18th century total war

Chapter 34 Bavarian Mercenaries

As the training camp began one after another, the Morbihan province returned to calm again. The Morbihan provincial government, which returned to Vannes, kept asking for help from the city of Paris and crying for help, but it has not targeted Li. Wei's military operations.

In fact, Li Wei has now controlled nearly half of the Morbihan province, including the territory controlled by the city of Vannes before entering.

Li Wei did not have troops stationed in these sites, but only sent troops to intimidate those towns to change their flags, and then retreated.

Relying on the prestige of breaking through the city of Vannes, Li Wei easily overwhelmed a large number of villages and towns in the province of Morbihan.

Of course, the real big cities have not yet surrendered. Li Wei's ability to easily conquer large villages and towns also has a lot to do with the shrinking of the troops in the cities in the Morbihan province.

In this way, the two sides have maintained a delicate balance.

Now, the civil strife in the Kingdom of France is intensifying. Although the nobles do not have many private troops, they still have some foundations. There are also church forces that are unwilling to arrest them without a fight, and they have also caused a lot of trouble for the local government that has taken power.

There were even nobles who were defeated or expelled and fled to Charles Town to seek protection from Livy.

It's a pity that when these nobles fled to Li Wei's territory, they basically didn't have many troops, and they were useless except to give Li Weizhuang a boost.

He brought a lot of floating money, but Li Wei couldn't rob these noble colleagues who escaped.

Of course, these fugitive nobles who lost their power were not useless, at least they made the town of Charles much more prosperous.

After all, these aristocrats need to eat and drink, and it is impossible to sleep on the streets. Under the protection of Li Wei, the tavern and hotel-related industries in Charles Town have become popular.

However, the increased taxation does not help the current Li Wei much. Li Wei, who has just robbed the city of Vannes, is not short of money. His mercenary intermediaries are throwing money at people in Central Europe!

Li Wei had no intention of keeping money at all, and planned to spend most of the proceeds from the looting of Vannes on recruiting mercenaries.

Li Wei has already figured it out, the financial income in the future will mainly depend on robbery!

Anyway, now that the aristocratic class is losing power, looking around, those local city governments can basically be regarded as enemies, and there is no pressure to rob them.

Two months later, under the support of the battalion led by Bolcha, the assembled mercenaries successfully landed in Morbihan province by sea and came to the town of Charles.

The Morbihan Province is a coastal province.

Lesarit, a veteran colonel who has been in the army of the Principality of Bavaria for many years.

Now he is the commander of the Bavarian Mercenary Corps.

There are about 2000 soldiers under his command.

All infantry!
There is no way, the hiring price of cavalry is too high, Li Wei doesn't need it too much, and artillery can't be hired.

After all, those German states are also worried that their artillery will be shipped to other countries, and then they will be detained!

Artillery is a very expensive weapon in this era.

The previous city of Vannes searched the whole province, and only accumulated a dozen artillery pieces to fight against Li Wei.

Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that the Kingdom of France has been at peace for a long time.

Obviously, the mercenaries brought by Lesarite are the regular army of the Principality of Bavaria, but they are only temporarily stripped out. This is also a common method of the German state.

Mercenaries fighting abroad have nothing to do with them. If they die, their employers will have to pay high pensions!
It doesn't matter if you don't pay, at most you will be blacklisted by the international mercenary industry.

Now Li Wei has not only paid a large sum of money to the Principality of Bavaria, but will also pay for the military salary and all needs of the mercenary Lesarit in the future.

Otherwise, why would this mercenary help Li Wei fight?

This actually means that after Li Wei rented the army of the Principality of Bavaria, he not only had to pay the rent, but also supported the army as his own, and the salary was similar to that of the regular army.

This is also the reason why many countries in this era are unwilling to accept mercenaries. The money to raise mercenaries can completely form a standing army, and even the maintenance cost can be lower.

This has also led to the mercenary industry becoming more and more high-end in Europe. There are fewer customers for the mercenary army, and the competitive pressure in the mercenary industry has naturally increased. Of course, everyone must work hard to improve the reputation and quality of their own mercenaries.

It can be said that mercenaries from the Italian region rarely appear on the battlefield now, and the market is almost taken away by mercenaries from the German and Swiss regions!
As for the miscellaneous mercenaries, they have actually degenerated into security forces, and are usually hired by the wealthy and nobles in small quantities to protect themselves.

After Li Wei met with Lesarite, he stopped talking to him, and handed over the temporary camp that had been prepared to Lesarite's troops, so that his people would not sleep in the open...

This kind of treatment made Lesarit's team complain, they didn't even receive the greeting gift from their employer!
Of course, Li Wei didn't have much money to reward them. This mercenary Li Wei was only used as an auxiliary army, so naturally he didn't care about their mood.

Just don't backstab yourself enough.

If it was really a backstab, the reputation of the mercenaries in the Principality of Bavaria would be completely rotten in the future. In Europe, where the competition in the mercenary industry is fierce, once the reputation is rotten, it is basically impossible to get business.

Now, the last period of training is coming to an end, and Li Wei began to reorganize the Black Dragon Army under his command.

After the last period of training is over, the total strength of the Black Dragon Legion will break through the 4400 mark. Naturally, it is impossible to continue to maintain the size of a regiment.

Livy split it into two infantry regiments of equal size.

Anyway, they are all basic line infantry, and there is not much difference in individual combat effectiveness.

Gaskel is in charge of the [-]st Infantry Regiment of the Black Dragonflight.

Carl was promoted to colonel and took command of the [-]nd Infantry Regiment.

Carl, the person who helped Li Wei cleanse his political opponents, was obviously favored by Li Wei. After the Battle of Vannes, many people were promoted to lieutenant colonel, but only Carl went further to become a colonel. It became independent there and took charge of an infantry regiment alone.

In addition, more than a dozen artillery pieces were incorporated into the Black Dragon Army by Li Wei, and a separate artillery battalion was established.

The personnel of the artillery battalion were not brainwashed, and the artillerymen inside were all captive gunners conscripted by Li Wei.

It was the gunner who was loyal to the Vannes municipal government before.

Naturally, the loyalty of these people cannot be guaranteed, but the wired infantry did not dare to make mistakes when they watched them.

After reorganization, the Black Dragon Legion controlled two line infantry regiments, an artillery battalion, a Bavarian infantry regiment, and a temporarily formed supply battalion.

The supply camp was also requisitioned temporarily, and young and strong laborers were selected from the remaining captives, and then a few small officials who followed Li Wei were drawn from Charles Town to manage it.

(End of this chapter)