The campaign of the Duke of Saxony continued, while Marin was training the army while instilling in the soldiers the New Year of "We will win".
A lie told a thousand times becomes the truth. Of course, Marin is confident in fighting the Saxons. Therefore, it is not a lie to instill "we will win" in the New Year to the soldiers. When Marin sent officers to emphasize "we will win" dozens of times every day, most of the soldiers believed that they would be able to defeat the Saxons. Even the military officer in charge of propaganda emphasized this every day, and he believed it.
Marin's army has a total of 8 phalanxes, 4 of which are veterans. Marin customized three-quarter breastplates and iron helmets with movable masks for the soldiers in the first three rows of these phalanx veterans. In this way, when the front row and the enemy "injure each other", a sufficiently high survival rate can also be guaranteed.
As for the fighters behind, Marin did not customize the armor. One is the cost issue, and the other is that it is not necessary. After all, the possibility of the fighters in the back row being hit is much smaller than that in the front row. Moreover, wearing breastplates and helmets in the first three rows is actually to reassure the soldiers. Sometimes, wearing armor may not guarantee that you will not die. However, wearing armor and not wearing armor, self-confidence is completely different. And a confident army is not easy to collapse, on the contrary, an army lacking self-confidence is easy to collapse.
Speaking of which, among the fighters under Marin, only the first phalanx had fought a frontal encounter with the Frisian army on Texel Island. The psychological quality of these people is of course the best. And other veterans have only fought in street fighting, and only a small number of warriors can face the enemy calmly because they have this experience.
In addition, Marin must play more with less. Therefore, the confidence of the army is even more important. The first three rows have armor, so they are naturally more confident in withstanding the Saxon attack. With confidence, the battle will be much easier to fight.
After a long period of training, the combat effectiveness of Marin's army has been greatly improved, and it can be considered to be able to compete with the Saxons.
However, there are still problems. Because Marin's army is basically infantry with poor mobility. If the Saxons got on their horses and fled, Marin couldn't chase them. Only the 800 black-shirted knights could chase them, but they couldn't wipe out the thousands of knights on the other side, because it was too late to kill...
However, the core of Saxony is the thousands of plate armor knights. Because these knights are educated elites and the core of the Saxon army. Like those infantry soldiers, if they are recruited casually, there will be tens of thousands of them. They can be replenished if they die, and it is not a pity to die more.
Marin's purpose was to hurt the Duke of Saxony once, and make it difficult for him to recover. Therefore, the large-scale killing of the plate armor knights of the Saxons is the key point. As for infantry, it doesn't make much sense to kill more. Even if the Duke of Saxony escapes, he can recruit more next time.
It's also very annoying to say that Marin himself, after a lot of effort, only recruited more than 20 knights, and all of them were used as elite officers like treasures. As for the Duke of Saxony, he can gather thousands of them casually, almost catching up with the appeal of the King of France. Wandering knights are trained as the core in the Marin army, while in the Saxon army, many wandering knights act as heavy cavalry to charge...
Thinking of this, Marin burst into tears—you have so many plate armor knights, you can give me hundreds of them to be officers, but they are used as cannon fodder to charge...
This is the difference in background. In any case, the Duke of Saxony is a great nobleman who wants to be a veteran in Germany. The appeal of such aristocrats is much, much stronger than that of upstarts like Marin. Every year, a large number of young wandering knights rush to Saxony, asking to be taken in, even as a heavy cavalry...
And Marin took East Friesland at the end of last year, and there were no wandering knights to defect. The largest acquisition of wandering knights was "borrowed" from the Duke of Cleaver.
Originally, all wandering knights planned to defect to Marin. However, after Albrecht, the Duke of Saxony, expressed his hostile attitude, there were no knights to defect to Marin immediately, but to wait and see the situation first.
So, Marin has the heart to strangle the Duke of Saxony—you have so many knights working for you, it’s rare that a wandering knight wants to join me, you are an old bastard, and you still ruin my good deeds...
Moreover, Marin was not sure where the Saxon army invaded and where they met Marin's army.
If the Saxon army is allowed to enter and exit the territory freely, it will definitely cause great damage to the territory. Because the army in this era is no different from robbers.
However, Marin could not control the marching route of the Saxon army and restrain the opponent's behavior. Therefore, after much deliberation, Marin felt that there was only one way to control the course of action of the Saxon army, and that was—to fight...
The nobles in the Middle Ages still talked about demeanor. If the opponent declares a challenge, if you refuse to challenge, you will be ridiculed. Of course, this is mainly when the opponent is not stronger than you. If a very strong person challenges a weak person, and the other party refuses to challenge, no one will say anything. However, if a strong person is openly challenged by a weak person, if he refuses to fight, he will be ridiculed.
Just like Marin, if such a "weak" nobleman refuses the challenge of the Duke of Saxony, no one will say anything. But, conversely, if Marin challenges the Duke of Saxony, if the Duke of Saxony refuses to challenge, he will be laughed at. This is absolutely unbearable in the Middle Ages, where face is too big.
So, Marin decided to take the initiative to provoke the Saxon tool, make an appointment with the other party for the battle location, and control the marching route of the Saxon army...
After careful study of the map, Marin believed that it would be very advantageous to fight under the city of Lyle County. Although, fighting here will inevitably make the Saxon army pass through many villages in Leer County, leading to robberies. But, being in Lyle County, there are a lot of perks.
Because, to the west of Lyle County is the Ems River, which is very wide, and it is also convenient for Marin's ships to transport supplies. In addition, not far from the south of Lyle County is the Leda River. Although the river is not big, it is not small either. Marin's choice was in the middle of the two rivers.
The reason why this terrain was chosen was to prevent the Saxon army from fleeing. If the Saxon army wants to fight Marin decisively, it must cross the river first. Most of them came from the southeast to the mainland of the Principality of Saxony. To reach the city of Lyle, they had to cross the Leda River.
However, crossing the river is easy for infantry, but not easy for cavalry. Because the horses are very heavy, it is inconvenient and troublesome to cross the river. If the Saxon army is defeated, in the wilderness, Marin will definitely not be able to catch up with their main cavalry. However, if they cross the river to fight Marin, it will be different. Because, the cavalry who crossed the river wanted to cross the river back, and the time was not enough. Marin's men, even if they are mainly infantry, are motivated. When the opponent's cavalry lined up to cross the river and escape, they had time to catch up, leaving a large part of the cavalry behind.
After thinking about it, Marin wrote a letter to the Duke of Saxony who was still spreading rumors and building momentum. The content of the letter is very simple, the main meaning is—
"Old man, don't spread rumors. If you don't accept it, come to fight! At the beginning of December, I will wait for you outside Lyle County, see you there..."
In this way, the letter of challenge was sent to the Duke of Saxony, and Marin deliberately spread the news...
Such content, for Albrecht, Duke of Saxony, is definitely a super slap in the face. Because the one who provoked him was an unknown person from the aristocratic world, and to tell him, "Let's fight if you don't accept it", is to look down on him...
However, when the old and cunning Duke of Saxony saw the letter, he was very angry at first, but became happy instead...
Because, he saw that Marin said in the letter that the duel outside Lyle...
Before, the Duke of Saxony had been worried that Marin would hide in the city and defend. In this case, the Saxon army will have to spend a lot of effort to attack, which will be very troublesome and the loss will be great. However, Marin, an "impulsive young man", actually wanted to give up the advantage of the city wall and decided to go out of the city to fight a decisive battle, which was exactly what he wanted. Therefore, the Duke of Saxony quickly agreed to the appointment, for fear that Marin would go back on his word...
Since then, Marin's deeds of provoking the Duke of Saxony quickly spread throughout Germany and spread throughout Europe. And Marin's phrase "come to fight if you don't accept it", later became a mantra that many knights like to pretend to be aggressive...