In order to prevent the northern and southern armies of the Valstad Empire from merging,

The Voodoo cathars have set up multiple lines of defense in order to slow down the Northern Army's march and buy more time for their master's ulterior and evil schemes.

On the third day of the northern army's southward march, a difficult problem appeared in front of us,

A wide river that runs along the marching route, known locally as the Barton River, is of great strategic importance as both an important source of fresh water and one of the main waterways connecting the east and west of the Solan Kingdom.

After many investigations by scouts, it was learned that all the bridges and crossings along the Barton River had been blown up, and all the fishing boats had been burned and scuttled to the bottom of the river.

The Imperial sappers tried to build pontoon bridges, but repeatedly failed because of the width of the river and the speed of the current.

The Voodoo cathars continued to shoot and obstruct the other side of the river, killing and wounding many scouts and engineers.

Seeing that time was delaying little by little, and the army of tens of thousands of people could only wander around the shore, Prince Mayer Onassis, the commander of the Northern Army, was so anxious that he began to reprimand his generals loudly, and he was constantly blaming himself in his heart.

It was only in the afternoon of the next day that things took a turn for the better.

A reconnaissance team belonging to the Guards Hussar Battalion discovered a narrow shoal where the water was only chest-deep enough to cross the river on foot, and the width of the river was suitable for pontoon bridges.

Because the place was hidden by dense bushes and reeds, it had not been discovered before,

"Great, just cross the river from here and gather all the main forces!"

It's a pity that Prince Meyer was only happy for two hours, and he was poured a basin of cold water on his head,

The enemy commander had apparently anticipated everything, several infantry trenches had been dug opposite the shoal, and several artillery positions were on the high ground, blocking the narrow shoal with ferocious crossfire.

At the suggestion of the generals, several elite raiding squads wanted to cross the river overnight, but they did not want to be hit head-on, and the whole army was annihilated, and the corpses were washed downstream in the river.

Since the opportunistic method does not work, the old method can only be used to attack.

However, the enemy's defensive strength was still underestimated, and the first round of forced river crossing suffered a disastrous failure, leaving hundreds of corpses on the riverbank, after which the command of the Northern Army held an emergency meeting overnight to discuss countermeasures.

The young General William Einfurt put forward a pragmatic battle plan, which was approved by the approval of all commanders,

The plan is to mobilize all arms of the armed forces and give full play to the strengths of each branch of the armed forces to fight this difficult river-crossing operation.

Several artillery companies of General Wilhelm spread along the coast, providing fire support,

Four elite infantry divisions served as the main attacking force,

Their task was to cross the river on foot, and then to consolidate the beachhead and, if possible, to clear the trenches and fortifications of the enemy's front, providing close fire cover for the engineering units,

Due to the continuous turning of the river here, the speed of the water tends to be slow, and a simple pontoon bridge can be built until the pontoon bridge is completed.

Cavalry units could launch a lightning attack, horses could cross low fences, cross trenches, and reach enemy artillery positions on high ground, and a single crossing could destroy an entire line of defense along the Barton River.

At dawn the next day, the plan to cross the river and storm began on time.

Amid the rumbling of artillery, four infantry divisions, totaling about 23,000 men, approached the river bank and were immediately met with stubborn resistance from enemy infantry and artillery fire.

Large-caliber cannon shells smashed towering columns of water across the water, occasionally piercing the dense crowd with a few rounds, stirring up a mist of blood.

A straggler line of light infantry, chasseurs and snipers began to shoot at the cathar soldiers on the opposite bank,

They were armed with a new rifled rifle that was far superior to the opponent's smoothbore guns in terms of accuracy and range, and achieved the effect of suppressing firepower.

Line infantry and grenadiers rushed into chest-deep, icy water, holding ammunition bags and rifles high above their heads, and began to force their way across the river.

Due to soil erosion along the banks, the sediment at the bottom of the Barton River was so severe that the soldiers had to exert great force to pull their boots out of the mud with every step, and the advance was extremely slow, and the inability to shoot made the troops crossing the river a vulnerable target.

Several Voodoo priests appeared on the shore, commanding the otherworldly monsters they had just summoned with the witchcraft of the Temporal Rift to participate in the battle,

Dozens of large, crocodile-like monsters appeared in the river, opening their bloody jaws and frantically biting at the Imperial troops who were crossing the river, inflicting heavy casualties.

At the same time, the artillery unit of Solan's cathar army did not seem to care about injuring friendly troops by mistake, they had already adjusted the elevation angle of the firing range, and fired all kinds of shells frantically without scruples.

Under the enemy's crossfire and the blockade of terrifying monsters, the first troops crossing the river suffered a crushing defeat, one of the infantry battalions was almost completely wiped out, and only the seriously wounded standard-bearers survived.

The hardships so far were expected, and near noon, the main force under the command of Prince Meyer launched a second onslaught.

Several artillery companies on the hills along the Barton River opened fire to cover the enemy's artillery, and the battle entered a white-hot phase, with shells flying in all directions streaking through the air and constantly emitting terrifying screams.

This time, the Imperial Army changed its offensive routine, they accelerated the pace of the attack, and no longer maintained a scattered formation to avoid casualties, but gathered several dense columns, and the density of infantry fire was increased exponentially, and of course the casualties increased a lot.

Due to the dense positions, a single grenade of the enemy could kill and wound more than a dozen Imperial soldiers.

Not only human bloodshed, but also innocent plants and small animals suffered, trees broken by cannon shells fell, sawdust flew like snowflakes,

A flock of beavers and mallards living along the river were so frightened by the human war that they hid in the reeds and did not dare to make their heads.

Artillery commander and deputy commander-in-chief of the campaign, William Einfurt, quickly discerned the current situation,

He ordered his men to stop firing at enemy artillery or attacking enemy infantry fortifications, and instead began to shoot at closer targets, focusing all their attention on the monsters in the river.

The artillery company concentrated all the light and heavy artillery and fired all kinds of shells at the cruising monsters, which had an immediate effect.

The crocodile-like monsters, covered in thick fur, could not withstand the direct fire of large-caliber cannon shells, and died one after another under the precise blows, turning their bellies and becoming huge corpses floating in the river.

"The artillery is good, and the shot is really accurate! Those are dead! Come on! A front-line commander shouted.

Legend of the Heroes of Valstad