Chapter 230 Harassment
Seeing that he was about to enter the Royal Forest, Earl Landau became vigilant. He stopped the army to rest, and then issued an order to summon the noble knights to prepare for a military meeting.
While waiting for the meeting to be held, an unexpected guest came to the Chinese military tent.
"Dickon?" Samwell looked at his younger brother who walked in wearing steel armor, with a look of shock on his face, "Why did you come here?"
"Brother!" Dickon shouted excitedly, "Finally caught up with you! Please allow me to fight with you again!"
Before Samwell could answer, Earl Randall said with a grim expression:
"Why don't you recuperate at home? This war was not intended for you to participate in."
"Father, my injuries are all healed!" Dickon replied, but when he spoke, he kept his eyes on his brother, "I can go to the battlefield! Please don't let me waste time on the hospital bed."
"Is your injury really healed?" Samwell asked with a smile.
"That's great!" Dickon slapped his chest loudly.
"I'll let the bachelor accompanying the army check you." Earl Randall obviously didn't intend to trust his son so easily.
Moreover, he always felt that his youngest son was not as close to him as before, but instead had an enthusiastic attitude towards Samwell.
This made Earl Randall a little bit apprehensive.
"Okay, Father." Dickon nodded in agreement, and it seemed that he was indeed all right.
Not long after, the officers of the North Route Army came to the tent one after another.
Earl Randall no longer cared about his youngest son. He sat on the main seat and became the cold and majestic general again. He began to preside over the meeting and arrange the marching formation.
Samwell stood in the tent, watching Earl Landau divide the army into small teams, feeling a little puzzled in his heart.
But of course he will not raise questions in the military meeting, he will not do such a stupid thing that offends the authority of the commander.
Besides, Lando Tarly, as one of the few famous generals in the Seven Kingdoms, must have his reasons for doing so. Samwell decided to observe and study first.
He noticed that Earl Randall's division of troops was based on the types of arms. He divided the infantry into three categories: pikemen, archers, and sword and shield soldiers. It varies from five hundred to five hundred.
As for the cavalry, they were not divided into squads. They were still divided into light cavalry and heavy cavalry according to the conventional method, and unified command.
When he started marching towards the royal forest, Earl Landau placed the sword and shield soldiers and pikemen on the outermost side, and the archers were slightly dislocated and marched on the inner side, forming a phalanx of infantry. The whole army is well-proportioned, but it looks a little "scattered".
The light cavalry and heavy cavalry were all scattered among the various phalanxes, moving forward under the cover of infantry.
This is the opposite of the conventional formation of troops, because generally speaking, cavalry should be placed on the two wings of infantry.
Finally, there were more than 10,000 civilian men who accompanied the army. They were protected in the center of the phalanx with their baggage, and marched together with the cavalry.
In fact, not only Samwell, but most of the nobles in the River Bend don't quite understand Earl Landau's intention of forming such a strange phalanx.
But frightened by the great reputation of this famous river bend general, at least no one dared to question it.
After entering the imperial forest, the sky suddenly became overcast, but it was not the dark clouds that blocked the sun, but the dense leaves.
The terrain here also began to become complicated. Forests, shrubs, and streams became natural barriers, making it difficult for the army to line up as neatly as on the plains, and there were many obstacles between the marches.
Seeing this, Samwell could somewhat understand why his father had divided the army into small phalanxes.
Those flexible small square arrays are obviously more suitable for the complex terrain here.
The cavalry is difficult to play here, and it is actually not very mobile when placed outside the army, and it cannot play the role of protection and investigation.
Under this environment, his falcon and white dragon are not very good. They fly high, and the tree canopy blocks the situation in the forest, and they fly low, and their vision is limited.
So when the army encountered the first wave of attacks, he simply failed to detect the enemy in advance.
Only the sound of horns and the faint sound of fighting from the left rear were heard from a distance.
"Leave them alone, maintain the formation, keep moving forward, never stop, and never leave the phalanx to pursue!" Earl Randall immediately issued an order.
Orders spread out one by one, delivering the commander's order to each square.
Seeing that Samwell was puzzled, Earl Landau explained to his son:
"Those must be the jungle light cavalry of the Stormman. They come and go like the wind, and they are familiar with the terrain in the imperial forest. They cannot catch up or get rid of them. We cannot be dragged by them here. We must leave this area as quickly as possible. jungle."
Samwell nodded thoughtfully.
He had heard before that the Stormlanders had specially trained jungle light cavalry that could gallop like the wind in the forest, and today he really saw it.
But Samwell stopped the white dragon.
The complex terrain of the jungle is really not suitable for dragons to play, and Cleopater is still too young, Samwell is worried about letting him participate in the battle so early.
However, he released the falcon to observe the battle situation.
When his falcon followed the sound and flew near the phalanx under attack, he saw hundreds of stormtroopers rushing out of the forest.
Their horses are obviously small, only about half the size of the river horses, and they have indeed undergone special training. They can deftly avoid trees and other obstacles in the jungle with complex terrain, and gallop quickly.
When they saw the mixed formation of swords, shields and long spears neatly arranged by the people of Hewan, they wisely did not choose to charge directly into the formation, but ran towards the gap in the formation, preparing to harass the most vulnerable civilians with bows and arrows.
The archers of the Hewan people also immediately started to fight back, and arrows rained down like rain for a while.
Many Stormland cavalry fell to the ground with arrows, turning their backs on their backs.
The adjacent Riverbend infantry phalanx began to move closer, and at the same time the Riverbend light cavalry also dispatched cautiously, trying to encircle the Stormlanders.
Two teams of cavalry crossed past, another rain of arrows attacked, and blood flew everywhere.
At this time, the biggest advantage of the River Bend army can be reflected - well-equipped.
As the most affluent region in the Seven Kingdoms, the armies of the Riverbend are only comparable to the armies of the West in terms of equipment, and the Stormlands are significantly inferior.
So in this confrontation, it was obvious that Hewan had the upper hand.
Stormman's light cavalry squad saw that the situation was not good, and scattered back.
But the cavalry of another phalanx of the Hewan people also rushed over at this time, chasing the storm cavalry who was out of formation, and another round of fighting and shooting.
The Stormland cavalry were caught off guard, and were shot down by the Hewan people in the process of gathering their formation, so they had to flee in embarrassment.
The Riverbend cavalry did not pursue them. They were not used to this complex jungle environment and did not dare to charge at full speed. Even if they chased, they could not catch up with those storm light cavalry.
The soldiers of the River Bend quickly cleaned the battlefield, gathered available horses, slaughtered the wounded storm men, and then returned to the phalanx, and continued to move forward with the large army.
Not long after, the Stormlanders attacked again, this time with even more people, thousands of riders, rushing towards the Hewan people's position in three directions.
At this time, the ingenuity of Earl Landau's formation can be reflected. No matter how the cavalry in the Stormlands attack, they will either be blocked by the river bay infantry phalanx, or chased by the river bay light cavalry cruising between the square formations. Moreover, the various phalanxes are in an orderly manner, echoing back and forth, and taking care of each other, so that no matter which direction the Stormlanders come from, they can't take advantage of it at all.
Only dozens of **** corpses can be left behind without success.
This time, a group of river bay light cavalry couldn't help but chased them out, trying to kill more enemies to earn military merit.
Earl Randall was really furious when he saw this, and immediately sent messengers to chase after him.
When the team of light cavalry was recovered, it was discovered that it was the army of the Peak family.
"Sir Marlin Peake disobeyed the military order and beheaded." Earl Randyll issued a cruel order without mercy.
"Lord Randyll." Earl Titus Peake tried to intercede for his own knight, "Sir Marlin was indeed impulsive, but fortunately he did not suffer any losses, so beheading is unnecessary. It is better to whip instead."
Earl Randall was unmoved, and said coldly:
"Master Titus, disobedience to military orders should be beheaded instead of whipped. You don't know?"
Earl Titus had a sullen face, but said nothing.
Earl Randall waved his hand, and the law enforcement officer took the yelling Sir Marlin Peake to execute him.
Soon, a **** head was sent to the nobles.
You know, the Peak family was one of the first big families in the Reach to express their support for Samwell at the Highgarden hunting meeting.
After that incident, rumors of the deer party and the horse party began to spread in River Bend.
Samwell Caesar, Landau Tarly, and Matus Rowan are the core of the Horse Party, and the Peake family is the backbone of the Horse Party. At this time, the members of the Peake family committed a crime, and Earl Landau He was still merciless even when he started.
Now the rest of the people dare not pretend to be smart anymore and disobey the military order.
Earl Randall watched this scene quietly, and said to his son beside him:
"When Giles Gardener VII was on his way to conquer the Stormlands, he was constantly harassed by the light cavalry of the Stormman in the imperial forest. After walking for two months, he couldn't get out of the forest. In the end, the soldiers' hearts were broken, their logistics was cut off, and they were defeated. return."
Samwell nodded thoughtfully:
"So we can't get entangled with the people of the storm, and we must get out of this jungle as soon as possible?"
"right."
(end of this chapter)