Rhodok's scouts and scouts would arrive a short distance from their camp every day to scout, and of course they would not escape the eyes of Porcha and his scout cavalry. Porcha offered to kill the Rhodoc scouts, but Byron did not agree, and just asked Porcha to drive them away, but try not to wipe them out. That is, to let these Rhodok scouts transmit back the speed and direction of their army's march every day, but try to make them unclear about the reality of their own troops.

Byron had to give the lord of Culmar, Count Rayland, the lord of the castle, the impression that his forces were large enough to take the castle, but could be defeated by their coalition forces. Byron was constantly pressuring them to change their plans and turn the direction of their army's march toward them. This tactic linked to psychology is actually very effective, and Count Rayland is old, and he doesn't want to be like Count Mateas and have to live in his son's or someone's domain in his old age. What's more, the loss of the territory and property will also make the Count himself decline in the status of the family, and he will not be able to save face. So as long as the pressure is enough, Count Rayland will not dare to take risks.

The news that the scouts sent by Byron were all in Byron's favor, as he had expected, the troops of the Count of Rayland stopped advancing, the mercenary forces of the Count of Mateas began to move closer to them, and even a cavalry unit, which was very rare for Rhodok, quickly rushed to Fort Kurma, apparently to avoid the fall of the castle.

Byron, of course, would not let the Count get his wish, and he immediately sent Rolf and his light cavalry to intercept the reinforcements, and the advance of the army towards Fort Kurma was much faster. The Earl of Rayland would soon receive news that the cavalry reinforcements he had sent had suffered heavy casualties by the time they arrived at the castle, and that von Byron's army had only been a day's way from his territory.

In desperation, Count Rayland had to send an envoy to fight Byron in an attempt to control the battlefield in his favor. And for Byron, the chosen battlefield also saved them the time to take the initiative to find the Rhodok army and then force them to fight with him.

In order to avoid revealing military information, Byron met with the envoy at a great distance from the troops, and agreed to fight in a swamp on the edge of the Earldom of Leyland, a swamp with an area of more than 10,000 acres, a large swamp rare in Rhodoc, and an important source of asphalt.

For Count Rayland, Swadia's heavy cavalry troops have always been the most feared by the Rhodok army, even if the Rhodoks have trained the best anti-cavalry phalanx on the mainland, they will be broken through the formation if they are not careful. Therefore, √ Count Rayland, it was very advantageous for him to choose a swamp that was not conducive to the cavalry charge.

But in Byron's view, the swampy terrain is not entirely a disadvantage. In this low-lying swamp, horses are not easy to move, but groups of soldiers are not easy to stand. He carried a large number of horses, and in addition to transporting heavy horses, another important role was to act as a cover, so that the other side thought that his main force was still a heavy cavalry unit. But in fact, Byron relied on a large number of infantry and archers brought back from the north.

The Rhodok spear phalanx has strict requirements for formation and the level of training of soldiers, but in the muddy swamp, the already inflexible spear phalanx becomes more passive. And Nord's troops have adapted to a similar environment in the north, and their performance will naturally be much better.

It was precisely because both sides had the idea that they had the upper hand, so the two sides quickly decided on the battlefield and began to prepare for war in this area. After sending out a number of scout cavalry, the Earl of Rayland became more and more convinced that Byron wanted to use the heavy cavalry to carry out a roundabout battle to break their array, so they prepared a large number of horses and crossbows before the battle, and also formed a separate cavalry unit from the mercenary army under the Count of Mateas as a mobile force. Byron, on the other hand, ordered Arteman and his engineers to quickly use the woodland outside the swamp to make four small catapults, and sent cavalry to escort pack horses back from dozens of miles away. A lot of drills were also done before the battle for Rhodok's phalanx, so that the Nord soldiers could become more familiar with the phalanx, and the archers were ready to shoot at Rhodok's crossbowmen.

Both sides had made a lot of preparations in the days leading up to the battle, after which their troops arrived in the swamps to prepare for the battle. On Rhodok's side, Count Rayland and Count Mateas have already met together, and the number of people who can participate in the battle is close to two thousand, which is one-third more than Byron, but because the elite sent by Count Rayland was served by Byron when he attacked Thrindil, so there are about 500 people in this force who are Rhodok spearmen and crossbowmen recruited by the Earl before departure. On the other hand, on Byron's side, the quality of the troops is obviously a notch higher. Byron's troops were composed of soldiers from all over the country, but they were very good in combat, the infantry was generally equipped with chain mail, and the cavalry was a mixture of hired cavalry and Swadian heavy cavalry.

The troops of the two sides spread out their formations and arranged their respective equipment. The Rhodoks set up their horses, and Byron had the engineers set up catapults and distribute black powder tomley to the attacking soldiers. As they had predicted, the Rhodok troops set up their most classic spear phalanx, the spearmen in the outer circle set up long contradictory cards to resist the charge, and a dozen wagons were set up inside the phalanx, and the crossbowmen stood on the wagons to shoot, and once the enemy broke through the outer spear phalanx, they would also be blocked by the wagons.

Byron also made some adjustments to the formation of his troops, because the composition of his soldiers was too complicated, so he divided the troops into more than a dozen war regiments according to the type and ethnicity, and each regiment would issue a flag. He then combined these warbands into six divisions, which were assigned different responsibilities in battle. After the battle, the troops followed the battle flag, listening to the sound of the horn to advance and retreat, while the flag bearer and the commander of the war regiment had to keep an eye on the flag behind the unit in order to change the orders to the troops. These optimizations are very important for a mixed army, which can greatly compensate for their lack of coordination.

The sun had risen to the highest point in the sky, and the appointed time had arrived. The troops of both sides lined up under the leadership of their respective commanders and were facing their own enemies ready for battle.

Nine Heavenly God Emperors