King of The Wall

2021-10-15

Chapter 669 Boosting Strengths and Avoiding Weaknesses and Randyll's Horse Racing

The Reach people's coping strategies in the face of the King of the Western Expedition summed up It is very simple: trade space for time, actively prepare for the decisive battle, and strive to seize the best time and place for the decisive battle.

This strategy was quickly implemented after being approved by the majority. Most of the Reach began to carry out extreme mobilization of cavalry and day-and-day gathering of nitrates. There was no rest until the night, and the atmosphere of preparation in a frenzy even moved Oldtown, who wanted to repeat the old tricks: Margaery Tyrell's mother Ellie Hightower wrote to her family in person, to her father, Margaery's grandfather - known as "Old Man" Leyton Hightower count of "of Oldtown" explained in detail the principles of gunpowder and thermal weapons, and analyzed the pros and cons of participating in this battle to him, successfully impressing the old shut-in who had planned to be a wallist and devoted himself to academics, and let him He let go, allowing his son to lead the bannermen of the Hightower family to give the Reach coalition "all support except for sending troops".

It is a pity that so many exciting news did not shake the black clothed devil from the Wall at all, the king of the Western Expedition moved steadily westward along the Roseroad undisturbed, marching unstoppably , camped and marched again, and finally crossed the eastern border of the Highgarden Land two days earlier than the Reach people expected, and officially entered the direct territory of the Reach ruling family.

As far as Aegon and Reach are concerned, they have been attacked by the Queen's West Expedition Force, with Highgarden behind them, and there is no way to retreat. The sensible scorched earth + lure him to deepen the policy, the unsustainable supply line and the strategy of fighting to support the war were blocked, which also brought huge logistical pressure to the main force of the more than 30,000 west expeditions he led.

The showdown can't be delayed any longer - for either side!

And the consequence of this sense of urgency projected into reality is that the frequency of encounters between enemy scouts on both sides suddenly increased by an order of magnitude, and the trail of large-scale enemy troops finally appeared in the area. At the edge of the obstructed detection range of the West Expedition Force, the concentration of fire medical smell in the air climbed up step by step, and finally reached the level of suffocation.

......

On the basis of maintaining a certain defensive force in the south to Dorne and the north to the Westerlands, the Reach finally squeezed out more than 80,000 troops to the Highgarden line. , of which the cavalry is in the early 20,000, plus the remaining golden regiment, the total is known as 100,000 army.

The defeat at the Battle of Blackwater Rush not only allowed the Golden Corps-Reach coalition to see the formidable power of thermal weapons, but also made them aware of the dangers of decentralized command and feudal lords doing their own thing. In the face of unprecedented external pressure, in order to avoid the consumption of internal disputes and cause chaos in command, at another military meeting shortly after the strategy was determined, the Reach nobles and supporters of little Aegon unanimously agreed to a proposal: To imitate the enemy's military system, temporarily adapt and consolidate military power, and hand over the entire Reach army plus the Golden Regiment to a headquarters composed of a small number of decision-makers... Unified command.

The Tyrell family never imagined that they had been in power for more than three hundred years as Reach rulers, but they were lucky in disguise after a bad defeat and forced by the enemy. come out. For the sake of internal unity, and to make up for the psychological imbalance caused by the loss of the Golden Company in the Battle of Blackwater Rush, Tyrell Duke recruited Jon and the Captain-General of the Golden Company, the Prime Minister of Aegon Jr., at the suggestion of his daughter Margaery. The core decision-making circle of the headquarters has handed over the military power to King Aegon in name and to a certain extent in fact. Under the latter's True Dragon banner, the unified dispatch of the entire army has finally been truly realized.

Once the command is in place, everything goes smoothly.

After carefully studying the characteristics of gunpowder weapons and the force structure of the West Expedition Force, the command determined the core idea of this defensive battle: maximizing strengths and avoiding weaknesses.

"Long" means: fighting at home, with a crushing advantage in force.

The "short" is: Queen's army high morale, with hot weapons and dragons (may appear).

When dealing with dragons, you should be prepared with a dragon-hunting crossbow, which can provide morale support and psychological comfort even if you miss the shot. It goes without saying that. However, on the issue of how to face the West Expedition Force, they have no experience and history to learn from... After several rounds of brainstorming and discussions, the Coalition Command has implemented the core ideas into concrete and implementable details - Summary There are roughly three aspects.

1. Properly lengthen the width of the front.

The Highgarden Territory, once the direct domain of the Reach King, occupies the most advantageous geographical position in the Reach Plain without any suspense - not only is it broad and fertile, but also flat. Looking up, you can see the terrain at the end of the sky. While keeping the locals safe, it also makes it fair for foreign enemies to have no terrain to "stuck", so that the intruders have less room for micro-manipulation. The decisive battle takes place in this area, the Reach coalition can be deployed and mobilized at will, but the Queen's army has no available terrain conditions to protect the flanks or rear of the oneself - the Reach people can arrange formations arbitrarily, lengthening or shortening the width of the front.

What is the width of the front?
Simply put, it is the distance from the far left to the far right of the Legion, while in-depth exploration involves the balance between the contact surface and depth, the compromise between maneuverability and command and mobility, the choice between attack and defensive-arrange formation, Tend to one aspect, and other aspects will inevitably be affected.

What does it mean that the Reach coalition is about three times stronger than the Queen's army in this case?
This is an elementary school math problem. The simplest answer is: when the fronts are the same width, the Reach's army is three times as deep as the Queen's army; and when the depth is the same, the Reach's army is three times as wide as the Queen's army. ——The former means that when the front is tough, the party with more people is stronger and more durable, while the latter means that the party with more people can outflank the party with fewer people without thinking.

This is the fundamental reason why wars are usually won by the side with more people, and the more people win with less can be bragged and praised.

In the case that the Queen's army has artillery just ahead, the most correct choice is naturally to rely on the crushing advantage of the troops to lengthen the front line, take advantage of the width of the left and right wings, and bully with a larger contact area other side.

The Land Granter's artillery was large enough to blast an overwhelming advantage on a medium-sized battlefield of ten thousand people. But as long as the front line is stretched beyond this threshold - Igor will face two difficult choices:

[If the front line is stretched unequally, the left and right flanks will be in danger of being outflanked; And with the extension of the front line, due to the disadvantage of troops, the lack of depth of the formation will easily be taken away by a wave of breakthrough. ]

[If the firearms are concentrated and used somewhere, it is tantamount to releasing troops without artillery; and if they are distributed, the amazing formidable power of the firearms will be greatly diluted...]

There are many people - this is a bit of the military version of "single force subduing ten meetings", which seems to be a brainless move to lengthen the width of the front, which instantly covers both the promotion of strengths and the avoidance of weaknesses, and at the same time It has achieved "use of military superiority" and "weakening the threat of thermal weapons".

Second, recognize the reality and make trade-offs.

A long front can affect the tilt of the scale of victory to a certain extent, but it only raises it slightly in the direction away from defeat: whether Igor disperses or concentrates artillery, artillery is artillery, yes The existence of the Westeros gods block then kill gods if Buddhas block, kill the Buddhas at this stage, the front-line troops without the suppression of equivalent weapons will suffer more or less casualties and morale damage when they are hit by strikes anyway, and then Causes damage to battle strength and ultimately affects the outcome of the battle.

In response to this grim reality, Randyll Tarly, who can no longer lead troops due to his disability and can only serve as a staff officer, put forward a refreshing idea: since the formidable power of gunpowder there is no stronghold one cannot overcome, then Just don't try to stop it! If the frontal battle is impossible to win, why not give up quickly and look for opportunities from the flanks and rear?

Select the worst training and equipment level from the coalition forces and place them directly opposite the Queen's front line, and arrange the remaining elites on the left and right flanks away from the artillery fire and directly behind the front line - this way , When the Queen's army used the formidable power of the artillery to defeat the front line of the Reach coalition, the remaining wings beyond their intact wings and the remaining elites in the rear could form a natural pocket formation, engulfing any troops Igor sent to pursue!
Artillery has just appeared on the battlefield of this world, so the word and concept of "cannon fodder" has not yet appeared. But in any case, the hapless group Tully Duke proposed is the de facto cannon fodder. If Igor had participated in this oneself meeting, he would have applauded in amazement on the spot: Isn't this the ice and fire version of Tian Ji's horse racing - Randyll's horse racing?

The artilleryman is the oneself's superior, and the cannon fodder is the Reach's inferior!

Don't look down on cannon fodder, they have a lot of missions and roles.

The first is the "job": since casualties and morale blows are unavoidable, then simply divide a part to bear all the negative effects-using the isolation between the cannon fodder and the elite troops, the coalition command can put the "suffering cannons" The panic of ” is effectively controlled within a specific range to avoid interfering with the entire army’s battle strength; and the special retreat channel reserved between the elite troops on the second line in the rear can also prevent the collapse of the troops caused by the first round battle from engulfing the audience. Take down the whole army.

The second is the barrier and cover: the front of the cannon fodder troops, but even a thin line is more than enough to prevent the infiltration of the Queen's reconnaissance force, coupled with the front cannon fodder holding the flag high, the main force in the rear is dead, and 10,000 There is no difficulty in pretending to be the main force of 100,000 cannon fodder. On the basis of attracting artillery fire, it can also divert the attention of the enemy commander, so that Igor's vigilance in other directions is greatly reduced; if good luck, maybe it can also eliminate consume magic. Dragons have limited breath and bombardment - if the Queen rides a dragon into battle.

The last thing is the bait: if the Queen's army obediently uses artillery to carry out an indiscriminate bombardment, it will be the best, but if Igor calms down and does not take the lead, this layer of cannon fodder will also be in command Under the orders and leadership of the officials, they launched an active charge... Of course, the final result was naturally a rout. The rout of authentic is the easiest situation to seduce the enemy to launch a whole army attack. Once the Queen's army launches a whole army charge to try to end the battle, the real main force that is placed in the back of the cannon fodder for about a mile will cooperate with the left and right wings, like a Swallow them like a big sack.

Use your trump card well.

If the cannon fodder is the lower tier and the elite infantry is the middle tier...then the Reach's upper tier is undoubtedly the 20,000-odd cavalry.

With the equipment, quality and morale of the Queen West Expedition Force that has never been defeated, if the pocket formation of more than 60,000 infantrymen cooperates with each other, it is very likely that "although the enemy will be successfully surrounded." , but was blossomed by the center and turned defeat into victory" extreme situation. At this time, the more than 20,000 cavalry soldiers who had already received emergency "desensitization training" and initially adapted to the rumbling sound of firearms became the ace in the game.

The cavalry is divided into two groups by the headquarters: one is divided into two groups and arranged on the two wings of the infantry front to play a defensive role. It is under the unified command of the base camp headquarters. , with the artillery to defeat the large troops of their own. The other group is not far from the side of the battlefield, looking for the best cut-in fighter under the leadership of the independent commander.

The plan is divided into two categories:
If Igor stretches the width of the front to make it difficult for the Reach cavalry to outflank, the independent cavalry will return to the main battlefield to act as a flank, and the left-behind cavalry will move to the center and lead the infantry. Go straight to the enemy's central army, take advantage of the lack of depth of the Queen's army to direct attack, cooperate with the two flanks to fight a dignified battle;
If Igor wisely gave up the "front width race" with the Reach coalition, the remaining cavalry would firmly Guarding the main formation, merging with 60,000 infantry into a piece of iron felt, independent cavalry from the flank to the enemy's side and back, attacking at the most appropriate time at the same time - like a powerful hammer, it will destroy the mighty Queen West Expedition Force smashed on the iron felt!

……

Once these three targeted tactics are put into practice, the Reach people will practice the core idea of promoting strengths and circumventing weaknesses to the extreme. When complete plans and instructions are issued one after another In the hands of every bottom-level general of the "100,000 army", and through their mouths, it was conveyed to the ears of all the soldiers. The mighty coalition camp also swept away the decadent and tense atmosphere and ignited a bit of fighting spirit.

This was a fateful battle, and even Mace Tyrell, the "Lord Puff Fish", who has always been recognized as incompetent, made a rare public remark.

"The land of the Reach people is inviolable, this time, the damn Night's Watch must come and go!"

——

(End of this chapter )