Anyone with military knowledge knows that in a siege battle, the attacking side must have at least three times the strength of the defending side to ensure victory. No matter how much those armchair strategists talk about how some brilliant battles were about capturing a city with a very small number of troops through fantastic ideas, the fact is that the vast majority of battles are based on boring sieges and various back-and-forth tactics. It took a long time to overcome the temptation.
This period often lasts for a month or two, and it is not uncommon for the battle to last for an entire season or even a year and a half. The longest battle recorded in history came from the civil war of the Laman Empire. The attackers even started building a fortress directly on the spot. It ended up being a full six years of fighting – but let’s get back to where we started.
When faced with the 100,000-strong army led by Edward, even if most of them were just militiamen, from the beginning, Earl Dowulfberg never expected them to win.
The total strength of Wolf Castle, including those recruited city defense archers, is only more than 1,700 people. Even though it is famous, Wolfsburg is actually at best a buffer point on the main road from the northern part of the kingdom to the center of power. It is separated from border military fortresses like Wawasika and commercial centers like Ashenil. It is incomparable in terms of population and escort strength. In fact, the original intention of the construction was to take into account that if Wavasika and Ashenil were lost, the defenders could evacuate to the Dowofberg territory and compete with the local earldom. The soldiers fought and retreated together, waiting for reinforcements from the center to arrive before pushing the enemy back.
And now, when the entire army in the northern region of Avenella is pressed against the normal earldom of Wolfsburg, their defeat is almost a matter of course - even without the hesitation of Count Adolf, Avenella It is also a huge question whether Seaborn II can convince the Grand Dukes of Avenella, who are equally conservative no matter who they face, to join forces with Otolo's secret forces to come to the rescue in time.
Count Adolf von Dowulfburg was an outstanding figure among the nobles of Avenella. Perhaps because he is close to an open-minded commercial city-state like Ashenil, although he inherited the conservative and rigorous style of the Mami-Sivaliya people, he did not reject all "non-Sivalians" like the nobles in the middle. Liye" stuff. He treats his subjects well and often pays attention to news related to them - and this is why he hesitates when facing Edward.
Edward's reputation among common people is one thing. He also has a very close relationship with the nobles on the Ecasta Plain. The two important towns of Ashenil, which is a commercial center, and the military fortress of Wawasica But in fact, the aristocratic families who had been ignored by the royal capital gave full support to Edward. His Royal Highness the Prince has shown extraordinary skill in the past. Ever since the Luoan Kingdom was destroyed by the Otolo people 21 years ago, Wawasika has naturally lost its meaning of existence, even though it is an extremely important source of income for the kingdom. In the eyes of the royal families and grand dukes in the central region, Ashenil is actually just "a place where low-class people should go."
It is true that they value the tax revenue and various wonderful goods brought by this territory, but this does not mean that they are willing to condescend to manage these areas, which in their view have no historical and cultural heritage, and act in pursuit of profit. Businessmen who tell lies and hide their knives in their smiles - it's enough to have a family they should look down on to take care of them and ask them to send money. This deep-rooted discrimination often caused discord between the northern and southern nobles of the kingdom. However, as a descendant of the royal family whose fiefdom was in the Chester Territory, Edward had been running to the north frequently since he was a teenager.
Count Adolf said that he watched Edward grow up, which is actually not an exaggeration. When the young prince was running around in Ashenil, he served as the most reliable and trusted shield of the royal family, the Dolfberg family. Naturally, he is the first choice for guards. Although the Earl himself will not leave his territory, he has continued to pay attention to the prince's safety every time in these years.
Talented, intelligent and sociable; passionate and full of enthusiasm - young and adventurous, this may become the best king in the history of Avenella, Adolf once thought so, but on this day he changed again ideas.
The methods revealed by Edward prove that he will definitely not be limited to this level, strategize and make good use of talents. His future was long, far beyond the horizon, and would be something that neither Maximilian nor Sivalier had ever achieved.
The city wall collapsed suddenly, and the count almost instantly judged from the collapsed ground that the other party had hollowed out the soil below - this should not have happened. If he had been more alert, he would have been able to detect the commotion underground, but he He had always stayed in his Earl's Mansion and had never gone on patrol. The defenders below were too exhausted from lack of rest due to the harassment of corpses, but they did not notice such details.
The wall collapsed, but at the same time something similar collapsed inside the count.
Not far away, the knights under Edward who were out of the range of the bed crossbow launched an attack. The defenders had not yet woken up from the sudden collapse. Those who were not killed covered their heads in panic. Screaming "The earth dragon is coming!" Only a few people tried to fight back, but Edward's offensive troops aimed at the collapsed front city wall that was more than ten meters long. Many of them were layered and had a certain height. , but the archers and bed crossbows above were completely destroyed. It was extremely difficult to mobilize them from other places in the chaos. A sergeant who luckily escaped the collapse was still yelling and cursing at the people hiding below. Archer, and a rickety boulder from the second floor fell from above his head and smashed the whole man into a pulp.
"Bang - Boom!" The collapse continued. The multi-layered and thick structure of Wolf Castle would not be broken into pieces when the foundation suddenly collapsed. However, the front and rear walls tilted to support each other, causing even more damage. There were many collateral dangers. After seeing the sergeant being smashed, the archers looked at the swaying huge stone and refused to rush here. Some remaining knights and sergeants screamed and even pulled out their weapons. The long sword forced them up, and Charles, who rushed over quickly, led a group of brave and fearless Wawasika knights and rushed in directly on horseback on the rugged road formed by the collapse of the unstable city wall.
"For the Huawasika people, this road is as smooth as a stone road! Huha!" The Lord of the City shouted to encourage morale, and the cavalry accompanying him responded loudly: "Huha!" They rode their horses like shoes. On the ground, after rushing into the first layer of the Wolf Castle, the archers who stayed in the second layer of the city wall immediately launched an attack. A dense rain of arrows fell on the knights. However, they absorbed the experience from more than a year ago and Sivali Thanks to the lessons learned from the battle, Charles and his group of Avenella knights even equipped their horses with plate armor this time.
"Ding! Cang -" "Dang! - Cang!" Most of the arrows were bounced by the plate armor, and only a handful of them penetrated the plate armor because of the extremely high distance. But only a few of them penetrated the plate armor. That's all. The arrows got stuck in the cushioning of the cotton armor after passing through them, making the knights look like they were covered in wounds, but in fact they were still unscathed. They heroically broke the arrows with one hand, and then Holding a spear, he thrust forward and hit the sergeants and archers who had not reacted due to the quarrel. Then he released the sword from his waist.
"For the Count!" A knight who could only walk on foot due to lack of horses rushed forward. Charles decisively commanded the horse to stand up and kick. Without a vest, it weighed 800 kilograms. The Avenella mountain war horse Ikkaku is like a war hammer. The knight without the upper armor was kicked in the chin and flew backwards among the broken bones and blood foam. After falling heavily to the ground, his neck softened and he was no longer alive.
"Sir Frederick! Ahhhh-" Another sergeant wearing old armor who seemed to be a sergeant under the knight rushed in front of Charles, but the city lord immediately let the horse fall down. Crash forward, directly run over him, trample him with a collision weighing nearly a ton, including the man, horse and equipment, and twist his limbs. Plate armor, which has an excellent advantage in ordinary battles, has no advantage when facing a large and powerful war horse. Became extremely weak.
"A knight riding his favorite horse and fighting on foot are two people." This proverb has been interpreted to its greatest extent at this moment. This is also why the Sivaliers can win the strongest position with heavy cavalry. Knights The best weapons are their knowledge and the war horses beneath them. Even a relatively thin prairie war horse can withstand the strength of a dozen adults. A mountain war horse with such a majestic physique can easily pull a dozen or twenty people. Moving forward, the infantry had almost no chance of counterattack when facing well-trained knights and horses.
——This is not over yet.
"Shoot from high places!" After dealing with several Earl's knights and sergeants who rushed up tenaciously, he allowed the archers to start hurriedly escaping into the interior of the castle. Charles raised his long sword and pointed at the bow hidden in the inner arrow slit. The soldier said this to his own archers who had just climbed up the rugged ruins of the city wall. However, before he finished speaking, one of the archers who was hiding in a safe arrow gap fell to the ground and died.
"Be careful! We have already won the victory. There is no need to be impatient, fight steadily and save your own life!" The strongest outer city wall has been breached. Although there are other defense systems inside, at this moment it is only an hour-long battle. The timing of the count is a matter of time - and the words His Excellency Lord Charles shouted to the militiamen in the dialect of Avenella were the same as those of the knights under Dawolf Borg who had just rushed out from the inner circle in Sivalier language. The yelling and cursing formed a completely opposite landscape.
"Go back! Go back! It's not over here yet!" Because most of the sergeants were commanding the archers there near the city gate, and because they all died in the previous collapse, there were no translators for these knights. The archers yelled loudly but still ran behind them. Just as one of them was about to pull out the long sword from his waist and slash at his own militiamen, the earl who had been rushing down from behind since the city gate collapsed came from behind. Walked out slowly.
"Stop!"
Wolf Castle still has two layers of walls, and there are still a considerable number of remaining troops. The sound of clanging behind them, the sound of loosening the bowstring and arrows being fired, and the sounds of yelling and mourning are intertwined, as if to tell that this war is still not over.
But it's all over.
The Earl understood this truth deeply, just like a fish that was caught from the bottom of the water and thrown into the sun - when the outer wall collapsed and they poured in, Wolfsburg had no chance.
Or maybe it has never happened from the beginning - Adolf thought this way, and the loyal knight next to him began to persuade his lord: "Count! Wolfsburg has been attacked before, and we have never given up. Ah, please come with me back. We are deploying archers in this long corridor-" "Look around you." "Uh-" The earl interrupted him lightly, and Charles, who stopped in front of them, led The knights of Wawasika faced them face to face in silence.
The knights turned around. I don't know when there were no militiamen around them anymore. Only the remaining noble knights of the Dolfberg family still stayed here. Many of the archers who did not escape in time let go. Weapon squatted next to him and was detained by Edward's militiamen. More Edward's militia archers poured in from the gap in the castle that had begun to stabilize - the other side seemed to be endless, and they only had this few people left. .
"I understand your determination to fight to the death, but I think we may have chosen the wrong Shurfaja to help." Adolf raised his head and looked at Charles: "I have always been a Mami, even if the family After surrendering to Sivaliya, some things will remain after all. There is a word in the Sivaliya language called 'powerful', which, like their romantic feelings, has always been difficult for me to understand."
"Until today." The count turned his head and looked at the collapsed section of the city wall in front of him on the left. The expression on his face was complicated, showing both loss and relief.
"This castle has existed for one hundred and thirty years. It has been burned by fire and the gate has been breached, but never once. It was done in less than a week." The Earl sighed, then straightened his body and said : "If this is the appearance of Avenella led by His Highness Edward, I think that no matter what is waiting in front, they will not be His Highness's opponent."
"Everyone listens to the order——! In the name of Count Dauwoftborg, Adolf von Dauwofborg, surrender to His Highness Edward Chester Schulfaga."
"You have fought valiantly, but this battle went terribly wrong from the beginning, so don't let it go wrong again."
"The lives of the people of Avenera should not be taken away by the people of Avenera!" The Earl said this, his words were loud, and Charles unlocked the lock on the visor and opened it.
"You are defeated, Count." The goateeted commander said to the other party. Adolf sighed, then raised his head: "Yes, Count."
"But Avenella prevailed." (To be continued.)
