The Rise of the European Emperor

The military operations of the Principality of Gedes were obviously supported by France. In order to ensure the success of the operation, Charles II, Duke of Guedes, wrote to King Louis XII of France, asking him to support the action of the Duchy of Guedes.

In principle, Louis XII supported the Principality of Gerdes in robbing the 17,000 Swiss mercenary prisoners of war. If the Principality of Gerdes really recaptured those Swiss prisoners of war, then the anti-Habsburg faction would gain a great deal of military strength. improvement.

However, France has just suffered a huge loss in the expedition to England, and its vitality has been greatly damaged. Therefore, Louis XII was unwilling to confront the Habsburgs head-on. Therefore, Louis XII's decision was to strengthen military assistance to several cantons in western Switzerland to help those cantons repel the attack of the Habsburg family.

In this way, the Habsburg family can focus on Switzerland before the action of the Principality of Gerd, and ignore the defense of the Netherlands, giving the Principality of Gerd an opportunity to send troops. .

To this end, King Louis XII of France sent 10,000 French soldiers, dressed in weird Swiss cut-out costumes, into several cantons in western Switzerland to fight with the Swiss resistance, and also to fight against the Habsburg family's territory. Weak point, launched several counterattacks...

This move really attracted the attention of the Habsburg family. According to the spies reconnaissance of the Gede Company in the Netherlands, the Netherlands to which the Habsburg family belonged sent about three or four thousand people to the south. , seems to be to support the Swiss battlefield...

Of course, this information is not wrong. Because, the Habsburg family indeed dispatched three or four thousand troops from the Netherlands to go south to support the Swiss battlefield. After all, the French supported the 10,000-strong Swiss army, which greatly increased the pressure on the Habsburg family in the Swiss battlefield. It is also normal to send reinforcements from the Netherlands.

As for the real 17,000 Swiss mercenary prisoners of war, they were secretly sent by Maximilian I to the county of Zeeland near Ghent, the administrative center of the Austrian Netherlands, to reclaim the land. The Earl of Zeeland is an island group at the mouth of the Rhine, where water is abundant and swampy. Maximilian I sent the 17,000 Swiss mercenary prisoners of war there. In addition to security reasons, he remanded those prisoners of war to build windmills and extract water from swamps to obtain fertile farmland. The idea of ​​using windmills to pump water has actually been around for a long time in the Netherlands. But what really attracted the attention of the Habsburg family was because Marin promoted windmill pumping on a large scale in East Friesland, and obtained tens of thousands of Eugram arable land, which stimulated the Habsburg family. Today, there are exactly 17,000 free laborers, and the Habsburg family also plans to learn Marin, use windmills to drain water on a large scale, and obtain fertile arable land from the swamp...

According to Marin, after the swamps are drained, they are fertile grain fields. This is well-founded, as the marshes are mostly rich in peat. Moreover, because of the activities of fish and shrimp, the bodies of fish and shrimp are deposited, which are also rich in phosphorus. Therefore, when such land is reclaimed, it is fertile arable land. Don't reclaim tens of thousands of Eugram lands like Marin. Even if thousands of Eugram lands are reclaimed, the Habsburg family will make a lot of money. After all, without Marin's exclusive fertilizer technology,

Marsh, a naturally fertile area, is cultivated as fertile land, not barren land. Now that the price of food in Europe is so high, even if calculated according to the old grain output, the annual net income brought by 10,000 Eugram cultivated land is more than 100,000 gold coins. This is definitely good news for the financially troubled Habsburg family.

Under the leadership of Marin's former subordinate, Franzberg, the Austrian army of the Habsburg family was in full swing in Switzerland. Today, the Austrian army has occupied most of the Swiss cantons of Graubünden, St. Gallen, Zurich, Aargau, Schwyz, Uri, Walden, and Lucerne. Today, Franzberg is leading the siege of the canton of Bern. If the canton of Bern is taken, the Swiss resistance is basically over.

Generally speaking, the Swiss Confederation has two leaders - the cantons of Zurich and Bern. Among them, the canton of Zurich was originally the strongest state. However, most of the mercenaries from the Canton of Zurich were sent to Lübeck and then captured by Marin. After finally being released, he was captured by the Habsburg army of Maximilian I in a blink of an eye...

Therefore, the original strongest state of Zurich was taken by the army led by Frenzberg when the local army was empty. Then, now the canton of Bern became the leader of the Swiss Confederation.

In fact, the canton of Bern lost a lot of troops in the previous war, and now it is no longer able to fight against the Habsburg family.

However, the canton of Bern is not far from France. Moreover, the western part of the Bern area is French-speaking and politically inclined towards France. Therefore, the canton of Bern has also been spared the support of the French.

When he heard that the Habsburg family was attacking Switzerland in general, King Louis XII of France immediately dispatched 5,000 French troops, wearing Swiss cutout suits, to join the defense of Bern.

However, in the face of the Spanish phalanx mastered by Frenzberg, the mixed army composed of the remaining Swiss mercenaries and the French army was defeated and could only retreat to the big city.

Today, the eastern German-speaking part of the canton of Bern has basically fallen into the hands of the Habsburg army of Frenzberg. Only the city of Bern has not fallen, and the French-speaking area west of Bern has not fallen into the hands of the Habsburg family for the time being.

It's just that the Habsburg army has little interest in the countryside of the canton of Bern. why? Because Berne is a mountainous state, mainly located in the Bernese Oberland. The terrain here is rough and not suitable for agriculture. Before the rise of industry, the canton of Bern was a poor region. Although the later Bern is an important city for the production of Swiss watches, there is no watch industry in the Bern area at present.

The Bern area later became a watch center because after Calvin's reforms in Switzerland, people were prohibited from wearing expensive gold and silver jewelry and jewelry. But people are accustomed to wearing accessories, and they are not used to not wearing anything. Just in time, the watch industry began to rise in the late 16th, and pocket watches appeared. As a result, the Swiss began to produce clocks, and it was popular to wear pocket watches as accessories for B... In this way, it would not violate the religious regulations of Calvinism, but also B... Therefore, many Swiss pocket watches were made of gold in the early days... ...after all, what is not gold is not enough to hold a B... In the end, because the clocks have been made for a long time, Switzerland has naturally become a country rich in clocks...

The reason why Swiss gold watches became famous all over the world is because from the very beginning, the Swiss paid great attention to the practicality and effect of watches... After hundreds of years of accumulation, Swiss gold watches have become synonymous with both practicality and performance, and are deeply loved by the watch. Welcome to the B community...

Of course, that was the Bern of later generations. The current state of Bern is a poor mountain state, and agriculture is not good. And the biggest source of income in the state is the commission earned by the mountaineers as mercenaries...

Therefore, for the Habsburg family, the most valuable thing in the canton of Bern is the city of Bern. After all, many mercenary officers in the canton of Bern buy property in the city. Occupying the city of Bern is equivalent to gaining more than half of the property of Bern state...

However, the French were obviously not happy to see the canton of Bern fall to the hands of the Habsburgs. So, until then, Louis XII had been supporting the canton of Bern and several other western Swiss cantons against the expansion of the Habsburgs. If the canton of Bern falls, I am afraid that the remaining states will not be able to withstand it. By then, the Habsburgs would occupy the whole of Switzerland and directly border France. And this is what the Kingdom of France never wants to see. Therefore, this time, Louis XII directly sent 10,000 troops to support the Swiss resistance activities. Although it is not enough to defeat the army of the Habsburg family, it is still reluctant to hold the current achievements.

Of course, the actions of the French were hidden from the Habsburg family, but not from the North Sea Kingdom, which had an eye in the French royal palace. When Kohler sent information about Paris to Schwartz in the Principality of Cliff, Schwartz was very happy. Because, he knew, the French had sent 10,000 troops to support Switzerland, so after the war here, the French would not be able to support too many troops. Even if they can send troops, the Beihai army can deal with them. But will the French send troops without certainty? Won't! So, the war is over...