King of German Mercenaries

Germany in 1500, after the outbreak of the Battle of Lyell County, the northern part of Germany has been very calm. In contrast, the southern region of Germany has always been very lively.

The conflict between the Swiss and the Swabian Alliance has never stopped, and the most powerful emperor in the Swabian Alliance has been unable to help his allies because he has to occupy and digest the Graubingen area of ​​more than 7,000 square kilometers. Therefore, the Swabian League has been beaten by the Swiss.

For more than a year, many nobles of the Swabian Alliance were driven out of their hometowns by Swiss mercenaries and forced to go into exile. As a result, they found the most powerful emperor, Maximilian I, and asked him to send troops to help them regain their territory.

In fact, Maximilian I originally intended to support Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, to restore his kingdom after securing the Graubünden area. At this time, the French army had arrived in the Kingdom of Naples, and was attacking the city in the Kingdom of Naples.

Maximilian I always regarded France as the number one enemy and always wanted to limit the expansion of France. By contrast, the Swiss issue appears less important.

However, when allies begged to come, Maximilian I could not ignore it. You know, the nobles of the Swabian Alliance are his strongest supporters in the Imperial Parliament.

It just so happened that after more than a year of digestion, Maximilian I had also completely controlled the Graubünden area and was able to free up his hands. So, after weighing the pros and cons, Maximilian I finally declared war on Switzerland and asked the Swiss to return all the occupied territories of the Swabian League.

However, being infected by Marin, Maximilian I also learned to be smart. Instead of directly declaring war on the entire Swiss Confederation, he declared war only on the state of Zurich, the main enemy of the Swabian League, to avoid provoking other Swiss states.

But Zurich State is not a fool. They are already powerful and have tens of thousands of elite mercenaries. After seeing the emperor join the war, he also drew allies from several states of Aargau from the Swiss alliance to fight against the Swabian alliance.

At this time, the Swabian League had in fact been crippled by the mercenaries of Zurich State. Only the emperor's army was left to be able to confront the Swiss head-on.

As a result, the remnants of the Swabian Alliance drove to Graubünden one after another to join the emperor's army, and let the emperor's army play the main force, and they play the auxiliary.

The army of Maximilian I was much stronger than in the original history. Especially after sending a few people to follow Marin to learn the formation of troops, at least in terms of discipline, it has greatly exceeded the original state. Even the military discipline of the elite troops of Maximilian I was not worse than the Swiss at all.

In particular, Bowen Gardner and Haight Basque, who had learned both skills from Marin at the beginning, had become the phalanx commanders of the two most elite infantry phalanxes under the emperor.

The phalanx they trained was known in the Austrian army for its strict discipline. However, in terms of tactics, it is still different from Marin's phalanx. The biggest difference is that the two are still using Marin's earliest tactics. For example, the long-range firepower is the use of archers, not the muskets of the Spanish phalanx that Marin is now promoting.

However, this is no wonder, after all, when the two of them followed Marin, Marin had not started to promote the use of muskets. So, they were using Marin's "version 1.0" phalanx, and Marin has now been upgraded to a "version 2.0" Spanish phalanx, but they haven't had time to follow suit. After all, in this day and age, the communication was backward, and they didn't send officers to study in East Frisian like the Spaniards, so it's normal not to know.

In addition, Maximilian I also has to take care of the emotions of the Duke of Saxony. After all, Marin had just defeated the Duke of Saxony. Maximilian I insisted that Marin's status had offended the Duke of Saxony, and to send someone to learn the new phalanx tactics with Marin would definitely rub salt in the wound of the Duke of Saxony.

After all, Maximilian I also wanted the Saxon nobles to vote for himself in the Imperial Parliament.

On the other hand, the Spaniards and the Teutons are different. They are not friends with Saxony, so there is no need to look at the Saxons. Therefore, they dared to swagger to send personnel to Marin to "learn the scriptures" without worrying about the reaction of the Saxons.

Speaking of which, the phalanx of version 1.0 learned by Bowen Gardner and Haight Basque is actually quite powerful. It's really no problem to deal with the general square array.

However, times are indeed changing. When Marin came up with the 1.0 version of the phalanx, the Swiss were still on the rise, they were not so rich, and there were very few soldiers equipped with chest plate armor.

But now 6 years have passed, the Swiss mercenaries are getting richer and richer. After all, their appearance fee is generally at least twice or even three times that of ordinary mercenaries. Therefore, they also saved a lot of money to buy expensive breastplates and helmets.

Therefore, now the elite mercenaries in Switzerland, the first three rows are basically wearing chest plate armor, no longer the poor ghost army with low armor rate.

In the face of bow and arrow blows, the protection of the chest plate and helmet is very good. Therefore, the phalanx led by Bowen Gardner and Haight Basque, the strike of the archers, was actually not good.

When Maximilian I sent his army north to face the Swiss, he suffered a loss. Under the onslaught of the Swiss, Maximilian I's main force was repulsed. Only two phalanxes, Bowen Gardner and Haight Basque, stubbornly withstood the Swiss onslaught. However, their bow and arrow strikes had very limited lethality to the Swiss phalanx. Moreover, the other phalanxes were forced to retreat, and it was meaningless for them to continue to stand in front, so they had to retreat together.

In this way, the proud Maximilian I attacked for the first time, and it ended so hastily...

Not only that, but the Swiss are actually not happy to see Maximilian I occupy the Graubünden area. Because the Graubünden area is difficult to defend and difficult to attack. Being so well occupied by Maximilian I was too much of a threat to the Swiss Union.

Taking advantage of the defeat of Maximilian I, the Swiss army began to attack Graubünden. Fortunately, there are steep passes to the north and west of Graubünden that can be resisted. Otherwise, the army of Maximilian I might be completely destroyed.

While blocking the Swiss attack, something went wrong within the Graubünden area. Previously, under the pressure of the emperor, the three major forces that originally ruled the Graubünden area - the House of God Alliance, the Grey Clothes Alliance and the Ten Jurisdictions Alliance, saw that Maximilian I was shriveled, and they were all about to move...

Although they were disarmed by Maximilian I before, but in this era of cold weapons, it is still easy to rebuild the spear.

So they organized blacksmiths, secretly forged weapons, and privately regrouped. Some teams have already started to attack the emperor's supply troops in the rear, taking away a lot of weapons and armor.

The emperor's armor is basically produced by the military factory in Innsbruck. The famous Maximilian armor has been developed and mass-produced. But on the way from Innsbruck in western Austria to the Graubünden front line, a lot of it was taken away by the rebels, and the emperor was furious.

Because of the defeat, the emperor's prestige also plummeted. Many aristocratic forces who were originally dissatisfied with the emperor also took the opportunity to attack the emperor. They all wanted the emperor to lose completely to the Swiss and lose the Graubünden area.

Even Louis XII, who was far away from Naples, joined in. After he heard that the emperor was defeated by the Swiss Zurich coalition, he immediately released 5,000 Swiss mercenaries and asked them to help the Zurich people. Even the commission is paid by the French.

Louis XII's request was very simple. He asked these 5,000 people to help the Zurich coalition defeat the emperor and drive Maximilian I out of the Graubünden area.

Once Maximilian I was expelled from the Graubünden area, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who retreated to the Telina Valley south of the Mistyr Valley, would lose his great rear. At that time, the Swiss who occupied Graubünden could completely attack the French and completely wipe out the remnants of Ludovico Sforza. Even if they can't be eliminated, they can be trapped to death.

Because Ludovico Sfor was stationed in the remnants of the Telina Valley, and the current source of supplies was mainly sent by Maximilian I from the Graubünden area through the Mistyr Valley.

In short, the emperor's reckless involvement in the Swabian War set off a chain reaction. Because of the defeat, there were many bad consequences.

In one sentence - the emperor fell into the pit...

Moreover, this time, the emperor took the initiative to jump into the pit. But Maximilian I had to jump, after all, if he didn't protect the Swabian League and let it be wiped out by the Swiss, he would have no allies in the Reichstag to speak for him...