Li Tianhao's recent life has been quite comfortable.

First of all, since Pokel's arrival, he asked Muller to select 500 soldiers to hide in the mountains for special equestrian training - Li Tianhao's own riding skills came from Muller's professors, so he can be completely assured of Muller. Although Mount Dils is very suitable for raising horses, it is a pity that Yaqui's country lacks good horse breeds, so the cavalry of Yaqui's army is not strong enough, and most of the southern horses are transferred to the country, so the number is very small. Therefore, Lee believed that with these five hundred horses, combined with the teachings of Müller, they would create the strongest cavalry force in Mount Dils and indeed in the whole of Yaqui.

Secondly, with the parts of a thousand crossbow machines, which can be assembled quickly and can be put into actual combat, this weapon can not only be accurately aimed, but also so powerful that even ordinary soldiers can quickly master it, and Li Tianhao himself taught these soldiers to shoot. In addition, with the guidance of Pokel, a weapon master, it will not be long before powerful bows and crossbows and more practical weapons will be produced and put into actual combat, and the equipment level of the Tyrsian army will be able to surpass that of the regular army of Yaqui.

Finally, there is one more happy thing, that is, since Xenas joined, the troublemaker Alam has been pestering him every day to practice swordsmanship, and Li Tianhao can finally get rid of Alam's entanglement, and at the same time, no one else will complain to him. Li Tianhao felt that even if Xenas did not obtain the head of the enemy general on the battlefield, this alone would have made a great contribution to the rebel army.

Li Tianhao asked Pocker in his spare time about what had happened outside in the past year. Through Pokel's account, Lee learns of the chaotic situation in which the Turki tribes fought for the throne after the war between Paz and Tukhi; I also got a general understanding of the intrigue of the princes in Sindra's country, as always. What worries Lee the most is that Pokel conveys Elda's concern: Port Portsmo is too small, and once a large quantity of supplies arrives in the future, it will not be able to pass the customs as in the past. Although it is not known whether Lee's recent situation is going well, Elda still says that the capture of Port Potsmore is a necessary step as long as conditions allow.

More than a month passed in the blink of an eye, and on this day Lee received a secret letter from Rolance's spies, saying that Jacob was actively preparing to send troops to recruit again, and that the scale of the crusade was huge, and all the slave owners in the western part of the Dils Mountains were mobilized, and even the regular army of Yaqui stationed on the border was also joined, and according to their mobilization ability, it was estimated that the number would be around fifty thousand. However, at present, the grain and grass have not yet been prepared, and they will not be dispatched for the time being.

After reading the letter, Li fell into deep thought: this time the other side is far more prepared than last time, and the scale has greatly exceeded that of the righteous army, although after these days of training, the overall combat level of the righteous army has improved, but the gap in overall equipment has not changed much, and this battle will be quite difficult. Moreover, if the fortress of Vera in the south also sent troops, it would be difficult to withstand even the mere harassment of the battle. Taking advantage of the current time gap, solving the fortress of Vera has become a top priority. Thinking of this, Li informed Chayr of the matter first, and said that he wanted to personally lead his troops to take the fortress of Vera. Chail had great confidence in his godson's command ability, and only asked a few questions about the battle plan, and after receiving a satisfactory answer, he agreed.

Li Tianhao immediately sent a secret letter to Lolandis, who had been pinning down the enemy forces around the fortress of Vera, and he gathered everyone to arrange the expedition. The expedition included almost all the elite troops of the rebels: 1,000 of Lee's direct troops, 500 newly formed cavalry and 1,000 crossbowmen, and 2,000 elite infantry to attack together. Muller, Senas, Woolley, Jimda, Tatar, and Alam were all in action. Three days later, Rolandsis's reply came, and Li opened the letter and couldn't help but be overjoyed, and Li Tianhao led his army to quietly leave Essrath City that night.

The commander of the Villa Fortress, Chidel, is now Chinese New Year's Eve nine years old. As a general, he was a little too cautious, but it was for this reason that he became the commander of the Fortress of Vera. The purpose of the existence of the fortress of Vera was to defend against the invasion of the vassal Duchy of Palchi (of course, the Palci people did not think so, because the mountains of Dils were originally the territory of Palci, and it was just a reconquest of lost land. ), using the advantage of the terrain to drag out the pace of the enemy army, waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Chidel's personality is very suitable for this task, and if the commander of the fortress is a hot-blooded tough general, a single unconscionable attack will cause the sovereignty of the fortress to change hands.

However, all this is based on the premise that reinforcements can arrive. Since the fall of the city of Essras at the end of last year, the fortress of Vera has been isolated. At first, Khil was not worried, he was convinced that the rabble would not be happy for long, and that they would soon be wiped out by the Yakini Crusade Army, and until then he could only keep the fortress safe. However, he soon discovered that the scouts he sent out had almost never returned, so that he was completely unaware of the arrival of the first crusade, and the thieves had the intention of storming the fortress (of course, this was a false impression caused by the feints of Lorencis). For this reason, Qidel strengthened his defenses, and kept watch day and night, and the messenger sent by Irenzar was also mistakenly killed by him as a spy.

For some time after that, no scouts returned, and Lorencis followed Li Tianhao's instructions to implement a complete information blockade of the Vera Fortress. Keddle hadn't received any news from the outside world for nearly half a year, and the lack of information made Keddle even more reluctant to act rashly, but the delay in action on the Yaki Army still made him more and more anxious. After all, the food in the Villa Fortress is not unlimited, and although there is no shortage of food at present, there is no new food to be delivered. And thanks to the efforts of Lorencis, Kedel was always convinced that there was a large army of thieves coveting the fortress of Vera nearby, and he did not dare to slack off in the slightest, but the prolonged state of tension tortured his men one by one, and their appetite was lost.

As the days passed, Chidel himself began to wonder if he was right. Because it is unlikely that an army of a certain size can lurk in one place for a long time, he feels that he may have been too cautious, and the enemy may have withdrawn long ago, and now only a small force of troops is left to monitor him. In order to confirm this idea, he sent scouts to investigate again, but unfortunately these people were never returned. Troubled by the lack of information, Keddle soon faced a new problem: after this period of perseverance, although there was still enough food, the fuel had run out, and for this he had to send men out to chop wood. However, in order to strengthen the defense of the fortress of Vera, all the trees around the fortress were cut down within the range of an arrow that could be shot by an arrow, and the land was filled with salt brine and no grass was growing. If you want to cut down trees, you have to go out and go out of the bow and arrow protection area. At first, he sent a small group of people to secretly go out to chop wood, and soon these people who went out were attacked by the bows and arrows of the thief army, and suffered heavy losses. This was the case for several days in a row, for which Chidelga sent men, and the size of the number of people changed from a few to a dozen or even dozens of people, and the sneak attack still occurred, but the casualties were significantly reduced, and the more the number of people, the fewer casualties.

Faced with this situation, Chidel was quite happy. Because he finally saw that although the opponent's surveillance was very tight, the size of the troops was not large, and they could only launch small-scale attacks, and they could not pose a threat at all. For this reason, he decided to go out to cut down in units of 300 men, and another 200 to escort him, so as to get enough fuel from cutting in a day or two.

If he had taken this measure a few days earlier, it would have been no problem at all, but unfortunately due to his cautious delay, Li Tianhao learned of this situation in Rolancith's secret letter, and had already led the elite troops to the vicinity of the Vera Fortress in the starry night.