I will be crowned king

Compared with the aggressive attack, which lasted for more than ten days, the retreat of the Imperial Expeditionary Force can only be described as "abrupt".

They didn't encounter any raids or any strong resistance. Even the "impregnable" fortress of Barren Stone Castle was already shaky and could collapse with just a few kicks.

But under these circumstances, they withdrew.

Moreover, the retreat was quite decisive and even rapid - so much so that Leon and his three thousand militiamen were so shocked that they almost did not react, mistakenly thinking that they had been exposed.

When they realized something was wrong and turned back, they discovered that the Imperial Expeditionary Force had already run away... In less than an hour, nearly 20,000 people disappeared without a trace on the horizon at the end of the road.

Only a battlefield filled with craters, fires and corpses was left, as well as the dilapidated Barren Stone Fortress still shrouded in gunpowder smoke.

However, Leon had not forgotten the purpose of his trip - after repeatedly confirming that the enemy had retreated, he immediately led his troops into the Wild Stone Castle Fortress.

Regarding this famous western fortress, Leon has heard many legends about how grand, majestic and invincible it is, and it has been compared more than once with the capital of Thun, Jinshi City, and the Eastern Gate Eagle of Hantu. Cape Town comparison.

Of course, no matter how glorious it once was, after more than ten days of bombardment, it was just a pile of rubble and ruins composed of broken walls; on the contrary, the main castle and the surrounding ancillary buildings were still intact, as if they were made of iron. Proving to the world that even though she suffered the most brutal ravage, she still maintained the basic bottom line and did not lose her reputation as "hard to attack but never fall".

What really surprised Leon were the people in the fortress.

In the middle of the castle open space surrounded by embers and gunpowder smoke, soldiers who had just survived a siege were lying down to rest around their positions and artillery.

They were in ragged clothes, all had unkempt faces, their expressions were dull and numb, and their bodies were more or less covered with injuries from head to toe. There was neither the joy of surviving nor the joy of victory in their eyes... giving people the impression that they actually I no longer care much about the feeling of being alive or dead.

Several surrounding fortresses seemed to have been transformed into temporary hospitals. Even through the gunpowder smoke, one could smell the strong smell of blood and hear the shrill wails of the wounded soldiers.

But they are still alive.

The entire 20,000 reserve corps of the Wild Stone Castle, plus the defeated troops of the Wanwang Family Corps and the Central Guard Corps, after experiencing more than ten days of siege by the Imperial Expeditionary Force and nearly non-stop siege battles... most of them were able to survive. Survived.

At the moment he stepped into the fortress, Leon had even prepared for the worst. He thought that what he saw would be a group of few remaining soldiers who were determined to resist desperately; they were mountains of corpses, and they were so cruel that they could not survive. Describe the battlefield.

As a result...it seems that the situation is not as "tragic" as he imagined.

They were even reorganized during these ten long days. Nearly 30,000 people, excluding some engineers, artillery and logistics, were organized into 22 infantry regiments; each regiment had two battalions, each Battalion four infantry companies.

The Misters, Aidens, Thuns, Carindians, as well as noble private soldiers, city-state guards, farmers, boatmen, wandering knights from all over the world... were all broken up and reorganized into almost There is no difference between the "Hantu Line Infantry".

Although the specific combat effectiveness is not easy to judge, at least on the surface, they already "look very much like" a modern army.

"So what do we do next?"

In the main castle of Barren Stone Castle, an excited little Leon clenched his fists with both hands and looked restlessly at Carl Bain across the table who had "tired" written all over his body.

"Next?"

Karl frowned and magically took out a bottle of rum and two glasses from his back: "To be honest, I haven't really thought about it... What are your plans?"

"I...I can't say..." Leon was startled, scratching his head shyly, his eyes fixed on the wine bottle on the table:

"...Counterattack?"

"Counterattack?" Karl thought for a second:

"Counterattack...who?"

Leon: "..."

"Ah - I know!"

Karl suddenly had a "sudden realization": "You mean we are going to launch a counterattack and pursue the Imperial Expeditionary Force, right?!"

"So you think the Imperial Expeditionary Force was frightened by us... well, to be precise, it should be a group of cannon fodder with zero combat effectiveness, who couldn't even fight back and could only hold their heads and be beaten and killed, as well as the defeated soldiers. Running?!"

Leon: "...isn't it?"

"Nonsense--" Karl, his eyes widened, pulled out the cork with a "pop!" sound: "Of course not!"

"We have been fighting for more than ten days. Do you think the Imperial people don't know who we are? Let alone being dragged out to fight in the field. If the expeditionary force turns back immediately, I don't know whether it can survive another one." Siege the city!"

"Then why did they retreat?" Little Leon's face was full of confusion.

Karl answered simply: "I don't know."

"Don't know?!" Leon was shocked.

"Yeah, what's so surprising about this? I'm not one of their people, how do I know why they want to retreat?"

Pushing the wine glass in front of little Leon, Karl said with a matter-of-fact expression: "But there is a saying that is very good. What is important is not the process but the result; we defended and they retreated, so we are the winner."

"It's that simple?"

"It's that simple - sometimes war is complicated, sometimes it's very simple." Karl shrugged:

"As for the troops in the fortress... As long as they don't object, you can take them away at any time, but my suggestion is to keep two-thirds, or at least one-half. After all, the supplies in the fortress are already very small. It can support the long-distance march of a large army."

"Thank you, I will pay attention." Leon took the wine glass with both hands and looked respectfully at the most loyal "right-hand man" of the deputy commander of the legion:

"What about you?"

"Me?" Karl was startled.

"Yes, what are you going to do next?" Leon looked forward to it:

"The Battle of Wild Stone Castle has ended, but this war has not really ended yet - the battle that truly determines the fate of Hantu has just begun!"

"So if you don't mind, I hope you can temporarily join my army, and then we will join cousin Anson Bach's army together to completely defeat the fleeing Imperial Expeditionary Force..."

"No." Karl refused decisively:

"I'm just going to stay at Deserted Stone Castle. I'm not going anywhere."

"Not going anywhere?"

"Yes, my battle is over, and the mission has been successfully completed - the rest has nothing to do with me. I leave it to you and that bastard... I mean Anson Bach, you can do whatever you want."

Karl waved his hand and slumped on the chair with the wine glass in hand:

"tired."

………………

Facing the already dimmed sunset, the Imperial Expeditionary Force seemed unusually quiet on their way back.

The arrogance and arrogance that they once had have been completely worn away in more than ten consecutive days of fierce battles, leaving only hard-to-conceal fatigue and indescribable depression on everyone's face.

This has nothing to do with the failure of the Deserted Stone Castle - to put it more bluntly, the expeditionary force did not even want to conquer the fortress immediately; it was just a bait, a magnet that attracted all the armies in the entire land.

The real purpose of besieging the Wild Stone Castle is to eliminate all the living forces of Hantu in one fell swoop, and to capture alive the currently missing King of Hantu, Claude Francois.

Only in this way can the expeditionary force hope to conquer the entire land at the lowest cost!

But the result was completely beyond all expectations. For more than ten days, no army came to rescue the endangered Barren Stone Castle.

In order to spread the news throughout the land as quickly as possible, they also specially released a large number of deserters and disguised light cavalry to spread intelligence; but in the end, not only did there not be any good news, but they received bad news.

The port of Carindia fell, and the advance army stationed there was completely wiped out.

Having lost the only foreign aid and nearly running out of supplies, although Casper insisted on conquering the Wild Stone Castle, the entire expeditionary force had lost morale and did not want to continue fighting despite the risk of disobeying military orders.

To be more precise, they had had enough of this lunatic commander of the expeditionary force.

That's right, this ferocious and violent old man has never been defeated since the beginning of the war. Under his command, Hantu's army is like paper, and will be torn into pieces if he raises his hand. It is invincible... simply beyond everyone's imagination.

But the price paid is also beyond everyone's imagination.

Climbing the Dawn Ice Peak, crossing the Mount Aiden area, feigning an attack on the Wild Stone Castle, blocking the Hantu Army... If these took two or three months, the expeditionary force would certainly have no complaints - but all of this together only took less than twenty sky!

Exhaustion and stress caused Caspar Hered to lose control of his army.

He can shoot one, ten, a hundred or even a thousand officers who disobey his orders; but as long as he must rely on these people to command the army for him, he cannot completely ignore the collective will of the entire expeditionary force officer corps.

Even Deputy Commander Bernard was driven to the summit tower by Casper to contain the Aiden Army because he liked to "whin" too much. He lost the only subordinate who could suppress the officer corps for him, and the result was The entire expeditionary force completely abandoned him.

Looking at the knights around him who deliberately kept a distance from him, and their eyes full of vigilance and nervousness, Casper didn't care.

Similar "plots" have happened countless times in his military career over the past few decades.

The mediocrity's hatred of genius has never just been manifested in eccentricity and incompetent rage - shirking responsibility, self-righteousness, cheating... these are all normal.

They regard completing work as diligence, treating laziness as a professional standard, and treating inaction as conscientiousness... When something happens, the person who contributed the most will always bear the responsibility - because he did the thing and made the decision.

Before this, I would probably have arrested all the rebels one by one, executed the eleventh killing order in public, let the entire army watch them be beheaded one by one, and then put the rebels' heads on the flagpole to "inspect the entire army." .

But this time he "relented" - he just blew the head of an unlucky guy.

The reason is that although Casper was nominally the commander-in-chief of the expedition, the entire officer corps was organized by deputy commander Bernard Moreweis, and they were all so-called "Morweisians."

Relying on trade in the northern colonies, the Morvais family had a strong voice in the imperial court; as a retired soldier who did not want to lose his security or be blamed for some inexplicable things, Casper did not dare to go too far.

What's more, now that Hantu's main army has been completely defeated by him, it can take as little as one or two years, as long as four or five years. Hantu can no longer organize an army of the same size.

Next, as long as they take advantage of the situation and defeat half of Duke Ayden's army, unless the Kingdom of Clovis personally comes to an end, it will only be a matter of time before Hantu bows its head and surrenders to the empire.

Therefore, even if he takes a step back from the officers, as long as he retains his command authority, it is not a big deal in Casper's opinion.

The only problem is probably that "Clovis mercenary".

To be honest, Casper had originally been looking forward to this army. A small part of the reason why he set up a siege in the Wild Stone Castle was to ambush this group of guys called the "Grey Shirts".

After all, even if the result is a win, of course it is more interesting to win against a more valuable opponent; bullying like Hantu is quite enjoyable at first, but it gets boring after a while.

But the problem is...this Clovis army has not appeared for a long time, and there is not even a little bit of news, as if it has disappeared from the world.

Where did they go?

This question troubled Casper for a long time.

Finally, under the dim sunset, in a very familiar place...the answer was revealed.

The horse under him paused for a moment and stopped in place; Caspar Herred took a deep breath and looked at the end of the road, sandwiched between two hills, with a somewhat complicated expression. "pass".

The position of the Imperial Expeditionary Force that once stood there has now disappeared without a trace, and not even a trace of the past can be found.

Instead, there is a huge multi-faceted fort, as well as trench fortifications spread across the entire position and spreading to the hills on both sides, winding parapets, triangular forts on the protrusions, scattered artillery forts, and enough trenches, fences, Reject the horse...

An extremely complex and large-scale defensive position lay in front of the Imperial Expeditionary Force - right where they defeated the Hantu Army before!

Looking at this sudden position that seemed to collapse in the blink of an eye, Casper let out a long sigh after a brief shock:

"That's it...that's what happened..."

Looking at the Clovis flag flying on the battlefield, Casper murmured.