The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 848 Wings of History
"Please convey to His Majesty the French Emperor that China has only generals who would rather die than cowards who would kneel. Today's battle is one where only death is possible!"

Di Feihu, half-covered in blood, wiped his bayonet and stood sideways, speaking to the French officer who had come down the hillside to persuade him to surrender.

It was already the second day on the Pratsen Heights, but the more than four hundred soldiers of the Lu army were still holding their ground.

The trenches were filled with the corpses of his comrades and the French. He had very little rations left, but still had some ammunition.

Everyone's face was blackened by gunpowder, and dried bloodstains left streaks on their faces, which, when mixed with the black ash of the gunpowder, revealed a strange purple color.

Di Feihu has been in Europe for seven or eight years, so he can naturally speak some basic French.

After all, French was the common language of European nobility at that time, and many nobles deliberately did not speak their native language and spoke only French throughout their lives in order to show their status.

Of course, Chinese also began to become popular among the upper nobility in Europe, but its popularity was much narrower than that of French.

For Europeans, Chinese was still too difficult; only certain nobles and scholars would learn it.

Upon hearing the report, Napoleon's face darkened. He genuinely thought these Seres were very brave and was willing to give them a way out, but who knew they would be so ungrateful.

However, Napoleon's expression suddenly relaxed again very quickly.

He pointed to the white banner with gold sun and moon of the Lu vassal state fluttering on the hillside and said with a smile to his confidant and close friend Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessier: "I understand what that Belgian prince is trying to do!"

I've always found it strange that his Belgian army is actually just the Serres Guard in disguise. They are very powerful, but they are always unwilling to fight us.

At first I thought he didn't want to suffer too much loss or lose Franz's trust, but now it seems that the Belgian prince wants to use us to severely weaken the Austrian Empire and the Habsburg family.

He would wait until the Austrian Empire and the Habsburg family were nearing the end of their lives, and until his power became indispensable, before emerging to devour the legacy of this ancient family.

Emperor Napoleon was only somewhat lacking in international vision and too greedy, but he was still adept at intrigue and scheming.

In particular, Mo Gongze's ambitious plan made Napoleon feel like he was a different person from the rest of the world, so he quickly put himself in Mo Gongze's shoes and guessed it right away.

"Your Majesty, it seems the Prince of Belgium is very keen to become the King of Hungary." Marshal Bessier had also figured it out.

But Napoleon shook his head. "I doubt the King of Hungary can satisfy this mixed-race prince's appetite. I think he wants to be the vice-emperor of the Austrian Empire, the Augustus of the Holy Roman Empire."

"We cannot allow the Prince of Belgium to become Augustus!" Marshal Bessier's expression immediately became tense.

"The Habsburg-Lorraine family was born out of this model, with Emperor Franz I becoming the husband of Queen Theresa through marriage."

Just as Prince Charles I of Belgium (Mo Zirong) married into the family of Grand Duchess Elizabeth and thus received the title of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

They have this tradition. If Prince Ferdinand of Belgium's plan succeeds, he could very well take control of the Habsburg family, and it's not impossible that it could even become the Habsburg-Lorraine-M family.

In that case, an empire that poses a great threat and hostility towards us will still emerge in central Europe.

It's no wonder Marshal Besciel was nervous; traditionally, Europe has only had three major land powers.

It started with France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, primarily Austria; now it consists of France, the Tsarist Rus' Empire, and the Austrian Empire.

Regardless of the name, it is still a great empire with a population of over 30 million and a history spanning hundreds of years. With the current population size of France, it is impossible for it to conquer the Austrian Empire.

The reason why the current regime can repeatedly crush the Austrian Empire is because Emperor Franz is a complete idiot, incompetent and playful, basically unaware of the true situation under the empire, and fond of favoring sycophants, which has made a mess of the empire.

If the Austrian Empire had been given a ruthless leader like Mogenze, things would have changed dramatically.

“Your Majesty, even if Prince Ferdinand of Belgium cannot become the Augustus of the Holy Roman Empire, we must still be wary of him.”

"Because his mere presence as a powerful minister in the Austrian Empire is enough to pose a threat to us," Marshal Bessier continued, fearing that Emperor Napoleon might not realize the gravity of the situation.

But Napoleon had already foreseen this. He nodded slowly, “Ferdinand of Belgium is a troublesome fellow. His Belgian army is also very strong, and he has an even more formidable Eastern emperor supporting him.”

As he spoke, Napoleon sighed, "It's such a pity that I have no children. If only we had a teenage daughter and a son now."

Then I will have my son marry Franz's daughter, Mary, and then have my daughter marry the prince of the Seres Empire who wants to marry Mary.

hiss!
Marshal Béciel gasped, looking at Napoleon in astonishment. That was a truly ruthless move!
This would cut off Prince Ferdinand's roots from two directions.

Unfortunately, Empress Josephine, whom Napoleon married, was unable to conceive. Historically, Napoleon even personally married Franz's daughter, Marie Louise.

After saying this, Napoleon and Marshal Béciel fell silent.

In Napoleon's mind, his original empress Josephine was a stepping stone to high society. At the same time, Josephine's beauty and superb bedroom skills also made Napoleon extremely infatuated.

But after Napoleon became Emperor of France, Josephine became increasingly unsuitable as Empress.

Napoleon could tolerate her promiscuity and past scandals, but Josephine's infertility was something he could not accept, not even in the slightest.

The newly enthroned emperor began to understand the meaning of our great emperor's saying, "The battlefield of an emperor is not only in the temple, but also in the bedroom."

But for Marshal Béciel, he was Napoleon's close friend and confidant, but more importantly, he was a devout Catholic. Béciel strongly opposed, if not entirely against, his friend and the monarch's plan to replace the empress and destroy the marriage.

Therefore, Béciel only exclaimed in surprise and did not respond to Napoleon's words. After a brief silence, Napoleon realized that this matter should not be discussed with Béciel because it went against his beliefs, so he took the initiative to point to the remaining Lu Fan army on the mountain.

"We cannot kill these people yet. If they die in the battle, no one can be blamed. In fact, they killed more of our people."

But once the fighting at Austerlitz was essentially over, we couldn't continue, lest we give the Seres Empire an excuse; I think they really want to get involved in the wars in Europe.”

As he spoke, Napoleon summoned his trusted chief of secret service, Police Commissioner Renier.

"You should immediately spread the word that the Belgian prince's personal guards are very strong and have earned the respect of me, Napoleon."

I will return the remains of all the Belgian Army soldiers who died in battle and provide them with the best care. As for the surviving soldiers, they can leave with the honors of heroes.

Remember, when spreading this message, be sure to specifically mention that I once lamented to the marshals that if Prince Ferdinand had left all the Belgian army troops at the Pratzen Heights...

Then we would never have been able to win, and I would have been the loser of this war. Thank God He didn't.

"That's fantastic!" Marshal Bessiere immediately clapped upon hearing this.

"Neither Alexander I nor Franz I were magnanimous monarchs; they preferred to shirk responsibility."

Having suffered such heavy losses in the Battle of Austerlitz, they must be eager to prove that it wasn't their fault.

Our explanation would then give them a direct excuse, and with that excuse, Prince Ferdinand would be in big trouble; he might very well become the culprit for the entire campaign's failure!

"So what about them?" Police Commissioner Renier asked, pointing to the Flying Tigers unit of the Lu Fan Army compound on the mountain.

“They’ve run out of food. Let them starve for another day, let them suffer a bit, and then tell them that we have reached an agreement with Prince Ferdinand. They don’t need to surrender; we will send them away.” Napoleon smiled and said, “This is not a humiliation, but a fulfillment. These warriors of Seres want to be heroes, and we should fulfill that, making them more real and more tragic.”

. . . .

On December 5, three days after the Battle of Austerlitz, the two sides clashed again at Brno, 12 kilometers north of Austerlitz.

This is because it is different from history. In history, Napoleon completely captured the Prazen Heights and used artillery to bombard the ice surface to cut off the retreat of the Russo-Austrian coalition forces, and basically annihilated the coalition forces at Austerlitz.

However, in this timeline, the best bombardment positions were occupied by the Lu army.

The French army was unable to deploy its forces in this area. Even after two hours of fierce fighting by more than 4,000 French soldiers, they were unable to defeat Di Feihu and his few hundred men. As a result, the French army failed to cut off the retreat route of the Russo-Austrian allied forces and could only continue to pursue them.

The combined Russian and Austrian forces fled to Brno and only managed to gather a little over 30,000 men. They had completely lost their heavy firepower and didn't even have enough gunpowder, so they were defeated by the French army after only a little over an hour.

Emperor Franz's Royal Guard infantry regiment, which was described as "as if I were present," was completely wiped out, and of the more than 30,000 men in the entire Russo-Austrian army, only a few survived.

Tsar Alexander I of Russia, protected by more than two thousand men, rushed all the way to Bohemia, only stopping in a panic when the Polish legion of the Rus' Empire stationed in Warsaw came to meet him.

Emperor Franz I of Austria, escorted by two thousand men under Mogongze, fled to the eastern side of the Western Carpathians, which later became part of Slovakia, before stopping.

Therefore, the Battle of the Three Emperors in this timeline is not the Battle of Austerlitz, but the Battle of Austerlitz-Brno.

In this battle, the combined Russian and Austrian forces numbered 93,000, with 20,000 killed or seriously wounded, more than 10,000 captured, and over 30,000 lightly wounded.

Many of the remaining soldiers ran away and disappeared; only a very small number returned to the army after the war unharmed.

In other words, the more than 40,000 Rus' troops brought by the Tsar of Russia and the 50,000 Austrian troops of the Tsar of Austria were basically wiped out.

In the end, what was left for the two emperors was only a few thousand guards for each of them, and the rest were more than 30,000 wounded soldiers who could not escape because they needed the emperor's compensation to survive.

The material losses were too numerous to count. The French army alone captured more than fifty regimental flags of the Russian and Austrian armies, more than 70,000 mules and horses, nearly 200 artillery pieces, more than 60,000 rifles of various types, and more than 60 tons of gunpowder.

Putting aside everything else, just considering artillery alone, it cannot be replenished in a short period of time, and with its industrial capacity almost non-existent, Salo won't be able to recover for at least a year or two.

The losses suffered by the French army were insignificant compared to those of Russia and Austria.

A total of 2,000 people were killed or seriously wounded, 6,000 were wounded, and more than 300 unlucky men were captured and taken into the Russian and Austrian armies. Apart from normal consumption, there was basically no loss of military equipment and supplies.

. . . .

"My brother, Ferdinand, what should we do now?"

After retreating to the Western Carpathian Mountains, Emperor Franz I of Austria was truly terrified, for he suffered a far more devastating defeat than in history.

"Franz, my brother, please don't worry. I also have 20,000 men in Bratislava, east of Vienna, and I can summon them to protect me now."

Meanwhile, your brother Archduke Charles still has sixty or seventy thousand men south of Vienna. Defeating the French army will be difficult, but at least they have leverage for negotiation.

General Kinmaier, standing behind Emperor Franz, was startled. The emperor now only had a few thousand guards and more than ten thousand wounded soldiers, which could hardly be considered a force.

Prince Ferdinand's Belgian army was quite formidable; if his 20,000 men were summoned from Bratislava to protect him, the emperor would essentially be in Prince Ferdinand's hands.

However, before he could decide whether he should offer advice, he heard the emperor's close advisor, General Velot, the culprit behind the defeat at Ulm, cheering with great joy.

"Your Majesty, then quickly send the Bratislava army over. Let's not stay in these mountains any longer; let's follow the army to Bratislava."

After hearing General Virot's words, General Kimmel sighed inwardly and gave up all thoughts of giving advice. He was even more certain that General Virot was an incompetent fool.

The thought that the Empire's military power had been in the hands of such a person since the Battle of Hornlinden made General Kinmayr realize that the Empire's current predicament was not without reason.

"Can we still negotiate? Will France agree to negotiate?" Emperor Franz had long lost his previous confidence. He was completely at a loss and seemed to have aged more than ten years overnight. The thirty-seven-year-old emperor looked almost fifty years old.

"Your Majesty, the French will certainly agree, because they cannot rule Austria, and the people of Austria will not submit to foreign rule."

Please proceed to Bratislava, where you may gather all the imperial nobles and citizens to provide your protection.

General Kimmel's worry deepened. Once the emperor arrived in Bratislava, which was controlled by Prince Ferdinand, he would very likely become a puppet.

Mo Gongze noticed the general's worry and smiled calmly at General Jinmaier.

"At this time, every member of the empire must unite, and when the emperor arrives in Bratislava, all those dedicated to saving the country will come."

General Kimmel exclaimed in surprise, "Ah!" Prince Ferdinand would actually do this? Could it really be for the sake of the empire?

Shocked, General Kimmaier removed his hat and bowed to Mo Gongze, saying, "Your Highness, please forgive me, your greatness is beyond anyone's imagination."

Beside them, Franz I and his favorite advisor, General Verlot, were completely bewildered, having no idea what the conversation between General Mogonze and General Kinmaier meant.

Mo Gongze certainly wouldn't try to control Emperor Franz I at this time; that would be too low-level and crude, just like Dong Zhuo's approach of forcibly taking over for a moment of pleasure.

No, even Dong Zhuo wouldn't directly try to control the emperor in this situation.

Such opportunistic behavior, taking advantage of others' misfortunes during a time of national crisis, will almost certainly backfire. Moreover, even if Mo Gongze were to gain control of Franz I, it would be highly unlikely that he could control the empire.

Because there was still one major obstacle he hadn't overcome or won over: the true masters of the Austrian Empire, the vast Austrian nobility.

These people were led by Count Johann Philipp Stachiven of Watthausen, and among them, Clemens Wenzel von Metternich was particularly adept at maneuvering and was very skilled.

This man was a rising political star in the Austrian Empire, and he married Countess Elinor of Kaunitz.

The Countess's grandfather was the renowned Prince Kaunitz-Rietberg, who served as Austrian Chancellor for a total of forty years during the reigns of three monarchs: Queen Theresa, Joseph I, and Leopold II.

Metternich would then serve as Austrian Chancellor for another 28 years, a testament to his prominent position.

These people didn't have much military power, but they were deeply entrenched in Austria. Napoleon could pretend they didn't exist, but Moggenberg couldn't.

However, not controlling Emperor Franz I at present does not mean doing nothing.

After the Emperor's Imperial Guard suffered heavy losses, the 20,000 Lu troops under Mo Gongze's command immediately rose in status. Count Watthausen and Metternich, among others, also needed to offer something in return to win over Mo Gongze.

More importantly, Mo Gongze wanted to make a trip to the Caucasus region to meet with his elder brother, the Crown Prince, and Prince Mo Zhouzhen of Liao while the Crown Prince was still in Anxi.

Mo Gongze had clearly sensed that France's fighting power was extremely strong, and if Da Yu did not take action, there would probably be no empire capable of restraining Napoleon.

(End of this chapter)