At the end of January 1503, 17 Clark sailboats of various sizes purchased from Spain were finally in place. Then, Columbus immediately took a group of sailors and half of the gunners who had been separated from the previous warships and began simple adaptive training.
By February 5, all preparations were completed. Even Schwartz rushed to Lübeck a few days ago to command the 10,000 army transported from the Teutonic country.
After all the preparations were completed, the fangs were naturally revealed. So, on February 5, Oldenburg and Denmark received letters of war at the same time.
It was not until he received the letter of war that the Denmark King Hans discovered in horror that he was declared war by three forces, Lübeck, Hamburg and East Friesland.
If a single family declares war, the Denmark King Hans would not care. However, the three families together would be terrible. Especially at such an important moment...
In January, in order to attract Denmark's attention, Sweden launched a counterattack in some areas, attracting a lot of attention from Denmark. For this reason, the Denmark King Hans, who drew 1,000 troops from the Principal of Holstein and the Principal of Schleswig, each to support the Danish battlefield. Today, there are only more than 2,000 soldiers left in the Principal of Holstein, and only more than 1,200 people to guard the city of Glückstadt. The Principal of Schleswig is not much better. There are also only more than 2,000 people left, and only 1,500 people to guard the city of Schleswig.
Even Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, had only 2,500 defenders at this time. Fortunately, Denmark is a maritime power, and ordinary enemy troops cannot easily board the island of Zeland. Even if they take risks on board the island of Zeland, the Danish navy will easily cut off the supply line. If the opponent cannot capture Copenhagen on the island of Zeland in a short time, the army will starve to death.
However, Lübeck's war letter was very arrogant and said that he would send a fleet to destroy the port of Copenhagen. For security reasons, Denmark King Hans immediately ordered that all 200 warships on the coast of Sweden would return to defense.
As the "Queen of Hanseatic", Lubeck's strength is second to none among the Hanseatic Alliance. Among its more than 1,000 merchant ships, it can select about 110 large ships as warships. As the "Queen" of the Hanseatic Alliance, or the deputy leader of the Hanseatic Alliance, Hamburg also has hundreds of merchant ships, which can gather 90 warships.
Before, Denmark and the Hanseatic League had a great maritime battle. Of course, that happened in the 14th century. Denmark lost that time. The reason was that Lubeck and the fleets of Hamburg and Bremen came together.
Therefore, learning from the lessons from last time, Danish Navy Minister Thomasen ordered the fleet to be divided into two. The main fleet left 80 ships to surround Copenhagen, while the other 120 ships headed north to intercept Hamburg's fleet...
Thomasen was a very smart man. He knew that Lubeck's naval strength was stronger. However, he firmly believed that relying on Copenhagen's defensive capabilities, although 80 warships could not defeat the Lubeck people, they were enough to defend the port of Copenhagen.
As for the other 120 warships, they are responsible for defeating the Hamburg fleet. As long as the 80 warships in Copenhagen do not go out casually in the early stage, it is still okay to protect Copenhagen. Then, the other 120 warships are significantly stronger than Hamburg. If they can defeat the Hamburg fleet first and then join Copenhagen's fleet, then there will be great hope of defeating the Lubeck fleet...
It has to be said that Thomason's strategy was very well formulated. If only the fleets of Lubeck and Hamburg were only ones, it would be easy to be defeated by Denmark. After all, Denmark sent a fleet that was stronger than Hamburg, which was easier to win. After defeating the Hamburg fleet, the two Denmark fleets merged again and fought to the port of Lubeck with their strength, which was easy to win.
However, they did not expect that Marin quietly gathered out 23 professional warships and got 17 Spanish Clark sailing ships for false assistance.
Moreover, after Marin "invented" the simple flag language, he quietly taught Lübeck and Hamburg. Now, Lübeck and Hamburg's naval commanders all understand the "high-end" command method of flag language. The Danes do not yet understand...
...
Compared with the tension of King Hans of Denmark, John V, Earl of Oldenburg, was frightened...
It is not a secret that the East Friesland state had tens of thousands of troops. Moreover, Marin had defeated the Saxons with these tens of thousands of troops. Therefore, Oldenburg state was still very afraid of Marin's tens of thousands of troops. However, because Denmark was the backer, they had the confidence.
However, John V never expected that Marin would dare to declare war on the Oldenburg Kingdom despite the threat from Denmark. You should know that Marin quickly admitted defeat after the Danish Navy surrounded Emden Port last time.
Therefore, after receiving the letter of war, John V did not recruit the army as soon as possible, but wrote a letter to Denmark first, asking for support and help from Denmark. However, John V did not know that at this moment, his cousin, Hans, the King of Denmark, also received the letter of war from Marin...
In other words, after receiving the letter of war from Marin that day, John V did not immediately mobilize in the country. He also dreamed of Denmark to "mediate" and scare Marin.
At this time, Marin brought 5,000 veterans to the border area of ​​Lair County, and took 5,000 horses, preparing to get on the horse and rush to Oldenburg City for a long distance after dark...
As for the 5,000 recruits, they have to wait until dawn the next day, and follow the 3,000 mercenaries in Hamburg to catch up with them...
Five thousand veterans have been trained for a long time. Moreover, none of them have night blindness. That's because Marin treats those veterans well, often eats meat, and often eats animal livers. Everyone is not short of vitamin A, so naturally they don't have night blindness.
Moreover, Marin had trained night marches many times before and specially trained night horse riding, so there was no problem. If the 5,000 recruits came to the long-distance raid at night, it would be very likely that many people would be lost. Only veterans who had been training together for a long time could successfully arrive at their destination at night and complete the raid, and no one would fall behind.
On the same day, Schwartz also gathered all 15,000 troops outside the city of Lubeck (including 5,000 mercenaries of Lubeck). The 10,000 troops who had been in the Teutonic Kingdom for a long time were originally trained by Schwartz. Therefore, Schwartz was also very easy to command. As for the 5,000 mercenaries of Lubeck, Schwartz directly used them as civilians...
Chapter completed!