The watchtower tactic had originally been a whim — Lorist had recalled that tower defense game that was all the rage in his previous life and decided to deploy it, intending only to shield their controlled territory from easy reconnaissance by enemy light cavalry scouts. But the results far exceeded expectations; it proved remarkably effective at countering light cavalry. So Lorist rolled it out on a large scale, using the watchtowers to link their territory into a web, with the Furious Bear Knight Corps and the three Flying Tiger Regiments he had called in as the spiders perched upon it — pouncing to strike hard the moment any enemy stumbled into the trap.
The watchtowers were also extremely easy to build. Dig the foundation, fill it with rough stone, pour in green vine resin to set, then construct a stone tower on top using cut blocks or elongated stone slabs. The northwestern part of the southern province was mostly hills, making quarrying convenient. The Silver Knights and Silver-rank swordsmen of the Rock Fortress Legion were already accustomed to this kind of labor back in their home territory — using
They used green vine mud as a binding agent and sealant, and once the tower was complete, they dug several trenches in a hundred-meter perimeter around it as additional defense. The whole process took barely ten days. Now several new watchtowers were completed every day, and the territory under their control kept expanding. Looking at the map, nearly a third of the southern province had already fallen under the Northland Four-Family Alliance's control.
But as the watchtowers multiplied, Lorist began to realize something was off. This wasn't a tower defense game — each watchtower required a garrison. Over a hundred and seventy watchtowers had been built so far, and the Rock Fortress Legion already had more than a full regiment assigned to man them — over seventeen thousand soldiers.
A month ago, when Lorist had led the Rock Fortress Legion to the front, he had faced two Fisablen Family corps numbering over seventy thousand, plus more than thirty thousand Grass Barbarian cavalry, all positioned behind a well-fortified and thoroughly prepared defensive line. In open battle, Lorist wouldn't have feared the Grand Duke of Fisablen's hundred thousand or so troops, but asking him to lead the Rock Fortress Legion's sixty thousand men and the Furious Bear Knight Corps' ten thousand to assault a fortified position held by over a hundred thousand enemies was out of the question. So he ordered three regiments of the Flying Tiger Corps transferred over to bolster their offensive power — only for the Fisablen Family's reserve corps to arrive simultaneously, once again outnumbering Lorist by thirty to forty thousand.
Meanwhile, the
With the enemy forces before him growing to nearly double the
What a headache. He was supposed to be the one attacking, but now he'd been forced onto the defensive. He had originally planned to separate the forces dispatched by the four central duchies from the Fisablen Family's troops and defeat them in detail, but now they had joined forces, their momentum growing ever stronger. The evolution of the campaign had rendered all previous plans fit for the bonfire. Lorist could only respond to each move as it came.
The tent flap was thrown open, and Bodveng walked in. "Your Highness, Count
"What did you say?" Lorist looked up in shock. "Sir Bonava has been seriously wounded? How is that possible? He's the commander of the Pegasus Corps — protected by an entire corps, how could he be injured? Was it an ambush or an assassination?"
Bodveng shook his head. "I'm not sure. The messenger didn't know how Sir Bonava was injured either — he'd only heard it secondhand. See for yourself."
Lorist tore open the letter Bodveng handed him and scanned it quickly, comprehension dawning. "So it's about the iron mines. Looks like I'll have to go in person to sort this out."
"Iron mines? What iron mines?" Bodveng asked.
"The Vesiya Trading Company has set up operations in two iron mines within our Northland Four-Family Alliance's territory. Count Filim sent men to reclaim them, but Sir Bonava, who led the expedition, was seriously wounded by a Great Swordmaster garrisoning the mines. That Great Swordmaster even spat out arrogant words — saying that if anyone wanted to take back the iron mines, they'd have to ask his sword first, and that the Vesiya Trading Company would never hand them over…"
"Didn't Count Filim send the Pegasus Corps to attack the mines?" Bodveng asked without having read the letter.
"He did, but the mines are situated on hillside terrain — steep and treacherous, impossible to besiege properly. Sending a few dozen men up there is just feeding them to the slaughter. So I have to go and help Count Filim out with this. His family's future income is going to depend almost entirely on the output of those two iron mines."
Lorist had no choice but to go. The four families were facing a common enemy, and with the Filim Family lacking a Great Swordmaster of their own, having their family's
It turned out the Vesiya Trading Company had invested heavily in these two mining operations. Not only had they upgraded the mining equipment, but they had also established an iron smelting facility and a forge in the valley between the two mines. In the forge's warehouse, they found nearly ten thousand sets of standard-issue plate armor already manufactured. According to the manager's confession, these had been custom-ordered by the Grand Duke of Fisablen — fifty thousand sets in total — intended for transport to Windbury Royal City to equip the newly formed garrison corps. But the royal city had fallen too quickly, the newly formed garrison corps had ceased to exist, and all the completed plate armor was simply piled up in the warehouse.
Beyond the ten thousand suits of plate armor, Count Filim's greatest windfall was the several hundred smelting and forging technicians and blacksmiths. With these personnel, the smelting facility and forge could continue producing weapons, equipment, and iron farming implements, making the development of the Filim Family's old territories smoother and faster. They also liberated over thirteen thousand captive miners from the two iron mines.
Count Filim wanted to keep these miners digging ore, but Lorist stopped him. "Are you stupid? With just a little kindness, once these miners have recovered from their injuries and regained their strength, they'll be fanatically loyal to the Filim Family. Haven't you been complaining about having nowhere to recruit from? These miners are prime recruitment material — gather enough of them and you can form a small garrison corps. And you're not short on weapons and equipment anymore either. With the smelting facility and forge, you can produce your own."
"But who's going to mine the ore?" Lorist's suggestion had greatly tempted Count Filim, but the thought of having no one to work the mines made him frown again.
"Mining? That doesn't require any skill. The Pegasus Corps captured a lot of bandit and horse-raider prisoners, didn't they? And we've taken Grass Barbarian captives at the front. These fellows are strong and healthy — just toss them into the mine shafts. Set a daily mining quota: only those who meet it get food. Those who don't can starve." Lorist said this with a vicious edge.
"But… but we don't have enough prisoners right now. At most, less than two thousand combined."
"Don't worry. Not many now doesn't mean not many later. Can't you see the enemy camp? Over a hundred thousand soldiers plus sixty to seventy thousand Grass Barbarian cavalry — when this campaign is over, you'll have more mining prisoners than you know what to do with." Lorist replied to Count Filim's concerns with complete confidence.
But within days of returning to the front-line camp, Lorist's mood was ruined by the scouts' reports. The four central duchies' reinforcements had arrived — an estimated sixty thousand troops, accompanied by countless four-wheeled carts loaded with supplies.
Ten thousand men stretch to the horizon, let alone sixty thousand. Interspersed with countless freight wagons, they looked like an enormous dragon slithering along the main road into the Fisablen Family's great camp. For three straight days the central duchies' troops and supply columns continued streaming in. The Furious Bear Knight Corps and the three Flying Tiger Regiments watched from the flank for three days, eager as tigers eyeing prey, but they couldn't find a single opportunity to strike. The wily old Grand Duke of Fisablen had deployed practically every unit of his Border Ranger Corps and tens of thousands of Grass Barbarian cavalry to establish a tight defensive cordon, ensuring the reinforcements and supply wagons from the four central duchies would not be ambushed.
Lorist watched the Grass Barbarian riders thundering back and forth along the distant road and denied
Lorist himself couldn't sleep well that night, his mind churning over the intelligence reports. Count Filim had arrived at the front with two regiments of the Pegasus Corps — twenty thousand light cavalry. The two regiments, twenty-four thousand strong, dispatched by Count Shahin would need another ten days or so to arrive. Whether Duke Kenmaes could get his fifteen thousand men there before next month remained uncertain — the distance was considerable. Right now, the Northland Four-Family Alliance, with the Norton Family's forces as the main body, had roughly a hundred and forty thousand men facing off against the Fisablen Family and the four central duchies' reinforcements totaling two hundred and forty to two hundred and fifty thousand — a difference of nearly a hundred thousand.
Lorist pushed the watchtower strategy to its absolute extreme. In some areas with wider terrain along the forward line, he even constructed watchtower clusters in triangular formations. The Rock Fortress Legion's soldiers worked day and night, connecting the trenches around each watchtower until they formed impassable moats and ditches.
Ten days passed like this. Then the horns blared from the enemy camp across the way, and countless infantry and Grass Barbarian cavalry poured out. The first Battle of the Southern Province had begun.
In truth, the first Battle of the Southern Province lasted only a single day. The four central duchies committed twenty thousand elite infantry, while the Fisablen Family deployed their Third Border Ranger Corps and thirty thousand Grass Barbarian cavalry. They assaulted a cluster of over ten watchtowers in a broad open area ten li to the left of Lorist's camp. Lorist responded with one Flying Tiger Regiment and three Steel Crossbow Chariot Battalions.
But this attack on the watchtowers was merely a probing operation by the four central duchies and the Grand Duke of Fisablen, aimed at identifying weaknesses in Lorist's watchtower tactic. The twenty thousand elite infantry suffered only moderate casualties — around two to three thousand. The Grass Barbarian cavalry coordinating the attack, however, lost roughly ten thousand, primarily because they refused to follow orders and didn't know when to retreat. In the end, the Flying Tiger Regiment caught them in a devastating envelopment and routed them completely.
Lorist sat his horse on a hilltop, watching grimly as the enemy withdrew in good order back to their camp. Though his side's losses that day had been light, three isolated watchtowers had been set ablaze by the attackers, along with nearly two hundred garrison soldiers. As long as the attackers were willing to pay a price of a hundred or two hundred casualties, they could reach the base of a watchtower, then use bundled firewood and oil to set it alight or smoke out the defenders. The tower's exterior was stone, but the interior floors and partitions were made of wood — still vulnerable to fire.
The enemy had retreated this time, but they would be back soon, and with the experience gained from this assault, they would come with even more countermeasures against the watchtowers. Far harsher battles still awaited them. That was what Lorist thought.
…(To be continued.)