I don't know if it could be called providence, but an hour and a half after Henry and his party arrived at the small camp of the Red-billed Finch Clan, the heavy rain that had to be carried on for three days due to the drag of the carriage gradually shrank and finally disappeared completely. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

After the rain, the sky of the prairie quickly became clear again, which somewhat relieved the heaviness in the hearts of some people. The place where they stayed was on the outskirts of the clan camp, and they were wary of each other from a distance of more than two hundred meters. After the arrival of Abenny, he briefly explained that everyone was stationed here, and then led the team to report to the patriarch of his clan, and as the commander of the outgoing troops, his status in the clan was certainly not very low, but this kind of major matter still needs to be decided by people of the highest rank.

Maybe it's because Henry showed a simple and rough strength before, or maybe it's just that going to the camp of another clan really made them feel threatened, and Khalid and the others, who had been keeping their distance due to disagreements, finally returned to the team at this time. The mercenaries and merchants tacitly did not engage in any conflict with the steppe warriors in the face of the greater threat, and the men and horses of both sides gathered together to form a tight defensive array, facing the Red-billed Finch Clan's camp vigilantly.

From a theoretical point of view, their situation at the moment can be described as quite bad, the red-billed finch clan in front of them is indeed just a group of hundreds of people as the name, with a common family of four in the grassland to roughly count about seven or eight hundred people, but this overly idealized calculation method is inaccurate, counting the old and young children and the middle-aged men who have not yet married and single, the various proportions must be relatively adjusted.

Coupled with the martial nature of the steppe people, the number of young men and women who can be the main combat force in the clan camp should be at the level of about one hundred and fifty people, and in addition to this, I am afraid that there are a considerable number of teenagers and old people who can become a force when they come out of the nest to fight- The steppe people had several bows in almost every household, and the firewood needed to make them and arrows was cut in bulk every year, along with the wood used in the barracks, and the nomadic nature meant that they would often move even during the rainy season, so they would not miss out when they found something to come by—in short.

All in all, Henry and his party, who came to the door of the other party's house, were in a much worse situation than before if they started a battle at this time. From the moment they decided to follow each other to the camp, all this was destined to happen, the carriage pulling the baggage was slow, and they could not leave it on the grassland, and if they divided some of their troops to stay behind and the other part of them followed, it would only make both sides vulnerable and vulnerable, only if everyone united could they create enough threat to protect themselves, and they had no choice but to go to each other's camp together.

And in this case, if the people on the side of the Red-billed Finch Clan were going to attack them, it was no exaggeration to say that in the face of overwhelming numerical superiority, with their combat strength, it would be a matter of course that the entire army would be annihilated.

The distance of two hundred meters maintained is only enough to prepare for the battle before the opponent attacks, and even if one in 10,000 people can escape, these heavy materials that have been pulled up the slope with great difficulty will inevitably fall into the hands of the Red-billed Finch Clan. This is the reason why the mercenaries' morale dropped because their employers planned to go to the other party's camp, although they had been worried when they were looking for the Aries clan before, but at that time, it was just because of the unknown, and after really contacting it, they understood that the object of dealing with was also a mature big clan after all, and they couldn't grab this bit of material, so they naturally resolved it, and this time it was indeed a conflict.

Once the opponent moves the mind to attack, then they will definitely die without a place to bury - and how to avoid all this, after the previous battle and the display of strength, our Sage Gentleman, who has become the default backbone of the team, naturally gave the answer.

The Ferex family, who owns Rosemary, is an expense of funds, and the group has prepared an extremely abundant amount of materials this time, including various tools and supplies, including digging roads in the flat ground and shovels for building camps. This kind of practical tool is not as common as people think, because iron is relatively scarce and expensive, most farmers on the west coast use wooden shovels and forks, and many people's only iron tool in their homes is an axe used for logging for many years, and even cooking utensils are basically made of clay, so only in a wealthy place like the southern border can have a large number of iron tools.

At this moment, our Sage Sage commanded a group of mercenaries to prepare for the use of shovels, a sturdy and reliable tool, whether it is on the west coast or the east coast The common camp defense against cavalry is a half-man-high fence made of sharpened logs, called "horse rejection", but in the grasslands lacking wood, they can only play on the spot.

The ground that had just stopped raining was soft and damp for the cavalry to charge, and digging some trenches on top with a shovel did not need to be very deep, as long as the integrity of the ground was destroyed so that the cavalry could not approach at high speed.

The difference in the height of the terrain has become a powerful helper at this moment, they don't need to dig a whole circle like a moat, just do the part in front of them, after reaching the terrain preset for the opponent's cavalry, Henry commanded the two cavalry composed of mercenaries and steppe warriors to wait directly near the exit of the camp.

At present, even Khalid obediently obeyed the sage's command, and they made preparations non-stop during the time when Albenny returned to their home to report, and when everything was ready, looking around, those with a little combat experience could easily judge Henry's intentions.

The sweaty mercenaries used shovels to dig trenches and potholes of different depths all over the road in front of them, seemingly randomly distributed, but in the eyes of the initiator, they are actually orderly, left and right staggered trenches and potholes hidden in a relatively stable road, frontal will inevitably be disturbed by the terrain, but if you turn towards the halfway slope, the flank to the camp of the Red-billed Finch Clan is unimpeded.

-- It's a threat, a clear threat.

The trenches and potholes without any disguise, and the cavalry contingent arranged near the exit, clearly did not intend to go head-to-head with a large opponent, and it was not a bad thing to stop at the enemy's doorstep, and it was true that it would be easier for the other side to deploy troops and have plenty of troops, but at the same time, the old and weak women and children left in the camp became vulnerable to attack. Henry's arrangement of forces is such a silent deterrent, if the other side intends to attack them, then the response on this side is to use the terrain and defensive preparations to entangle the main force and then send cavalry to invade the camp.

Even if they were to be wiped out by a quick counterattack by the opposing team, or by others in the camp, a cavalry that broke out of the siege and slaughtered into a camp full of old and weak women and children was enough to quickly wreak havoc. Whether cruel or cold-blooded, any soft-heartedness in dealing with a cunning man like Ebeni will only lead to destruction, history is always written by the victors, benevolence and honor are such things as peace to talk about, and if you still hold on to them when you are in battle, you will only be dragged down and drowned by it.

Most of those who refuse to attack the weakness of the other side because of the so-called justice and reserve, or even refuse to use the weakness of the other side to blackmail others, have become nameless dry bones, and the famous generals in the history of any country are able to calmly regard human life as a game of addition and subtraction of numbers. No matter how great they may be proclaimed, the damage caused is real, and no matter how much the knightly nobles of Sivalier and Avenella may have admired war, the fact is that it is extremely cruel and cold-blooded, and its destruction is not limited to the soldiers who are in battle, but also the number of civilian families on both sides of the war is also increasing.

As long as there is a war, there will inevitably be deaths, and it is common for families to be broken due to the loss of prime-age labor, and then there is no one to harvest food in a certain area because of the conscription, and then there is a famine, and then the people are not able to make a living, these are only direct injuries, coupled with the materials consumed by the army, the ** captivity committed by the ruffians in the local area, once the war burns to the doorstep - even if it is just a conflict of less than 100 people at the moment, the damage caused to the clansmen of the red-billed finch clan will be huge.

Presumably, at this moment, Ebenny is also being criticized by the higher authorities for rashly leading these dangerous outsiders to the vicinity of the camp, and what Henry needs to do at this moment is to make the other party more aware of the threat of his group. Steppe nomads like the Red-billed Finch Clan are not good at stubble, especially under the premise that there have been conflicts before, and now they are empathetic to say that they have no intention of fighting, which will only cause the killing intent of these highly aggressive steppe people, and if they can't show the momentum of breaking the cauldron and sinking the boat, then their situation will only be more dangerous.

Willing or not, Khalid and his party and the mercenaries are tied to a boat at this moment.

"......" time passed quietly, and as the clouds cleared, the sun reappeared, and the ground gradually returned to dryness. It was impossible for the mercenaries to remain nervous all the time, so after a period of time passed to confirm that the other party would not come to attack for the time being, and this prepared gesture was also seen by the onlookers of the Red-billed Finch Clan in the distance as planned, Henry ordered the men of both cavalry teams to disperse and quickly replenish their strength.

They couldn't get enough rest when they were rushing through the heavy rain, and many of them were very tired after three days, which is why their morale was so low that it almost exploded. The reason why the mercenaries in the Soladin region, led by Cori Conrad, have a good reputation in the south is that they are not as squeamish as the natives in the south, and the harsh environment of the poor west coast has created the nature of these people to work hard to earn a bite to eat, which is also the reason why they did not pay much attention to the morale of the mercenaries after Yaji accepted the soft compensation.

The way to get their morale up was very simple, a delicious hot meal and some income compensation could easily be satisfied, but people are not as good as the sky, and the fat merchant leader could not achieve all this in a few rainy days, which finally led to the almost success of Ebenny's abacus.

At the moment, the act of stationing at the gate of the other party's camp and then setting up a cauldron and starting to cook food seems a bit heartless, but if you think about it carefully, if you think about it at this time, if you don't wait for a while, although the morale has risen to a relatively stable level because of Henry's previous performance, the enemy camp is in front of you, and this kind of pressure is so great that if you just blindly let them stick to it, it will inevitably lead to a psychological collapse.

Morale is a very mysterious thing, involving cohesion and execution and many other factors, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the key factor that determines the success or failure of the battle. The team with high morale is united and trusts each other's teammates, and does not have to defend against sneak attacks from behind when fighting, and the natural combat power is greatly improved, while the team with low morale is likely to disarm and surrender before the enemy can fight.

The mercenaries who had left their homes and lived a life of licking blood from the edge of the knife were all people who admired the pleasure of time, so when Henry and Inagi jointly decided to set up a cauldron and start cooking in front of the door of the red-billed finch clan who knew that there was a threat, many people were stunned for a moment, and then they all laughed heartily.

This brutal open-mindedness, hearty laughter, greatly eased the tension, and the knights and nobles of Avenella and Sivalier might never be able to understand it, and it was precisely because their fate was likely to live today and there would be no tomorrow that they were more open-minded.

It wasn't a short time since they arrived in Absera, but it wasn't until this moment that the mercenaries in the entire team truly accepted each other. Most of them may not be able to read as many words as our sages and the Maidens of Luoan, but the crude words that come out while enjoying the delicious taste of the cauldron contain the truth of life that is by no means rough.

Our white-haired maiden held a bowl of hot broth, and the merchant put in a lot of spices this time, and she sat in the middle of a crowd of mercenaries listening to the words spoken in various accents, and the time passed slowly.

I don't know when the heart that was entangled and uneasy in front of me gradually calmed down.

All of them are living human beings, and after the distance that had been maintained for various reasons has been narrowed, and with laughter and food, everyone is on the alert while enjoying the moment to the fullest.

The Luoan Maiden and the black-haired sage were naturally in this group, and the mercenaries talked to the two from time to time, and they chatted with each other, and at the same time, according to Henry's instructions, a few people chatted while taking out some candles, taking out grease and wrapping them on the arrows to make a fire, and if they became dry again, they would also become an extremely powerful weapon in the face of dense camp flames.

The sun gradually moved from side to side, and when he returned to the camp, Ebeni was like a mud cow into the sea, and the people of the Red-billed Finch Clan watched from afar until nightfall.

A few torches were erected and fastened to the side of the wagons around the camp, and by this time the firewood and grease and even coarse cloth for burning had been consumed, but fortunately the weather was sunny tonight, and the moon was shining, so there was no need to consume too much fuel.

After a full meal and laughter, the mercenaries have narrowed the distance between each other a lot, and if they have only experienced all this before, they can finally be talked about as "companions", although the group of people of the Aries clan led by Khalid still keep their distance from them, but for the time being, both sides have reached a tacit understanding and no longer oppose each other.

In order to maintain combat effectiveness, Henry arranged for the mercenaries to sleep in shifts since the evening, and at about eight o'clock in the evening, the second shift of the night watchman finally got up to take over, and when the first shift could finally go to sleep, there was a sudden bustle in the distance, and then everyone saw a dozen or so riders of the red-billed finch clan with torches coming towards this side.

"Bang Bang Bang Bang

Clearly, the conversation between Ebenny and the above came to a conclusion. (To be continued.) )