King of The Wall

2021-10-15

Chapter 678 Intermission
As the sun slants westward, another spring day on Reach Plains is coming to an end .

Nearly twenty miles west of the site of the unilateral shelling early in the morning, the massive Reach Legion had set up camp. 60,000 infantrymen and countless auxiliary personnel formed a super camp that stretched to the end of the field of vision. In the center of the barracks, which was comparable in size to a city, in the tallest and gorgeous tent, the core members of the joint command They were gathered together, and in a heavy and depressing atmosphere, they were nervously exchanging information and discussing new countermeasures.

This is a serious military meeting, and many people present are in a kind of... a bit dazed, a bit numb.

They shouldn't be here.

When I woke up in the morning, army was still in the old camp some distance to the east, with high morale and confidence, the whole team went out of the camp, determined to have a hearty and bloody battle with the menacing enemy, And win a great victory that will go down in history.

But at night, they set up a new camp in the west - closer to Highgarden than in the morning, and the old camp had been occupied by the Queen's doves.

The most confusing thing is that they didn't suffer a big defeat, and most of them didn't even see the shadow of the Queen's army.

The vanguard's cannon fodder bait retreated in less than half an hour after entering the battlefield, and the enemy hadn't been hooked... This is nothing, the command is already holding on to the matter of baiting the enemy. "It's the best if you can, it's okay if you don't". If the enemy is not fooled, then adjust the mentality and set up the battle as usual. However, the retreating forwards not only brought back a large number of light and serious wounded, but also brought back bad news: the number of formidable power of the Queen's army's firearms far exceeded expectations, and the ploughing-like killing mode, especially restrained the dense infantry formation!
Earl Rowan's mission is to feign defeat and lure the enemy. There is no reason to exaggerate the strength of the enemy to cover up the defeat of oneself, and the words of a large number of wounded and defeated soldiers who lack arms and legs further confirm his intelligence. This time... even the headquarters is caught in a dispute over whether it should be tough or take a long-term view. The influence was not able to stand up decisively to give an order. As soon as there was a delay between the pulling and the pulling, the troops could only retreat in front of the approaching West Expedition Force trapezoid, until they retreated until the enemy began to set up camp near Sun. .

Reach people are at a loss, they have never encountered a similar situation that does not conform to intuition and military common sense: obviously the inescapable net has been deployed, the enemy is surrounded by water, and the whole dumpling is swallowed. , but can't digest it anyway! Even, unbelievable: the enemy is still tumbling in the stomach, facing the threat and pressure from all directions, and forcibly in one day forcibly advanced to Highgarden in the containment of 100,000 armies for several miles!

Although the West Expedition Force had actually penetrated hundreds of miles into the Reach before this, but taking the initiative to let the enemy in...and trying to stop it but couldn't stop it, it gave people a completely different feeling!

To sum up the situation and feelings faced by the people of Reach right now in one word: I wanted to let the enemy in and close the door to beat the dog, but found that it was a tiger who got in. While everyone was terrified, there was such an ominous premonition in their hearts: that damn Night's Watch, as if the gods had descended on them.

 …

"The defeated troops have all been gathered up into a single battalion to avoid causing too much damage to the morale of the entire army." Randyll Tarly was the first to break the silence, " In the morning, I insisted on launching a strong attack according to the original plan, but Lord Mace insisted on acting steadily. Oh, there is a way to act safely - we use cavalry on the flanks to contain the enemy's advancing speed like today, and fight and retreat, simply put the Highgarden and the best timing of this spring planting trip are also a price that can be forsaken. As long as the grain transportation route of Roseroad is stopped, the 30,000 people on the opposite side will go deep into the hinterland of Reach, and the scorched earth tactics will starve them to death!”

"Take Highgarden as an outcast?"

Mace Tyrell's beard cocked up in anger. After so many eastern bannermen had abandoned their castles and responded to the call to retreat from the scorched earth, he certainly couldn't say that oneself's castles were the only exception and must not be abandoned. After taking a long breath, he recalled a suitable statement: "But that's the capital of Reach! Haven't we discussed this issue a long time ago, and if Highgarden also falls, the Reach people will be impossible to maintain the morale to fight again! The timing of spring planting was missed, and we starved to death these 30,000 people. How many peasants will be buried with Reach?”

“Morale, morale! Our army’s morale is at its best in the early morning, why not Fight?" Randyll threw the question back, he was holding a fire in his heart, and he couldn't care less about contradicting Feng Jun. Oneself's Fiefdom is exposed to the threat of Dragon Queen's South Road Army and Dorne people. They come all the way to fight for the so-called entire Reach. As a result, Fengjun and King are not good at fighting, what is this? "Today's decisive battle, even if we can't win, at least it can severely damage the enemy's spirit and curb their march to Highgarden. Do you know how much will be leaked if you organize a decisive battle and ask everyone to write their suicide note but temporarily retreat. Morale? Anyway, my point of view is that since there is no fight today, just don't fight, and while the army is complete and have bargaining chips, hurry back and seek peace!"

"Sir Randyll, calm down! ”

Jon Connington quickly took over Randyll's angry words, preventing the meeting from turning into an argument. What a joke, if Reach really makes peace with Dragon Queen, oneself and the little King Aegon assisted by oneself are definitely one of the terms of the contract, and even the Golden Group might be sold as a whole - even if Randyll didn't really make a peace It means that the topic must not develop in this direction.

But it's funny. He was worried that the war would not go well today, which would lead to rifts and conflicts between the local forces represented by the king and queen. Who would have thought that the Reach people would quarrel first, Tyrell said. The family is the Duke family with the worst authority over bannermen in the Seven Kingdoms, it is true.

"You have to admit, you're right, our army's morale is at its best this morning, and that morale will be hard to replicate for the foreseeable future - unless we win a battle. If you want to win, you have to boost morale, and to boost morale you have to win an outpost first, but the opponent doesn't give a chance at all... This is an endless loop." Clinton said after a while, "But from another Thinking from an angle, the so-called victory—does it have to take the initiative to annihilate the enemy?”

Under the gaze of more than a dozen pairs of eyes present, King Aegon happily revealed the answer: “Abandon the enemy. Keeping the Highgarden impossible, if you do that, the camp will first split and disintegrate. This plan will not be discussed; and today, if you don't force the battle against firepower, the morale loss caused is a foregone conclusion, and it is useless to think about it again. , we used at least one trial to obtain useful actual combat information - if we can use this lost advantage in exchange for more targeted tactical arrangements, the battle still has to be fought."

"Next, please listen carefully - I spent the afternoon discussing some personal thoughts with Head Strickland and Lord Rowan!"

"Cough." Harry Strickland nodded, coughing clear After clearing his throat, he began to speak, "It must be stated in advance that this set of countermeasures was mainly discussed and designed by Prime Minister Clinton and Mathis Rowan Ser, and I personally only provided military advisors in the process."

This is not To put it mildly, in fact, the idea of the whole set of countermeasures mainly comes from Rowan Ser, but the cannon fodder striker he commanded this morning was rout in confusion, and as the general of the defeated army, it is not suitable to speak in public. The Captain-General of the Golden Company took a deep breath and began to tell.

"I was at a loss, like everyone else, when I first learned that the enemy had mastered effective anti-infantry means and adopted an unprecedented alternating march to advance the array." Harry Strickland said in a sentence Empathy opened, "After exchanging opinions with Prime Minister Clinton and thinking calmly, we analyzed the source of this confusion-that is, the enemy's tactics perfectly restrained the anvil and hammer tactics we had formulated originally. The infantry's artillery makes the infantry's 'anvil' completely unable to form, so that the cavalry's hammer is nowhere to be used. Therefore, the next question we discuss becomes simple - how to crack the enemy's 'anti-anvil' Hammer method'?"

——

(end of this chapter)