Among scholars who study historical battles, mainly distributed in the three empires, there is such a sharp saying written in Lamani and filled with a sense of mutual sarcasm between men of letters:
“A layman talks about strategy, an expert talks about logistics.”
It points out, as we say, the biggest difference between the real experts in military strategy and those who are just talking about it on paper - the latter tend to ignore the march, supply, soldiers and officers. Collaboration and a series of other things, just simply talking about strategy, as if all the soldiers are pre-arranged chess pieces on the chessboard. As long as you are good at conspiracy skills and play some unique strategies, everything can be solved.
The soldiers and horses have not moved, but the food and grass go first. The real battlefield is far more boring and difficult than what these armchair strategists imagined. It is already very difficult to get a hundred people to fight together. A hundred thousand untrained militiamen? ——Let these people come up with special tricks and ingenious tactics. The result will only be full of loopholes and mess up everything.
There are individual differences between people, and it is this individual gap that determines that they will never be able to perfectly execute all the instructions and achieve the results the commander wants like chess pieces on a chessboard - this is also the reason why This is an extremely important reason why some young aristocratic officers and the like, who can always speak eloquently on paper and speak eloquently in peacetime, die without a burial place once they step onto the battlefield.
——They don’t know anything other than strategic things like calculating numbers and arranging force comparisons. They don’t understand their soldiers, they just issue instructions and wait for them to execute them perfectly. Did the messenger deliver the message in time? Do the troops on the right know that they need to advance at the same pace as the left? ——Always like to play fancy tactics and whimsical strategies. The result is that the various requirements for soldiers are too strict. The further consequence of this is that the fault tolerance rate at the strategic level is greatly reduced.
If a plan is too clever and too sophisticated, once there is a mistake in one link, everything will be lost. This is what the saying "A victorious general does not need miracles" refers to, although most ordinary people and even scholars talk about it. There are always a few brilliant battles in which fewer people win more and create miracles, but in the history of wars that are almost equal to the length of human history, there are more ordinary ones like what is happening in the south of Ecasta right now. war.
On the surface, it seems ordinary, but in the details, you can see its true meaning.
Just like an excellent commander like Grand Duke Leschi understands the soldiers under his command, this old man from Luoan who has lived in Avenella for 21 years has truly integrated into the people. Youdao is to know yourself and the enemy and fight a hundred battles without danger. This not only refers to the enemy, but also when facing the soldiers under your command, understanding their needs and the limitations of their abilities, and grasping the overall situation and fighting steadily is also an extremely important ability.
If you ask these Avenella militiamen from peasant backgrounds to do the work of knights, they will definitely not be able to do it. In the same way, you want a knight to condescend to do peasant things. Even if most of the nobles in northern Avenella are closer to the common people, they may be able to put down their own dignity and let these pampered people do such things. , the efficiency will be extremely low.
Good steel should be used on the blade. This huge army of more than 100,000 people is not just a simple number. Mixed among them are former slaves, mercenaries who came to earn a living, Avenella mountain hunters, surrendered Roan people, escaped Sivalier refugees, aristocratic cavalry and sergeants, etc., these people have their own unique characteristics. Different cultural backgrounds and social statuses and even language communication problems make it extremely difficult for them to all work together for the same goal - unless you know them well enough, speak their language, and understand what they mean. Things to be good at.
The mercenaries and mountain folk's hunter longbows were arranged to act as scouts, taking advantage of their versatile role and lightness and speed. They were dispersed into more than a dozen small squadrons to form the left and right wings, which had even entered the territory of Dolf Borg. around some villages. The noble knights and sergeants were dispersed and organized into leaders of hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of troops in the entire army to maintain order, ordinary Avenella and Sivalier refugees with little fighting ability. In addition to being the main source of infantry, they will also do various chores - as for the Roan people who surrendered, the Acasta Plains may not have enough cavalry, but there are many war horses. The Luoans were also quite famous for their heavy cavalry. As a fighting race, most of the older people who had experienced the Patriotic War could ride a horse, so Archduke Leski gave them the most important and arduous task - —The messenger.
After living in Avenella and Sivalier for so many years, they can basically speak the language here. In addition, due to the perseverance of the Roan people, they can be used as messengers to command and coordinate the troops to advance. And promptly reported back from the outpost the movements of the army and civilians in the earl territory. Obviously, as we said before, good steel was used on the blade.
Such preparations are only preliminary. Laying out the overall situation and ensuring that information can be disseminated in a timely manner proves to a considerable extent the command experience of Archduke Leschi at the strategic level of legionary warfare. In addition, our wise man, Edward, The army has a natural advantage over Ahiburn II in terms of commanding tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people - of course, this premise is that Otolo does not send an equally outstanding soldier. commander.
Never deny this possibility easily. Although in order to maintain the sovereignty of Avenella and not expose it to the Padrosi people, Otolo's secret force is equivalent to abandonment, but will there be outstanding people among it? The commander's matter is still a question due to the uncertainty of the intelligence. It is an absolutely unacceptable behavior to underestimate one's opponent and be arrogant. Whether it is Archduke Leski or our Mr. Sage, they are all too old to make such a stupid mistake. The wisdom accumulated over the years makes people around them Everyone, including Mira, Edward, Minna Lina, etc., have benefited a lot. After this, these younger generations of Yavenella and Luo An's new forces quickly absorbed the learning and will definitely be able to cope with the past. Frustrations and challenges that will appear again in the future——
But let's get back to our original point. It is not easy to mobilize an army of 100,000 people, and Archduke Leski naturally has his own plan on how to make good use of this advantage without turning them into a disadvantage. The logistical burden required to support these troops is extremely huge. The materials and supplies purchased before departure can only last for about a month. Although we plan to seize the time to attack quickly, it is likely to develop into a siege. , Only by doing adequate logistics work can we ensure the combat capabilities of soldiers.
Therefore, under the joint advice of Archduke Leski and Henry, Prince Edward decided to mobilize 25,000 militiamen to directly serve as professional logistics personnel and be responsible for various tasks.
——They did not need to do this when Ecasta fought against the Sivalier army in the past, but this time they may directly attack the southernmost part of the kingdom. Professional logistics support personnel for long-distance expeditions are extremely important. Instead of waiting until the time comes to improvise, it is better to make arrangements now and let the chefs, cooks, grooms, and militiamen who are former cooks do what they do best and support this army that is still growing in size.
In addition to this massive professional logistics force, Edward's heavy cavalry and elite archer troops were placed in the middle as the main force of the formation, and there were more than 10,000 lower-level mercenaries and capable troops in front of them. The infantry array composed of ordinary militiamen with some combat experience is the real vanguard. While these people were working as a team to guard against the possible attack of Dawolfberg in the distance, pulling horse-drawn carriages and ox-carts, the remaining farmers ran to the Protasia Forest to the east and began to cut down trees.
The siege requires large-scale equipment. They are preparing for catapults and ladders, and all this busyness is noticed by the count staying in the castle. An army of this size moves in an orderly manner. It proves that they have a group of very good leaders, officers and non-commissioned officers - this is a war model that no one on the west coast has ever seen. This is what the Luoans learned and summarized in their struggle with the Kingdom of Laman and the Empire of Otolo. Come out with real professional war.
It is not a traditional small kingdom war in which nobles use force and equipment to defeat the enemy. It only pays attention to cavalry charges and frontal confrontation tactics and strategic skills to a certain extent. The rest depends entirely on the individual abilities of the warriors. This kind of behavior of dividing the army into meticulous squadrons, squadrons and legions and sending capable people to command can only be seen in the past Laman Empire and the three major empires of today - this is a regular army rather than aristocratic knights The main way of fighting.
This is the future of Avenella.
Count Dowulfberg watched all this from afar. Something was shaking in his heart, but at the same time, his long-standing family training and education controlled him like the castle itself.
"Hope and responsibility..." The middle-aged man with a stern expression let out a long sigh, while the troops under Edward on the other side quickly continued to make their pre-war preparations.
To carry out sieges and fortification-type wars, cutting off the defenders' food and drinking water supplies is the best method. However, although the Dawfberg Territory is indeed located downstream of the Galil River, it is necessary to make the widest part of the river reachable. The largest river on the west coast that flows nine kilometers all the way to the southern city-state alliance is cut off, or enough poison is poured into it to make the defenders' water sources contaminated and unusable. This challenge is even greater than directly conquering the city.
Not to mention that there are still tens of thousands of civilians in the Wolfburg territory. If Edward did something like poisoning, they would definitely be implicated. Not to mention that this matter would definitely cause him to lose his current army. With the popular support of the militiamen, first of all, he himself would not be able to do such a thing.
However, the Garriel River cannot be cut off, and they will not let go of this excellent environmental resource - the Avenella people have known how to use the water of the Garriel River to transport felled wood and some materials as well as fishing since ancient times. Aquatic products, and Henry and Leschi, who were well aware of the industrious nature of these people, naturally chose to make good use of resources. In addition to the logs that were cut down to make siege equipment, they were transported down the river quickly to save manpower. Ship construction began.
This was an eye-opener for Charles and Edward and a group of Avenella nobles. As we mentioned before, the Garriel River meanders straight down from the Tambor Mountains deep in the Ecasta Plain. The foot of the mountain extends near Ashenil and turns into an underground river that can be seen with the naked eye. It flows all the way to the southernmost point of Avenella and then turns underground again near the Dange Canyon. If some items can be placed If an army of this size can travel down the river on a ship, the burden on logistics and personnel for the southern expedition will be much lighter.
The old-timers are the old-timers, and the young and inexperienced Avenella people who are keen in observing and making good use of resources can only learn. All other people in the entire main account are just students. The only one who can communicate with Leski on an equal footing is our Mr. Sage, and every move of the two of them is remembered by everyone and they study seriously. .
This upright and humble attitude made Grand Duke Leski highly praised. You must know that although he is a legendary figure with the name of Grand Duke, that was what happened on the other side of the Tambur Mountains twenty-one years ago. Nowadays, his physical strength has weakened a lot, and he looks like an old man. In addition, due to the bad reputation of the Roan people, these nobles of Avenella can correct their attitudes and not show off when learning new things. He looked like he was superior and started to raise objections before he learned how to do it, which made him like him even more.
"Trebuchets are very necessary, as are the huge shields of the log positions. As an important defense to cover the continued advancement of longbowmen and infantry, sufficient quantities must be produced as long as manpower and time allow." Leschi said. With that, Edward and the others nodded, and Henry pointed to the northeast of Wolf Castle on the map and said: "If I were the earl, I would choose to send the cavalry from here, using the small town ahead as cover. Detour and flank, invade the infantry array on the left, defeat it, and stop our advance."
He said, this time it was Leski and others who nodded. The Archduke, who had a reputation for being fearless but seemed very steady and cautious, added: "Their goal will not be to defeat us completely. The Earl of Wolfsburg is good at defensive warfare." And even the old man has heard of the reputation of being conservative. With the advantage of the castle, it is impossible for him to get rid of these precious troops and waste them outside. After all, no matter how elite the cavalry is, they still have overwhelming numbers. Disadvantage."
"So the purpose of the cavalry he sent was just to repel us and avoid getting close to the castle. With the strong firepower and defense capabilities of the castle, we can hold on until the reinforcements of Ashbourne II arrive." Archduke Leschi said this, and Edward And Charles, the high-ranking nobles of Avenella who knew the Earl of Wolfsburg, all nodded: "Then just send out cavalry to block the left wing and avoid their cavalry attacks?"
"Well, that's right," Henry nodded, and then said, "But that's just the simple part."
"The difficult part is how to capture Wolf Castle as quickly as possible without causing too much damage to the castle and serious loss of troops."
"Yes, this is the only way to do it." Archduke Leski pointed his old, skinny, yellow-nailed finger at the large open space deliberately left open at the main entrance of Wolf Castle in order to allow the city's cavalry to attack.
"Let's give them one, making noise in the east and attacking in the west." (To be continued.)
