The absolute gap in strength is something that cannot be easily bridged.
Wisdom can fill the gaps, and making good use of specific factors such as time and place can indeed sometimes reverse the situation from disadvantage to advantage. But it was an adventure that combined luck and other factors under harsh conditions, like a deep leap into darkness.
People only remember those successful cases, but they are often stingy about paying attention to losers who are thousands of times more numerous than them.
If miracles were common, they wouldn't be called miracles at all.
In a battle, the side with the absolute advantage in personnel and equipment not only possesses superficial strength, but also has the error tolerance rate when tactics and planning go wrong. Even if they make mistakes or go wrong, they still retain the strength to continue fighting. The disadvantaged party must be cautious in any move they make. Once they make a wrong move, they will face the situation of complete annihilation——
This was exactly the situation Henry and his party were in during this encounter. He is nearly omniscient, but still not truly omniscient.
The knights of Sivalier appeared very suddenly. The mobility and suddenness of the cavalry-based troops offset the previous plan of taking small roads to avoid big cities. They just caught a group of people and thought they had thrown away the pursuers. A chance to relax in relative stability.
To anticipate this situation, they need the support of the intelligence network, which is undoubtedly difficult when the old mercenary guild system to which they belong has been completely paralyzed.
And when being actively attacked by the opponent and our own side can only respond passively, even if we have an amazing weapon like Kramer; even if we have centuries of long combat experience; even if we have inhumanly strong physical fitness . What one person and one sword can do is still extremely limited.
Surrounded by 30 heavily armed Sivaliya knights, despite his best efforts, both Mira and Kaleva were injured. The white-haired girl is still physically exhausted and basically unable to fight, and needs a good rest.
They lost two helmets, a set of breastplates, a large mithril shield, two crossbows and three bags of crossbow arrows, as well as all the ammunition for the hand cannon and some other supplies.
The packhorses, tents and bedding were also lost. Apart from some weapons and equipment, the group's current supplies were only what they carried with them.
About two days of dry food and water, as well as some clothes.
These were all things that had been purchased with real money before, but now they were all lost under the siege of an elite enemy with only a few dozen people.
——No matter how powerful an individual is, he cannot compete with an army.
Henry's overwhelming combat power in single combat and small-scale battles often makes people forget this and mistakenly think that he is invincible, but this situation once again reminded everyone that he is far from that.
With an overwhelming combat disadvantage and being caught unawares by the enemy, all Henry Meyer could do was to do his best to avoid attrition.
The loss of materials can be bought back with money, but the dead cannot be regenerated.
The knights of Sivalier still retained sufficient strength. Even if the injured but still able to fight were removed according to the most optimistic estimates, the remaining people would still have an overwhelming numerical advantage over them. And their side has lost the only weapon that can ensure stable penetration of plate armor, and the combatants are also in poor condition.
"We have been a drag." Leng Touqing's apologetic words did not only refer to the fact that he and Mira were injured. Although Kaleva was slow in many cases, he was very poor in whether he was doing his duty. It's sharp.
As the eldest son in the family, he grew up in the traditional Suomir culture and has an extraordinary sense of responsibility. Although this mentality will cause him to have negative emotions in situations such as the present, it is not entirely worthy of praise. of.
"Don't think about it." The sage shook his head.
He knew what Kalava was referring to. They couldn't keep up with his speed of movement. If he didn't need to cover others, it would be easier to fight or escape.
"It's not you who are in this situation. It's because we were attacked by the enemy." People with an overly strong sense of responsibility are also prone to taking the blame and tending to blame themselves for the cause of the predicament. Although this did not completely relieve his heart, Henry's words were still enough to get Deng Touqing out of the depressed mood that he would never return to.
Even ignoring his combat prowess, his calmness and composure alone are enough to maintain the morale of the entire team.
"The next thing to do is to try to take a detour and then attack their baggage troops." The sage said. The group is currently in the dense forest. Lu Lu with a crossbow is climbing on the canopy of the tree to guard the surroundings. Sivalier The knights did not hire any guides, they just relied on their superficial layman experience to track.
"Tit for tat?" Miss Doctor said. This is a proverb of Laman. She quickly learned and mastered this knowledge after arriving on the east coast. Now her use of the language is not even inferior to that of the locals.
"Not only for revenge, but also to delay their pursuit and obtain necessary supplies for survival." Henry explained to several people.
30 heavy cavalry cannot be pulled out casually.
Even excluding the initial investment required for training and equipment itself, the supplies required to maintain the combat effectiveness of heavy cavalry are extremely staggering.
Even large-scale war mercenary groups mostly consist of infantry personnel due to cost considerations. The lifespan of a horse is only one-third of that of a human being, and the prime of life for horses is only three to five years. After their prime, horses can only be used for transportation and training. Therefore, a knight would have more than one horse in his life.
Armor and weapons are relatively small investments in comparison.
Poor draft horses and ordinary horses used for transportation can be fed cheap forage based on pasture, but war horses have to carry fully armed knights for long-distance marches and battles, so their forage often must add grains and vegetables to supplement nutrition. Physical fitness.
Therefore, these thirty Sivalier knights need at least a few logistics carriages to transport the fodder for their horses. In addition, even if they are down and out, they are still nobles, and the tents where they live must be carried and taken care of by their entourage. .
In turn, he advanced through the dense forest, staggering away from the knights who were probably still trying to pursue him. The baggage troops that attacked them stole supplies and property and destroyed the carriages. Once the baggage troops could not keep up, the mere fact that the heavy cavalry could not be self-sufficient was enough to slow down these knights and buy them critical time to escape.
"Mercenaries have a mercenary style of play. They are powerful troops on the frontal battlefield, but we don't have to go head-to-head with them."
There is never anything that has only benefits, and there is never any unit that has only advantages but no disadvantages.
This kind of heavily armored noble knights, popular in Sivalier and even the entire Morbigas inland sea coast, has extremely amazing power when facing peasant infantry with equally poor morale and training on the plains. Even in infantry combat, with perfect plate armor and better training, they are usually difficult to kill and pose a great threat.
But when it comes to street fighting, dense forest terrain, situations that require maneuvering and pursuit, the shortcomings of heavy equipment will be revealed.
The limited load was all arranged on armor and weapons. Although it provided a strong frontal combat capability for a period of time, it also made them not as self-sufficient as mercenaries or lightly armed scout troops. They relied on carrying them with them during long marches. The supplies are enough to last.
This kind of power has limitations, and it requires sufficient logistical support to exert its full combat effectiveness. After losing their home country and leaving only the peasant entourage who were semi-forced to take them on the road to be responsible for this kind of work, it is very rare for these Sivalier knights to still retain such a level of combat effectiveness despite their small number.
After making a plan and sharing the necessary information to ensure that everyone had a consensus, the group took a short break to recover their strength and took care of their wounds. Following Henry's instructions, the group led the horses back through the dense forest in the direction they came from.
They didn't stray too far from the forest trail because they needed to maintain awareness of the situation.
This distance made both Kaleva and Aya feel a little uneasy.
Just escaping from a life-and-death danger will affect people's judgment to some extent. At this moment, they really want to get on their horses and run all the way deep into the dense forest, until they can no longer see the road, until they feel that the knights are no longer there. Where you will catch up with yourself.
Fear tends to make people avoid, believing that as long as they are out of sight, there is no threat to them, and that as long as they escape quickly enough, they can reach a safe place without looking back.
The two of them were restless, looking back towards the trail outside the forest almost every step of the way. Henry naturally noticed it.
"Feeling fear is not a bad thing. The instinct of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages can save people's lives in many cases." He said in a low voice: "But don't let fear dominate your actions. Make good use of the time when you feel fear. That characteristic of sobriety and quick thinking, harness them with a calm mind, so that you can find a way out of danger.”
"..."
"The horse, the horse can't run anymore." After a moment of silence, Aya replied in a low voice. She felt the forest floor under her feet that had become wet and slippery due to the previous rain, and her physical strength had already improved from the previous run. It is obviously difficult for ordinary horses that have been greatly exhausted to continue to advance at high speed in such a complex environment.
In addition, staying away from the trail may bring a kind of psychological comfort, thinking that the other party can't see you and you will be safe, but it will also lose the opportunity to grasp the movements of the Sivalier knights. They cannot observe or hear the opponent's actions, and therefore cannot respond based on this information, giving the initiative to the opponent again.
Calmly judge the situation and use knowledge and experience as a basis to make decisions that may seem counterintuitive at first but are correct.
Although they could not fully understand every move and decision he made, they were more or less aware that he would always choose the right path.
This is the characteristic that naturally makes people want to follow him.
Almost all the great men of the ages, the great emperors and famous generals who have gone down in history have this characteristic. They can withdraw without any regrets from seemingly favorable situations, and they can also calmly and calmly look back in dangerous situations that make ordinary people collapse and just want to escape. One shot.
"Why -" Although this was not the first time that such a thought occurred, this was the first time that Ling actually said such words to Henry himself.
"..." She couldn't organize her words. The implicit culture of Moon Country made her feel that no matter what she said, she would be a little offended.
"Tap tap tap tap -" Fortunately, this awkward silence was quickly broken. From the direction not far from the trail outside the forest, there was the sound of noisy action, followed by the sound of gold and iron mixed with human voices. .
"Are they... fighting?" Although her face was still pale, the Luoan girl finally had the strength to speak.
"Go back to the trail." The sage made a decision immediately. The group of people who returned to the road got on their horses and approached at cruising speed. As the distance got closer, the sound of the battle became louder and louder.
"Putan!" The wounded Sivalier knights cursed loudly. There were many dents in their armors, and their movements seemed sluggish. And under the dazzling sunshine after the rain, fighting with them——
They were more than a dozen Padrosi knights, all wearing black plate armor.
"Retreat!" The commander of the reserve team, who was dozens of meters away, together with more than a dozen other knights, ordered loudly. The silent black-armored knights moved in unison, and they distanced themselves without any hesitation in the order.
"Hand artillery, move forward." While the knights were entangled with the Sivaliers, the black army archers who were ready to bypass and outflank them from both sides also arranged their arrays with ease.
"What the hell?"
"Let's face off!"
"Fire!" The archer troops, leaning in an arc formation and attacking from both sides, formed extremely high-density crossfire while avoiding hitting their own people. At the moment of the order, the trigger was held and the matchstick was ignited within 1 second after contact. The black powder produced a loud noise and smoke.
“Bang bang bang bang bang!
! "The first round of volleys from 20 heavy hand cannons on the left and right directly shot the chaotic Sivalier knights until they fell on their backs. Screams, curses and the wails of fallen horses could be heard endlessly, and the shooters in the front row They stood up, turned around and retreated with their matchlock guns. At the same time, 20 shooters from behind came forward, squatted down, and pulled the matchlocks.
"Fire!"
“Bang bang bang bang bang!
! "After the second round of merciless shooting, before the smoke cleared, all the Sivalier horses on the forest path full of horse hoof prints had fallen to the ground.
There were a total of 80 rounds of lead bullets in two rounds. The heavily deformed plate armor was punctured in the weak parts, and the blood loss made the knights of Sivalier quickly become weak.
Yet they are still not ready to give up.
"Viva-la-Groya!" The eight Sivalier knights, who supported their bodies with their weapons and stood up shakily again, shouted loudly, trying to charge towards the artillerymen.
However, at this time, the hand artillerymen who fired the first round had reloaded, and they once again completed the alternation, playing the final movement for these knights who were unwilling to fall with 40 sophisticated firearms stamped with the dwarf mark.
“Bang bang bang bang bang—!
"
The breastplate and helmet, which had been severely deformed by the continuous lead bullet strikes, were no longer able to block the hand cannon fire even from a distance of more than ten meters. After the lead bullet hit the steel plate, it deformed, twisted and smashed into the human body, tearing apart the bones and organs.
The knights whose lungs were punctured struggled to breathe but could no longer get any oxygen. Blood flowed wildly from the wounds, consuming their last bit of strength.
The charge stopped when it was still ten meters away from the hand artillerymen. The last knight almost dragged his feet and staggered a few centimeters while still trying to charge.
The black army shooters maintained enough calm. They did not panic and try to reload before pouring firepower on the opponent again. They just watched the Sivaliya man's final struggle in full preparedness.
"Pacha——!" "Clang!"
"When he finally fell to the ground with his tattered plate armor, the shooters also put away their hand cannons and no longer pointed at the lifeless battlefield.
"Someone is approaching!" The conflict that determined victory or defeat in just a few minutes came to an end when Henry and his party appeared at the end of the trail.
The archer unit noticed their presence, but after the commander with platinum hair saw the group of people from a few dozen meters away, he immediately issued an order to lower his alert.
"Don't worry, they are not the same group of Sivaliers who massacred and robbed the villagers." The knight commander, who was also wearing a black armor but with a golden ribbon on his chest, rode forward. The black people around him The armored knights also followed silently, maintaining their guard formation during the march.
"Greetings from a long time ago." He bowed his head slightly in greeting, neither humble nor overbearing. This former paladin with Roan blood who came from the west coast with Henry and Mira is now obviously a powerful general under Constantine.
He observed the dusty traces of the group, and combined with the dead knights of Sivalier, he already had a rough idea of what happened.
The knight commander first looked at the white-haired girl who also had Luoan blood, and then looked at Ling and Lu Lu, who had foreign faces, and then ignored Kaleva and looked directly at the sage.
He frowned slightly.
"Why?" The tone and wording of the question were very similar to Ling's before.
"The enemy is in a tough fight just because of this."
