Life of Being a Crown Prince in France

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Blucher immediately tugged on the reins, his eyes widening as he turned to ask, "Are you sure those aren't just cavalry coming to harass us?"

"It's definitely not harassment, General."

The two hussars exchanged a glance, "We saw cannons, and there were at least three or four regiments' worth of troops."

Blucher felt a buzz in his head, had these Frenchmen grown wings?

In his effort to accelerate, he had ordered the soldiers to abandon a great deal of baggage, but they had barely broken camp when the French Army caught up!

Ah, where could he know, the Guard Corps had almost no baggage except for shells and gunpowder. Even His Royal Highness the Crown Prince didn't bring a bed, let alone the other officers.

An hour before, Joseph had routed the Netherlands Army, leaving only one regiment to clean up the battlefield, two battalions to care for the wounded, while the rest of the soldiers, without even a moment's rest, immediately set off towards the main Prussian force.

Before long, more hussars came to report the approach of the French Army, and Blucher, having no choice, ordered his whole army to form lines on the spot, ready to meet the enemy.

The Prussian Army, which had just gotten into marching order, immediately halted and began to form up. Meanwhile, the baggage wagons hurriedly rushed to the rear. For a moment, nearly ten thousand soldiers were jumbled together in disarray.

Blucher had barely managed to establish three infantry lines when the French cavalry appeared less than one kilometer away, with the infantry close behind.

"Are the artillery positions ready?" Blucher asked with a dark face to an aide-de-camp nearby.

After consulting with several messengers, the aide-de-camp turned and said, "General, the cannons are en route to the high ground, it should take another half hour to be in position."

"Tell them to move faster!" Blucher didn't know why, but the presence of this French force always left him feeling unsettled, only the cannons could provide him with some sense of stability.

"Yes, General!"

After a series of reconnaissance and probing by both sides, the Guard Corps' infantry lines had already advanced to within 500 paces of the Prussians.

And it wasn't until then that Blucher finally got a detailed count of the French forces — 11,000 men.

He frowned and silently calculated that if the Alterman Corps and the Dietlinde Corps could return in time, they could still encircle the French!

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"Push a bit harder!" The commander of the Guard Corps' artillery battalion shouted toward the mound in front, to the soldiers helping the horses drag the cannons, "The Prussians have spread out their forces, as soon as we begin firing, they'll break quickly!"

Nearly a thousand artillerymen let out an excited cheer, "Break down the Prussians!"

"The glory of victory belongs to us!"

"Let those country bumpkins taste what we're made of! Long live the artillery!"

Today's battle had been a moment for them to puff out their chests in pride.

In wars of the past, the artillery was always just a support to the infantry. Even military textbooks stated that no matter the artillery's achievements, it would ultimately rely on the infantry to end the battle.
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But in today's fight against the South Netherlanders, it was precisely the mounted artillery, with their ability to strike from unexpected quarters, that broke through the enemy's defenses.

The infantry merely moved in to tidy up the aftermath.

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If it weren't for the sheer number of cavalry on Blucher's side and the excessive fatigue of the Mounted Artillery horses of the Guard Corps, they would have loved to re-enact that scene once more against Blucher.

Just as the cannon at the very front was about to be hauled onto the mound, a skinny captain with a high-bridged nose surveyed the terrain around him and occasionally used his telescope to observe the Prussian Army's deployment.

Suddenly, he put away his telescope and briskly approached the commander of the artillery battalion, saluted him with his hat and said, "Commander, I believe that the most suitable position for artillery is not this mound."

Commander Lacoste frowned slightly, recalling that the Crown Prince seemed to take special interest in this young officer, and patiently explained, "This is the Staff's deployment, Captain Buonaparte."

He gestured towards the Prussian lines barely visible to the west: "From here we can directly bombard the enemy's infantry columns, and there is no open ground around suitable for cavalry formations, making it an excellent shooting position."

Napoleon pursed his lips and mustered the courage to point toward a gentle slope further west: "Sir, I believe... that there lies the most ideal position for our artillery."

Major Lacoste was slightly startled and raised his telescope to look in the direction indicated, but immediately smiled: "Captain, that position is indeed closer to the enemy and the trajectory is not bad. But you may not have noticed that to the left of that position, there is a clump of trees between us and the Prussian Army."

"Once the Prussian Infantry is under cannon fire, they just need to move slightly towards that area, and we will lose sight of them."

"Exactly!" Napoleon nodded vigorously, "That's precisely the advantage of that location."

"Ah?" Lacoste blinked in surprise.

Napoleon took a breath and explained: "The more intense our bombardment, the more the enemy will want to move towards those trees. And the distant enemy forces will not be able to get there. This would likely tear their infantry line apart."

On a real battlefield, the two armies typically fight over a large area, and it is common to see infantry lines stretching for several kilometers.

So the soldiers in the line cannot see where their more distant comrades are, or what they are doing.

Including the officers, if communication is not smooth, everyone will lose track of their own situation.

Lacoste looked again at the artillery position Napoleon had suggested, suddenly feeling that what he said could very well happen.

After a moment of thought, he nodded and instructed the messenger to report to the Staff about his intention to move some cannons to the new position, and then he ordered Napoleon's artillery unit to change direction.

More than ten minutes later, the roaring of the cannons marked the beginning of the decisive battle—it was the cannon fire from the Guard Corps.

Fifteen six-pound cannonballs, with a heart-pounding whistling sound, flew over the first line of Prussian infantry, plowing more than a dozen furrows into the verdant grassland.

Blucher was startled once again, wondering how the French, who had traveled so far, were able to fire first.

He ordered five cavalry squadrons and a company of skirmishers to attack the French artillery and urged his own artillerymen to fire back as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Napoleon directed the five six-pound cannons in his own unit, quietly hiding behind a large patch of wild grass, waiting for the opportunity.

As an experienced commander, Blucher, in large unit warfare, was extremely cautious, using his experience to resolve the multiple pulls and harassments by the Guard Corps.

The infantry lines of the Prussian and French directly opposing each other inevitably came closer, amid the dense sounds of drums and the vocal commands of officers, the battle seemed imminent, decided by training and morale.

Just then, less than 400 steps from the Prussian Army's right wing, there was a sudden burst of fire, and five six-pound cannonballs very accurately drilled into the ranks of the Prussian line.

The Prussian infantry caught off guard instantly let out a collective wail.

Napoleon saw the hits through his telescope, a slight smile appearing at the corner of his mouth—his ballistic calculations were always top of his class at the military academy, hitting the target without adjusting at this distance was not difficult for him.