King of German Mercenaries

After all, Maximilian I was not an idiot, and he was considered to be the most powerful in the Habsburg family (on the other hand, the rest of the Habsburg royal family were not very powerful), so after calming down, he wanted to take the test. A comalin...

"Aiqing, how is your mercenary team fighting strength?"

"That's right, the training tactics of the mercenary regiment of this minister are specifically aimed at Swiss mercenaries!" Marin said confidently.

"Really?" Maximilian I was refreshed.

You know, Swiss mercenaries are the main force in the French army. Don't look at the number of French knights, but the newly formed spearmen of their own can also be restrained.

The Swiss spearmen were not only good at defending the impact of knights, but also able to launch attacks. They could be called the top power in Europe in this era.

Moreover, the emperor himself had a grudge against the Swiss mercenaries. His father-in-law "Charlie the Bold" died at the hands of Swiss mercenaries. A large area of ​​the Principality of Burgundy also fell into the hands of the French because of the help of the Swiss. Even the birthplace of the Habsburg family, the Eagle Castle in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland, fell into the hands of the Swiss.

In fact, the Swiss spearmen traversed Europe for decades after the Battle of Nancy, until they were trampled underfoot by German mercenaries who used muskets on a large scale and learned the Spanish phalanx (the specific commander, "German Mercenaries") "Father" Georg Frenzberg).

That is to say, the Swiss spearmen are very sharp in melee combat, but are afraid of long-range strikes. In particular, the Mushkert muskets of the Spanish phalanx were so powerful that even the Swiss could not stop them in plate armor.

Marin's interim solution, although the more powerful muskets were replaced with bows and arrows. However, most of the Swiss spearmen were basically poor, and they couldn't afford expensive plate armor.

Therefore, the bow and arrow formation is very lethal to Swiss spearmen wearing commoner or leather armor. It doesn't matter when the Swiss spearmen are shot out, and after thinking about it, they spend all their blood to equip their breastplates. At that time, Marin will change into a big musket, and still kill and crush...

In order to verify whether Marin was bragging, the Earl of Hohenzollern decided to conduct an actual combat exercise to see if Marin was bragging.

So, Marin went to the recruiting office to get 80 long sticks, and got back his 20 hunting bows...

"Bow and arrow... Isn't this thing about to be eliminated? It can't shoot through plate armor..." Count Frederick was somewhat Spartan. In Europe, because of the appearance of plate armor, the lethality of bows and arrows has been greatly reduced. Therefore, bows and arrows are gradually not valued. There are only battles between lowly civilians, and bows and arrows are still popular. Because, low-level civilian soldiers, do not have the ability to equip plate armor and have low protection against bows and arrows. For nobles and knights, the threat of bows and arrows is really limited.

"My Count, our archers are not shooting French plate knights, but Swiss mercenaries," Marin reminded.

"How?" The emperor was also very curious.

"Your Majesty, most of the Swiss mercenaries are poor mountain people. Do they have the money to buy plate armor?"

Both the Emperor and the Count shook their heads...

"That's it, these poor Swiss, since they have no money to buy plate armor, can they withstand the blow of bows and arrows?"

The Emperor and the Count shook their heads again...

"That's why I said that this formation is designed to restrain Swiss mercenaries."

The mercenaries under Marin all took up wooden sticks as spears, and the arrows for bows and arrows used arrows without arrows in the ox cart. These headless arrows are used by Marin to train these guys in order to avoid casualties during training. Even, for safety, the arrows of these headless arrows are covered with rags to reduce the impact of shooting.

When the two sides lined up, Count Frederick frowned and said:

"Marin Knight, why is your battle formation so thin?" Including the archers, Marin's battle formation was only 3 rows.

So Count Frederick was naturally dissatisfied.

"Lord Earl, I want to be thicker for my humble post, but unfortunately I don't have enough money. You know, for more than a month, the humble post has paid for these bastards by themselves..." Marin said speechlessly.

Because of the large amount of training, although Marin led people to hunt, he shared part of the meat-eating pressure. However, these second-hand people still spend as much as 4 marks of Marin on meals every day, which is a full 640 pfennig, and each person consumes an average of 6.4 pfennig per day. At this time, the commoners in the empire were only earning 2 pfennig per day. In other words, this group of rice buckets spend more than three times the income of ordinary people on food and drink every day.

Thinking that Marin only came from a family of knights, and it is indeed not easy to support a person number 100, the emperor and the earl kept silent.

In order to show fairness, Count Frederick also sent 100 old mercenary spearmen to form a Swiss phalanx, with a thickness similar to that of Marin.

But before the match between the two sides, Marin asked for an hour delay...

Then, the emperor and the count were surprised to see that Marin commanded his men, took out 40 shovels (the emperor and the count did not know this stuff), and began to dig trenches in front of the battle...

The emperor and the count rode to the front and asked Marin:

"Marlin Knight, are you digging a trench?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, Lord Count, trenches can hinder the charge of the enemy, whether it is knights or infantry, the charge will be hindered."

Then, the emperor and the count saw two trenches only 2 meters apart in front of Marin's battle formation. The trench is not deep, but rather wide. It can be expected that after the enemy rushed up, they could not jump over such wide two trenches at once.

Then, they saw that Marin commanded his men, and the edge of the trench near the battle formation was full of wooden pickets that were slanted forward...

"This is... the way the English fought against the French knights?" Maximilian I was more discerning, and at a glance, he could see that this was the way the English longbowmen blocked the French knights' charge. The difference is that the British wooden pickets are directly inserted into the front of the ground. And Marin's wooden pickets are inserted in the trenches. If the enemy wants to charge, they not only have to jump over the trench, but also have to avoid the pickets on the trench, which greatly increases the difficulty.

Sure enough, before the exercise began, the German spearmen led by a Swiss mercenary officer looked at the two trenches and the piles of pickets in the distance, full of embarrassment.

In fact, what makes their scalp tingle is still behind...

When the exercise officially started, the two teams were 100 meters apart. According to Marin's request, they were the defenders, and the opposing 100 spearmen were the attackers. Their weapons are also wooden sticks without spearheads.

When the Swiss officer ordered the attack, the well-trained German spearmen, lined up in neat formations, began to slowly advance towards the Hoffmann mercenary regiment.

After entering the distance of 80 meters, it is estimated that the archer has the lethality and the hit rate. With Marin's order, 20 archers set up their arrows to open their bows...

"Ah...ah...ah..."

Although there is no arrowhead and the part of the arrowhead is covered with rags, it still hurts to shoot at people. In particular, the German spearmen, like the Swiss spearmen, all wore very fancy clothes and could not resist bows and arrows at all...

And if the bow and arrow fell on the body, unless it was in a very unimportant position, the soldier would be judged "killed" or "wounded" to withdraw from the battle.

At a distance of 80 meters, the hit rate of the archers is not high, and everyone does not think that. At a distance of 70-80 meters, the German spearmen lost only 5 men. But after entering 60 meters, the "casualties" began to increase greatly. Because, at this distance, there is no need to projectile, and you can accurately shoot "point kills".

At a distance of about 60 meters, a round of bows and arrows came down, and the German spearmen lost 9 people at once. This is also the reason why those spearmen happened to block some of the "arrows" with their gun barrels. After all, with so many guns, there is also a little defensive area. And after entering 50 meters, it is simply a gift.

At a distance of 40 to 50 meters, the archers of the Hoffman mercenary regiment shot a total of two rounds of arrows, and as a result brought down 20 people.

When the German spearmen entered a distance of 10 meters, there were only 40 people left in 100 people...

That is to say, 60 people were "killed" or "withdrawn from the battle due to injuries" along the way...

Moreover, many people were not "condemned" casualties, but were actually injured. After all, bows and arrows are also hard objects. Under the powerful kinetic energy, even if the arrow is wrapped in rags and hits a person, it will be very painful, comparable to hitting a person with a stone. Some unlucky ones were directly injured by arrows.

"This...the archers are so powerful?" Maximilian I and Count Frederick usually played knights. The knights wore Gothic plate armor and despised bows and arrows at all. However, the infantry could not ignore the threat of the bow and arrow. Although Count Frederick had commanded a lancer, he was also poking at the opposite lancer, and he had never encountered an established archer. Therefore, he has never seen such a strong bow and arrow kill.

In fact, in this era, except for the wretched Britain, which had a large number of archers, no other country actually had archers on a large scale. Because the training difficulty of archers is not lower than that of knights. With that spare time, it is better to train a group of knights. Therefore, there are relatively few countries engaged in archers. After the plate armor replaced the chain armor, the protection against bows and arrows has been greatly improved. Therefore, no one wants to train archers in large numbers.

Originally, in the early days of the Anglo-French War, many countries imitated the formation of bow and arrow troops because of the outstanding performance of the English longbowmen. But after the defeat of the English, everyone stopped learning, and the temporary bow and arrow troops were disbanded.

The 40 surviving spearmen, led by Swiss officers who also survived wearing breastplate armor, began to charge the front of the Hoffmann mercenary regiment.

However, when they rushed forward, they were a little dumbfounded. Two wide trenches blocked them. I don't feel anything from a distance, but when I really attack, I feel trouble.

The trench dug by Marin is not deep, only 40 centimeters deep, but 2 meters wide. Two 2-meter-wide trenches, plus a 2-meter distance between the trenches. So that the 6 meters in front of the Hoffman mercenary group are all "abnormal ground". If you want to rush over, you have to go down the first ditch and then climb up.

However, the length of the spears (long sticks) on both sides is 6 meters. When the people on my side just climbed over the second ditch and stood on the 2-meter-wide ground between the two ditches, their footing was unsteady, and the "spears" on the opposite side stabbed them one after another...

The soldiers on this side went to block and push away the spears on the opposite side, but the people on their side had just climbed over a ditch and had not yet stood firm, and the spearmen of the other side had long been waiting for work. The next plate is unstable, how to fight against the opponent? Therefore, there has been a large number of layoffs...

Well, when the Swiss officers took the remaining 30 people to stabilize on the 2-meter-wide ground, the Hoffmann mercenary group took two steps back as a whole, not giving the German spearmen a chance to stab each other. . Then, the archer, who had rested for a while, once again started to "kill" the opponent in the gap between the people in the front row deliberately let go...

And the German spearmen are also very helpless against the wooden pickets all over the ground. You go to pick the stakes, the opposite spearman will definitely take the opportunity to stab you. Not only that, if you want to pull out the pickets, you have to go down to the second ditch first. You've gone down the drain, and the other side is just condescending to stab you and shoot you...

But without removing the pickets, our troops will definitely not be able to move forward. The Swiss officer who reacted hurriedly led the team and went around to the left. However, there are only more than 20 people left in his hands...

He went around to the left, but the number of people on both sides was seriously unequal. At this time, Marin directly waved his hand, and all the members of the Hoffmann mercenary group quickly turned the team and used a beautiful line change to face the remaining 20 German spearmen. Then, everyone kept in formation and swarmed up, smashing all the remaining men and horses of the opponent... In the end, only 10 people on Marin's side were stabbed by the opponent's wooden stick because their martial arts were not as good as the veterans on the opposite side. casualties……

"It's a massacre!" the emperor exclaimed.

"Yes, soldiers without plate armor are indeed difficult to resist the bow and arrow formation. But if they rush to the front, the archers are useless."

"Oh, Frederick, didn't you see it? Your spearmen can't kill the archers. Because there are two rows of spearmen standing in front of them."

"That's true, but, Your Majesty, in a real battle, the strength is far more than that. There are only two rows of spearmen in front, which is far from enough to protect the archers."

"Marin also said that he has no money, so he only recruited so many people. If there are enough people, I don't think he will put so many people in front, right?"

"Maybe."

"The defensive tactics of the two trenches are also quite good, and it is difficult to break through. Even if the Cavaliers charge, it is extremely difficult to break through."

"That's true, but you can go around the flanks. Like the Swiss did at the end."

"Yeah, that's right. But let's ask the Marlin Knight first to see how he handles the enemy's flanking!"

...

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