Chapter 81 Nine accidents

They were 3,500 people.The forwards are arranged to a quarter of a league wide.Those were giants on tall horses.They are divided into twenty-six teams, in addition to the Lefebvre-De Nuet division, one hundred and sixty excellent military police, the sniper team of the Habayashi Army, 1,197 people, and Habayashi The army's spear team, with 880 spears, all followed behind, ready to help at any time.They wear tasselless iron helmets and armor, and carry short spears and long swords in their spears.The whole army had already looked at them enviously in the morning.It was nine o'clock, and the bugles sounded, and the bands of the whole army played "We Defend the Empire," and they came in close file, with a battery of artillery beside them, and a battery of artillery, Scattered in two lines on the road from Genappe to Frieschemont, their position was a strong second line of defense, wisely drawn by Napoleon, with Kellermann's armor at the extreme left. Cavalry, at the far right end there are Millau's cavalry, we can say that they are the two iron wings on the left and right of the second line of defense.

Adjutant Bernard conveyed the order.Ney drew his sword and took the lead.The brigade was dispatched. The momentum at that time was really frightening. The whole team of cavalry, with their long swords held high, with the sound of banners and trumpets fluttering in the wind, each division formed a column, moved in unison, like one person, as accurate as the indestructible bronze sheep's head, rushed straight down from Jiameng Slope, and penetrated into the bed of corpses The dangerous land disappeared in the smoke, and then passed through the smoke, appearing at the other end of the valley, always dense, close to each other, one behind the other, passing through the flowering bombs that rushed towards them like a dark cloud, rushing to the edge of the Saint-John hill. Up steep and muddy slopes.They galloped from bottom to top, neatly, bravely, and calmly. When the sound of guns and guns was occasionally interrupted, we could hear the sound of the army stamping on the ground.Since they were two divisions, they formed two columns, Vatier's on the right and Delors on the left.Looking from a distance, it looks like two pythons with steel and iron bones crawling towards the ridge of the highland.Like a beast passing through the battle clouds.

Not since the capture of the Moskva fort had there been such a charge of cavalry, and this time Murat was absent, but Ney was nonetheless involved.That large group of people seemed to have turned into a monster with only one heart.Each squadron stretches and twists like coelenterate segments.We can always spot them from the cracks in the smoke.Countless iron helmets, roars, white knives, and Majiri galloping amidst the sound of cannons and drums, the momentum is fierce and orderly, and what is revealed on the upper layer is the dragon-scale breastplate. This narrative seems to belong to another era.This kind of scene has indeed been seen in the ancient poems of Zhiyi. The kind of horse man, half-horse and half-human, with a human face and a horse body, gallops on the top of Mount Olympus. It is ugly, fierce, invincible, magnificent, and is a god It is also a beast.

The numerical coincidence is also rare, twenty-six battalions of infantry faced off against twenty-six squadrons of knights.Behind the summit of the high ground, the British infantry, under the cover of the concealed artillery, was divided into thirteen squares, and every two battalions formed a square, and they were arranged in two rows, seven in front and six in back, with their guns on their shoulders. Going up, aiming at the oncoming enemy, calm, silent and waiting, they can't see the armored cavalry, and the armored cavalry can't see them either.They only heard the people coming here like a wave.They heard the growing noise of the three thousand horses, the alternate and regular stamping of the horses' hoofs at a gallop, the scraping of the armor, the clanging of the swords, and a wild, violent panting.After a terrible silence, suddenly a long arm raised the steel knife appeared on the top, and there were iron helmets, trumpets and banners, and three thousand heads with gray mustaches shouted in unison: "Long live the emperor! "All the cavalry had rushed to the high ground, and there was a situation like the sky falling apart.

Suddenly, it was terrible to see, at the left end of the British army, and at the right end of our army, the horses of the vanguard of the iron cavalry column all stood upright amidst the shouts that shook the mountains.They rushed to the highest point of the ridge, and when they were about to annihilate the cavalry of the artillery and phalanx, they suddenly found a ditch between them and the British army, a deep ditch, that is the concave road of Oan . That moment was earth-shattering.The chasm appeared unexpectedly, with its mouth wide open, hanging directly under the hooves of the horses, with a depth of four meters between the two walls, the second row facing the first row, the third row facing the second row, and the horses all They all stood up, fell backwards, sat on their hips, and slid down on all fours. The knights were all squeezed out, piled up in a pile, and they could never retreat. The whole column was like a cannonball designed to destroy the British This impetus was applied to the French, and the uncrossable ravine was unwilling to stop until it was filled. The cavalry and horses turned upside down, one on top of the other, and all rolled down, forming a whole mass in the abyss. Flesh and blood, after the ditch was filled with living people, the rest of the people stepped over them.Almost a third of the Dubois brigade was lost in that chasm.

Since then the war has been lost. There is a local legend, of course exaggerated, that 2,000 horses and 1,500 people were pitted in that concave road in Oan.This figure may not be far from the truth if the total of the bodies thrown down on the second day of the battle is included. It may be added, by the way, that it was the same fateful Dubois brigade that had penetrated alone and captured the banner of the Lüneburg battalion an hour before. Napoleon had surveyed the terrain before ordering Millau's cavalry to attack, but he did not see the concave road that did not show even a trace on the high ground.But the little white chapel, which showed the difference between the concave road and the Rue Neville, reminded him and put him on his guard, so he asked the guide Lacoste a question, perhaps asking whether there was any obstacle ahead.The guide answered no.We could almost say that Napoleon's collapse was caused by the peasant shaking his head.

There are other reasons for failure as well. Napoleon is going to win this time, is it possible?We say impossible.Why?Because of Wellington?Is it because of Blücher?neither.Providence. If Napoleon had won at Waterloo, it would have violated the laws of the nineteenth century.A series of events were already brewing, which would force Napoleon to no longer have a foothold.The situation is unfavorable and has a long history. The time has come for the giant to fall. The excess weight of that man upset the balance of human destiny.He alone is greater than all mankind.If all the energies of all mankind were concentrated in one head, if the whole world were concentrated in one brain, that state of affairs, if continued, would be the end of civilization.The time has come for the realization of the supreme and immutable axioms.The principles and factors which determine the inevitable tendencies of the spiritual and of the material have felt injustice.The steaming blood, the overcrowded cemetery, the weeping mother are powerful indictments.Since the human world is already suffering from unbearable burdens, in the dark, there will be a mysterious moan that reaches the heavens.

Napoleon has been accused in heaven, and his downfall is sealed. He displeases God. Far from being a battle, Waterloo is a renewal of the face of the universe.