Having decided to adopt a strategy of stalemate without battle, simply waiting for the Handera Duchy's civil unrest to play out, the
Furthermore, the camp was split in two. Duke Kenmais's two heavy infantry legions, the
Had the Second Prince not relocated his main camp, the Red Army Corps defending the Weilongni Mountain Pass would have needed to hold the pass's defensive positions to the death, while the Fulundo Duchy's First Garrison Corps stationed at the ridgeline terminus of the Yunduan Mountains on the left, and the Fakel Duchy's Green Forest Mountain Corps positioned in the Matenemadi mountain range on the right, could have launched surprise raids on the main camp or pincer attacks from both flanks to tie down the Andinak Kingdom alliance's offensive. But now that the main camp had retreated fifty li, the defenders had no way of knowing which direction the Second Prince's next attack would come from—all three legions stationed along the front line could potentially be struck.
To determine the purpose behind the Second Prince's withdrawal of the main camp, the defending Handera Duchy dispatched numerous scouts down from the mountains to gather intelligence. However, the fifty li the Second Prince had retreated through were all open plains—the natural hunting ground of light cavalry. Every scout who descended the mountains and encountered the light cavalry faced nothing but death or surrender. In short order, the defenders' scouts suffered devastating casualties, and only a handful of the luckiest managed to report back what they had discovered.
A stalemate without attack did not mean ceasing hostilities. Rather, it meant maintaining constant psychological pressure on the defending enemy without taking the initiative to assault, ultimately forcing them to crumble under the strain. The Second Prince executed this brilliantly. Though he had pulled back fifty li, he ordered
With the disposition of the two forward camps arranged, the Second Prince entrusted frontline affairs to Lorist and Grand Duke Fisablen respectively. It was a straightforward division—one commander per camp, maintaining constant pressure on the defenders, guarding against desperate surprise attacks, and so on. The Second Prince himself, however, returned to Pedro City with
Watching the colorful regimental banners fluttering in the distance, Duke Kenmais, who had come to see the Second Prince off, turned to Lorist and said, "Hennad is such a fool. This time he didn't manage to extract any benefits from His Majesty and was stupid enough to be used as His Majesty's blade. I wager that once His Majesty returns to Pedro City, he plans to start carving up those Fulundo Duchy nobles—and Hennad will be the knife in his hand."
This time, in agreeing to cooperate with the Second Prince's stalemate strategy against the four central dukes, Grand Duke Fisablen had secured a legion's worth of weapons and equipment plus a quota of fifty thousand immigrants once Handera Duchy was conquered. Duke Kenmais had obtained a two-year tax exemption for the Snow Salt Trading Company to operate throughout the kingdom. Count Phelim had requested thirty thousand young laborers after the war to develop the southern provinces. Lorist had received yet another three-year tax exemption for his family territory and administered lands. Everyone got what they needed. Only Baron Shahin, ever straightforward, had once again asked the Second Prince to assign him a mineral-rich province as family territory after the war, without requesting any specific reward.
"Fools have fool's luck," Lorist said. "Hennad going to serve as His Majesty's blade this time is actually His Majesty's way of compensating him. Right now, all of our forces are deployed here, and the logistics and supplies we need must be transported over long distances—the cost is enormous. Though the Fulundo Duchy has not suffered much war damage, the grain and military supplies it had accumulated are nearly depleted. The winter wheat harvest, while not insignificant for His Majesty, cannot sustain the army for very long.
With three or four months until the next harvest here, His Majesty, no matter how capable, cannot conjure grain out of thin air over such a period. Aside from arranging plantings and encouraging production, relying on grain shipped through the supply lines is far too costly and expensive. So the best approach is to clear out the Fulundo Duchy's territorial nobles. I estimate that one stroke of the blade will yield His Majesty enough to easily cover a year's rations for three hundred thousand troops. And do you really think Hennad won't get his share of the soup during this process? Even if he quietly pockets two or three hundred thousand gold Fordes, His Majesty will turn a blind eye."
Count Phelim snorted unhappily, "The bastard's gotten lucky as hell. I just hope he won't be won over by His Majesty..."
"I suppose His Majesty's current interest in those territorial nobles was also inspired by the two of you..."
Count Phelim fell silent. The matter at the end of last year, when they had relocated refugees while simultaneously raiding Fakel Duchy's territorial nobles, had indeed been somewhat underhanded. But Lorist was full of self-justification: "You don't understand the predicament we were in back then. His Majesty gave us only fifteen days' provisions for one hundred and fifty thousand men and expected us to relocate so many refugees to Windbury Royal City—was that even possible? If we hadn't raided those noble estates, where would we have gotten food and clothing? Besides, we helped His Majesty clear out the unstable elements in Fakel Duchy, saving him the trouble of doing it himself. Instead of thanking us, he flew into a rage. Absolutely absurd..."
Duke Kenmais and Count Phelim both burst into helpless laughter. Only Lorist could get away with leaving His Majesty speechless. The Second Prince was quite formidable in his own right, yet he always came up short whenever he dealt with Lorist. Even the other three members of the Northern Alliance had managed to extract quite a few advantages from the Second Prince.
Lorist was actually quite annoyed. Why should the Second Prince dissolve those noble coalition forces yet refuse to let him return to Northland, dressing it up as "entrusting him with frontline affairs"? With the stalemate strategy in place, what pressing frontline matters were there? No major battles would be fought going forward. Maintaining pressure on Handera Duchy's defensive positions was a trivial task he could easily delegate to Tiger Ross. So why keep him here baking in the sun?
Lorist felt he had fallen into a pit of his own making. The thought of spending two years here filled him with a sense that death would be preferable. But seeing Grand Duke Fisablen equally stranded at the front by the Second Prince gave him a measure of emotional balance. People were all like this—one person's misfortune was misery, but watching someone else share that misfortune turned it into something close to happiness.
On reflection, Lorist actually found the Second Prince's arrangements for himself and Grand Duke Fisablen quite interesting. If both were allowed to return to their family territories, Lorist might very well start eyeing the Fisablen family's holdings again. There was nothing to be done about it—the four Northern Alliance families had only one neighbor around them who could be bullied, after all. And with the Fisablen family having grown so close to the Second Prince, Lorist certainly didn't want such a threatening power sitting right next to his family's territory. Given the chance, he would never hesitate to suppress them.
Though the Second Prince harbored hostility toward the Northern Alliance, he was far removed from them, and as a king he had to maintain some magnanimity. He couldn't very well tear off the mask and openly clash with the Norton Family. So even when Lorist made the Second Prince suffer, he did it so cleverly that as long as no evidence was left behind, no one could touch him. Moreover, the Second Prince had to respect the Norton Family's strength—even if he wanted to turn hostile, he had to consider whether he could afford it.
Now, by forcibly keeping Lorist and Grand Duke Fisablen at the front and granting them authority to make judgment calls on the spot, the Second Prince was making it abundantly clear that both should keep their peace and not rush back to their family territories only to start scheming against each other and causing internal strife. With the kingdom currently engaged in its final campaign against the four central dukes, the Second Prince absolutely could not afford renewed friction between the Norton Family and the Fisablen family—it might affect the front line's military situation.
You have energy? Direct it at the Handera Duchy. Stay under my watchful eye and don't cause any trouble. It seemed the Second Prince understood perfectly that though the Fisablen family had signed a ceasefire with the Northern Alliance, Grand Duke Fisablen's submission to him and the family's enthusiastic support had offended Lorist. No matter who served as head of the Norton Family, none would permit the Second Prince and the Fisablen family to sandwich the Nortons between east and west. Given the opportunity, Lorist would certainly not let the Fisablen family off—and as for that ceasefire agreement, he would simply tear it up. When you wanted to start a war, you were never short of a good excuse.
If only Lorist were kept behind while Grand Duke Fisablen was allowed to go, Lorist would never settle peacefully at the front. He might very well lead his family's armed forces and depart without so much as a goodbye. And if only Grand Duke Fisablen were kept while Lorist was released, Fisablen too would have no peace of mind. Before long, word might arrive that the Fisablen family's territory had been completely uprooted by Lorist. So only by keeping both at the front could everyone rest easy—they could also keep each other in check. This was surely the Second Prince's calculation. By remaining at the Summer Palace in Pedro City himself, he could effectively restrain both and prevent any major conflicts or confrontations.
After the Second Prince and his entourage departed, a few days later Duke Kenmais and Count Phelim also took their leave of Lorist. They had it easy—they were the carefree sort, handing their family armed forces over to Lorist's command and departing light-hearted. One planned to deploy the Snow Salt Trading Company's commercial network across the eight newly conquered provinces, while the other intended to return to the southern provinces to oversee his family territory's development. The Second Prince had no requirement for them to remain at the front, and they were perfectly comfortable entrusting their family troops to Lorist, confident they wouldn't be used as cannon fodder. As Duke Kenmais had put it, "We four families are one body—handing them to your command is the only way we can rest easy..."
Well, once they left, Lorist found himself thoroughly bored. Though Count Phelim had promised to return in two months, Lorist still felt listless and turned his restless energy to harassing Handera Duchy's three defensive positions. Hadn't they boasted about their trebuchets holding the high ground and firing down with devastating effect? Using the lever principle yet still falling short of his own catapults in range was truly pathetic. So Lorist gathered a group of craftsmen and built roughly a dozen enormous lever-style catapults, setting them up before the three defensive positions and hurling stones from the valley floor up the mountainside, battering away at the defensive positions on the slopes.
The operation was cumbersome—each throw required a dozen soldiers to haul on the lever with all their strength, and counterweight boxes had to be fitted. The rate of fire was dreadfully slow...
Yet the Second Prince and Grand Duke Fisablen were already astounded by Lorist. These simple catapults were immediately comprehensible at a glance: a massive timber frame, a long and sturdy wooden beam serving as a lever, mounted on the frame with a counterweight box hanging from the tail end, a leather pouch at the lever's head holding a stone roughly the size of a human head—sever the rope at the lever's tip with one slash, and the heavy counterweight box would drop, swinging the lever high into the air and launching the stone five or six hundred meters onto the mountain slope defensive positions...
For the Second Prince, this was an utterly delightful surprise. He eagerly asked Lorist whether they could build more of these catapults to smash the defensive positions to rubble, then seize the mountain pass defenses in the ensuing chaos.
Lorist shook his head and told him bluntly that the devices were useless. Look—the same catapult launching stones of identical size and weight could vary by a hundred to two hundred meters in landing distance. No one could control the accuracy. So while the contraptions could harass the enemy, using them to actually capture positions was out of the question. If they managed to inflict any casualties at all, that was pure luck.
The Second Prince left in a huff, though before departing he sketched the design of these lever-style catapults. Lorist didn't care. After all, if the Second Prince ever tried using these against the Norton Family, it would become a laughingstock. These lever-style catapults were enormous and unwieldy, a nightmare to relocate. When his family's bronze cannons appeared on the battlefield, these catapults would have no choice but to serve as sitting targets for artillery fire.
Lorist treated these crude giant catapults merely as a means of harassing the defensive positions and didn't much care about their effectiveness. But the garrison legions of the three duchies on the defensive positions couldn't endure it at all, because these things were completely unpredictable—no one knew where the next stone would land. The soldiers stationed in the defensive positions spent every day craning their necks at the sky, terrified that the instant they let their guard down, a stone would come crashing down from who knew where and split their skulls open...
Eventually the commanders of the three garrison legions devised a plan and, exploiting a nighttime raid, successfully broke through the watchtowers and descended the mountain to set fire to and destroy all of these giant catapults. Lorist flew into a rage and ordered the craftsmen to work overtime building replacements, even paying out of his own pocket as bonuses. They produced twice as many giant catapults as before and subjected the defensive positions to another round of harassing bombardment.
This time Lorist changed his tactics. Instead of hurling massive boulders, he had the stones broken into pieces. Large bundles of fist-sized rocks were launched over, creating a veritable stone rain with a far wider area of effect. Though not lethal, it left the garrison soldiers on the defensive positions bloodied and battered, their heads split open.
The three garrison legions couldn't take it anymore and launched another night raid down the mountain. This time, however, they hit an iron wall. Lorist had quietly redeployed the Flying Tiger Corps's War Chariot Steel Crossbow Regiment and laid an ambush. A devastating volley of steel crossbow bolts tore into the raiding garrison forces, inflicting catastrophic casualties. Only a small number of the cleverer ones managed to escape back up the mountain.
Taking inspiration from the fire oil he found on the captured raiding soldiers, Lorist then arranged for large quantities of fire oil to be shipped from the rear, sealed in ceramic jars and hurled toward the defensive positions, followed by ignited stones. Before long, a raging wall of fire blazed across the forward edge of the defensive positions. Credit to the garrison soldiers—they were well prepared and quickly smothered the fire oil and burning ground with sand and dirt, preventing Lorist from launching a successful assault in the confusion.
...