King of The Wall

2021-11-11

Chapter 692 Ice and Fire Road

Considering the logistical carrying capacity of Crownlands and the efficiency of obtaining supplies along the way, When Igor led the main force of the West Expedition Force on the road, he took away or sent the Riverlands soldiers with weak battle strength and the North people who were not easy to control to other War Zones. The actual force he led was over 30,000. ten thousand. This number also includes non-combat soldiers. After sieging cities and lands all the way, every time you win a castle, you need to leave a hundred or eighty people to guard and control, and then fight with the harassing Reach cavalry several times on the grain transportation route. There is a winner or loser... As of today's decisive battle, the actual force he can mobilize is less than 30,000.

This is a hilarious and unsolved paradox: If 50,000 troops were dispatched instead of being divided, the decisive battle would not have been so difficult; but it is more likely to happen Yes, in the face of the scorched earth tactics of the Reach people, the 50,000 army, who did not cut down and downsize, would run out of food and forage outside Highgarden and were forced to return home.

In this battle, the West Expedition Force fought hard to win under cheat conditions. Now, it is time to solve the sword called "Insufficient Food and Grass" hanging over its head.

There are two options before them.

The first was a forcible levy from the countryside around Highgarden - as armies of this era usually did. But this means: Igor needs to risk the risk of being counterattacked to break up the troops that have experienced the war again and scatter them to loot. Such a division of troops will not only greatly interfere with his plans for the siege and forced surrender of Highgarden, but may also reignite the already settled war of conquest, and seriously affect the image of oneself in the eyes of the Reach residents, thereby destroying the stability of the Queen's rule.

Or, in a spurt of energy, they could take advantage of the victory to take down the Reach coalition camp, and use it to fight the war and solve the problem without the bad consequences - just like him The Reach's baggage captured at the Battle of Blackwater Rush became the starting material for his westward expedition.

A fool knows which one to choose.

Of course Igor wants to send troops to sneak attack Reach camp!
But the fact is: with more than 20,000 soldiers in his hands, in the decisive battle against the nearly 100,000 Reach coalition forces, there is really no shortage of one.

Not to mention, under the circumstance that the Reach people rely on the advantage of the number of cavalry to fully grasp the initiative around the battlefield, and deploy the inescapable net of reconnaissance, patrol, wandering, and harassment, even if he has a heart, he is impossible to hide. opponent.

Therefore, Igor finally chose a safe way: to conduct the decisive battle as normal, and after defeating the enemy with all his strength, let the hundreds of soldiers in the rear with the best physical strength re-carry the enemy battle captured yesterday. The flag, inserted directly into the enemy camp from the gap of the defeated soldiers in Reach, scrambled to mix in before the enemy closed the gate of the camp, and stormed and seized the gate when the large army was chasing, completing an unbelievable combination of inside and outside, and won the main camp in one fell swoop.

He didn't let Daenerys ride the dragon to chase the defeated enemy in the west. In addition to the reason that "the Reach cavalry is more noble and threatening", another consideration is: not to let the existence of the dragon stimulate The defense and vigilance of the defeated army can successfully win the intact coalition camp!
Hundreds of infiltration soldiers disguised as defeated Reach soldiers with towels tied to their arms, divided into dozens of teams and tens of thousands of defeated Reach infantrymen in a desperate race, and eventually more than 50 people managed to infiltrate the enemy camp . Although the number was pitifully small, they occupied the east gate of the coalition camp when the enemy was caught off guard, forcing them to be hundreds of times their enemy, unable to get a moment's respite.

Jon Connington felt the taste of the legendary "Fire and Ice Two Layer Heaven" at this moment:

I felt chills from the neck down like falling in a ice hole, because I found that oneself lost It was a complete defeat, and I was about to have no bottoms left;
The face above the neck was hot and painful, but I realized that such a naive trick as "counter-spoofing" actually played the entire Reach-Golden regiment in one day. twice!

......

"This bastard!" It was the young Prince Aegon who roared, he pulled out the Conqueror sword "Blackfyre" from his waist, and raised it towards the soldiers beside him. Shouting, "Hold me! Soldiers, follow me to take back the gate!"

No one responded, the soldiers of the Golden Regiment looked towards the head of the regiment, and the soldiers of the Highgarden looked towards the king-no They did have some combat capability when they played in the decisive battle. It was very easy to eliminate the dozens of soldiers who seized the door, but the question is: can they do it before most of the enemy's chasing troops rush in?
"Lord Tyrell, Captain Harry!" Jon Connington said with a pale face. "Please escort Prince back to Highgarden, I'll leave the commander behind!"

He woke up this morning, still in his heart Vows to send Rhaegar's child on Iron Throne; but at this moment, only a single thought remains in Clinton's mind: oneself beloved Silver Prince...and never after.

The originally strong camp would become a hindrance to escape alive. The most battle-strength Golden Group withdrew to the west gate with the rather die than submit Prince, and the well-organized Highgarden Guard was also there. The trembling in fear led by Tyrell Duke quickly slipped away. As soon as the two active forces retreated, the remaining rout soldiers, who were in large numbers but were in a mess, could not organize at all - let alone "break the rear", even the three grain and forage warehouses that Randyll had previously asked to arrange were all in one place. The group failed to execute properly in the chaos.

Among them: one team was in a hurry to find all the tools needed to set the fire, and they were so frightened that they ran away with the crowd; Changed his mind and decided to keep the whole granary dedicated to "the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch whom he has long admired"; only the granary closest to the southwest corner was ignited by a fire under the personal supervision of Jon Connington, It quickly burned into a pillar of fire, and the rays of light even briefly matched the sunset in the western sky.

After another layer of skin, the only remaining fruit of the Reach coalition escaped from their camp.

The 50,000 Reach infantry main force, which was still huge and mighty in the early morning, was now less than one tenth left, but it became easier to control. So a middle-level commander suggested turning around, going around the camp for half a circle from the outside, and then entering through the east gate, to stab the buttocks of the "enemy who has stabbed his own buttocks", retake the taken away camp, and kill another one. Wave.

To tell the truth, this matryoshka-style thinking really has several points of strangeness, but most people just want to escape alive at the moment, and they don't have the courage to stop even if they kill half of the enemy. .

To the west, Highgarden is within easy reach. Facing the afterglow of the setting sun, the most beautiful castle in the Seven Kingdoms, instead of shining like a diamond under the sunlight during the day, turned into a small, sharp and deep silhouette on the red curtain, casting a thin piece of oneself on the vast Reach plain. long shadow.

As the capital of Reach, the white city fort is indeed famous for its beauty, but this is because it has never had the opportunity to prove the defensive power of oneself. Anyone with a little military vision can see it at a glance: it is also a Seven One of the strongest castles up and down the Kingdoms. The three circles of tall walls give it a good tolerance for defensive battles, and the near-perfect dome-shaped structure makes the attackers have to attack in every battle. Although the design did not consider how to deal with shelling or threats from the air, but...

Never mind!
Now everyone just wants to hide in the castle, take a breath on the inside of the thick Dali stone wall, drink half a mouthful of hot soup and then sleep comfortably, what should I do tomorrow, let those gentlemen who have meetings all day Let's consider going!

However, such a humble wish in the dirt is doomed to fail.

In the shadow of Highgarden City and its narrow hills, a cavalry force suddenly emerged from nowhere and ran across the coalition camp and the castle. The evacuees thought at first that this was the troops sent by the Tyrells to help, but soon after someone loudly reminded that "there are no cavalry left in the city". This group of people numbered about two or three thousand, and they formed a narrow horizontal formation. In front of the Golden Group and the Highgarden troops, they rolled over and dismounted leisurely, sorted out their equipment and began to form a formation against the enemy!
Igor's West Expedition Force has only this cavalry, from Casterly Rock in the Westerlands, they experienced two light encounters with the Golden Regiment cavalry in the war, and in the final retreat of the Reach people broke up the Jon Connington designation The light cavalry in the rear was ordered to rush west again without stopping - ignoring the enemy's cavalry, but continued from the south to chase the infantry, infiltrators mixed in with the enemy, and the real enemy. Just in time for the Golden and Highgarden troops to be spooked from their camp and headed for Highgarden.

They have only one mission, preventing the enemy from safely retreating into the castle and reversing the weakness of Highgarden's "Empty City".

These men from Casterly Rock City are equipped with cavalry equipment that is not suitable for foot combat. Or trembling... The reason why I got off the horse and lined up was not because I had more confidence in the horse's effort, but because... the horses were all unable to run away.

If the fight starts at this moment, the outcome is not yet known!

But the coincidence was inevitable, even Igor didn't count it when he ordered it: all of this was just hidden by the brilliant brilliance of the setting sun behind.

The courage entirely to break the Golden Infantry and the Highgarden Guards can't see through the reality of this strange soldier. In their eyes, there is only a row of killing gods with their backs facing the sun, and the number is not inferior to their own. Invisible murderous aura overflows on faces hidden in shadows.

Highgarden is only a few miles away, but because of the presence of the group of enemies in front of it, the last few miles have become a moat that can never be crossed.

"Don't panic, they are not cavalry, otherwise they have already begun to charge!"

The current Captain-General of the Golden Company is good at operation and negotiation, but he must talk about tactical vision and courage , but they are all lackluster. Fair enough - Harry Strickland was also misled into making bad judgments.

He reassured his subordinates, waved his hand, and issued an order that could not be miscalculated but was right in the hands of the enemy: "Protect Prince, we will retreat south!"

——

(end of this chapter)