After recuperating in Tarburg for more than 20 days, Arte's arrow wound has basically healed and he can do some simple swordsmanship training, but it is still a little painful to draw a bow and shoot an arrow.

In the past 20 days, the city defense of Taal Fort has been further strengthened under the command of the old steward Cooper, and the collapse of the wooden and stone structure of the outer wall of the military fort has also been filled by Cooper.

In addition, under Cooper's command, a wooden waiting platform had been erected on the hillside to the right of the main entrance of Tarburg, surrounded by a twenty-foot-high spired wooden fence on all sides, with a thirty-foot-high turret that could accommodate eight archers at the same time, and only a narrow door for a single person to pass through was open behind the side of the waiting platform, and the waiting platform was surrounded by deep pit traps with sharpened wooden thorns for smearing dung.

The waiting platform and the military fort are less than a stone's throw away, and if either side is attacked, the other side can send arrows to help defend it. In the event of an enemy siege of Tal Fort, there will be eight soldiers trained in simple archery skills stationed in the waiting platform, the role of the waiting platform is to cause disturbance and casualties to the enemy flank attacking Tar Fort, so that they can not concentrate on the siege of the city, so whether the arrows shot can hit the target is secondary, as long as a large number of arrows can be thrown at the enemy army formation; The reverse is also true, if the enemy attacks Houtai, it will also face arrows from both Houtai and the military fort.

…………

In the open space behind Tarburg, ten thatched men were erected under the back wall, and fifty paces away, ten soldiers who drew arrows were correcting their posture of drawing their bows and holding arrows under Jason's roar, and there were two rows of soldiers waiting to train their bows and arrows behind the ten soldiers.

Allowing soldiers to learn basic archery skills was only started after Art was stationed in Tar Fort, before Art lacked bows and arrows, and accurate archery skills could not be practiced in a short time, so Art only required the sentry cavalry and squad leader and above officers to undergo archery training, and the soldiers did not do this. But now Art has more than a dozen extra bows and thousands of arrows in his hands, and as the defender of the city, he does not need to have too accurate archery, so Art also began to let ordinary soldiers and service farmers practice bows and arrows, and his requirements are that everyone can pick up the bow and throw the arrows in their hands towards the enemy, as for whether they can hit the target or not depends on luck.

In addition to reinforcing the outer wall and setting up flank waiting platforms, the caravan also purchased a batch of fire oil sealed with small clay pots from the north, this fire oil is a sharp weapon for siege and defense of the city, and it is not easy to buy, so the caravan only bought forty cans of fire oil, which will be projectile to the enemy formation through the trebuchet of the inner fort tower at the critical moment of defending the city, burning the enemy's siege equipment or disrupting the enemy formation. The caravan had purchased and captured more than 2,000 arrows in the fort, and they would all be turned into deadly weapons for the enemy when defending the city.

In the more than 20 days that Art was recuperating from his wounds, the army did not rest.

During this period, Otto and Angus respectively led soldiers disguised as mountain bandits to the southwestern border of Swabia to attack the enemy's baggage line or "capture" one or two scattered small settlements, both teams achieved some successes, but since the destruction of the enemy's baggage outposts and the looting of two convoys, Swabia strengthened its defenses, the garrison of various outposts was significantly strengthened, and the number of escorts of the baggage convoys also increased.

While leading ten soldiers to intercept a convoy of grain, Odo was countered by crossbowmen in ambush on the wagon, but Odo reacted quickly and escaped after one was killed and two were seriously wounded. Afterwards, Art punished Otto and suspended his military pay for three months, but retained his military position.

On the other side, Angus attacked a small farm manor with four sentinels, but the farmer was a disabled veteran who had experienced the battle, and he led two manor guards to resist Angus and the others for half an afternoon with stone walls and two hunting bows.

However, to Yat's surprise, the bandits and bandits who had been dormant for a long time in the southwest mountains of Swabia may have been affected by the attack of Yat's army, and after seeing through the current situation of the emptiness of defense in various parts of the southwest border of Swabia, they have formed groups of bandits of different sizes, intercepting the road, raiding, and setting up ambushes.

Bandits were suddenly rampant all over the southwestern border of Swabia.

The news of the Burgundian army's entry into Talburg was not surprisingly known to the Schwabians, who sent a sentry to the east of Tarburg to try to approach the sentry, but after Angus drove away with the sentry and soldiers, he was nowhere to be found, and Art guessed that they would concentrate their forces to attack Talfort after quelling the bandits in the southwest.

In Talburg, Yate is preparing for a large-scale raid and harassment battle, and for a raid and harassment war, Yat has started planning five days in advance.

Five days ago, a mysterious letter had been received from a large manor fifty miles south of Biltenberg, written by the leader of a group of bandits who claimed to be Krull, King of the Mountain, in which the man who claimed to be the King of the Mountain demanded that the manor house provide his "army" with 100,000 pfennigs or equivalent grain goods within five days, or he would gather the "army of the mountains" to take the manor and loot the manor and leave it alone.

At first, the noble manor owner thought that this letter was just a trick of extortion by the mountain bandits, so he didn't care, but in the next few days, the small villages around the manor were attacked by several groups of unidentified bandits, and the number of these groups of bandits combined exceeded sixty people. He claimed that all the bandits in the southwestern frontier would assemble to attack his estate, and promised that if the Billtenberg defenders could help him defeat the bandits, he would give 20,000 fennigs to help the defenders fight them.

Baron Jeffrey von Tran, the shepherd of Biltenberg, was suffering from the increasingly rampant bandits on the southwest border, and this group of greedy and cruel wolves dared to gather to attack the village fort of the large manor, so Baron Jeffrey immediately agreed to the manor's request to send troops to help suppress it, but Baron Jeffrey was still a person who knew a little about military affairs, and while he recruited farmers from all over the surrounding areas of Biltenberg to form an army of bandits, he did not forget to send sentries to investigate the movements of the garrison of Tartenburg.

…………

In order to convince the owner of the manor that a group of bandits was about to capture his manor, Yat sent two teams of more than a dozen soldiers to enter Swabia from the unexposed hunter's path, changing various clothes and flags to raid and plunder the villages around the manor, and create the illusion that the bandits were gathered.

On the Taal Fort side, after creating the illusion of a "group of thieves" on the large estate south of Biltenberg, all the troops shrank back into the military fort. Since five days ago, the gate of Talburg has been closed, and the outer wall is full of elite defenders, who will never go out to provoke trouble. However, those elite "defenders" were all peasants and laborers who changed into battle clothes, and the real elite soldiers were all assembled in the open space of Tarburg at the moment and ready to go.

In the inner fort of Tar, all the army commanders stood in front of Art.

"Yesterday there was already a group of enemy spies who came to spy on Talburg, and by now they should have returned to Biltenberg to report that we were not able to defend it. At noon, the sergeant major had already taken two sentry horses to take out the enemy outposts that might be hiding along the way, and entered the perimeter of Biltenberg to scout, if most of the Bilten defenders went to the south to suppress the bandits, then we would attack Biltenberg as planned. ”

"The army that raided Biltenberg this time was personally commanded by me, and the four sentry squads and sentry cavalry were all dispatched, and Ron's sentry was responsible for patrolling the perimeter of Biltenberg to warn and intercept those who might escape to report the news, especially to the south."

Yate's eyes turned to Otto who was standing in front: "Otto, have you picked out the soldiers who took the lead in the door?" ”

Otto stepped forward and replied, "Selected, the six soldiers are the most elite veterans of each team, all wearing leather armor and Swabian army clothes. ”

Art asked Cooper again, "Cooper, are you ready for the carriage you have prepared?" ”

"Sir, eight empty iron-encrusted four-wheeled carriages have been parked at the gate of the fort, ready to set off at any time."

"Well, the defense of Fort Tardo is temporarily in charge of Odo, and all the personnel of the caravan are temporarily under Odo's command, and Cooper assists Odo in garrisoning Fort Tardo. Let's get ready to go. ”

Everyone left the inner fort one after another and returned to their respective posts to prepare.

Odo did not leave with the others, and when Art was the only one left in the inner fort, Odo walked up to Art and said to Art with a slightly aggrieved expression: "My lord, I know that last time it was my mistake that caused the army to be ambushed and lose soldiers. But I still want to follow you to attack Biltenberg~" Otto very much wants to follow Yat to attack Biltenberg, and he thinks that only by making another battle can he wash away the shame of being killed last time he intercepted the enemy's baggage team.

Art stared at Odo's eyes, and replied with a serious expression and a firm tone: "Odo, I told you that not all of the things in the ambush were your faults, and I have punished you for your mistakes, so you don't always have to take these mistakes to heart." I won't take you to this attack on Birtenberg because there must be a backbone left on the Tarberg side, and I have taken all the soldiers with me, and there are only some peasant soldiers and laborers left here, and if there is a sudden enemy situation, there must be an officer who can hold it down to command them. We can think of a surprise attack on Birtenburg, and the Swabian army may also attack Tarburg, if something goes wrong with Tartenburg, we will not be able to retreat from the enemy's territory. That's why you stayed in Talburg because you couldn't live without it. ”

With a reluctant expression, Otto resolutely left the Inner Fort to inspect the "garrison" on the outer wall, which is what Art admires about Otto, who will not hesitate to carry out orders despite his reluctance.

…………

In the evening, Angus rode back to Talburg.

"Sergeant Major, is something wrong? Why are you the only one coming back? Art hurried down the façade and asked Angus.

Angus handed the reins to one of the peasant soldiers behind the fort gate, and replied, "Lord Art, all is well. As you might expect, we found two enemy spies on a hillside twelve miles to the south, and we crept up to kill one, and learned from the mouth of the other that there were no other sentries around, and that he had not been tortured, and that most of the defenders of Beardenburg had set out to raid the bandits "assembled" in the south, and that there were less than twenty defenders in the city. Later, I also sneaked around Biertenberg and found that the gates of Biertenberg were closed, and there were indeed only a few scattered guards on the castle wall, and I estimated that there were only about a dozen guards. Now I'll have two sentry riders on the eastern side of the road to keep watch in case any more sentry comes in. ”

Art waved his hand excitedly, "Sergeant Major, we haven't been busy in vain these past few days, our plan is starting to work." ”

Art said and yelled at Ron, who was sharpening his sword on the inside of the outer wall, "Ron, order the whole army to march, we will attack Bilten overnight......"