Once again, in a place where the river is turbulent, the ships can open in a row at a slow speed and increase the power of the magic power furnace.
Standing on the deck of the bow, Lester raised his binoculars and looked at the steep mountain pass on the east bank of the Huanxi River, his face a little solemn.
The landform of Ionia is inherently steep and strange, with less plains and more mountains. The steep mountains, deep valleys and ravines form a natural dangerous place under the uncanny workmanship of nature. It does not even need to be modified. Many places with mountain backing are just like this.
It is enough to become a strategic military location that can be blocked by one man.
It took a lot of effort just to travel. If it weren't for this reason, the empire's cavalry would have been able to reach Presidio from Linyin Port in a month.
If this were placed in the Valoran continent, I'm afraid there wouldn't be a steel city walled in three steps, a lonely mountain fortress in five steps, or a lonely city surrounded by mountains and ditches filled with human lives at ten steps, with every inch of mountains and rivers and every inch of blood.
It's just that Ionians love peace by nature and don't like disputes. In addition, Ionia's villages pursue a regional and provincial autonomy system based on a small-scale peasant economy. With abundant means of production and a vast land and sparsely populated areas, each village can
There is no need for disputes in the village, so no one cares about these dangerous areas, let alone consumes resources to build a village to dominate the mountain and become king.
Even the Navoli Brotherhood, which plays the role of the underworld, can at most quietly find a place to stay in a natural cave for immediate use. No one would be stupid enough to build a bandit camp in a dangerous place to serve as a warrior and the Kinkou sect.
The target was beaten.
But the problem is, the last time Lester took a boat on the Fantasy River to Presidence, there were no traces of artificial construction on the mountain pass. According to the information from the War Stonemason and the Blade of the Night, the Fantasy River
The first branch is also a safe route, but now a dense bush has grown on the mountain, and the tall crown of the tree obscures the view.
The trees grow neatly on the jagged rocks, as if they were deliberately blocked in the waterway. It is difficult to believe that this is the result of non-human growth.
"Stop advancing and send dragon bird scouts to confirm the situation."
As Lester issued the order, the fleet quickly shut down the power furnace and hovered in front of the mountain pass.
Ten dragon bird scouts rose from the ground, carrying two black lightning mages and flew towards the protruding mountain pass on the east coast.
Lester raised the telescope again. The two black lightning mages in the lens were using detection magic, but they happened to see countless flaming crossbows flying out of the bushes towards the dragon bird knight. Unprepared, the dragon bird and the knight were hit by the crossbows.
He lost the hole and fell into the air after struggling for a few times.
Lester's face darkened, there was indeed an ambush!
It seems that special kerosene technology was used. The flames on the dragon bird's wings and the dragon knight's body were still blazing even if they fell on the river. They died unexpectedly before they could be rescued.
Judging from the density of the arrows, there may be hundreds of people ambush in the bushes. If the fleet passes through the narrow river under the mountain pass, it may end up being ruined and forgotten.
In the end, only three of the ten dragon bird scouts were lucky enough to avoid the rain of arrows. They counterattacked with the short bows at hand while raising their bodies and returning quickly.
Fortunately among the misfortunes, one of the two black lightning mages survived, and he stood in front of Lester with peace of mind.
"There are more than three hundred masked attackers lurking in the bushes. Each of them has a military-grade crossbow in his hand, which can easily shoot through the wings of dragon birds. The crossbow is also coated with black kerosene. When encountering
Water does not perish,
They also prepared dozens of floating wooden balls tied with firewood on the mountain. My magic eyes saw many brown wooden barrels containing black kerosene. They must be preparing to use kerosene when we pass through the channel.
Light the wooden ball and throw it from the mountain."
"Thank you for your hard work, let's get down."
After the mage left, Syndra took the initiative to come over and asked.
"Teacher, do you need me to deal with them?"
Leicester nodded and gave instructions.
"Let the Dragon Bird Troops go together, remember to leave a few valuable survivors."
"clear."
When Syndra mounted her dragon bird mount and flew towards the mountain pass with hundreds of dragon bird knights, Lester issued a new order.
"The naval guns are pointed at the mountain pass and ready to fire at any time."
This time, the dragon and bird knight who covered the sky did not approach the trees easily. He just fired at the crossbows in the trees with fire from above. I don’t know if he hit the kerosene barrel or the wooden ball. In the blink of an eye, the forest disappeared.
It started to burn, and there were shouts and curses.
"Why bother leaving now that you're here?"
Above the dragon bird, the cold-eyed Syndra had a panoramic view of the attacker's movements. The female mage raised her staff high, and as the dark elements continued to be compressed and purified, more than a dozen human-head-sized gravity balls of pure dark elements emerged in the air.
The staff was swung downwards, and the dark element gravity balls lined up in a row and struck down from the air one after another, like heavy siege artillery.
In an instant, dark elements were raging in the mountains and forests, the earth was shaking, the rocks were broken, and the trees were disintegrating. The hanging elemental balls actually connected into a string of deadly elemental beads, directly cutting off the attackers' retreat to the mountains in the form of an elemental prison.
The way back.
With a sea of fire in front of them and a tide of elements behind them, the attackers were unable to advance or retreat. They lit their crossbows one after another and shot at Syndra with the fire crossbows in their hands.
Syndra, who has rich combat experience, is naturally not defenseless. Before the fire comes, Syndra props up the arc-shaped dark element shield. The moment it comes into contact with the dark element shield, the fire annihilates them all.
, it plays no role at all.
From then on, the attacker was completely desperate.
"Stop attacking!"
Syndra raised her hand, and the dragon bird knight who kept firing arrows could only put away his short bow.
"Put down your weapons now, and maybe I can spare your lives."
After hearing Syndra's words, the attackers who were forced by the sea of fire to the dark element gravity ball prison began to argue.
"Boss Luke, what should we do now!? These imperial barbarians are simply monsters! We shouldn't listen to those ordinary rats and provoke them!"
"Boss Luke, I still have so much money that I haven't spent all, and I don't want to die!"
"Surrender, Boss Luke! There is no point in dying here for the Brotherhood! Even though the Brotherhood gave us so much money, knowing that the empire is so powerful but didn't say anything, that beast Yeying has no idea
Just use us as cannon fodder!"
"Luke! You don't really want to die here for that little money, do you?"
The attack plan was completely disrupted. Seeing that his former loyal subordinates even wanted to kill him with their swords, the bandit leader Luke did not dare to continue to be stubborn, otherwise his head would be actively moved without the need for the Brotherhood to come over.
"Master Mage of the Empire! Going against the Empire is not what we want. We are willing to lay down our weapons. We just ask you to let us go! We will explain everything!"
Holding his head and speaking out his request loudly, at this moment, Luke was fortunate that Noxus' extraordinary mage knew Ionian.
"You seem to have no right to bargain now. Either die here or put down your weapons."
Syndra was unmoved. Although they were all Ionians, she particularly hated the Brotherhood and bandits. These money-minded guys had always treated their compatriots mercilessly.
If Ionia's martial arts sects hadn't always been fond of chivalry, I'm afraid there would have been even more bandits in Ionia.
"We surrender! We surrender!"
Taking the lead to throw away the crossbow in his hand and the long knife at his waist, Luke took off his simple wooden mask and chose to surrender.
After the attackers gathered together with their heads in their hands, Syndra suppressed the fire.
Without the support of the fire element, within a few breaths, the blazing forest fire was replaced by the tide of dark elements, and the flames extinguished themselves without wind.
Witnessing Syndra's unpredictable power, the surviving bandits couldn't help but feel lucky. Some of the bandits who had other thoughts secretly said they were lucky and did not dare to take another look at the beauty.
[The problem of slow update of new chapters will be resolved soon.
On the river bank, Lester stepped off the boat and glanced coldly at the Ionian bandits who were tied by ropes and kneeling in a row, his voice indifferent.
"Give me a reason not to kill you."
Luke, who had already prepared his words, took the initiative to knock his head to the ground.
"Sir! We are indeed deserving of death for being seduced by the Brotherhood! But if we are killed by you after surrendering, no one will surrender to the empire in the future!
If only one of our lives is spared, we are willing to sacrifice our lives for the empire! Sir, please think again!"
Hearing this, Lester sneered. Until now, these bandits still dared to play tricks on him.
Having the courage to attack the Empire's army but not having the courage to accept death sounds quite rebellious, but in reality it is as despicable as a coward.
As long as these bandits are more stubborn, he will be willing to look down on these scum who are greedy for money.
"Your name is Luke?"
After walking a few steps in front of Luke, Lester stepped on the head of the bandit leader and pressed down hard.
His head hit the gravel pile on the river beach, and unbearable severe pain accompanied by the smell of blood came from his face. Luke felt as if his head had been trampled by a giant mammoth elephant, and his facial features were shattered to pieces.
The back of his head was crushed by the sole of his foot, and frightening words came from his groggy head again.
"Do you think you are valuable? A loser who fights for gold coins dares to bargain with the empire?"
"No...dare...big, big..."
"Don't you dare? I think you are very brave. With more than 300 people, you dare to attack the empire's army. If I give you another 300 people, you might dare to counterattack the continent of Valoran!
To be honest, if you were fighting for Ionia, maybe I would be willing to take a high look at you. Now it seems that you are just a group of greedy cowards. In the empire, cowards have no value except to please the strong.
Not to mention a fool like you!"
"Teacher, do you want to execute them?"
Syndra, who had been watching, came over and asked, but Lester shook his head and moved his feet away from the dying bandit leader.
"Since he is the prisoner you persuaded to surrender, it would not be appropriate to execute him like this...
Let's do this, imprison them first and only provide them with one-half of the slave quota every day. When the fleet returns, send them to the Imperial Arena. Rubbish like this can still have some residual value if they die in the Arena.
.”
One sentence decided the fate of the bandits. More than a hundred bandits were imprisoned in the cell at the bottom of the cabin, waiting for an unknown fate.
The fleet set sail again, the channel continued to shrink, and the road became more and more difficult to walk. However, there were no blind bandits who continued to perform the drama of throwing eggs at stones.
On the bumpy Meteor, Lester lowered his head and stared at the military terrain map of the Navoli province. Just as he expected, if the army spreads its branches along the strategically important Huanxi River, the army will face a serious shortage of manpower.
The problem.
This time, the empire's advance army only had more than 30,000 people. From the very beginning, they did not intend to eat up the fat man directly. In the plan to conquer Ionia, annexing Ionia was regarded as a century-old plan.
According to the size of the continent of Ionia, if a stable city fortress is not established, at least 400,000 troops will be needed to suppress it in order to swallow the entire newborn land into the belly of Noxus. Otherwise, it will be easy to be conquered by Ionia.
The native people of Onia are fighting guerrilla warfare everywhere. If they fail to develop by then, the empire will be dragged into the quagmire of war and cannot escape.
The Brotherhood of Navoli is only powerful in the province of Navoli. In addition to the province of Navoli, Ionia also has the provinces of Balua, Shangzan, Larin, Ulin, and Kuilin.
Province, Garin Province, Zhiyun Province and Sudarao Province,
Building relationships everywhere in the province of Navoli has allowed me to feel as smooth as I do now. Otherwise, a few Ionian orphans would appear at any time with one against a hundred, and the resistance to the empire would definitely be countless times more fierce than it is now.
Even so, it is a bit difficult to develop in the province of Navoli, not to mention that there are many resistance organizations similar to the Brotherhood in other provinces. Who knows Ioni
How many strong people are there in this land of outstanding people?
If you really don't take Ionia seriously, you will only suffer the consequences.
The purpose of coming to Ionia to attack Ionia is to use the power of the golden tree and Lolita to run Ionia into a logistics base that can stably produce supplies. Naturally, if you want to achieve your goal, you have to work steadily.
As an outpost, Philo Island must naturally be controlled in the palm of your hand. Division of troops is inevitable. This is something that must be eaten and digested in the stomach.
Originally, Lester wanted to observe whether there were suitable strongholds or cottages along the Huanxi River. If there were any, he would divide his troops and occupy them. At least, he would maintain a reasonable logistics supply line. However, there were no suitable cottages along the way.
It was unrealistic to build a stronghold from scratch without the interference of the Brotherhood, so we had to give up.
With the current strength of the army, it is more than enough to capture Presidium. Instead of dividing the troops along the way and being harassed and attacked by the Navoli Brotherhood and bandit forces, it is better to capture Presidium directly and establish a cooperative relationship with the Kinkou Sect and the Temple of Eternal Life.
Satisfy the logistical supplies and wait until the follow-up Imperial Army team follows up before considering steady expansion to both sides along the Huanxi River.
Anyway, the most indispensable thing for Lester is time. Speaking of which, the most urgent thing is to control Presidium and carve out enough territory for the vastaya people to restore the golden tree to ensure the birth of their daughter.
In addition, by claiming the title of emperor in Fidelit in the name of conquering Ionia, the plan to destroy the Kingdom of Northland and the Principality of Valoran should also be completed before conquering the continent of Ionia. Compared with
With these matters, the current strategy for conquering Ionia can only be regarded as a piece of cake.
"Commander, there is someone riding a small boat who wants to see you. This woman named Youqin claims to be the leader of the Longyin Ryu, saying that she has a connection with the commander."
