The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 893 When Revolutionaries Stop Revolutionizing

Napoleon left Vienna and returned to Paris, but did not immediately go to Spain and Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula.

The biggest problem in the conflict between Spain and Portugal, known as the Peninsular War, was not a military issue, but a political one.

Or rather, this war was a continuation of politics, a bloody politics, rooted in Napoleon's attitude toward the Iberian Peninsula, not in the soldiers on the battlefield.

From a purely military perspective, France's military power still holds an absolute advantage on the Iberian Peninsula.

There are over 100,000 elite French troops here, including 70,000 to 80,000 veterans from the Great Legion era.

Neither the small English army nor the resistance fighters of Spain and Portugal could shake the French army in a short time.

But a critical problem arose: apart from their military advantage, the French army was not on their side in any other respect.

Moreover, France's military advantage was constantly diminishing, and once it exceeded a certain equilibrium point, its defeat would be inevitable.

Therefore, it was impossible to resolve the French crisis on the Iberian Peninsula using military means alone, a fact that even Napoleon, who was known for his military prowess but not his political skills, could see.

At this moment, Napoleon was holding a report on the Second Battle of Porto in Portugal.

The Second Battle of Porto was the most brilliant victory fought by the English Army in recent decades.

In this battle, Arthur Wellesley commanded 20,000 British troops and 4,000 volunteer expeditionary troops under Yu Qin Dingyang (Qin San), totaling 24,000 men, to attack the 13,000 French troops under Marshal Soult. As a result, the Yu-British allied forces suffered only 120 casualties and routed the French army.

French Marshal Soult barely escaped with his life by climbing the mountain. The French suffered more than 7,000 casualties, prisoners of war, and missing persons, and lost 58 cannons, thousands of rifles and pistols, as well as a large amount of gunpowder and other military supplies.

"The key to this battle lies in control of the Douro River. Before the battle, we controlled all the boats on this river."

As a result, when we used these ships to deploy troops and transport supplies, they all ended up with the English.

They then brought the English over, flanking our army from behind, leading to our disastrous defeat.

Napoleon's chief of staff was reviewing the Second Battle of Porto for him on a map.

There's really nothing to review; the biggest reason for the French army's crushing defeat was that the people of Porto hated them to the core.

The key to this battle lay in whether the British army could cross the Douro River, thereby leveraging their numerical advantage to encircle the French army.

Therefore, the French army made ample preparations before the war. Marshal Soult destroyed the bridges across the river and sent troops to arrest the Portuguese boats and boatmen on the Douro River, leaving the British and French forces without any means to cross the river.

As a result, after the war started, the British army launched a fierce frontal attack, and the French army was unable to cope. Marshal Soult then wanted to use the captured Portuguese ships and boatmen to help the French army transport troops and supplies.

However, in recent years, the French army's discipline in Portugal has deteriorated to an extreme degree, and their actions can be described as extremely immoral, almost on par with the Japanese army during the invasion of China.

The French troops in the Porto region were particularly bad; in the first Battle of Porto alone, they killed tens of thousands of Porto civilians.

It's no exaggeration to say that the people of Porto would gladly eat their flesh and sleep on their skin.

The result of all this was that, just as the French army ordered the boatmen to return to their boats, before they even reached the soldiers loading supplies, the boatmen steered their boats away and ran away, refusing to turn back even when bombarded.

On the opposite bank of the Douluo River, Qin Sanqin Dingyang saw this scene and immediately ordered his men to raise the banner of Mo Zhouyao, the Prince of the Cuckoo.

He also had the Portuguese soldiers accompanying the army shout that they were Seres soldiers invited back by Queen Maria and Prince Cuckoo to save the Kingdom of Portugal.

Upon hearing this, the boatmen quickly moved to the shore and transported Qin Dingyang's volunteer expeditionary force and a portion of the British troops across the Douro River.

After crossing the river, Qin Dingyang first defeated the French rearguard and seized their supplies. He then circled around to cut off the French retreat and set up cannons on a high place to bombard the French troops who were fighting.

The French army suffered heavy casualties from being attacked from both sides and had no idea where the army with so many artillery pieces came from. They collapsed in less than an hour, and Marshal Soult and some French soldiers escaped by climbing mountains to avoid being captured.

After listening to the detailed battle report, Napoleon frowned. At this point, the French army's discipline problem was something he couldn't solve even if he went there.

Or, to put it another way, the general discipline of European armies at this time was very worrying.

Moreover, the more colonies a country had, the worse its military discipline became, especially in Britain, France, and Spain. On the contrary, countries like Austria and Prussia, which had fewer colonies, had relatively good military discipline.

The reason is simple: the armies of these three countries have been going out to the colonies to carry out missions for many years, and the soldiers' hearts have become wild, and their moral standards have been greatly lowered.

Do you think that these soldiers, who are barely literate and who acted arrogantly in the colonies, will restrain themselves, reflect on their behavior, or have any chivalry or civilized bottom line when they return to Europe?

Save your breath; that's what the French army actually thought when they arrived in the Iberian Peninsula.

I can peel the scalp off an Indian, but I can't peel the scalp off a Spanish?

I can sell Black people like livestock, so why are you Portuguese people superior and can't be sold? Or is it that you can't sell them?
I can kill Indians whenever I want, I can kill their whole family and take their property and wives and daughters at will, so why are Spanish and Portuguese exempt from this rule?
This situation actually existed in China during the Han and Tang dynasties. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been so many mad and powerful figures at the end of the Han dynasty, and the late Tang and Five Dynasties period was even more plagued by a series of mentally ill people. Almost every military man was akin to a gorilla.

Therefore, the military discipline of the Great Yu in this world is the best, because the Great Yu's twelve imperial guards, sixteen capital garrison armies, and elite garrison troops of major provinces never go to the colonies to guard them.

They were basically recalled after the war, and those with a long service history in colonies were generally not selected.

This is also why the Imperial Guards of the Great Yu and the Capital Garrison often have a large number of retired soldiers. Many of them were ambitious and longed for this kind of life. In the early stages, they were assigned to serve in the Han Imperialist faction, and in the later stages, they were directly sent to the Anxi Army and the vassal armies of various vassal states.

Napoleon thought for a while. He knew that he couldn't control military discipline, nor could he manage the army too strictly. Otherwise, the cost of the hundreds of thousands of French troops stationed on the Iberian Peninsula alone would give him a headache and keep him up at night.

"Claude, what do you think of this?" After thinking for a long time without any clue, Napoleon, who was not very good at this kind of meticulous work of governing a country, quickly asked Claude Menaval, who had succeeded Brennard as his personal secretary.

This guy was a human archive and a human calculator. It is said that he could memorize the information of more than 3,000 French officers at the colonel level. He was Napoleon's most trusted secretary and confidant.

“Your Majesty, our plans for the Iberian Peninsula, especially the Kingdom of Spain, have failed, and the threat from the Seres Empire has greatly increased. It seems we should change our strategy.”

Claude Menaval quickly answered Napoleon's question, while Marshals Berthier and Masséna, who were inside the room, looked at Claude with some surprise, quite astonished by his suggestion.

In fact, besides the various reasons analyzed in history, there is another important factor that led Napoleon to suddenly turn against Spain.

That is, Napoleon hoped to transform the Kingdom of Spain in order to better cooperate with the French Empire in battle.

Emperor Napoleon realized early on that it would be difficult for France to unify Europe on its own, not even by establishing a European confederation.

After all, France's population and resources were limited and could not be increased rapidly, so Napoleon set his sights on Spain and northern Italy.

At this time, the Kingdom of Spain was facing numerous internal problems, the biggest of which was the proliferation of factions and even warlordism.

The areas that the Spanish Bourbon dynasty could truly control directly were the areas around Madrid and the royal fiefdoms.

The rest was monopolized by local nobles and high priests, enjoying a high degree of autonomy. In many places, even taxation was not unified, with each region collecting its own taxes. Such a country naturally could not fully mobilize its potential, which is why Spain was so weak.

Therefore, in Napoleon's view, even though Spain was a very obedient ally, he was still not satisfied.

He was eager to reform Spain and establish a strong, centralized government like France, so as to unleash Spain's full war potential.

In Napoleon's plan, after placing his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne, he would declare a top-down Spanish revolution, less intense than the French Revolution, in the name of the king.

The specific approach was to abolish all separatist forces within the Kingdom of Spain, distribute some land to the Spanish commoners, and centralize power over the military, taxation, and other areas.

Actually, this plan is quite good. If it could be implemented as planned, Napoleon would definitely have the support of the Spanish people. Coupled with the fighting power of the French army, transforming Spain would not be too difficult.

If this could be accomplished, it would be an absolute moment in Napoleon's career and enough to change the internal and external situation of the French Empire.

Unfortunately, Napoleon failed to complete his first step.

The reason is simple: after Napoleon seized the fruits of the French Revolution, the French Empire was no longer a revolutionary regime.
From top to bottom, from the nature of the government to the will of officials, it is impossible for the whole country to launch another revolution.

Just as Chiang Kai-shek's April 12th counter-revolutionary coup, which massacred Communists and progressive leftists of the Kuomintang, inevitably led to the complete collapse of his beliefs and organization, resulting in the loss of his revolutionary and progressive nature.

When the French army arrived in Spain with revolutionary ideals, the high command rejected the revolutionary policies of eliminating local power holders, unifying government, and liberating peasants.

They succeeded in replacing the Spanish with French local power brokers in the power struggles.

What should have been a revolution turned into a dogfight between the French and Spanish nobles.

If the higher-ups were like this, the French soldiers weren't much better off. They weren't there to be liberators; they were there to be masters of the Spanish, treating them like slaves.

Not to mention that Napoleon also sent Joachim Muller, along with the big fool, to oversee Madrid.

This incident, in which French Mamluk cavalrymen shouted "God is great" and hacked at Spaniards in Madrid, almost made the Spanish think that Islam had returned, causing a nationwide uproar.

Napoleon was naturally extremely ashamed that the revolution had turned out this way, and he was very reluctant to let others mention it. This is why Berthier and Masséne were surprised.

This time, however, Napoleon did not show much resistance. Instead, after thinking about it seriously, he nodded.

"But now, it is impossible for us to return Spain to the Spanish, nor is it possible to let those idiots from the Bourbon family go back to be kings of Spain."

"The Spanish throne naturally still belongs to your brother, His Highness Joseph, but we can make compromises with certain high-ranking officials within Spain."

For example, they mobilized a large army to suppress the nobles and priests in Andalusia and Seville, where the most intense resistance was currently taking place, but other moderates recognized their status and even offered them benefits.

Chief Secretary Claude Menaval offered cautious advice, while Chief of the General Staff Berthier, seeing the Emperor's intention to change the strategy toward the Iberian Peninsula, also put forward his own suggestions.

“We can even use Portuguese lands to win over the powerful factions within Spain, prompting them to join us more quickly. This would allow us to draw a large army from Spain and go east to deal with the Seres Empire.”

Berthier's voice was low; he sensed something was amiss. The Empire seemed to have misjudged the situation in its treatment of Prussia and Austria.

“Your Majesty, we can no longer tolerate the existence of King Ferdinand of Hungary. He has now become a hero among the Germans, and I think he will soon become the banner of resistance against us on the European continent.”

Upon hearing Berthier mention Mogonze, Napoleon hissed as if in pain.

This situation is indeed very frustrating. If Mogongze continues to accumulate prestige and resources, Central Europe will become unstable again.

“If Bernardo idiot had acted faster and arrived in Belgrade in time, we wouldn’t be in such a passive position.”

Napoleon, of course, would not admit that his handling of Prussia and Austria was the problem, but instead shifted the blame to Bernadotte.

“If that’s the case, then we can’t use Portugal to bribe the Spanish; instead, we should use it to bribe the English,” Chief Secretary Claude Menaval suggested.

Chief of Staff Berthier shook his head. "The English are not Russians. They are not so keen on land, especially now that the monarchy is in full decline."

The aristocratic factory owners and farmers of the British Isles loved nothing more than selling their ubiquitous goods all over the world, thereby amassing enormous fortunes.

At this moment, Napoleon missed his brother Lucien Bonaparte terribly.

Of his many brothers, Lucien Bonaparte was the most capable.

No, it should be said that Napoleon's other brothers, whether it was his elder brother Joseph or his younger brothers Louis Bonaparte, Jérôme Bonaparte, and so on, were all rather incompetent.

Only Lucien Bonaparte was truly capable, but he was not currently by his side.

Lucien made great contributions to Napoleon's rise to permanent consul, but the two brothers soon turned against each other.

Napoleon wanted Lucien to divorce his wife and marry a Spanish princess, but Lucien firmly opposed this and left Napoleon.

Napoleon viewed this as a betrayal and placed Lucien under house arrest in Rome. However, Lucien found an opportunity to escape, but was unfortunately captured by the British on his way to America and now lives in England.

"If Lucien were here, he would be the best candidate to be King of Spain."

"If he were here, he would definitely be able to handle the situation in Spain and reach a suitable agreement with the English."

Napoleon showed a rare moment of weakness, missing his brother, but the emperor quickly regained his composure.

“Then send a secret envoy to make contact. If the English need to sell goods, I can give them a limit. Within that limit, English goods can be sold on the mainland.”

Napoleon said, looking at his chief of staff Berthier, "Louis, you're right. We can't let that damned bastard Ferdinand get away with it, or all the Germans will be drawn to him."

Almost simultaneously, Tsar Alexander I received news of what had happened in Nikolayev and Kherson. The loss of the Black Sea Fleet drove the Tsar almost mad, and also instilled fear in him.

He suddenly realized what he should do if the English fleet, carrying the Khitan guards, sailed from the Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg during the height of the war.
Although England had a fleet, its army was too small, and even if it landed, it would be impossible to take St. Petersburg.

The Khitan army was strong, and so was their navy, but St. Petersburg was too far away for them, and the Khitan navy did not yet have the capability to launch a surprise attack from halfway around the world.

But if the English continued their alliance with the Khitans, a surprise attack on St. Petersburg would not have been impossible.

"We should seek to improve relations with the English, no, our relations were never bad to begin with."

Tsar Alexander I suddenly said to his ministers, "This is a war between East and West, a war between Europe and the Yellow Peril. We should not regard the Kingdom of England as an enemy."

(End of this chapter)