Sure enough, the Royal Knights of Orlando arrived in the small town of Pamela the next afternoon. Seeing Orlando and the others who were still in good spirits, Ryan's heart couldn't help but send out a sense of admiration, the Royal Knights deserved to be the most powerful army of mankind, even if they ran thousands of kilometers day and night, they could still launch the next attack immediately, and it was enough to defeat the opponent. In this regard, none of the three elite troops built by Ryan could do it, and this is the biggest gap between the imperial capital and Cassano.

Soon, the entire Royal Order was settled, and now the town of Pamela and its nearby military camp had a population of 120,000 and more than 20,000 horses, which was almost all the strength that the emperor could use to wage a local battle.

"Ryan, this is the topographic map of the western steppe. Orlando pointed to a huge map that covered a full table and said to Ryan, "Pamela, where we are, is here, and from here, the whole 3,000 kilometers to the west is an endless prairie. ”

Ryan's gaze moved slowly along Orlando's hand, and Orlando's continued words rang in his ear: "In this environment, it is impossible for us to hide our whereabouts, and the army of tens of thousands of people drinks water every day, not to mention the grain and grass that people and horses eat. ”

"It's impossible for us to give up our baggage, because once the Clay Clan implements the tactics of clearing the wilderness, we will soon collapse. Orlando took out a small flag, lightly placed it on the river or lake shown on the map, and said with a smile, "So, we just need to push step by step." Follow these rivers or lakes all the way west, while scouts are sent out on all sides, to destroy as many tribes and camps as possible, and force them to gather together to fight us. ”

"The amount of water stored in these rivers and lakes is enormous, and it is impossible for the Clay to disturb us by poisoning. At the same time, these water sources are also the survival of their herdsmen, and their large and small tribes are also gathered as much as possible along the way, as for how to find them, it is up to your archer army. ”

Ryan nodded, Orlando's strategic arrangement is very safe, although the army is dispatched, and the rear strategy is a little empty, but many things can not be done immediately in a hurry, but we must be careful not to fall into the trap of the opponent because of impatience, so Ryan will temporarily let Alendor act as his lord, and then set everything out.

"Jonas, when Ryan's army of archers finds the enemy's position, if there are not many of them, they will solve it on their own, but if the strength is too strong, it will be up to you to attack. Orlando saw that Ryan had no objection, so he said to Jonas, "The herdsmen of the Clay tribe live on water and grass, and it is impossible to organize enough warriors to fight our tens of thousands of troops in a hurry, so we will be very smooth at first. ”

Jonas nodded and said, "That's for sure, General Orlando, but with you and Ryan here, no matter how strong the opponent is, we can defeat them!"

"No, the Royal Knights will not go to war!" Orlando said with a smile, "During the whole march, the scouts should let go as much as possible, and be sure to hide the traces of the Royal Knights as much as possible, which is why we have mobilized so many horses." Because in addition to increasing our mobility, they can also confuse our enemies so that they do not notice that the Royal Knights are still hiding within. ”

"Ah, what is this?" asked Jonas, confused.

Before Orlando could explain, Ryan spoke first, "If you're the leader of the Clay clan, Jonas. When you know that an army that you can't win head-on against will come to your grassland, will you still send it to your door stupidly?"

"Ah, I see!" Jonas said excitedly, slapping us hard, "so the enemy has always thought that we are nothing more than infantry on horseback, plus some good scouts. When the main forces of the two sides are in a decisive battle, the Royal Knights can suddenly charge, and at that time, the Clay clan has no way to retreat!"

"That's it. Orlando smiled and said, "Attacking them unprepared, forcing them to have to engage in a war of attrition with us, only in this way can we achieve the purpose of this expedition." Otherwise, the whole clan of the Clay tribe will continue to migrate westward, and we will continue to chase them to the other side of the Hengduan Mountains?"

It wasn't until the military discussion was over that Ryan realized that Orlando had come with his old friend. This time, in order to conceal the traces of the Royal Knights as much as possible, Orlando even mobilized 4 Magisters from the Imperial Capital Magic Guild, among which Androcos and Melinda were also among them.

After the joke, Ryan and Androkos talked about using magic to conceal their whereabouts, and Androkos told Ryan that since the entire coalition army had 50,000 soldiers and 20,000 logisticians this time, it was impossible for them to use magic to cover the battlefield, and could only detect the enemy's movements through magic such as "Magical Vision", so that the commander could send scouts to the enemy as soon as possible.

For this, Ryan can't do anything, after all, if Ryan can completely cover the traces of 7 or 80,000 people, or even directly teleport these 7 or 80,000 people to the hinterland of the Clay clan with the "Time and Space Gate" magic, then Ryan is not a magician, but an existence comparable to the main god, which is obviously impossible. Therefore, the only thing Ryan can do is to take turns with Androkos and them to maintain the operation of the "Magic Vision" magic array with mana, and make an early warning of the enemy situation for Orlando.

The entire expeditionary force set off at dawn on the third day, and Ryan called the captains of his 5,000 popular archers to his side, gave them detailed instructions, and then asked them to lead their men to the surrounding realm of the main force on the basis of the squad. Since the entire Celestial Archer Legion had practiced scouting while at Cassano, it was a good thing to do.

Jonas led 20,000 phalanx infantry and 20,000 archers as the main force to slowly march west under the vigilance of the scouts, as for the 20,000 logistics troops, they were also selected from the imperial capital army, they loaded all the baggage on the cart, and then several people pushed the cart forward, and maintained a double formation during the march.

This double formation is one of the best ways to resist enemy cavalry harassment on the plain, once the enemy light cavalry attack, as long as the whole formation of the front and rear carts sideways, you can immediately form a solid defensive position on the flat ground, one person high cart is enough to resist the enemy's attack, and the warriors in the position can hold on to help or launch a counterattack.

The first day of the expeditionary force had little to gain, after all, the Clay and the imperial capital had been in a state of war, and it was impossible for the inhabitants of both sides to run to the other side to settle down at any time when they could fight their own journeys, and the popular archers under Ryan had only encountered hundreds of Clay scouts in a day, and these scouts thought that they could rely on their horses and bows and arrows to teach the invaders a lesson, but Ryan's popular archers gave them a lifelong memory.

As Ryan's carefully built Celestial Archer Legion, the entire 5,000 legions are all trained by the elven wind archers, the Moon Temple guard Seres and others, and the Mithril longbow they are equipped with has a longer range and more accurate hits.

However, from the second day of the expeditionary force's departure, the popular archers in charge of the vigilance encountered a more difficult enemy, these Clay warriors were all young men who were temporarily gathered from nearby camps, they numbered about 1,200 people, although the overall combat effectiveness was not as good as the real elite of the Clay tribe, they could be regarded as a force to be reckoned with since they were young on horseback.

The improvised group of Clay warriors was gathered together to ambush a squad of rampant archers, and the commander of the Clay warriors, Basel, was about 50 years old and was the military leader of the Clay in the area. After hearing the news of the imperial capital's army entering the grassland, the Basel commander immediately sent people to gather the young and middle-aged people of various tribes within a radius of hundreds of kilometers, and at the same time he also planned an ambush plan.

Basel planned very well, once the ambush was successful, they could judge the situation of the other party by the corpse of the enemy, maybe they could also get a live mouth to carefully inquire about the enemy's strength and main force, and then quickly send someone to inform Chief Abdul, not too small is also a credit.

Since the Windswept Marksman's Legion had a warning range of more than 50 kilometers, which was about the limit of a day's round trip on horseback at normal speed, and Androkos's "Magic Eye" could not reach such a large range, the Windswept Marksmen who were lured into the siege did not realize that they were about to step into an elaborate trap.

Amos, the leader of the Windrun Marksman Legion, was originally a shooter among the hunter tribes in the Silent Forest, but after his family migrated to Cassano with Letoz, he was just in time for Cassano to form the Windrun Marksman Legion, so as a good hunter, Amos joined the legion.

After a lot of brutal training, Amos was not only not eliminated, but because his original hunter base performed quite well in training, and even after the entire legion was being formed, he was promoted to squad leader with his excellent results, and obtained the right to command 50 people.

On this day, he led a team to gallop on the grassland, and suddenly found that several elderly herdsmen immediately abandoned the dozens of Talen sheep that were grazing and fled desperately after seeing them, and the sensitive Amos immediately felt that since the elderly Clay people and sheep could be seen here, there were most of the Clay pastures nearby, so he led the team to chase them.