85_85536In January of the spring of the following year, the centaur khan of Tartaria, through the Guò merchants, submitted a war letter to Ruthenia and Pilm. They were asked to surrender to them like those who "knew the affairs of the times and knew the destiny of heaven," that is, the Slavites of the Ulus lands under their control.

Ruthenia and Pyrm rejected Sarida Khan's ultimatum. The two sides declared war.

With all kinds of complicated feelings, the mobilization had already been carried out, and the armies of the two sides, which had been preparing for a long time, could not wait to enter the battlefield.

The whole Great Border area is bustling with activity.

From Polotsk, from the kingdom of the Slavites, from the Gothic Empire, and from the Ottoman Empire in the south. Humans, dwarves, dark elves. All forces have their eyes set on the Tronica region with the Tartariya Khanate. There, after spending a bitter winter on the warm Black Sea coast, the impatient army of the 150,000 khanates, led by their officers, tribal chieftains, little khans, and chiefs, marched in two directions, marching towards the north and northwest respectively.

The most elite of them was the cowardly Xue Jun who was directly under the royal court. Equipped with two layers of steppe-style heavy scale armor or piercing armor, or ring pieces - composite scale armor, the centaur elite is the most powerful and terrifying assault force in the world. Armed with a five-meter-long giant cavalry lance, they are capable of breaking through any enemy line under any circumstances. Or use the finest compound bow and wolf's tooth arrows to shoot down the golden eagles in the sky.

Of course, these 3,000 cowards are the most critical and important, and they cannot be put into battle until a critical moment. In many cases, these over-armed warriors only serve as honor guards or overseers, rather than on the battlefield.

Instead, it was a general, lightweight, and trained centaur heavy cavalry that was a little worse than the cowardly Xue army.

The origin of these heavy cavalry is more complicated. There were large nobles and wealthy children of small and medium-sized nobles, the elite troops they organized, and the heavy cavalry units directly under the royal court. These centaurs numbered around ten thousand and were the elite force of the Tartarya Khanate.

Further down were the less common herdsmen and the petty aristocracy. Their number is around thirty thousand. Despite the fact that in the battle sequence of the Tartarian Khanate, these centaur warriors had a slightly inferior status, this does not mean that they were not strong in combat. In fact, remove the equipment, the difference in the level of training. These centaur warriors were in no way inferior to the average heavy cavalry in terms of individual bravery.

And the tactics of these soldiers are much more mobile and flexible. It is more adaptable to the needs of the battlefield.

In addition to these four to fifty thousand centaur troops. The other 100,000 armies consisted entirely of human vassals of the khanate. These human vassal armies are divided into two parts. The more civilized Slavites and the completely nomadic Tatars, Khazars and Cumans, Chincha and other nomadic peoples.

Because of Sarida Khan's persistence, he pushed for reform. So he already had a modern army of 20,000 men, mainly composed of Slavites. Its tactics are no different from the current phalanx and musket tactics of the mainstream of the human world. The officers and trainees are all human mercenaries hired with high salaries, and the military pay and salary are relatively high. It is a new trump card in the hands of Sarida Khan.

The rest of the Slavians remained in a more primitive feudal era. Heavy cavalry led by the boyas, plus a large number of Slavic civilians and herdsmen of uneven combat effectiveness. A vassal army of about 20,000 was formed.

Then, there are about 50,000 steppe nomadic troops. Its composition is largely similar to that of the aforementioned centaurs. It's just that the wealth and strength of the steppe nomads are much worse than those of the centaurs. Their army consisted more of lightly armed herdsman cavalry. There are only a handful of professional samurai, and heavy cavalry clad in steppe-style scale armor.

Of course, the army of Sarida Khan will be divided into these different parts in detail, and its ethnic composition, weapons and equipment, fighting style and actual combat ability will be analyzed. And only a very small number of sober and outrageous "monsters" like William can do it.

The vast majority of the others were frightened to the point of losing their ability to think when they saw the great army of Sarida Khan, the huge number of cavalry troops, the earth-shaking sound of horses' hooves as they walked, the countless swaying flags, the fierce appearance, and the bright armor and weapons.

In fact, after watching Sarida Khan's army in the Tronica region, many spies from various countries were stunned. Many people even generated: "It's over, we will never be able to beat it, it's over." "Feelings. Some guys are even so scared that they don't know it.

Boast of their military might, intimidate their enemies, and lower their morale and determination to resist. Perhaps Sarida Khan allowed the spies to watch his army, and had such intentions.

Still, William's spies did their job well. After a winter of training, the spies trained by William and Charlumie in a modern way have reached the world's first-class level in professionalism.

Despite their lack of training and experience, they were just as scared as the spies sent out by other forces. But despite being afraid, they did their job well.

They judged the approximate number of opposing forces based on the size of the phalanx, the length of the ranks, and the number of flags. At the same time, the opponent's state, appearance and queue are inferred from the opponent's training program. Through the dress and flag of the other party, and then determine which army the other party belongs to......

Of course, it is more difficult to equip weapons at this point. No one would be stupid enough to wear heavy armor on the march. But this small flaw is not irreparable. In the numerous battles with the Tartarya Khanate, it has long been no secret how well the weapons and equipment of the Khanate were.

In this way, military intelligence was transmitted back to Mazovia in the shortest possible time, and was placed on the shore of William. And under the authorization of William, it went to Krakow. It then spread throughout Mazovia and even among the many forces of the Wende Kingdom.

The strength of the enemy is chilling. At the same time, not only Freya, but also more Goth knights felt deceived.

It's just a pity. It's too late.

At the Grand Duke's residence in Krakow, the military conference room, which had not been used for a long time, was kept clean. The three Grand Dukes of the Kingdom of Wende, Lesek, Henry, and Dietrich, and their important ministers, including Otto, Duke of Mystia, the heads of several mercenary organizations that were hired, and the Gothic Knights, Siberland, the deputy head of the crusade, and several of his district captains were seated.

The atmosphere was dreary. It can be seen that many people are pessimistic about the development of the war in the future.

And in addition to that, one of the people who was supposed to appear here did not appear, and he was Vial of Turov. The Grand Duke Turov was also on the front line against Tartaria, so he couldn't pull away. Still, he sent his eldest son as a representative to the meeting.

"The other side has 200,000, at least 150,000 troops. Even if the Slavites could share some of the pressure, we would have to be prepared to face the risk of a hundred thousand troops alone. ”

"100,000 nomadic cavalry capable of fighting, and centaur soldiers?"

"Not only that, but they also have a new army of Slavites. All of them use the same tactics as the current mainstream armies of the human world. ”

"What a formidable opponent. So what should we do?"

At this point in the conversation, no one spoke. The Grand Duke, the mercenary captain and the nobles looked at each other. No one spoke.

Under these circumstances, the deputy head of the Gothic Knights, Siberland, shouted: "Even so, we cannot give up hope!

At the same time, several Grand Instructors of the Order behind him also kept nodding their heads, expressing their approval of Ciborande's words.

These guys are the most radical hot-blooded in the Order. They have been waiting for such an opportunity for too long. It can be said that the "method" proposed by William is exactly what they want. As William thought, yes, some people in the Order saw that the information given by William about the weakness of the Tartarya Khanate was not necessarily true.

But lies don't care whether they are delicate or not, they mainly care about whether they can deceive people. And in the Gothic Knights, there are many guys who will willingly fall for it even if they know it's a lie.

It's like Siberland, all he needs is an excuse. It's just a reason to get yourself moving. And not really accurate intelligence.

"Despite the numerousness of the enemy, under the protection of the Lord of Light, the Knights will be invincible!" Siboland shouted with a red face.

Seeing each other's state, Wende's native nobles looked at each other, and they could all see the worry in their eyes.

Their attitude towards the Gothic Knights was both welcoming and unwelcoming......

Naturally, the welcome is because in the current situation of such a great enemy, many monkeys still have three points of strength, not to mention tens of thousands of heavily armed mercenaries and Goth knights.

Not welcome, mainly because of the danger of the Gothic knights.

Hundreds of years ago, in the era of the Knights, there were few ancestors of the nobles here who did not fight against the Gothic Knights. These Goth knights are wild, furious, bloodthirsty, and greedy. Whether it was the pagan Slavits, the Polotsks or the nomads, or the Goths who shared their beliefs, they all intervened. And no mercy.

Large-scale genocide and religious massacres made the Gothic Order the most powerful knightly state on the Polotsk coast. But at the same time, the widespread massacre also made them angry. Eventually, both the Slavians and the Goths, the nobles and commoners, all stood up and did everything in their power against the Order. The Knights' Nation, which was made by blood, was finally buried in blood. They lost all their land, castles, and armies, and eventually had to return to the empire in disgrace ...... the Empire.