In the northern part of Syltanshire, the Odin's army has been assembled, and the area north of Syltan seems to have become a huge net, and this net seems to be gradually tightening.

Although Manninger's Odin Red Snow Army was surprised that the Byzantine Empire resistance force in the north had the courage to attack itself in winter, it did not hesitate at all, and brazenly organized a large army to assemble, which was bound to swallow the enemy army that penetrated deep into its own territory.

Even Manninger himself, in addition to being amazed, admired the courage of this Byzantine Empire commander - although this courage was really a bit reckless, and Manninger himself was not without joy in his heart, if this enemy army could be annihilated in this battle, then there would be no resistance in the north of the Byzantine Empire!

Although his previous tentative advance ended in failure, it did not prevent Manninger from making a correct judgment of the situation, and this rare and brilliant commander of the Odinites with quite a brain had already keenly noticed that the northern resistance entrenched behind him was not too strong, but only one or two thousand troops put together. If he can solve the problem in this battle, he Manninger will naturally not be able to ask for it!

"End this war in the winter, and use this battle to completely solve our worries in one fell swoop! Wait for the beginning of spring, and our army can concentrate on looking south! Our Odin has dispatched so many troops this time, it is not enough to be satisfied with just a few counties!"

Manninger was in high spirits, and under his urging, the army of Odin, which had just annexed the Corsican Military Region, was assembled under his strict orders.

Although the Odin people are fierce and good at fighting, after all, there have been several wars this year, especially the war to annex the Corsican Military Region lasted for more than two months, and the Corsican Military Region resisted really tenaciously at the beginning, although the Odin Red Snow Army finally won a big victory, but the whole army was also quite tired, and fought continuously for half a year, the Red Snow Army was in urgent need of a period of repair, and originally planned to take advantage of this winter to repair and recover among the generals, but under Manninger's eagerness to win, the Odin army of all walks still mustered up courage, and in strict accordance with the orders of the patriarch, the Odin army marched all the way to the south and gathered in the north of Siltan County, gradually formed a posture of encirclement of the lone army led by Green who went deep into the enemy's territory.

Manninger himself personally dispatched from the county guard of Siltan County and personally led the army to take command.

For a while, the north of Syltan County was covered with nets, and after this pocket was tightened, Green's lone army would be swallowed in one bite!

※※※

Snowing overnight, the snowflakes were the size of goose feathers, and after falling overnight, when the sky was getting brighter, the earth was already blank. The silver-white color seems to have covered the heavens and the earth, and between the heavens and the earth, there is no other color except this piece of white.

Char sat on the horse's back and sighed. Bai Qi pinched his hands vigorously.

After lying on horseback and driving for half the night, his whole body was almost frozen, one pair of ears was even more frozen, his nose was already red, and his eyebrows were covered with a layer of frost!

Two horsemen were close to him, guarding the commander at all times.

This is a trail northeast of Siltanshire.

This is not the main road, there have always been only some local residents of the village and town, after the spread of the war, the local village and town have almost run away, the village is barren, there is no people, and the roads in this vicinity are in disrepair.

There is a river here that was originally a tributary of the north. There were no bridges over the river, and in peacetime, only the nearby villages and towns organized people to build rudimentary wharves on both sides of the river, arranged for peasants to ferry here, and occasionally allowed local villagers to travel together. The geographical remoteness of this place, and there are no caravans passing through, this small ferry port, the capacity is enough to meet the needs of the Japanese people.

But after the war, most of the people in the nearby villages and towns fled, and the small half were driven away by the Odin to serve as slaves, and the villages and towns were empty, and the ferry naturally had no boatmen.

Char's group of people came at night, marched all the way, and were on their way here.

Char sat on his horse, heard the whistle of the cavalry in front of him, and immediately his spirits were lifted, he mustered up his strength, rode his horse and galloped forward, rushed to the front of the team, and looked at it, and a smile suddenly appeared on his frozen face.

"Ha! It seems that the sky is endless! It's a big snowfall, but it really helps Zi Laozi!"

I saw that the river in front of me had been frozen in this cold winter snow, and the originally turbulent river had already formed a thick layer of ice!

Char immediately smiled and said, "Send someone to check the ice on the surface of the river, it's not thick enough! Our horse team is heavy, so don't fall out of the car." ”

At this moment, between heaven and earth, this barren land, it seems that only the cavalry army he is in is left.

The cavalry behind Char, on the white land, dragged out of the queue of the elders.

In the team, all the cavalry are wearing thick leather jackets, they don't seem to be wearing armor, and their costumes are a little weird, but the horse team behind them is not small!

The cavalry army that Char brought with him was not much more than 800 horsemen! But this horse team seemed to be far more than that! Just because, the preparation of this cavalry, Char was originally equipped with blood, and each cavalry was equipped with two war horses and a heavy mule horse!!

Of the 800 cavalry troops, there are as many as 2,500 mounts, which can be regarded as an outlier! Just because this army was piled up by Char with great expectations and at the expense of blood!

I saw that in this team, every cavalryman was an ordinary war horse under his crotch at the moment, and the reins around him were tied to each other, and each had a reserve horse and a mule horse. Speaking of mounts, it is also very strange, the cavalry on horseback has no armor, only wrapped in a thick leather jacket to protect against the cold, but all the weapons and armor are tied to the back of the mule and horse next to him! Every heavy mule horse is a set of cavalry heavy armor! The appearance of this heavy armor looks very eye-catching, and it is actually a rare full-body armor! Cuirass body armor, shoulder and arm guards, and helmets are also the most expensive covered heavy helmets!

In this era of cold weapons, this kind of full-body armor is not so complete even for the heavy armored cavalry in the empire.

Every set of armor is built and consumed

Even in the army, only the generals of the heavy cavalry can wear such heavy armor, and if the ordinary soldier wears such a heavy armor and carries such a heavy load, he is afraid that it will be difficult to move, just like carrying the weight of a person on his body, and he can barely walk, where can he still fight on horseback? In the past, in the army, only some warriors with outstanding strength or generals and leading officers of the martial arts people would wear such heavy iron armor!

But in the team of 800 cavalry led by Char, this abnormal heavy armor seems to have become a universal basic equipment!

In addition to the heavy full suit of armor, the horses and mules carried on their backs the long blades of the cavalry, which were heavy weapons, heavy cavalry spears, prismatic hammers, double-edged long-handled axes, and so on.

After careful calculation, if a cavalryman in this team wears the iron armor all over his body, and then takes this heavy blade, he is afraid that the weight of the whole body will only cost more than 200 catties!

With such heavy equipment, it is no wonder that each cavalry should be equipped with a special load-bearing mule and horse, otherwise, if the long-distance march carries such heavy equipment, I am afraid that when it arrives at the place, the war horses will have been crushed to death, where can we still fight?

What's even more unusual is the reserve horse behind each cavalry!

The strange thing is that in this army, it seems that the reserve horse behind every cavalry looks more majestic and tall than the war horse under the cavalry's own crotch! I saw that the reserve horse one by one is at least two heads taller than the original war horse, and it looks like the skeleton is thick and majestic, running all the way, the horse's heavy breathing, spewing out pieces of white gas, and the muscles on the horse's body are like steel!

Byzantium has always been dominated by cavalry, especially the Rhodrian cavalry, which is the elite military soul of Byzantium, and naturally has unique features for the domestication and selection of war horses. Generally speaking, the ordinary war horse in the army is only the height of a person, and the practice in the army has always been that the light cavalry uses the south horse, and the heavy cavalry uses the north horse. Horses from the Empire have always been slightly smaller in size, but they are good at endurance, and although they are not very good at short sprints, they can withstand long marches. Light cavalry is known for its mobility on the battlefield, and it is most suitable to use southern horses.

Only the horses produced in the north, the breed is the type of tall body, this kind of northern horse, tall and wide, extremely heavy-bearing, explosive power and short-distance sprints are also stronger than the southern horse a grade, although the endurance of long-distance running is insufficient, but it is the most suitable to act as a heavy cavalry mount mp a heavy cavalry is known for the impact of frontal assault.

But at this moment, it seems that among this cavalry, the tall horses behind the cavalry are much taller and bigger than the northern horses in the empire that are specially used for heavy cavalry!

There are so many giant ponies, and I don't know where Char got them!

And these giant horses, except for the saddle, have no weight on them, and they are extremely easy to run all the way. It seems that this team has a special affection for these tall horses, and would rather let the burden-bearing mules and horses die of exhaustion than waste their horsepower on long marches.

Char stopped by the river, waited for a while, then heard the sound of hooves in front of him, looked up, and saw a black horse coming slowly, immediately a tall figure, a black leather jacket, a thick hat and collar, almost half of the face was covered, the hat was pressed very low, but the eyebrows exposed outside had long been dyed white by the frost, it was Nenei!

Nene came to Char, took a deep breath, and said in a deep voice: "I've seen it, this ice is very strong, we can go over!" I personally rode a horse and ran back and forth on it, and there was no problem. ”

Char finally sighed, and then couldn't help but look up to the sky and laughed, gestured a middle finger to the sky, and said viciously: "This hell God, I finally let Lao Tzu go! I have always given Lao Tzu all kinds of bad luck, and now I am finally kind! Haha!!"

He glanced down at Nene, and said viciously: "Order, the whole army crosses the river! Let's cross the river and go straight to the south! Hmph, this battle, whether it is life or death, whether it is scenery or a dead end, it depends on us!"

The ice on the surface of the river was so thick that the horses slowly crossed the river, only to hear the horses' hooves beating against the hard ice, like the impact of iron tools.

Eight hundred cavalry and the whole army of mounts crossed the river in less than an hour.

After crossing the river, Xia Yati's heart in his throat finally let go, and he immediately shouted: "Come on!

Immediately, a guard with him laid a rolled-up map flat in front of him!

Char looked at it carefully and smiled slightly: "Ha! Fortunately, Lao Tzu had a careful eye, and when he brought people across the border last time to provoke the Odin and Corsicans to fight, he paid attention to the terrain along the way. That old man Manninger is still dreaming of annihilating our main force in one fell swoop in the west!

He looked up at Nene and said, "Half a day's walk to the south, is Chuck City, this is a military town in the east of Siltan County, close to the border with the Corsican Military District, which used to be the garrison of Syrtan County, and was set up to prevent the Corsican Military District. Manninger is quite capable, although the army has gone to encircle Grimm and them, but in such an important choke point, there must be a garrison left! Let's go, eat this garrison first! Even if it is the first battle of this war!"

Nene glanced at Char, hesitated for a moment, and finally said, "Actually...... Come here this time, I'll lead the team, your body hasn't recovered yet, even if you fight, you won't be able to fight, why bother to come here and take this risk. ”

When Char heard this, his heart moved, and when he looked up, he saw that although Nene's face was still flat, his eyes couldn't help but show a little concern.

He sighed lightly in his heart, and naturally understood in his heart that this woman still had a lot of affection for him after all, these days, he hid from himself everywhere, just hid in the army every day, worked hard to train the army, and drained his energy in the army. But when I really saw myself, that heart still couldn't suppress those feelings after all.

In the face of Nene's intentions, Char always had a bit of indescribable guilt in his heart, so he couldn't help but subconsciously avoid Nene's eyes, and said slowly: "This battle is a matter of life and death, even if I hide in Denzel City, it is useless, and if we win, we will naturally have a smooth road from now on! If I lose, I hide in Denzel City, and it will be a way to defeat! There is no difference between the front and the rear." ”

Nene saw Char dodging his eyes, and his heart was gloomy that he was going to get married after all, and the wife he married was still the imperial family, and he was a lonely and ghost-like woman, and she looked so scary, where was she worthy of him. The girl named Adeline, who has seen it herself, is indeed beautiful and extraordinary, and she is gentle and affectionate to Char, so she must be a good match for him.

This love of his own, after all, will not have results.

Thinking of this, he was ruthless in his heart, forcibly suppressed these thoughts, turned around and got on his horse and rushed to the front of the team.

※※※

Near noon, a puff of smoke rose in Chuck City.

There were about 1,000 Odin troops stationed in the city, as well as 2,000 annexes - most of these annexes were the surrendered troops of the original Corsican Military Region, which had already surrendered to the Odin after the Corsican Military Region was annexed by Manninger, and were reintegrated and placed everywhere after being broken up by Manninger. In such a cold weather, those attached troops are not Odin, so they are naturally afraid of the cold. In this damn weather, every drop of water can freeze, and who doesn't want to hide in the barracks and roast the fire.

But those Odin barbarians, all of them are monsters, the colder the weather, the more energetic those Odin people are, I heard those Odin people get up in the morning, and then all morning is lively and roaring.

In the morning, there were Odin people in the military camp in the city, icy and snowy, they took off their clothes, grabbed the ice and snow and scrubbed their bodies, all the Odin people are strong and extraordinary, a strong body, the skin of the ice and snow is red, but these guys seem to be not afraid of the cold, but the more rough the smile is.

There are also Odin, in the snow, they wrestle for fun, and they are all fighting all morning.

These Odin people themselves are not afraid of the cold, but they do not let these subordinate troops live in peace. The leader of Odin's army stationed here gave an order to let these new annexes go out of the city to patrol, go to the city for defense, and order them to clean the streets of the city.

This damn weather can freeze people's noses off, who wants to go out to work?

It's just that these Odin uncles are unhappy, and the whip is drawn mercilessly!

Pity these attached troops, they can only pinch their noses and endure - whoever makes this situation stronger than others, they are now the Gui army, and they are the surrendered army, and it is already extra luck to be able to leave a life.

The Odin people fight respectfully, but the army is extremely rude on weekdays, and there are no rules. Management is also loose.

Although these vassals were forced to work and drink from the warm barracks by the Odin's leather whip, who would really work hard for the Odin people in such a reluctant situation?

The Odin people themselves are happy in the camp, fighting, wrestling, drinking and roasting, and having fun, but they let the masters go to patrol outside the city? There was a cavalry team of attached troops who were sent out of the city to patrol, and as soon as they got out of the city, they simply went against the yang and the yin, and quietly found a leeward hillside to take shelter from the wind and rest, and when the time came, they ran back to the city, and only reported to the top that "everything is fine" even if it was over.

Originally, according to the order, the cavalry patrolling out of the city had to spread the horses out of ten miles, but these attached troops were quietly lazy, where would they really run out of ten miles, only out of the city, and if they could walk two or three miles, they were already extremely loyal to their duties. Damn! On weekdays, I have to collect the anger of these Odin barbarians, if I want to fight, I want to scold, and after surrendering, there is no military salary, and every day I eat some rough wheat flour, and I haven't seen meat for several days. This kind of treatment, who still sells his life to the Odin, is raised by ***!

Under such circumstances, Char's brigade was almost unstoppable, and when it arrived outside Chuck City, it was only a stone's throw away from the city defense, and the defenders in the city did not check it

The smoke of the noon cooking had risen faintly in the city, and as far as the eye could see, there was no half of the defenders on the not very tall city wall, but I was afraid that they were all nesting under the wall at the moment to avoid the wind.

The gates were wide open, and a few unlucky ghosts were left at the gates to clear the snow.

This small city doesn't look half injured at all!

Char's entire army was only a few hundred meters outside the city, behind a hillside, the black cavalry had already been lined up, all the cavalry had dismounted, nervously wearing armor, that kind of heavy full-body armor, it was not easy to wear, the cavalry could only help each other with their companions, nervous movements.

Char was already standing on the hillside, his leather jacket had been dyed white by the frost, standing on this hillside, it seemed to be connected with the surrounding ice and snow, even if someone looked here in the distance, if he was not careful, he was afraid that he would not be able to see that there was still a person standing here.

Char looked at the smoke rising from the city, touched his chin and smiled: "Ha! It's a coincidence, the guys in the city are going to have lunch! The order goes down, let's act according to the plan! Before noon, we will annihilate these guys, and then go into the city for dinner!"

He turned his head and looked at the cavalry under his command under the hillside, at this moment the team had finally been prepared, hundreds of pairs of eyes, all staring at Xia Ya tightly, Xia Ya's face was grim, and he shouted: "Our cavalry army, I have made a lot of money! I have almost emptied all my family funds to supply you! Today is your first battle after you have formed an army! I am here to watch! I want to see you with my own eyes and fight a beautiful victory to show Lao Tzu!"

As he spoke, Char took off a military horn hanging from his waist, crushed the frozen ice on it with all his might, and stood on the hillside, blowing hard!

In an instant, the strong military horn broke the peace of the earth!