Chapter 129: Four Tridents of Terror
Over time, Zelda's approach proved to be completely correct. Thanks to his timely retreat with Prince Gilmus and his subordinates despite Jacob's nonsense www.biquge.info he was able to return to the fortress of Baroud in time, thus avoiding the dilemma of Gilmus being homeless.
While news of the fall of Basradia was spreading throughout Arubania, Palchi in the south received the exciting news.
At this time, Wei Song and Brooks were busy mobilizing forces to advance north along the Diqil Sea, while trying to connect with the area occupied by Li Tianhao, but due to the stubborn resistance of the Aruban army and geographical reasons, the progress of these two things was not particularly fast, especially when their progress was compared to the progress of Li Tianhao's side.
Even Wei Song didn't expect Li Tianhao to pick up such a big bargain for nothing and take the capital of Arubania effortlessly. However, he was surprised and surprised, Wei Song immediately realized what to do next, he knew very well that Li Tianhao would never take Basradia as his destination, because to put it bluntly, the main reason for Li Tianhao's war with Arubania was actually because of Prince Gilmus in the fortress of Baroud, since Arubania was beaten down, then Li Tianhao's next target must be Gilmus. Although Gilmus's forces were currently advancing eastward, once the news of the fall of Basradis was heard, it was foreseeable that Gilmus, who had lost his backer, would inevitably want to flee back to the fortress of Baroud.
To this end, Wei Song immediately issued two orders. You must know that Wei Song's original plan was to launch a centripetal offensive towards the Barud Fortress with Li Tianhao, given that Li Tianhao still had Basradi in front of him, so Wei Song's plan was to fight steadily and eat away the land of Arubania one bite at a time. But now the plan is abrupt, although Wei Song has a large number of troops, he does not have the ability to advance quickly, the most important thing is that the supply line of the Palchi army cannot provide sufficient security, so that the soldiers will fight hungry This kind of stupid thing Wei Song will never do. Therefore, two orders were given to Müller and Kongill, respectively: the elite cavalry of Parchi, led by Müller and Chikirda, quickly bypassed the Arubanian military defense area on the coast of the Diqil Sea and penetrated into the fortress of Baroud; The First Fleet of Palci, led by Congille, immediately headed north to block the sea access to the fortress of Barud.
In doing so, he wanted Muller to seize the fortress of Baroud before Gilmus, so that he could trap Gilmus in the land of Arubania, and if this step failed, he could at least let Corngil ensure that Gilmus could not escape by sea to other countries.
Wei Song did this completely out of his own consideration of the overall strategic situation, but his approach coincided with Li Tianhao's thoughts, and formed a situation on the map of a three-way march to the fortress of Barud, and this battle was called "Wei Song's trident" by later generations.
However, at the time, Zelda did not know that Wei Song had quietly pulled a huge net against himself and Gilmus, and he was just bent on returning to Baroud Fortress as soon as possible. Due to Zelda's usual rigorous training, his men moved much faster than the average army, but even so, before they could return to the fortress of Baroud, he learned of the defeat of Count Jacob.
Count Jacob was perhaps the bravest, perhaps the most damned, man at the time of Arubania's demise. Ignoring the disadvantage of the overall situation and the vulnerability of his own army, he resolutely met Li Tianhao in the direction from which he came. Fortunately or unfortunately, his march lasted only three days before he came into contact with Li Tianhao's army, during which time his army fled more than 6,000 men, but still maintained a strength of more than 90,000, which made Jacob still confident that he had the advantage. So the two sides started a decisive battle in the sea of sand.
The two sides involved in the battle were about 40,000 Li Tianhao's army and about 100,000 Jakbu's army. Because he had already learned in advance about the troop allocation and command level of the Jakbu army, Li Tianhao did not take this enemy army into account at all, and he even personally led the team to take the lead in launching a surprise attack. Li Tianhao's bold move greatly boosted the morale of his side, especially Senas and Aram were not to be left behind, and launched a full-scale attack on Jakbu's army.
In the face of the almost unplanned fierce offensive of the Palchi army, Jakeb's army melted like snow drenched by boiling water, and no one could resist Li Tianhao's soldiers, even if some soldiers still maintained their fighting spirit, they disappeared without a trace after seeing Li Tianhao's personal bravery. The battle lasted less than half an hour before Jacob's army collapsed, and the Palchi army used their tactical skills like wolves driving sheep away, driving the enemy into the realm of death at will. Jacob himself died in the chaos of the army, and he had always regarded himself very highly, and he valued decency, and finally died at the feet of the ordinary soldiers he despised the most, and was trampled to pulp alive. A general battle with 140,000 participants had already come to an end in only half a day, but the finishing work was carried out for two days.
This battle of the Sand Sea was strategically meaningless, as the presence of Jacob's army did not pose any threat to the Palchi side, and the outcome was unlikely to change anything regardless of its defeat; It is also not valued in the history of warfare, because the technical and tactical level of the two sides is not at the same level at all, and the commander's command is also lackluster, and only the most traditional military skills have already divided the winner and loser; However, it has another significance, that is, it has set a record for the proportion of casualties in the age of cold weapons. As a result of this battle, more than 20,000 men were killed and more than 50,000 wounded or captured, while the losses of the Palci army were only 16 dead and 125 wounded. The ratio of casualties on both sides was more than 700 to 1, and the ratio of casualties reached 1,200 to 1, which was extremely rare even in the era of hot weapons.
Zelda and Gilmus were not too surprised to get the news of Jacob's defeat and death, because they knew that this would be the result from the moment they abandoned Jacob, but Jacob's defeat was indeed faster than expected. They immediately decided to return to the fortress of Baroud in the shortest possible time, where they could rest for a while.
Although Gilmus's men were exhausted from the day's journey, Zelda gave the order to force the march, which resulted in more than a third of his men not being able to return to Baroud Fortress, but in the end, they returned to the fortress one day and one night ahead of Muller's cavalry, and this result also set the coordinates for the final destination of the country.