The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 1303: War is inevitable
Puertoliano.

For Cabrera, whether the Spanish Republic surrendered or not, his mission would not change, which was to deal with the Austrians.

Now having surrendered to the Spanish Republic, his army was again supplied, but received no reinforcements.

Cabrera understood what Ferrante Duval meant, and the former had to prove his loyalty to the latter. Cabrera thought that if he voted for the Spanish Republic, his reputation would be better.

After all, I was forced into this in the past. It was all Carlos VI's fault. Now that I have turned from evil to good, everyone should forgive me.

This was just Cabrera's fantasy before the Spanish guerrillas broke through the Puertoliano defense headquarters.

In fact, Cabrera's army was full of evil and had long been at odds with nearby residents. On the other hand, the atrocities committed by the Spanish government army were also spread to the Austrian-occupied areas through countless fleeing people.

This made the Spaniards in the occupied area both fearful and angry. Some of them privately organized troops to go to the border to help the resistance army, while others began to consolidate the city's defenses.

After learning that the Austrian Empire was indeed preparing to evacuate, panic reached its peak. Emotions can be transformed into each other, and fear at its extreme can turn into anger.

The Spanish Legion organized by the Austrian Empire began to redouble their training efforts. They were determined to defend their homeland, their own homeland, at all costs.

In addition, the number of people willing to leave Spain and go to the colonies has also greatly increased. After all, leaving here can also escape from the clutches of the devil. The world is so big, why hang yourself here?
The Austrian Empire has always been very tolerant in its policy towards colonial immigrants. They receive wages and bonuses while alive, pensions and funerals when they die, and ship tickets, seeds, and equipment can all be purchased on credit.

In the past, even if Spain was hopelessly rotten, most people would still be unwilling to leave their hometown.

However, this time it was different. After seeing the prosperity and order brought by the rule of the Austrian Empire, they could no longer tolerate the bullying and darkness of the past.

The Spanish were not lacking in adventurous spirit. After all, it was they who started the Age of Discovery.

The soldiers and officers of the Austrian Empire also made their own judgments based on what they saw and felt during their time in Spain. Not to mention the soldiers and low-ranking officers, even in the entire Austrian Imperial military, few people knew Franz's plan.

They did not understand what was the point of training the Spaniards, and what was the point of building city walls? After all, in the eyes of the Austrian soldiers, the Spaniards were too weak, and building defenses was nonsense, after all, they were the attackers.

However, at this time, the soldiers of the Austrian Empire were working harder to complete their tasks, and some even decided to stay and fight to the end with the Spaniards.

The priests accompanying the army were the most excited. They talked nonsense all day long and spread those so-called prophecies everywhere.

The local church in Spain simply followed the example of the Austrian church and began selling church property and recruiting troops. The military and political officials of the Austrian Empire in Spain also acquiesced in this behavior.

It was not until the news of Ferrante Doyle's regicide arrived that the Austrian Empire immediately changed its attitude and all troops stopped retreating and remained stationed in place.

The Spaniards immediately ignited the fire of hope. They did not have to wait too long. The emperor's order soon came from Vienna - to eliminate the rebels and completely liberate Spain.

The Austrian army, which was already unhappy with the enemy, immediately launched a counterattack. In fact, the counterattack plan had been formulated long ago, and even intelligence gathering work had not been neglected.

But they are soldiers after all, and it is their duty to obey orders, so they only have plans but have not implemented them. But they come in handy at this moment.

The Austrian Imperial Army entered the border area for the second time. This time, the local Spaniards were more enthusiastic than the first time. It can be said that the people warmly welcomed them wherever they went.

The guerrillas were happier than the people, and those Spanish guerrillas joined the Austrian army one after another. Cabrera's army was in trouble. They were already exhausted by the guerrillas, and now the Austrian army was approaching. Many people who had joined the army had already started to run away.

The rest were desperate criminals, who knew they could not get the so-called forgiveness, so they became even crazier. However, the disadvantages in equipment, tactics, intelligence, and numbers could not be overcome by craziness.

The Austrian Empire's airships were no longer a new trick on the battlefield, but in the eyes of the Spanish Republican Army, they were an unsolvable existence.

No weapon they knew of could effectively damage the airship, and the airship could bypass all defenses they knew of.

The gap is even greater in conventional weapons such as rifles and artillery. At this time, Spain's armaments may not be as good as during the anti-French war, while the Austrian Empire's armaments have been updated and iterated countless times.

The same is true in tactics. The old-fashioned formations are sitting ducks in front of new artillery and rockets. Even the craziest of teams cannot withstand continuous bombardment.

In terms of intelligence, it was one-way transparent to the Austrian Empire. Cabrera's army not only did not know where the Austrian Empire's army was, how many people there were, when, and where to launch the attack, they did not even know the strength of their own troops.

Because the communications of Cabrera's Legion in the border area had long been cut off by the guerrillas, the battlefield of the 19th century was not an RTS game that could monitor every detail of the battlefield at any time.

The commander must piece together the current battlefield picture from the vast amount of true and false intelligence, but now Cabrera is facing a situation where he doesn't even have a chance to put the puzzle together.

When the main force of the Austrian Empire suddenly appeared outside the city of Puertoliano, it was too late for Cabrera to mobilize the army. He didn't even know how the Austrian army broke through the front line of defense.

Cabrera built several bastions on the routes that the Austrian Imperial Army had to pass. Bastion was definitely a defensive weapon in that era. Usually, the enemy could only be defeated by heavy siege and depletion of morale and food.

Although Cabrera's bastions were made in a makeshift and crude manner, there was enough time to warn the surrounding area before the bastions were captured.

However, Cabrera forgot who built these bastions. The residents of Real Province hated him and his army, and the engineers and civilian workers who were temporarily conscripted left loopholes.

This information was revealed to the Austrian military before the war, so the Austrian army was able to capture Cabrera's bastion at an unimaginable speed.

When the Austrian Imperial Army arrived at the city of Puertoliano, the people in the city began to riot. The wealthy people, led by Mayor Volta, had been preparing for this day for a long time.

Countless weapons were distributed to the citizens, and the guerrillas who had secretly infiltrated the city began to set fires everywhere. Judging from the degree of chaos, the situation inside the city was worse than outside.

The war was also accompanied by huge sacrifices. The city was in chaos both inside and outside. Airships dropped glass containers filled with white phosphorus from the sky, and people on the city walls were turned into fire and fell down from time to time.

From time to time, citizens drove carriages loaded with asphalt and kerosene towards the city gate. The raging fire and choking smoke made the soldiers guarding the city hesitate.

But the officer guarding the city didn't care about that. He waved his whip to drive the soldiers forward to put out the fire. But how could the guerrillas in the city let them do as they wished?

Shots were fired from time to time, targeting the defenders who came forward to put out the fire. For a moment, the defenders were in a panic and no one was willing to go forward and die.

The fire spread quickly. Seeing that there was no hope of extinguishing the fire, the desperate officers began to massacre the soldiers. The soldiers would not allow themselves to be slaughtered, so they worked together to push the officers into the sea of ​​fire.

The flames grew stronger and stronger, causing the city gates to crackle and the city walls to turn red, and thick smoke rose straight into the sky.