Warlord: King of All Clans

Buck Pass, located two hundred miles west of the city of Isenpol, is one of the transportation hubs connecting the western border and the northern border.

The border between the West and the North is not long. It mainly borders the Earldom of Gustav in the North. There is only a huge canyon between the Earldom of Fruilov, which is the western wilderness between the city of Isenpol and Fortress Buck.

This huge trumpet-shaped canyon has an exit facing Isenbol and its starting point is the Buck Pass in the Buckporok Mountains.

Hundreds of years ago, the Empire's standing army built a fortress at this mountain pass and stationed a full legion there to guard against invasions by people from the West.

But over the past few hundred years, the empire's standing army system gradually disappeared, and Buck Fortress became a piece of fat meat in the eyes of the nearby earl family.

The ruling families on both sides have been entangled for hundreds of years over this fortress.

In the past hundred years, the Freelov family has risen, firmly occupied Isenpol, and made peace with the Talhanberk family in the west.

After Count Freilov and Talhanberk became brothers, there has been no large-scale war between the two places for twenty years.

Today, Buck Fortress is occupied by Talhanberk, and three thousand soldiers are stationed here. With the help of the World Tree Avenue, high commercial taxes are collected and the money is earned.

Relying on the commercial taxes here, he purchased large quantities of heavy war horses from the north and knightly armor from the south, and formed his own armored knights. He soon stood out from the hundreds of nomadic tribes in the west and became a local lord.

The western border is full of deserts and grasslands, and the land is even more barren than the northern border with vast forests. The armored Tarhanberk has the military power to crush its neighbors.

However, in recent years, Talhanberk has been militaristic and aggressive, and in order to obtain military funds, he has wantonly exploited the caravans from both sides of the border that traveled to and from Bak Pass.

Especially after Rio captured Isenbor, almost all caravans heading from the North to the West never returned.

Before the establishment of Hekou Town, there were large caravans entering and leaving the Western Watchtower every month. After the establishment of Hekou Town, the number of caravans crossing the two borders became fewer and fewer.

In Hekou Town now, large caravans are almost extinct, and only small caravans from the city of Isenpol come and go.

They would rather go to the kobold tribe in the west to sell goods than go to the farther Buck Pass to die.

Strong stood on the World Tree Avenue, looking at Buck Fortress from a distance on the back of a mammoth. After a long while, he muttered, "Is this also considered a fortress?"

The Buck Fortress in front of us is slightly larger than the Gravel Fort, but it is far smaller than the city of Isenpol with a population of 20,000.

It relies on the terrain of the Bakporok Mountains and was built on the lowest pass, cutting off the World Tree Avenue in the middle.

On the northern side, a nine-meter-high city wall connects the mountains on both sides. It stretches for several miles and looks quite majestic.

But Strong had seen the Aeolus Fortress, which was dozens of meters high, and the Earl's main city, Frovald, which was twelve meters high. When he looked at this "short" city wall, it seemed a little thin.

When Strong was checking the enemy situation, the dog-headed general Six was beside him, wagging his tail and looking at him eagerly with his head tilted up. "How is it? Can you take it down?"

"It's hard to say," Strong scratched his butt and leaned over to shout down, "Troll woman, what's going on?"

Under a big tree on the side of the mammoth, Asa was sitting cross-legged. His spell was interrupted by Strong's shout, and he couldn't help but glare at him angrily.

This cunning tauren lied to her at the river bend, saying that he was going to the kobold workshop to teach kobolds spells. Then when he arrived at the kobold workshop, he lied to her again, saying that he was going to the werewolf tribe to teach spells.

After walking for a day and seeing no signs of life ahead, she learned from their fragmentary words that they were going to war.

Asa immediately rejected the action.

In exchange for a golden egg, Fesha asked her to teach spellcasting skills to the kobold spellcasters in River Bay, but did not ask her to risk her life for him.

But Strong doesn't care about that. Asa is also a kobold and needs to contribute his strength.

After recovering from the shadow-perception witchcraft, Asa said in a deep voice: "The spirit of the wilderness told me that we will win."

The dog-headed people on the side cheered and danced, but Strong shouted impatiently: "Your trick is useless. Give me some useful information."

"There are five thousand people behind the city wall, not many extraordinary ones."

Strong asked earnestly, "How much is not much?"

Asa was speechless, "Uh, I don't know... maybe five, maybe ten."

"Useless blue kobold!"

"Five thousand people?" Six immediately wilted, his ears drooping. "That's a lot of people. Let's go back! I haven't fed my goldfish for two days."

Strong nodded and said, "Not bad, similar to the information I collected. Five thousand humans, at most half of them are in the army, and less than two thousand have armor, so they can fight."

During this year, Strong had Akhan's werewolf troops keep an eye on Buck Fortress and obtained a lot of information.

There are several thousand people living in this fortress, but less than half of them are actual soldiers. The rest are mostly family members or slaves, as well as some merchants from the Western Territory.

It’s a pity that the foreigners couldn’t sneak into the fortress to observe, otherwise Strong would have found out everything about the enemy.

Originally, the defenders of Buck Fortress had suffered a major defeat. In addition to the losses caused by fighting with the werewolf tribe over the past year, Strong estimated that there were only 2,000 defenders left.

But now there are a thousand more soldiers than expected. Obviously, Burke in the West is not a fool. He has noticed the threat from the North and sent reinforcements here.

For a small or medium-sized fortress, three thousand defenders are already a lot.

Isenpol usually has only a few hundred defenders, and only in a state of war will it gather thousands of lords' troops to defend the city.

But now that he was here, Strong was unwilling to retreat, so he confidently announced, "No matter how many rabble come, they are still rabble. Don't worry, I have confidence!"

When Asa heard this, he couldn't help but look back at the ogre musketeers who were fighting and stealing the unicorn boars. For a moment, he doubted the word "mob".

Si Zhuang added: "But we have to lure out their main force first, otherwise Akehan and his men may not be able to attack them."

Soon, under Strong's command, a hundred kobolds, holding wooden baffles and carrying iron cylinders, clumsily approached Buck Fortress and appeared in the defenders' field of vision.

The general of the defending army rushed over upon hearing the news. Seeing a group of short dog-headed men approaching slowly, he burst into laughter and asked his deputy general, "What are they going to do? Are they here to attack the city?"

Looking at the dog-headed man who was just over one meter tall and then at the nine-meter-high city wall, the deputy general of Buck Fortress was also confused.

The people of the Westward Belt classified the kobolds as part of the wild beast tribe. Their threat level was about the same as that of a wolf pack. Any village that was slightly prepared could repel them.

When the horse thieves from the West went out to plunder, they only needed to build a three-meter-high wooden wall in the temporary camp to keep the ogres and wild beasts out.

What does this small tribe of kobolds want to do?

However, the original commander of the defending army had been killed by artillery fire, but the deputy commander still remembered it clearly, so he reminded the new commander, "These dog-headed men are behaving strangely, they must have some special abilities, and we should quickly disperse them."

The commander said, "Let's see what they are up to first."

As they were talking, a group of kobolds came within range of the bows and arrows and began setting up iron barrels and baffles, then filling them.

The commander also realized something was wrong and finally gave the order: "Shoot!"

But it was too late. Dozens of iron barrels lined up in a long row roared and ejected round balls that flew towards the top of the city wall.

This is the new weapon for the Kobolds.

Explosive launcher!