I will be crowned king

Obviously, this tactic that sounds so crazy is enough to make any legion shake their head after listening to it. This can almost be said to violate all the rules of war they have learned and seen - they have only heard of using the army as concentrated as possible. , I have never seen an army that finally worked together break into pieces.

But with the previous victory in the Yser Elf War, no matter how outrageous Anson Bach's words were, the officers had to hold their noses and believe it, except for one problem: "This sounds like a good plan, but I'm worried that we will execute it." No."

What he said was very high-level, and he explained the meaning of "what are you talking about" and "can you say something that people can understand" with high emotional intelligence.

Of course, Anson had to be polite to such a well-educated subordinate: "You don't need to fully understand, as long as you carry out my orders unswervingly and adapt to changes at the same time."

"And if you really don't understand, then please remember this: the whole purpose of what we are doing is just to lure the enemy out of the impregnable fortress to recapture the Red Moon Town occupied by the Empire; that is to say, the Ranger Corps The mission is to feign an attack and lure the enemy; since it is to lure the enemy, if you encounter the enemy's superior force, you should quickly avoid fighting, or stand firm on a high ground to wait for reinforcements."

"Although the army will be broken into pieces, the Hantu Army will still follow up as the rear army of the entire army, which means that the enemy will not have the courage to fight with us; at the same time, according to the deployment plan, each individual unit will The distance between them should be such that the rest of the troops can assemble quickly in about half a day, so there is no problem that the flanks may be suddenly attacked or surrounded.”

At this point, the officers finally understood what Anson Bach's so-called "skirmishing tactics" were all about - in short, he wanted to increase the scope of the battlefield to gain mobility advantages.

It sounds inexplicable, but it is easy to understand when you put it in battle: most armies on the battlefield use the assault tactic of dense columns; the advantage of this tactic is that the contraction and concentration of troops can release huge power. Just like an iron nail is more powerful than an iron ball; at the same time, the shrinking army is also convenient for command, making it easier for the commander to issue orders.

The skirmish line is exactly the opposite: it cannot cope with the enemy's rapid attack, the queue is scattered and difficult to keep orderly, and the distance between soldiers is too large, which also increases the difficulty of commanding and conveying orders. The number of soldiers in the same area is definitely far less. in dense columns.

However, the skirmish line also has an advantage that a dense array cannot obtain: under the premise of the same strength, the troops are wider and deeper.

The large width means that I can easily outflank your flanks, and even attack your rear; the long depth means that during the combat stage, I can calmly invest more combat forces in multiple waves, and you can probably only do so once. opportunity to decide.

Therefore, Anson Bach's "skirmishing line tactics" are actually the same thing as Ludwig's "grand army tactics", both of which involve putting as many troops as possible into the battle; it's just that one must concentrate on the center of the apex to explode. One wants to expand the scope and defeat the enemy on a larger battlefield.

You can only see the highland in front of you, but I see the river behind the highland and the forests on both sides... My initiative and room for choice are far above yours.

Of course, this tactic also poses a higher level of challenges to the organization of the army, the degree of coordination between various combat units, and the efficiency of message transmission; at the same time, as the army moves over a larger area, the work pressure of the staff team will also increase. , it takes five times, nine times or even ten times the energy to process the extra information.

The former is actually a problem. Although the Rangers have many veterans, they also have many recruits. Whether veterans and recruits can perform at the same level will be a huge challenge to the staff and officer corps; in the past, in the Storm Legion With all the experiences he has accumulated, Anson will take the old man to test on the new team this time whether it has any promotion value.

As for the latter... Strictly speaking, this isn't even a problem, because as we all know, Anson is a spellcaster, and a genuine, profane mage-level conjurer.

After thoroughly developing his own powers, it is not impossible for him to directly cover most of the province, let alone a mere Red Moon Town. In the past, he had to be cautious, but now not only himself, but also Clovis and the church The conflict is also on the verge of becoming public. There is no need to hide it. At worst, both sides will explode together.

Since the worst case scenario can be guaranteed, what else can stop him from taking a little risk and annihilating the imperial army guarding Red Moon Town at the minimum cost.

As long as he succeeds, the so-called "War Council" promoted by Ludwig on the Western Border will immediately expose their weak, corrupt and incompetent nature, and then be quickly abandoned by the National Assembly and the Army, and will never have any relationship with him again. Bargaining capital.

With this awareness, the Ranger Corps, with a total strength of nearly 60,000, officially headed to the western border.

……………………

On June 19, Ludwig formally convened all members of the war committee at the base camp to discuss how to deal with the fall of Red Moon Town. Almost on the same day, he received the news that the Ranger Corps that was supposed to arrive at the base camp did not go north, but instead He went straight to the front line of the battlefield.

Ludwig, who was disrupted in his counterattack plan, could only scold someone for "not cooperating" while actively working to raise supplies for the Rangers heading to the front line. At the same time, he deployed two infantry divisions from the base camp to monitor and prepare for entry at any time. On the battlefield, preparations were made to assist in feint attacks from the northern flank and attract enemy firepower.

At the same time, the Imperial Army in Red Moon Town has also observed the movements of the Ranger Legion, but it is incomplete. Based on various rumors and all the intelligence that can be found, it can only be pieced together that it is large-scale but not powerful. Many small troops are swarming towards Hongyue Town. At the same time, a 40,000-strong army from Hantu has also entered the territory of Clovis. It has not stopped passing through the southern fortress. It is obvious that they are heading for Hongyue Town.

Hantu and Clovis have joined forces. This is not news to the empire, but Clovis dares to allow Hantu's army to freely enter the territory, which shows that the two sides have reached an absolute offensive and defensive alliance, and the direction of the Ysel elves has been completely blocked. If there is any threat to the two, otherwise Hantu will never dare to send a full army to leave the country at this time.

So a question was immediately posed in front of the imperial defenders: Should they take advantage of the arrival of the 40,000 troops to eliminate as much as possible the continuous swarming Clovis army?

Regardless of them? Regardless of the small scale, the number is quite large; no matter how confusing the information is, the empire can roughly estimate that the opponent's strength is between 20,000 and 30,000, and including the Hantu Army, it is close to 70,000; he also knows Ludwig's base camp has a large army of nearly 100,000 people.

If several parties complete the assembly, it will be an army of hundreds of thousands, and eventually there may be 200,000 people; the imperial garrison in Hongyue Town is only over 10,000 people, and the troops assembled in the rear are only about 50,000 people. , it is absolutely impossible to defeat a large corps of this size.

The commander of the imperial garrison at this time was Fernando Herred. This imperial commander who participated in the New World Holy War did not confront Anson Bach head-on. Instead, he suffered a loss from Fabian in Moby Dick Port; according to this experience From the perspective of the royal family, in the previous battles between the Empire and Clovis, it was Clovis who had the advantage in military strength.

Although the total military strength of the empire must definitely exceed that of Clovis, this tenacious country can always quickly assemble a large number of troops to respond to the empire's attack; therefore, the way to defeat them is to seize the opportunity before the opponent completes the assembly and attack them. A head-on attack can reverse the situation before the real decisive battle.

Taking advantage of the rapid maneuverability of the cavalry to destroy the enemy's morale and make them too tired to fight is one of the tactics the empire is best at.

But, that's just theory.

In fact, Fernando did not quite agree with His Majesty the Emperor's hasty declaration of war against Clovis, and even mobilized the army to attack without the Grand Dukes clearly expressing their stance... The wars in the past few years have dragged down the royal family's finances, and with the new Due to the losses of the World Jihad, the Herred family's treasury was empty, filled with boxes and boxes of bank bonds.

Before the start of this war, His Majesty the Emperor had already given the Church Bank the low-pressure right to dump sugar and tobacco from the Snapdragon Principality... In the past, these two were important financial pillars of the royal family and were used to pay for most of the expenses of the Hred branch families; Mortgage this to the church, and I am afraid that many royal bloodline members who are not good at management will soon become embarrassed.

Fernando, who is also a branch of the royal family and the commander-in-chief of the army, certainly does not have such concerns, but his family is not actually very wealthy, and apart from the noble title, he is just an ordinary nobleman; without the favor from His Majesty, if he loses the title of commander-in-chief again, Status may even be more difficult than that of many small nobles.

What he is most worried about is the complete loss of control of the empire's finances... Now the finance minister in the palace has been reduced to an accountant, and it is actually the church bank that really controls the empire's finances; relying on bonds one after another, they have completely kidnapped the emperor and will The entire empire was forced to serve.

Of course he was not the only one to see this problem, but even if he discovered it, it would be useless; the debt already owed had already reached a shocking figure. Even if the loan repayment was stopped immediately, the empire's national power would collapse in an instant and be reduced to Lian Hantu. Not as good as anything else.

And long before that, the Hred royal family might have been doomed.

So there was only one way left before the emperor, and that was war, constantly launching new wars to obtain loans from church banks, launching wars against all disobedient voices, fighting against the new world, Hantu and Clovis, and fighting against all War is initiated by any force that seeks to challenge the empire and the emperor's supreme authority.

Even if such a war is lost, or more accurately, it is only a temporary defeat, it does not matter, because it can maintain the empire's sense of existence and the threat to the entire ordered world... If one day the empire no longer has the ability to threaten others, then that will be true It’s time to calculate the general ledger.

Therefore, the emperor must not let that day come; as long as the empire can still collect soldiers and weapons, it must immediately go to the battlefield and use artillery fire and iron hooves to prove the terrifying deterrence of the guardians of the world of order.

Under such a tone, the knights who used to boast that "it is our duty to protect the glory of the empire" can only shout "for everything for the empire, everything for the empire" and walk towards the unknown and chaotic battlefield.

If this continues, maybe that day we will be reduced to "if Xiaolong City is not conquered, it will be considered a victory"...

With this pessimistic expectation, Commander-in-Chief Fernando Herred made the following arrangements for Red Moon Town: 10,000 troops were dispatched, together with 50,000 people in the rear, to destroy the incoming "Clovis" in three groups. All the supplies in the fortress that can be taken away must be taken away, and those that cannot be taken away must be burned to avoid the worst case scenario.

Yes, after occupying Red Moon Town, Fernando's idea was how to destroy it as soon as possible.

The reason is very simple. The location of Hongyue Town is similar to a "valley": there is a river behind it, rolling hills on both sides, and the surrounding transportation network is dense. Moreover, the fortress itself is also a "well" located at the convergence point of the transportation network. The center of the glyph; this means that Clovis can calmly mobilize various forces to besiege this transportation hub.

If Fernando had 100,000 men now, he would definitely attack from all sides without hesitation and use Red Moon Town as a base to launch a full-scale invasion of Clovis; but now he only has 60,000 men, and only 10,000 men can be mobilized immediately. People are really too dangerous.

Sometimes it is also a problem that the enemy is too weak, which can easily make you have unrealistic illusions. Fernando discovered this: Red Moon Town was taken too easily, and as a result, the situation that should have continued to maintain a confrontation was broken, but instead allowed The dominant empire cannot stand down.

After carefully considering the current state of war between the two sides, Fernando finally decided to "grab a handful and run" to destroy the enemy's vanguard, forcing the Clovis and Hantu people not to dare to immediately launch a siege on Red Moon Town, and take advantage of this opportunity. Time to quickly evacuate, while destroying the outpost fortress of Red Moon Town, so that the Clovis people lost the ability to counterattack.

Of course, this requires taking a little risk...Before the enemy's rear army arrives, you must also ensure that the separate armies will not fall into the quagmire of war and be unable to escape. In the end, you must be able to destroy the fortress before the Clovis people, and take your time. of retreat.

But Fernando was not worried, and even had a little expectation:

"I really don't know... Whose command does this Clovis army that is about to 'take back' Red Moon Town belong to?"