Why did those estates affiliated with the Duke of Württemberg and his loyal subordinates survive the attacks of the peasant army? This was mainly due to Marin's previous proper arrangements.

First, Marin sent thousands of mercenaries to sneak into the Duchy of Württemberg, and divided them into several groups, scattered in the territory of Duke Ulrich, or the territory of the nobles of the Duke faction.

After entering these areas, the first thing these mercenaries did was to build tall walls for those manors, and also directed local farmers to dig moats around the city walls, greatly improving the protection capabilities of the manors.

Of course, if the peasant army had engineering ladders or artillery, these arrangements were of no use. But the "poor Conrad" peasant uprising army had neither siege ladders nor artillery. Then, facing the wide moat and tall walls, they were naturally helpless.

Moreover, the scattered North Sea mercenaries were not fixed. They had already sent scouts to follow the peasant army to conduct reconnaissance. Once the reconnaissance knew the direction of the peasant army (in fact, undercover agents such as Wolf would leave information to tell these peasant army the next move), they would split up their men and notify nearby mercenaries, and rushed to the territory of Duke Ulrich or the territory of Duke Ulrich's confidant men who passed by the peasant army overnight. In this way, the manors of these dukes and dukes along the way always maintained a defender of one or two thousand people, and they were all elite Beihai mercenaries.

There were tall city walls and moats, and there were at least one or two thousand elite Beihai mercenaries. Even if the peasant army had more than ten thousand people, they could do nothing to do with these manors. What's more, they did not have ladders and artillery professionals for engineering. After several encounters, Casbar had to honestly loot those noble manors according to the route guided by undercover Charlie.

The noble manors guided by Charlie were indeed easily conquered because the knights and auxiliary soldiers in the manor were taken away.

These noble manors are rich in oil and easy to conquer, which naturally makes the peasant army very happy. As for why Charlie can accurately find these noble manors with weak guards? The explanation given by Charlie is that I used to be a bandit who was responsible for inquiring about information and scouting points, and to clarify these information...

If it were a smart leader, he might be suspicious. However, there were no cultural people in the "Poor Conrad" peasant uprising army. Wolf and others who were truly educated were undercover, so how could Kasbar play? You know, Kasbar, the leader, was just a blacksmith who cast a knife, recognized only a few words and had no ability to think about complex problems at all.

As a result, this army of peasant uprising troops, which was growing like snowballs, was getting bigger and bigger, causing harm to many noble manors.

Because they adopted the bandit tactics adopted by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong to destroy the Ming Empire, the "Poor Conrad" peasant army lived a very comfortable life. The food they grabbed along the way could allow members of the rebel army to eat and drink, and they could often eat a lot of meat and wine prepared by the nobles for themselves. Life was simply too good.

Gradually, this peasant uprising army became stronger and stronger. The total number of people has successfully exceeded 20,000. The "elite" with armor and standard weapons has as many as 3,000. These armor and standard weapons are all found in the arsenal of the captured noble manor, and now they are all under the peasant army. Then, they are all assigned to the three thousand strong warriors selected by Kasbar...

Even Kasbal now has 300 plate-armor cavalry and 1,000 light cavalry. However, the 300 plate-armor cavalry were selected from the army with good riding skills and strong body, and they were not real knight children. They had not received professional knight training, and cavalry and warfare, and they were all just good things. Including the 1,000 light cavalry, they only selected a group of farmers who were good at riding horses. The main reason was that these farmers originally raised horses for the nobles...

However, even if these 300 plate-armored cavalry and 1,000 light cavalry are all good, some people are still scared. After all, 1,300 cavalry can already be regarded as a very powerful force in the battle for hegemony by the small German princes.

Even, there were cases where neutral nobles were frightened by the peasant army with 1,300 cavalry and surrendered directly.

Stuttgart, Baron Mistor, the close minister of Duke Ulrich, asked Duke Ulrich anxiously:

"Duke, the other side has so many cavalry. Will there be any accident when the net is closed?" He is the confidant of Duke Ulrich and one of the insiders. Therefore, he was very uneasy about this cavalry that exceeded the plan.

Duke Ulrich was also very nervous, so he released the pigeon to ask for advice from Marin. After reading the letter of help, Marin thought for a long time and finally gave a reply:

"Use croton flour!"

When his fleet returned from the Ming Dynasty, he brought back a batch of crotons as seeds of Chinese medicine and kept in a glass greenhouse for cultivation. Now, he can still produce a batch of crotons. If it is ground into powder and mixed in the feed of the peasant army's war horses... all the cavalry of the peasant army was abandoned the next day...

Coincidentally, because of his good riding skills and "being a small leader of bandits", undercover Wolf was actually appointed as the captain of the 300 plate-armored cavalry of the Peasant Army. As for the 1,000 light cavalry, Charlie also took the position of deputy captain.

As long as Marin handed over the croton flour to Wolf and Charlie the day before the final closing, he asked them to mix it in the horse feed the next morning, and to keep all the cavalry of the peasant army out of the way...

Once there are no cavalry, those peasant infantry soldiers will wait for slaughter... No, if Marin wants to survive, he will definitely capture prisoners...

Moreover, what's even better is that these 1,300 war horses can still be saved after eating croton flour feed. At that time, these 1,300 war horses will also be a good trophy.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content later! Duke Ulrich was very happy after receiving Marin's reply. So he began to hope that Marin would deliver the croton flour. However, the croton flour is a cargo, and it is impossible to pass through a pigeon that can fly hundreds of miles a day like a secret letter. He can only wait for the ground to deliver it from a long distance. Fortunately, there is still a long time before the final closing of the network, so there is no need to be so anxious...

In addition, Marin also promised to provide Duke Ulrich with 5,000 Cossack cavalry as the main force when the net was finally closed. With these 5,000 Cossack cavalry, there is no fear that the enemy will escape. Faced with the charge launched by the Cossack cavalry, even if the number of peasant troops reaches tens of thousands, it will be easily defeated. After all, this is a group of mobs, and there are no soldiers who have received regular military training. Even the elite among them are just a little stronger and taller in the uprising army.

A strong farmer is completely different from a professional soldier. After all, the core of Li Zicheng's elite troops is mainly the frontier soldiers participating in the uprising in important towns on the three sides. Even Li Zicheng himself was a postman who was eliminated and half a soldier. Unlike the "Poor Conrad" uprising army, except for a few undercover agents, the rest were farmers or craftsmen without any military foundation. Even elite troops did not have enough military qualities. Such an army would easily end up in a regular army.

No wonder peasant uprisings in Europe were always easily suppressed. The key is that there is a lack of military leaders in the peasant army. This is mainly because only aristocratic children in ancient Europe had military command knowledge, which was basically not available to ordinary people. In ancient China, there were too many scholars who had read some military books. As long as the leader of the peasant uprising army found a few half-baked scholars who had read military books, their level could be improved by a lot immediately. In other words, compared with the European peasant uprising army and the good Chinese peasant uprising army, there were probably a few dog-headed military advisors. After all, it was the Liangshan hero uprising, and there was also a military admiral Wu Yong...

The literacy rate in Europe was much lower than that in ancient China. Only aristocrats and priests, as well as a small number of wealthy businessmen, could read. But it was unlikely that they would participate in the peasant uprising, which destined that European peasant uprisings would be difficult to start. In the ancient China of the same era, there were not too many down-and-out scholars who knew a little military. For example, Li Zicheng found Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance, Li Yan and other counselors to assist. Kasbar obviously did not have this luck, so his defeat was inevitable.

In ancient China, there were many ambitious scholars who knew military affairs. For example, Xiao He and Cao Shen who helped Liu Bang rebel; Zhu Sheng and Liu Bowen who helped Zhu Yuanzhang rebel; and Daoyan monk who helped Zhu Di rebel... With these predecessors, there were countless ambitious scholars who were willing to give advice to the leaders of the uprising army in ancient China, in order to be able to be like Xiao He and others in the future... And these people were all professionals in rebellion. Therefore, the rebellion in ancient China was easy to become a big deal.
Chapter completed!