Knight Lord: Start with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 22: Blitzkrieg

Although the war with the Green Dragon had stretched for more than half a year, the final battle arrived much more swiftly than Su Li had anticipated.

Knight Orschtein's report meant that the decisive battle would begin as early as tomorrow morning.

Su Li really wanted to strangle that blasphemous Grand Duke of the Sulland Province. If his political struggle hadn't crossed the line and leaked the information of the Black Forest Territory to the Green Dragon, the final battle wouldn't have been so rushed.

But with things as they were, and the final battle imminent, he didn't waste time on resentment.

After Marshal Orschtein reported the situation of the monster's advance, Su Li asked, "What are your plans for tomorrow's decisive battle? The Green Dragon's legions are spread all over the mountains and plains, possibly numbering nearly ten times our own. What deployments do we have to ensure victory?"

The Goddess of the Blazing Sun is the goddess of strategy and war, the patron of officers and tacticians, and the faith of those who rely on the art of command and the science of war. Therefore, her followers usually only strike when they are sure that the strategy and tactics have been properly analyzed, and that both controllable and uncontrollable factors are in their favor.

If it were followers of Redmayne or Yurick, they would have charged out with their troops directly upon facing a decisive battle.

But clearly, the knights of the territory would plan their tactics before the battle to help their side gain an overwhelming advantage. Otherwise, it would be too difficult for a mere 5,000 troops to defeat tens of thousands of enemies.

As the saying goes, 'Surround them if ten times their number, attack them if five times their number.' The monsters' advantage in army size must be offset by our tactical advantages.

As the Marshal, Orschtein was the center of attention. He immediately stood up and said solemnly, "Regarding this decisive battle, we will still adopt a defensive counter-attack tactic."

Before anyone could frown or question, he decisively walked to the sandbox and explained to everyone, "But this defensive counter-attack is not a passive defense. We will defend the city, but not defend!"

Defend the city, but not defend?

What did that mean?

Everyone's eyes focused on the sandbox pointed to by Orschtein's wooden rod. This sandbox was a model of the hills, rivers, cities, fortresses, and routes around Black Forest Castle, made of sand, clay, wood, and bamboo sticks in strict proportion.

Basically, by commanding from this sandbox, the officers and tacticians of the Goddess of the Blazing Sun could precisely correspond the tactical deployment to every square meter of the battlefield.

At this moment, in the center of the sandbox, a tall castle and formidable city walls formed a solid line of defense, overlooking the vast plains to the east. The green arrows, representing the Green Dragon's claws, covered the east, south, and north directions.

The gold models, representing the Knight Legions, gathered in the castle, their sharp swords pointing to the sky, their shields faintly gleaming. They held their banners high, majestic, as if ready to leap from the castle at any moment and pierce through the models representing the monsters.

Knight Legions were born for offense. Passive defense was not only not their style, but it would also greatly limit their combat effectiveness.

So, Su Li understood Orschtein's desire to take the initiative, but he didn't quite understand the meaning of his tactical deployment. What did 'defend the city, but not defend' mean?

"My Marshal, what does this tactic mean? Does it mean we're going to fight a field battle with the Green Dragon's claws with our backs against the city walls?"

That mere thousands of troops would probably be overwhelmed by the monsters directly. The saying 'attack them if five times their number' meant that if the troop strength was five times that of the enemy, they could take the initiative to attack and use their numerical advantage to defeat the enemy.

Relying on the city walls for passive defense meant that a squadron's phalanx would face the siege of five or six monster squadrons, which meant that one squadron had to fight against one legion. The huge numerical advantage was enough for the monsters to easily tear the soldiers of this legion to pieces.

Orschtein shook his head decisively and pointed the command rod in his hand to the city gate, saying, "We are going to fight a field battle with the monsters, but not with our backs against the city walls, but with our backs against the city gate!"

In truth, Orschtein's qualifications far exceeded those of others, and even Su Li was confused.

His understanding of military strategy, as a God-Chosen Knight, had surpassed ordinary people, reaching the level of 'application lies in the heart'.

Apart from Hilde, who was very calm, standing aside with her arms folded, and Tiberos and Constantine, who seemed to have gained some inspiration, the rest were completely clueless.

Seeing this, Orschtein didn't beat around the bush and said directly, "Based on my experience of traveling to every corner of the Old World during my time in the Flame Sun Knights and learning from every human country about their tactics and strategies, I have learned and summarized that when defending a city, the more city gates, the better, and it's better to have them open than closed. With more city gates open, we can launch troops to attack at the slightest opportunity, as a containment strategy, which can often make them work while we rest."

"It means that when defending a city, the more city gates, the better, and don't close the city gates. Instead, open the city gates wide and, once you seize the opportunity, strike decisively, forming a situation of attacking the few with the many, and crushing a weak enemy force in one fell swoop, thereby achieving the goal of breaking one of their fingers. In this way, the enemy can only passively defend, while our main force can calmly choose where to attack, repeatedly destroying parts of the enemy army. As one force grows and the other diminishes, the enemy will surely be defeated."

The core of this tactic is that it is better to break one finger than to wound all ten.

The cavalry legion has the advantage of combat power and mobility. Once they find a weak enemy legion, they can take the initiative to attack, thereby forming a local situation of attacking the few with the many. Relying on the knights' fierce combat power and excellent equipment, they can completely destroy this weak enemy legion at a small cost.

Then, strike quickly and retreat quickly. After defeating the enemy with lightning speed, quickly retreat back into the city to rest and wait for the next opportunity.

Orschtein said calmly, "I named this tactic 'Blitzkrieg'. Although strategically we are on the defensive side and the Green Dragon Legion is on the offensive side, tactically we must seize the initiative!"

Blitzkrieg, not lightning war, is a summary of the Empire's military theory in terms of tactics.

Orschtein was very confident in this. This was the pride of his origin in the Flame Sun Knights. And as everyone knows, the army led by the Flame Sun Knights is an undoubtedly fierce division, capable of surpassing their opponents with a certain degree of cunning, leadership, and strategic vision, and being confident of victory before the battle even begins.

An important guarantee for implementing this tactic is that the defense of the city gates and city walls is indestructible. Even if the city gates are wide open, the enemy cannot break in.

This requires the advanced engineering level and military defense facilities of the dwarves.

The city gates of Black Forest City and Black Forest Castle are really not the kind of bare gates in people's impressions, where you can go straight in and out.

On the contrary, each city gate is a complete defensive fortification group, called Vauban fortifications by the dwarves. This is a defense system invented by the legendary dwarf Vauban. Castles, surrounding walls, and towers are arranged like scales, closely connected.

Specifically, it is very similar to the Eastern barbican, that is, each city gate can actually be regarded as a small city. By adding a small city outside the city gate, its height is the same as that of the large city, and it is connected to the city wall as a whole, becoming a barbican.

If the main gate faces south, you need to enter from the small gate of the barbican first. This small gate is definitely not facing south, but either on the west side of the barbican or on the east side of the barbican. After the monsters enter the barbican, they need to turn a direction before they can continue to attack the main gate of the big city. But when attacking the city, they will be attacked by a large number of defenders from the rear and left and right city walls.

Especially when the defenders are dwarves, they are more inclined to open the city gates, attract the enemy to fight with their dwarf shield array under the city gates, and then let their musketeers stand on the barbican and attack the enemies who are rushing to the main gate from behind.

The more heavily defended the city, the more effective this tactic is, because the high walls and deep moats and the moat are almost impossible to fill. Even if these Green Dragon claws are exhausted, they cannot fill the Blackwater River and the Brienne River.

And the 16-meter-high city wall is like an insurmountable chasm!

How magnificent is a 16-meter-high city wall? It is basically equivalent to the height of a five-story building. People with acrophobia can't stand still when looking down from it. If you fall down, you can basically say goodbye to this world.

Monsters attacking in a hurry, without carefully preparing siege equipment, cannot even reach half the height of the city wall even if they build a cloud ladder. Ordinary bamboo ladders and wooden ladders are only about 3 to 5 meters high, and dwarf steel straight ladders are only 3 to 10 meters high. It is impossible to make a straight ladder with a height of 16 meters with just simple wood. Complex facilities and professional siege weapons must be used to build a 16-meter cloud ladder or well rail to allow monsters to climb the 16-meter city wall.

But preparing this level of siege weapons would simply make the defenders laugh. With the city gates wide open, the defenders would harass day and night, making it impossible for the monsters' camp to even stand under the city wall, and they would have to withdraw and camp dozens of miles away to stabilize their position.

Therefore, opening the city gates wide can be said to be both a preparation for Orschtein's offensive tactics and a bait and trap he specially set for the monsters, which is to attract the monsters to launch an attack on the barbican.

After the blitzkrieg tactic was clarified, Su Li asked with concern, "How many troops can we mobilize for the decisive battle?"

"How do you plan to deploy the troops for defense and attack?"

Orschtein immediately introduced in detail, "The offensive in this battle will be completely dominated by elite knight legions, including the Sun Crown Knights, the Crimson Night Knights, the Revenge Sun Gryphon Knights, and the elite knights of the territory, a total of 1,100 people."

The distribution of elite knights in the territory is relatively complex. It can be said that it far exceeds 1,100 people, or it can be said that it is less than half of this number.

The main reason lies in how to view the members of the Sun Crown Knights. Since the Black Forest Territory defeated the Khorne Chosen and became famous, it has indeed attracted a large number of followers of the Goddess of the Blazing Sun to join.

For example, dozens of Flame Sun Knights members who were only active in the Border Prince Territory have come to the Black Forest Territory, but they are more inclined to join the Sun Crown Knights.

Although the Sun Crown Knights are an affiliated sub-battle group of the Flame Sun Knights, they are also a complete Flame Sun Knights formation, and are direct descendants of the regular army! It can be understood as the formation name of the Second Battalion of the Wuwei Army Vanguard.

So they completely possess all the characteristics of the Flame Sun Knights. This knight order is extremely wealthy. Most of the fire velvet rabbit meat sold in the Black Forest Territory alone was bought by them.

Even the storm dragonhead eel that Su Li just caught was directly reserved by them, with a price of 3 gold crowns/jin. Even a smaller storm dragonhead eel can easily sell for nearly 100 gold crowns. If it is the one that Su Li worked hard to catch, it is even more remarkable. The high price of 300 gold crowns is a price that even secular nobles are reluctant to pay.

And this heavy investment has also led to their continuous expansion of strength under the blessing of various opportunities in the territory. In addition, they have absorbed scattered Flame Sun Knights members. Now they have more than 200 elite knights, making them the territory's well-deserved largest knight order.

In addition, they also have 20 to 300 reserve knight order members. These people are not armed servants, but ranger knights preparing to participate in the group assessment. Many of them are descendants of kingdom knights, gathering from all directions, and at least have the strength of trainee knights.

So, if excluding the Flame Sun Knights and the Fallen Wolf Mercenary Group members, the number of elite knights directly under the Black Forest Territory is far from reaching a thousand.

But if adding these church knights and the cavalry of the free militia, the number of elite knights that the Black Forest Territory can mobilize is even as many as thousands.

In any world, thousands of shining heavy cavalry charging are a mighty and invincible powerful military force.

Especially with the addition of a large number of dwarves in the territory, the number of excellent-level armor may account for 60% or even 80% of them. Although it has not yet equipped the entire army with excellent equipment, it is already an overwhelming advantage for monsters.

They are divided into about 20 impact arrays or battle groups, launching impacts one after another. I am afraid that only a few waves of impacts can destroy an entire monster legion before the monsters can react.

Even if an outstanding commander and tactician commands, these cavalry groups are divided into left, middle, and right three shock waves, which can ensure that they are full of energy and fight continuously for a day and a night, and can also gallop on the battlefield, making their opponents dizzy and unable to launch a counterattack at all, and can only be passively beaten.

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Regarding the defense, Orschtein continued, "The guarding army is divided into two parts. In addition to your direct attendants, the Blood Pine Forest Beast Slayer Camp guarding Black Forest Castle, the remaining army plans to defend Black Forest Town first, and block opponents in batches until they can no longer resist, and then slowly retreat back to Black Forest Castle."

"This is also to increase the morale of the defenders. After all, we have nearly 4,000 people in the provincial legion, free militia, and fiefdom army. If we directly abandon the city, there will not be enough defenders in the castle, and it will also shake the morale of the soldiers."

Su Li nodded. He could not consider the morale of the free militia, but he had to care about the provincial legion.

He had about 500 high-level direct attendants in his hand, and as many as 1,500 in the provincial legion. These 2,000 people, plus about 800 professional free militia, were his most elite standing army, and he had to maintain their high morale.

Moreover, relying on the city to resist step by step is also conducive to winning time for Orschtein's knight main force to take the initiative to attack.

After deep thought, Su Li nodded and said, "Then let's deploy according to this tactic. We must defeat the Green Dragon in one fell swoop with absolutely high morale and high fighting spirit!"

With Su Li's decision made, Orstein immediately began deploying everyone's defensive positions on the sand table. Dogrin, Tyberose, and even Dietrich and Ron, all champions with powerful combat abilities, were assigned to nodes and key intersections. They would support nearby areas where battles broke out as quickly as possible, if needed.

Even the dwarven rangers, armed with muskets and stationed in the square, could, under this deployment, rush to the aid of three or four battlefields within five minutes.

With the help of the sand table, the Black Forest Territory army's defense and control capabilities reached their peak, even guaranteeing that if a battle broke out in any location, the army size wouldn't be at too much of a disadvantage, and could even receive more reinforcements at any time during an emergency.

After the deployment was completed, Orstein and Hilde led all the knights in two teams and began tactical simulations.

This was one of the favorite activities of the followers of Violet, the Goddess of the Blazing Sun. When not engaged in physical training, the followers of the Goddess of the Blazing Sun would conduct extensive military strategy discussions, including troop deployments, maneuverability, terrain utilization, and artillery deployment, and then conduct tactical simulations to improve their command skills and combat effectiveness.

Legend has it that Violet prepared a special afterlife for her loyal followers who won honor during their lives.

After death, the souls of loyal believers would enter a magnificent hall, where they would be distinguished by their level of achievement in life. Commanders would find themselves gathered together, facing huge sand tables and lifelike miniature models, where they could discuss tactics and compete against each other. The souls of soldiers who were alive would join the battle among the miniature models.

Those who survived a battle might join the ranks of commanders, and even those who died in battle would not be destroyed, but would temporarily withdraw from the game, where they could watch, discuss, or join another battle.

After the battle, the commanders would discuss the events of the battle with each other, while others could rest and prepare for future activities. For these soldiers, this eternal army and eternal war was the most wonderful thing—all for the perfect army and perfect tactics.

The followers of the Goddess of the Blazing Sun were professional in this regard. Their greatest expertise was tactical planning and overall deployment, and they would even serve as military advisors to nobles on the battlefield. Sometimes, they would directly command squads or entire legions on the battlefield, using their skills and reputation to prevent the collapse of militias and mercenaries from running away with the money, or—when the commander was too incompetent—to directly take over command.

Su Li, this noble commander, was best at delegating authority. He knew his talents very well. Leading 5,000 elites to fight 5,000 monsters, he could do it easily, but leading 5,000 elites to fight 10,000 monster legions was beyond his ability.

Letting him lead three legions to defeat at least 15 legions, or even 25 to 30 legions, a ratio of 1:10, was far beyond his limits.

He couldn't even defeat 30 people with 3 people. Not to mention the complexity was hundreds or thousands of times more, using 3 legions to defeat 30 legions.

Fortunately, an excellent monarch does not need to be proficient in everything. The key is to be able to select and appoint talented people and leave professional matters to professionals.

He only needs to do a good job of intelligence support, and most of the glory, prestige, and fame will fall on his head.

So, after the knights began to discuss intensely and seriously, Su Li walked out of the conference room under the escort of the Black Forest Guard Knights and came to the highest point of the Black Forest Castle's defense system, where the flag of the Bauhinia family was flying in the wind.

On the iconic crimson banner, the Bauhinia family's emblem was embroidered with gold thread, with a golden warhammer and longsword crossed beneath the Bauhinia flower.

This was the facade of Black Forest Castle, a banner made of Anarake giant spider silk, enchanted with mysterious energy. When it flew in the moonlight, it made the entire castle look particularly tall, like hundreds of meters straight into the sky.

But in fact, the castle, plus the three-layer defense system, was only 50 meters high, far less than the castles of those nobles in the empire, where just one castle's ramparts were over 50 meters high.

But even if the visual illusion looked hundreds of meters high, it was already remarkable. Anarake giant spider silk was extremely rare, and ordinary pioneering lords could not possibly own it. Even nobles with hundreds of years of inheritance within the empire had to spend a lot of money to buy enough spider silk to make an enchanted banner.

And Su Li had an intelligence system to assist him. This kind of Anarake giant spider silk banner was also one of the few. One was the facade of this territory, one was Su Li's banner, and the remaining four were distributed to various knight orders and legions.

Su Li held the flying banner and looked into the distance. From here, he could overlook the vast and fertile plains of the territory for dozens of miles. In the east, a soaring flame had already ignited, and the firelight dyed a large area of the sky red, illuminating the entire dark night sky in the distance.

I don't know if the green dragon's claws destroyed the territory's farms, or ignited a pasture and farmland.

But in any case, after the green dragon legion wreaked havoc, large areas of prosperous suburbs turning into a dark ghost domain, and large areas of farmland turning into scorched earth were inevitable.

Fortunately, the territory had already carried out a scorched earth policy in advance, and the crops that were about to mature had been harvested. Even if the monsters burned the wheat fields, they only destroyed some wheat seedlings.

Fandar was very distressed. He only participated in the meetings on deployment and allocation, deciding where to set up medical stations for the nuns of the Dawn Church to treat the wounded. He did not participate in the subsequent simulations, but followed Su Li to the highest point of the castle.

"Lord, the monsters' rampage may destroy thousands or even tens of thousands of acres of our fertile land, turning a large number of farms into ashes."

Su Li took a deep breath and said, "It won't have a big impact on the territory. As long as we defeat this green dragon and develop with peace of mind, we can reclaim the destroyed farmland in just one quarter, and rebuild all the farms in half a year."

"How can there be a war without losing any property? The key is that we must take advantage of this war to severely damage the green dragon's legion, and then burn the flames of war back into the Blood Pine Forest. As long as we attack the dragon's nest, we can at least harvest tens of thousands of gold crowns."

At that time, Su Li can not only expand his territory, extending the Black Forest Territory's borders hundreds or even thousands of miles into the Blood Pine Forest, but also obtain massive spoils of war.

This dragon's nest is the descendant of an Emperor Dragon, with amazing wealth. If all of it is taken by Su Li, then the Black Forest Territory will have no financial pressure next year.

Moreover, after losing the huge military pressure, the territory's military investment can be slightly reduced, and all the massive resources seized can be invested in the territory's development, and the territory will definitely take off.