And the other side of the portal also seemed to sense something wrong, and slowed down the speed of increasing troops, but came over from time to time to harass and contain the troops.

Arthas led the remnants of his army of more than 4,000 men to clear the scattered steppe troops to the southeast with the city of Ferretti as the boundary, and to relieve the besieged towns.

Caesar and another paladin will lead the remaining 7,000 men, and after repairing in the middle of the night and a day, they will gallop south to the aid of Gaokan City, while preventing the main force of the steppe people from moving in other directions.

Gaokan City, on the other hand, needs to resist the main force of the steppe for at least two days and one night, waiting for the arrival of Caesar's elite reinforcements.

Philip, as the liaison officer, heard something from his grandfather Brad's words, as if they had already thought of the steppe people's actions and had some plans, but the specific content was not clear in the intercom.

Philip parted ways with the Knights Templar, and he gained a lot this time, not only seeing the strength of the Knights Templar, learning some mysteries, but also gaining the friendship of many Knights of the Templars, including the Paladin Caesar, and even the Holy Knight Augustine expressed his kindness to him before leaving, and gave him a set of armor and weapons of the Templar system.

Only Arthas was still like that, and although he no longer mentioned Arthur's affairs, he still did not hide his hatred and hostility, which made Philip full of worries about the next three years of his studies.

The next morning, Philip and Aph met Sophia in the town called Perfume, more than 200 kilometers from the city of Gokan, which is also Peter's hometown.

Most of the light and heavy cavalry of the Red Rose Knights, including the three Maga regiments that have completed the expansion and replenishment of equipment, this mobile force with a total number of more than 30,000 people shoulders a heavy mission, and in a sense will become the winner or loser who will decide the direction of the battle.

Philip's feeling was correct, Brad and the old guys did have a big move, but not in the future, but in the past continuous tense.

After the recovery of Gaokan City, they had been preparing for something, until the battle of the portal began, the defense line in charge of the Four Masters launched a fierce counterattack against the steppe people at the same time, eliminating nearly 400,000 steppe people in total and driving them back out of the original line of defense.

Then the main force of the Four Masters of Gaokan City took this opportunity to retreat back from the defense line and calmly retreated towards Gaokan City.

When the grassland people, who had stabilized their position, got the news and rushed into the empty pass, intending to go straight to Gaokan City, they encountered a trench hundreds of meters wide and twenty meters deep on the way, which was full of sharp barbs.

The steppe people tried to circle the area, only to find that the trench that had been dug for an unknown number of days was two or three kilometers long, leaving only a road less than 50 meters wide in the northernmost part near the mountains.

The impatient steppe people didn't even have time to think carefully about what was wrong with this, so they sent 100,000 people along the narrow path, only to be easily wiped out by the Shadow Hunter Regiment guarding a few kilometers away.

This was just the beginning, and by the time the steppe people realized that this was just a refueling tactic, they had already lost 300,000 troops, and the trench had already been filled.

Without leaving any respite for the steppe people, at this time, taking advantage of the emptiness of the steppe people's forces outside the pass, the 20,000 heavy cavalry mixed with the Green Goblins and dragon lances who broke through the defense line of Viradi City rushed to the outside of the defense line of Gaokan City, and cooperated with the 3,000 heavy cavalry of Calitan who had long been hiding in the secret hiding hole under the city wall, attacking inside and outside, and easily recaptured the defense line.

The next step was the process of making dumplings, and the three hard-armed heavy knights used every narrow passage to rush back and forth in this not very wide mountainous area, constantly forcing and squeezing the steppe people to continue to gather in the direction of Gaokan City.

At this time, the grassland people discovered a big problem, if they reflexively attacked, most of the time they were attacking from the back, and the slope was not small, which not only caused them heavy losses, but also had little effect.

Those devil-like knights seemed to be tireless, and no matter how great the price they paid, they didn't seem to be able to take advantage of her men.

After just one day of tug-of-war, they found that the number of troops entering the pass had been reduced by nearly half.

The situation in front of them was very clear, unless the follow-up troops retook the thick defensive line and opened the back road, with the current food consumption, they would not be able to hold out for three days, because most of the food fell near the defense line because they were too anxious to march, and were easily captured by the Wards.

And because of the previous raid and the hasty march later, their more than a million men have been seriously disconnected from the large army behind, and it will take a conservative estimate of seven or eight days to regroup the millions of troops through those rugged mountain roads, not counting the time it takes them to cross the strong defensive line.

Pigu, the steppe commander who was caught between the two sides, really hesitated for a long time.

On the one hand, with the little strength they had left, facing the majestic eastern wall of Gaokan City, which was three kilometers wide on the front, there was no possibility at all, and there was only one outcome of the attack, that is, to seek death.

There is a more intrinsic reason for being inhumane, that is, as the deputy of Daxun in the southern grassland, after Mingge's defeat and death, Pigu always had a rebellious mentality.

Now his situation is so similar to Mingge ten days ago, since he has now become the de facto number one of the Southern Grasslands, then all decisions must be the opposite of Mingge's original decision.

In the same situation, Mingge chose to continue the attack, then he had to retreat and fight steadily, so as to show Mingge's stupidity and his wisdom.

On the other hand, he had just received the news that Ran Ri Dolan had successfully opened the portal, and at this time he still needed to do something, that is, to put on enough posture to cater to several other Daxun, especially under the attention of Steppe Tianxun Ollinger.

After hesitating for a long time, he decided to reopen the eastern defense line and make contact with the troops behind him more securely.

Because instead of blindly attacking Gaokan City, it is better to take the eastern defense line that has been half-abandoned and completely destroy it.

Whether it was Ward's strategic retreat or his defeat, being able to break through and destroy that meat grinder-like defense line was already a feat that would go down in history, and it was a real achievement everywhere.

And at that time, after making contact with the follow-up troops, the time is just right to attack the city of Gaokan again.

As long as the pressure he brings outside the eastern city wall is strong enough, with the meagre strength of the Wards, it is impossible to hold Gaokan City, and what awaits him will be enough prestige to replace Mingge and become the new overlord of the southern steppes in the near future.

The fact is that although Pigou is utilitarian, at least it does not mean that he is a stupid person, and being able to stand out from hundreds of millions of people and become one of the most outstanding shows that his IQ is absolutely sufficient.

And his strategic thinking is also remarkable, at least calm enough, knows how to self-reflect, and learns lessons.

In terms of time and distance, he is also better than his predecessor.

Especially when the Knights of the Templars appeared and the subsequent thrilling decisive battle, no one expected, and when he received the bad news that Ranri Doran was sent a full day late, he wiped a cold sweat and almost sent himself to the Jedi because of greed.

With his hairless head, he couldn't imagine how with just 20,000 knights, he could defeat Turissa Daxun, whose strength was far higher than that of the southern steppes, and his nearly 100,000 elite Ah Xun on the open plain, let alone in the encirclement of millions of troops.

And it is said that those knights only lost a few thousand men, and if the Wards have such strength, then they might as well try in other directions if they launch any other attack.

No matter how weak the physique of the steppe people is, they are millions of warriors armed with scimitars, not those stupid ostriches.

It is said that the vast mountains in the north are not impassable, although the country on the other side is a little smaller, and it is not suitable as a flat pasture and pastoral area, but the strength is also weak, at least it can meet the rest and recuperation of hundreds of millions of people, and then use it as a springboard to accumulate strength to continue to attack other countries.

Of course, this is all his cranky thinking in a panic, and he has never seen the real situation with his own eyes, and he will always have to draw a question mark.

But Ranri Dolan demanded that he put enough pressure on the city of Gokan, contrary to what he was doing at the moment.

It's a pity that even if he has any ideas, he is powerless, and the road back is so difficult that he feels very strange, those ubiquitous heavy knights seem to be everywhere, and the bottom-up attack also makes it difficult for him to move, and in just one day, he once again lost hundreds of thousands of loyal steppe warriors.

It wasn't until his subordinates reported that tens of thousands of Wardsmann soldiers had appeared in the rear that he finally realized what it meant to be powerless to return to the sky, not only could he not become the great Xun of the southern grasslands, but he could not even go back to his hometown with fertile pastures.

Sometimes it only takes one impulse to plant the seeds of failure, and that kind of timely awakening and repentance will have a happy ending, which can only appear in fairy tales.

After several days of hard fighting, as the last garrison force on the southeast border, the Four Masters Regiment of Gaokan City completely annihilated more than 2 million steppe people, and this time the tactic of luring the enemy into the depths was a complete success.

Although the eastern defense line on the outskirts of Gaokan City was badly damaged, the skeleton was still there, and as long as it took a year or two to repair, it would still be an impregnable defensive line.

At the same time, they also achieved the strategic goal expected in this battle, which is to destroy as much of the enemy's living force as possible.

After this battle, not only did the southern grasslands fall into a leaderless situation, but the follow-up troops would take at least ten days to invest, and the vast majority of the troops could be completely invested in the general battle.

At the same time, the direction of Vera Di City and Brando City can also put the reorganized new regiments and the wounded soldiers who have gradually recovered their health into the liquidation of the internal rogue stragglers, which is the southeast of the Wardsmann people, and cannot rely on the salvation of the Southern Temple.