The war begins!
In the Guangming Emperor Garden, which was well prepared for war, on a cloudy morning, Duke Tulip led 50,000 of the best-equipped "Thunder God's Whips" and marched northward. At the same time, 20,000 local garrison troops were mobilized to escort a large number of war troops. Supplies were shipped north.
The north has been classified as a war zone, and the Northern Command has been established. Two experienced veteran generals have been transferred from the imperial command, and Duke Tulip has been appointed as the supreme commander of the war zone. Within the war zone, the Northern Army must also listen to Duke Tulip. of scheduling.
The war begins like this!
While everyone was waiting for news from the north, the north was surprisingly quiet.
Although the coalition forces of more than a dozen kingdoms in Roland Continent have put up a posture to cross the sea, they have yet to take action.
When I originally thought that Duke Tulip would become the first hero of this war, the first hero of this war was born!
Not in the north, but in the northwest! At Watt's Fortress! Just when everyone's eyes were focused on the north, within a month, the situation in the northwest had changed dramatically! A shining star rises in the northwest.
General Eliot, commander of the Northwest Army, is forty-two years old and comes from a military aristocratic family, one of the traditional forces in the military.
Graduated from the 169th batch of the Imperial Academy, a fourth-level samurai, with good military courses. He once served as deputy commander and commander of the imperial provincial garrison. Because of his achievements in suppressing banditry, he was later promoted and added to his family's influence. He was transferred back to the imperial capital and joined the Imperial High Command as deputy chief of staff. After serving as a civilian in the high command for several years and accumulating sufficient qualifications, he was transferred to the position of deputy commander of the Central Cavalry Corps. After the Northwest War, he was transferred from the Central Cavalry Corps to the Northwest. The commander of the corps, in charge of the military affairs of the northwest corps.
Andy's evaluation after reading this information was: it's a medium-range shot, nothing special about it.
Indeed, judging from the data, there is nothing special about General Elio. Born into an upper-class aristocratic family in the empire, he joined the army at the age of twenty. After twenty-two years, he sat at the top of an army. From any angle, he was unremarkable - besides, he was There are no dazzling military achievements.
The only bit of credit he had was that when he was young, he had "contributed to the suppression of bandits and chaos" - but, you know, noble officers who come from a big family often use this "excuse" when they are promoted. Although it is impossible for people with such powerful families to sit in high positions immediately after joining the army, they are often just a formality. Starting from mid-level and low-level officers, it is just a matter of accumulating qualifications. When the time is up and it is time for promotion, they often add military merits such as "suppressing bandits" to their qualifications. To eradicate banditry? How can there be so much banditry in the empire to suppress
Then he climbed up the army step by step without showing anything, and after climbing for twenty-two years, he finally commanded an army, took charge of military affairs, and became the number one person in the northwest despite his qualifications.
This is actually the case for many high-level officials in the imperial government.
But Andy still saw something unusual from this information—General Eliot passed the title succession test at the age of twenty-two and received the title of earl!
This is already a very remarkable thing! You must know that due to the special and strict nature of the imperial title examination, it is definitely not an easy task to pass the examination at the age of twenty-two! In fact, General Eliot was not the eldest son in the family, but after his elder brother failed the assessment and lost the right to inherit the title, he came forward to take the assessment again, and he succeeded in one fell swoop!
Andy checked the records of that year and found that General Eliot actually passed the knighthood assessment as a third-level warrior!
He reached the third level of warrior at the age of twenty-two. Although he is not very powerful, it is very rare in a pampered noble family! You know, in order to reduce the difficulty in the knighthood assessment, many nobles deliberately lowered their warrior level so that they could participate in the lower-level knighthood assessment. For example, when Roddy took the knighthood assessment, he was only a first-level warrior—but there were only a few nobles out of two hundred who signed up for the third-level warrior assessment that time!
This Eliot actually didn't hide his strength, and openly obtained the qualification of a third-level warrior before inheriting the title - isn't he afraid that the knighthood test will become more difficult because of his title of third-level warrior? If this is really the case, then it only shows that he is very confident in his own strength!
There is a reason why Andy studies General Eliot's information so carefully!
A month ago, Reuenthal led his troops to raid Fort Trier (Originally, Fort Trier was occupied by the Great Moon Kingdom in the previous Northwest War, but after the war, according to the negotiations that Roddy participated in, the empire paid for five (100,000 gold coins redeemed), but General Eliot led an ambush on Reuenthar's vanguard outside the city, defeated the enemy in one fell swoop, and killed 10,000 people in the Great Moon King's army!
Then Reuenthar's main army arrived and had a head-on collision with the Western Army. The Northwest Army lost to the Prairie Cavalry in the field and was defeated. But before the Great Moon Kingdom army besieged the city, Eliot took the initiative to break through and abandon Trier Fort, and the entire army withdrew from Trier Fort!
This move is undoubtedly surprising - after all, in the northwest defense strategy of the Imperial High Command, the only two military fortresses left in the northwest, Fort Trier and Fort Watt, are both important military strongholds. As long as these two are defended, A military stronghold, with troops divided into two areas as horns, echoing each other, so that the northwest can be protected!
But what happened next surprised Andy even more!
Reuenthal's 200,000-strong army had just entered Trierburg and had not yet established a firm foothold, but Eliot immediately counterattacked!
The Northwest Army immediately surrounded Fort Trier!
This is an extremely clever trap!
Before evacuating Trier Castle, Eliot had poisoned all the wells in the city, and then based on the terrain in front of the city gate of Trier Castle, countless horse-repelling fortifications were arranged outside the city gate-those The solid horseback covered with sharp blades originally gave Reuenthal a headache. He was worried that he would suffer heavy losses during the siege battle. However, Eliot's sudden abandonment of Trier Castle was a huge headache. Let him occupy this important fortress in the northwest without spending a single soldier.
But before Reuenthar had time to dismantle the horse-repelling fortifications outside the city gate, the Northwest Army actually killed him? !
Instead, Fort Trier was surrounded!
Now Reuenthal was immediately in trouble.
The densely packed horse resistance under the city gate prevented his cavalry from rushing out of the city to break out of the enemy's field battle. Although such terrain will also affect the opponent's infantry, it is a dead end for the prairie cavalry who need to rely on large-scale charges! It is a death place full of murderous intent every step of the way!
Eliot was almost a lunatic. He sent the heavy armored infantry of the Northwest Army to block the city regardless of losses - he simply used his heavy armored infantry as human shields! With tens of thousands of human shields and the terrifying horse resistance under the city gate, Reuenthar's cavalry couldn't charge forward at all, and they couldn't use their advantage at all! And Eliot seemed to see the fatal flaw of the prairie cavalry at a glance - Reuenthar had no infantry! When the cavalry has no use, the opponent does not have excellent infantry! Those brave cavalry on the grassland. When you get off the horse, it's as if you can no longer fight. Facing the well-trained infantry and tight infantry array of the Light Empire. Reuenthal's prairie warrior loses the assistance of his horse and appears to have hit a wall.
After many days of continuous bloody fighting, the Northwest Army lost nearly 20,000 excellent infantry, and Reuenthar's cavalry also continued to be lost in that dead land!
Fortunately, Eliot's troops were insufficient, so he only besieged the city but did not attack it. He focused all his efforts on blocking the city gates to prevent the opponent from coming out. Although the Northwest Army has been expanded and its strength has reached the 200,000 before the previous Northwest War, Eliot still has 50,000 troops left to guard Fort Watt. He only has 150,000 troops under siege of Fort Tetrier. .
But relying on this subtle trap, the Northwest Army's 150,000 men trapped Reuenthar's 200,000 cavalry in Trier Castle!
All the water sources in the city have long been poisoned, causing Reuenthar's army to lose their water supply! Although the army carried enough food—but not much water!
After accidentally drinking the poisonous water in the city on the first day, thousands of soldiers died and tens of thousands lost their combat effectiveness. As time went by, the army lacking water became less and less effective!
Finally, after being besieged for five days, Reuenthar had no choice but to make a desperate move and ordered a breakout at all costs!
Eliot knew very well that he did not have enough troops and could not really swallow Reuenthal, so he wisely did not fight the opponent desperately. After he opened the city gate and allowed the opponent to break out, he led the army to pursue him for more than a hundred miles.
Reuenthal's soldiers lacked water for several days and were already weak. As a result, they retreated all the way. After losing troops and generals, they retreated to the important town of Mudan.
In this battle, the Northwest Army lost nearly 30,000 people, and more than 20,000 of them were lost as human shields in the siege! As for Reuenthar's Dayue King Army, of the 200,000 troops they brought out, less than 100,000 were returned... Among them, more than 30,000 people were lost in the battles for several days. Nearly 30,000 people were lost, and nearly 10,000 were captured by the Northwest Army. There were more than 30,000 wounded patients in the city who lost their combat effectiveness due to severe lack of water or drinking poisonous water. These people were originally captured by Reuenthal. He gave up ruthlessly with the determination of a strong man to cut off his wrist.
After counting the results of the battle, Eliot made another move that shocked everyone!
Eliot ordered all of the 30,000 surrendered troops in the city and the 10,000 enemy troops captured during the pursuit to be executed, leaving no one alive! Such a ruthless decision caused an uproar in the imperial capital!
This move was immediately attacked by the civilized scholars in the empire - the empire is a powerful civilized country, and massacring prisoners of war and civilians has always been a shameless method of those grassland barbarians. How could our great imperial warriors do such a thing? Kind of thing! ! Killing defenseless prisoners of war is a stain on the glory of the empire!
Eliot seemed to be just a stupid person. He ignored any curses and attacks and simply gave a report to His Majesty the Emperor.
The report was very simple, but one paragraph made Andy appreciate it very much!
"The Kingdom of Dayue is vast and sparsely populated. The population of the grassland is only one million. Excluding the old and weak women, there are only a few hundred thousand young and middle-aged men. If you kill one, you will lose one! Every time you spend, you will lose one! Such young and middle-aged men will lose a lot of money. The more there are, the weaker the opponent's national power will be. What I'm doing is eradicating the centuries-old evil in the northwest!"
Andy immediately ordered newspapers to carry out publicity, avoiding the massacre of prisoners of war, and vigorously publicized the victory of the Northwest Army. He praised the contribution of the Northwest Army Commander Eliot a lot. Relying on the powerful means of public opinion in newspapers, he suppressed He wrote a vicious attack on the commander of Eliot's army. Andy then sent a commendation order to the Northwest Army in the name of the Emperor!
Looking at the northwest battle report in his hand, Andy sighed and murmured to himself: "Rody, there is something in this Elio that you lack the most right now! That is, ruthlessness!"
At this moment, Roddy was a little depressed in the north.
The Guangming Continent has nearly 400,000 troops gathered in the north, and the 200,000 troops of the Northern Legion have already been mobilized and assembled. In fact, Milo had already made preparations during the palace incident. Unfortunately, in the end, because of Andy's sudden appearance, Milo's Preparation is all useless.
But then war broke out, and those preparations turned out to be foresight...
One hundred thousand Flame Warriors belonging to the Light Empire Divine Religion also arrived in the north. The leader of the Flame Warriors is an indifferent middle-aged man named Gudu. From the outside, he looks like a devout ascetic. Although he wears a set of the unique light leather armor of the Flame Warriors, he is always covered with a set of gray robes - he looks a bit like a bishop or elder of a religious cult - if he holds a staff in his hand It's more like that.
Forget about the ancient capital. His indifferent temper made him rarely speak, but the bishop and elder from the theological sect made Roddy extremely bored.
Because of the incident in the palace, the relationship between the Divine Cult and Duke Tulip was somewhat tense, so the bishop and elder were not too affectionate with the young commander of the empire.
But this bishop and elder is a religious fanatic. Before the war started, he led a group of religious missionaries around various military camps every day, promoting his religious beliefs and praising how great God is. God's religion is God in the world. He even strongly requested Rody to order the army to set aside a period of time from daily training and drills to pray to God... Although this move made Rody very unhappy, the bishop said : This is a holy war, a war against "infidels", so theological propaganda to the army before the war can enhance the soldiers' faith and piety in God. Through pious belief in God, it can boost morale and Improve combat effectiveness and other effects...
If it weren't for his current status and the unity before the war, Roddy would have ordered someone to kick this fly-like guy out of the military camp.
Boosting the morale of soldiers does not rely on such empty theological preaching, nor does it rely on praising some bullshit god! If it weren't for the sworn hatred between the two mainland divine sects, Roddy couldn't help but think that this guy was a spy from the divine sect who came to disturb the morale of the army and cause trouble for him.