Chapter 187: First Battle Victory
The battle at the Mule and Horse Market Square under the West City Gate was normal for the first half hour.
The fully staffed city defense army was worthy of the years of transfusions from the Bartles family. Their individual soldier quality and battle organization far surpassed the makeshift army composed of the private soldiers of various nobles. Not only did they resist most of the attacks of the Undead, they also learned the lessons of the Cult of the Fiery Sun, used small team infiltration tactics to recapture many private soldiers and mercenaries who were almost carried away by the Undead, making the Undead howl in anger.
Half an hour later, the city defense forces, who had been changing formations frequently and constantly cleaning up after their allies, gradually became exhausted. The scattered mercenary formations and the noble private army formations, which were not much better than scattered sand, began to lose members...
"Stop them! Stop them!"
The panting city defense corps commander Horn saw the mercenary line of defense being torn open, and the fearless undead rushing in with swords and weapons, carrying people like crazy. He hurriedly turned his horse around and led the most elite cavalry team across the battlefield and rushed towards the gap.
A wave of sprints cut off the Undead's attack path and maintained the front line that was almost collapsed. Horn, who was a few years older than Wagner, felt that even the air he exhaled was so spicy that his throat hurt.
Before Captain Horn could catch his breath, panicked cries for help and angry shouts of abuse came from the other side of the battle formation of nobles' private soldiers...
The mercenary groups active in Innadri and the private soldiers raised by various nobles are all strong and have sufficient combat effectiveness; but these mercenaries and private soldiers are only accustomed to small-scale combat (small-scale fights), and do not have much sense of mutual assistance. When a gap appears in their own line, they will prefer to protect their own manpower - no matter how big the gap is, they will take the initiative to double it.
Captain Horn had to take a deep breath and lead his troops to rush over to provide assistance again.
"Why is there no progress in attacking the camp?!"
After running around like this for several times, Captain Horn, who was not in a good mood to begin with, became so angry that his hair and beard stood on end. He took the opportunity to catch his breath and called the deputy captain to start scolding him.
"We can't get through!" The deputy commander said in a gloomy voice, "The closer we get to the enemy camp, the greater the resistance from the Undead. Several people from the third and fourth teams have been robbed. I just replaced them and let the ninth and tenth teams take over!"
When the Solari Order fell in the Nameless Wasteland, the city defense forces also sent people to the scene to observe. Afterwards, Captain Horn organized officers to discuss how to avoid the Solari Order's fate when facing Westram's undead army.
The result of the discussion was that in order to defeat the undead army, it was necessary to destroy the enemy camp that could summon undead infinitely.
This time, Westram set up a large camp on the front battlefield. Because the spies sent out in the early stage had lost contact, Captain Horn could only wait until the war started to have a chance to identify which tent in the enemy camp was the place of summons.
But... although the enemy's weakness is clearly laid out there, it is not easy to strike accurately - the closer to the camp, the denser the number of undead, and the speed of replenishment is much faster than the speed of destroying the undead, making it impossible to advance at all!
"It would be nice to have a spellcaster. Alas!" Captain Horn sighed to the sky.
There were spellcasters active in Innadri City , such as the lich Envi who was active in the southern part of the Rhine Kingdom. But after the news that the Nightmare Butcher came to Innadri and squatted in Westram and refused to leave spread, all these spellcasters ran away...
As the leader of the most powerful violent group in the Innadri territory, Captain Horn knew more information than the night watchmen of the Gold Coin Church, such as the real reason why local spellcasters avoided the Nightmare Butcher as soon as they learned of his whereabouts. Before the conflict between Nightmare Butcher Yang and the Fiery Sun Church intensified and he was wanted by many countries, he had already earned the nickname "Mobile Source of Pollution" in the spellcaster circle... It would be strange if normal spellcasters were willing to deal with him.
The Bartles family does have spellcasters, but they were only supported by the grandfather of the third generation. Now they are all serving as apprentices in the Mage Tower in the neighboring territory. Even if they are called back, they are of no use...
Captain Horn knew better than anyone that if they lost this battle, the Bartles family would still have a way out. Adela III could take refuge in another territory and spend one or two generations accumulating strength to make a comeback; but he himself would have no way out!
Not to mention that Wagner Pitt, a foreigner who was once marginalized by him, was doing very well after joining Charlie Rex. Captain Horn was very clear about the situation of the Westram Militia - although those militiamen were employed by Rex, the former militia captain, Cardo Gold, was still suffering in Westram's prison!
The honor of the Horn family all depends on the Bartles family, who are the lords of Innadri. If the Bartles family is no longer the lords of Innadri, then the dream of several generations of the Horn family to move up in social class and enter the upper class will end with his generation!
He took a big gulp of the honey water handed to him by the attendant, and then tried his best to control his hands that were trembling slightly due to exhaustion. He drew out his long sword and raised it high, shouting loudly: "Abandon the defense line and attack the enemy camp with all our strength!"
The two attendants were stunned for a moment, then reacted and repeated the captain's order loudly.
The city defense soldiers who were struggling to maintain their front line quickly broke free from the entangled undead and gathered around Horn like a tide.
Without the support of the city defense army, the private soldiers and mercenaries were quickly penetrated by the undead. Those who retreated slowly were dragged away by the undead with desperate screams...
The nobles watching the battle on the city wall were so angry that they loudly accused the city defense army of ignoring their friendly forces. Adela III was so angry when he found out that his own army, which he had spent countless silver dollars to support, was actually charging at the enemy's lair alone. His face turned black. If Captain Horn could hear his voice at this moment, he would definitely scold him. Since you found that you couldn't resist, wouldn't you quickly lead your men to retreat and preserve your strength? !
Only Gould, who understood military affairs, felt a sigh in his heart. He could see why Horn did this.
A continued stalemate will only drag us down with friendly forces that can't even hold their line, and we will fall faster than the Fiery Solari Order. It is better to burn our boats while we still have strength left and take a gamble on whether we can crush the enemy's camp!
This rather tragic attack on the camp lasted for twenty minutes.
Horn, who personally led the charge, was only fifty meters away from Westram's camp at his closest point.
This distance allowed Horn to see clearly the interior of the camp and the man standing next to the tent where the undead were pouring out in an endless stream.
The man, with his hands behind his back, leisurely surveying the battlefield, was wearing a white shirt with a stand-up collar, a brown vest, a knee-length coat of the same color, and trousers with straight seams. A plaid handkerchief was tucked into his chest pocket. He looked like a gentleman out for a walk that could be seen in the better neighborhoods of Innadri.
It's just that... under the shoulder-length black hair combed back, the thin face and relatively soft features that are completely different from those of the Rhine people perfectly overlap with the portrait on the wanted posters that could be seen all over the mainland decades ago...
The moment he saw the man clearly, Captain Horn lost his will to fight.
When his loyal attendants and officers surrounded him and abandoned the large army and fled in panic, this Rhine tough guy who was devoted to reviving his family had a pale face and purple lips and did not utter a word the entire time.
The Nightmare Butcher personally guards the tent that summons the undead... How can we win!
Inside the Westram camp, seeing the enemy's senior officers retreating and the undead happily tying up the nearest soldiers, Rex couldn't help but say, "Yang, is it okay to let those people escape?"
Yang Qiu casually glanced at the chaotic crowd of spectators on the city wall in the distance, and said calmly: "Leave them some decent commanders, so that those guys won't mess with the residents in the city."
Rex responded and nodded silently.
This battle must be won fairly and beyond doubt, so that he, a pseudo-aristocrat without a title, can gain a foothold in the throne only if he can establish himself as the ruler.
Repeatedly defeating all the forces that the Bartles family can muster is the best way to demonstrate the absolute strength of the Westram side.
Rex looked at the undead who were expertly pinning down, tying up, and carrying them away one by one.
Anyway, the undead had a lot of fun... and a few more rounds was in line with everyone's expectations.
At 6:30 in the morning of December 4th, Earth time, and 12 noon in the alien world, after an hour of fierce fighting, Westram won the first battle; the Innadri garrison retreated hastily into the city after losing more than 700 city defense soldiers, more than 1,400 noble private soldiers and more than 200 mercenaries.
The reason why the most "losses" are among the nobles' private soldiers is very simple. The private soldiers supported by the nobles are all equipped with gorgeous equipment. The player can easily see excellent quality equipment with affixes (enchantments) by just using the appraisal skill. It is necessary to catch these people and grab them as much as possible...
If the enemy wasn't behind the city gate and the system didn't allow players to chase into the city, none of these noble private soldiers would have been able to escape.
Innadri's morale was low after the heavy defeat, and no one on the players' side was stupid enough to cheer for the victory. The system prompted that the first round of fighting was over, and the players immediately rushed to distribute the battle spoils... Many players were in a hurry to log off, wash up, eat breakfast, and go to work or school, so there was not much time to waste!
This auction allocation took almost as much time as the battle...
Adela III and a group of local nobles were in no mood to appreciate how the undead outside the city divided up the property that originally belonged to them. After coming down from the city wall, the first thing these usually high-handed and respectable people did was to check how many private soldiers they had left.
Forty percent of the arable land in the Innadri territory belonged to these gentlemen, and every noble family had several vast and fertile farm estates. In order to protect their private property from infringement, nobles with a little financial resources had to raise private soldiers. Even Baron Marcus, whose fiefdom was robbed, had a private armed force of dozens of people. If Baron Marcus had not realized that his force could not deal with Rex, who had the support of black magicians and could command an army of undead, he would have rushed to Westram to cut off Charlie Rex's head.
After this inventory count, the noble lords who usually paid special attention to their decent manners were so angry that they beat their chests and stamped their feet... The family with the greatest losses was completely wiped out, and the family with the smallest losses lost at least half of its men!
After Adela III vomited blood due to the losses suffered by the city defense forces, he recovered and tried to summon the nobles to discuss how to fight the next round of battle... but found that all the nobles had fled.
The losses were too great, and the local nobles, who had never intended to fight to the death, were unwilling to waste time on the Bartles family's sinking ship.
