In the history of world wars, every milestone change will raise a heirloom king or empire, and at the same time, it will also bury the eliminators who do not want to make progress into the dust of history.

In the fourth century BC, Alexander of the Macedonian kingdom from the remote mountainous region of the Balkan Peninsula swept across Europe and Asia with his unique Macedonian phalanx, becoming the first famous emperor to conquer Eurasia 6. At the same time, the Eastern Qin State, which had completed the national reform, also embarked on the road of unification.

A few years later, the Roman Empire, humbly embracing Greek civilization, turned the entire Mediterranean into an inland lake with its imposing and agile chessboard infantry phalanx, becoming one of the world's top empires.

In the dark years after the fall of the Roman Empire, European civilization underwent a great regression, but only the war machine was still evolving. Beginning at the end of the 15th century, the Kingdom of Spain, which had completed national unification, began to claim the throne of the world's first-class empire with Spanish galleons and Spanish phalanxes, and European countries rushed to follow suit. Once upon a time, the commanders of Europe thought that the tactics of war had reached an impeccable stage.

In the middle of the 16th century, a wave of Dutch independence began to shake the rule of the Spanish Empire. In view of the popularity of arquebuses and cannons, as well as the sluggishness of the Spanish phalanx, the famous Dutch commander Maurice made bold improvements. The flattened Maurice phalanx, as the younger brother of the Spanish phalanx, has quietly weakened the status of the Spanish phalanx, but there are still few people who can understand it thoroughly.

During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, King Gustav of Sweden applied the tactical superiority of firearms to the Maurice phalanx in contrast to the Habsburgs, who still stubbornly adhered to tradition and believed that the Spanish phalanx was king. The further improved Swedish formation is flatter and has the rudiments of a modern line formation, emphasizing the output of concentrated firepower while effectively defusing the increasing threat of artillery lethality. However, this kind of tactical formation, which fully wields the power of the troops, demands extremely high on the organization of the troops and the discipline of the officers and men, and ordinary commanders cannot play it at all.

And the last fig leaf that finally ripped off the Spanish phalanx was the Battle of Rocroix, which was born at the end of the Thirty Years' War. The young Prince Condé of France humbly copied the tactics of Sweden's Gustav and concentrated his fire on the Spanish phalanx. and finally destroyed the Flanders Army, the main force of the 6th Army, which the Spaniards were proud of.

In this new world under the influence of butterfly wings, the large-scale import of gorgeous flint guns and breech cannons made the commanders of the Thirty Years' War in Europe experience the pain of conservatism faster and more brutally.

In late June 1643, the Spanish Flemish Legion, which had been reorganized in the Spanish Netherlands for almost half a year, marched again to Paris, France, and then, as expected, met the French in the wooded swamps near Rocroix.

The Flanders Legion was the crown of the Spanish 6th Army, and General Vieira de Mello had a total of more than 26ooo men, including 1oooo flintmen and 32 cannons. On the French side, the 22-year-old Prince of Condé led the main force of the 22ooo French army, including 9ooo flintmen and twice as many cannons as in history. Up to 24, but all of them were gorgeous 8-pounder field guns with better mobility.

The terrain of Rocroix is not a good place for tens of thousands of people, it is surrounded by forests and swamps, and the narrow battlefield provides little room for manoeuvre. As you can imagine, the losing side doesn't even have a chance to escape. But both General Vieira de Mello of Spain and Prince Condé of France chose this place as the place of battle.

In General de Mello's view, the elite of the Flanders army was exhausted this time, and it was God's arrangement to completely annihilate the main force of the French army in this terrain. And the daring Prince of Confucius. He even regarded the terrain that was not conducive to the Spanish phalanx battle as the biggest bargaining chip for his victory.

On 2 July, with the artillery fire of the French concentrated on the right flank, the battle of Rocroix, which is comparable to the original history, officially began. Although its birth time was delayed by a month and a half.

General Vieira de Mello ambushed two of the most elite infantry battalions, armed with 34A rear-loading flintlocks, in the woods on the left flank, only to be overwhelmed by the concentrated French artillery fire, and were destroyed before a single shot could be fired.

In contrast to the Flemish corps, which was evenly divided into large formations, the French Prince Condé concentrated almost all the essence of his troops on his right flank. Artillery, muskets, and cavalry aimed at the left flank of the Spanish Flemish legion, breaking through several lines in succession, and the roundabout cavalry even destroyed and captured some of the Spanish artillery. The Spanish cavalry arrived in a hurry from other directions. He was also defeated by French artillery several times his own with gorgeous original shotguns.

When the Spanish Legion had lost its battlefield mobility, Prince Condé began to easily order the artillery to fire precious high-explosive shells at the central Spanish phalanx. The heavy Spanish phalanx suffered heavy casualties under the concentrated fire of the French army, but the elite Flanders also proved themselves with their actual performance, stubbornly maintaining the formation.

When night fell, the French army threw all their reserves into the breakthrough on the right flank, forming an encirclement of the Spanish Flemish corps, and the victory or defeat of the battlefield was decided.

With General Vieira de Mello killed by a French high-explosive grenade, the cage-like terrain mercilessly slaughtered the defeated Spanish officers and soldiers. In the battle, more than 8ooo Spanish officers and soldiers were killed, nearly 10,000 people were captured, and many red-eyed French musketeers even opened fire on the Spanish soldiers who surrendered and offered mercy. If it weren't for Prince Condé's timely order, I'm afraid that the Rocroix forest would have become the largest mass cemetery for Spanish officers and soldiers.

The Spanish Flemish Legion, which was unable to wield its true strength and firepower advantage because of the rules, went to the end in grief and indignation, and the last hardest backbone of the Spanish Legion across Europe 6 was broken in this way.

The Battle of Rocroix marked the end of the Spanish phalanx, and it also announced that France began to replace Spain as the first six powers in Europe. King Louis XIV of France, who had been on the throne for less than two months, received his first halo when he was five years old.

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Nantes, located on the banks of the Loire River on the west coast of the Atlantic Ocean in France, about 5o kilometers from the mouth of the sea, historically belonged to Brittany. Throughout the history of Europe's chaotic aristocratic fiefdoms, Brittany was a fully independent or self-governing principality until the 16th century, and was under the influence of the two great powers of France and England as the European struggle for hegemony ebbed and flowed. It was only after the French Wars of Religion that it truly became French territory. Nantes became the most important port city in western France and one of the core locations of French explorers to overseas colonies during the Age of Discovery.

The famous Edict of Nantes was issued in Nantes in 1598 by the then King Henry IV of France, which became the first decree in European history after the Roman Empire to ensure religious tolerance in the form of law.

After the establishment of trade relations with China and the United States in the 20s of the 17th century, Nantes became the only mainland French trading port authorized to open to Chinese and American merchant ships. Nearly two decades later, Nantes has gradually crossed Marseille in the Mediterranean as the Atlantic trade dominated by China and the United States has flourished. It became the largest foreign trade port in France, and many goods from the Mediterranean and Northern Europe used Nantes as a transit trade port.

In fact, France's mineral resources are far inferior to those of Spain, Portugal, England and Germany, and only a small number of varieties of pig iron, tin ingots, potash, gypsum, sulfur and other industrial raw materials are exported to Huamei, in addition to wool and horses. However, France, especially in the west and southwest of France, has the most skilled handicraft and artisan groups in Europe, and wine and handicraft luxury goods have always been favored by European countries, and it is also one of the few countries in Europe that can export high-value goods to China and the United States.

For example, lace. It has become one of the most popular products in Nantes. In the thirties of the 17th century, due to the prospering trade and the influx of people who had been displaced by several Protestant riots, a large number of weavers settled in Nantes, which became the main production area of French lace.

Ingenious Nantes housewives. They first bought high-quality refined cotton wool yarn imported from Huamei, then laboriously produced lace by hand in their dimly lit basement, and finally resold it to Huamei through local cloth merchants in Guò.

Preliminary statistics. Every year, Chinese merchants purchase more than $20,000 worth of French lace fabric in Nantes to meet the needs of domestic manufacturers of ready-to-wear or home textiles, as well as to feed a considerable number of civilian families in Nantes. The French lace consumed by a winter dress for an Ivy League college girl alone. It takes a Nantes housewife half a month to knit.

However, it was the African slave trade that really made Nantes famous.

The Foreign Labour Importation Act, introduced in the Caribbean states and overseas territories, legalized the use of slaves semi-publicly. In the first few years, it was relatively shy to enter through Portuguese or Spanish merchants. In recent years, Chinese and Caribbean businessmen, who had eaten enough of the sweetness and felt that the law was too restrictive, began to build a large number of "prisoner of war labor camps", whether it was the Nanshan Overseas Territory, the South African Viceroyalty or the Indian Ocean Viceroyalty, the capture of indigenous people in the name of war and the use of prisoners of war for labor began to spread.

The almost cost-free labor squeeze of prisoners of war makes the Caribbean's agricultural exports highly competitive. Today, the Caribbean islands of Martinique, Dominica and St. Lucia are the country's agricultural and economic powerhouses, although there are no formal settled towns. Almost all rice, sugar cane, coffee, and Indian indigo farms were cultivated by so-called "Madagascar prisoners of war", while the sulphur mines in the south of St. Lucia were exclusively black South African prisoners of war.

Sometimes, the Chinese and American forces may "supply" too much, and the surplus indigenous prisoners of war are directly trafficked to Europe or Central and South America by Chinese or Portuguese traders. Nantes became the largest slave trading center in Europe, and the French royal family, which had a monopoly on the slave trade, also benefited from it.

Last autumn, after the death of Bishop Richelieu, who had a strong sense of long-standing defense against China and the United States, Louis XIV ascended the throne at the age of five, but the actual power of the country was in the hands of the new Prime Minister Mazarin. Strictly speaking, Mazarin, who had visited North America in the past, was a semi-Sino-American, so in order to finance the war in Europe, Mazarin gave a far better tax policy to the Sino-American import and export trade in the port of Nantes than during Richelieu's lifetime, so as to attract more Chinese and American merchants.

……

Monday, July 6, 1642.

Like Seville in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal and Emden in Germany, Chinese and American merchants also set up a joint trade house in the port of Nantes to facilitate the import and export trade of their merchants in France. Another secret use of the service was to serve as the main intelligence station of the Chinese and American intelligence services in France.

Major Grover, who served as an agent at the London Station of the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Chinese and American Department of Defense, made great contributions to the European Expeditionary Fleet in annihilating the English Navy. Grover quietly left England in 1636 and returned to Huamei. Then, in 1642, he appeared in France as the vice president of the United Merchant House of Huamenant, and served as the head of the French intelligence headquarters of the Military Intelligence Agency, where he stayed for more than a year.

Ostensibly, Grover's daily job was to receive visiting French merchants, to make business inquiries, or to provide the best services he could to the American merchants arriving in Nantes. But behind the scenes, on the rooftop of the United Commercial Building, a large number of political, economic, or military intelligence collected from France is sent to the American Yar Intelligence Analysis Center every week.

Early in the morning, Grover, who had already entered the age of establishment, was under the service of the butler and changed into a gorgeous and high-end dress. Then, like an aristocrat, breakfast is served on the open-air balcony of the merchant house. And Grover was accompanied to dinner, in addition to the two servants, there was also a middle-aged French businessman.

Spanish ham, Italian cheese, Nantes wine, native blueberry jam, and pastries baked with indigenous refined wheat flour...... The abundance of food on the table was a challenge to the French people's ability to endure the famine.

The middle-aged French businessman, who had been hungry all night, couldn't help but swallow his saliva, but he still had to divert his attention and listen to Grover's slow and logical words.

“…… I personally sympathize with the injustices suffered by the Protestant populations of Rochelle and Bordeaux in France. But even the United Commercial Center of Huamenantes came forward to break through the "Immigration Control Act" enacted by the country's Congress. Mr. Dumont, you probably don't know. The total number of European immigration visas allowed by our government each year is limited to 6ooo, and from next year, this number will be reduced to 5ooo. In this time of famine. There really isn't more food in North America to feed too many immigrants......"

Another slice of ham dipped in tomato sauce was brought to his mouth, and the French spat out of Grover's wriggling lips mixed with the fragrance of ham, making the expression of the French merchant sitting opposite very uncomfortable.

"If Mr. Grover hadn't shown mercy, perhaps we would have to wander to Amsterdam or Emden. I know my request may have gone too far. But these people were all good craftsmen and ingenious women, and even the children were extremely intelligent. They just need a ticket to Yar, if it's only half of the people......" Dumont looked away from his table, looking at the ground in frustration, muttering what he had said countless times.

Beginning more than a decade ago, the persecution of Protestants in western and southwestern France by the French Catholic regime became worse, and the conflict between the two sides led to two bloody wars of rebellion. After the French royal family repeatedly ignored the Edict of Nantes, tens of thousands of French Protestants had to migrate to other countries.

Not only did the Netherlands become the largest colony for French Protestants, but Huamei also became one of the relocation targets for these people. For more than ten years, about hundreds to thousands of French Protestant craftsmen have become Chinese immigrants every year, and the towns of New Rochelle and Yanghe in Binzhou, which are dozens of kilometers northeast of Manchester, were once the largest resettlement places for French Protestant immigrants.

The Great Famine that swept through the south of France made life even more difficult for the French Protestants who were oppressed at the bottom of society. In order to maintain the huge expenses of the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the French crown appointed tax collectors from all over the country added a lot of special taxes to Protestant families.

After the suppression of one of the largest Protestant uprisings many years ago, the Protestants in southwestern France no longer had the confidence to stay in France, and the mentality of seeking shelter from the outside world became stronger. This time, Dumont was entrusted by some Protestants in Bordeaux, a city in southwestern France, to ask for the help of Chinese and American businessmen to solve the plight of thousands of Protestant families. At present, even though Dumont and Grover have repeatedly negotiated several times, and even expressed their intention to sign a contract slave, the other party is still unmoved, which makes Dumont can't help but be disheartened.

After listening to Dumont's repeated request many times in fits and starts, Grover put down his chopsticks and quietly looked at the helpless man in front of him, and after a minute, suddenly showed a peculiar smile: "I understand your thoughts, maybe except for my country, religious tolerance and fair freedom are luxuries in the whole world." But a good life is earned by one's own efforts. To put it bluntly, Mr. Dumont's blind expression of pessimism and avoidance is not in keeping with the sympathy and evaluation of your newspapers in our country. ”

As if hearing some hint, Dumont raised his head sharply with a shocked expression: "Is there any other way to get your help?" ”

"I remember that Mr. Aniel, the mayor of the overseas consulate of Pearl Island in my country, once said: in order to prevent the whip from falling on your back, you must hold the whip in your hand. As far as I know, Mr. Mayor Anil seems to have been born from a Protestant family in Lyon. And now, he is one of the noblest people in our country. Grover quietly took a letter out of his pocket and placed it in the corner of the dining table, "I may not be able to guarantee a new home for thousands of poor families, but I can provide the best care I can for the Protestants of France on behalf of the Protestant people of China." ”

With a puzzled face, Dumont slowly took the envelope, and when he opened it, he saw that there were some lists of goods listed on it, of course, from the description, it was not an order form from a Chinese merchant, but a donation.

1oooo Livre's money and 1oo tons of cereals were impressive, enough to feed Bordeaux's most destitute Protestant families for months. But the latter items made Dumont's heart skip a beat: 1ooo refurbished Dutch 21b flint guns, 8 vintage Portuguese 3-pounder cannons, and 1o tons of black gunpowder.

"This terrible war has cost us a lot of normal customers, and the damn Dutch are paying for our goods with these rusty things, and I'm worrying about how to get rid of these second-hand goods. If Mr. Dumont wishes, these old things will be given to you, probably in exchange for a lot of food, right? Of course, there may not be a lot of them, but I believe that there are many more local merchants who have been cheated by the Dutch, and it should be a good choice to give you the money to continue your life. ”

With that, Grover shoved a plate of Silvervalley pickles, a glass of milk, and a few slices of bread in front of Dumont, and then took off his napkin with a smile.

"Mr. Grover, are you sure there's more?" Dumont held the letter in his hand, holding back the excitement in his heart, but his slightly trembling shoulders still betrayed his true feelings.

"It's hard to say, maybe you'll need to come back next time. Well, I've done this at the most, I hope you understand. The cargo is now in Jarre-E-Heroísmo, and you have to find your own way back to Bordeaux. Grover grinned and poured another glass of wine for the other man, as if it had nothing to do with him.

"Thank God, and thank you, Mr. Grover, for the ...... of this grace and kindness to the Protestant population of Bordeaux"

At this point, the temptation of food was not enough to calm Dumont's tremors, and after a few minutes, Dumont, who had gobbled up another sip of dry wine, stood up and bowed deeply to Grover.

Dumont walked away in the company of his servants, and Grover's face showed a cold and stern expression. According to Grover's secret information, Dumont was one of the grassroots organizers who participated in the Protestant uprising in southwestern France many years ago, and had deep ties with some Protestant nobles in France.

"To the Yar Center, the highest encryption, the content: 'roosters' begin to hatch, ready for feed." Grover didn't look back, but muttered softly to the young servant behind him.

"Yes, Major Grover."

The servant bent down slightly, and walked into the exit of the balcony not far behind him. (To be continued......)

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