I will be crowned king

"At least we're here, right?"

Facing Anson's "cynicism", Archduke Aiden, who remained calm-faced, seemed very indifferent, and even seemed a little calm.

"That's right." Anson said with a smile: "And not too early, not too late, just right - if you come an hour later, the Storm Division and the coalition forces will have to retreat and give up their position to the Imperial Expeditionary Force."

Anson, who tells the truth, strives to express unparalleled sincerity from his facial expressions to his eyes without losing his grace.

"Really? That's so lucky... It seems that the emergency march order I issued is indeed correct." Grand Duke Ayden nodded slightly, indicating that I believe you.

...that's weird.

The two people who thought they were snakes looked at each other and tacitly confirmed each other's sincerity.

"Although I am already standing here, in fact, apart from me, only a few hundred guardsmen have arrived. The real main force of the border army is still on the march, and it will take at least another hour for two-thirds of the army to arrive. battlefield."

He walked to Anson's side with his hands behind his back, looked at the center of the battlefield, and said in a deep voice: "Is it really okay to launch a general attack now?"

"Of course no problem!" Anson looked quite confident:

"The Imperial Expeditionary Force, which has been besieging the Deserted Stone Castle for more than ten days, has been at the end of its tether since the beginning. It is a miracle that it can persist until now. Such an army does not rely on discipline and training at all, but purely on the bravery and the commander's personal will. Forced into battle.”

"Without supply lines, stable forward bases, and stable rear support, as long as the attack is thwarted, the seemingly high morale will easily collapse; no matter how well trained and disciplined, soldiers are still human beings who are running out of ammunition and food. The courage you can muster in a desperate situation is limited."

"At this time, as long as we give them another heavy psychological blow, no substantial damage is needed at all, the fear accumulated from the previous heavy casualties will explode, causing them to collapse without a fight!"

"That's why you said that the time for Aiden's Legion to appear is neither too early nor too late. It's perfect... right?" There was a little smile in Archduke Aiden's eyes.

"exactly."

Anson squinted his eyes and looked at the golden iris flag on the other side of the battlefield.

Of course, even after reaching this point, the Imperial Expeditionary Force is still not completely finished... they still have a chance to make a comeback.

After all, no matter the morale is high or low, the actual combat effectiveness of both sides lies here; once the expeditionary force intends to focus on a frontal breakthrough, with the strength of the Hantu Army, it is simply unrealistic to prevent the expeditionary force from breaking through.

As for the Storm Division...from top to bottom, including him as the deputy commander, no one had the noble idea of ​​"sacrifice the small self to achieve the greater self" for the Hantu people.

Winning is great, but if the cost is losing both sides, then it’s really not worth the gain.

But this time, his luck seemed really good.

As the offensive of the Imperial Expeditionary Force was forced to suspend due to the collapse of morale, the coalition forces, which had been retreating steadily before, finally began to gain a firm foothold and began to push back along the path of "passive defense transition".

Although the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Expeditionary Force is still strong, on the one hand, the troops are divided by ravine-shaped positions, on the other hand, their physical fitness has also declined rapidly during the battle, and the ammunition they carry is basically exhausted in the previous onslaught; facing the coalition forces The counterattack began to suffer from a serious lack of firepower.

The most important thing is that the imperial artillery position that had never stopped before finally went out after nearly a day of bombardment!

Although this will not cause any weakening of the imperial line infantry, it can greatly encourage the confidence of soldiers to launch an attack - especially when their own artillery has not stopped firing.

The Imperial Expeditionary Force, which lost the cover of artillery fire, had low morale and dispersed its troops, no longer had any means to contain the coalition's counterattack, and it also had to face the coalition's artillery fire.

They finally collapsed.

Victories one after another cannot cover up the fatigue caused by continuous high-intensity battles. No amount of glory and glory can compare with the corpses scattered all over the ground, let alone the expeditionary force that destroyed nearly half of the right-wing position. Explosions are comparable.

As the flag of the Border Legion appeared on the central position of the coalition forces, the entire Imperial Expeditionary Force began to disintegrate, rout, and become fragmented at an alarming speed.

"...the left-wing army still has no intelligence and has not sent any herald responsible for liaison; Sir Lead Walton is still missing and is very likely to have been involved in the explosion just now!"

"...the right-wing regiment is still fiercely attacking the enemy's left-wing position, but the enemy's firepower is very fierce. Both rounds of charges were counterattacked by enemy artillery shells, resulting in heavy casualties. Two-thirds of the Fourth Grenadier Regiment was killed!"

"...The 2nd Cuirassiers suffered heavy casualties. The regiment commander sent a messenger to report that he would fight with the last twenty-five knights until the last moment! But the central army has begun to collapse. Please order the artillery to deploy on the battlefield as soon as possible. Bombard, cover troops to evacuate!”

"...the artillery commander stated that all the artillery can no longer fire - except for the risk of exploding the chamber, all ammunition has been exhausted, and only a small amount of shot remains; unless we can install bayonets on the cannons, there is no point in continuing to fire. …”

One bad news after another was delivered to Caspar Hered; the entire command headquarters was in panic, and unprecedented panic swept over everyone's faces.

But in this chaos, Caspar Hered, who should have been furious and shouting the most, was actually the calmest one among everyone.

The Imperial Expeditionary Force is about to be doomed, this is an indisputable fact.

They tried their best but failed to catch the main force of Hantu, and they failed to conquer the most critical fortress of Wild Stone Castle. However, they risked everything but fell in front of an "explosion" that looked like a joke... In a battle like this, "lose" It is no longer an option, but a prerequisite.

In this case, the key to the next step is "how to lose."

It is no longer possible to continue the attack, and retreating is simply seeking death. The Imperial Expeditionary Force has reached the end of its rope. Even if it turns around and goes back to attack the Wild Stone Castle, there will be no second result except for the whole army to mutiny.

No matter which one, it will definitely end with the entire expeditionary force being annihilated, or at least being forced to hand over all their weapons and withdraw from Hantu... Such a result cannot be accepted by Casper himself, not to mention the emperor himself!

Even if he is doomed to fail, he should at least be buried with his enemy; even if he is unable to do so, he must pay a painful enough price.

Since we have to give it a go and die together with the enemy, the best way is of course...

"You must not break out from the front!"

Just when Casper decided to give the order, a sonorous and powerful voice interrupted his thinking.

The grumpy old man turned around suddenly, and saw Louis Bernard, whose steps were sloppy and mentally depressed, reflected in his bloodshot eyes. He pushed away the military doctor behind him who was trying to support him, and staggered toward this person with his saber in his hand. Walking over:

"You must not... break out from the front!"

"Why?"

Raising his hand to stop the guard behind him, Casper stared directly at him and said.

"Because this is the Clovis people... to be more precise, it should be what Anson Bach wants!" Louis, who was highly exhausted, held on to his extremely painful temples and groggy eyelids, and shouted with all his strength. road:

"He just wants you to break out from the front with a small group of elites, so that the expeditionary force without command will completely collapse and become prey for him to cut again!"

"From the very beginning, what he wanted was not to defeat, but to annihilate the entire expeditionary force - just like what you did to Claude Francois back then!"

The extremely weak roar sounded like a whisper on the battlefield where guns and gunfire roared.

Caspar Hered's eyes widened suddenly.

The tired Louis looked at the shocked Casper nervously, and cold sweat broke out in his palms tightly holding the saber.

"How did you know?"

The always irritable old man was so calm that it was almost terrifying. Louis, who was originally prepared to have a gun put to his head, breathed a sigh of relief, but then he was stopped by the other party's question.

Yes, how did you know?

this……

"I, I don't know either." Louis' expression suddenly became a little more embarrassed, but soon, his twinkling eyes became firm again:

"But I just know."

Caspar Herred looked at him coldly, nodded slightly after a moment of silence, and then asked another question: "Then what is your suggestion?"

"My suggestion is... to break out." Louis Bernard said nervously in a deep voice, his eyes becoming firm again:

"But not to the west, but to the east!"

"east?!"

Casper was stunned for a moment.

"Yes, lead the expeditionary force to the east to break out!" Louis said loudly:

"Now that the summit tower has fallen into the control of the Clovis and Hantu, this means that our connection with the mainland is completely cut off, unless we can quickly attack and capture the fortress after breaking through, or obtain troops from the mainland No less than the support of the expeditionary force, otherwise even if we break through the heavy siege of the Clovis people, we will not be able to reverse the current situation!"

"But you and I know very well that neither a quick attack nor reinforcements are possible... In this case, why continue to step into the encirclement of the Hantu and Clovis people instead of turning around and heading eastward?"

"At present, because of the expeditionary force, almost all the Hantu troops are concentrated in the Aiden generation; it can be said that four-fifths of the Hantu are actually in a relative 'combat vacuum' state. Except for a few fortresses, there is no ability to Block the power of the expeditionary force."

Louis, who tried his best to hold back his headache and fatigue, explained extremely nervously: "With the enemy's organization level, under the same circumstances, their marching speed will definitely not be able to keep up with the expeditionary force!"

"So your suggestion is to advance towards the enemy's hinterland and jump out of the barren Ayden Mountains?" Casper immediately understood what Louis was thinking:

"Then where is our target? Iron Bell Castle, Carindia Port, or Golden Stone City?"

"No!" Louis shook his head and used all his strength to announce the answer:

"It's Eagle Point City!"

"Eagle Point City?!"

Casper's expression was extremely surprised: "Isn't that the east gate of Hantu?"

"Yes, but she is now the southern gate of the Kingdom of Clovis and borders the Elf Kingdom of Iser." Louis' eyes flashed with a strange light:

"But it should be quite empty at the moment, and there will definitely not be too many troops stationed there; if we can use the sweep of Hantu as a cover and quickly attack and capture this fortress, we can cut off the communication between Hantu and Clovis, and at the same time support Yi Theel Elf Kingdom!”

"More importantly, this fortress is not only the lifeline of Hantu, but also the face of the Kingdom of Clovis. Such an important fortress is lost and lost. In order to regain it, the Clovis people will definitely be willing to pay any price."

"If they are willing to make a deal, then this war can end smoothly; if they plan to rob, we can attract a large number of troops to the Western Front, and the expeditionary force... will become the fireworks blooming in the heart of the enemy on the eve of victory!"

"No matter what the outcome is, the Clovis people will pay a heavy price."

Louis' expression was sincere and firm enough.

He probably guessed Anson Bach's wishful thinking. This was a guy who would always leave himself a backup plan. It was very difficult to force him to leave no backup plan and initiate a head-on decisive battle.

But... if he realizes that the target of the expeditionary force is Eagle Point City in his rear area, it should be enough for him to rush forward regardless of the situation and risk the entire army being annihilated to confront him head-on, right?

This is the only small selfishness in Louis's entire plan - no matter what, even if it is a little despicable and vicious, he still wants to have a real showdown with this guy Ansen Bach.

Then defeat him openly and openly!

"A very good plan. It doesn't sound like a guy who just woke up and is talking about nonsense."

After a moment of shock, Casper, who thought calmly for a moment, nodded slightly, and even showed some appreciation.

The core of the entire plan is actually the same as what Louis proposed when he climbed to the top of the tower - do not limit the battlefield to Ayden or the western part of the land, but make full use of the mobility of the expeditionary force to expand the "battlefield" as much as possible. scope.

Claude Francois or all the lords of Hantu, why are they so obsessed with fighting a decisive battle? The core reason is that the combat effectiveness of Hantu's army is too poor, and their organization is too low, and they cannot maintain a considerable level of combat effectiveness while ensuring rapid advancement.

But this is precisely the advantage of the expeditionary force.

"If we can successfully reach the Iron Bell Castle, and the advance troops from Carindia Port are deployed from the southern front to cover it, this plan that sounds a bit absurd, even crazy...maybe it will really succeed!"

Louis looked happy.

"But..." The old man suddenly changed the subject:

"I will not implement this plan. I will lead the expeditionary force and continue to break out westward!"