BXBX NOVEL Chapter 232: Tragic
Fortunately, hundreds of bonfires propped up a piece of light, blocking the darkness from the army camp.
"Who!" The night watch soldier was startled by the movement above his head, and was pulling out the scimitar at his waist when he saw a huge shadow covering him.
The bonfire around him suddenly jumped up and down, as if welcoming or paying tribute.
"Lord Caesar!" The soldier finally saw the white dragon clearly, quickly put away the knife, and bowed to salute.
Samwell jumped off the dragon\'s back, nodded to the soldiers, and asked:
"Where is the commander\'s tent?"
"I\'ll take you there."
"Okay." It was so dark that it took Samwell a lot of effort to find it himself.
Cleopatra seemed to be exhausted and paralyzed, laying on the ground and not wanting to move.
Samwell had no choice but to pat its head: "Okay, you can stay here and rest. You have worked hard today."
After explaining some precautions to the night watch soldiers, Samwell went to the camp of the Chinese army.
Earl Randall was still awake, staring at the topographic map in a daze. After seeing Samwell coming in, he stood up and asked:
"Why did you come back so late?"
Samwell did not talk nonsense, and directly stated the latest information he found: "I found Lannister\'s reinforcements! They are heading south from the King\'s Road and have just arrived at the Wende River. There are 50,000 to 60,000 people."
"50,000 to 60,000?" Earl Landau was also taken aback by this amount, but then frowned, "Where did the Lannister family get so many soldiers? They don\'t care about the threat from the north?"
"I captured two prisoners. They said that most of them were recruits recruited by Kevan from King\'s Landing urgently. I also went to see it myself. It is true that the military discipline is very bad, and the weapons and equipment are not complete. It should be a makeshift army. The new army that comes out will not have much combat effectiveness."
"That makes sense." Earl Randall stood up from his seat, paced back and forth in the tent, and said, "It seems that Kevan is planning to use this new army to defend the city, and by the way, reduce the population pressure on King\'s Landing. After losing the support of the two major granaries of the Riverland and the Reach, the Lannister family must be very tight in food supply."
"Yes, father. I think we should decisively abandon Luomucheng and intercept this new army going south. In the wild, they are vulnerable, but if we let them hide behind the city wall, I\'m afraid it will cause us great trouble .”
Earl Randall thought for a moment, but slowly shook his head:
"No. It is true that Fallen Wood City can no longer fight, but our marching direction cannot be changed, and we will continue to move east."
Samwell was puzzled: "But the king\'s army is in our northeast direction..."
As soon as he said it, he realized something and asked:
"Father, are you planning to go east and then north?"
"Yes." Earl Randall nodded, "To the east, we can leave the imperial forest as quickly as possible. This is our first goal of marching, and it cannot be changed because of the appearance of new enemies. But after we leave the imperial forest, we will not We have attacked Fallen Wood City, but changed our course to the north, and went to Tongmen City to intercept the king\'s army going south."
"Will it be too late?"
"But this is the safest way." Earl Randall emphasized, "Don\'t forget the troubles you are solving because of the emergence of new troubles. The royal forest is still too dangerous for us, we must pass carefully.
Moreover, since the enemy also knows that we know their existence, the harassment of the Stormlanders will only become more intense.
When the army leaves the imperial forest, you will lead all the river bay cavalry one step ahead to the north to harass the king\'s army and delay their entry into Tongmen City. "
"Is it just a delay? Then wait for you to lead the army to launch a joint attack?" Samwell asked, "I\'m afraid that the king\'s army has already entered the city before you arrive."
"You can decide on your own whether to launch an attack. Although the king\'s army is large in number, if your previous information is accurate, the combat effectiveness should be poor. You can try it out and see if you can find a fighter."
"Okay!" Samwell nodded heavily, with flames dancing in his eyes.
…
In the next few days, the Hewan army was attacked more and more intensely.
The Stormland Light Cavalry has significantly increased in both the number of dispatches and the number of attacks, and sometimes they even try to steal camp at night.
However, night action is a very risky thing for cavalry, especially in the complex environment of the jungle. Losing their wits, they are only harassed by thunder and rain, deliberately creating noise and tension, trying to prevent the people of Hewan from resting as much as possible.
Earl Randall arranged the camp in two circles inside and outside the city. The outer circle was in charge of guarding, and all the people in the inner circle slept with their ears plugged.
Three days passed like this. Seeing that the Hewan army was about to walk out of the imperial forest, the people in the storm were really anxious.
"We must stop the people of the Riverbend!" Lord Heywood Fell said loudly.
The lord of Fallen Wood City has a horse face, his beard and long hair are gray-brown, messy and dense, like weeds growing wildly.
"I\'m afraid I can\'t stop it." Sir Kunta Bukele from Bronze Gate City looked melancholy.
He\'s always been so sad, ever since he found that expression attractive to girls.
"If you can\'t stop it, you have to stop it! We can\'t let the River Bend people enter our territory!" Earl Heywood spat wildly at Sir Kunta.
"Lord Heywood is right." Earl Arstan Selmy said.
The Earl of Harvest Hall is the nephew of the famous Captain of the Kingsguard, Barristan Selmy. This time he was ordered by the Duke of Storm\'s End to lead the northern princes in the Stormlands against the Northern Army of the Riverbend. Although not as famous as his uncle, he also has very rich experience in leading troops in combat.
"Everyone, don\'t take any chances." Earl Astan solemnly reminded, "Once the people of Hewan capture your castle, they will not return it to you. So, this time you are not fighting for Duke Edric, Not for King Tommen, but for your own castles, domains, and titles!"
These rather explicit remarks shocked the hearts of the stormy nobles.
They did have some hesitation before. After all, the Duke of Storm’s End has no prestige and has a problematic background. Few of the Stormland nobles are willing to serve him.
As for the king on the Iron Throne, few nobles from the Storm Land are willing to admit it.
But Earl Astan was right. Regardless of their political stance, they had to go all out when facing the people of Hewan this time, otherwise the lost castle and title would be their own.
"For the Stormlands!" Earl Heywood hurriedly roared upon seeing this.
"For the Stormlands!"
"For the Stormlands!"
Finally, the nobles of the Storm Land decided to go all out.
Just after noon, this jungle fight reached its climax.
The people of the storm no longer just sent out light cavalry to harass, but the army pressed forward. For a while, the arrows were as dense as rain, pouring towards the army at the river bend.
The army of Hewan has long been ready for formation, and the sword and shield soldiers in the outer circle raised their shields in front of them, while still maintaining a slow but firm forward speed. The archers followed closely, and they did not forget to move forward while fighting back.
Earl Randall, even at this time, still insisted on his first military goal——
Get out of the royal forest as soon as possible.
During the march, there will inevitably be gaps in the shield wall. Facing a large area of arrows, even with the protection of shields and leather armor, there will still be casualties.
But Earl Landau did not intend to stop the army from advancing, even though this was very likely to be the most ferocious attack launched by the enemy.
Seeing that the rain of arrows could not stop the people of Hewan, the people of Stormland began to change their formation.
As the flags of various colors swayed and the drums rumbled, the archers in the stormy land retreated, and the swordsmen began to press forward.
This is about to prepare for the battle.
Earl Randall saw this situation and issued a new military order:
"All the cavalry must gather in the formation, and the whole army must slow down, but must not stop advancing!"
While the messengers scattered to deliver the military orders, the Stormlanders had already begun to charge.
The first to attack this kind of charge is usually cannon fodder, which is used to consume the arrows of the Hewan people and wear down their swords. At the same time, the lives of these cannon fodder are also used to shake the Hewan army formation and find flaws.
Cruel, but it is the basic law of warfare in this era.
Samwell could clearly see that few of the Stormlanders who rushed up in the first wave were wearing armor. It is estimated that most of them were urgently recruited civilians. After simple training, they were given weapons and sent On the battlefield, but there are indeed quite a few of them. At a glance, there are two to three thousand people.
A wave of charge can have this scale, it can be seen that the people of the storm have really spent their money.
Facing such a charge, the first thing is to stabilize the formation.
As long as the formation is stable, the Stormlanders will collapse on their own due to the surge in casualties.
In fact, at this time, it is best for Lord Riverbend to stop and fight, but for some reason, Earl Landau still insisted that the army keep moving forward.
Even if the speed is a little slower, we must move forward.
Amidst bursts of shouts and screams, the two armies began a brutal hand-to-hand combat.
Dense stormlanders rushed into the army formation of Shanghewan people like a tide, splashing bright red blood flowers one after another.
The patchwork array of river bends caused the Stormlanders to pay a heavy price for their charge, but their tenacity also exceeded expectations, and they forced themselves to further crash into the front of the crossbow formation despite a large number of casualties.
Fortunately, the crossbowmen in Hewan also wore leather armor, and the soldiers who could bend their bows and shoot arrows were not weak.
However, in this way, the long-range killing efficiency of the Hewan Army will be affected.
More and more Stormland soldiers took this opportunity to break into the formation, and the fighting became more **** and fierce.