In the first week of the war, Leopold and his son received a stream of bad news.
On March 2nd, Warsaw was besieged!
On March 5th, Krakow was besieged!
For three six days, Bratislava was besieged...
Of course, there is also good news, that is, after the yellow-skinned monkeys surrounded these cities, they were not in a hurry to attack them.
Judging from the battle reports sent back by planes sent by the defenders, the opponent was only besieging the enemy, and most of the time it seemed that there was not even bombing or artillery shelling.
Is this move a deliberate attempt by the yellow-skinned monkey to save ammunition?
Joseph could not guess the other party's intention, so he could only let the garrison in each city continue to hold on.
On the contrary, if the opponent neither shells nor bombs, the defenders will be much more comfortable in the city.
If this continues, summer will begin in three months, and our chances of winning will increase dramatically by then!
The Yellow-skinned Monkey Emperor has always been very shrewd, and perhaps even when his wits fell, he might have run into him.
Thinking of this, although the possibility is not very high, it still makes Crown Prince Joseph feel excited.
Who can guarantee that they will never make mistakes?
Maybe God will let the yellow-skinned monkey emperor make such a careless mistake this time!
There should be signs of victory, and maybe this is the sign of our final victory!
If the yellow-skinned monkey attacks can really be repelled three times in a row, then the legend of the Holy Roman Empire lasting for thousands of years may come true!
Since the Holy Roman Empire is protected by God, no matter how ferocious the enemy is, how advanced the weapons are, or how large the troops are, their aggression will end in failure!
With the experience of the first two times, Joseph is convinced of this speculation this time...
However, the resistance on the front line was still very difficult and brutal. In the key areas contested by the two sides, such as several mountain passes in the Sudeten Mountains, the daily casualties of Russian soldiers were calculated in thousands.
In order to attack the hinterland of the Holy Roman Empire, Zhang Huangyan has sent the Second Army to attack the southern Saxony region through the Polish plains.
Let the Third Army follow its familiar old route, attack Bohemia from the Sudeten Mountains, and first besiege Prague.
The Fourth Army was ordered to attack Brno from the junction of the Sudeten Mountains and the Western Carpathians.
The Fifth Army, which started from eastern Moravia, was responsible for occupying the entire Moravia, besieging its capital Bratislava, and coordinating the Ottoman offensive on the southern front.
The goal of these four armies is not the current one, but Bavaria, which is the established battlefield of the Ottoman army, but for the time being they can only send Qing cavalry to loot it.
Now Bavaria has replaced Austria and become the home base of Leopold and his sons.
Zhang Huangyan judged based on the weapons and equipment of the Qing army that they could not cause traumatic losses to the opponent.
Maybe they will be beaten up by the opponent's fighter planes and tanks. This is a conjecture that has been tested in actual combat.
Although the Qing cavalry had strong ability in field operations, they had no choice but to be defeated in the face of the stranglehold of technical equipment.
Even if millions of cavalry are dispatched, they can only conduct penetrating guerrilla warfare into Württemberg and Bavaria with small forces.
Once a large force of tens of thousands is dispatched and is discovered by enemy planes in the sky, what awaits them is ruthless strafing, that's all!
Zhang Huangyan's judgment was generally correct. The Qing army used Jia La as a combat unit and used the "thousands of arrows" tactics that had been frequently used before to kill the southern German region from the Hungarian grasslands.
This time was different from last time. Crown Prince Joseph specially prepared a hundred battalions of mobile troops for the opponent's cavalry group in the South German area.
Each battalion is equipped with twelve tanks, twenty armored vehicles, twenty trucks, and hundreds of cavalry, and can also be supported by fighter planes taking off from nearby airports.
Although the tanks are all light tanks such as "Paladin", they are still not something that the Qing cavalry can deal with.
Many times, thousands of Qing cavalry were driven to the ground by a dozen armored vehicles, which looked very funny.
The Qing army is not completely incapable of destroying and dealing with armored vehicles. However, the longer it stays in place, the greater the possibility that the opponent's fighter planes will fly to the battlefield.
One or two planes are okay, but if more than ten fighter planes charge at the same time, it will not be able to withstand a mere thousand cavalrymen.
Last time, many unconvinced Jia La Zhang Jing had already tried it at the cost of the blood of his subordinates, and failed shamefully...
Despite this, most Qing generals still supported long-distance raids into the hinterland of the Holy Roman Empire because they could plunder more property.
In this combat mode, you cannot get your own air support, but you have the opportunity to make a lot of money.
Compared with carrying out restricted plunder in Austria, it is more profitable to go to southern Germany.
This time the Holy Roman Empire was well prepared and laid a dragnet in the southern German region, which greatly restricted the actions of the Qing army.
In just the first week after entering Württemberg and Bavaria, the Qing army lost about 50,000 cavalry.
The main reason is to break through the opponent's blockade composed of mobile troops. Under the fierce firepower, many Qing cavalry quickly melted away like the snowfall in early spring...
Compared with the 500,000 Qing cavalry dispatched this time, this is still within the tolerance range.
After rushing into the opponent's hinterland, the degree of resistance suffered will be much lighter.
Even if there were pursuers behind them, the Qing cavalry would not forget to plunder wherever they went.
Almost everyone doesn't know whether they will survive tomorrow, so they have to enjoy the moment.
The burning of local houses was prohibited by order, but there were still stubborn people who openly disobeyed the order after drinking.
There was no need to wait for punishment from his superiors. After dawn, fighter planes from the Holy Roman Empire came to straf and drop bombs.
Pilots can easily spot the location of smoke on the ground in the air, especially the obvious difference between cooking smoke and burning smoke.
Most of the villages and towns in southern Germany, after hearing about the last time they were burned, killed and looted by the Tatar cavalry, were ready for defense this time and would rather fight to the end than surrender.
Compared with the last time they attacked South Germany, the Qing army's gains this time were out of proportion to the price they paid.
After a month of fighting in the southern German region, the Qing army's casualties had climbed to about 100,000.
They are attacked every day by the ground troops and air forces of the Holy Roman Empire, and the villages and towns are not easy to capture.
There are trenches and defensive horses outside the target, as well as more terrifying weapons-mines and grenades!
The local houses were mainly buildings, which provided a good place for Ju Min to shoot the Qing cavalry from a high position.
If a village of 300 people is captured, the Qing cavalry's casualties will not be less than 70 to 100 people.
It doesn't look like much, but if we fight like this everywhere, the Qing army will definitely not be able to bear it.
I was beaten during the robbery!
I was beaten while running away!
It's like we came to southern Germany just to fight!
Fortunately, the troops of the Holy Roman Empire were not equipped with helicopters, otherwise the Qing army's casualties would have been even more severe...
At the same time, the development direction of the war was not much different from Zhang Huangyan's expectation.
After occupying half of Saxony, the Prussian army stopped moving forward.
The Swedish army, like the Kimchi army from afar, could only stay behind and watch the defenders in the city.
The Dutch army occupied parts of the North Rhine, echoing the French army's attempt to engulf the Palatinate.
As for the armies of the Principality of Hanover and the Principality of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, you can guess what they are doing with your heels.
In other words, the real focus of this operation is still only the Ming Empire and the Ottoman Empire.
The remaining families, one by one, are all here to make a living...
Zhang Huangyan was mentally prepared for this, but he didn't expect that the other party would dare to deal with Daming like this.
The Master will arrive in Moscow before June and will even visit Minsk for an inspection.
It is still difficult to say what brilliant results the coalition forces will achieve by then.
One thing is for sure, those companies are hopeless.
If you want to make a breakthrough, you have to be completely self-reliant!
After the Third Army surrounded Prague on March 15, if it could invade Bavaria before April, the situation would be very favorable to the coalition.
Zhang Huangyan was indeed gratified by the progress of his subordinates. After the Fourth Army besieged Brno, some Japanese troops were left behind as siege troops.
Its main force continued to advance westward, first passing through northern Austria, and on March 29, it invaded eastern Bavaria.
The situation faced by the unit does not make people overly optimistic. Since it appears on the north bank of the Danube River, the area is dominated by woodlands and mountains, which is not suitable for the deployment and advancement of mechanized troops.
If we forcibly cross the Danube River and go straight into the Munich area, we may be attacked by enemy fighter planes because we are alone and lack aviation cover.
For this reason, Zhang Huangyan could only give way to the First Army on the front line in Warsaw, which was also one of the reserves on the eastern front, and quickly entered the battle, striving to reach the South German region as soon as possible to join the Fourth Army.
After the Third Army commanded by Lu Xuecheng besieged Prague, its next target was not Munich, but Nuremberg, the strategically important town in Bavaria.
Because after crossing the Czech Forest Mountains, the closest and most valuable target was Nuremberg.
The two army commanders made a temporary decision to abandon Munich, the largest city in the area, and join forces first to besiege Nuremberg.
The terrain is open, which facilitates the deployment of armored forces, and air cover is left to the fighter units stationed at Pilsen Airport.
If the attack goes smoothly and the conditions are suitable, it is entirely feasible to build a field airport outside Nuremberg.
After completing the mission in Nuremberg, they would then move south and besiege Augsburg, northwest of Munich.
Munich is the biggest target. Since the Ottoman army is unable to get involved, it is not too late for the coalition forces to go over and pick this fruit...
To deal with the defenders in Nuremberg, we cannot adopt the strategy of encirclement without attacking. There is an arsenal in the city that can produce tanks, artillery and fighter planes.
On the day of the siege, ninety-five Hercules bombers took off from Pilsen, and under the cover of hundreds of fighter planes, came to attack the city.
Due to fine weather, the number of bombers participating in the air raids increased instead of decreasing on the second and third days.
By the fifth day, the fleet size reached 165 aircraft, which was still limited by the size of Pilsen's local airport.
Occupying or developing Nuremberg is a matter after the war. At present, the Ming Air Force is helping the ground forces destroy this city that can produce weapons and equipment for the enemy.
There is still a long time before summer begins, but Junmin in the city feels as if he is in a furnace, because the Ming bombers are dropping incendiary bombs!
Any house with a wooden structure will burst into flames under bombing.
If you don't take shelter in a basement or air-raid shelter, there is no way to survive in the face of this kind of bombing.
Lu Xuecheng hoped that the Air Force would bomb Nuremberg continuously for a month to see how many of the defenders in the city could survive.
A big city like Warsaw could not withstand a month of bombing.
That was on a thousand-plane scale, and the current bombing scale is much smaller than before.
As time went by, the number of Ming bombers participating in air raids gradually increased.
The scale of one thousand machines may not be reached, but three to four hundred machines should still be available.
Since Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Brno and other cities did not require heavy bombing, Lu Xuecheng's request was quickly met.
Using urgently expanded airports in Pilsen, Karlovy Vary, České Budejovice and other places, within a week the Ming Air Force achieved its small goal of dispatching 500 bombers to attack Nuremberg.
It was definitely not possible to sit still and wait for death. After Crown Prince Joseph sent pilots to find out the situation of the enemy's airports in western Bohemia, he ordered the dispatch of 300 fighter planes for air strikes.
This operation must destroy as many enemy bombers as possible and prevent them from carrying out large-scale bombing of Nuremberg or other friendly cities.
The time is arranged in the early morning, when the vigilance of the yellow-skinned monkeys should be the lowest, and our side should never launch large-scale air strikes at this time.
On April 9, three hundred Holy Roman Empire Air Force fighter planes were divided into three formations and pounced on three established targets.
Each formation is composed of "Falcon" and "Eagle" fighter aircraft, without the burden of the same "Albatross".
The requirement for this operation is to fight quickly and quickly, and retreat quickly after success. Don't be reluctant to fight.
Joseph's idea is very good. In the last war, doing this could yield good results.
That won't work this time, because the Ming Air Force has deployed air defense radars at frontline airports.
Radar waves do not reflect well on wooden aircraft, while iron aircraft do the opposite.
In other words, if the other party sends out "Albatross" this time, it will have a surprising effect.
As the air defense siren suddenly sounded, the three airports immediately went into combat readiness, and fighter planes taxied to take off.
The anti-aircraft guns deployed in the surrounding area were also ready for counterattack, waiting for the opponent to deliver the goods.
Since the bombers had no time to take off, they could only park at the airport and let others slaughter them.
The Ming army's fighter jets needed to block the enemy from a long distance and prevent the enemy from approaching its own airport.
For the pilots of the Holy Roman Empire, it was really unexpected that the enemy planes knew their own actions in advance and came to intercept them.
Fortunately, there are not many enemy planes appearing on the opposite side, only about forty or fifty. As long as you are determined enough, you can still rush over...
