Since the Clay tribe's night attack failed, a large number of Clay tribe's cavalry divided into small teams and continued to harass the expeditionary force like crazy. No matter day or night, there would be small groups of Clay tribe warriors coming from different directions. Naturally, Fengxing Archer, who was in charge of scouting when trying to get close to the expeditionary force, would not let them achieve their goal easily. Therefore, in the past ten days, dozens of small-scale battles broke out every day.
Although the Fengxing shooters are Cassano's elite, they will still feel tired and injured and bleed. After encountering a suicide attack by the Clay tribe, there will inevitably be casualties. Therefore, when the expeditionary force marches close to the location of the Clay tribe chief, When the Jinghu Camp was less than 300 kilometers away, at least more than 200 Fengxing shooters died in the line of duty. Although they killed 20 times the enemy force, Ryan still felt a little sad in his heart.
In the past 29 days, the Imperial Expeditionary Force penetrated more than 2,500 kilometers into the grasslands, destroyed more than 40 Clay settlements along the way, and annihilated more than 18,000 Clay warriors. According to the intelligence collected by the Fengxing shooters, it is obvious that The Clay tribe has shrunk its forces and concentrated them in the Mirror Lake area. Although Orlando still doesn’t know how many enemies there are, one thing is certain, that is, as the leader of the Clay tribe, Chief Abdul has chosen to station troops in Mirror Lake. , the next main decisive battle will inevitably be near there,
The Imperial Capital Expeditionary Force is now less than 300 kilometers away from Dijing Lake. If you ride a fast horse for a long distance, you can reach this distance in one day and overnight. However, Orlando does not intend to use this method because it is too risky. , if you are a little careless, your whole army will be wiped out. It is better to advance steadily and step by step.
Chief Abdul in Mirror Lake naturally has the same idea. Now he has gathered 100,000 elite Clay shooters and 350,000 auxiliary troops. This huge army of 450,000 sounds enough to make any Clay tribesman's blood boil, because The last time the Clay tribe had this number of archers was hundreds of years ago. At that time, the Seven Kingdoms Rebellion on the mainland had just begun.
Abdul looked at the densely packed people on the grassland with complacency at Jinghu Lake, and was determined to fight the main battle with the expeditionary force. As the master of the grassland, Chief Abdul had an innate advantage, that is, he could choose the location of the battlefield. , maximize your own advantages,
The Imperial Expeditionary Force and the Clay Army approached cautiously, and the cavalry units from both sides began to come into contact, and this contact soon evolved into a small-scale battle. The cavalry units invested by both sides became larger and larger, and finally a series of battles broke out. After the battle, each side confirmed the other's intentions, and slowly chose the plan that was most beneficial to them and started the layout before the decisive battle.
Chief Abdul led a 450,000-strong Clay army to set up camp in the west of Ouranos Ranch. Ouranos Ranch is about 50 kilometers away from Mirror Lake. Its terrain is slightly higher in the west and lower in the east. It is relatively It is suitable for cavalry charges, and the terrain is wide, but having hundreds of thousands of troops line up in a formation will push the Clay tribe's numerical advantage to its limit.
For Orlando, since Chief Abdul has led his troops to block his way to the west, the only choice he can make is to go up to them for a decisive battle, because the water source on the grassland that can supply tens of thousands of people with drinking water is limited. , even if Orlando wants to take risks, it is impossible to lead a large army around Abdul's military camp. Even if the latter ignores him, Orlando still has to find enough drinking water.
When the two sides set up camps 20 kilometers apart, the cavalry contact with each other was no longer carried out. Both sides had a tacit understanding to control the scope of their army's activities within a small area and no longer control the other side as much as possible. The provocation in the area suddenly returned to the previous calm on the prairie, but everyone knew very well that this was just the short quiet before the storm.
Soon, the Androkos couple, whose magic power was exhausted, provided Orlando with information. At the cost of exhausting their own magic power, they detected through the "Magic Eye" that there were about 40 people stationed in the Clay military camp 20 kilometers away. To 500,000 soldiers, although this information is very inaccurate, it is also the best information that the Imperial Capital Expeditionary Force can collect.
This time the Imperial Capital Expeditionary Force brought 40,000 infantry and 20,000 heavy troops. In addition to Cassano's 5,000 popular archers, there were only 5,000 Royal Knights who had been hiding their whereabouts. They faced an enemy force seven times their own. Orlando thought repeatedly about the strength of his troops and finally decided on a plan to fight behind the camp.
Since the later the Royal Knights appear, the more fatal blow they will have to the Clay army, so Orlando decided to use his own military camp as a benchmark to arrange the battlefield on the spot, because once the Royal Knights enter a fighting state, no matter who is human, All horses will be wearing armor, and such an obvious mark can be seen by the opponent at a glance, so the camp must be used as a basis to continue to block the news of the Royal Knights going to war.
In addition, since all the Clay tribe are cavalry, if the expeditionary force moves forward in an infantry square formation, it will inevitably be harassed by the Clay tribe's cavalry. There are many opponents. If the divisions take turns to snipe, the expeditionary army will probably be overwhelmed. , so relying on the camp to lure the opponent to attack is the most correct choice.
After the Clay tribe's brigade arrives, the imperial expeditionary force can first rely on the camp position to defend, engage in a war of attrition with the opponent with bows and arrows, and then let the Royal Knights launch a charge at the critical moment. If they can break through the enemy's formation, Then the warriors of Jonas Legion will then mount their war horses and follow Orlando’s holy knights to attack the Clay tribe, and finally completely defeat the Clay tribe’s army.
After the entire combat plan was formulated, the expeditionary force immediately became busy. This time, the 20,000 logistics personnel accompanying the team were all carefully selected soldiers from other armies. They not only had to undertake the task of building defensive camps, but also He is responsible for staying behind and guarding the expeditionary camp after Jonas Legion launches an attack.
As the highest military officer of the imperial capital, General Orlando will naturally consider the war from many aspects. In preparing for the main battle, Orlando also decided to hand over an important task to Ryan, that is, let Ryan lead the popular shooters from Cassano. Detouring overnight and lurking near Mirror Lake, after the main decisive battle begins the next day, Ryan and the others can take the opportunity to launch an attack on the Clay tribe's camp in Mirror Lake. Once successful, this will definitely have a devastating impact on the morale of the Clay tribe's main force. deadly,
Of course, since the Imperial Capital Expeditionary Force came from afar, they were not completely aware of the terrain here. Even Orlando, who is known as the God of War among the people, did not know that there were towering peaks to the north of the Clay Tribe’s Mirror Lake Camp and endless mountains to the south. It's a huge lake. Unless the wind-traveling archer has wings, it's really not an easy task to pass through the chasm in a short time.
As for Ryan, the commander of this partial division, he never expected that on the eve of the decisive battle between the Imperial Expeditionary Force and the main force of the Clay tribe, a huge conspiracy would be revealed in his second hometown of Cassano. Silently shrouded in the sky,