On the edge of the camp on the nameless low mountain, Marshal Matthion sat on a large boulder, holding in his left hand the iron armor and leather gloves he wore in his right hand, and covered his forehead with his hand in distress.

In the camp behind him, more than two hundred knights were unarmouring their clothes, handing over their soaked clothes to the soldiers to bake around the campfire, and for the urgent crossing of the river, these gentlemen, who represented the strongest fighting force of the royal family of Valois, suffered too much.

"Sir Charles, didn't you think that they would leave a force behind to ambush you when they retreated?"

The Count of Charles stood not far from Marting, his face far more bitter than that of the marshal, and he could not yet understand why an army of four thousand men could lose all its combat effectiveness in a matter of days.

The enemy didn't even put up a battle with him, not once.

Now confronted with Matthion's cross-examination, Charles was convinced that he could not come up with any justification.

"I thought they would stay, with a force of two hundred men, to stop my pursuers. I gathered all the gunpowder and sent one hundred and seventy musketeers and six hundred Swiss infantry, with more coming down later to ensure that the pursuit was foolproof. ”

"At night, no one can control all the soldiers at night, there are always people who will fall behind and get lost, but they don't, they gathered all their troops in the night, more than six hundred muskets pulled out of horizontal formations and fired at me, mixed with many large-caliber short guns spraying scattered bullets, the guns forced all the soldiers back, the braver my troops, the more casualties."

The Earl of Charles did not understand until the next day why the Ming army was retreating, so he would leave all his troops to fortify in the south; Why did he rush back into the enemy's ambush circle with his troops as if everything had been arranged?

Martion, who was much more uncomfortable than he was, led his troops all the way to the agreed assembly point with scarce supplies, but did not see Charles' troops arrive as promised, so he had to continue his search westward.

At the height of Spain's power, there was only one real reason why the Western Army failed to attack France, and in the relatively impoverished south of France, there was no wealth to supply the army on the spot, whether it was purchased, requisitioned, or plundered.

His only hope on the march was the baggage that the Charr carried with him, which contained winter clothing, food, and gunpowder that he could use.

However, he received the news that the Shire-sur-Crane was besieged by the Ming army, and until he reached the east bank of the Crane River, Matthion still had a little hope in his heart, hoping that his gunpowder was still there.

But no, nothing.

Clothing, food, gunpowder, all gone.

He also picked up thousands of wounded soldiers in the camp of Nameless Mountain.

Counting the reinforcements sent by the king, tens of thousands of horses and horses are waiting for dinner every day, and you can imagine how depressed it is.

Matthion opened his mouth, he was eager to ask the Count of Charles why he didn't organize a second pursuit as soon as the first pursuit was blocked, the Ming army would not always crouch behind and ambush, the second pursuit would definitely be victorious.

But he didn't say anything in the end, it was pointless to realize it in hindsight at this time, it seemed that their Earl of Charles, who had been trained in the battle against Henry Navarre's peasant army, was accustomed to facing a vulnerable enemy, and suddenly let him fight against the Ming army beyond his knowledge, and he didn't know what to do.

Take risks when it's time to be steady, and be as steady as a turtle when it's time to take risks.

He simply sent someone to convey the order to the troops waiting on the east bank of the Crane River: "Tell the Duke of Juvajez that the Ming army is retreating south along the west bank, and the Charles army will need half a day to complete the reorganization, and finally two brigades will be engaged in the next battle." ”

During the conversation between Matthion and the herald, the Count of Charles already knew what he had to do next, but he still asked in disbelief: "The Ming army is marching fast, and we are still going to continue the pursuit?" ”

Continue the pursuit?

"Why wonder, I have to get our food back!"

"The two wounded soldiers will be escorted by a healthy soldier and sent to the nearest town, Marshal Billon and Duke Juvalez will lead their army south from the bridge to the west bank, and we can no longer divide our forces."

In his heart, Mathion raised the threat of Yuan Zizhang's Ming army again and again, and any thousand-strong brigade would obviously be annihilated if it met them.

He had to recover supplies, and no town in the vicinity could supply tens of thousands of soldiers, neither O'Neill in the northwest nor Rochefort in the southwest had stagnated in the religious wars, and if they could not catch up, the great offensive that the royal family had managed to assemble would return to Poandier in the form of a rout.

The entire southwestern part of France will fall into the hands of the Ming army.

Mathion did not dare to talk to anyone else about this conjecture—they were faced with a Ming army of less than 2,000 men.

What was it like to leave two thousand Spaniards in the south of France? There will be no threat at all, they themselves will starve to death and freeze to death here, but the Ming army, which is less than two brigades, advanced more than 200 miles in a month, and then broke through the dilemma of almost being surrounded, so as to ...... south in a timely manner Matthion really didn't want to call it a retreat.

It was a normal march, and they still maintained their fighting spirit and will, and even took the corpses of the war dead with them when they withdrew south.

The calm mood of the Ming army led Matthion to suspect that the south of Angoulême, Sant and some nearby lands were filled with Ming soldiers ready to attack.

The Count of the Upper Shire, who was still a good soldier, was once again helped by his mastery of mathematics, and in just over an hour, more than 900 wounded soldiers, escorted by 500 infantry, went to the cities of Rochefort and O'Neill.

The reason why the two cities were sent was that the Earl of Charles was worried that the economic situation in the two places was not very good, and the sudden increase of nearly 1,500 defenders would probably put too much pressure on the military rations.

Two brigades of Swiss and German legions were combined, and to Marshal Matthion's surprise, the Count of Charles organized a cavalry squadron of 300 men led by knights.

Driving the cart-pulling horse to the mountain early was probably the most correct choice made by the often defeated earl.

On the other side, Marshal Billon and the Duke of Jougainez also rose up with their troops at the news, and hurried south to the planned bridge to cross the river, and everyone knew that they must catch up with the Ming army.

No one wants to bear the consequences of food shortage.

However, including the two French marshals, all the French generals underestimated the courage of Yuan Zizhang, the chief general of the Ming army.

When Marshal Billund had marched thirty miles south to the bridge with the knights of the decree as the front, he immediately sent his cavalry back to the north, and had the heralds swim across the river to convey a report of the enemy to the west bank of the Martion.

"More than a thousand Ming soldiers are stationed on the west bank of the stone bridge, it seems that they have arrived there last night, there are some wooden fortifications on the bridge to guard against war horses, they are waiting for us!"