The Invincible Overlord of Heroes.

Saiyue Castle is a small fortress on the edge of the grassland. Its owner is a baron who was enfeoffed by the Aini family a hundred years ago and settled in a corner east of Conaston Castle.

Pingfeng Grassland is in the northwest corner of the empire. Going east from Saiyue Fort, you will officially enter the territory of the Northern Empire.

Before the empire split, this boundary was not obvious, after all, it was all the empire's land.

But Aini did not choose to join the Northern Empire camp, offending all the nobles of the Northern Empire.

Therefore, except for Saiyue Castle, almost all the land to the east was swallowed up by the Northern Empire.

The only two affiliated villages are also limited to their own villages. Once they leave the village and encounter a patrol from the Northern Empire, they will be subject to a head tax.

The owner of Saiyue Castle is a loyal subordinate of Aini. His ancestors had been knights and followers of the Aini family for generations, including Thomas who was killed by Xu Lai, both of whom were descendants of Baron Saiyue.

Relying on such a relationship, Baron Saiyue was awarded the title of baron and helped the Aini family guard the gateway to the Northern Empire.

Going further north from Saiyue Castle is the Pingfeng Mountains, but on this section of the Pingfeng Mountains there are magic towers built by tower mages.

If the orcs want to enter from this side, they need to invade the tower camp first. The Beast King must be crazy to provoke two major camps at once.

Moreover, the towers are generally located in high mountain snow areas. They only train mechanical units and gargoyles, and the mages have to rely on trading with the empire for their survival resources.

When orcs invade the tower, their heads will be squeezed by the door.

Moreover, the stronghold was a camp with weak magic, and robbing the tower mages of their high magic environment would be of no use at all.

Therefore, Saiyue Fort has always only had to guard against enemies from the east. The city wall on the east has been reinforced, and various city defense equipment has also been deployed on the east side.

However, today, the south side of the fortress encountered enemies for the first time.

In that direction was the economic and political center of the grassland, Fort Conaston.

Baron Saiyue sat on the top of the city wall himself, and behind him were dozens of knights from the Saiyue family's old, middle-aged and young generations.

It has to be said that the Saiyue family is the closest family to the Aini family.

If his origin was not so low and his first-generation ancestor was just a slave of the Eini family, Jimmy would never have been the leader of the Knights Templar.

However, at this time, the former leader of the Knights Templar had already brought his troops to the city and had been giving earnest advice for most of the day.

Among the group of nobles who support Aini, only the Saiyue family can be regarded as worthy of Jimmy's attention.

What Jimmy valued was not the loyalty of the Saiyue family, but the fact that the Saiyue family had nearly 50 knights in total.

This is a standard knight family. All members of the family, except women, are trained according to knight standards.

There are still several knights of the Saiyue family imprisoned in Jimmy's castle. The rest of the royal guards also have some relationship with the Saiyue family, either they are in-laws or colleagues.

As long as the Saiyue family can be persuaded to surrender, most of the knights who were previously tricked by Jimmy into going to Martell City can probably be recruited back.

In addition, this family has so many knights, and by recruiting a few more knights, they can form a knightly order.

Knights are extremely important to a legion, especially a legion on the grassland.

Therefore, even if Baron Saiyue was determined not to surrender, Jimmy was still willing to continue persuading him.

It was a small fortress-level town with less than 5000 guards, including the civilians. If we really stormed it, we might be able to take it in a day.

"Don't waste your breath, you traitor. If you have the guts, just climb up here and see if I can kill you."

Baron Saiyue on the city wall, holding high a crescent-shaped flag, shouted to Jimmy Martell, who had been trying to persuade the city for most of the day.

Before Jimmy could say anything else, the military messenger brought an urgent military order.

Three days ago, Jimmy received a message from Yu Lan about Xu Lai through the magic communication stone.

It was also because of this message that Jimmy led his army to the city of Saiyue without stopping, hoping to persuade Baron Saiyue within the three-day time limit.

As for the nobles in other places, he only sent envoys symbolically to carry out the propaganda in the name of Xu Lai.

To be honest, Jimmy didn't care whether they listened or not, whether they were willing to surrender or not.

Moreover, he had persuaded many nobles to surrender, and those who were unwilling to surrender were all like Baron Saiyue, who had a bad relationship with him.

With so many nobles united together, they are already a very powerful force. If there were more old nobles, he was afraid that it would arouse Xu Lai's suspicion.

As aristocrats of the old times, even if those people don't have a good relationship with Jimmy, they will naturally stick together.

If these people were together, even if Xu Lai trusted him, he would never give him the opportunity to lead troops and hold power.

As for the remaining nobles, if he doesn't try to kill them, even if that's the best he can do for them, do you still expect him to persuade them to surrender?

"What military order?"

"Lord's adjutant, Master Jilong has delivered the Lord's military order, instructing the legion commander to launch an attack on the city as soon as possible.

And I order you to behead all the members of the Saiyue family, regardless of gender, age or status, except for the ignorant babies in their cradles, after you capture Saiyue Castle.

After the beheading, the head was sent back to Konakostoma and hung on the city’s busiest street.

In addition, in the letter, the lord also asked you whether there are any difficulties in attacking Saiyue Castle. If so, please communicate with him in time through the magic message stone.

If necessary, he will use the teleporter or time-space gate spell to teleport to the nearest city of his own."

Jimmy swallowed and said, "Are you sure this military order was issued by the Lord?
I have already reported Baron Saiyue's special situation to His Excellency Xu Lai through the Magic Message Stone."

The messenger shook his head and said, "It was a messenger sent by the Lord. The official document is indeed written by Master Gong, and it is also stamped with the Lord's personal seal."

Jimmy took the document. He recognized his son's handwriting, but the date on the document was yesterday morning.

Although it is his son's handwriting, Xu Lai's seal is correct.

But in this magical world, it is very easy to forge these things.

"Go and fetch the messenger. I have something to ask him."

The herald took the order and left. After a while, he brought back a middle-aged knight dressed as a mercenary.

The knight first introduced his identity. He was a mercenary under Hancock. This time he was also ordered by Hancock to help Lord Xu Lai deliver a message.

The same letters, with similar content, were not only sent to Jimmy, but also to other nobles on the grassland who had not surrendered.

Jimmy fell silent immediately. Xu Lai sent the letter out and wrote the fate of the Saiyue family in the letter, obviously to warn the nobles.

This means that the fate of the Saiyue family is already determined, no one can change it, and it must be achieved as soon as possible. Otherwise, when the representatives sent by various families find that Conaston Castle is empty, Xu Lai's prestige will be greatly affected.

"Were the letters sent out with these orders?"

The mercenary shook his head and said, “All letters will be sent out at different times according to the distance.

The earliest one should be the letter sent to Stone Castle, which will be sent out around this evening."

Jimmy hesitated for a moment, and wanted to give it one last try, so he asked:

“I heard that Earl Aini has been captured by the Lord.

I know this guy Aini quite well. He is by no means a strong nobleman.

If the Lord is willing to give him a chance to live, I think he will definitely surrender to the Lord.

Could you please give Aini a chance to persuade Baron Saiyue to surrender through the Magic Message Stone?

If the lord is worried, after you persuade Baron Saiyue to surrender, let me handle the matter of Count Aini.

I will definitely give the Lord a satisfactory explanation."

The messenger frowned, but sighed and said, "Your Excellency, Commander, your request is a little late.

Count Eni was captured by the lord, but at night, Eni's former subordinates broke into the prison and took Count Eni away. Now no one knows where Count Eni is.

It is said that the lord was unusually angry and executed several of Aini's former subordinates who were suspected.

That is why the lord could no longer tolerate these people and issued an ultimatum.

The Lord has ordered that all of Aini's former followers will be executed, along with their entire families, if they do not surrender within three days after receiving the letter."

Jimmy sighed and said, “Such an order would scare some nobles and force them to surrender.

But once the three-day deadline is over, those hesitant nobles will definitely make up their minds and fight the lord to the end."

The messenger looked at Jimmy blankly. Jimmy smiled bitterly and said, "In that case, let me try one last time."

After that, Jimmy called a messenger and asked him to throw the military order directly onto the wall of Saiyue City from a distance.

However, Baron Saiyue was determined to fight Xu Lai to the end.

The messenger held the letter high, and just as he approached the city wall, he was shot and turned into a hedgehog by the archers on the wall.

Forget about believing it. Baron Saiyue doesn't allow anyone to get close to the city wall.

Jimmy was also very angry. Before the battle even started, his side had already lost a head. The key point was that he still had good intentions.

Seeing this, Jimmy was too lazy to use the loudspeaker spell to communicate with Baron Saiyue, and directly ordered all catapults to be deployed to carry out ultra-long-range bombing on the walls of Saiyue City.

Count Eni left many advanced catapults to Conaston Castle, but unfortunately none of them were used, and now they all belong to Jimmy.

There are not many troops stationed in Conaston Castle now, but Jimmy believes that no one on the prairie dares to attack Conaston which is guarded by the castle.

Therefore, he dismantled many advanced catapults and packed them together to carry with the army.

After all, Jimmy was going to attack the city, so it was understandable that he took these siege equipment with him. Xu Lai did not say much. Instead, he asked the others to cooperate more and produce more ammunition for Jimmy to take away.

With the help of these advanced catapults, even without the support of ballistics, he could launch a massive bombardment on Saiyue City from 10 kilometers away.

Of course, if you are ten kilometers away, without the blessing of ballistics, the hit rate is still relatively poor, and the damage will also be affected by the maximum range, and can only cause half of the damage.

But what does it matter? The enemy's catapults, even with the bonus of the city walls, still cannot attack our side.

This means that the opponent can only take the beating and cannot fight back. Even if your side loses more ammunition, it is only a loss of gold coins.

He successively accepted two surrendered nobles and captured a viscount city. The wealth Jimmy had plundered could not be wasted in a short period of time.

The stones thrown from ten kilometers away were really too far away. Although most of the ammunition fell inside and outside the city, there were so many of them that many of them still smashed into the crowd and hit the city walls.

The fortress-level city wall was not very strong to begin with, and the south side had not been reinforced.

If a place is hit twice in succession, a big pit will almost certainly appear. If it is hit three times, a big hole will inevitably appear.

If Jimmy put the catapult within the range of the straight arrow within 5 kilometers, it would probably be broken in one or two hits.

More than half an hour passed. Although this was a grassland area with extremely precious mineral resources, Jimmy on the opposite side continued to smash the city wall for a full half hour and created a horrifying gap in the southern wall.

That’s not all. Although Baron Saiyue had tried his best to disperse his troops, more than 100 soldiers were still killed, and more than 300 were seriously injured, not counting those who were slightly injured.

Baron Saiyue had no idea that the grassland economic center, political center, and reinforced castle-level city walls in his mind had been torn into pieces by Xu Lai.

While most of it was transported to Qingfeng City, a lot of it was also made on site into ammunition for catapults.

With Jimmy's ammunition reserves, he could continue bombarding for another half an hour without running out of ammunition.

However, there was no point in smashing it down any further, because the city wall of the small town opposite had basically been blown to dust.

The crossbow carts, catapults and other equipment on the city walls were difficult to transport in a short period of time, so the soldiers simply left them all on the city walls. Now they are no longer in use.

Not to mention the crossbows and catapults, even the defenders ran to a place 500 meters away from the city wall, waiting for Jimi's troops to enter the city for hand-to-hand combat.

However, Jimmy, whose troops far outnumbered those of the enemy, did not launch a charge.

He simply ordered all catapults and crossbows to advance 5 kilometers and continue bombing Saiyue City.

After bombing a tricycle, he ordered the troops to move another kilometer and then bomb another tricycle.

Blocked by the ruins of the city wall, even though the distance was shortened a lot, the hit rate and lethality were greatly reduced.

In the city, the soldiers of Saiyun City can use houses and other shelters for defense.

Dozens of catapults threw a round of ammunition, which collapsed countless houses, but not many soldiers died from the stones, not even half of them were buried by the houses.

When they were only 3 kilometers away from Saiyue City, Baron Saiyue and his men had no place to retreat.

Countless stones were thrown, and countless shops and houses were destroyed.

Soon everyone discovered that as long as Saiyue and his army were not allowed to get close, the stones would not come, so Saiyue and his army were naturally rejected by the people. (End of this chapter)