Chapter 339 Regret

The horn sound of "Woooooo..." echoed on the yellow field of autumn grass. Another black crow army appeared on the other end of the horizon. They held various flags and looked at the camp of the northern coalition forces from afar. After a long time, several knights rode horses and shouted in front of the crowd of the team. Then the crowd made a shout of uncertainty, and then began to move, heading towards the camp arranged by the Madras Public Team under the hills in the distance.

The Second His Highness remembered very clearly that after he made an oath and obtained the promise that the four major families in the Northland were willing to serve him, the next day the envoy of the Grand Duke of Madras came to the camp again, and he came to urge the coalition forces in the Northland to withdraw from the Principality of Madras.

However, when Earl Kenmath proposed the new conditions, the envoy smiled, his eyes full of sarcasm: "Mr. Earl, do you regard the Principality as a fat cow? Do you think that the Grand Duke will agree to such conditions? Don't forget that no matter how fat the cow is, it has a pair of sharp horns. As an envoy, I have no right to denounce your delusions. I can only tell you what you said. But before leaving, I want to say something to you, since you want to fight, we will definitely not let you down..."

After the envoy left, the second highman was inexplicably excited. He immediately delivered a passionate speech, meaning that it was almost broken up now. The Northern Alliance should seize this opportunity to attack the enemy first, sweep the entire Dremque Province before the Duke of Madras could react, occupy more territory, and after the Grand Duke of Madras arrived, he could engage in a tug-of-war and use his elite troops to defeat or drag down the Duke of Madras.

In response to the second highness, only four expressionless faces were faced. Baron Shahin was the first to speak. He believed that it was unnecessary to attack Dremke Province now. During this period, he often led his troops out to plunder the farm orchards of the nobles. He knew the situation in Dremke Province very well. Those fiefs and nobles gathered private troops to defend the castles. It was useless to attack those castles. Even if they occupied the territory, they still had to divide their troops and stayed, dispersing their troops in vain.

Baron Felim, who looked serious, also retorted that it was the end of October, and there was only one month left before the arrival of winter. Thirty-five days could not sweep across the entire Dremke province, and there was only one Kerbo city in the entire Dremke province, and the rest were manor castles of the territorial nobles. But Kerbo city is a fortress city, and there was also a garrison army of 20,000 troops. It was easy to defend but difficult to attack. The Northern Alliance could not capture Kerbo city in the short term, and it would only cause heavy casualties to its attacking troops...

Earl Kenmes smiled and advised the Second Highness that there was no need to be so impatient. The envoy went back and told the Grand Duke of Madras that it would take at least ten days to send troops, and it would be mid-November. There was only half a month left for them to arrange barracks to raise supplies for winter. Compared with the Northland coalition forces, which basically completed the winter preparations, the army of the Principal of Madras was a good winter. We can wait and spend the winter comfortably, and we can give the fools who have been frozen for a winter in the beginning of next spring.

Finally, Lorist made a summary and did it according to the scheduled plan, and didn't have to worry about the army sent by the Grand Duke of Madras, and did nothing. When the Grand Duke of Madras assembled the army at the beginning of next spring, then a decisive battle was made. Lorist expressed his belief in the combat effectiveness of the Northern Alliance. As long as the army gathered by the Principal of Madras was defeated in one battle, it would be much easier to destroy the Principal of Madras next.

The military discussion ended. The four northern nobles stood up and saluted the Second Highness respectfully and then surrendered, without giving the Second Highness a chance to persuade him again. Only the Second Highness was left alone in the tent gritting his teeth and remorse, regretting that he failed to gain the dominance of the Northern Alliance before signing the oath.

The letter of oath is a guarantee letter from the superior lord to the subordinate lord. As long as the lower lord completes the tasks assigned to the superior lord in the letter of oath, the reward agreed by the superior lord in the letter of oath will be immediately established or fulfilled, and there is no need to obtain the consent and approval of the superior lord.

The oath is usually in triplicate, in addition to the upper lord and lower lords, there is also a published copy. The second highness's oath is six, and he and the four lords of the Northland each hold one. The next copy will be held on the first day of the New Year, on behalf of the four major families in the Northland, the Earl of Kenmath held a grand New Year banquet in the former Grand Duke's Mansion in Gildusque, in front of all the Northland nobles, that is, the lords supported by the Norton family and the Kenmath family. The Earl of Kenmath said that this move represents that all the Northland nobles will return to the right path and be under the command of the Second Highness.

The Second Highness originally wanted to sign an oath with Earl Kenmeth and others one by one, but Earl Kenmeth believed that this was inappropriate because it would easily give the four major families in the North that the Second Highness was dividing the alliance relationship between everyone. Moreover, in the war to destroy the Principality of Madras and to conquer the Kingdom of Iberia, the four major families in the North were often required to cooperate with each other. Therefore, when signing the oath, the four major families should be the main one, so that they would be involved in each other, and they would be prosperous and lose together, and they would be grasshoppers on a rope, and no one could escape.

Just as Earl Kenmath said, he also wanted to pull his family out to avoid being implicated by those three allies. But he couldn't do it at the moment because his movement would arouse the suspicion of Lorist and others, and then guess whether the Kenmath family and the Second Highness reached a private agreement. This would not only affect the alliance between the four northern families, but also affect the second highness's plan to restore the country. Therefore, Earl Kenmath thought about it and would rather let the family and the three northern families be involved in suffering losses than to let the second highness's journey to restore the country be setbacks...

The Second Highness highly appreciated the profound wisdom of Earl Kenmath, and decided to use the advice of Earl Kenmath to write an oath with the four major families in the north, which was the conditions he had agreed with Earl Kenmath. When the Second Highness signed and stamped the six letters of oath and pressed his fingers, Lorist, Baron Felim and Baron Shahin all bowed to him. At that moment, the Second Highness was very ambitious, and the four major families in the north were driven by themselves, and all enemies could soon see themselves making a comeback and conquer the world.

However, when Lorist and the others almost refused the Second Highness's proposal to send troops as soon as possible and sweep the province of Dremke, the Second Highness realized that although he was the superior lord of the four major families in the Northland, he had no restraint or command power on the armed forces of the four major families, and even the guards around him were assigned by the four major families. Now, beside the Second Highness, except for the Golden Knight named Lipired, Krisya and three other silver knights were recruiting soldiers and guarding the standard equipment of the White Lion Legion that Lorist sent to them in the Norton family territory...

The second highness did not give up and found Lorist and others, and persuaded them to follow their suggestions with great enthusiasm. The soldiers were very fast. They did not take advantage of the fact that the Principality of Madras was still conquering troops and condemning generals to conquer the generals, but instead allowed them to gather troops to wait for the decisive battle. This was the biggest decision-making mistake. Because by then, the Principality of Madras could mobilize the power of the entire Principality with its advantage in territoriality and harmony, and even if the decisive battle failed, it could turn into local defense and drag the war into the stage of confrontation.

Only by seizing the month before winter and fighting in Dremke Province, even if it cannot be occupied, it will destroy this area, try its best to reduce the war potential of the Principal of Madras, and force the upcoming Madras team to obtain no support in Dremke Province and cannot raise food and supplies. In this way, the morale will be lost and vulnerable in the decisive battle after winter...

Since Lorist and the others were going to have a decisive battle, the second highman also wisely changed the way to convince them. He pointed out that before the decisive battle, we should also try our best to reduce the enemy's strength, rather than watch the enemy gather troops. The second highman believed that the Principality of Madras was a fat buffalo, and the Northern Alliance should hunt this bison like a wild wolf, try to create wounds for the bison, and restrain the bison's frontal attack, until the bison lost too much blood and could not hold on, and then another fatal blow was applied, and the Principality of Madras was about to perish.

In order to convince Lorist and others, the Second Highness also generously used himself as an example to point out his experiences and lessons of his failure in the battle of the territorial nobles in Andrewalus Province two years ago. The Second Highness said that the army he commanded at that time did not fail to fight with the territorial nobles, but fought three or four times, and each time it defeated the nobles in Andrewalus Province, but the territorial nobles in Andrewalus Province fought again and refused to surrender. Even if Andrewalus Province was occupied by the territorial nobles, they retreated to Majik Province to continue to deal with the territorial nobles, and fought for the support of the four central principalities and the commercial alliance, and finally persisted until the final victory...

Therefore, the decisive battle cannot be defeated in one battle as Lorist and others imagined. The Second Highness believes that it is very likely that the Northland coalition will be dragged into long-term guerrilla warfare and raid wars by the territory nobles of the Principal of Madras like his experience in Andrewev Province, which will have adverse consequences for the future battle situation. Only by taking the initiative and sending troops to sweep the manor castles of the territorial nobles of the Delhimk Province, and destroying the war strength of the Principal of Madras is the most correct strategy at present. The Northland coalition must seize this opportunity, rather than letting the soldiers stay in the barracks in this month without doing anything.

Lorist did not argue with His Highness, but just pulled a map of the Principal of Madras to conduct a simple battle situation. With the current military force of the Northland coalition, if you want to sweep away the manor castles of the territorial nobles in Dremke Province, you must divide the troops into four groups, about 20,000 people per group. In this way, you can conquer the castles guarded by two or three thousand nobles. Even with the minimum casualty rate, the Northland coalition forces that attacked the manor castles of four or five territorial nobles had half of each casualty and could only return, and the results were only sweeping away one-third of the territory of Dremke Province.

The biggest weakness of this strategy is that it is impossible to send troops to besiege Kebo City, because reinforcements from the Principal of Madras will arrive soon. First, the Grand Duke of Madras may send his most elite Haishan Legion to reinforce, and second, the garrison army from the Hinderson Mountains will send 20,000 troops to attack. Then the troops heading to Kebo City will fall into the most critical state, and once defeated, it will even endanger the safety of the ferry camp on the riverside.

If 40,000 to 50,000 troops are sent to besiege Kebo City, then there will be insufficient troops to sweep the Dremke Province if you have enough to protect yourself. But if the reinforcements from the Principality of Madras arrive, it is very likely to launch an attack on the Ferry Camp after the arrival of the camp. There are only nearly 10,000 people in the camp. This is not that the city of Kebo City has permanent defensive facilities. Once the camp is broken, the consequences will be unimaginable. The four troops who go out to sweep will be homeless and may be wiped out.

Lorist pointed out without hesitation that the main reason for the failure of the Second Highness's strategy of the Kingdom of Ridleys was not to have a long-lasting tug-of-war with the territorial nobles of Andrewev Province, but the way of retreat was cut off. The fall of Campona Province made the troops arranged at the forefront lose food and supplies, which was the biggest factor for the failure. Of course, this has a lot to do with the lack of logistics and supplies for the Second Highness's strategy of the Second Highness did not expect the change in the battle situation. However, it seems that the Second Highness has not really realized that he was failing. At this time, letting the Northland coalition attack first is repeating the mistakes of the failure of the Kingdom of Ridleys.

The second highness was furious and believed that after the Northland coalition attack, the Norton family and the Felim family could just come to reinforce and fill the gap in the army of the ferry camp by the river. It would be impossible to cause the consequences of the fall of the camp, and it could even send troops to sweep the territorial nobles in the entire Dremke Province.

Baron Felim retorted on the spot that this was absolutely impossible. The Second Highness did not understand the armed forces of his family and Norton family. Currently, the Northland coalition in the camp is mainly armed by the Shahin family and the Kenmaith family. They are both heavy armored infantry, good at defending and neglecting attacks. Only Baron Shahin's two light cavalry regiments are used as scouts. The layout and scale of the camp are now for these conveniences to facilitate the defense and wintering of these heavy armored infantry.

It is a genius idea to let these heavy armored infantry who are good at defending attack and sweep the territory nobles of Dremke Province, and then let their family and Norton family attack cavalry corps come to the camp to defend. Baron Felim laughed at that even if he and the Norton family cavalry corps arrived to defend the camp, the heavy armored infantry returned after attacking and with the current size of the camp, they could not accommodate so many people. Not to mention anything else, the consumption of the two cavalry corps' war horses throughout the winter was an extremely huge number...

There is no need to argue anymore, just follow our scheduled strategy. From now until winter, we just need to keep this camp. As for whether to attack or not, everyone should wash and go to bed early and don’t worry. After Lorist said that, he patted his butt and flashed.

The second highman was so angry that he almost vomited blood. What does it mean to take a shower and sleep? Don’t you think about me? The angry second highman took out his oath and looked carefully. He wanted to find a regulation that could restrict the armed forces of Lorist and the Norton family.

Then... the Second Highness suddenly realized that he had been fooled by Count Kenmath... The Earl Kenmath dug a big hole for the Second Highness, and the Second Highness jumped in happily...

The conditions and tasks in the oath were clearly agreed upon by the Second Highness himself after thinking about it. But at this moment, the Second Highness looked at the conditions in the oath. He looked at the map of the former Crison Empire for a night and realized that even if he could unify the territory of the former empire in the future, the territory of the Principality of Madras and the Iberian Kingdom, except for the Eastern Wasteland and Makinohara Province controlled by the Fisabren family, were all connected with the northern land. In other words, these places are under the control of the four major families in the Northland. As long as the four alliances exist, this territory that occupied one-third of the territory of the former empire became a place where the Second Highness could not be inserted and could not be poured into...

Just like Dremke Province, the second highness promised that the Norton family would transfer the territorial nobles to the territorial nobles that they had supported. This was equivalent to a disguised recognition that these territorial nobles were all vassal lords of the Norton family. As long as the Principality of Madras was destroyed, Dremke Province would be controlled by the Norton family, it would become a reality.

The most deceptive thing is to appoint Lorist as the governor of the Royal City of Windbrey. The second highman forgot that the Royal City of Windbrey is the capital of Winston Province. Even if the territory nobles of Winston Province are appointed by the second highman, Lorist is the governor. It is better to be in charge of the current official position than the emperor. Even if the order is high and the emperor is far away, he will come to the governor first. Lorist can ignore such orders. Then there is time to slowly remove the territory nobles who don’t obey their orders and enfeoffed them to Winston Province...

The Second Highness regretted so much that it was equivalent to handing over the entire Winston province to the Norton family. Then he found a very unfavorable condition in his oath, that is, there was no regulation on when the Norton family would capture the imperial capital and let the Second Highness take the throne again. Instead, it stipulated that as long as the Principality of Madras and the conquest of the Kingdom of Iberia, as long as the territory was occupied, the conditions for the second Highness to agree to the four major families in the north would take effect immediately.

For example, if the province of Sidgrad was captured, the promise that the second highness of His Highness would have promised to grant this province to Earl of Kenmeth as a hereditary family territory would take effect immediately. Earl of Kenmeth was automatically promoted to the Grand Duke, and the only restriction was that the Principality of Madras must be destroyed. For example, the armed forces of the four major families in the North occupied Winston Province and captured the Royal City of Windbrey, then Lorist would automatically become the governor of Winston Province, and the Royal City of Windbrey would become the direct-governor of the Governor...

I was blind, how could I believe that Earl Kenmes, a person from a profiteer! The Second Highness was in a bad mood, especially when he did not find the time when the four major families in the Northland promised to help him fight to the imperial capital to help him restore his reinstatement. This date can be carried out immediately after the destruction of Madras, or ten or twenty years later. The Four major families in the Northland can worship the Second Highness in the Northland with delicious food and drink, and then slowly implement their strategies according to their own decisions and interests...

Although the second highman was making a fuss about others and using the interests of the Principality of Madras and the Kingdom of Iberia as a guarantee for the four major families in the Northland to serve themselves, he found that these promised interests would almost make the territory controlled by the four major families in the Northland to become a kingdom after he unified the territory of the former empire in the future, he still wanted to chop off his hands. How could he be obsessed with signing and stamping the letter of the Oath?

No superior lord dared to repent the oath, because the oath is the most sacred guarantee, and it is the oath made by the superior lord to the gods in the name of his family and ancestors. The Second Highness is very clear that the oath is the guarantee for the four major families in the Northland to serve themselves and recognize themselves as their superior lord. If he repents, not only will his reputation be worthless, but the four major families in the Northland can also refuse to admit that they are their superior lords and return to the free nobles for this reason. At that time, not only did he lose his nominal constraints on the four major families in the Northland, but he would also have four powerful enemies...

The Second Highness is now standing on the top of the castle in the center of the camp, watching the army of the Principal of Madras appearing on the horizon in the distance gathered in the camp about two miles away from the Northland coalition camp. They are also busy building camp walls and various defense facilities, digging trenches, and a continuous stream of transport carriages to transport various supplies.

The more you gather, the better. Now I can only wait patiently. When the coalition forces of the four major families in the Northland and the army of the Principal of Madras fought to the death of both sides in the spring of next year, it may be a turning point for me. Only when these arrogant and lazy northern coalition forces suffered and fought with the Grand Duke of Madras to death in Dremke Province can I take advantage of the situation. As long as people are recruited to form the White Lion Legion, I can gain the dominance of this war.

That's what Your Highness thinks...

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Chapter completed!