Fox of France

The movement of the rebels was quite slow. After Napoleon arrived at Le Mans, it took more than two weeks for General Dracotelli's army to slowly reach the vicinity of Le Mans. This is not that General Dracotri deliberately delayed, but that he really could not act quickly.

First, he was held back by the declining morale of his troops. In order to persuade those peasants to leave their hometown, General Dracotelli paid what seemed to be a relatively high military salary. But in this way, General Dracotelli would not have much money to buy military supplies.

General Dracotri originally hoped to capture something after entering Angers. However, after entering Angers, General Dracotrie found that the situation was not the same as he had imagined. It's not that they didn't seize something in Angers. For example, they seized more than a dozen cannons. However, the things they need most, such as food, gunpowder and so on, are not much.

The lack of military supplies naturally makes it difficult to maintain military discipline. After the rebels entered Angers, they could control the military discipline for the first two days, but soon, the military discipline began to get out of control. The streets are full of rebels who forcefully buy and sell, and rob porcelain. Some rebels even broke into the homes of those who were famous in Angers, even those who had made great efforts in the accident that night.

The rebels recruited by General Delacortri, and the rebels who defeated the government forces in the Vendée, have actually changed a lot in terms of personnel composition. The original rebels were mostly honest local farmers. But among the personnel of this rebel army today, there are a lot fewer farmers, and there are a lot more libertines.

This is also normal, because most of the honest farmers have gone home to farm, and many of those who are willing to run out for the military pay of the nobles are not those honest farmers. So it is even more difficult to make these people obey the rules. These guys not only broke into other people's homes to steal money, but even touched the women in other people's homes, doing a lot of things that are not allowed to be described. It was almost like the Huns had entered the city of Rome.

Dracotelli arrested some who went too far, especially those who went to the nobles' homes to rob and commit unspeakable crimes, and hanged them on the gallows in the square. It was finally to press down this wave of things. However, what I didn't expect was that with the purge of military discipline, it brought another problem.

The first problem is that soldiers flee. Some soldiers fled because they missed their hometown, and some soldiers fled because they were not allowed to be looted at will. Moreover, once the escape happened, it was often not a person running away alone, but people from the same village or even the same area running together. For this reason, General Dracotelli had to take various severe measures to combat deserters. As long as any soldier tried to escape and was caught, he would definitely be hung up.

Such severe measures brought a new problem, that is, the soldiers actually started to resist. In less than two days, three military judges were shot black and lost their lives. One of them was the nephew of General Dracoterry. General Dracotelli knew that the pressure of the gallows had come to an end, and if he continued to hang it, he would not know who would be hanging on the gallows at that time.

As a result, military discipline was completely ignored. At this time, the only thing General Dracotelli could do was to restrain the soldiers from arbitrarily infringing upon the lives and property of those nobles and decent people. In the end, he couldn't even do this, and what he could do became: restrain the soldiers from infringing on the personal and property of nobles, and not infringing on the personal safety of decent people. As for ordinary farts, there is really no way.

Violence is sometimes like drinking, it is addictive. At the beginning, the atrocities of the rebels were just to fill their own stomachs, but now, the purpose of their atrocities is no longer such a material one. Instead, it has reached a higher state, a state of pursuing spiritual enjoyment-for fun.

The respectable people in Angers couldn't stand it anymore. They sent representatives to General Dracotrie and proposed to him that in order to support the restoration, they were willing to donate part of their supplies to support the army of "the King and God" to continue to advance. To put it more clearly, they are now willing to waste money to eliminate disasters, spend some money, and quickly send these plague gods to any other place to harm others.

If the rebel army could get this big gift package a few days earlier, they would naturally go to Le Mans happily. However, now, they have evolved into an army with spiritual pursuit. Before the game broke down, the soldiers expressed their refusal to leave.

"Today I plan to go to the owner's daughter of the small hotel and try some new moves. How can I just leave like this?"

"His younger brother is also very beautiful, and their mother, we plan to have a party with their family, how can we leave now?"

"Yes, yes!"

Therefore, the big gift bag was left by General Dracotelli, but the "king and the army of God" did not leave immediately, but planned to stay in Angers and "have fun with the people" for a few more days.

The unbearable people of Angers finally decided to resist, and some citizens suddenly launched an attack on the "king and God's army" one night. As a result, the city of Angers was completely burned down by a big fire that night.

An aristocrat who escaped from the fire later recounted the experience in his memoirs,

...the republic took away my privileges before they came, but I still have money, and houses, and land, and our family... Now, I have nothing..."

After a fire, "the king and the army of God" finally couldn't continue to enjoy the people, so they had to continue to march north. However, due to the chaos of military discipline, the speed of the march has also become procrastinated, so until this time, they dawdled to the vicinity of Le Mans.

At this time, in the face of sluggish morale, General Dracotelli had no choice but to break the can and break the can. After announcing the break-up of the city, he had a three-day holiday to improve morale.

Hearing the news, Napoleon almost fainted from laughing. He recruited several regiment and battalion commanders under his command and began to deploy operations.

Encouraged by the "three-day holiday", the rebels boosted their morale and launched an attack on Le Mans. But at this time, the story of them "having fun with the people" in Angers and their preparation for "three days off" have made the whole Le Mans known through the efforts of Fouché and Mayor René .

Therefore, when it comes to defending the city, the people of Le Mans are extremely firm. After all, no one wants to have fun with those guys outside the city on vacation. As a result, the National Guard at Le Mans fought with incomparable courage and determination. In contrast, those guys on the opposite side, perhaps because they still wanted to save their precious lives to enjoy the upcoming vacation, had already been counterattacked, and immediately retreated. As a result, at the end of the day, the rebels failed to make any progress.

Napoleon gave almost all defensive tasks to Fouche's National Guard. This army has just been formed, and its military quality is quite poor, but because they are really defending their home and country, their morale is very high. After several times when the enemy approached, they were able to charge with bayonets and easily kill the rebels. Hit it down.

As for Napoleon's main force, Napoleon placed it behind the National Guard, ready to plug leaks or counterattack at any time.

At the same time, Napoleon's cavalry units under the command of Davout continued to attack the rebel logistics lines in the rear. The rebels did have a numerical advantage, but this advantage was limited to infantry. The rebels did not have many cavalry, which made it difficult for them to effectively limit Davout's movements.

In this way, the rebels can only send more troops, set up more depots along the supply line, and deploy more troops at these positions to ensure the safety of the supply line.

The result of this is naturally that the troops that can be used for front-line operations are greatly reduced. Therefore, although in terms of total strength, General Dracotelli once had as many as 40,000 people, but after fighting and fleeing in Angers, he was forced to draw a considerable amount of troops to defend the supply line, which made him The number of troops that can be used for front-line offensive operations has dropped rapidly to about 20,000. In the hands of Napoleon, in addition to the more than 5,000 people in his division, there are also more than 5,000 people from the National Self-Defense Force formed by Fouché. Now on the battlefield, the gap between the numbers of the two sides is actually not that big. Coupled with the bonus of fortifications, in fact, in theory, it is impossible for the rebels to capture Le Mans.

However, because Napoleon has always hidden his main force well and has never used it on the battlefield, General Dracotelli does not know how many enemy troops are on the opposite side. According to the information he received before, and these days According to the situation of the battle, General Dracotelli judged that the enemy's army was only six or seven thousand at most. He felt that he could still fight. After considering the attacks of the past few days, he felt that he seemed to have some understanding of the enemy's defense, and he seemed to be able to act recklessly. Moreover, the logistics are getting more and more difficult, and there has been no progress in the past few days, and the morale of our own army has begun to decline again. If we don't launch a general offensive, I'm afraid there will be no morale needed to launch a general offensive in the future. So General Dracotri decided: "Tomorrow morning, let everyone have a good meal, and then launch a general attack!"