"Kazak has just sent a message back, Wincheston Manor has been placed under martial law, all the troops who have gone out on patrol have been ordered to rush back to the manor to assemble and stand by, all the equipment to defend the city has been moved to the outer wall, they have set up traps and obstacles on the road three miles north of the manor, and the cavalry left behind have begun to send cavalry sentries to the north." Otto followed Yate to the stone house of the Beiguan Military Fort and briefed Art on the emergency military situation.

A few steps into the stone house, the officers of the Wells Legion had been waiting for an emergency military meeting after Art's arrival.

Art waved his hand to signal the officers who stood up to salute to take their seats, and then sat down on the main seat behind the long wooden table in front of the stone house, "Ron, the position of the Western Frontier Army?" Weapons, armor and the number of soldiers? ”

Ron was the head of intelligence, and at this time his intelligence network was faster than the military intelligence, "The Western Frontier Army took a shortcut from the mountain trail southwest of Lucesn province to Tignaz, and as of the time the news broke, Lucesen was still five days away. At the pace of their march, they were now three days away from the county town of Tignats. This team did not carry a banner, nor did it have a baggage team or miscellaneous soldiers, and three hundred men were soldiers, including more than thirty cavalrymen. ”

"The weapons are mainly spears, battle axes and long swords and shields, a few are equipped with heavy armor, and the rest are leather armor and chain mail, which should be the elite of the western border army."

Yat pinched a cold sweat, he didn't expect Bernard to really let the army rush to Tignets from the mountain trail in the southwest of Lucesn Province, and at that time when analyzing the route that Bernard might use to recapture Wincheston Manor, this route had basically been ruled out, for the simple reason that this road was really not suitable for a large army to walk, not to mention the weight of the wagons accompanying the army, and even a slightly heavier wheelbarrow would be difficult to pass through.

Previously, the military council believed that once Bernard sent troops to the west, it was most likely to turn south from Thorne to Lucesen City, and Art also arranged a number of hawk eyes to transmit news at several important points on this route, and in order to prevent possible accidents, he also asked the guards to send people to the mountains to buy a few mountain hunters as eagle eyes, once an army or a large group of troops passed by, these hunters would do whatever it took to report to the contact point set up in the "Free Bison" tavern in Tinies under the temptation of a huge bounty.

"Ben didn't have an eagle eye there, but fortunately you have an extra eye and people can buy the local hunter to do the eyeliner, otherwise the enemy might have run to Tinetz and we may not have gotten the news." Angus pinched a sweat, he was the chief of military intelligence, but this kind of news outside the battlefield was not available to the cavalry sentry.

Art nodded and continued to ask Ron, "Is there any news from the palace?" ”

"We haven't heard anything from Hawkeye in the Northlands." Ron replied.

Art knocked on the table, "It seems that Bernard is completely secretly mobilizing the Western Frontier Army from everyone. I thought that Bernard would rebuke me through negotiation or pressure, but it seems that he intended to deter and weaken Earl Balwyn by destroying me. ”

Bernard would not let the affairs of Wincheston Manor pass away uneventfully, not to mention the loss of a de facto extraterritorial territory (nominally belonging to the court), the leading baron and several leading knights of the Bernard West Frontier were still locked up in the prison of Wincheston Manor, and if he did not even care about his noble military ranks, then he could not expect anyone to be loyal in the future.

"Ron, immediately send an urgent letter to Earl Balwyn with carrier pigeons, stating that the Western Frontier Army has left the Western Frontier on a large scale without an order, and has wantonly attacked the county of Tinies in an attempt to rebel against the country."

"Lusignan, immediately lead all the cavalry to the northwest of the county town of Tignatz to investigate, I want to grasp the enemy's movements in real time, if the enemy army has passed through the county, you must try to intercept and harass it."

Ron and Lusignan answered in unison, then got up and left the stone house to prepare.

Art turned his gaze to Klaus, the captain of the Legion's heavy infantry team, and Jason, the captain of the gōng nǔ team, who were sitting on the side, "Klaus, Jason, if the enemy army moves south, the first place to attack should be Wincheston Manor, although we have left two banner teams to garrison, but they lack heavy infantry and gōng nǔ soldiers. The two of you immediately received your armaments, and led your troops to Wincheston Manor in a carriage to assist in the defense. ”

"Yes, in two hours." Klaus replied.

"The gōng nǔ team is on standby!" Jason didn't show weakness either.

"Go, give orders to Kazak and Tuba, no matter whether the enemy is fierce or not, you must hold on."

After waiting for a few officers who reacted first, Yate knocked on the table to silence everyone, "I thought I could continue to be quiet for a while, it's really worry-free!" Okay, continue the military discussion, the baggage team ......"

............

On the edge of the south-western mountains of Lucesern, it is only half a day's journey from the North-South Highway and a little faster on the North-South Highway to the county town of Tignets.

At the foot of the mountain, there is an ownerless village (commons, no direct lord) with only a dozen commoner and lowly peasants, and the only two-story stone house in the village is crowded with brutal barbarians.

A man in chain mail and a full helmet burst into the house from the outside, snatched half a chicken leg from the hands of a guy who looked like a petty officer, stuffed it into his mouth and tore it.

The aristocratic man sitting on the wooden table in the room holding a short knife and "enjoying" the roast suckling pig glanced at the guy who entered the door and asked, "**, don't just take care of eating, how are you doing to collect food?"

The strong man who tore the chicken leg swallowed the half-cooked chicken into his mouth, tore off the water bladder on the waist of one of his companions, poured it violently, and replied: "Lord Sauron, it's not that I'm not doing things well, look at how can these poor ghosts have food in their homes?" I and my brothers demolished the village and raised more than 800 pounds of miscellaneous grains and rotten wheat, which was barely enough for everyone to eat for two or three days. ”

The man called ** barbarian put his hand in his mouth, pulled out the minced meat stuffed between his teeth, put it in again, chewed it twice, and complained: "What is this TM called!" Let's walk for ten days and a half to come to this ghost place to fight, not to mention the fact that we don't give rations and food baggage, how can there be such a war? ”

Syllable!

Viscount Sauron, the leader of the army, slapped the wooden table, "This is a military order signed by Lord Earl himself, if you dare to spray feces on this again, I will shut you up forever!" ”

The room fell silent for a moment.

In the middle of the night, another officer in the room who was holding a wooden bowl and eating broth and soaking breadcrumbs made a careful voice, "Lord Sauron, it is indeed not a matter to go on like this, all the way to rely on forcibly requisitioning food in the small villages and settlements along the way, and now that we have gone out of the mountains, can we first build a larger manor or village, and the food grabbed in one place will be enough to supplement the baggage." ”

The Viscount of the leading soldiers sighed, inserted the short knife in his hand to cut the flesh into the roast suckling pig that had just been on full term, and replied: "No, now that the court is weak, the Earl is at a disadvantage, this time we are ordered to take back Wincheston Manor, if we attack those manor villages with lords, it is easy for the opponent to seize the handle, which will add trouble to the Earl."

The Viscount of the leading soldiers glanced at the suckling pig that was roasted black, and yù wàng, who was getting more and more unfed, he pushed the plate away, "**Follow me to inspect, don't let the soldiers kill people at will, this is not the same as usual, and this is not the western border." So saying, he got up and left the stone house, and walked with a few of his own guards towards the smoky and wailing village.

When the barbarian officers in the room saw the Supreme Commander leaving, they immediately ran towards the roast suckling pig on the wooden table, and in a short time swallowed the poor suckling pig into their stomachs......

There is no need to speculate that this is the western frontier army that rushed to Tignets to "regain lost territory", they were the elite of the frontier army urgently drawn from the border line of the Saône province, five infantry banner teams plus gōng nǔ team and a small number of cavalry, a total of 300 men.

Bernard couldn't swallow that bad breath, it wasn't just a matter of dignity, he had to rebuild his prestige and stabilize his position by suppressing the backbone of Balwin's faction.

Once defeated by Arter and his army, Bernard would be able to "regain lost territory and save his vassals" and destroy an important part of his opponent's army, as well as reverse the disadvantage of the Inner Court faction in this struggle.

Although Wincheston Manor was nominally a fief given to the court to canonize a knight of meritorious service, according to custom, once there was no successor to the knight, the original lord had the right to request the court to take back the territory. This was part of the reason why Bernard dared to move his troops to Tignets without the permission of the court.

The combat strength of the Western Frontier Army is not strong, there has been no war in the Western Frontier for many years, and even in the fierce border war with the Schwaben two years ago, the Eastern Frontier Army and the Palace Janissary Legion were the main forces, and the Western Frontier Army barely moved.

But then again, these people are full-time legionnaires after all, and their only task is to train sword soldiers, and the weapons in their hands and the armor on their bodies are complete, so their combat power is several notches higher than those improvised peasant soldiers.

However, the professional army was stumped on the edge of the mountains southwest of Luces, for the simple reason that the army had no food supplies.

Bernard did not dare or did not want to make a big show of the army from the open northland to Tignets through the city of Besançon or Lucesinn, so that it was estimated that halfway through it would be known to the court and sent a Janissary to stop it, so he ordered this large border army to assemble from the city of Saône, and march southeast through the mountains into the county of Tignets in the south of the country.

The mountainous areas are not as difficult as the plains, the roads are rough and difficult to travel, the carriages are difficult to transport, and the horses and packs cannot be carried by people.

In order to solve the supply problem of the border army, Bernard took out 15,000 fennigs out of his own money bag to buy food supplies for this team along the way, and promised that the subsequent food supplies would be transported from the north to the south.

However, there was no reason to throw the fat into the kennel overnight, and the salary of fifteen thousand pfennigs had been reduced several times when they were allocated to the Western Frontier Army Legion, and by the time they were distributed to this expeditionary team, there were less than 6,000 pfennigs, and then the officers of the expeditionary team simply divided up the whole thing.

Therefore, there is also a scene where the border army in the west goes all the way to forcibly requisition (grabs) food, and the forced requisition is forcibly requisitioned, anyway, this kind of thing is familiar with the border army, and there is no difficulty in doing it, but the noisy Bernard has ordered several times not to harass the places where there are lords and nobles.

This made it difficult for the border army, the slightly richer village manor definitely had lords and nobles, and the places where the lords and nobles did not want to look at it were definitely poor and destitute places.

This nonsense order made the soldiers at the bottom of the border army suffer all the way, and if it weren't for the huge reward after the fact, these guys would have mutinied a long time ago.

The only thing they had to think about now was to quickly take out the mongrel army that called itself the Legion of Wales, and then receive the bounty and return to the West......

Rise in the Middle Ages