Woo –

The low sound of the horn was blown according to a certain melody and echoed through the barracks. Under the meager morning light, the silent camp was like a strong man who had just woken up, slowly opened his eyes and began to move his hands and feet. The soldiers came out of the tents one by one, and gathered together according to their own formation. The officer in charge of logistics with the auxiliaries carried the prepared breakfast in front of him. These auxiliaries are not part of the combat establishment, but are composed of civilians and low-ranking soldiers, who are responsible for cleaning, maintaining equipment, and distributing supplies in peacetime, and in battle, they follow the army in advance and retreat, prepare food, and when necessary, they are also responsible for defending the camp and treating the wounded.

The soldiers' breakfast consisted mainly of rye bread as a staple food and dried meat soaked in vegetable soup, and because the kingdom of Virgil was not an agricultural country and the territory lacked forests, the soldiers did not like the food of the army. The rye bread baked from rye imported from the Almerian Empire tasted very bad, and the only good thing might be that it was large enough, and a whole piece of rye bread the size of a brick was enough to provide them with the physical needs of the morning.

The jerky is made from wild boar from the kingdom's feedlot, and the meat is coarse, unlike the puffer fish of the Oberline Kingdom. But like rye bread, the kingdom of Virgil had enough money to keep these soldiers hungry.

After breakfast, the sun finally set up in the sky, and since the Kingdom of Virgil is located in the southern hemisphere close to the equator, it receives the sun earlier than anywhere else. In fact, when converted to a specific time, it was just after six o'clock in the morning.

As the well-dressed officers appeared one by one, the assembled soldiers walked out of the camp according to their respective regiments, and lined up in a well-organized phalanx in the open space outside the barracks. Each phalanx was 2,500 people, and in less than half an hour, four phalanxes had appeared on the ground, and the imposing soldiers were wearing helmets and armor, and their eyes were full of desire for glory and victory.

This scene is only a microcosm, and there are five such camps around Radre Castle, each with a different number of soldiers, with the largest central camp having more than 30,000 people, and the northwest camp responsible for stopping the escape of the undead in Radre Castle has the smallest number of more than 10,000 people.

Radre Castle was built more than 600 years ago, the first was a medium-sized military fortress built by the Kingdom of Minas in order to monitor the Kingdom of Virgil, but as the Kingdom of Mainas gradually turned its attention to the barbarians outside the border, this military fortress also slowly declined, until not long ago after the King of Dinar was ousted from the throne, the nobles sent some additional troops to the castle in order to better control the situation and prevent Laclaus from asking the Kingdom of Virgil for help, and rebuilt it.

The castle is located in the bend of a small river, which provides easy access to water and is effective against fire. This also led to the fact that the attackers could only launch an offensive from the west and south gates, otherwise they could not deploy sufficient forces. As we all know, once the strength of the undead is at a disadvantage, unless the average strength of the soldiers far exceeds that of the undead, the probability of victory is very small.

In order to complete the battle, Mantein not only transferred the most elite part of the entire kingdom army and the Praetorian Guard Corps guarding the capital, but also looted the war equipment of the two provinces of Baria and Rustins, more than 200 catapults and nearly 1,500 bed crossbows formed the most powerful strike force in the hands of the kingdom army, and other war equipment such as simple ballistas, city rams, and mobile arrow towers also spent a lot of manpower and material resources to transport them to the front line.

When the messenger brought the news that the army of the Kingdom of Minas had set out last night, Mantein, who was already anxious, could not wait to give the order to attack. The Kingdom's troops, including the Guards, dispatched 60,000 men this morning to begin the largest combat operation in the Kingdom of Virgil since the end of the last Faction War.

The phalanx, led by the officers, marched slowly and lined up a stone's throw outside Ladre's Castle. Elite soldiers capable of manipulating war equipment had long since been drawn out, pushing catapults and bed crossbows, advancing little by little along the gaps left between the phalanxes.

On the magically improvised lookout in the rear, Dorman, the general of the kingdom who was in charge of observation, raised his hand to the signalman on the side, and several flags were waved by the signalman, conveying the orders issued by the highest-ranking general of the Virgil Kingdom to each officer.

"Test shot one!"

The stranded strings of a catapult were tightened by gears, and the stone projectiles placed in the circular hopper were simply polished to remove as many edges and corners as possible, so that the stone projectiles could continue to roll after hitting the walls, dealing secondary damage.

"Shoot!"

With the officer's order, the soldier operating the winch struck the mallet in his hand heavily on the barrier embedded in the gear, and the barrier jumped violently, and the gear that lost resistance quickly reversed rotation, and the tensioned string was violently released. The twisted string drives the lever of the catapult and ejects the stone projectile from the hopper.

The stone bullet flew in the air for a distance of nearly 100 meters, crossed the wall of Ladre Castle, and smashed a wooden house in the castle, and the unabated stone bullet rolled over more than 30 meters, turning several skeletons and zombies that had no time to dodge into powder along the way.

"Winch minus four squares, test shot two!"

The catapult used by the Kingdom of Virgil was a lever type, which was pulled by a noose to throw stone projectiles out of the hopper. This catapult rarely throws more than a hundred meters, so it is of little use in large faction wars, as there are many large war spells that have cast distances beyond this number. However, when used to defend towns, this catapult still has a certain effect. Normally, it is either the rebels, the beasts, or the undead that attack the town, and it is almost impossible for these enemies to have the ability to cast large-scale war magic.

The more powerful and complex catapults were much easier to craft and took longer to manufacture than the old models, and the kingdom of Virgil did not usually need those more powerful war equipment, so there was no stock at all. In order to ensure the victory of this battle, Mantein had to make up for the quality with quantity.

After three test firings, the catapult finally completed the calibration steps before the attack. The number of turns of the rotating winch reached each operator, and with Dorman's command, for a moment, stone projectiles rained down on Radre Castle.

If it is the era of cold weapons in the real world, such a powerful siege force is enough to destroy a city, and there is no need for soldiers to move a finger at all, in Chinese history, the largest number of catapults used is Genghis Khan's attack on Yache City in the Western Regions, it is said that a total of more than 50 catapults were used, and more than 6,000 stone projectiles were dropped in two days and two nights, turning Yache City, which has a population of more than 200,000, into a dilapidated ruin, and almost half of the residents in the city were killed under the flying stones.

And now, it was nearly two hundred catapults attacking a castle that was less than one district of the Demon Capital, which was really like a storm.

However, don't forget that Ntagri is a world of magical powers, and there are too many forces to resist such devastating attacks.

A pale blue magical barrier rises from the city walls, forming a hemispherical shield that protects the entire castle. The stone projectile carrying huge kinetic energy smashed on the magic barrier, like a giant with deep feet of mud, and after the barrier where it was hit was dented inward for less than half a meter, it ran out of energy and rolled down the barrier to the outside of the city wall.

Syllable! Mantein slapped the watchtower railing beside him hard. Of course, he could recognize that the magic barrier was a defensive method used by Ladley Castle, through the magic array arranged in the castle, the magic power in the magic crystal was injected into various magic devices on the city wall, forming this kind of magic barrier that could protect against physical blows.

As long as there is a magician who knows the knowledge of the magic array in the center to control, supplemented by some low-level magicians to channel the magic power, unless the magic crystals stored in the castle are exhausted, or the powerful attack methods that exceed the limit of the magic barrier, the catapults he prepared will not be able to damage the undead in the castle at all.

"Your Majesty, there is no point in continuing to fire stone projectiles, it is better to keep these catapults in your hands, maybe it will not be long before they come in handy." Dorman said that although the Kingdom of Virgil has not conducted large-scale military operations for a long time, he had served in the army of the Almerian Empire for a period of time, and followed the army of the Empire to carry out several combat operations to expand the territory to the neutral area, and after returning to the Kingdom of Virgil, relying on this valuable experience, Mantein promoted one of them to become a lieutenant general of the kingdom, responsible for commanding nearly 200,000 kingdom troops, in fact, making him a marshal of the kingdom.

"Do you have a way to break that magical barrier?"

"Nope. But I believe that the lich can't keep the undead in the castle all the time. When it comes to defensive warfare, we humans are the best at it, and the undead are good at field warfare, and only without the protection of the city walls will our soldiers fall into the sea of undead. Dorman pointed to the castle of Radre, "And now, this stupid lich wants to rely on the walls of this castle to fight against the kingdom's army, but the number of soldiers on the walls who can participate in the battle is fixed, so he is completely unable to give full play to the numerical advantage of the undead, and once our soldiers rush to the walls, they can in turn use the strength of their individual strength to quickly open the gap into the castle." Therefore, the key to the victory or defeat of this war is whether we can send as many elite soldiers as possible to the city walls. ”

"You mean, once that traitor to Maltan realizes this, he is bound to come out of the castle and fight us in the field? When the time comes, our catapults will be able to turn the damned undead into powder? ”

"There is no wisdom better than Your Majesty!"

"Well, just let that damn bastard get smug for a while! Pass the order down and get the 2nd Legion ready to attack, and the Guards Legion will follow! Dorman, how much time do you expect it will take to storm the walls? Can you do it before the sun goes down today? Mante wished that his soldiers would be able to storm Radre's castle now, pull the traitor out of Maltan, and then tear the lich to pieces with his own hands. This is not only because of the great damage that Maltan has done to the Kingdom of Virgil so far, but also because it is also to restore the reputation of the Virgil family. It was precisely because of Maltan that the Kingdom of Virgil lost face in such an important glorious celebration and became a laughing stock in the eyes of other countries, and the Virgil family collapsed as a result, from a famous ancient family to a loser with an empty shell.

You must know that in terms of family origin, there is no difference between the Virgil family and the Arnas family of the Arnas Empire, and everyone is a great nobleman during the Griffon Dynasty.

Hearing the request of His Majesty the King, Dorman looked embarrassed: "Your Majesty, I have strong confidence in the victory of the kingdom, but war is not a child's play, and Martan has been running Radre Castle for a long time, and it may be very difficult to capture the city wall in one day. But rest assured, Your Majesty, even if we are unable to break the defenses of Radre Castle for the time being, when the reinforcements from the Kingdom of Minas arrive, we will be overwhelmingly superior in both quantity and quality, and it will not take more than a week at most for Maltan's head to be presented to you. ”

Although Mantein was very dissatisfied with Dorman's answer, he knew that this war was a matter of life and death for the Kingdom of Virgil after all, and the kingdom's army had not experienced a war of more than 100,000 for many years.

"Alright! I will not interfere with your specific command, but I will be here to watch, watching the valiant soldiers of the kingdom use their swords and shields to claim victory! "Mantein is not going to fight with Dorman for command, he is a king, not a general, and military affairs are not his specialty, but he is not going to leave just like that, he is going to watch his soldiers rush up the walls and kill the evil undead. And, deep down, he still hopes to see victory in this war today, instead of waiting for that rude butcher of Laclaus. Although this hope is very slim, people still have to dream a little after all, don't they? What if the dream comes true?

"Yes! Your Majesty can be on the front line in person, and the morale of the army will inevitably be high! "Dorman no longer persuaded him that as long as His Majesty did not dictate anything to his command, what did it matter to let him stay here. It just so happened that this majesty also showed what the level of the army of the Virgil Kingdom was now, and he would have an excuse to get more military funds from the treasury in the future.

"Herald! The Second Legion attacked, the Praetorian Guards raised their shields, protected the crossbowmen and archers from inside the magical barrier, and fired suppressive shots at the enemies on the walls! Tell Sethra that unless the damage rate exceeds 30%, he is not allowed to retreat, and the offender will be punished as a deserter! The law enforcement team is pressing! Even an officer must not violate this order! ”