Descending On France 1780
Chapter 148 - 141 Is it that terrifying already?

Chapter 148: 141 Is it that terrifying already?

At this time, behind Lafayette’s command position, near their camp, Lana had hidden away to catch some sleep, and just now had awoken.

Lana looked around suspiciously, trying to grasp the situation.

He heard the thunderous sound of artillery from the south.

"His Excellency the General is still fighting," Lana thought to himself, "Wasn’t the damage I did last night enough?"

Just then, he suddenly spotted a group of ragged soldiers, supporting each other as they limped and hobbled toward the rear.

Lana thought for a moment, and a plan came to mind.

He tore off his Senior Sergeant’s rank insignia and smeared some more dirt on himself, so his outfit almost resembled that of an officer’s.

Then with a leap, he jumped in front of the retreating soldiers and shouted, "Which unit are you from!"

The retreating soldiers were startled and looked at Lana, still frazzled.

Since Frost’s troops and Lafayette’s troops both belonged to the National Guard and wore the same uniforms, only Anning’s troops had to wrap a red cloth.

The retreating soldiers seemed to judge from Lana’s tone that he was one of their own officers and replied, "We are from the 13th Company of the 4th Battalion of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Division, we... we’ve been scattered."

Lana: "I see, I am Lieutenant Colonel Robo of the 2nd Division, and by order of General Lafayette, I am preparing to collect the troops and retreat."

Retreating Soldiers: "Retreat?"

Lana: "Yes, the enemy has taken the advantageous positions, the geographical benefit is too great, we must retreat to a position that is advantageous to us and decide the battle there!"

The retreating soldiers were somewhat confused, "Why are you alone? Shouldn’t this kind of task be done by sending a group of people?"

Lana: "I ran into the enemy’s scattered troops who attacked us last night! I barely escaped! My team has been scattered! Now follow me! We’re going to burn the camp tents and prepare for the retreat! We can’t leave the camp after retreat for the damned Rebel Army!"

The retreating soldiers looked at each other, their eyes finally converged on an old Sergeant.

The Sergeant shook his head: "No, we can’t do things for Lafayette. I saw it with my own eyes, our twenty thousand men, the moment they crossed the hill, were made to run with their tails between their legs. Lafayette, the General, can’t win this battle. We might as well leave!"

Upon hearing this, Lana’s eyes rolled swiftly: "All the better, I am Captain Jean Lannes of General Frost’s instruction team, the night attack yesterday was led by me! Look at this!"

Lana took out a red ribbon, "We use this to identify friend from foe! Follow me, under the pretense of orders from Lafayette to burn the camp tents. Once the deed is done, there will be a great reward!"

The retreating soldiers looked at each other, and their eyes once again rested on the old Sergeant.

The old Sergeant eyed Lana suspiciously, "You... are you truly a confidant of General Frost? The captain of the instruction team?"

Lana slapped his chest, "Indeed! You must have heard, Mr. Frost highly values a dye shop apprentice, and that apprentice is me! My troops got scattered during last night’s night raid, and today I was fretting that I had no one to join me in causing destruction! Your joining at this time would make you all true heroes!"

The old Sergeant was still pondering, when a private couldn’t help but ask, "Is it true that Mr. Frost issues rewards instead of promissory notes, all in silver?"

Lana nodded, "Exactly! General Frost pays military salary in silver, never in promissory notes! If you fight with me, you’ll indeed have a lot of silver!"

Finally, the old Sergeant made up his mind, slapped his thigh, "Let’s do it! Given the current chaos, General Lafayette won’t care about his own camp anyway. Let’s go!"

**

Lafayette was watching his troops push toward the mountain top.

From his position, he could not see the arrangement of Frost’s forces on the other side of the hillside, so he was still a bit worried.

He could only continuously reassure himself, saying that adding it all up, he had thirty thousand men pressing forward, while excluding the cavalry and artillery, Frost’s forces hardly numbered over ten thousand. A three-to-one ratio should always be a winning one.

As long as they successfully charged to within firing distance and unleashed their guns on the enemy, the advantages of their three-to-one troop ratio would show in their firepower. At that point, Frost could only obediently admit defeat.

Even if the enemy, relying on the terrain, matched their firepower, as soon as hand-to-hand combat was initiated, it would become a pure meat grinder! That’s when the numerical superiority of his troops would stand out!

The more Lafayette thought about it, the more he felt they should rush up and engage directly in hand-to-hand combat.

Even though his troops were exhausted–the 1st Division had not slept well last night, and both the 2nd and 3rd Divisions had just retreated with huge loss of stamina–but with one boost of vigour to engage in melee, playing the numbers could mean a possibility of victory!

And a big chance of winning at that!

Exchanging fire might actually cause problems.

So Lafayette turned his head to Bertier and said, "Send the order, tell the Earl Onet, the brigade commander of the 1st Brigade, that after the first round of volley fire upon reaching there, to launch a charge!"

Bertier frowned slightly, "You mean to charge?"

"Yes, we will use our numerical advantage to grind into mincemeat those trouser-wearing men under Frost!"

"The trouser-wearing class was originally used to describe the trouser-wearing working class in cities like Paris; Lafayette used it to address Frost’s troops to express his disdain."

Bertier reminded, "Our main forces are also composed of trouser-wearing men..."

"It doesn’t matter! Just charge and engage in close combat! We have more officers, more troops, and with close combat, we can win!" Lafayette shouted.

Bertier: "Alright, messenger soldier!"

The messenger soldier ran over, and Bertier hand-wrote an order, stuffing it into his hands: "To Earl O’Nett!"

"Yes!" The messenger soldier rode off at a gallop.

Lafayette turned his attention back to the large forces climbing up the mountain.

Thirty thousand troops, formed into four columns; each column had three rows, marching impressively towards the summit.

Seeing this momentum, Lafayette’s face regained a trace of a smile, "Frost, this time I will make sure you won’t have a place to be buried!"

If this were a Hong Kong comic, Lafayette would definitely let out a series of cackling laughter at this moment.

Then, just as he had smiled for a short while, someone shouted beside him: "The camp is on fire!"

Startled, Lafayette turned to look and saw that in the direction of their encampment, a contiguous blaze of fire had ignited.

This was really shocking because in this era, not all troops accompanied the army on the field; from a force of forty thousand, at least a few thousand would be left guarding the camp.

For the British forces, every regiment would leave behind half a battalion to watch over the camp and take care of everything there.

Now that the camp was ablaze, it indicated that the enemy had launched a surprise attack with a not inconsiderable force.

Lafayette couldn’t figure out where Frost had conjured up an attacking force from.

Didn’t he only have fifteen thousand troops?

According to this morning’s cavalry scouting reports, all of his troops were already on the mountain before us!

Where did this attacking force come from?

In a state of panic, Lafayette suddenly felt he could no longer understand Frost.

"Frost!" he inhaled sharply and muttered, "This leatherworker is terrifying!"

Bertier, however, remained very calm: "If the enemy has chosen to attack the camp, rather than our flank, it indicates they don’t have many troops. Deploying the last brigade of our reserves should be sufficient to cope."

Lafayette: "You don’t understand! Now that the tents are on fire, it will affect the morale of the attacking forces!"

He grumbled, "Damn it, it’s a good thing Frost doesn’t have enough cavalry. Otherwise, if he deployed his cavalry now, we’d be doomed."

**

Among the troops climbing up the mountain, some had also noticed the fire at their rear.

More and more people started to look back.

The officers had to shout loudly: "Don’t look back! Our orders are to advance! Keep moving forward!"

Fortunately for Lafayette, there were many experienced non-commissioned officers in his force; otherwise, half the men would have run away before even reaching the top of the mountain.

But the seed of unease had already been sown!

**

Jean Lannes stood in Lafayette’s camp, shouting loudly: "Burn it quickly! Everybody move fast!"

Indeed, Lafayette’s assumption wasn’t wrong; Anning really couldn’t spare a force capable of raiding his camp.

These tents were actually being set ablaze by Lafayette’s own garrison.

Leveraging the momentum and current chaos, Lana managed to convince the camp’s garrison that the order to burn the tents was given by Lafayette himself.

The garrison had already seen a large group of routed soldiers coming down, and then suddenly a haughty-looking "officer" with soldiers who appeared to have endured a tough battle brought the order, so they believed it.

So now, thousands of defenders were burning tents as quickly as they could, preparing to retreat.

Watching these defenders, Lana felt nervous inside, thinking to himself, General, you must win, for if you lose, I won’t be able to escape.

Lafayette was very strict with his soldiers, having used "flogging" to deal with soldiers who mutinied due to the lack of military salary—tying soldiers to wheels and beating them to death with clubs.

Lana had no desire to experience this kind of flogging.