In the early morning of the sixth day of the army's garrison at Tarburg, a cavalry squad rushed out of the narrow doorway and stepped over the improvised wooden bridge in front of the doorway, and ran along the horse lane towards the east, leaving a cloud of dust behind the cavalry.

The leader of the cavalry was Art, and after the basic fortifications of Talburg were repaired, he decided to take Angus and Ron and a few light cavalry deep into Swabian to personally investigate.

By the time the sun was on the treetops, the five horsemen had reached the foot of a hill twenty miles from Talburg, which was already within the borders of Swabian, and the Artsians hid their horses in the shade of the trees below, and then climbed to the top of the slope, and stood behind a few miscellaneous trees and looked out at the flat and wide land below.

From where the people of Arteon stood, a white dot could be faintly seen on the edge of the skyline, which was the city of Tebrunn, an important town on the southwestern border of Swabia, and to the west of Tebrun was Biltenburg, the closest to this hillside, and there were four village estates and a dozen small settlements scattered around Biltenburg. In the golden wheat fields of the plains surrounding the estate, farmers harvest the first early wheat crops.

Red looked at the golden wheat waves, and expected that the village manor under the mountain must be very rich, and even those small settlements must have surplus grain, he couldn't help but ask in a low voice: "My lord, should we go to "attack" those manor villages first or "occupy" those small settlements first?" ”

Art was about to open his mouth to answer, Angus's voice sounded: "Now is not the best time, the farmers have not finished harvesting the wheat, have not paid their taxes, and have not exchanged the surplus grain for silver coins, at this time you will not get anything to rob them, but it will cause a strong reaction from the lords." ”

Adam nodded: "We can't plunder these farmers for the time being, our current task is to do a good job in the defense of Talfort, and pretend to be mountain bandits to attack their army's baggage lines or pull out some small outpost strongholds and settlements. ”

"Why do you want to dress up as a bandit?" Ron didn't understand, in his mind's mind the battle of the army had always been face-to-face.

"Young man, you are foolish again, if you dare to storm the city under the banner of the Burgundian army today, a large army will come to besiege you tomorrow, and they will first suspect that we are from Glarus, and then they will surely send troops along the carriageway behind you to take Tarburg, and then march on Glaru, no army will tolerate a hungry wolf behind their ass. Now that the Duchy of Swabia has not yet declared a full-scale war, the county of Glaru is still stable, and if Glaru is captured because of our reasons, then we should not think about living in peace. But if we pretend to be ordinary bandits, the army will not be alarmed, and those lords who have collected enough taxes will not go out to eliminate some of the bandits who come out of the mountains to beg for food at this time......" Angus explained to Ron.

Art scanned from south to north and from north to south, and finally fixed his eyes on the mountains a dozen miles to the south.

"Sergeant Major, do you see the mountain over there?" Art moved to Angus's side, pointing up at the mountain to the south.

"You're saying we're going to come out of there and harass them?"

"From there, the locals will treat us like ordinary bandits, so as to minimize the suspicion of the army of the Duchy of Swabia and the castle lords. As long as there are no large armies, we will be more than enough to deal with the guards of those village estates. ”

Art turned to Angus and said, "Sergeant Major, tomorrow you take Ron to the sentry and see if you can find a road that leads directly from Talfort to that mountainous area, and then find a hiding place nearby where you can store supplies."

"Okay. I'll take Ron to the sentry tomorrow. ”

The men looked at the hillside for a while, noting down the size, distribution, and roads of the village estates and scattered settlements below, and then turned their horses and returned to Tarbao.

…………

As soon as they returned to Tarburg, they saw a group of people surrounded by Otto and his soldiers in front of the makeshift post on the west side of Tarburg.

"What's going on?"

Otto put down his sword and walked to Art's side, "My lord, these merchants who claim to be Swabian have just returned from Burgundy trade, and now that the two countries are in a state of imminent war, how can any merchant dare to trade in an enemy country?" And the five of them armed guys only carried a cart of worthless groceries, not like a caravan at all, we went forward to intercept, there was a horse on horseback who was going to escape, and after being chased by the soldiers who came to intercept them, they took out a large amount of silver coins in an attempt to buy the soldiers to let them go, I was going to search and interrogate, they actually drew their swords and resisted! What should I do, my lord? ”

Hearing this, Art pulled out his long sword and walked into the crowd, waving his hand at a guy in armor and holding a sword, directly cutting a gap in the guy's head.

Before the rest of the people could react to what was going on, they had already been stabbed and cut down by the soldiers who surrounded them.

"Leave two alive, kill all the others." Art pulled a rag from his bosom, wiped the blood from his sword, and jumped on his horse and into Tarburg.

…………

In the inner fort of Talburg, a bruised and swollen face and bleeding creature was tied to a pillar in the inner fort, and Art was still smashing him in the stomach with a wooden stick.

The guys who were besieged and killed in the morning were business travelers on weekdays, but their hidden identities were "Eagle Eyes" who accompanied the business travelers to find out the news. After some torture, the other guy who was left alive had already confessed that he was originally a Burgundian merchant, but this time he was mainly lured by the guy tied to the pillar, and took his people to Burgundy as a merchant to act as a "hawkeye" to find out the news. They had already spotted the important military presence of the Count of Burgundy on the eastern border, and this time they had taken their map of the Burgundian army layout to sneak back to Swabia from the southeastern mountains, bypassing the heavily defended northern border. They didn't expect that this dilapidated military fort, which had been abandoned for decades, was actually garrisoned by defenders, and they were nervous all the way to the mountainous area, and their mentality was naturally relaxed, but they never thought that they would actually jump into the outpost set up by the Yate army that had just been stationed here.

Art poured a bucket of cold water on the fainting "caravan leader", and the "caravan leader" groaned and woke up again: "Man, we already know your true purpose, tell me everything you know, and I can spare your life."

Art took out the short-handled hunting knife at his waist, pointed to the crotch of the guy on the pillar and said, "If you don't say it again, you don't want to be a complete man." "Just let Ron untie that guy's trouser belt.

The guy on the pillar spat at Art, baring his teeth and roaring, "Bastards, devils, you damned devils, if you have the ability, you will stab me to death with a sword!! ”

"It's good to be able to talk." Art ripped off the guy's pants and slowly reached his crotch with the knife.

The guy was bound hand and foot, and could only struggle with his head, and seeing that the short knife was about to be cut, the guy finally broke down, and said with a crying voice: "I said! I'll say everything! ”

…………

After a meal, Art came out of the inner castle, took the damp cloth handed by Ron and wiped the blood on his hands, "Ron, you go in and continue the punishment, take out all the things that can be taken out of his mouth for me, ask whatever you want, just save your life." ”

"Lord Art, we can move in peace for the time being." Angus said to Art with a smile.

"Sergeant Major, although Swabia has not specially assembled and stationed a standing army in the southwest border area, the local lords must still have some defensive forces, if our movement is too big, the local remaining troops will definitely gather to deal with us, in a short time, the one hundred and fifty people left behind by Tebrun and Bilten are not enough to capture Thalburg, but we must be stationed here for more than half a year, if the northern army has not engaged in large-scale battles for such a long time, Swabian's army could draw up its forces at any time and turn back to the southwestern frontier to deal with us. So we still have to be cautious for the time being, and when Swabia can't get out of the fight in the north, we will make some big moves, and then they will not have the extra energy to deal with us. ”

"Well, it's safer that way."

"Sergeant Major, take our captured enemy and the Hawkeye to Glaru in the afternoon, and ask Lord Herreth to send a messenger to deliver to the court the movements of the Swabian army. I will also write a private letter to Earl Balwyn to report on our garrison at Fort Tar, and you will have the messenger take it with you. ”

"In addition, I will send someone to go to Glaru City with you to buy some food supplies, the caravan has not returned yet, we must stock up on some food supplies in case of accidents......"

After a while, Ron also came out, he walked up to Art and whispered: "Master, the words in that guy's stomach have been emptied, and people can't fight anymore, and if they fight again, they will die." ”

"Well, get him a bowl of porridge and hang on to his life, and the sergeant major will take him to Glaru County and hand him over to Lord Hereth."

"Okay sir, but what about the other timid minion? Killed? ”

"That guy is very cooperative with us, and he does have business experience, although he is a Burgundian, but he is proficient in Swabian, and he may be able to come in handy in the future, so let's keep him for now, and hand him over to Spencer as a hard laborer, but I have to take care of the man, and I can't let him run away." After Art's explanation, he climbed the wall of the outer fortress to inspect the outpost.

On the outer walls, two squads of soldiers from Bas and Tuba are reinforcing the arrow towers and watchtowers on the outer walls with the help of laborers who have cut timber from near Tarburg, while others pile up stones collected from around Talburg every ten paces.

On the watchtower at the top of the inner fort, a small homemade man-made trebuchet is being assembled under the command of two carpenters, and a stone the size of a small clay pot is loaded into the trebuchet's net.

"Open the cannon!!"

With a shout, the two soldiers standing at the front of the trebuchet pulled the towrope at the other end of the wooden pole down in unison, and the stones in the net drew a long arc with the movement of the trebuchet's wooden poles, and after reaching the apexer, the stones broke away from the net and flew towards the empty space in front of Tarburg.

"It's only more than a hundred feet away, the power is too small, plus a leash~" The carpenter glanced at the sign in front of the fort gate and said to another carpenter beside him.

The carpenter found another piece of twine and tied it to the other end of the trebuchet......