Before Desai left Krakow and set out for Dresden for the meeting, he had a secret meeting with the Warsaw Parliamentary Finance Minister Serchiak Earl Serchiak Earl. During this period, in addition to the normal official duties he had ostensibly performed, Desai was also trying his best to win over the Parliamentary Finance Minister who belonged to the enemy camp, a noble with liberal tendencies.

To this end, Desai promised that when Napoleon's army crossed the Neman River and occupied the capital of Lithuania, he said that he would let the Warsaw Parliament monopolize the glory of regaining the homeland occupied by Russia. As for him, he would not interfere, and even actively cooperate.

However, Desai still kindly poured a basin of cold water on the patriots in advance, informing the emperor that it was impossible to return Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other such as the above to the revived Poland.

As expected, the Polish Parliament delegation came happily and returned home in disgrace.

In anger, Secchiak resolutely decided to fulfill his oath that he had reached with Desai in Krakow. If the parliament successfully obtained Lithuania, then Desai, as the monarch, would openly accept the Warsaw Parliament as the supreme ruling institution of the country; otherwise, Secchiak and his family would support the absolute power of the monarch to be rebuilt in Warsaw.

As for the focus of the dispute between the two sides and the issue of releasing serfs, Secchiak wisely chose to give in. Of course, Desai promised to give his family a huge national compensation.

In addition, in Lithuania, Secchiak saw with his own eyes that the local ordinary people were very indifferent to their willingness to rejoin Poland, and many people also had a strong resistance. One of the main reasons was that these lower classes in Lithuania were extremely disgusted with Poland's darker serfdom. They were once incited by revolutionary thoughts, rather than accepting the enlightened and dedicated rule of the Russians than returning to the conservative and dark Poland.

The Lithuanian nobles who had vowed to join the Polish Federation, after Napoleon gave them the right to autonomy, immediately put all the promises made to the Polish delegation aside, regardless of the feelings of their former compatriots.

"If Your Majesty insists that the lifting of serfdom can restore Poland to its territory before 1764, then my family and political allies will obey any of your orders!" Serchiak said in his surrender to Desai.

Sechiak may not know that when the letter of application he wrote was delivered to Desai, the young Polish king immediately ordered a long-planned military plan to seize the dominance of Warsaw and Greater Poland by force.

"A civil war can finally be avoided!" Desai felt a little gloomy in his heart. If extreme wars can be avoided, domestic conflicts can be resolved peacefully, and the crown on his head will not be shaken, of course, it would be best.

After all, there are no heroes in the civil war. Even the winner will eventually be despised by history.

Soon, Desai told Lieutenant Colonel Jacques that he and his team would integrate the monarchies, Jacobins, Valeskis, and the Schiaks within two weeks to engage in legal political battles with the conservative aristocracies in the Warsaw Parliament, and to achieve two goals by August 1812:

First, unconditionally release serfs;

Second, all power of the country belongs to His Majesty Desai.

"In addition, whether those blacklisted assassination targets continue to be carried out is up to you, and I have granted you full authority. Remember, all I want is the final result, and the process will not be considered... So early in the morning of July 16, I will wait quietly in front of the telegraph. In addition, 120,000 fully armed troops will also wait in the Danze Corridor, Silesia and Little Poland. They will be waiting for my orders to launch an attack on Warsaw and Greater Poland; or turn east, cross the Neman River, and attack the Russians."

...

East Prussia, Konisburg (now Kaliningrad), the 10th Legion Command.

Marshal Etienne Macdonald unfortunately received the third letter of reprimand from Napoleon. The emperor believed that Duke Taranto and his 10th Legion were unable to cross the Neman River according to the scheduled deployment and schedule, and approached the large army in the direction of Lithuania.

"Damn it, who provided supplies to my soldiers along the way, Prussians, Poles, or Lithuanians?" MacDonald angrily threw down the emperor's letter at the desk, paced back and forth in the room in dismay.

In the eyes of this marshal, it was extremely stupid to launch a large-scale war on such a vast land, and it was extremely stupid to penetrate into the heart of Russia in this situation. This was simply a replica of the Egyptian expedition, and Napoleon still had not learned the lessons of his previous defeat.

To launch a large-scale battle, it is necessary to have good road conditions similar to those in central and northern France, not to mention sufficient food, drinking water, and ammunition. However, the frontline information shows that none of these necessary conditions are possessed by the army. On the contrary, 400,000 soldiers share a not-so-wide and bumpy main road with an astonishing number of livestock, vehicles, baggage, and artillery, which makes the road congested and it is difficult for the troops to reach their designated locations on time. Not to mention delays, some troops even lose their direction.

Russia's harsh climate has become even more chaotic.

First of all, the soldiers fell ill one after another. The soldiers of the 10th Legion alone had already fallen ill before they even went to war. After Macdonald sent several French-military medical officers to thoroughly investigate, the doctors unanimously determined that this was by no means a Prussian self-harm or a false alarm from the officers. As for other friendly forces, the non-combat attrition caused by the disease became more and more serious.

Thousands of soldiers had to carry the weight, and the sandstorms of 300,000 war horses suffocated the soldiers and animals. In an instant, there would be a heavy rain, sometimes lasting for several days, making the originally difficult roads muddy and the potholes even more difficult to walk. In the blink of an eye, the sun shone brightly and the ground became rugged. The ruts pressed by war horses and carriages were clearly visible.

The rugged roads not only hindered the speed of arms and food supply, but also seriously damaged the feet of soldiers and horses, destroying and scrapping a large number of carriages. From the French crossing the Neman River, scrapped equipment accumulated along the way blocked the passage. In order to renovate the vehicles, thousands of engineers worked day and night to repair, but the situation continued to deteriorate.

The worst thing is that thousands of heavy artillery were continuously trapped in the knee-high mud. For this reason, a team of hundreds of people and more horses had to help a cannon weighing thousands of kilograms be pulled out of the mud. However, a minute later, the soldiers had to repeat such rescue missions. Losing horses alone was an irreparable disaster.

Due to the unwell climate and the harassment of mosquitoes, war horses and pack horses suffered from epidemic diarrhea like soldiers. As a result, thousands of horses died suddenly on the march. The weather was so hot that the horse corpse emitted an unpleasant stench. When the soldiers passing by saw these scenes again and again, they could not help but feel sad about the death of the rabbit and the fox became even more depressed.

In this way, the exhausted infantry troops were overloaded and hungry, and their homesickness made them so much that they had to plunder and loot every village they passed by. The lack of drinking water was even worse, and malaria and typhoid fever were prevalent in the army.

Before fighting with the enemy, the morale of the European Union had plummeted, and he began to throw away the food and even ammunition he carried with him and fled everywhere. Even among the emperor's young guards, the young soldiers who were originally highly morale became depressed.

After crossing the Neman River, despite the obstruction of a large number of military police and patrols, Napoleon's army was abandoned, and the number of deserters increased sharply, reaching 20 to 30%, resulting in the sharp reduction of the French army's strength and almost losing its combat power.

As of the end of July 1812, the number of French front-line troops who crossed the Neman River and entered Lithuania had dropped from the original 400,000 to less than 300,000 (some say 250,000). Of course, more than 90% were non-combat reductions or a large number of deserters.

In late June, under the secret connection of Marshal Bertier, Chief of Staff of the Grand Legion, Macdonald and other French marshals and generals wrote letters to Emperor Napoleon, who had arrived in Werner. Many French generals fiercely opposed the war and continued to march to the east, believing that crossing the Neman River was not suicide, but also crazy.

However, Napoleon turned a deaf ear to this, showed his usual tough style of dictatorship, and ordered the troops to continue to move forward! As a result, the 300,000 surviving troops had to go forward with difficulty in experiencing hunger, disease and increasing misfortune of deserters.

Until mid-July, the first head-on confrontation with the Russian army had not begun, and the French army itself was almost about to collapse.

...

Regarding the bad situation facing the front commanders, MacDonald's most worried about Desay's silence. For weeks, he has been sending his commanders to Danze, asking Marshal Desay and the Baltic Navy to assemble at Konisberg and meet with the 10th Legion; in addition, the naval fleet anchored in the port of Danze also needs to provide various military supplies to the two troops.

However, Desai’s response to MacDonald is extremely rash every time he gives.

He first made an excuse for the lack of military pay and armour, and the soldiers had not completed the training. Later, Desai accused the Prussian authorities of not opening up the march passage in East Prussia to the Polish army. In the end, Desai simply claimed that there were a large number of traitors in the Prussian Legion (10th Legion) and was secretly engaged in peace talks with the Russians to plot against his Baltic Legion.

In short, Desai and his Polish army were not willing to accept McDonald's command, and were even more unwilling to join the Prussians with ulterior motives. As for the fleet to provide supplies along the way, no captain was willing to obey the orders of Konisburg.

On July 16, when the angry Marshal MacDonald decided to write to the emperor and sued Desay for delaying the military opportunity, he received news that Napoleon had left Werner.

A day later, the envoy sent by Desay unexpectedly came to Konysburg, claiming that the Baltic Legion would arrive at the estuary of the Neman River before July 20, and the two Legion would meet on the outskirts of Klaipeda.
Chapter completed!