Horse-drawn magic artillery wagons creaked along the potholed dirt and stone roads, and heavily armed Cecil soldiers formed a convoy in front of and behind the gun carriages, keeping an eye out for all movement in the moor, and the young Knight Philip rode at the front of the procession, and at the end of his line of sight was the northernmost mountains of the South.

The Rock Fortress was between the mountains, locked the mountains like a prison gate, and locked the Cecil family in the land for a hundred years.

Today, he's going to open that door.

Scouts on fast horses and in groups of three are constantly sent out of the ranks, scouting the surrounding situation in all directions, forward, backward, left, right, and reporting back to the team: now that the team has reached the buffer zone between the Rock Fortress and the southern border, it is time to be vigilant.

Knight Philip knew very well that this would be a very different battle from the shelling of Gravel Ridge - in front of Gravel Ridge, he was fighting a defensive battle, the attacker was a coalition of nobles, he only had to set up artillery positions in place and wait for the enemy to throw himself into the net, and this time he became the attacker, then everything would be completely different.

If the traditional aristocratic code and war etiquette are followed, both the attacker and the defender must act according to the rules, even if one of the parties finds out the opponent's course of action, he must wait patiently on the agreed battlefield, waiting for the opponent to enter the battlefield, set up a position, and send a signal to start a war before launching an attack. But the shelling on the gravel ridge had shattered it all.

After a cannon shot on the Gravel Ridge, the corpses of the nobles who had not had time to form their formation were strewn across the ground by the sudden attack of the Cecil, and after that, the traditional war etiquette was gone, and the nobles who had already suffered a loss could not continue to follow those old rules pedanticly, and Philip Knight had to be ready to deal with enemy surprise attacks at all times - the Crystal Railgun, although powerful, was its most vulnerable stage before the bombardment of the position was launched.

As Knight Philip pondered, a small commotion suddenly came from not far away, and he looked up and saw several soldiers escorting two people who had been tied up by the flowers.

Philip stopped his horse and saw that the two men who had been tied up were dressed in old-fashioned iron chain mail, with no identification in sight, one of them had been scorched in the arm from the heat ray gun, and the other had no obvious trauma.

The captain of the squad escorting the two people saluted and reported in a loud voice: "Sir! We caught the spies at Rock Fortress - they were sneaking around in the nearby woods and were spotted by troops patrolling the perimeter. ”

The two tied captives looked frightened and nervous, as if the strangely equipped and notorious Cecil soldiers around them would eat people, Philip looked down at the two men condescendingly, and asked for a long time, "Are you from the Rock Fortress?" ”

In this case, instead of admitting it, they were looking for death, and the two captives hesitated for a moment and nodded one after another.

"Very well, don't worry, I won't execute you," Knight Philip said with a slight nod, "I'll let you go back - our lord has a letter for the commander of the Rock Fortress." ”

……

The Cecil people really came.

Two patrol soldiers who had gone to the south of the fortress brought back news of Cecil's attack, as well as a "letter" they had given to the Rock Fortress.

The defenders of the Rock Fortress immediately summoned all the army commanders, as well as the southern nobles who had taken refuge in the fortress.

In the main hall of the castle district, a knight captain was relaying the news from ahead to his commander:

"General, there are between three and five thousand people heading north, and they have a large convoy of all sorts of strange things, perhaps the spell casting device of the 'Heavenly Fire Explosion'. They had now entered the hills south of the fortress, and in about three days they would be on the plains......"

There was a slight commotion among the southern nobles, but it was generally calm, while the other knightly officers discussed in a low voice, and a mid-ranking knight commander stood up from his seat and looked at Sir Maryland: "General, what is written in the 'war letters' of those Cecils?" ”

Sir Maryland nodded, and casually took out the "Letter from Duke Gawain Cecil" that had just been delivered to him, and everyone's eyes were immediately attracted by the letter, especially the southern nobles in the hall, who even slowed down their breath for a moment.

Sir Maryland already knew the contents of the letter, and he first glanced at the southern nobles, and then said unhurriedly: "I will read it to you. ”

The content of the letter was not long—it was not as elaborate and ornate as most aristocratic letters, but rather as simple and straightforward as a note—

“…… More than forty nobles in the south have collectively declared war on the Cecil family, and after their defeat, the remaining culprits have fled to the Rock Fortress, in view of the unwarranted encroachment of the above-mentioned nobles on Cecil's land and people, they have been justly declared war criminals, and now Cecil's army has gone to you to receive prisoners of war, hoping that you will distinguish between right and wrong, hand over the war criminals, and accept our personnel to enter the city to search. ”

It took Sir Maryland less than a minute to finish reading the letter, and then the whole hall fell silent.

It wasn't until two minutes later that a knightly officer broke the silence with an exclaim: "What is this?!" How can there be such a negotiation document?! ”

"Yes, of course this is not a negotiation," said Sir Maryland, looking at the knightly officer, with a very angry grin, "this is a commanding order, even more arrogant than the king's order to his own attendants!" It seems that our resurrected founding hero is not ready to negotiate with us at all. ”

The southern nobles became uneasy after listening to the contents of the letter, as if they were really afraid that the Sir Maryland in front of them would hand them over in exchange for the peace of the fortress, and now seeing the Sir Maryland's reaction, they were a little relieved, and Viscount Marie Oran hurried to say: "Sir, you are right, the Cecil people will not negotiate with us according to tradition, their lord has always ignored all virtues and rules, negotiating with them can only be a waste of time, and will fall into a trap!" ”

Sir Maryland nodded slightly, seeing this scene, the Viscount of Conscoe next to him also stood up and said: "Sir, the Cecil people will arrive in three days, we can take advantage of this time to make more preparations......"

"Prepare a little more?" Sir Maryland looked at this tall and thin man who was still depressed and drunk not long ago, he knew that although the family inheritance of Viscount Conscoe was not very long, he himself was a resourceful and nimble man, so he did not mind listening to the other party's opinion, "What do you mean?" ”

Viscount Consco gritted his teeth and said, "We can dig more traps on the plains in advance, send druids to drop poison on the hilly side, and in addition, we can throw the dead livestock carcasses into the Whitewater River, and even directly let the druids spread the plague in the river - we have filled all the wells on the plains in advance, and the Cecilians can only rely on the Whitewater River if they want to get water, no matter how powerful their weapons are, people will always get sick......"

"Say no more," said Consco, before Sir Maryland interrupted him in a loud voice, "Viscount, you ...... How did the insidious idea come about? If we do this, there will be no aristocratic spirit at all! ”

"Sir, these stratagems may be insidious, but they work," argued Viscount Consco, "the Cecils are not virtuous or well-behaved, and their lord is a man who has taken the lead in destroying the aristocratic system, so we need no need to talk to them about the noble spirit......"

Sir Maryland looked at Viscount Conscoe with surprise, as if he had known each other for the first day, he didn't expect these insidious stratagems to come from the mouth of a nobleman, but he also agreed in his heart that Viscount Consco's stratagems were indeed effective, but after some thought, he couldn't help but say: "Do you know that the lower reaches of the Whitewater River are not only the army of the Cecils - this river continues to go down, and countless people are relying on it to survive." ”

"What does the life and death of those civilians have to do with us? While we slept in the wasteland, the commoners would have forgotten their lord and gone to meet their new master! Viscount Conscoe said with some excitement, as if the pressure accumulated over so many days had finally exploded on him, "Sir, I know what you are worried about—the River Whitewater flows south, and there is still a part of your territory on the other side of the hills, but don't forget, there is my manor and castle further down!" What we have to do now is a glorious sacrifice - the common people are like wheat, this batch is cut down, and it will be long in the next year, but once we die, who will be able to maintain order in that land in the south? ”

Viscount Conscoe waved his arms, and in the end there was a bit of impassionedness, and what stunned Sir Maryland the most was that the southern nobles on the scene actually responded one after another, they nodded one after another, and agreed with these proposals of Viscount Consco, just because of the latter's words "full of glorious sacrifice", this ploy that was completely contrary to the spirit of nobility turned out to be a noble plan.

But at this moment, Lady Rotpenny suddenly spoke in a cold voice: "Gentlemen, I'm afraid you think too simply. ”

At this moment, Penny Gülen has a lot of say in the southern aristocracy, and as soon as she speaks, the nobles who have already been agitated are quiet, and even Sir Maryland has an expression of watching the play, waiting for Penny's next words.

"Have you forgotten what the Cecil people relied on to make their fortune?"

Rope Glenn coldly threw out a sentence, and most of the people on the scene quickly showed a thoughtful look.

"Alchemy Elixir - their alchemy potion is so much that it can almost be drunk as water, is it a very valuable thing to dispel illness?" "Even if you use druid spells to turn all the water of the River into poison, the Cecils won't care, and you'll waste a lot of your strength in vain!" ”

The southern nobles looked at each other, Viscount Conscoe was speechless, and Sir Maryland said at the right time: "Indeed, Viscount Consco, that is not a good idea. ”

Then he added: "But we do need to respond, while the Cecil people have not yet gained a foothold......