I will be crowned king

"finally come……"

At the south gate of Green Valley, Duke Eden, wiping his saber, stood under the iron fist of the Emmanuel family, looking coldly at the King of Clovis' flag appearing on the horizon.

Behind him, a brutal siege battle had just come to an end.

Thick and long black columns of smoke rose from the burning warehouses and streets, mixed with the still smell of gunpowder, sparse gunfire and the screams of the resisters.

The prisoners with numb expressions were driven together by bayonets and the angry shouts of Ayden soldiers. They put their heads in their hands and knelt down in front of the purple sail flag of Carindia that was beyond recognition and covered with footprints, mud and scorch marks.

On the other side, the victorious Aiden soldiers triumphantly swept the battlefield, searching for all potentially valuable trophies among the corpses, prisoners, and rubble; at the same time, they burned and buried the corpses under the urging of the knights and lords. .

The burning city, the prisoners with dejected expressions, the crying and desperate refugees, the smug soldiers, the flying iron fist flag... all show that the Green Valley has stubbornly resisted and has completely succumbed to her conquerors.

In order to seize the Green Valley before Clovis's reinforcements arrived, the Aiden Army attacked almost regardless of the cost; not only did they use up their last reserves of artillery shells, but with such an obvious gap in strength, the ratio of casualties between the enemy and ourselves was almost One to one ratio - the loss is almost more than one-fifth!

If it weren't for the excessive stupidity of this group of Carinthians, or if too many veterans died in battle, and the defenders were mostly mindless civilians and recruits who blew up their own ammunition depots... Could the Aiden Army have killed them so quickly? The success of Green Valley is still unknown.

But the victory that finally came after paying a heavy price could not make the young Duke feel even a trace of joy, and even made him feel sick like a lump in his throat.

Because this "victory" came at the wrong time.

The Port of Carindia was captured by the Clovis without firing a shot, and the reinforcements had arrived outside Green Valley City; that is to say, unless they planned to face off against the Storm Division on the opposite side, it would be impossible to advance half a mile further. step.

If you can't move forward, you can only retreat, and you can only go back the same way you came - but you still have to go back the same way, so why take the Green Valley?

But if the Green Valley cannot be defended, the retreating Aiden Army will inevitably be pursued by Clovis or Carindia; so another question arises - they are retreating anyway, why should they capture it? Green Valley?

He took such a big risk and paid so much, only to gain nothing in the end and sacrifice thousands of well-trained soldiers? !

Unfortunately, whether he is willing to accept it or not, he must swallow this bitter pill... The seemingly menacing Aiden Legion has actually exhausted most of its ammunition reserves in the Battle of Green Valley and suffered huge casualties. Exhausted to the extreme; and because of the long march, Lao Jin was completely separated from his other legion, without any support.

Even the Green Valley that he fought so hard to win was in such an embarrassing situation; it would be a pity to abandon it, and there would be the risk of being chased when retreating; there would be no benefit at all if he defended it, not to mention whether it could be defended or not was still a question.

He looked at the endless horizon to the south. With the naked eye, he could see thousands of footsteps flowing slowly on the ground; the soldiers of the Storm Division, wearing simple and simple gray coats and holding the flag of King Clovis, were very close to the green grass. They dug trenches and camped in the valley and built their positions... as if they were planning to attack the city.

At this moment, the atmosphere on the city wall was extremely depressing; the Knights of Aiden, who had been so high-spirited just now, now felt as if they were facing a formidable enemy, as if the Clovis would attack the city with artillery in the next second.

Even though he was so nervous that he couldn't breathe, he still tried his best to cover it up and pretend to be relaxed and contented, which looked very funny.

"Do not worry."

Duke Ayden looked at his "heroic and capable" knights with a cold expression:

"No matter what, the Clovis will not attack the city today."

After the words fell, the knights were stunned, wondering where the Duke's confidence came from.

"Why...don't believe it?" Duke Eden raised his eyebrows, a trace of disdain flashed in his eyes:

"We broke through the fortress of Carindia and Clovis received the surrender letter at almost the same time, and they should be even later - they could arrive as soon as we broke the city. Do you think their preparations would be sufficient? How adequate?”

"And before the army arrived, Clovis scouts had already appeared outside Green Valley City and watched the entire process of us taking the town; that is to say, they did not know anything about it. He rushed here, but only appeared in front of us after fully understanding the situation."

"Unless the deputy commander of the Southern Army is a lunatic with very different ideas than ordinary people, he should understand that he only needs to besiege the city; there is no need and it is impossible to capture the Green Valley immediately after we annihilate the defenders."

The knights suddenly understood, and the atmosphere on the city wall instantly became much more relaxed.

After all, they had just experienced a very brutal battle. Although they could not be said to be scared, they had to start a war immediately with the Clovis who had completely annihilated the Iser Guards, and they were about to run out of ammunition... so they were not nervous. Strange.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the other party is not a lunatic... Duke Eden muttered to himself in his heart.

In his eyes, if what he did was considered crazy, then the other party was simply crazy - taking huge risks to enter the hinterland of a strange country, and going to war with another country without any scruples before he could gain a foothold... I really don't know what to say about him. Arrogance or confidence.

Of course, the other party does have this arrogant capital.

"Then what will happen next?" The messenger holding the Iron Fist flag couldn't help but ask:

"Are you going to fight Clovis here?"

On the quiet city wall, the calm and calm Aiden knights pricked up their ears.

"Start a war? Maybe... But I don't think that Clovis's deputy commander will fight a profitless battle for Carindia who has sold himself to him. After all, he has already received the most generous salary. That’s the spoils.”

After thinking briefly for a while, the young Duke Ayden shook his head: "But it cannot be ruled out that their initial target is us. After all, the relationship between Ayden and Thun is not very good. That Claude Francois The Grand Duke is likely to instigate conflicts between the Clovis people and us, and take advantage of this opportunity."

"But the most likely outcome is peace talks..."

……………………

"So this is your perfect plan?"

Standing on the newly dug trench, Carl Bain looked at the green valley with billowing black smoke in the distance, rolled his eyes at Anson and said: "Besiege the city first, and then wait for the other party to be unable to stay any longer before negotiating peace... That's it?"

"Don't look at me, what can I do?" Anson complained:

“If the Carinthians had not lost the Governor’s Mansion—no, if they had not been stupid enough to rush out and try to retake the position, but had stuck to the warehouse, there might still be a way to take back the Green Valley from the Aiden people. "

"But what now? Every single one of the defenders was wiped out, and then they stormed back to take back the Green Valley... How stupid am I to fight this startless siege?"

Regarding the deputy commander's rhetorical question, the chief of staff, who was completely numb to Anson's "I'm always right" attitude, chose to ignore it.

Ansen, who was speechless when talking about the other party, proudly turned his attention again to the wall of Green Valley not far away.

To be honest, as a fortress, the terrain of Green Valley is relatively easy to conquer from south to north. The originally narrow streets were much wider after the indiscriminate bombing by the Aiden people. The governor's residence in the center of the town was also seriously damaged by the bombing. , it is a terrain that once you break through, you can drive straight into it.

The only thing that's hard to chew is the northern sentry tower - it's commanding and protected by artillery positions. The streets and terrain are well-preserved because the Aiden people pushed it too fast. It's easy to fall into a tug-of-war that consumes troops... But if we hit this At this point, he has basically won.

So if we really want to attack by force, Anson is confident that he can do so.

The Aiden Army, which was ill-prepared at the beginning, marched straight in from north to south, and was able to bulldoze the Green Valley in six days; I, Anson Bach, was fully prepared and well-planned, and moved steadily from south to north, so it was not a problem to recapture the town within three days.

The only question is, why fight?

The Port of Carindia has been obtained, and the richest city and two-thirds of the land in the entire Republic of Carindia have been pocketed by him; if the remaining one-third is liked by the Duke, he can give it to him What can he, the Aydin, do?

Well, the Carinthians may not agree - if they don't agree, they don't agree, and they all surrendered anyway; the most capable troops were either disarmed by themselves, or were completely annihilated by the Aiden or were about to be annihilated, so...

What does the ownership of the Carindia Republic have to do with the Carindia people?

The most important thing now is to get the Aiden people to withdraw from the battle, and at the same time try to avoid a head-on conflict with Aiden's Emmanuel family; after all, the opponent is the "Gatekeeper of the Vast Earth", a force that is strong but not very profitable. It's better to fight as late as possible.

So after quickly judging the situation between the enemy and ourselves, Anson's plan quickly changed from skirmishing breakthrough, line advance, artillery cover, turning the two wings to outflank, and street fighting to lock the enemy, to... uh...

Pretending to attack the city with a mighty army, but actually squatting under the city without moving, waiting for the other side to come to negotiate or retreat - in short, if the enemy doesn't move, I won't move, and if the enemy wants to run, I'll say goodbye.

This is Anson's "perfect plan."

Of course, you can't make it too fake; if the other party refuses to negotiate with you, Anson will still attack the city when it's time to attack, but the pace will definitely be much slower - for example, like the wise and powerful commander Ludwig Like a major general, he will never attack a city without enough artillery.

At this moment, a young soldier dressed as a cavalryman, carrying a saber, hurriedly ran behind the two of them, handed a scroll to Karl, performed a less than standard military salute, and ran away in a hurry.

"Did Fabian send it?" Anson asked guessingly without looking back.

"Um."

The chief of staff nodded, opened the envelope skillfully and quickly glanced at it: "The situation was very smooth. The Carindia nobles did not resist at all. He and the cavalry battalion were basically 'respectfully welcomed' into the city. .”

"After 'discussing' with the Carindia Council, he has now obtained the keys to the Carindia Port Armory and Grain Warehouse - although the Carindia people's war preparations are very poor and basically worthless of."

"As for the most critical issue of bilateral agreement and compensation, he didn't dare to make the decision, so he suppressed it for the time being. According to him, the Carindia nobles in the parliament were very happy. After confirming that only one-fifth of Carindia was needed, After the annual income, I agreed on the spot!”

Oh, it seems that these Carinthians are really not short of money!

Ansen's expression changed slightly when he smelled the scent of leeks, but he still pretended not to care. He looked calmly in the direction of Green Valley: "That's it?"

"There's one more thing." Karl suddenly paused, his expression slightly hesitant:

"It's a big thing, but it may have little impact on us - Carindia's ocean fleet...defected."

"Defected?"

Anson was stunned for a moment: "What does defection mean?"

"It's just...uh...how else can I explain this?" Karl looked confused.

"Nonsense, I didn't let you explain." Anson rolled his eyes:

"I asked where they went!"

"How do I know this? Fabian only wrote that the Carindia fleet suddenly defected from the Carindia port the night before we arrived and then disappeared!" Carl's mouth twitched:

"And the fleet just defected. What does it have to do with us?"

Anson's expression was startled.

Well, it doesn't seem to matter.

The purpose of the Storm Division is to control the vast land and gain wealth, not to stay and operate it; the defection of the fleet is indeed a pity, and it will definitely cause a heavy blow to the leek field of Carindia - this republic, but It doesn't affect the Storm Master's ability to cut leeks.

Perhaps Archduke Claude Francois would have complained a bit when he came to take over Carindia?

After all, as an aristocratic republic that focuses on trade, the huge ocean-going fleet is an important means of maintaining the prosperity of Carindia. Without the fleet, her value will be greatly reduced, not to mention that the merchant ships themselves are also extremely expensive wealth. , the price of any one is no less than setting up and supporting one or two line infantry regiments.

Of course, this matter is indeed a bit strange, and the time of the accident happened to be the night before Fabian arrived at Carindia Port. It is impossible to say that there is no problem; but for a short while now, Anson I really couldn't imagine what impact this would have on myself or Clovis.

Could it be that there was a large amount of property hidden in the fleet, or that there were important people and forces on board, and they did not want to surrender with the Carindia Council, so they chose to defect?

Without any clues, Anson could only think wildly.

Until a melodious bugle sound suddenly sounded from the city wall of Green Valley opposite. As the city gate slowly opened, a cavalryman holding an iron fist flag came towards the Storm Division siege position.

Sorry for the late update~ I have had a toothache for the past two days. It seems that a wisdom tooth is about to grow out. It hurts~