Not long ago, the garrison of Thor's Fortress issued a mission called "Intelligence Gathering" in the Mercenary Guild, which became a topic of conversation among mercenaries." The "intelligence gathering" mission is an open-ended mission, it does not specify what kind of intelligence is needed, nor does it give details of what kind of intelligence to pay and how much to pay, but it is a rough way to collect all the information north of Thor's Fortress, as long as it is the first to provide and finally verify, you can pay gold according to the importance of the intelligence.

At the beginning, those mercenaries didn't pay attention to it at all, because it was difficult to define the specific remuneration for this kind of open-ended task, and if the employer was stingy, even if the mercenary who completed the task fought for his life and really obtained any important information, he could only use a copper coin to send it away, and it would not violate any rules.

Many times, when a thing takes a turn, it is often just because of an accident. The open-ended mission of "intelligence gathering" went from being unattended to being fully mobilized, and it also originated from an unlucky mercenary. This unlucky mercenary drank and gambled with other people in the bar, his luck was indeed bad, he soon lost all the money on him, and owed a foreign debt, and in desperation, this guy had to go to the mercenary guild, hoping to complete one or two tasks and get some pay to pay off the debt.

It was the day after the "intelligence gathering" mission was released. This hapless mercenary has only one person, and it is basically impossible to complete other tasks that require a lot of manpower issued by the Thor Fortress garrison, such as transporting supplies and so on. So, with the idea of trying his luck, he took on this open-ended task with almost no restrictions. After gulping down a breakfast of the cheapest potato stew he had made on credit, the mercenary mustered up his courage and entered the savannah of North Taron through the hanging basket on the walls of Thor's fortress.

If someone wants to enter the North Talon savannah, most of them will set up a hanging basket on the city wall with a pulley, twist the rope with a winch stick, and put the person sitting in the hanging basket under the city wall.

Although this mercenary was unlucky, his professional ethics were still quite good, and he spent most of the day carefully recording the terrain within about three kilometers north of Thor's Fortress, and then returned to Thor's Fortress in the evening, and handed these things to the Mercenary Guild, which then transferred them to the garrison of Thor's Fortress.

A day later, the mercenary was rewarded: five hundred glittering gold coins. This fellow, who did not know whether he was unlucky or lucky, took this large sum of money to pay off his gambling debts, and ostentatiously invited his companions to drink, and after being drunk, told how he had made a fortune.

This matter spread ten, ten, hundreds, and spread in Camp 2 of Thor Fortress that night, of course, this is also indispensable for some people. When the sun rose the next day, more than a hundred mercenaries poured into the mercenary guild, took on this open-ended task together, and then used the hanging baskets on the city wall in batches to enter the Northern Tallon savannah.

In fact, the first mercenary to receive the reward, the topographic map he drew was not worth a copper coin at all, even if General Kissernst closed his eyes, he could easily draw a topographic map about thirty kilometers north of Thor's Fortress, which was the result of the non-stop efforts of the Thor's garrison scouts in the past ten years, but unfortunately humans didn't care too much about the dynamics of the orcs before, and almost didn't put their energy on this aspect, and now the orcs have strengthened the blockade, so General Kissunst has never been able to get detailed information about forty kilometers north of Thor's fortress, and that's itThe real focus of the "intelligence gathering" mission is that the reward that the mercenary gets is nothing more than the bait that General Gainster uses to stimulate the other mercenaries.

In the face of the rich reward, the mercenaries who went north sent back all kinds of information, and General Kissernst didn't care whether the information was useful or not, he didn't look at it, and threw it all in the fireplace. But every mercenary who provided information was paid a certain amount. The quartermaster paid directly according to the thickness of the intelligence, and the thicker ones were paid more, about a hundred gold coins, and a dozen gold coins at the least.

Stimulated by money, the mercenaries walked farther and farther, and finally reached a distance thirty kilometers north of Thor's Fortress, where the first blockade line laid by the orcs. On a sunny afternoon, a dozen mercenaries of a mercenary group called "Force" inevitably encountered a squadron of wolf cavalry patrolling by orcs.

Bloody battles began.

In this kind of head-to-head confrontation, the mercenaries on foot could not be the match of the well-trained orc wolf cavalry, not to mention that these more than ten mercenaries faced an enemy ten times more numerous than their own. The battle quickly turned into a one-sided slaughter, with the mercenaries killing seven or eight of their enemies before being wiped out.

The war soon spread, and more mercenaries also followed in the footsteps of the force mercenary group, and the human mercenaries suffered great losses, and the information sent back in those days was also reduced by 8%.

But the mercenaries also have their own countermeasures, since they can't fight in the front, then give full play to the characteristics of the mercenaries' own small team, break into pieces, avoid the wolf cavalry patrolled by the orcs, and go deep into the area more than thirty kilometers north of the Thor Fortress.

So after a few days of silence, General Kissnster was once again filled with all kinds of information, and these contents corroborated each other with the information that General Kissunst had obtained before, and immediately filled in many gaps in the previous intelligence collection work.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and soon, the orcs noticed the practices of the human mercenaries, they adopted more severe measures, increased the density of patrols, and deliberately laid a lot of traps, ambushed the ambushes, and sniped the mercenaries who secretly infiltrated by humans.

Infiltration and counter-infiltration, between humans and orcs, between the beast blood fortress and the Thor fortress, a thrilling battle is staged every day, this performance, it may be that the human mercenaries won, they cleverly deceived the orc scouts, infiltrated the other party's territory, but the next one, it is likely that the more wolf cavalry of the orcs will surround these mercenary groups that have successfully infiltrated a certain range, and then slowly compress their activity space, and finally annihilate in one fell swoop.

The most disadvantaged place for the mercenaries is in the vast prairie, and it is difficult to hide their whereabouts. Humans and orcs are two completely different races, both in appearance and language, they have nothing in common, and the war of two hundred years ago has caused the two sides to be on absolute opposite sides, and it is impossible to have a chance to get close to each other. And now it's only spring, the grassland is full of life but the aquatic plants are growing, and there is no dense grass for the mercenaries to hide, once they are detected by the enemy, they will be followed by wolf cavalry ten times their size.

The mercenaries on foot in the vast grassland, there is no way to compete with the wolf cavalry with good mobility and impact power, once they fall into the encirclement of the orcs, it means that they have stepped into the arms of death. No matter how good a mercenary is, no matter how tacit he cooperates, he can only prolong his life for a few days and survive.

After the three mercenary groups with more than 500 people announced that they had given up their missions, the task of "gathering intelligence" once again left the mercenaries' field of vision and was shelved by the mercenary guild. General Genest smiled bitterly and looked at the loss record in front of him, in just seventeen days, the human mercenaries had lost nearly three hundred people, and their footprints had never been able to step into the Beast Blood Castle within a radius of ten kilometers, and there was no way to provide themselves with the dynamics of the main army of the orcs.

General Kissernst couldn't help but rejoice that he was able to defend the Thor Fortress, and if his army were in the undefended prairie, he would have been defeated long ago. Without the enemy's intelligence, and there is no way to contain the mobility of the opponent's wolf cavalry, his army is completely in a passive posture of being beaten.

It was not that Thor's fortress was without cavalry, but General Kissunst did not dare to use it easily.

Thor Fortress has a total of 200,000 elite troops, of which there are only 10,000 cavalry, and they are all heavy knights who charge head-on, and it is impossible to fight hard with the opponent's scout troops, if General Kisser really does that, the happiest is the commander of the orc army, even if five orc wolf cavalry are exchanged for a human heavy knight, the orcs will readily agree, but the human race will not be able to withstand such a big loss, because once the Thor Fortress loses this 10,000 heavy cavalry, the orcs no longer have to worry about the surprise attack and counterattack of the human race, whether it is attacking or retreating, they have no worries。

In addition to the 10,000 knights, Thor's fortress also has 40,000 archers and 150,000 infantry, if General Kissern's army fights the orcs in the vast steppe, it will inevitably fall into a situation where it cannot be attacked and retreated, and can only be beaten passively.

Since ancient times, in the steppe, cavalry can rely on mobility to defeat one enemy ten, while infantry must rely on several times or even ten times the military strength to eat away at the opponent's possible supply points and force the enemy to fight a decisive battle with their main force. But if the orcs would rather give up the land than avoid fighting, the final result of the human army is to eat the last food and retreat, and at that time, it is the best chance for the orcs to fight back.

Therefore, General Kissernst has always admired the courage of Fernando I, and under the premise that the mainland is in ruins, he even built the Thor Fortress with all his strength to avoid fighting with the orcs in the steppe. Use this strong fortress to block the orcs' southward movements, forcing the orcs to give up their advantage and fight the humans under the walls of the Thor's fortress.

Now, all General Kissern had to do was hope that reinforcements from the imperial capital would arrive sooner, and he had already sent five letters asking for help. In that most recent letter, General Kissernst elaborated on the strengths and weaknesses of the Thor Fortress garrison, hoping to be supported by the Royal Knights of the Imperial Capital.

It's a pity that there is no news of these letters after they arrived in the imperial capital, which makes General Kissunst anxious, but there is nothing he can do, after all, he doesn't even know where the opponent's main army is stationed now, and it has been three months since the emergency messenger was sent, and he has not seen any orc army arrive at Thor Fortress, if the imperial capital reinforcements arrive, General Kissunst still doesn't know how to explain everything in front of them to them.

Maybe the only thing we can do now is to wait patiently, right? Whether it's reinforcements from the imperial capital or the orc army, they will come.