The
The apothecary who had just departed made the Second Prince's blood boil all the more — he wished he could have cleaved the man in two with a single sword stroke. As the court physician, the apothecary had spent a long while examining the Second Prince's tooth only to spread his hands and declare himself powerless, claiming that toothache fell under the category of neurological ailments. In the field of pharmacology, dental diseases had always been considered a formidable problem. Unlike other ailments in the body, you couldn't just pour a single potion down the patient's throat and call it cured. The only real solution to toothache was extraction. But once the tooth was pulled, there would be a gap in his mouth, and as for filling the gap — that was pure fantasy. Nobody knew how to do it.
The Second Prince naturally refused to have the tooth pulled. As the King of the Kingdom of Andinork, having a missing tooth would make him a laughingstock among the nobility. It wasn't as if there were no solutions — one could extract a healthy tooth in the same position from a corpse and fit it into the gap for presentability before company. Many nobles who had lost teeth did exactly that. But the mere thought of placing a dead man's tooth in his own mouth, then having to remove it every time he ate to avoid accidentally swallowing it with his food... the Second Prince felt sick to his stomach and flatly rejected the apothecary's suggestion.
The apothecary helplessly prepared to brew a few bottles of cooling and heat-clearing potions for the Second Prince, though he offered no guarantees that they would actually help the toothache. The Second Prince was in excruciating pain — if he could have spoken properly, he would have torn into the apothecary something fierce. What nonsense about toothache being an unsolved problem in the science of pharmacology — a shattered liver could be cured with a single potion poured down the throat, so how could it suddenly not work on a tooth? Utter drivel about teeth being the crystallization of human bone, different from soft tissue — the man simply hadn't mastered his craft, plain and simple. He really shouldn't be spending so many gold coins every year to retain his services...
Gazing at the handful of newspapers from
Setting aside the Second Prince's anxieties, Lorist was at that moment heading to the front lines under Count Shahin's escort to survey the battlefield situation. After the rainy season had ended, Lorist had dawdled in Bear City for another half month, and only when the Second Prince dispatched three messengers from the front to urge him on his way did he reluctantly set out with the Flying Tiger Legion — bringing along along several newspapers from Morant City that reported on the Forde Commercial Alliance's recruitment of a Sword Saint to serve as their national pillar...
After inspecting the defensive positions set up by the four central duchies across the way, Lorist finally understood why the Second Prince had been so desperate to summon him. He had been wondering before — mountain siege warfare was supposed to be heavy infantry's job, and the Flying Tiger Legion was cavalry, so what use would they be? But now that he had seen the battlefield with his own eyes, he realized what the Second Prince didn't need was cavalry — he needed the war wagons with their steel crossbows and the Thunderbolt catapult battalion, the two long-range support units attached to the Flying Tiger Legion.
By the time Lorist reached the front, it was already the twenty-first of May. After the rainy season ended, the Second Prince had led over two hundred thousand troops into the Handra Duchy's Westwood Province. At first, progress was smooth — they seized a quarter of the territory — but they soon became bogged down at the Weilongni Mountain Pass, suffering defeat after defeat in repeated assaults. It was only then that the Second Prince thought of borrowing the Flying Tiger Legion's long-range firepower to suppress the defenders' counterattacks, which was why he had relentlessly sent messengers to urge Lorist to hurry to the front.
"This battle won't be easy," Lorist said.
That was the truth — Weiswood Province, as the name suggested, was a province of mountains and forests, and a large one at that. *Weis* in the common tongue meant "towering peaks." The Yunduan Mountain Range, which rose from the White Heron Lake marshlands in Camporna Province, stretched across five provinces before terminating in Weiswood Province. Although this was merely the tail end of the range, the hills and forests were everywhere, making the terrain ideal for defense and nightmarish for attack. Years ago, the First Prince had marched over two hundred thousand men against the four central duchies, only to be stopped in Weiswood Province as well. After two years of stalemate, his offensive had lost momentum and he suffered defeat after defeat. Of course, the First Prince had been attacking from south to north back then, whereas the Second Prince was now pushing from north to south.
Weilongni Mountain Pass — strictly speaking, it should be called the very tip of the Yunduan Mountain Range. The terrain bore some resemblance to the Pispero Mountain Pass where Pidro City of Winston Province sat, except this place was far wider than the narrow Pispero Pass, spanning a good ten-odd li across. But for all its width, Weilongni Pass still commanded the high ground, forcing any attacker into a grueling uphill assault — an extremely unfavorable position.
Through the single-tube telescope, the defending Handra Duchy garrison could be seen employing trenches and earthen walls to construct their defensive positions, though they had also added quite a few arrow towers. Scattered around the perimeter of the defensive works were numerous shattered and splintered shield carts, and the ground was dotted with dark stains — likely the bloodstains left by soldiers who had attacked. The slope above was also riddled with craters and long, linear grooves of varying depth...
"See those two protruding sections on either side of the slope?" Count Shahin pointed out.
"What are those?" Lorist swiveled the direction of his telescope to where Count Shahin had indicated and saw a row of peculiar tower-like wooden structures, each equipped with long crane-like lifting arms.
"The shield carts were supposed to provide cover for the White Lion Legion's assault, but the enemy was fully prepared. That row of strange wooden buildings with long arms up there turned out to be catapult platforms. Although they couldn't throw as far as our own catapults, they had the advantage of high ground, looking down on the attackers. The White Lion Legion's assault force suffered a devastating defeat with heavy casualties, and about a dozen of His Majesty's catapults that were sent up were also destroyed."
Catapults? Lorist understood now — it seemed the Handra Duchy had developed lever-type catapulting equipment. Those tower-like wooden structures below were probably built specifically to conceal the lever mechanism, hehe, they were quite keen on keeping things secret. Lorist counted them. On one side alone there were over forty wooden towers, and with both sides combined, that was nearly a hundred catapults.
"How large and heavy are the stones they fire? What is their maximum range?" Lorist asked.
Count Shahin thought for a moment and replied, "About the size of a human head, forty to fifty jin in weight. They should be able to reach two to three hundred meters at maximum. That was the distance at which His Majesty's catapults were destroyed. The King was furious, saying the catapults you gave him were junk, that they couldn't even match the enemy's range. When we were hit by the enemy's stone-throwing attacks, our catapults immediately returned fire, but the problem was all of our stones landed in front of those catapults — we couldn't destroy them, so we had no choice but to pull back."
Lorist snorted softly through his nose. "Junk — he can really say that with a straight face. He never stopped to think that we were attacking uphill while the enemy held the heights. The terrain advantage alone accounted for more than half the difference. Once you factor in the elevation gap, of course our catapults can't throw as far as the enemy's."
"Mm, His Majesty eventually came around to that realization too. He arranged a night raid, but the enemy's defenses were tight and it failed just the same. The situation on the battlefield now is the complete reverse of what it was during the Forlundo Duchy campaign. Back then, daytime belonged to us — the Forlundo garrison army could only launch counterattacks at night to recapture the positions we'd taken during the day. But now, with those hundred-odd stone-throwers up there, the daytime belongs to them instead. We simply can't mount any kind of offensive," Count Shahin said.
That was certainly true. Those hundred-odd stone-throwers positioned on the earthen slope posed a genuinely terrifying threat to any attacker. The moment you entered their range, you had to be on constant edge, watching for rocks raining down from the sky. Under those circumstances, there was no point even talking about offensive efficiency or chances of victory.
"Didn't His Highness the Second Prince try relocating to a different spot?"
"Useless." Count Shahin shook his head. "This stretch is already the flattest section of the Weilongni Pass, and arguably the most favorable terrain for our assault. We scouted every other option — the mountains are steeper elsewhere, and some of the paths wind around the hillsides, which only benefits the defenders. This main road is, after all, the thoroughfare connecting the Four Central Duchies. It's the widest and least threatening stretch for an offensive. We simply didn't expect the Handra Duchy to deploy so many stone-throwers up there and pin us down in this pass."
"How are the forces of the Four Central Duchies distributed?" Lorist asked.
"Based on our scouts' reconnaissance and the interrogation of prisoners, the section of the pass directly ahead is being defended by the Handra Duchy's Red Dragon Legion. The Red Dragon and White Dragon Legions are Handra's two standing legions, each with a peacetime complement of twenty-four thousand men organized into two regiments and one battalion. They're commonly known as the Twin Dragon Legions — Red and White — but during wartime, once expansion kicks in, they split into two separate legions. Right now, the Red Dragon Legion has four regiments of eight thousand men each plus a logistics battalion of three thousand, putting it at a full strength of thirty-five thousand, and it's responsible for defending the Weilongni Pass.
On the left, along the ridgeline of the Cloudbreak Mountain Range, the Forlundo Duchy's First Garrison Legion holds the position. On the right, stationed in the Matenemadi mountain region, is the Farkel Duchy's Green Forest Mountain Legion. The rest of their forces haven't shown themselves yet — what we're facing is these three legions, nearly a hundred and thirty thousand men in total." Count Shahin had a very clear picture of the battlefield situation.
Lorist pointed toward the mist-shrouded Matenemadi mountain range in the distance. "Has His Majesty the King considered making a move on that side?"
Count Shahin gave a bitter smile. "Of course he has. But it nearly cost us an entire elite light infantry scout battalion of our family. The Matenemadi mountains are extremely steep with no major roads passable through them. What's worse, the region is riddled with streams, deep ravines, and dense gorges — it's practically impassable. That Green Forest Mountain Legion from Farkel Duchy only needed to occupy a handful of strategic points to completely cut us off. I sent an elite scout battalion into the mountains to find a route. Out of the whole force, only about three hundred made it back..."
"What about the Nibalaku River beyond the Matenemadi mountains — doesn't it lead straight into the heartland of the Handra Duchy, into Dramark Province? Has His Highness the Second Prince never considered dispatching a strike force to slip behind enemy lines and throw all of Handra into chaos?" Lorist offered yet another suggestion.
"It was useless. Grand Duke Fasaburun proposed it too, but he nearly lost an entire light cavalry regiment," Count Shahin sighed. "The Handra Duchy was already on guard there. Grand Duke Fasaburun gathered craftsmen to build countless wooden rafts, planning to float them straight downriver into Dramark Province. But who could have guessed that the Handra Duchy had strung three massive iron chains across the river at a bend near the Matenemadi mountains?
To achieve a surprise attack, the Grand Duke didn't send anyone to scout first, fearing it would alert the enemy. On the day of the assault, the reserve corps's barbarian cavalry rode the rafts downstream, only to be blocked by the iron chains at the bend. The enemies on the riverbank, who had been standing guard, immediately summoned reinforcements. They seized the chance to fire flaming arrows, launch fireballs, and pour burning oil onto the river, turning it into a sea of flames. In the end, the reserve corps was utterly defeated, losing nearly ten thousand men..."
Having gossiped gleefully for a while, he remembered his boast to the Second Prince that he would definitely find a way to break through, and his expression quickly turned sour.
He really must have been out of his mind. Why did he have to mock the Second Prince and the others for being trapped here at the welcome banquet? And then, pressured to bring the Flying Tiger Corps along. After being provoked by the Second Prince, he couldn't stand the jab, drank too much wine, and thumped his chest and swore he'd find a way to take this mountain pass defensive position. Now, look at him—he'd backed himself into a corner.
"Hennide, take me around for another look. Let's see if the defense of the four central duchies has any loopholes we can exploit," Lorist said to Count Shahin.
Three more days passed before the antitoxin potion finally took effect. Although the toothache persisted, the swelling in the Second Prince's cheek had gone down, allowing him to speak properly. The still-fuming Second Prince convened a military conference to discuss how to break the current deadlock and breach the mountain pass defensive position.
"Lorist, last time you said there was definitely a way to break through the Weilongni Pass. Have you come up with any brilliant ideas these past few days?" the Second Prince was the first to address Lorist. Who told this guy to come reluctantly with the Flying Tiger Corps, and complain at the welcome banquet about how he'd spent three months relocating refugees last winter, and how he'd dealt with the threat of the Furlendo Duchy's mountain legion behind the army—only to be given no proper rest time? He'd even said, 'Can't the
Back then, Grand Duke Fasaburun had stood up to explain how well-fortified the Weilongni Pass defenses were, but Lorist had scoffed, saying there was no defense in the world without flaws—we just hadn't spotted the weakness yet. He'd seized that opportunity to corner this guy with his own words, and then, surprisingly, this fellow had volunteered to find the weak point in those defenses. Probably because he'd had a few too many drinks at the time. Quite out of character. But before leaving, this guy had given him those newspapers, letting him learn about the Forde Commercial Alliance recruiting a Sword Saint to bolster their nation—leading to his toothache these past few days.
If this guy said he still hadn't figured out how to attack the Weilongni Pass defenses, he would definitely mock him mercilessly. Who asked him to be so boastful? The Second Prince thought.
Lorist held up three fingers. "Your Highness, forgive my limited knowledge. After studying the situation on the battlefield these past few days, I've only come up with three possible plans."
...