Soon, the emperor's order was in Frenzberg's hands. Frenzberg took his men to the Telina Valley and met with Ludovico Sforza without saying anything.
However, before leaving, Frenzberg asked Maximilian I to prepare more horses for him and just pick them up...
This is because Frenzberg wants to learn the battle of Marin raiding Oldenburg. As long as he moves fast enough, the enemy will not have time to react.
Of course, the French army in the Principality of Milan is not large now. According to the information of the Sforza family, there are only 3,000 French troops in Milan. Moreover, 2,000 people are all Italian mercenaries. The real French army has only 1,000 people.
Therefore, as long as our army can quickly reach Milan City and find a way to open the city gate, the army in the city will be irresistible. The worst result is that the gate of Milan City was not opened and the city's defenders were stalemate. In this way, the French would have time to mobilize reinforcements. However, judging from the current situation, the French could not draw reinforcements. Because they were not in good condition on the front line of Naples and were unable to divide their troops.
In addition, on the mountain road leading to Milan, the French also arranged an army, about 1,500 people, to monitor the remnants of the Sforza family in the Terina Valley.
Therefore, if you want to capture Milan, there are mainly two major enemies - one is the 1,500 enemy troops on the marching route; the other is the gate of Milan. As for the 3,000 defenders in Milan, as long as the gate is broken, it will not be a problem.
The reason why the 1,500 enemy troops on the mountain road south of the Telina Valley was considered a great enemy was that Frenzberg was afraid that the 1,500 attacks would leak the secrets and gave Milan a warning. In that way, his sneak attack plan would be exposed.
So, he had to deal with these 1,500 enemy troops first. Then, after the road was opened, he would lead the main force, step on horseback, march all the way to Milan City...
However, unlike raiding Oldenburg City, the distance from Telina Valley to Milan City reached 160 kilometers. When Marin attacked Oldenburg City, the distance was only 40 kilometers.
Therefore, it is difficult to achieve a night attack in Milan City at night. If you have a single horse, the distance of marching in a day is up to eighty or ninety kilometers. No matter how many, the horse will easily run to death.
So, after thinking about it for a while, Frenzberg decided to give the emperor a total of 10,000 horses that the emperor had, and all of them were given to 5,000 elite troops, so that these elite troops could use one person and two horses. In this way, without hesitating his physical strength, the entire army could march more than 120 kilometers in one day and night. Of course, 160 kilometers could run down. But if you do that, it would hurt the horses and easily kill a group of horses.
Moreover, most importantly, even if they run to Milan City, the soldiers will not have the physical strength to fight.
Therefore, Frenzberg's plan was to let 5,000 elite soldiers run 120 kilometers on the first day, and then rest. The next night, run another 40 kilometers, and break into Milan at night, kill the defenders in the city.
In response, Frenzberg organized an army to practice night battles. As for the 2,500 people who followed him from East Friesland, night battle training is a basic training program, and it is normal to wake up by an emergency gathering whistle in the middle of the night...
However, it is really bad for other troops to conduct night battle training...
Frenzberg selected 2,500 elite troops from other troops to follow 2,500 of his commanders to conduct night battle training. As a result, the 2,500 new arrivals were in a mess on the first day. If Frenzberg had not forced his men to suppress them, perhaps these idiots would have exploded...
After many days of training, these talents slowly adapted to the marching and training in the middle of the night...
At the same time, Ludovico Sforza was not idle either. According to the method learned from Marin, Frenzberg decided to send people to Milan to work together and help the army open the city gate. For this reason, Frenzberg entrusts Ludovico Sforza to send people to Milan to prepare to open the city gate from the inside.
The Sforza family ruled in Milan for decades and was deeply rooted there. Although it is impossible to let the Sforza family bring out tens of thousands of troops to fight with the French, it is still possible to find a group of thugs and open the city gate at night. Now, the Sforza family still has many eyeliners in Milan. However, now the French are powerful, and these Sforza people are lurking and waiting for the day when Ludovico Sforza fights back.
So, when Frenzberg asked Ludovico Sforza to send someone to lurk in Milan and help open the city gate, Old Lu agreed without thinking. This was not a big deal for him. After all, the Sforza family's decades of rule over Milan were not a joke.
After training for more than ten days in the night battle, Frenzberg finally took action...
The first target is naturally the 1500 French army of Primadio outside the Terina Valley...
Of course, it is not right to say that they are French troops. Because the 1,500 people are Italian mercenaries hired by the French...
Frenzberg had no doubts about defeating this army. The only thing to pay attention to is to prevent Primadio's army from missing out and running back to Milan to report the news.
Therefore, before the operation, Frenzberg sent two hundred cavalrymen to take a small path and walk around the road from Primadio to Milan, preparing to intercept any messengers.
This move was learned by Frenzberg from Marin when attacking Emden. Intercepting the messenger can fully ensure that the news is not leaked. In this way, when the army attacks the next target, it will be sudden.
Even Edsad I, who had escaped from the tunnel, was stopped by the cavalry who intercepted the messenger, which was extremely effective.
On the evening of October 29, a local cavalry of 200 people, received the order from Frenzberg, passed the path and walked around the west and south of the town of Primadio, ready to intercept the enemy who had missed the net and the messenger riding horses at any time.
It was around 4 a.m. on October 30, and it was almost dawn, and the Italian mercenaries in the Castle of Primadio were at their most sleepy time. Even the sentries on the wall fell asleep.
Taking this opportunity, Frenzberg decisively ordered his soldiers to quietly carry the ladder forward, and before the defenders reacted, dozens of people went up...
Then, these dozens of people resisted the counterattack of Italian mercenaries and guarded this section of the city wall. Then, more soldiers climbed up to the top of the city through the ladder...
After about two hours of fierce fighting, half of Primadio's 1,500 defenders were eliminated and half chose to surrender...
When the fierce battle began, sure enough, the city sent a messenger to the direction of Milan. However, it was easily stopped by two hundred cavalrymen.
This battle was extremely relaxed. The unlucky defender, because the sentry fell asleep, actually allowed the attacking troops to easily control a section of the city wall. Then, the defender became tragic.
In this way, after only more than 30 casualties, the 5,000 soldiers led by Frenzberg easily managed the defenders. Of course, this was also because the defenders in the fort were trapped. At this time, the sneak attack on them was simply bad for the defenders...
After a day of repair, Frenzberg personally took 5,000 elite soldiers, one by two horses, and embarked on the road to attack Milan. Ludovico Sforza, with 3,000 troops, marched leisurely behind, waiting to go to Milan City to receive the fruits of victory...
After the first day of the march, Frenzberg chose to repair the army, and then sent out some cavalry to arrest all passers-by, avoiding anyone going to Milan to report the news, so that the enemy could be prepared.
Then Frenzberg took the army to rest for a day.
The next night, Frenzberg set out again with his army...
At around 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, Frenzberg's army finally arrived at the most relaxed West Gate, which was the most relaxed to guard Milan (the West Gate faces the direction of France, of course, the most relaxed to guard).
Shortly after the birch whistle used for contact, there was a shout of killing in the city. Then, the west gate was opened by a group of Milan residents who were all valued followers of the Sforza family.
Frenzberg had no time to greet these warriors, and he didn't understand Italian. So, after letting the warriors who opened the door give in, Frenzberg directly flocked in with an army of 5,000 and rushed straight to the palace in the city. At the same time, Frenzberg also divided two thousand troops to control the other three gates.
By dawn, all the Italian mercenaries at the four gates were cleaned up, and two military camps in the city were also pulled out.
However, the palace in Milan was extremely strong, and Frenzberg could not capture it for a long time. The one guarding the palace was the 800 people from the 1,000 French troops. Relying on the strong palace, the French army chose to resist...
Frenzberg was not in a hurry to capture the palace, but sent people to surround the palace first, then take over the whole city, and send people to the countryside to take over the food collected. As long as the food was controlled, the French army would lose food on the front line of Naples. As an officer who followed Marin for a long time, Frenzberg remembered that Marin often said that "the army and horses should move, the food and grass should go first." As long as the Duchy of Milan cut off the supply of food and grass to the French army, the French would inevitably be depressed and even cause chaos. Losing to Spain was almost a foregone conclusion.
At that time, the Principality of Milan only needs to be guarded against the fleeing French troops to grab the food. For this reason, Frenzberg decided to transport all the food harvested by the Principality of Milan into the city. Then, when the French army fled through the Principality of Milan, strictly guard against the French troops to prevent the French troops from grabbing the food...
Three days later, Ludovico Sforza finally arrived at Milan City with the remaining 3,000 troops. Seeing the grand welcome ceremony of the loyal Sforza family, Duke Ludovico was proud.
Standing at the head of Milan, Ludovico Sforza exclaimed with great enthusiasm:
Chapter completed!