Two days later

Early in the morning

Richard said goodbye to Emma, a tearful girl, and left alone on a horse bought in the town, taking away the girl's infinite thoughts.

On the occasion of parting

He gave the vineyard owner and his wife a Viennese address and a jade pendant token, and told them;

If Emma has a son and a half daughter, then find Vienna according to the map, and someone will naturally arrange it at that time.

If not, then Emma will find a good man to marry in the future!

An Austrian girl entering the imperial harem, competing for favor with so many concubines, and not having a son and a half daughter by her side, may not be the best choice.

From start to finish

The vineyard owner and his wife and Emma always thought that Lord Orban was an Austrian nobleman, and it was a common thing for nobles to spend a night outside.

A man rode out of the town alone, standing on his horse and looking back, the quaint town shrouded in the morning light had not yet woken up, and it was also dreamy.

No matter how beautiful this place is, it is just a stop in the journey of life, and Richard instigated his horse to gallop away, and his figure soon turned into a small black dot and disappeared into the morning light.

More than 5 hours later

At the end of June, the sun shone brightly on the vast fields, and the Prussian and Austrian armies lined up facing each other.

The sunlight shining on the shining swords like a forest reflected a dazzling murderous aura, and the banner hunting fluttered in the wind, and an unprecedented scale of the battle was about to be staged.

Richard hid in a tree tens of meters high on the hill, from which he could clearly overlook the layout of the entire battlefield.

The high-flying white-headed sea sculpture in the sky will be within a radius of tens of kilometers, everything is clearly presented, and by reading the memory of returning to the white-headed sea carving, he is really clear about the situation of this battlefield.

The battlefield in front of us was laid out in the shape of a "product" as a whole, and the Prussian Army's Elbe Corps and the First Army Corps carried out a pincer encirclement of the Austrian left flank corps in it from the southwest and due north directions, and the momentum was aggressive.

Among them, about 120,000 people of the Austrian Left Wing Corps discharged more than 30 large hollow block arrays, and in each hollow block array located in the first row, an artillery company was added.

Each artillery battery had 6 breech-loading field guns to increase the lethality of the enemy in front of them.

This is a typical Napoleonic hollow formation, each hollow array and the adjacent hollow array are spaced about 800~1000 yards, artillery and platoon guns can effectively support each other, and implement double fire coverage for the enemy troops entering it.

The Austrian regiment connected more than 30 large hollow formations, from front to back, in 4 rows.

The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th platoons are independent combat units and can effectively respond to each other, thus forming an extremely resilient whole.

When attacking, wave after wave, and when retreating, step by step, defense, layer by layer. It was the proud work of Emperor Napoleon who led his army to conquer and defeat the Egyptian army, which was several times outnumbered.

Egypt's 12,000 brave and skilled Mamluk cavalry fell under Napoleon's hollow array, suffered casualties, and withdrew from the historical stage of wars in the Middle East.

The Mamluk cavalry, which had defeated the 100,000 Mongol army with 20,000 troops, suffered heavy losses in one hour with 5,000 casualties in the face of Napoleon's expeditionary force.

Under the dense network of French muskets and artillery, the charging Mamluk cavalry fell in pieces, and could not even get close to the French position before they were blown away by artillery fire or knocked down by bullets.

The few cavalrymen who stormed the French positions were soon killed in the bayonet bushes, leaving piles of corpses that stained the desert red, and performed the tragedy of the times for the weak.

Seeing the formation of the Austrian Imperial Army, Richard suddenly realized, but then a trace of doubt rose in his heart?

Hollow Array...... Good is indeed good, as soon as it comes out, the cavalry of the army of the Kingdom of Prussia will be abolished.

This large hollow array was very effective against cavalry, whether it was the Mamluk cavalry of Egypt or the cuirassier heavy cavalry of the Kingdom of Prussia, and there was little room to survive under the dense fire of the platoon guns and artillery.

But here's the problem;

This requires extremely high combat quality of soldiers, and most of the French professional soldiers who have fought all year round have several years or even more than ten years of military experience. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Napoleonic era reached the peak of military power, and was able to skillfully use the hollow array to inflict a large number of casualties on the enemy, but could the officers and soldiers of the Austrian Empire do it?

Since the time of Napoleon in France, it has not been heard of a European country facing the enemy in a large-scale battle.

It's not that it can't be done, but that the execution ability of the officers and men is far from enough.

Don't follow the example of the East and make people laugh.

"Now that's interesting!"

Richard said with a smile on the corner of his lips, then took out the kettle and corned beef jerky, found a comfortable position to lie down, and while enjoying it, he sat leisurely on the branch and waited to watch the big scene.

This is an unprecedented battle of nearly 300,000 people, and it will take a day or two to determine the winner.

Being on the outside

Richard could roughly guess the battle plan of the army of the Kingdom of Prussia, that is, to attack with the most simple infantry, round after round to attack the enemy position, and constantly exert strong offensive pressure.

Until the first row of the Austrian Corps collapsed under the weight of the attack and fled, then the Prussian army continued to intensify the frontal attack in order to crush the hollow formation of the 2nd and 3rd platoons until the final victory.

This seemingly rough and straightforward battle plan happened to match the upright character of the Prussians; There aren't so many tricks, just do it.

Germans are mostly rigid and straightforward, they don't beat around the bush, and they just say anything and it's over.

If it is implicit, half of the words will be left and half will confuse Germany, and it will not be able to understand it at all.

The character of the Germans is like this, and the command of operations in the military field also reflects this distinctive characteristic;

No matter what kind of formation you put out, I'm going to attack head-on and heavy, wave after wave, until I destroy everything and win.

"Woo......"

He was teasing the bald sea dwarf beside him, when the mournful sound of the horn caught Richard's attention, and he turned his head in surprise. Spotting the Prussian regiment in the distance, the banner was waving, and the neat infantry platoon had begun to launch a full-scale attack, and the spirit was lifted at the moment.

How can you not be thrilled by this epic battle in Europe?

The Elbe Corps of the Prussian Army approached from the southwest, and the First Corps of the Prussian Army approached from the north, as if two huge iron fists were striking at the Austrian corps in the center.

The Prussian cavalry divisions protected the flanks and did not seem to act on their own when the time was not ripe.

General Moltke, chief of staff of the Prussian army, was indeed a military genius of a generation, and he could see at a glance the danger of this hollow formation put forward by the Austrian corps, and if he was not careful, he would be defeated.

As expected

The infantry offensive array discharged by the Elbe Corps and the First Corps is a long snake formation that has almost been used since the last century, with three rows of horizontal columns for each infantry offensive formation, about 1800~2000 people, and a single platoon of about 600 people, which is almost the size of an infantry regiment.

The first wave attacked about 10 infantry regiments, and behind them there were second and third waves, which repeatedly attacked the positions held by the Austrian corps.

This kind of bloody battle, which was almost close to hand-to-hand combat, was a feast of death and killing, and Richard couldn't help but breathe heavily, and his eyes radiated an eager light.