New Montmore, Command Post of the Cavalry Brigade of the Desay Division.

After receiving the reply from the leader of the Desai Division on the Lisbon summons, Desnuet gradually woke up from his fantasy of winning without fighting. He realized that something had become wrong, because the two cavalry squadrons who were on the current mission and the engineer platoon who were later dispatched to draw water had not been reported to the brigade headquarters for 24 hours. This was obviously unreasonable. Captain Cedro, who had been in the army for nearly 10 years, could not make such a low-level mistake.

Soon, Duke Hruna's new intelligence adjutant, Lieutenant Jacques, also rushed to the commander of the brigade. After he dealt with the "Diago's funeral" and rectified the black armed forces accompanying the army, he also learned that the outpost troops were very likely to have an accident.

"What's the latest news about your intelligence department?" As soon as we met, Desnuet asked Jacques.

The lieutenant shook his head and received the last piece of information from the Lisbon Intelligence Station, only a few days ago. It was mainly about Diego's affair with the Lisbon nobles. There was no information about the coalition's defense at the Monsanto Mountain Pass.

"In two minutes, one of my cavalry squadrons will be sent to the village of Monsantu to contact Captain Cederro and re-investigate the mountain pass area. Lieutenant, are you willing to lead the team?" Desnuet asked.

"Of course!" Jacques nodded, frowning, not very much in his heart with the general's optimism. After hesitating for a while, the intelligence officer decided to speak out his concerns in his heart: "Maybe it's too late, General! Please forgive me for your presumptuous words, Captain Cedro and others, and perhaps us, fall into the trap carefully designed by the British and Portuguese!"

"Don't worry about this. In the face of absolute strength, no conspiracy will have much effect!" When he said this, Desnuet's expression seemed very confident. The general who was eager to fight added: "Three hours after you arrive in Monsanto Village, my cavalry brigade will also arrive there. If something really unfortunate happens, I will personally lead the team to capture Monsanto Mountain Pass, so that the British and Portuguese will deeply regret the despicable and shameless conspiracy they imposed!"

Jacques knew General Desnuet's character, and saw that he had made up his mind and stopped talking, he stood attentively and stepped out. As soon as he went out, he saw Sergeant Thias yawning, leaning crookedly outside the command post, waiting for him.

"What's the matter?" Jacques asked. If there was no urgent matter, Thias would usually let the black messenger report. In order to cooperate with him to clean up the remaining part of Diego, the sergeant in front of him had not closed his eyes for two days and two nights, and his face was exhausted.

"The black camp sent people to report that a fugitive slave saw a fugitive near the Pass of Monsantu Mountain and saw that the coalition forces captured nearly 300 officers and soldiers of our army, including the French and the Poles. I suspect that the prisoners were the outpost troops." Tias said.

Jacques was shocked, and he quickly turned around and called a guard outside the command post, asking him to lead Sergeant Thias to report to General Desnuet. Soon, Desnuet revised the order and ordered all officers and soldiers of the cavalry brigade to be prepared to set off within an hour. As for the reunion with Duke Hruna, the commander of the cavalry brigade assigned his adjutant to do his job in full force.

In the afternoon, when Lieutenant Jacques arrived at the village of Monsantu with a cavalry squadron, the empty village had been destroyed by an artificial fire, full of ruins, smoke and dust floating around, and disgusting smell. As for Captain Cedro and his troops, including a platoon of water-drawing engineers, disappeared without a trace.

Lieutenant Jacques asked the soldiers to find a piece of unclean white cloth from the ruins and tied it to a hollow branch. He then ordered: "Two people followed me to continue to march towards the mountain pass, and the others set up warning posts on the spot, waiting for General Desnuet."

...

At the forefront of the coalition positions, on the side of the scattered line, General Hill heard a group of people yelling something. He looked in the sound and saw more than a dozen Portuguese soldiers holding bayonets and surrounding three French cavalry, one of which was a French official, holding a white flag in his hand.

The Portuguese kept spitting dirty words from their mouths, but the French were always calm.

"What happened?" Major Alvin ran past the general and asked the soldiers with a majestic look on his face.

"Haha, report to the sir, we have made contributions. We have just captured three disoriented French scouts!" An ugly sergeant expressed his merits in his proud and proud self-satisfaction.

"Bastard, you didn't see the white flag in the hands of the French, nor did you carry any weapons?" Major Alvin looked very angry.

"Oh, I didn't pay much attention to this. Sir, I just know that the French are all bastards! They should all fall into hell and join the demons!" The Portuguese sergeant who was criticized by the major also felt unhappy.

Several coalition officers who were still watching the fun not far away hurried over and shouted and drove away the nonsense Portuguese sergeant and his soldiers. The officers recognized Major Alvin and General Hill who came behind the adjutant.

After learning the truth from the officer leading the team, Hill turned over and dismounted, accompanied by the adjutant, and walked straight to the front of the Francisco. At this time, Lieutenant Jacques had jumped to the ground and stood there, but the two followers behind him were still on the horse's back, looking around with caution.

"I am General Roland Hill, the highest commander of the coalition forces stationed in Lisbon!" General Hill revealed his identity to the visitors in French.

Jacques saluted respectfully and said, "Joseph Jacques, the lieutenant adjutant of the Duke of Hruna." He concealed his true identity as an intelligence officer. In fact, Jacques was not wrong. As the supreme commander of the division, Desai had several adjutants, including military adjutants, guard adjutants, intelligence adjutants, and entourage adjutants, etc.

Hill asked, "Well, Lieutenant Jacques, as the messenger of the Duke of Desay, what is your purpose?"

"Discuss on the surrender of your army to the Desay Division!" Jacques, who acted as a messenger, straightened his torso and said seriously.

After hearing the arrogant words of the French messenger, the coalition officers couldn't help laughing. However, their commander did not smile at all, because Hill realized an extremely awkward problem. He sighed secretly and said, "I'm sorry, Lieutenant Jacques! On the territory of Portugal, the surrendered party should belong to the invader!"

Jacques nodded, stopped insisting, and then said, "Okay, General! Please return Captain Cedro and his entourage to me. As a civilized gentleman, it is irrational and immoral to detain our surrendered envoys without permission!"

This is the second time the coalition commander has been criticized by the French officers today. The previous time was the captured engineer lieutenant. Similarly, General Hill blushed and speechless, and it is difficult to deal with it. As an honest person, he cannot open his eyes and tell lies.

Seeing this, Major Alvin, who was standing by, came to help him. He tried his best to argue: "Lieutenant, Captain Cedro and his subordinates are all fine, but at the wrong time and in the wrong place, they encountered a wrong thing. Therefore, they must stay in the Lisbon barracks for a while until the Desay Division retreated to Evora, our army will be released unconditionally."

Jacques smiled and asked with a sarcastic expression: "Does this mean I will be detained by you and stay in the prisoner-of-war camp for a few days? This is also good, I can complete the task assigned by the duke and visit Captain Cedro and others in the coalition prisoner-of-war camp." As he said that, as a messenger, he threw away the white flag in his hand, turned around, held his hands, and looked like he was surrendering.

At this time, even the onlookers were stunned. If we had successfully captured Cedero and others with tricks and lies before, there were still some reasons to make excuses, but once the French messenger was also put into the prisoner-of-war camp, the coalition forces would be disgraced and questioned by all European countries, because this seriously violated the minimum code of war between the two countries.

"Lieutenant Jacques, Captain Cedro and others will be released within two weeks, no matter what the situation is. And now, your mission has been completed, please leave the battlefield as soon as possible." As a last resort, Hill had no choice but to stand up again and issue this order to expel the guest.

On the way back, the two entourages reported to the lieutenant what they observed: the coalition soldiers arranged a scattered line at the front of the position, but it was not firm and could only serve as a warning post. But not far from the entrance of the mountain pass, they observed that the coalition had set up a solid line of defense, including at least 4 artillery barricades, 15 to 20, and even more artillery...

"What else?" Jacques asked, asking these two soldiers with great eyes to describe everything they saw.

After trying hard to recall, a soldier added: "It seems that there are still a group of black slaves blocking the stream on the mountain pass defense line. Well, by the way, an unlucky young black slave was tied to the trunk of a beech tree and was whipped by everyone."

Jacques looked unhappy. He was obviously dissatisfied with the results of this reconnaissance. He accidentally encountered the coalition commander who was inspecting on the enemy's strait line and failed to enter the defensive position to learn more about the coalition's defense situation inside the mountain pass.

In another hour, General Desnuet will mobilize the cavalry brigade to launch a large-scale attack on the Monsantu Mountain Pass, trying to break through the coalition line of the mountain pass when Duke Hruna arrives and make up for all previous mistakes.
Chapter completed!