Warlord: King of All Clans

Opposite the river mouth town and the western watchtower is a huge swamp.

Map of the western part of Isenpore. Gladstone is located in the north of Isenpore. It is one of the five major banner families and has suffered the most severe impact from refugees and foreigners.

There are a large number of swamp creatures living here, and the density of wild beasts is no less than that of the surrounding dense forests.

During periods of food scarcity, swamp creatures would occasionally attack fishing boats, but due to the existence of the Western Outpost, and especially the growing prosperity of the river mouth town, swamp creatures rarely appeared in the Anzeno River anymore.

The most numerous creatures in the swamp are the huge crocodiles.

They are the same species as the swamp crocodiles outside the saltpeter mine, but the food here is obviously more abundant, so their bodies are much larger than those of their counterparts in the small swamp.

Although they usually stay in the food-rich swamps near the banks of the Anzeno River, as winter approaches, the swamps freeze and food becomes scarce, so these giant crocodiles have to enter the Anzeno River to find food.

Small fishing boats traveling upstream on the Anzeno River began to be attacked, and some people even saw the backs of crocodiles emerging from the water at the dock in the town at the mouth of the river.

Taking advantage of the frozen swamp, the hunting team from Hewan also began to enter the swamp to hunt.

But the swamp is not without vegetation. In addition to waist-high weeds, there are also shrubs and reeds taller than people, and the view is very narrow.

Beneath these vegetation, there are mud and pools of water everywhere. Once the ice shell breaks, you will accidentally fall into it and be eaten by the lurking swamp creatures.

The scouts and hunting parties of the river bend could hardly penetrate into the swamp and could only wander around the periphery.

So when Leo heard the news, he came to the river mouth town and personally took a small boat to scout the swamp opposite.

Once developed, this huge swamp will be a fertile land. Unfortunately, with the current manpower and technology in Hewan, it is much more difficult to develop a large swamp than a forest.

To turn this huge swamp into fertile farmland, it would require the collective cooperation of at least 10,000 people and the large-scale construction of river embankments and canals, which would take more than a year.

There are a large number of knights pioneering territories in the three directions of Isenbol, but there are none in the swamp, which can well illustrate this problem.

Leo could only lead the ogre tribe to hunt large beasts around the swamp, on the one hand to prevent them from running out to attack fishing boats and pedestrians, and on the other hand to subsidize the ogres' household expenses.

The ogre tribe consumes a lot of food. It is difficult to maintain their combat effectiveness by eating only cassava residue, and they also need regular meat supplements.

They are the secret weapon of Hewan and the only extraordinary soldiers at this stage. They cannot run away from hunger or become emaciated due to lack of food.

Leo personally led the team to supervise and guide them on how to cooperate with each other, so as to prevent these fat guys from being swallowed by the quagmire due to carelessness.

When Leo heard the news of the Gladstone family's attack, he was still commanding several ogres to use several thick cables to pull out one of his own who was stuck in the mud.

This stupid ogre was still holding a giant crocodile that was over five meters long in his hands, grabbing its tail and hind legs and refusing to let go.

The giant crocodile struggled violently, dragging him deeper into the mud.

The ogre's fellows on the shore were excitedly pulling the tug-of-war together, and at the same time threatening the ogre in the mud not to let go of his prey, otherwise they would plant him back on shore.

But the threat was totally unnecessary, as the ogre in the mud had no intention of letting go.

Leo watched on indifferently, having long been accustomed to the stupidity of ogres.

When the ogre and the giant crocodile were dragged ashore, Leo acted like a professional kindergarten teacher, enthusiastic on the outside but calm on the inside. He clapped his hands and said, "Okay, today's entertainment is over. Everyone, follow me back to the river bay. I'll take you to the battle tomorrow!"

"Yeah! Fight!"

The young children immediately cheered. To them, fighting with humans meant they could get plenty of meat for free and no longer had to risk their lives hunting.

As the Gladstone family army marched through the eastern forest, the army of River Bay also began to gather and converge on Stonebreak.

When Rigolav left, he also took away most of the war horses in the river bend. Some of these horses were consumed by the Petukhov family, and some were sold at the horse market in Isenpol in exchange for cheaper riding horses and pack horses, or other cattle and horses.

The daily consumption of more than a hundred war horses is really too intense. In terms of food alone, it is not even less than that of the lord's army in the river bay, and they also need professional grooms to maintain and train them.

There is no point in Hewan raising so many war horses. After all, there are no more than thirty people who can fight on horseback.

Even so, the total number of light and heavy war horses in Hewan exceeded fifty, and the number of ordinary riding horses and pack horses was close to three hundred.

The three towns in the river bend all have stables. The lord's army usually moves on foot, and only rides horses to increase speed when patrolling long distances and providing emergency support.

On the second day after receiving the news of the war, two hundred ordinary horses carrying the elite fighting forces of River Bay appeared in front of the gate of Gravel Castle.

The Gladstone family's army had just entered the eastern forest, twenty miles away from their own knights, and arrived at the first small ridge that blocked the road.

When traveling through the primeval forest alone, one can travel very fast, but if one is in a group of more than ten people, the speed will slow down.

If there are more than a hundred people, animal power will be needed to carry the luggage and equipment, and the route issue will have to be considered.

If there are more than a thousand people, they can't just leave whenever they want. Not only do they need to spread out scouts in advance, survey the terrain, and arrange the route, but they also need to send out vanguard troops to build bridges and roads for the baggage convoys behind to pass.

The Gladstone family's army was blocked in front of a small ridge less than two hundred meters high - it couldn't even be called a ridge, it could only be said to be a steep small earth slope.

Based on the scouts' reports, Edward decided to build a road through the flat area on the ridge.

This ridge extends from the gravel hills and extends deep into the swamps in the southeast. If you want to completely bypass it, you may need to walk another twenty miles.

Thinking that they would come back to plunder or forcibly requisition supplies in the future, Edward preferred to wait here for a day and build a road on the ridge that could be used by carriages.

The Gladstone Regiment consisted of fifteen corner pennants, forty knights' squires, three hundred regulars, six hundred levies, and one thousand militia.

The knights of the corner flags are all heavy cavalry in armor who have passed the knight examination, while the combat effectiveness of the knight squires varies.

Some are heavy cavalry similar to knights, or elite heavy armored warriors who fight on horseback, while others can only be classified as light cavalry.

The poorest knight squire had worse equipment than the regular soldiers and only had a warhorse, so he could basically only serve as a scout or messenger for the legion.

The three hundred regular soldiers were iron-armored soldiers, the conscripted soldiers were leather-armored soldiers, and the militia were unarmored soldiers.

But the militia in the north are different from the serf soldiers in the south. Although they are similar in nature, both are composed of a mixture of free people, hired farmers and serfs, but they are more burly and stronger in physique.

Especially the militiamen in the border areas, who have experienced battles with foreign races or neighbors, have killed people and seen blood, and have good combat effectiveness.

While they were setting up camp and waiting, Leo had already climbed to the top of the ridge with Vicchi, Red Hare, and several wild scouts to observe the enemy's movements from above.