The Ming army was hungry and thirsty, so hungry that even Marshal Billund of the French royal army could feel it.

News of attacks came from all directions, until Billon drew a passage fifty miles wide and two hundred miles long north of the Dordogne on a rudimentary map, cutting off Marshal Mation's line of defense with a large army, and all French troops that touched it were routed, whether they were garrisoned or passed.

"It's good to know where they are, surround them."

On the banks of the Loire, not far from Tours, the French camp Lavalette, wearing a pig-faced helmet with a mask lifted, looked at Billund's map in a white tent and laughed, saying, "They don't know how to fight at all." ”

The Duke of Jovajez, who was hidden in plate armor all over his body, walked out directly with the hilt of the sword at his waist, and prepared to assemble with the knights who had ordered him to belong to the royal family.

But Billund, who was crouching on the ground, neither agreed nor refused, just stared at the map with a frown - he couldn't understand what the Ming army was doing.

He already knew that he had changed opponents, and was very sure that Chen Jiujing's reinforcements had felt that this Ming army was not only too different from the Ming army that had occupied Bordeaux before in terms of equipment, combat effectiveness, and style, but even the people who commanded it were different.

Billon and Chen Jiujing have fought, giving him the feeling of caution, accuracy, and force, and the same evaluation also appeared in the mouth of Matthion, who took over the defense line after Billund left.

In several attacks by the Bordeaux Ming army for the purpose of looting the town, the Ming army moved quickly, and the total strength they used for defense was obviously greater than Chen Jiujing's troops, but every unit that was intercepted would report to Matijon that they had been ambushed by multiple forces.

Billund clearly remembered that when Matthion took over the defensive line, he had sent a report of battle to Paris, and that the 2,200 Ming infantry belonging to Chen Jiujing had attacked the castle in the early morning of March 20, and that the Ming army was even inferior to the Spanish legions, and was repulsed by 700 defenders stationed in the castle during the siege and began to besiege the city.

By the next day, however, when three of Marting's troops arrived at the castle from different directions to support, all they could see was an empty camp full of tents and baggage.

At first, people thought that the Ming army was afraid and ran away.

The soldiers full of joy scrambled for the meat and finely woven cotton cloth left by the Ming army to make the rumored military tents that could really shelter from the wind and rain, and were injured by the endless simple crossbow machines and traps in the tents, and the Ming army also left the wooden box containing half a tael of silver coins in the camp, and the soldiers fought for hundreds of silver coins, and finally moved the wooden box to open the mechanism below, and the explosives buried at the bottom of the box exploded, and the half tael became a terrible killing weapon.

Immediately after receiving the traces of this army in the afternoon, the peasants who had been robbed of the rations said that they were one hundred and ten miles away, and on the third day there was neither catch up nor hear from them, and on the fourth day the same Ming army sacked the manor fifty miles from the castle and ninety miles from the grain land; For the next four days, the Ming army marched more than 80 miles a day, appearing in various places, exhausting Matthion from running for his life, and finally abandoned the pursuit because the army lost its combat effectiveness during the march.

Contrary to the comments of Lavalette and the Duke of Jouvalez, Billon and Marting both thought that Chen Jiujing was very good at fighting, but at this time, the judgment of the two of them seemed to be correct.

The Ming army became extremely threatening after the emergence of this more specialized force, but again, the level of command dropped sharply.

No one marched like this, whatever their aim, and after crossing the Doddogne, they left aside the ready-made road, and advanced in a straight line for more than two hundred miles, destroying everything they encountered along the way.

That is, their starting point did not go further east for 200 miles, otherwise they would have hit a mountain and would not have turned around.

Anyway, with the latest information so far, the Ming army still hasn't turned a corner, it's just slowing down, and I don't know what they're doing.

There is no strategic purpose at all, as if marching for the sake of marching.

Billund was indeed worried, for on his rudimentary map of feathers stained in ink, if he drew a five-hundred-mile extension of the Ming army's route east-north, it would end in Paris.

He only kept this guess in his heart, and no one told him, because it was too crazy.

To get to Paris from this road, you will pass through the city of Tours, which is now not far from Billund, which used to be the capital of France and the most important transportation artery...... This route is indeed the closest road to Paris, but it is also the most difficult to conquer.

Compared with this implicit concern, the more obvious and more comical purpose of the Ming army can be easily seen, that is, they are hungry.

This more professional Ming army was not so professional when it started fighting, they attacked like fire, they gathered and scattered, they had no purpose, as if the greatest purpose other than marching was to execute the nobles.

In the news sent back by Marshal Matthion, in three of the twelve battles, the Ming army had obvious pursuits in the first engagement, two of which were very effective, and in the remaining nine battles, the Ming army had no intention of pursuing at all after arranging a horizontal formation and winning with muskets, just let people spread some meaningless nonsense, and then sit back and wait for the stragglers to gather and retreat in the distance again.

Those words are nothing special, such as 'The battle is over, your lord is dead, the Ming army will not kill innocents indiscriminately, put down your weapons and go home', what is the use of such words?

Seeing that the weather was getting colder and colder, Billon knew that he could not stop the two king's cronies who were going to the south to make achievements, and wanted to persuade the two to keep the king's most elite knights until the Ming army revealed its strategic intentions before making arrangements, but was blocked by an attack report from Duke Jouayaez.

"Let the marshal sit in the city of Tours, and the Ming army will always arrive here if it continues to advance, and Lavalette and I will march from east to west to the south, and join up with the army of Marshal Matthion, and completely surround this Ming army...... When they get to Descartes or Rock, we avenge poor Antoine, Barre, Charles, and all the fallen Jazz. ”

The young Duke of Juvalez pulled down his pig's beak helmet, and he wore a bright blue burqa over his airtight plate armor, and on his chest hung the Grand Cross of the Order of the Blue Ribbon, and at his waist hung a sword and a dagger of strange shape, which the king had given him.

This rare work of art from Florence features an elaborate reed wheel in the center of the dagger, with two barrels inside a wide, sturdy twin blade, apparently loaded with gunpowder and capable of firing two small copper bullets at short distances.

As soon as the attendants behind him brought their horses, the Duke of Juvalez saw a knight galloping and whispering something in his ear, and a moment later the messenger on foot came up to Billon and handed him the news from the front.

Nothing special, the front suffered another defeat.

The Duke turned over his horse, held his chin high, and said, "Well, add Pierre and Sir René." ”

"We'll avenge them."