I will be crowned king

In the 100th year of the Saint's Calendar, it is May 14th, Eagle Point City.

In the desolate wilderness, a few mountain vultures circled under the clear sky, making a sad cry; gray-white smoke filled the air around the dilapidated fort; exhausted soldiers hugged their rifles and smoked cigarettes, crowding around tiredly. Under a bloody unicorn flag in the fortress, sparks can still be seen on the unburned flag.

The slope in front of the fort was littered with scattered weapons and flags, and the bones were spread out like a carpet: some were elves, some were human, some were still intact, and some were beyond recognition...

A hasty and endless battle ended just a few minutes ago.

The Yser elves in golden and red military uniforms lined up in neat formations and charged towards the outer artillery forts of Eagle Point City on the rugged wilderness and hills; relying on the crossfire between the artillery forts and trenches, the Southern Legion defenders easily Defeat enemy attacks.

The uninjured Clovis soldiers did not see any joy on their faces; they just mechanically carried out the officers' orders, cleaning the battlefield and counting the loot, repairing fortifications, and burying the bones... just like in the past few years. Same as the sky.

At the top of the tower of Eagle Point City, Ludwig Franz, who also had a solemn expression, held his hands on the city wall and looked towards the direction of the rising sun.

The rolling hills, the open land that is not flat, the long winding roads, and the unreachable horizon hidden behind all of this are clearly visible in the field of vision... They are all an extremely dazzling golden red!

Louis Bernard, his speed was faster than he expected.

In just two days, 10,000 vanguard troops had arrived in the eastern area of ​​Eagle Point City, seizing favorable terrain so that the Southern Army could not pose any threat to his lines of communication.

In just two days, Ludwig has not even completed the construction of the defensive positions outside Eagle Point City; because the stalls are too large, the entire defense line is narrow and extremely lacks depth, just like a blockade blocking Eagle Point City. The slender line to the east.

In the next two days, the Vanguard Army of Iser continued to launch offensives on the defense line, and the Southern Army also built positions while fighting. Fortunately, the enemy had few troops and no artillery at all, so all offensives were beaten back.

But Ludwig couldn't laugh at all.

The completely unexpected attack completely exposed his firepower deployment in the defensive positions; moreover, the southern army had to step up its construction offensive, and the communication line to the east was completely controlled by the Guards Corps, which caused him to be unable to figure out the Guards Corps at all. specific circumstances of the build-up.

When he saw the golden-red mountains and plains east of Eagle Point City, Ludwig realized that the enemy's 40,000-strong army had completed its assembly and had already deployed the defensive positions of Eagle Point City.

Such a methodical and relaxed style of play, if not for the fact that Roman saw it with his own eyes, would have made it difficult for Ludwig to believe that the supreme commander of this Guards Army was a man who first came to the battlefield a few months ago and had even a thousand soldiers. An Imperial Knight who is not well commanded by anyone.

This made Ludwig nervous.

Not only him, but the entire southern legion was very nervous - it was one thing to hear that, but it was another thing to actually see the 40,000-strong Guards Corps; as a levy-based regiment, what they were best at was bullying the weak and fearing the strong. The Southern Legion feels fear when seeing an enemy whose strength is three or four times its own. That is the most basic professionalism.

In the next few days, Louis Bernard did not rush to launch an attack before he was ready as he did when he encountered Roman before; instead, he continued to maintain uninterrupted harassment, testing and consuming the firepower of the Southern Army.

At the same time, he relied on his absolute strength advantage to completely roll out the front before Ludwig's defenses were completed, and controlled a large number of highlands far opposite the Eagle Point City defense line; he also sent a large number of small troops to investigate and search the surrounding areas. Every terrain must be destroyed, especially the troops sent by the Southern Army to attack their supply lines.

On May 12, Lieutenant Colonel Roman, who led a regiment of 500 skirmishers, took advantage of the darkness and tried to cross the position of the Guards Corps from the hills in the southernmost part of the defense line. As a result, he and a group of Guards Corps who had similar ideas were defeated. The troops collided head on.

A fierce battle broke out between the two sides in the invisible mountain forest. They relied on gunfire and sound to determine the enemy's position. Because the enemy's firepower was too dense and it was too dark to see the terrain clearly, the cautious Lieutenant Colonel Roman could only He can lead the skirmishers to shoot at each other while advancing, trying to find opportunities to break through in the center.

But the Guards responded faster than he thought. After sensing the outbreak of fighting, Louis Bernard decisively ordered an artillery position to fire.

Although it was midnight and the artillerymen on the high ground could only see the approximate position, all the shells fired were obviously inaccurate, and even caused a lot of accidental damage because they could not distinguish between ourselves and the enemy, Roman gave up the idea of ​​continuing to infiltrate. , using the smoke and loud noise brought by the artillery fire to retreat to Eagle Point City.

The next day, both sides counted casualties. The 500-man skirmisher regiment suffered only a dozen casualties. The nearly 1,000 reinforced infantry regiment on the opposite side suffered nearly one-tenth loss, and was basically sent to the sky by their own artillery.

But strategically, this encounter was a disastrous defeat for Clovis's side - even though there were very few casualties, the southern legion, which was already short of troops, no longer dared to try to harass the Guards' position.

At this point, Ludwig completely abandoned all previous contempt for Louis Bernard and truly began to take this "former defeated general" seriously.

According to the agreement between him and Anson, Thun's reinforcements would not arrive until the 18th at the earliest, that is, four days later. Before that, he had to nail the Guards to the east of Eagle Point City.

This is not an easy job.

First of all, the east and south sides of Eagle Point City were originally weak in defense. When Anson Bach captured Eagle Point City, in order to prevent the defenders from counterattacking, he first blew up all the forts on the south side, and the defense force further declined. .

And Louis Bernard has a combat strength of 40,000 that is not inferior to the Imperial Guards Corps of the empire. The four times difference in strength makes it easy for him to force a gap in the defense line he has laid out and surround Eagle Point City on both sides.

The most important thing is that Ludwig actually doesn't really believe that Anson can really convince Claude Francois to let the 20,000 Thun army side with Clovis.

The reason is very simple - if you were him, what would you choose?

Of course, we have to wait until the battle for Eagle Point City is over, or when the dust is about to settle... Only in this way can all benefits be maximized.

Although he was very willing to trust this guy who "always had many plans", as the commander of the Southern Army, Ludwig still had to prepare for the worst case scenario - the Thun army not only had no support, but even fought with Iser Join forces to attack Eagle Point City.

If that is the case, even if they try to increase casualties, they cannot allow the two armies to converge, otherwise this "Iser Punishment War" will turn into a "Eagle Point City Defense War."

The victory that was finally won not only failed to bring glory and wealth, but also put Clovis into a situation where he was attacked from both sides - although it is fair to say that it was not himself who caused this situation, but the inner city of Clovis, those who thought they were attacking Iraq. The lords of the Privy Council whom Seer could easily win.

Ludwig, who had a stern expression, couldn't help but sigh as the corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

He stretched his body a little, and his eyes turned from the direction of the Guards in the distance to his side - relying on Eagle Point City as the core, twelve temporarily built forts as the fulcrum, connected by dense trenches, and attached A large number of bunkers, wooden fences, and horse-proofing...are stacked on top of each other to form a defensive position.

Although time was tight, this time Ludwig was not as short of resources and supplies as he had been in the previous siege of Eagle Point; a large number of heavy artillery and howitzers were placed on the fortress walls, and each fort had at least three twelve-pounder infantry cannons. , the lighter six-pounder field gun was issued directly to the regiment.

Ludwig, who had established a complete supply line with the Kingdom of Clovis at his back, didn't care at all about the squandering in front of him; this time was not like the Battle of Thunder Castle. As long as he won this battle and severely damaged the Ysel elves, no matter how much money he spent, I can earn ten times or twenty times for Clovis!

"So show me, Louis Bernard."

Ludwig squinted his eyes and murmured softly. His hands spread out to both sides and the five fingers were tightly supported on the uneven city wall, and the corners of his mouth raised confidently.

"Let me see the difference between you now and Thunder Castle back then!"

Ludwig, who was talking to himself, had a strange light shining in his pupils, as if he could look across the endless hills and look into the eyes of a certain figure in the golden red.

But what was different from what he imagined was that Louis Bernard in the Guards position not only showed no signs of excitement, but was even very quiet.

The commander-in-chief of the Guards Corps, dressed in a general's uniform, sat at the dining table under an umbrella, enjoying his dinner with an expressionless face; there were busy officers and soldiers lining up hurriedly by, their faces sometimes serious, Or anxious, with a murderous expression on his face, which made his tranquility seem extremely strange.

"Why aren't you in a hurry?"

Princess Freya, who was sitting opposite, looked at him with a frown, her eyes full of confusion and worry: "At such a time, I can still eat... When I was at Eagle Point Pass, I obviously had no access to water every day. They rarely drink."

"Why the rush?"

Louis, with a calm expression, said without raising his head, picking up the steaming coffee and taking a sip.

"Because, because..." Her Royal Highness, who knew nothing about military affairs, was immediately speechless. Her fair cheeks turned pink because of her anxiety:

"Because we were defeated just now!"

"Defeated?"

"Um!"

"It seems that's true." Louis raised the corners of his mouth slightly, smiled and stabbed the beef on the plate with his knife:

"Looking back now, almost every day's battles in the past twelve days ended in a disastrous defeat; they neither broke through the defense line of Eagle Point City nor caused many casualties to them; the only achievement was probably to figure out the firepower of the defense line. Deployment, but that’s about it.”

"In addition, the failure to provide timely support led to the fall of Eagle Point City, and I was deceived at the pass for three whole days... Haha, I have been defeated since I became the commander-in-chief, haha..."

"Lu, Louis..." Looking at Louis who was smiling and blaming himself, Freya's face turned pale:

"I, I don't know, I didn't mean to..."

"I know, Your Highness Freya."

Louis interrupted her softly, and his gentle eyes slowly raised: "You are concerned about me, worried that I can't bear the pressure of having to take back Eagle Point City; I know that, and I am really grateful - in my memory You are the second person who has ever truly cared about me."

Freya's eyes widened slightly and her heartbeat accelerated.

"But I'm really fine now. On the contrary, my condition now is better than ever - now I can finally begin to understand some of the thoughts of my brother, Kroger Bernard."

Louis looked at her quietly, with a trace of nostalgia in his eyes: "As a commander, especially a commander of ten thousand, twenty thousand, or forty thousand soldiers, you can't show too many emotions easily, let alone because of some sudden changes. I fall into panic when something happens; my thoughts and attitude determine not only my own life."

"I can finally understand why Anson Bach can create miracles again and again, even..." He paused, and put down the knife with his tense right hand trembling slightly:

"Because he is too rational and will not be emotional at all. Every step is a careful plan. So if I want to defeat him, then I must at least have my own plan like him."

"So I spent two days to blockade the traffic arteries in the eastern part of Eagle Point City to ensure the stability of supplies and logistics; I spent four days to assemble the army and complete the deployment step by step to put pressure on Eagle Point City; and I spent twelve days to continuously launch exploratory To attack, to tire and expose them to fire, to drain their strength and morale, and to fully understand the strength and weakness of the various garrison units on all lines of defence.”

"The current Southern Army has no secrets from me; but the Guards Army is still a mystery to them. They have no idea what my deployment is."

"All that's left...is to defeat them all in one fell swoop."

The moment the words fell, the elf princess with red cheeks suddenly became restless and felt a little feverish.

"Lord Louis Bernard." A pure-blood elf knight walked to the dining table, knelt down on one knee respectfully, and presented the sword:

"All armies are ready and ready to go."

"What time is it now?"

"It's four-thirty in the afternoon, and it's dusk in an hour and a half."

"Then there's no need to wait!"

Louis suddenly grasped the handle of the knife, and the sharp blade emerged from the sheath: "Send the order-the Guards Corps is pressing forward towards Eagle Point City..."

"Taking advantage of this dusk, the southern legion's defense line takes turns to rest, and it's time to eat..."

"Surprise them!"

"clang!"

The moment the words fell, the blade cut a gap on the edge of the dining table.

The golden red color all over the mountains and plains sounded the horn of attack.

On May 14, the hundredth year of the Saint's Calendar, the Battle of Eagle Point City, which decided the balance of war... officially began!