I will be crowned king

"Artillery positions prepared—volley!"

As a blue-gold swallow-tail flag was raised on the main position, a flag was raised almost simultaneously on the siege positions on the north and south sides of the cliff fortress; the gunners squatting behind the cannon did not hesitate to pull the match rope immediately, and the gun flames were on them A dazzling light exploded in front of his eyes.

The earth is shaking.

"Boom-boom-boom-boom-!!!"

In a short period of only ten seconds, nearly a hundred cannons lit up the position, and the afterimages roared across the messy battlefield and attacked the castle at noon.

Anson and Leon led a group of officers and staff on both sides to gather on a slope of the main position, overlooking the already scarred cliff fortress; as the west gate of the Iser Elf Kingdom, it consists of three main buildings. The fortress is surrounded by a city wall, and the forts between the fortresses can protect each other. There are almost no blind spots. The soldiers defending the city are also protected by many parties. There is no doubt about the degree of safety, and they can also protect the surrounding and peripheral friendly forces.

Such a fortress as strong as copper and iron walls was swept away in less than a day. All the outer positions were swept away, so that the artillery positions could be extended directly into the coverage of the fortress's forts, and they were ravaged with undisguised artillery fire. .

It's not that the Ysel Elf army is really that weak and stupid. In the final analysis, the answer is simple: no matter how strong the fortress is, it needs long-term maintenance if it wants to be effective.

Since taking control of Eagle Point City, the defense focus of the Yser elves has been completely placed there in the past few decades. The cliff fortress has been completely used as a place to gather and train troops and military supplies warehouses. Various defense facilities are old and damaged. On the contrary, the demand for logistics and personnel movement has increased unprecedentedly. Naturally, many obstructive fortifications have been dismantled, and the focus of maintenance has also shifted from forts and shooting platforms to warehouse management.

Of course, no amount of excuses can fully explain a problem that should not have arisen in the first place - no matter how many problems the fortress itself has, if it cannot survive even one day, it is the problem of the defenders!

The "powerful factions" who are torn apart and unable to trust and cooperate with each other, the human officers and the half-elf nobles and soldiers who are full of contradictions and dislike each other, have jointly formed an army that has neither a complete plan nor the actual intelligence of the enemy. The troops, unable to even coordinate with each other at the very least, were holding on to the seemingly impregnable fortress.

As a result... Hantu's vanguard army was able to wipe out all these stragglers without the need for Clovis's army to take action.

Not to mention the officers on Clovis's side, even the knights of Hantu were quite surprised by this. They felt that their opponents seemed completely different from their impressions: Although the Ysel elves had many problems in the past, in general Their strength should not be underestimated. It should not be a problem to defeat at least the same number of Hantu troops.

But they forgot that after successful reunification and the baptism of holy war, the Hantu Army assisted by Clovis was no longer the same. Whether it was military concepts or the quality of officers and soldiers, they were far superior to them in the past. The much more powerful Yser Elf.

In the view of the officers, the cliff fortress opposite had hardly organized any effective counterattack methods. It was simply beaten under the shelling of the siege position. The shells blasted pits one after another on the walls of the fortress, leaving the door open. It was crumbling; no counterattack figures could be seen on the shooting platform, only blood flowing everywhere and corpses lying in various directions with twisted postures.

"It seems that the battle will not continue until dark. The Yser elves seem to have completely given up resistance." Little Leon put down the telescope in his hand and sighed with emotion: "We even just shelled the enemy. The fortress was completely suppressed and the infantry could approach the fortress completely unmolested... There could not have been an easier siege.”

"No, we won't capture the Cliff Fortress for the time being...well, at least not today."

Anson was very relaxed: "The officers on the front line have received orders to stop advancing after storming the city wall. Do not launch attacks into the fortress. If they encounter resistance, they will retreat immediately."

"Is it to attract the enemy's reinforcements so that they can gather reinforcements?" Leon asked rhetorically.

"This is only part of it, and it is also to reduce casualties." Anson shook his head: "Although the enemy is a bunch of stragglers, it is not strange to unite when they are pressed; we have to put pressure on them, but we must also avoid The oppression was too much, and it made them realize in advance that if they unite and defend the fortress with more than 10,000 people, they can still cause us a lot of trouble."

"In addition, we don't have a map of the inside of the fortress. The battle for such a large fortress is not over when the outer perimeter is breached; if we really have to go head-to-head, the casualties will probably not be a small number... The lives of soldiers are also very precious, and we cannot pay for such a A senseless battle sacrifice.”

"Indeed..." Little Leon nodded in deep agreement, making Renault, who was standing behind him, couldn't help but roll his eyes... This guy, no matter what Anson Bach said, he would take it seriously. Absolute truth.

In fact, the reason why Anson was reluctant to order a full-scale attack was no secret to Hantu at all - he was waiting for news from the other three Clovis armies, especially the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions.

Since the beginning of the war, these two armies have completely lost contact with Eagle Point City. This is obviously because of their rapid penetration into Yser, which has caused the supply line to be completely cut off or blocked and blocked; those armies are Clovis was the absolute main force in the Yser War. To put it bluntly, they were the real key to this war.

Therefore, Anson Bach will not act rashly before getting accurate information about them. Only after knowing their current location, casualty information, and the degree of completion of the mission-no matter what it is-will the commander-in-chief make the next move? One step action.

However, Hantu does rely on Clovis's logistics, especially arms support, so as long as it can divide Israel's land, it doesn't care what the other party is planning.

Lenore, who was muttering in his heart, turned his attention to the main battlefield. In addition to the Hantu Army, the Clovis army that was besieging the Cliff Fortress was huge and had built so many positions that they were filled with pits and valleys; but with his rich experience, With his eyes, he could immediately judge that the troops on these positions were definitely not as many as they seemed.

At least more than half of them have already left the siege position at this moment!

The fact is exactly the same as Renault's guess. At the same time, not half, but two-thirds of the new regiments have broken away from their positions and began to "spread everywhere" around the cliff fortress according to the arrangement.

For Iser, who is in the basin terrain, once the enemy breaks through the border, the rural towns in the surrounding areas are completely defenseless. They can only watch the opponent rampage and have no way to do anything.

At first, faced with the sudden appearance of the "Clovis Army", local towns and villages tried to organize militia forces to fight back, but they soon realized that this behavior was completely meaningless and useless: the number of enemies was close to 20,000, The equipment levels of the two sides are also very different, and there is no comparability at all.

Especially in order to hold on to the cliff fortress, the armed forces in the surrounding areas are basically in an absolute vacuum. Most of the remaining ones are the old, weak, sick and disabled who cannot go to the battlefield. The arms in the warehouse have also been basically drained: facing all the weapons, The resistance of an enemy who was armed and could even tow a three-pounder infantry gun and move in regimental units was not even an "after-dinner movement."

So the new regiments opened the gates of the country nobles' manors, swept through the seemingly prosperous market towns, and slaughtered any Ysel elves who tried to resist with absolutely no mercy.

In just two or three days, the surrounding area had been plundered by the new regiments. Their actions were even like wildfire spreading on the grass, expanding and devouring outwards at an alarming rate.

Soon, the elves and half-elves in these areas finally became desperate and began to flee here in groups, fleeing eastward towards the Royal Court of Yser; and because there were so many people fleeing, There were so many that they even blocked the roads, causing various horrifying rumors about "Clovis's army coming to kill" began to spread within the Yser elves.

Generally speaking, people will inevitably be a little subjective when describing their own experiences, especially when their emotions are very exciting. Over-exaggeration is naturally inevitable, so all kinds of shocking revelations and news began to litter the sky along the way. Fei: What "The Clovis sent seven or eight legions, ready to wipe out all the elves", what "Clovis are all ogres, they not only rob, but also capture and eat the elves", what "In the human world, elves are the best slaves. The Clovis people are so poor that they want to capture elves for military pay"...

And so on, anyway, when the officers and soldiers of Clovis's new regiment here heard about it, they basically shouted aggrieved - why did these elves still slander themselves when they were obviously so restrained.

It is true that they were sweeping the countryside, but they only killed those who tried to resist. During the sweep, they mainly focused on looting finances. They did not even set fire to houses or spread salt on the fields. If it were an indiscriminate attack, , can so many elves escape and spread rumors?

Don't say that they did this. If it were the army of any country that launched an invasion war, who would not do it, not to mention that they have tried their best not to kill innocent people indiscriminately.

The soldiers were so aggrieved that they had no choice but to pour out their anger on the occupied area they had already controlled, and began another round of "intensive farming"; this time they planned not to hold back any more and fight for the "notoriety" given to them by the Ysel elves. complement each other.

While Clovis's new army felt aggrieved, the other army seemed to have no time to care about such "inconsequential things". Not only did they not sweep the countryside, but they did their best to avoid any interesting things. Possible conflicts, move straight and quickly towards the destination.

After successfully crossing the Lookout Trail and breaking through the outer blockade of the Iser Elf, the 2nd Infantry Division led by Alexey Dukaski decisively abandoned almost all of its baggage and began an unprecedented march as quickly as possible. Emergency march.

It should be said that in this regard, if Alexei claims to be the second in the entire Storm Legion, then probably only Anson Bach himself can compete with him for the first position; the Second Infantry Regiment, including Alexei himself, almost bears the responsibility. In the past, the Storm Legion had carried out a large number of long-distance raids; and after accumulating countless experiences, this noble-born army colonel summed up the most important point of rapid marching:

Don't run so fast.

Yes, human physical capacity is limited, especially when the scale of action involves more than one person, planning physical strength is extremely important; when to act quickly, when to slow down, and when to rest...even if it is a rapid march , we should not keep the army in an unstable state, but should maintain "tiredness" in a regular and rhythmic manner.

Especially when the size of the army reaches thousands or even tens of thousands, once it starts running wildly without a goal or plan, it is normal for people to fall behind and disappear; after three days of desperate marching, the army will lose more than a quarter of its strength. And even those armies that can keep up with the speed probably don't have enough energy to go into battle, and the point of rushing is completely non-existent.

So after confirming that the 1st Infantry Division, which had also passed through Soldier Pass, had successfully broken through and had the same goal as himself, Alexei immediately ordered the troops to slow down and actively contacted the 1st Infantry Division.

However, the other party didn't seem to want to have a good relationship with his "new" colleague, and even thought that the two sides were in a state of competition. After discovering his scout, he accelerated his actions and started running desperately.

After confirming the situation, Alexey decisively ordered to slow down and followed slowly behind the 1st Infantry Division. There was no need to really keep the actions consistent, as long as he could confirm the opponent's approximate position and not lose him.

In the first two days, Alexey basically lost contact with the opposite side. It was not until the third day that they accidentally bumped into the stragglers of the 1st Infantry Division on the march. Because the other side failed to keep up and was lost, they stumbled with the soldiers heading south from the north. Alexey and the others collided.

In the next three days, Alexey was still able to gather the stragglers of the First Infantry Division one after another, and the number was increasing; and the larger the number, the more convinced he became that he was not far away from the goal.

Sure enough, on the tenth day of the operation, the entire infantry division arrived at the outskirts of Antler Fortress unimpeded; looking at the place he had visited before, Alexei Dukasky waved his hand behind him with great heroism:

"Sending news to Commander-in-Chief Anson Bach that our Second Infantry Division has arrived at Antler Fortress. Nearly 10,000 soldiers are approaching the city. The Royal Court of Yser is already within easy reach!"