The proposal of a Mordor shaman made the great shaman and Karui and the others above quite speechless, because they found that now the Black Gate is almost really undefendable, and it is the kind of defense that cannot be solved, and the coalition forces are almost all the way to suppress Mordor, except for the fact that there are more people, Mordor has almost no advantage, and even if it is the advantage of more people, it is not obvious now, if it must be a decisive battle in the Black Gate, Mordor's chances of winning are really not big.

The great shamans glanced at each other at this time, and then they all set their eyes on Kalu, because after giving up the Black Gate, the only place that can fight a decisive battle with the coalition forces again is the Black Tower, the residence that the Great King built for himself, but the Black Tower is now under the control of Karui, and if you want to continue the battle there, you must ask Kalu's consent, and the reason why the Great Shaman is so enthusiastic is that in addition to the fact that it is very likely to lose and seize control of the entire Black Tower after the victory of the Black Tower decisive battle, it is also because they have endless confidence in the decisive battle of the Black Tower, Because the Black Tower is not just a tower, but a fortress with the remains of the Maharaja, or rather, a magical fortress that can function with the Maharaja's body.

There are some rumors about this point, but no one has ever been able to hit the Black Tower, so there is no way to know, but the high-level leaders of the Great Shaman and Karui know that the Black Tower is really a magic fortress, or the various magical effects of the Black Tower, in their opinion, are the manifestations of magic, and they are super magical.

The defense of the Black Gate was no longer possible, and Karui knew it in his heart, he looked at these great shamans who were watching him, and sighed silently in his heart, there was no other way to do it now.

"We can withdraw, but we can't withdraw directly, the Black Gate must leave enough people to defend, otherwise we can't successfully retreat to the Black Tower!"

Karui's words made others happy, especially the people of the Great Shaman Alliance, and as for the question of who to send to stay, it is simple, Mordor is a lot of people, if it is not to destroy the coalition army here but delay the coalition army, then it is completely possible to leave the goblin musketeers and the soldiers of the half-orc warband, the black gate has a secret passage and a hidden place, and it is completely possible to fight a good guerrilla here for a period of time, and when the time comes, it is a big deal to re-sign a group on the way back to the Black Tower, with the civil war for several years, the vitality of the black land is greatly damaged, But these losses should still be able to be replenished.

As for whether the city wall of the Black Gate can meet the needs of defense, the upper floors of Mordor do not have any concerns, in fact, the fortress is not the kind of simple thick city wall, or a few more layers can be completed, the development and construction of the fortress is extremely perfect and can even be called a perfect existence, take the development of the fortress of the earth as an example, in the early days, the fortress was mainly a mixed castle, palace and fortress building structure, after which these three types of buildings began to diverge. The first forts were often particularly fortified castles. Usually compounded inside the large castle. The main function of the fortress is to be used for defense, and it is usually defended by the subjects of the castle. If the outer city is attacked by an enemy, the defenders can be scattered into the fortress as a final defense. In many famous castle cases, this composite structure was built from the fortress and was originally the fortification of the site. Over time, the complex will gradually expand to include the outer walls and arrow towers to serve as the first line of defense for the fort.

And the real development of the fortress was in the Itso-French War of 1494 (it should be this year, Xiaofan is not very clear about the history of Europe), and the problem of the defense of northern Italy was resolved.

The French used a new artillery there, which, for the situation at that time, was flexible and could be re-fired in a very short time. Thus, at the beginning of the 16th century, the Italians began to work on stronger defenses. Some Italian cities used temporary defensive systems to fortify their walls. A fairly effective way is to dig a trench directly behind the city walls, and build a circular arc wall reinforced with wooden rods and textiles behind the ditch. At the beginning of the 16th century, medieval turrets and horseshoe-shaped pillboxes were gradually replaced by pentagonal fortresses. Such a fortress is almost completely devoid of dead ends. The first person who invented the fort was probably an Italian who built this new defense for a number of Italian cities. In the 15th century, the famous Italian architect Leo Betista Alberti mentioned a new type of anti-artillery castle in his book "The Art of Fortification"—a star-shaped multi-faceted fortress with low and thick walls and sloping walls. The flanks of these forts are flanked further back, and if the forts are captured, the defenders can retreat into a second line of defense. These defenses were made of stone, or at least covered with a layer of bricks over the earthen walls.

In order to completely solve the problem of dead ends, in the best case, these defenses are always regular and multi-deformed, especially quadrilateral, pentagonal and hexagonal are particularly popular. These forts contained places where soldiers lived, as well as places where weapons were placed. On the flanks of the rear of the fortress it was possible to place artillery, which was the advantage of such a fortress. If the enemy were to attack the fortress, they would fall into a multi-faceted attack. The Italians called this new defense system "Neo", the rest of Europe called it Italian, and later generations more often referred to it as a multi-faceted bastion. In the thirties of the 16th century, the Italians incorporated artillery into this kind of fortress, so that the castle regained its military superiority, and the defense capability was greatly enhanced, and once the fortress was built, it was extremely difficult to conquer.

Although the starting point of the fortress on Earth is very uniform, the understanding and development of fortresses in each European country is different, so Europe has a variety of fortress defenses, which is the same as the races of Middle-earth.

The first fortress of Middle-earth originated from the Terrans, and the Terrans at that time had little combat power except for the developed economy, but the Terrans were very good at building houses, so the human beings built large-scale building complexes, among which the fortresses were the most built for the purpose of war, and the fortresses built by the Terrans were naturally all stone, but this does not mean that their fortresses must be suitable for all the Middle-earth tribes, just like the dwarves like to defend at the entrance of the cave, and the elves like to use various trees to build a defense system, the fortresses of Middle-earth are completely different.

How big is the gap? The development of civilization is mutual, and the gap between the earth is enough to explain the gap between Middle-earth, take the most important groups on the earth as an example.

France: The new way of building fortifications has been rather slow to spread in other parts of Europe. In most cases it was always the needs of war that forced people to build fortresses. The Huguenot Wars broke out in France in the mid-16th century, after which many fortresses were built in France. The Protestants in France set up earthen forts in their cities similar to those of the Netherlands, which stood in front of the walls of the past. Such fortresses are known in France as Huguenot. La Rochelle, the most important city of the Huguenots, was completely surrounded by a new layer of walls and fortresses from 1569 onwards, until 1628, when the armies of the French kings occupied it after a siege of fifteen months. It was through this war that the King of France realized the value of the fortress. He also began to build fortresses. However, the French fortresses misunderstood the design of the past in many places.

England: England maintained its medieval turrets for a long time, and it was not until the second half of the 16th century that Britain began experimenting with fortresses for the first time. They asked a lot of Italians to help. The early forts of the British were very irregular, indicating their unfamiliarity with the construction of forts. The first fort in England was probably built in 1558 and has an irregular shape. Like many other parts of Europe, the British fortresses were fortified with earthen forts outside the obsolete walls. The fortresses of the English cities later had their own style. Cities such as London were surrounded by a line of trenches reinforced by pillboxes. This trench is reminiscent of the defenses outside the besieged cities of continental Europe. It was not until the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642-1649 that the new fort gained a foothold in England. Most of the forts built in this war were earthen, with a layer of wood on the outside. In order to resist the enemy's charge to the city walls or fortresses, stone piles were erected outside the fortress. There were also bunkers outside the cities of Worcester and York to prevent the enemy from approaching the city. The British did not establish an external encirclement when they were surrounded, so the besiegers often retreated in defeat when the enemy's rescue arrived.

Mediterranean: Fortresses spread very quickly in the Mediterranean, and local Italians used their vast experience to resist Ottoman attacks. Venice fortified their bases in Crete and Cyprus at the beginning of the 16th century. The fortress city of Chania on the island of Crete was conquered by the Turks after a long siege in 1669. The Knights of Johannit also attached great importance to the defense system after being expelled from Rhodes by the Turks in 1523. Malta, which they had been administering since 1530, soon built a fortress around it, with a fort in front of the city, to keep the enemy at bay. Immediately after the Turks landed in Malta in 1565, they began attacking the fort, killing one-fifth of their soldiers in the charge. When help came, Turkey had to retreat. Since then, Malta has become one of the most fortified islands.

Germany: Germany's small countries are introducing new ways of building fortifications at different rates. The siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1529 made the people there feel the need for a strong defensive system. Shortly thereafter, they began to build fortresses. When the Turks came down again in 1683, the fortified walls and pillboxes allowed them to hold out until reinforcements arrived. Beginning in the mid-16th century, Italian architects began to introduce fortress techniques to Germany. In 1539, a Maltese converted Nuremberg's castle into a fortress. By the end of the 16th century, German architects had also learned the ropes of building fortresses. In 1589, a Strasbourg architect published the first German-language book on the construction of fortresses. Fortresses were built in Hamburg, Rostock, Berlin and other cities in the 17th century. There were also cities in southern Germany where fortresses were built, such as Ingolstadt. During the Thirty Years' War, the enemy was unable to capture Ingolstadt, and many other German cities with old defenses were easily overcome.

Outside Europe: Fortifications were also established in some places in the colonies of European countries. In 1557 the Portuguese built a fortress in Mombasa, East Africa, and in 1603 in Natal, Brazil. Spain used fortresses to protect cities such as Acapulco and Havana. The literal translation of Wall Street in New York, the world-famous Wall Street in the United States is the meaning of City Wall Street, and its name comes from the fortress project built by the Dutch in New Amsterdam in 1652. The wall is a Dutch-style earthen wall, and the city center is specially protected by a fortress.

The continuous improvement of fortresses, especially the combination of fortresses and artillery technology, made the offensive and defensive battles of fortresses in Europe a major military topic. All parties invested in its research, and it was not until the 70s of the 17th century that the system of trench siege proposed by Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban, the French marshal, military engineer, and the founder of modern sappers, was solved.

A peculiarity of the fortresses at that time was that they quickly became obsolete, as the development of siege weapons at that time was also very fast. As a result, these fortresses had to be constantly renewed. If a fort is left unattended for a while, they quickly become obsolete. Many countries could not afford to pay this huge sum, and even if the fortress was earthy, it would be too expensive.

By the 19th century, the firepower and range of artillery had increased, which made it impossible for the fortress to be constantly reinforced. A ring of bunkers was also erected around the original fortress, which became the main component of the attack. With the increasing mobility of the army, by the mid-20th century a purely independent fortress had become almost completely useless, since the enemy could easily spare it. Between the First and Second World Wars, European countries tried to defend their borders with parallel fortress buildings. France's Maginot Line and Germany's Siegfried Line are prime examples. The cost of building, repairing, and constantly garrisoning these fortresses is completely disproportionate to their military role.

At the end of World War II, Nazi Germany's propaganda apparatus put forward the theory of fortresses as strategic defense. They claimed that some cities in Eastern Europe, such as Frocklaw, were fortresses to be defended at all costs. In fact, these cities were not at all suitable for fortress operations, and during street battles with the Soviet Red Army, they were greatly damaged.

The fortress has begun to decline on Earth, but it is far from reaching that point in Middle-earth, and the Black Gate is the one who gathers the best of the best, he is not so much a solid thick wall, but a huge building, in the entire interior of the Black Gate, and even in the mountains on both sides, there are countless underground buildings, and there are huge fortresses behind it, all kinds of war machines and secret channel mechanisms abound, and the coalition forces want to capture the Black Gate, it will definitely not be an overnight thing.

(End of chapter)