Chapter 204 Another option

Chapter 205 Another option

France.

Southeastern Provence.

A well-organized and well-equipped legion entered the port of Toulon.

If you look carefully, you can see that the straight white military uniforms on these soldiers are slightly different - some have iris and dolphin patterns embroidered on their collars, which are the special emblems of the French crown prince, while others have collars with Embroidered with the emblem of the Paris Police Academy.

Yes, this is the "Crown Prince's Guards Corps" preparing to go to Tunisia. They had left Paris and headed south half a month ago.

At that time, Joseph even gave up attending the grand event where the Standards Committee announced the measurement standards because he had to see them off. Although it is a pity, it is obvious that the North African strategy is the most important thing at the moment. He personally mobilized the legion before the war and sent it more than 20 kilometers, which greatly boosted the morale of the soldiers.

Outside Toulon Port, a captain leading the team looked at the soldiers who were a little tired from the sun, waved his hand and said loudly:

"Where's the lead singer?"

"Yes, sir! I'm here!" A short young soldier carrying an organ hurried over and saluted the officer with his hat.

The captain patted him on the shoulder and motioned towards the front of the team:

"Let's all sing a song."

"Glory and Victory, sir?"

"Okay, this is it. It's my favorite song too."

The lead singer ran to the front of the queue, played a few high notes on the organ to attract the soldiers' attention, gestured to the drummer, and then said loudly:

“Sing with me—

"The trumpets sound on the battlefield before dawn,

“The warriors are in neat formation.

"Determination and belief are written on the face,

"Glory and victory are our beliefs.

"Our loyalty will never waver,

“Dedicate your victory to His Majesty the King!

"Win the supreme honor with blood and fire..."

The song was solemn and powerful, and the soldiers sang along, and soon they were all in high spirits.

However, the tune was clearly the "La Marseillaise" that almost every French person was very familiar with. Joseph brought it to his regiment in advance, and it was indeed very popular among the soldiers. Therefore, Joseph simply designated it as a military song.

Of course, the tune was polished by Mrs. Garland, and the lyrics were rewritten by the great writer Beaumarchais. The content completely changed into a style of being loyal to His Majesty the King and pursuing merit and honor on the battlefield.

A large number of navy transport ships and escort warships have already been parked on the pier, swaying slightly with the waves.

The Navy took the 800,000 livres that Joseph "fudged" from the Americans. However, they only sent three warships to participate in this anti-piracy operation. Even more than half of the supplies were provided by the Dutch, which did not cost much at all. money. Probably the Navy itself felt a little "sorry about the wages", so it responded very actively to the operational needs in North Africa.

As more than 4,000 officers and soldiers, as well as military supplies such as war horses and cannons, were boarded one after another, at 2:30 in the afternoon, ten transport ships pulled anchor and set sail, sailing straight towards Tunisia.

…

South-central Tunisia.

Chukri Valley on the border between Kairouan and Sfax.

Under a thick olive tree, a Tunisian Guards officer wearing an orange robe raised his hand and swatted to death a mosquito as big as a mung bean that was desperately sucking blood on his face.

He wiped off the blood on his palms and shouted calmly to the soldier beside him who was fanning:

"Harder, you lazy guy!"

"Yes, yes, sir." The soldier muttered and nodded, slapping the mosquito harder with his hand.

The officer looked down the valley for a while, but he only saw green grass and trees, and it seemed calm.

He turned to another officer with small eyes and said:

"How long are we going to stay in this damn place? I'm about to be sucked dry by mosquitoes!"

The small-eyed officer was playing with his boots and said without raising his head:

"Be patient, Gedik, this is an order directly issued by Cahir Palace to Master Koca."

Gadik glanced at the woods where he was hiding, frowned and muttered:

"Bey, who is staying in the palace, doesn't know what the situation is like on the front line."

Little Eyes waved his hand:

"I heard from Lord Koja that it was Madam Hafsa's idea."

"Her?" Gadik snorted coldly, "A woman actually talks too much about war. There are really no rules at all!"

"It is said that she was the first to discover this rebellion. So this time she said that Younis would come for a sneak attack, so Bey listened to her advice and asked Lord Koja to take precautions in advance."

"Lord, how can they believe a woman's word?"

Before Gadik finished speaking, he saw two scouts running towards him, waving vigorously and saying:

"Enemy situation! Our outpost was attacked, at least thousands of enemy troops!"

Gadik and his colleagues looked at each other and stood up suddenly, his eyes full of disbelief:

"How on earth did that woman guess it?!"

Of course Hafsa did not guess, but Joseph had someone tell her early in the morning that Younis would probably make a desperate attack on the Chukri Valley.

Because he asked Hafsa to reveal Younis's movements to Hamoud Ali in advance, giving the latter enough time to deploy his army to deal with the rebellion.

At the same time, Joseph also knew that Younis only had a small number of weapons in his hands, and that the military budget would soon be exhausted. Because he only allocated 2,000 flintlock muskets to Younis, and not even a penny of the so-called 2 million livres in military expenses. It was not easy for Younis to gather people with only his own savings, and all the military pay, food and grass behind were lost.

In this situation, Younis could only make a desperate move. Before the Kairouan Fortress was fully prepared, he attacked the defenders outside the fortress first, trying to bypass the fortress and directly capture the wealthy city of Susa, so as to obtain supplies there.

Of course, if Eunice did not intend to do so, the French military advisers Joseph left with him would also give him suggestions for a raid.

Joseph's Tunisian strategy from the beginning was to drive away the wolf and the tiger, let Younis and Hamoud Ali fight among themselves, and consume the effective strength of the Tunisian Janissary. And the trump card he left behind is the real goal.

In order to complete this plan, he initially planned to send spies to sneak into the Kahir Palace and pretend to be military experts to "offer advice" to Ali.

However, during the mission of the police intelligence agent, he accidentally met a French businessman who provided high-end clothing to the Cahill Palace. Under this person's introduction, he met another very important figure - the sudden Hajj, the son of Muhammad ibn Hassan, the pre-Nicene Bey, and the nephew of Hamud Ali.

After Joseph got in touch with Haji through people from the Police Intelligence Department, the two parties quickly determined their intention to cooperate. At the same time, Haji recommended someone more suitable to influence Hamoud Ali—his beloved concubine Hafsa.

After that, Hafsa pretended to deduce that there might be a rebellion in the south. After Ali sent troops, she "predicted" that the rebels were likely to raid Koca.

Joseph's purpose was naturally not to allow Ali to quickly put down the rebellion, but to cause Eunice to suffer a heavy blow and show that he was about to be finished.

This will lead to next steps.

As for Eunice, Joseph was not worried at all that he would be wiped out. As long as the warship parked off Sfax gives him the remaining weapons and some silver coins, he can immediately resurrect on the spot and fight Ali's guards for another 300 rounds.

On the slopes on both sides of the Chukri Valley, Tunisian Guards officer Gadik hurriedly summoned the herald and ordered the soldiers to prepare for battle.

Tunisia has a flat terrain, with almost the entire country covered in plains. The so-called valley is actually only three to four hundred meters high, but it is also an important pass into Kairouan.

Lum, the officer under Younis, looked relaxed and signaled his men to speed up.

Just now, he defeated Koca's outpost almost effortlessly, which made him feel quite proud: the Guards of today are no longer the Guards of more than twenty years ago. I remember how brave and skillful my men were when I followed Younes Pasha to besiege the former Bey Hassan. As for the guards just now, they had obviously been enjoying the blessings in the Tunisian city for a long time. They were all fat and could not run away. It seems that this battle should be easily won.

After he crossed the valley and looked at the endless plain before him, he immediately ordered his men to send a message to Yunis Pasha.

Soon, Younis personally led the main force through the valley. At this moment, Nizamiddin, who he sent to set up cannons on the high ground on the east side of the valley, suddenly had a fierce battle with the enemy.

Gadik was also surprised. He saw Younis's forward troops passing by, and when he was about to attack the main enemy force, a small group of enemy artillery suddenly climbed up the hillside.

He had no choice but to launch an attack in advance.

After all, Younis was a veteran in commanding the army. He immediately realized something was wrong and quickly ordered the main force to withdraw from the valley. At the same time, he asked his daughter Rabia to lead people to search both sides of the valley.

Before he could complete his arrangements, Gadik led nearly 6,000 guardsmen and rushed down from both sides of the valley.

The two sides immediately fought together, but Younis was suddenly attacked and seemed very panicked. The first few hundred people who entered the valley were slaughtered in less than half an hour.

At the same time, on the other side of the valley, the originally arrogant Rum tribe was besieged by the main force of the Guards led by Koca himself.

There were only 1,500 people on his side, and there was a narrow valley behind him. The battle lasted only more than 40 minutes. Lum was shot through the chest by a stray bullet, and all his men surrendered immediately.

Koca counted the size of the enemy army and soon realized that it was not Yunis's main force, so he immediately ordered to cross the valley to find the main enemy force.

With a livid face, Younis watched his men flee from the valley through binoculars, running around like mice being chased by a cat. He immediately gritted his teeth and ordered others to withdraw first, while he led the core 3,000 soldiers to stand at the exit of the valley. nearby.

Half of these people are guards who have followed him. Although they are not young, their combat experience cannot be underestimated. Moreover, they are now equipped with good guns sent from France!

Gadik was chasing the defeated army and was about to fight when he suddenly saw a neat enemy formation not far away.

His morale was high at this time, and he ordered a frontal attack almost without thinking, and at the same time let the cavalry continue to scatter in pursuit of the fleeing enemies.

A dull horn sounded, and his two regiments of musketeers lined up to approach Younis's army from the front, while a regiment of semi-scimitars quickly rushed in from both wings.

However, when the two sides were still more than 100 steps away, Younis's side was the first to burst out with intensive gunfire.

Gadik was about to taunt his opponent for not being able to keep his composure—the muskets were ineffective at this distance—but he was shocked to hear bursts of screams from his own army, and some timid soldiers even saw being shot next to them. The companions rolling in a pool of blood began to shrink back in fear.

After Gadik was stunned for a moment, he hurriedly ordered to fire back, but at this distance, his gun was indeed not very lethal.

After the poorly trained Tunisian Guards fired a burst of chaotic shooting, the Younis army formation on the opposite side took a few steps forward, reloaded, and fired a volley.

The deafening gunfire rang out, and thirty or forty people fell down on Gedik's side. Even though the officers shouted loudly not to retreat, they still could not stop some soldiers from retreating.

For a time, some of Gedik's musketeers stood firm while others retreated, and the front line became a mess.

Gadik saw the chaotic mess of his men from a distance through the gunpowder smoke, and had no choice but to grit his teeth and order the Scimitar Legion to speed up the attack, while at the same time asking the Musketeers to retreat and regroup.

Younis didn't give him a chance at all, and immediately ordered the musketeers to continue advancing, while the fierce Rabia led hundreds of scimitar soldiers to meet the opposite scimitar soldiers.

Hand-to-hand combat is never like what is shown in the movies. Both sides use their martial arts skills to kill each other inextricably, and in the end, corpses lie on the ground.

In reality, the two armies competed in close combat with the same momentum.

If the momentum of one side is weak, it will be overwhelmed by the opponent almost instantly. Therefore, the hand-to-hand combat only lasted less than a minute, and Gadic's scimitar soldiers were frightened by the female pirate's terrifying momentum and turned around and fled.

Once a large-scale military battle breaks out, it will be difficult for gods to restrain it.

Rabia immediately roared and led his troops in pursuit. At the same time, Younis's French musketeers almost touched the enemy's face after firing several volleys.

Gadik didn't even have time to invest in his reserve troops, and the main force was overwhelmed by the enemy with only half of his own, and fled in all directions, wailing.

Yunis defeated the enemy army and did not dare to delay for too long. He ordered his men to cover the previously defeated troops and quickly retreat towards the south of Sfax.

A few hours later, when Koca led the main force of the Guards to appear on this side of the valley, they only saw a disgraced Gedik and dejected soldiers carrying corpses, while Younis's main force had long since disappeared.

He looked at the sky and did not dare to continue the pursuit. He ordered camp to be set up on the spot, and defenses were arranged. At the same time, he sent people to send the battle situation back to the city of Tunisia.

On the other side, Younis ran until dusk before finally stopping. It was not until dawn the next day that he counted the general losses. Nearly two thousand people were killed or missing. Among them, Nizamiddin and Rumu were completely wiped out, and hundreds of people were injured.

At this time, he only had less than 5,000 troops left to fight.

In the military tent, several officers looked at Younis gloomily. Someone had just proposed to continue southward and retreat into the barren Gudamis area.

At this moment, the French consultant who was traveling with him showed an inappropriate smile:

"Don't be discouraged. Please believe me, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's aid should arrive soon!"