Blake, it may be mentioned, did not content himself with setting the Empecinado and Duran in motion, he tried another division in another quarter with even less result. Rumours had reached him that King Joseph’s Army of the Centre was about to co-operate with Suchet, by sending a column across the mountains to Cuenca and Requeña. The news was false, for though Napoleon had ordered the King to do what he could to help in the invasion of Valencia, Joseph had replied that he had not even one brigade to spare for a serious demonstration, and had not moved--the guerrilleros gave sufficient occupation to his much-scattered army, of which a large portion was composed of untrustworthy Spanish _Juramentados_. But, listening to vain reports, Blake ordered Mahy to collect the best of his Murcian troops and to march on Cuenca to meet the supposed invaders. His subordinate, leaving Freire in command in Murcia, took seven selected battalions of foot under Creagh and the Marquis of Montijo, with 800 horse and one battery, and moved from his camp at Mula by Hellin and Chinchilla northward. The distance to be covered was great, the roads after Chinchilla very bad. Mahy arrived in front of Cuenca on October 15th, to find that there was only one battalion and two squadrons of Joseph’s army there. This little force evacuated the high-lying city in haste, and fled towards Madrid the moment that the Murcians showed themselves. No other French force could be heard of in any direction. At Cuenca Mahy received a dispatch from Blake (who had apparently discovered his mistake about the Army of the Centre), telling him to descend from the mountains by Moya and Liria, and to join the wing of the main army, which lay under Obispo at Segorbe. It was only on the 23rd October that he came in: his troops, the pick of the Murcian army, had been completely wasted for some twenty days in a circular march against a non-existent enemy. Meanwhile every man had been wanted in Valencia.