In the northern region of Starnik, there are more than 100 barons and seven viscounts, and they form a noble coalition army, with a total of 40,000 troops, because they face the invasion of orcs all year round, and their combat effectiveness is also very considerable. Unlike the Kingdom of Grant, there were no counts or marquis in Starnik, only the royal family and the dukes of the south, and several great nobles monopolized the channels of ascent and suppressed all families that could threaten their status.

Although the combined strength of the small and medium-sized nobles was also strong, they were very scattered.

The main army of the northern front commanded by Duke Jonathan was also very difficult to supply, and after entering the Grand Duchy of Starnik, it also fell into the dilemma of lack of food, and in order to avoid forcing the noble coalition army to the side of the Linus family, the army on the northern front did not dare to loot at all.

Judging by this problem, the situation of the Northern Route Army was even more difficult.

The provinces directly under the royal family of Stanic carried out the orders of the fortified Qingye very well, and although Duke Jonathan conquered some castles, the food he grabbed could only last for a month.

Of the three armies, the situation on the southern front was the best, and it could be supplied through the Duke of York. The Duke of York was relatively wealthy, hoarded a large amount of grain, and had enough manpower, livestock, and wagons in the territory to transport grain and grass to the front.

The main opponent of the Central Route Army commanded by Richard was the coalition of nobles in central Stanik.

The border nobles of central Starnik had a total of sixteen barons and three viscounts.

More than a hundred years ago, the Jonathan family took refuge in the Grant Kingdom, and in order to prevent the interference of the Grant Kingdom, the Linus family divided the members of the branch to the central border region to act as the first line of defense.

These border nobles, with the blood of the Linus family in their blood, resisted more resolutely in the face of foreign enemies.

Moreover, Richard invaded with the allied forces of the three provinces, and because of the lack of food, he could only snatch it from them, and this contradiction could hardly be resolved.

After Richard led his troops into the Grand Duchy of Starnik, he directly led his troops to surround Bulsen Castle, which was three kilometers away from the border.

Bursen Castle is located on a hill with a river nearby, and is located on the official road. The castle is in a dangerous location, and if it is not uprooted, the grain route is in danger of being cut off at any time.

Through preliminary reconnaissance, Richard found that the castle had concentrated a lot of troops, and the defenders were close to 3,000.

After besieging Bulson Castle, Richard did not rashly attack the city, but ordered the reconnaissance cavalry, attacked the nearby villages, captured serfs, searched for grain, and commanded the soldiers with the craftsmen of the battalion to cut down trees and make counterweight trebuchets and other siege equipment.

Despite the lack of food, Richard waited for three days at Bulsen Castle.

Within three days, Morgan led a reconnaissance brigade to break through more than a dozen villages, grab a batch of grain, and capture more than 20,000 serfs.

The six nearby baronies were all plundered by Morgan.

Seeing that Morgan had returned with a full load again, Richard stood in front of the camp gate and asked, "How is it, how much grain has been found today?" ”

"Today, the troops were divided into four villages, and more than 300 tons of grain were found, and counting the day before yesterday, the total amount of grain grabbed yesterday was only 1,500 tons, which is enough for us to eat for a month at most."

Hearing this, Richard nodded, secretly thinking in his heart.

Now that nearly 20,000 serfs have been caught, Richard can't ignore these people.

Although the serfs ate little, consuming only one-third of the food of the soldiers every day, the number of 20,000 people added up to ten tons of grain a day.

To send these 20,000 people back to Haaland's territory, it would take a month to forty days on the road.

Counting the consumption of animals along the way, it is necessary to leave 500 tons of food, and the military food that can be left for soldiers is only about 1,000 tons.

A thousand tons of grain can only sustain the operation for twenty days.

In the army, not only are the soldiers pot-bellied, who consume three catties of food every day, but the war horses and pack beasts that fight with the army are also not small every day, adding up to slightly more food than the soldiers.

On average, an army of 10,000 people consumes a little more than 30 tons of grain every day, and the 16,000 troops of the three provinces have a monthly supply of 1,600 tons of military rations.

Richard and Morgan returned to the Great Tent together, he spread out the map, pondered for a moment and asked, "We have captured a large number of serfs, looted food, and burned houses, have the enemy reinforcements appeared?" ”

Morgan pointed to the map and said: "Reinforcements did not appear, and we also found a situation, the enemy was carrying out the order of the fortified wall, and the Maple Village actually filled the well, burned the grain, and moved the serfs to the rear, and when we arrived, it was already in ruins." ”

Morgan's report confirmed Richard's thoughts.

Richard was under the Bulson Castle and wanted to surround the point to send reinforcements. As a result, the enemy commander saw through his plan, but instead discovered the weakness of the allied forces in the three provinces due to the lack of food, not only did not send reinforcements, but began to clear the wilderness.

The strong wall Qingye hit the soft underbelly of the coalition forces of the three provinces, which suddenly made Richard a little passive.

The situation has developed to the present, and Richard can only open up the situation by storming Bulsen Castle at the cost of death and injury.

If you want to conquer the castle, you must use the alchemy bomb.

But in front of the allied forces of the three provinces, a large number of alchemy bombs were used, and it was difficult for Haaland's territory to hide the formula of the alchemy bomb when he mastered it.

Compared to the Burst Arrow, the Alchemy Bomb in Haaland's territory is mediocre.

But the biggest advantage of the alchemy bomb made in Haaland's territory is that it is low cost and can be used by soldiers in large quantities.

In the face of orc invasions several times, the alchemy bomb is almost the most powerful killer weapon in the hands of the soldiers of Haraland's territory.

For so many years, most of the armies in Harland's territory have fought independently, and when they fought jointly with the nobles of Heihe County, they basically rarely threw alchemy bombs, at most dozens of them.

Dozens of alchemy bombs, which can be explained to the Grant royal family.

After all, the Elemental Heart openly sells alchemy bombs, and almost all of the great nobles of the Grant Kingdom have more or less stockpiled some.

Moreover, the nobles of Heihe County and Luomen County were very close to Harland's territory, so they did not dare to tell Nolan easily.

In recent years, the nobles of the two counties have benefited from the rise of Haaland's territory, holding back the orc armies, and the situation outside has become safer.

As a qualified nobleman, the first requirement is not to provoke strong enemies, and the second requirement is not to have too strong curiosity. Exploring the secrets of Haaland's territory is undoubtedly asking for trouble for the nobles of Heihe County and Luomen County.

However, some of the nobles of the three northern provinces are very far away from the Haaland territory and will not face the threat of the Haaland territory. There are some people who still have royal blood, and if they find something suspicious, I'm afraid they will have to report it to the royal family and the Duke of Jonathan.

Richard carefully analyzed the situation and slowly deduced it in his mind. After weighing the pros and cons, it was finally decided to use the alchemy bomb.

Although the strength of the Haaland family has developed rapidly, it is far inferior to the Grant royal family and the Jonathan family in a short period of time. The location of the territory is facing the invasion of the orcs, and the royal family of Grant and the Jonathan family need to play an important role in dealing with the threat of the orcs.

If this intervention is won, the Jonathan family will inevitably focus on Stanik. Without the support of the two regiments of the Jonathan family, the situation in the north will become even worse.

Using the alchemy bomb to strengthen the power of the Jonathan family and the Grant royal family can maintain the balance in the northern region and give the Haaland family room to develop.

Moreover, the value of the alchemy bomb is almost immeasurable, and it can increase the combat effectiveness of the army by five or six layers at a small cost. The Haaland family can use alchemy bombs to exchange various precious resources with the great nobles.

Even after exchanging the alchemy bomb, in the future with the Grant family and the Jonathan family, the Haaland family's equipment advantage will become smaller. But in the current situation, it is still more cost-effective to make this kind of exchange for Haaland's territory.

After making up his mind, Richard drew two hundred soldiers, appointed a deputy squadron leader in Haraland's territory as commander, and escorted the captives back to the county of Harland with five hundred tons of grain.

The craftsmen were then ordered to build a counterweight trebuchet and erect it in front of the camp.

It's been ten years since the invention of the heavy trebuchet in Haaland's domain, and seven years since it spread to the orc army.

Since four years ago, the Orcs have used heavy trebuchets in the Grand Duchy of Starnik to conquer seven baronies in one fell swoop, pushing the border more than thirty kilometers south.

The principle of the counterweight trebuchet is very simple, as long as it appears on the battlefield, it is not very difficult to imitate the copycat. In last year's Orc Invasion War, the army of the Grand Duchy of Starnik successfully imitated a counterweight trebuchet, which unexpectedly inflicted heavy losses on the Orc army.

Therefore, after discovering that the counterweight trebuchet had been erected in the camp of the allied forces of the three provinces, the defenders of Bulsen Castle suddenly changed their faces.

The countries of the Dawn plane have little military exchange.

The counterweight trebuchet used by the Stanik border nobles as a secret weapon appeared in the opponent's military fortress, causing a great shock to the enemy.

After assembling the counterweight trebuchet, Richard began his pre-war mobilization.

"The Jonathan family is the master of Stanik, and we entered Stanic not to invade, but to help the Jonathan family drive out the traitors and restore their former glory.

In this battle, we dispatched 100,000 troops, and we are fully sure that we have a 10% chance of winning.

After conquering Bulsen Castle, we will be the victors and get everything in this castle, including food, women, and money.

Let's rejoice, victory will be ours! ”

After a simple mobilization, Richard found that the mobilization effect was very mediocre.

The soldier's face had a numb expression, and his morale looked relatively low.

Morale is a very volatile emotion.

An army may still have a relatively high morale in the morning, and can fight bloody battles against a strong enemy.

At night, the casualties may have been low, and a few cries caused the camp to roar, and the mutiny and collapse without encountering the enemy themselves.

A good army can rely on organizational skills and can maintain the morale of an army to an average level for a long time.

In fact, the organizational ability of the armed forces is the key to combat effectiveness.

In order to maintain the vitality of an army's organizational capacity, it needs fair rewards and punishments, logistical support, qualified grassroots officers, experienced veteran backbones, and military discipline that conforms to everyone's simple values to maintain order.

Generally speaking, when guarding their hometowns and loved ones, the morale of soldiers is often very high and there is no need for much mobilization.

However, if you want to keep the morale of the army high and dare to fight, you can usually only rely on raids.

Even the army in Haaland's territory has very good logistics, and after entering the Grand Duchy of Starnik, morale is relatively low.

If you want them to fight bravely, you can only promise them to rob, kill, and rape after the city is broken, and release the evil side of human nature.

Although Richard also knew that once this opening was opened, it would be difficult for military discipline to be so strict in the future.

But if the requirements of the soldiers are not met, the officers and soldiers will not fight bravely at all. No matter how good he said, Richard knew in his heart that there was no difference between the Intervention Army and the Invading Army.

And an army that invades other countries can only rely on killing and looting to maintain morale.

There are a large number of magicians in the army of Haaland's territory, who are proficient in advanced mathematics, and before the trebuchet is built, the trajectory has been calculated in advance, and the trebuchet is erected about 270 meters away.

With Richard's order, the counterweight trebuchet threw alchemy bombs and fire oil bombs one after another.

Fire oil bombs were war materials provided by the Jonathan family, and while in Fort Leyte, Richard applied to Duke Jonathan for some.

Duchy Jonathan discovered oil that could be used to make oil bombs.

The oil bomb contains oil, asphalt, rosin, and resin, and is sealed in a crockpot in different proportions.

When it was fired, the crockpot was lit in advance, and as the crockpot shattered at the top of the city, the flames of the fire oil bomb flew everywhere.

This flame can burn for a long time, and after ignition, it is difficult to extinguish unless it is covered with earth.

Alchemy bombs and fire oil bombs exploded on the head of Bulsen City, and in the blink of an eye, a raging fire was ignited on the city's head, and puffs of gunpowder smoke rose.

Rows of soldiers walked out of the camp and slowly approached Bulsen Castle.

Bursen Castle was built halfway up the mountain, with a hill in the northwest, and the only way to attack the castle was from the east and south.

The eastern part is considered frontal, the terrain is slightly better, and the formation of hundreds of people can be spread out head-on, but the terrain in the south is dangerous, and the city wall is built on a cliff more than 20 meters high, and simple wooden ladders cannot climb up at all. Only a small number of troops are needed, and it is enough to hold the line.

Because the defenders occupied a geographical advantage, the strength advantage of the coalition forces of the three provinces could not be exerted, even if the defenders at the head of the city were defenseless and were killed and injured a lot by fire oil bombs and alchemy bombs, the siege of the city was still not smooth.

The first echelon of the Gascoigne province held their shields and pushed the ladder cart just close to the city wall. A large number of rolling stones and sassalwoods were suddenly thrown on the top of the city, and in an instant, the first echelon of Gascoin Province suffered 100 casualties, and they could not hold on to the retreat, and the damage they inflicted on the enemy was almost negligible.

Such an exchange ratio, even if it is exhausted, will not be able to gnaw at Bulsen Castle.

Richard is already the commander of the army, and the army in Haaland's territory is also the backbone of the coalition army of the three provinces, of course, he does not need to be cannon fodder and rush to the front line of the siege war.

On the first day, the siege of the city was the Gascoin Provincial Alliance, which was the weak brigade in the Three Provinces Alliance, and if it was weak in the noble Alliance, it could only be used as cannon fodder, and there was no human right at all.

(End of chapter)