it the night after tomorrow!" More knights will arrive tomorrow, and you'll be able to make up the number you need. He finally smiled, as if encouraging his uncle, "Tomorrow during the day, we will move south, approach the Seris, and confront them, so that the night after tomorrow, you can launch a night attack." (To be continued......)