King of Mercenaries

Chapter 34: The raging spear infantry

After all, Maximilian I was not an idiot. He was also a very powerful member of the Habsburg family (again, the rest of the Habsburg royal family was not very good), so after he calmed down, he wanted to test One test Marlin.

"Young man, how is your mercenary group fighting?"

"A proper, tactical training of the mercenary group is specifically for killing Swiss mercenaries!" Marin said confidently.

"Really?" Maximilian I got a boost.

You know, Swiss mercenaries are the main force in the French army. The Swiss spearmen, not only good at defending the impact of the knight, but also able to launch attacks, can be called the top strength of Europe in this era. Moreover, the emperor himself, and the Swiss mercenaries are also enemies. His father-in-law, "Charle the Bold", died in the hands of Swiss mercenaries. The vast territory of the Principality of Burgundy fell into the hands of the French because of the help of the Swiss. Even the Eagleburg, the birthplace of the Habsburg family, has fallen into the hands of the Swiss.

In fact, the Swiss spearmen from the battle of Nancy, across Europe for decades, until the large-scale use of firearms, the German martial arts soldiers who studied the Spanish phalanx to step on the foot (specific commander, for the German mercenary Father, George Frentzberg.

In other words, the Swiss spearmen, the melee is very sharp, but afraid of long-range strikes. In particular, the Musket rifle of the Spanish phalanx is full of power, even if the Swiss wear the plate armor.

Marin's temporary plan, although using a bow and arrow instead of a more powerful musket. However, most Swiss spearmen are basically a group of poor ghosts, and they can't afford expensive armor. (Artim's note: If you don't understand, Swiss Merc. at that time liked to wear gambeson, not mail for better maneuvrability) Therefore, the bow and arrow array faces the Swiss spearmen wearing gambeson, and the lethality is not great but okay. When the Swiss spearmen were shot out, it was painful to think of it, and it was not necessary to spend the blood to equip the breastplate. At that time, Marin will replace them with the big guns and crush his enemy, see them die before him. (Artim's note: And hear the lamentation of their women)

In order to verify whether Marin is telling the truth, Earl Hohenzollen decided to come to a combat exercise to see if Marin is blowing leather. So Marin went to the recruiting department and took 80 long sticks and took back his 20 hunting bows.

"Bows and arrows... Isn't this thing going to be eliminated? You can't shoot through the plate..." Count said. In Europe, because of the appearance of the plate, the bow and arrow killing ability is greatly reduced. Therefore, the bows and arrows are gradually being ignored. There are also battles between low civilians, and bows and arrows are still popular. Because the low-ranking civilian soldiers are not given proper equipment and armor, and the protection of bows and arrows is low. For the nobility and the knights, the threat of bows and arrows is limited.

"The Earl, our archer, is not shooting the French Knights of the Plate, but shooting Swiss mercenaries." Marin reminded.

"How?" The emperor was also very curious.

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

The emperor and the count shook his head.

"That is, these poor ghost Swiss, since they have no money to buy a plate, can they withstand the blows of bows and arrows?"

The emperor and the count shook his head again.

"So, the job is to say that this formation is specifically to restrain Swiss mercenaries."

The mercenaries under Marin picked up the sticks as spears, while the arrows of the bows and arrows used the arrows without arrows in the cart. These headless arrows are used by Marin to train these guys in order to avoid casualties during training. Even for safety, these arrows with no head arrows are covered with rags to reduce the impact of shooting.

When the two sides arrayed, Count Frederick frowned:

"Knight Marin, why is your formation so thin?" Marlin's formation, including the archers, is only three rows.Therefore, Count Frederick is naturally dissatisfied.

"The Earl of the Earl, this knight is also wanting to get it thicker, but unfortunately the money is not enough. You know, this is more than a month, it is hard to be self-sufficient to feed this bunch of balls." Marin said silently.

Because of the large amount of training, although Marin took people to hunt, he shared some meat pressure. However, this group of two goods, every day in the meal, still consumes as much as the Marin 4 mark, a full 640 Finney, an average of 6.4 Finney per person per day. At this time, the civilians in the empire earned only 2 Finneys a day. In other words, this group of rice bowls consumes and consumes more than three times a day, which is more than three times the income of ordinary people. Thinking that Marin was born in a family of knights, it was really not easy to support the 100 mercenary. The emperor and the count did not say anything.

In order to show fairness, Count Frederick also sent 100 mercenary spearmen to form the Swiss square, which is similar in thickness to Marin.

But before the two sides played against each other, Marin asked to postpone an hour.

Then, the emperor and the count, surprised to see - Marin commanded his men, took out 40 shovel (the emperor and the count did not know this thing), began to dig trenches in front of the array.

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

"Knight Marin, are you digging?"

"Yeah, Your Majesty, Earl, the ditch can hinder the enemy's charge. Whether it is a knight or an infantry, the charge will be blocked."

Then, the emperor and the count, in front of Marin's battlefield, had two trenches separated by just 2 meters. The trench is not deep, but it is wider. It can be expected that after the enemy rushed up, it was impossible to jump over the two wide trenches at once.

Then they saw that Marin was commanding his men, and on the edge of the trench near the battlefield, they were filled with wooden pickets that slanted forward.

"This is... the way the Englishman confronts the French knight?" Maximilian I had a more eye-catching look. It was a way of seeing that the English Longbows blocked the French Knights. The difference is that the British wooden picket pile is directly inserted in front of the ground. Marin's wooden tip pile is inserted in the trench. The enemy wants to charge, not only to jump over the ditch, but also to avoid the picket on the ditch, 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 tipped piles in the distance, full of embarrassment. At the beginning of the exercise, the teams on both sides were separated by 100 meters. According to Marin's request, they are the defensive side, and the opposite 100 spearmen are the offensive side. Their weapons are also wooden sticks without spearheads. When the Swiss officers ordered the attack, the well-trained German spearmen, lined up in a neat team, began to move slowly and forced the Hoffmann mercenary group.

After entering the distance of 80 meters, it is estimated that the archer has lethality and has a better hit rate. Under the order of Marin, the 20 archers have shot their arrows.

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

Although there are no arrow head, the arrow head is covered with rags, it is still very painful to shoot on people. In particular, the German spearmen, like the Swiss spearmen, wore very fancy gambeson and could not resist the arrows in the legs and head. If the bow and arrow fall to the body, unless it is in a the gambeson armor, the soldier is judged to be "dead" or "injured" and have to withdraw from the battle.

At the distance of 80 meters, the archer's hit rate is not high, and everyone does not feel embarrassed. At a distance of 70 to 80 meters, the German spears lost only five people. However, after entering within 60 meters, the " casualties" began to increase. Because, this distance, no need to accurately shoot to "point kill". At a distance of about 60 meters, a round of arrows fell, and the German spear lost 9 people at once. This is because the merc used the halberd to accidentally block some of the "arrows." After all, so many halberd, there is also a little defensive area. After entering 50 meters, it is simply giving you head to the butcher. At a distance of 40 to 50 meters, the archers of the Hoffmann Mercenary Corps shot a total of two rounds, and the result was 20 people "killed". When the German spear enters 10 meters, there are only 40 people left in 100. In other words, 60 people were killed in the middle of the road or "out of the battle due to injury".

Moreover, many people are not "sentenced" to casualties, but are really injured. After all, the arrow are also hard objects. Under the powerful kinetic energy, even if the arrow is wrapped in rags, it is very painful to the person, and it is comparable to the stone. Some helpless were directly injured by the arrow.

"This...the archers are so powerful?" Maximilian I and Frederick Earl were both amazed. The knights wore Gothic plate armors and despised the bows. However, the infantry cannot ignore the threat of bows and arrows. Although the Count of Frederick commanded the spearman, it was also poked with the opposite spearman, and did not encounter the archer. Therefore, he has never seen such a strong bow and arrow killing spree.

In fact, in this era, apart from the wretched Britain, where there are a large number of archers. In other countries, there are actually no archers on a large scale. Because the archer's training is as time consuming as the knight. With that leisure time, it is better to train a group of knights. Therefore, there are fewer countries that engage in archers. After all with the plate, the protection from the arrows has been greatly improved. Therefore, no one is willing to train the archers in large numbers. Originally, in the early days of the Anglo-French War, because of the outstanding performance of the English Longbows, many countries imitated the formation of the bow and arrow units. But after the defeat of the English, everyone did not learn, and the temporarily formed bow and arrow units were also disbanded.

Forty surviving spearmen, under the leadership of a Swiss officer who survived because of his chest plate, began to attack the front line of the Hoffmann Mercenary.

However, they rushed to the front, and they were a little dumbfounded. Two wide trenches blocked them. I don't feel embarrassed in the distance, I really feel the trouble when I really attack.

The trenches that Marin dug were not deep, only 40 cm deep, but 2 meters wide. Two 2 m wide trenches, plus a distance of 2 meters between the trenches. In the 6 meters in front of the Hoffman Mercenary Corps, it is "abnormal ground." If you want to rush, you must first go down the first ditch and then climb up.

However, both spears (long sticks) are 6 meters in length. The person on his own side, just after climbing the second trench and standing on the 2 meter wide ground between the two trenches, stood still and the "spears" on the other side came over...

The warriors of this party have gone to block and open the opposite spear, but the person on their own has just climbed a ditch and has not stood still, and the other spearman has long been waiting for work, how to confront each other? Therefore, there have been a lot of reductions.

Well, when the Swiss officers took the remaining 30 people to stabilize on the 2m wide ground, the Hoffmann Mercenary Regiment took a two-step step back and did not give the stable German spears a chance to succumb to each other. . Then, the archer who took a break for a while, once again began to "snap" the opponent in the front row of people who deliberately let go. The German spearman, for the wooden tip piles in the ground, is also very incompetent. Go to the picket, and the opposite spear will definitely take you off. Not only that, but if you want to pull the picket pile, you have to get to the second ditch. You are in the ditch, and the opposite is just the next to you, shoot you.

If you don't remove the picket, you can't move on. The Swiss officer who responded, hurriedly took the team and went to the left. However, he has only 20 people left in his hands.

He is on the left, but the number of the two sides is already seriously different. At this time, Marin directly waved, all members of the Hoffmann Mercenary Corps quickly turned the team, with a nice formation change, facing the remaining 20 German halberdier. Then, everyone keeps the formation and embraces the other people's remnants. Finally, only 10 people on Marin's side are

killed because the martial arts can't match the veterans, and they are caught by the other wooden stick.

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

"Yes, soldiers who don't wear plate armor are really hard to resist the bow and arrow. But if it's rushing to the front, the archers are not used."

"Oh, Frederick, haven't you seen it? Your spearman can't kill the archer. Because they can stand two rows of spearmen in front of them."

"That's also true, but, in the 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 such a person. If there are enough people, I think he will definitely not put such a person in front?"

"Maybe."

"The defensive tactics of the two ditches are also very good, it is difficult to make a breakthrough. Even if the knight charge, it is extremely difficult to break through."

"This is true, but you can go around the flank. It was like the Swiss did at the end."

"Well, that's right. But let's ask knight Marin first, see how he responds to the enemy's flanking!"