Dimoubin's brow immediately furrowed.
Before he had stormed Genoa, a group of reckless young men had burned the warehouse storing the provisions, leaving him unable to obtain any food supplies from the city.
By the Crown Prince's order, he had to hold Genoa for two months. Yet the provisions for the twenty-odd days after that had still not been secured.
Over the past month, under the fierce assault of 50,000 enemy troops, his forces had suffered grievous casualties. If rations ran short again, the soldiers would likely collapse at once...
The ground trembled once more as Junot pushed open the door and rushed in. "Commander, the enemy has launched a large-scale attack from the north!"
Dimoubin hurriedly snatched up his hat and clapped it onto his head, then set his sixty-year-old legs in motion toward the north side front. After only a few steps, he turned back and shouted to the staff officer, "If any ship docks at the harbor, report to me immediately!"
"Yes, General!"
Junot led Dimoubin's warhorse over and said gloomily, "British warships are everywhere outside the harbor. Our ships simply cannot get in..."
With an attendant supporting him, Dimoubin laboriously climbed onto the horse, gasping for breath. "The Crown Prince promised me there would be supplies, so the supplies will certainly arrive.
"What we must do now is drive back those damned Austrians and hold this place!"
As he spoke, he cracked his whip and galloped through the dust toward a height ahead that offered a better view.
He took the Telescope handed over by his attendant, but instinctively looked first toward the harbor behind him. In his heart, he murmured, God bless me, let me see the transport ships soon...
Ten days earlier.
The northeastern Mediterranean Sea, in the Ligurian Sea near Genoa.
In