In the German region in 1500, after the outbreak of the Battle of Lyle County, the northern part of Germany has been very calm. In contrast, southern Germany has always been very lively.
The conflict between the Swiss and the Swabian League has never stopped, and the most powerful emperor in the Swabian League has been unable to help his allies because he wants to occupy and digest the Graubingen area of more than 7,000 square kilometers. Therefore, the Swabian League has been suppressed by the Swiss.
For more than a year, many nobles of the Swabian League were driven out of their hometown by Swiss mercenaries and forced to live in exile. Therefore, they found the most powerful emperor Maximilian I one after another, and asked him to send troops to help them regain their territory.
In fact, Maximilian I originally planned to support Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, to restore the country after stabilizing the Graubünden region. 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 France's expansion. In contrast, the Swiss issue seems less important.
However, Maximilian I couldn't ignore the allies begging to come to the door. You know, the nobles of the Swabian League are his strongest supporters in the Imperial Parliament.
Coincidentally, after more than a year of digestion, Maximilian I has also completely controlled the Graubünden region, and he can also free his hand. So, after weighing the pros and cons, Maximilian I finally declared war on Switzerland, and demanded that the Swiss return all the territories occupied by the Swabian Alliance.
However, influenced by Marin, Maximilian I also learned to be smart. Instead of directly declaring war on the entire Swiss Confederation, he only declared war on the main enemy of the Swabian Confederation, the State of Zurich, to avoid provoking other Swiss states.
But Zurich State is not a fool, they are already powerful, with tens of thousands of elite mercenaries. After seeing the emperor joining the battle, he also recruited the allies of several states such as Aargau from the Swiss League to fight against the Swabian League.
At this time, the Swabian League had in fact been defeated by the mercenaries of Zurich. The only ones who can confront the Swiss head-on are the emperor's army.
Ever since, the remnants of the Swabian League marched to Graubünden one after another to join the emperor's army, let the emperor's army be the main force, and they were 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 several elite troops of Maximilian I was no worse than that of the Swiss.
Especially Bowen Gardner and Height Basque, who had learned two hands from Marin, have become the phalanx leaders of the two most elite infantry phalanxes under the emperor's command.
The phalanx trained by these two men is famous 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 these two are still using Marin's earliest tactics. For example, long-range firepower is the use of archers, not the muskets of the Spanish phalanx that Marin is now promoting.
However, it's no wonder, after all, when the two of them followed Marin, Marin hadn't started to promote the use of muskets yet. So, they are using Marin's "version 1.0" phalanx, and Marin has now upgraded to a "version 2.0" Spanish phalanx, but they haven't had time to follow suit. After all, the news transmission was backward in this era, and they didn't send officers to East Frisia to study like the Spaniards, so it's normal not to know.
In addition, Maximilian I also had to take care of the emotions of the Duke of Saxony. After all, Marin just defeated the Duke of Saxony. Maximilian I insisted on admitting that Marin's status had offended the Duke of Saxony, and sending someone to learn the new phalanx tactics from Marin would definitely be putting salt on the Duke of Saxony's wound. After all, Maximilian I still hoped that the Saxon nobles would vote for him in the Imperial Parliament.
The Spaniards and the Teutons are different. They don't make good friends with Saxony, and there is no need to look at the Saxons. Therefore, they dared to send people to Marin to "learn from the scriptures" swaggeringly, without worrying about the reaction of the Saxons.
Speaking of which, the 1.0 version of the phalanx learned by Bowen Gardner and Height Basque is actually very powerful. It is really no problem to deal with the general phalanx.
However, times are constantly changing. When Marin created the 1.0 version of the phalanx, the Swiss were still on the rise, not so rich, and there were very few soldiers equipped with breastplate armor.
But now that 6 years have passed, 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, and had money to buy expensive breastplate armor and helmets.
Therefore, the elite mercenaries in Switzerland now basically wear breastplate armor in the first three rows, and are no longer the poor army with a low armor rate.
In the face of blows from bows and arrows, the protection of breastplate armor and helmets is very good. Therefore, in the phalanx led by Bowen Gardner and Height Basque, the blows of the archers were actually not good.
When Maximilian I sent his army north to fight the Swiss head-on, he suffered a loss. Under the onslaught of the Swiss, the main force of Maximilian I was repulsed. Only the two phalanxes of Bowen Gardner and Height Basque stubbornly withstood the onslaught of the Swiss. It's just that their bows and arrows have very limited damage 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, Maximilian I, who was full of ambition, made his first attack, and it ended so hastily...
Not only that, but the Swiss are actually not happy to see Maximilian I occupying the Graubünden region. Because the terrain in the Graubünden area is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Being occupied by such a good place 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, Graubünden has strong passes to the north and west, which can be resisted. Otherwise, Maximilian I's army might collapse thousands of miles.
Although the Swiss attack was blocked, something went wrong inside the Graubünden area. Previously, under the pressure of the emperor, the three major forces that originally ruled the Graubünden region—the Alliance of the House of God, the Alliance of Gray Cloths, and the Alliance of Ten Jurisdictions, saw that Maximilian I was deflated, and they were also ready to move...
Although they were disarmed by Maximilian I before, this era is the era of cold weapons, and it is still very easy to rebuild spears.
So, they organized blacksmiths to build weapons secretly, and regrouped in private. Some teams have already begun to attack the emperor's supply troops in the rear, and have taken away a lot of weapons and armor.
The emperor's armor was basically produced in 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 front line of Graubünden, many of them were 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, overtly and covertly tripping up the emperor. They all wished that the emperor would completely lose to the Swiss and lose the Graubünden region.
Even Louis XII, who was far away in Naples, got involved. When he heard that the emperor was defeated by the Zurich coalition forces in Switzerland, he immediately released 5,000 Swiss mercenaries and asked them to help the people of Zurich. 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 forces defeat the emperor and drive Maximilian I out of the Graubünden area.
Once Maximilian I was driven out from the Graubünden area, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan who retreated to the Tellina Valley to the south of the Mistel Valley, would lose his rear. At that time, the Swiss occupying Graubünden will be able to attack back and forth with the French and completely wipe out Ludovico Sforza's remnant army. Even if they can't be eliminated, they can be trapped to death.
Because, the current source of supplies for Ludovico Sforza's remnant army stationed in the Tellina Valley is mainly from the Graubünden area sent by Maximilian I through the Mistel Valley.
In short, the emperor's reckless involvement in the Swabian War triggered a series of chain reactions. Even more, because of the defeat, it caused a lot of evil consequences.
In a word - the emperor fell into a pit...
Moreover, this time it was the emperor who jumped into the pit on his own initiative. But Maximilian I had to jump. After all, if he did not protect the Swabian League and let it be wiped out by the Swiss, he would have no allies in the Imperial Parliament to speak for him...