At the beginning of the winter months, paraquat is yellow.

The rift was bridged again by the French royal family, the Valois family, leaving Bordeaux, which was occupied by the Ming army, to become a major problem for its henchmen, and more than 34,000 marshals and generals of the three roads relied on the fortification between the two great rivers of Dordogne and Vienna for hundreds of miles to maintain the border.

The Valois royal family had no choice, and the Queen Mother Catherine knew that Chen Jiujing would not accept her negotiations at all, and made up her mind to forcibly occupy Bordeaux, and war was the only way to solve the problem.

During this winter, Queen Mother Catherine held a royal banquet in Fontainebleau, Paris, as usual.

Baron Billund was just one of the nobles who had made great contributions to the defense of the French royal family during the Wars of Religion, and was the less honorable side of the war.

The north and the south were two different battlefields, and the northern war only had Marshal Mation leading the king's male favorite nobles to besiege the city of Picardy Raphael, which was very close to Paris, and the Duke of Condé there did not try to cooperate with Henry Navarre in the south.

Although Marshal Marting's troops led many young nobles from the court who had never participated in the war, these fortunate men, who were accustomed to living an absurd life, took up arms, wore embroidered garments and armor inlaid with gold, and had the same high combat effectiveness as the gold-inlaid plate armor, and the weather was also sunny and sunny, and the logistics of the troops were extremely sufficient.

The siege began on June 22 last year and ended on August 22 last year, and it took not much effort to achieve victory in two months, and it was so easy that it became known as the Velvet Siege.

The war in the south was much more difficult, more than 400 kilometers of supply lines, and the troops that had been fighting well but were tired of marching came to the city of Bordeaux, and were defeated by the combined forces of Chen Jiujing and Yang Ce.

In the whole battle, the city of Cahors, which was supposed to be used as Margo's dowry but the royal family wanted to play tricks, was seized by Navarre, and in addition to this, the royal army did not suffer at the hands of Navarre, and the peace conditions were also very lenient, just recognizing Cahors' belonging and giving the Navarre rebels a chance to breathe.

But they did not have the slightest advantage over Chen Jiujing, so that they could only skip Chen Jiujing and unilaterally negotiate with Navarre, and Bordeaux became a scar in the heart of the kingdom.

After half a year of confrontation, and into the boring winter, the king hummed the third child at the banquet at Fontainebleau drank too much wine and brought up the old story, and a group of young nobles who had won easily in the Velvet Siege clamored to hang Chen Jiujing's head on the tower of Paris.

Incidentally, since Billund was defeated by Chen Jiujing, the nobles of Paris no longer wanted to call the victory of the siege of La Fère the siege of Velvet, because velvet was also a product of the Ming Dynasty, and it was called Zhangrong and Velvet there.

But they couldn't find a better way to describe that battle.

The belligerent fanatical words made the atmosphere of the banquet more enthusiastic, except for Baron Billund, who was holding a wine glass in the corner, was silent...... Billon once led an army to the city of Bordeaux, and the Queen Mother Catherine took his opinion seriously.

Unlike the aristocracy who only looked at Europe or even France, Catherine, the Queen Mother of the Medici family, had a crude spy agency composed entirely of young girls, and their focus was on Spain at this moment, so as to obtain a lot of information about the Ming Dynasty and make the French royal family have a clearer understanding of the whole world.

The Queen Mother knew what kind of enemy she was going to face, and she knew that she would have to fight against an enemy like Da Ming, and she could not rely on those small nobles who were given fiefs by their sons by their butts.

"Sir Billund, there's a lot of enthusiasm for attacking Bordeaux, what do you think?"

Billon's face was wrinkled, he was no longer young, and after the defeat of Bordeaux, the kingdom did not give him a chance to lead his troops to war for a whole year, and he spent his days in Paris, and at this moment he was more like a drunkard from an unknown country than a seasoned general, so that when the Queen Mother came to him, he did not react.

Even when he saw the Queen Mother and heard the question, Billon still shook his head tiredly: "If the battle continues, the Dordogne River will be lost next year, but you don't have to worry too much, the Jazz will stop them near the Vienna River until the war is over." ”

"Vienna?"

Catherine frowned, she didn't like Billon's downplay of defeat, and she couldn't accept this result, which meant that Billon believed that the Aquitaine region would all be lost in the war.

But Billon still nodded, and said, "If this room of drunkards leads the army today, you will receive the news of their defeat in two months, and then you will not have to wait until next year, and you will be able to lose all the south of the Vienna River." ”

Queen Catherine tried her best to straighten her stiff back, she was angry, but looked around and did agree with Billund's statement, war should not be pushed by the nobles after drinking, she was a little out of breath by the waist, and it took two breaths to calm her anger.

He asked, "What if you lead the army?" ”

Billund shook his head again: "I suggest that you send someone to negotiate with Chen Jiujing now, spend money to buy Bordeaux back, give him silver if he needs silver, and give him gold if he needs gold; If we can defeat Spain at sea, the money may be a little less, and if we lose, Chen Jiujing will continue to march north, which will be a little more expensive. ”

It was as if a war had broken Marshal Billund's backbone, Catherine shook her head and planned to leave: "Chen Jiujing's army is indeed brave and good at fighting, but he has less than 10,000 men, Your Excellency's words...... You are truly worthy of the rank given to you by His Royal Highness the King. ”

"On the contrary, I think that the earliest possible peace is the most important thing for me to be loyal to my Majesty, the enemy has less than 10,000 troops, but his fleet controls the Bordeaux to Spanish waters, ensuring that ships full of supplies arrive every month, that every soldier has excellent warm clothing and sufficient ammunition, that ninety years ago we knew what artillery meant in war, and that in Italy a year's reserve of gunpowder was spent in exchange for two days to capture a fortified city."

"Now that the Ming army has plenty of ammunition, enough horses and donkeys, and countless artillery, once they attack the north, no matter how many forts we have, their offensive will depend only on the speed of the march."

Queen Mother Catherine attracted everyone's attention, and the drinking nobles in the palatial hall gradually stopped arguing with each other, and only looked at Catherine and Billund, who were talking, and some people watched angrily as Billon said these angry words, but Billon didn't seem to notice.

"It's the opposite for us, in the Dordogne, which is close to Bordeaux, far from Paris, and even farther from Troyes. If Bordeaux could not be captured before the Spaniards and Navarre arrived, sending troops would only kill more lads and would be meaningless. ”

"To capture Bordeaux, you need at least twenty-four siege guns; To defeat Chen Jiujing's troops, thirty-six artillery pieces were needed; It required four hundred horses and donkeys to travel from Paris through all of France to Bordeaux; The copper shells they used were to be carried from Troyes by six hundred and eighty donkeys through half of France, and the gunpowder needed for a campaign, for which we had to prepare for six months or more. ”

"If nothing else, start preparing now, and you can try it next fall, but Chen Jiujing will not wait for us to prepare." Billund poured another glass of wine into his mouth, spread his hands and asked, "Do you still think it's a bad idea to spend money to buy Bordeaux back?" ”