"Well, I'll say it again, no one wants you to kill yourself, no one!

The front-line commander of the Yanlong Fortress knocked on the table and looked helplessly at the noisy junior officers in front of him.

He could fully understand their feelings, after all, anyone who knew that he was going to fight a defensive battle with a force inferior to his opponent in terms of quantity and quality would be much more stressed.

Fortunately......

The commander glanced happily at the piece of paper in front of him—if His Majesty hadn't secretly sent a countermeasure, I'm afraid he would have to join the ranks of his men, right?

"First of all, according to the intelligence of the scout troops, the Stasi army opposite us is moving frequently, and it looks like it could attack at any moment. ”

The commander did not rush to drop that bombshell, but started from the beginning.

He opened the map, pointed to the border direction to Stasi's zone of control, and said, "Probably this is the area—oh, of course I know your concerns, but trust me, and your Majesty, we've been better prepared than those on the other side over the years." ”

Looking at the obvious disbelief in the eyes of his subordinates, the commander couldn't help but laugh: "Don't worry, our countermeasures have been kept secret before, but we are worried that Stasi will find out." Don't talk about you, I just found out a few days ago. ”

"What countermeasures will allow us to defeat an enemy who is superior to us in quantity and quality?"

An old officer, who was about fifty years old, snorted, and it was because of his age that he believed in previous experience even more.

At least, the most capable general of Falkenridge at the beginning, that is, the Duke of Tuttle, could not handle the situation in front of him!

"So I said, this countermeasure needs to be kept secret...... Although it is true that it is a conspiracy, His Majesty the King believes that the later the enemy sees it, the more obvious it will be for us to have an advantage. ”

As he spoke, he clapped his hands and sent a new piece of information: "Before reading this information, I hope you will be mentally prepared." ”

"Psychologically—this—It's not a joke, is it?!"

The other young officer almost called out, for no other reason than that it was written that Stasi's vanguard included about fifty Earth Dragonriders.

What is a Dragonrider?

Aces of land battles, heavy monsters, and infantry nightmares!

Although Stasi's Knights of the Earthly Dragons were formed more than a decade ago, their power should not be underestimated. In Falkenridge's simulated battle analysis, it is often possible to break through a fairly strong defense line led by two hundred infantry led by ten Earth Dragon Knights who cooperate tacitly!

What's worse is that this time Stasi sent not just ten, but fifty.

It can be said that in the absence of spellcaster troops, the Knights of the Earth Dragons are simply unstoppable.

But how can the caster army be so easy to assemble?

Although it is much less difficult to train a spellcaster than a warlock, how can anything in this world that has anything to do with magic be easy?

Not to mention the large amount of materials required by the caster, the accumulation of necessary knowledge alone makes the cultivation cycle so long that it is difficult for people to accept. So all things considered, if the cost of forming a spellcaster army is used to form a regular army, it can definitely pull out an army with more than ten times the combat effectiveness!

Of course, if there are really enough material and financial resources to form a spellcaster army, the advantage will indeed be not small in the future. Today's four empires and the Kingdom of Minisk all have their own spell-casting troops - because each country has a limited number of people, it is impossible to expand its army endlessly, and even the Vola Empire, which claims to have the most soldiers, can only maintain a maximum of three million regular troops.

So after a peak in the number of regular armies, rulers must consider replacing quantity with quality.

However, these things are still a little far away for the front-line officers in the Yanlong Fortress.

The commander seemed to be the most relaxed person here at the moment, he nodded to his subordinates who had exclaimed earlier, and finally revealed the mystery with a smile: "This is the purpose of my approach: in this war, you don't have to stick to a momentary victory—or rather, the eleven lines of defense we have laid out in front of you are just for the enemy to penetrate!"

“？！”

Everyone was shocked, this was the first time they had heard of this practice.

"It is expected that our front will be broken through by the Dragonknights, the first line of defense...... This is here, and will be abandoned within 1 hour after the enemy attack...... Behind here was a small open area, and the archers covered the infantry, lying in ambush in the woods at the end beforehand, waiting for their dragon knights to appear at the other end of the clearing. ”

As he said to himself, the commander pointed to several more locations on the map.

With his explanation, some of the junior officers still looked worried, but some of them were smart, and they had gradually seen some ways to come.

"But how long will it take to retreat?" asked an orc officer not far away, raising his hand.

"In about half an hour, we must retreat, giving up a second line of defense for Stasi's army. The Commander nodded to the rear of Stacy on the map, "Unlike us, they have a greater advantage in long-range firepower. And by that time, our strategy may have already been seen, so the location of the woods is not safe, and we must retreat if we take advantage of it. ”

"Finally, this place ...... Yes, this is the place where we will be temporarily camped, and the various units will return here as soon as they complete their tasks and be on standby, and the rest will be taken care of by the other troops. In short, in order to prevent leaks, the first phase of the combat mission is like this, and after that I hope you can all come back and receive the next mission. ”

The commander spoke, motioning for his men to disband.

"Remember, we are the front-line troops, and we are also the most elite troops in Falkenridge, believe in yourself, we can make it big!"

"Yes!" everyone replied on their feet.

At the same time, in the royal castle of Zakiv.

"Iroh, your orders have been given smoothly, can you tell me what your plans are?"

Weiss frowned, and looked at the gray-clad young man enjoying what should have been his own sumptuous lunch with the king's special silver utensils, and couldn't help but ask.

This can't be blamed on his hurry, but because Iroh is so laid-back that war could break out at any time, but he is still in the mood to dine here like a nobleman's party.

Anyway, in Vess's eyes, although he could see that there must be something special about Iroh's arrangement, he couldn't be sure what was outstanding.

And he had been king for twelve years, and he had long regarded this country as his property, and even if he knew that this country should actually belong to Iroh, he could not help but feel anxious about the impending war!

"What's the hurry?"

Iroh glanced up at Vis slowly, and continued to use his knife and fork to cut through the tempting-looking steak topped with a delicious sauce - although he preferred to go straight to the point, but now he was clearly more inclined to a spiritual pleasure than a full stomach.

"My dear Ves, why don't you sit down and try the craft of the court chef first?"

“...... No, thank you. I haven't lived long enough. ”

Vis gritted his teeth as he stared at the delicate omelette on the steak, forcing himself to think about the poison in Ello's bodily fluids.

Seeing that Vis was about to go crazy, Iroh, who felt that he had played a lot, finally put away his casual attitude and opened his mouth to explain his intentions.

During this time, Falkenridge took the lead in breaking the traditional conventional positional warfare thinking under the guidance of Ace, and dug a total of eighteen pocket formations for Stasi on the wide border frontal battlefield, even the people who dug the positions may not know the real use of these positions - time is pressing, and considering that Stasi's intelligence penetration of Falkenridge is not low, even if many spies have been eliminated with the efforts of the comprehensive intelligence department over the years, many military problems Aillo can only let his subordinates know but not know why.

To put it simply, these pockets are defensive positions that are carefully arranged according to the terrain. As soon as Stasi's army begins to attack, these defensive positions will become a bloody maw to strangle Stasi's living forces, and eat the elite troops on Stasi's front line in one go.

As mentioned earlier, these pocket-like lines of defense are not permanent fortifications set up for entrenchment, but rather a bloody quagmire designed for pure slaughter. From the day they were born, these lines had only one purpose, and that was to kill the living forces of Stasi, and they were efficient and fast kills.

Iroh expects that about fourteen of the eighteen pocket-shaped defensive positions on the frontal battlefield will be functioning properly, but as long as more than twelve positions succeed in strangling Stasi's attacking forces, then Grand Duke Jon will lose at least fifty thousand elite soldiers.

This is the beginning of the war, and if you can really exterminate 50,000 people, it will be tantamount to giving Archduke Jon a slap in the face!

All in all, the biggest difference between Elo and other commanders is that he doesn't care about momentary wins or losses, nor does he care about territory being invaded, but likes to trade space for time and try to kill the opponent's living forces.

In other words, he believed that effective defensive warfare should focus on killing and injuring the enemy's forces, rather than defending one city or one place.

Once the two sides officially go to war, Falkenridge's elite troops will follow this strategy and use a near-perfect defensive counterattack to defeat the vast majority of Stasi's front-line combat forces.

"Iroh, you're ......"

After listening to Ello's explanation, Vis looked at the humanoid dragon in surprise, and didn't know what to say for a while.

Is this really a teenage dragon?

Such a mature mind, such a deep strategy...... It's comparable to an adult dragon!

"That's it. ”

Iroh smiled and calmly put the fried egg that Vis had been looking at for a long time into his mouth.

Just a day after this conversation, as Iroh had expected, in the early hours of the morning, Grand Duke Jon personally gave the order to attack Falkenridge on all fronts.