I will be crowned king

"My dear Kal Bain, don't be so nervous."

After the "intense" conversation ended, Claude Francois waved to the servant behind him who was holding a cigarette case and wine: "It is indeed an accident that the empire can capture the summit tower fortress, but it is not enough to let us From the point of chaos, the advantage is still on our side."

"You have to learn more from my nephew in this regard. Have more confidence in yourself, don't always think about things in the bad direction, and look at the good side."

"You're right, that bastard...I mean Deputy Commander Anson Bach is really good at this." Karl smiled bitterly:

"To be honest, sometimes I don't know where he gets his confidence from. Thank you."

Taking the pipe handed by the servant, Carl Bain took a deep drag and blew out a string of beautiful smoke rings.

"This is not self-confidence, this is more...consciousness." Claude, who was holding a pipe and feeling gradually better, played with the wine glass in his hand:

"You are an excellent military talent, Carl Bain, but it is obvious that you do not understand what leadership is; for a leader, ability is secondary, and sometimes it is not impossible to even have no ability, but he must Confidence, and absolute confidence!”

"Because if a person doesn't even believe in himself, then he will not be able to unite the people around him; only if he unswervingly believes that he is right, he is right... he can succeed."

"Even if he's wrong?"

Karl couldn't help but ask.

"Even if he is wrong!" Claude said with great certainty, and then couldn't help but chuckle: "Or...especially when he finds out that he is wrong, he must be more determined that he is right. "

"Because if he is right, then the 'mistake' in front of him is just a small setback before success; but if he admits that he is wrong, he will be doomed."

"Just like now... you and I both understand that if you don't adjust your strategy immediately but continue to push forward, the empire will definitely take advantage of it and lose the summit tower fortress. If you want to completely defeat the imperial expeditionary force, you will have to pay a price It’s probably several times what it was before.”

"So, what is the most correct decision now? Hold a military meeting immediately and tell everyone that we made a miscalculation. The empire is stronger than we thought. We captured the Summit Tower Fortress in three days; so we must postpone the march. Proceed with caution, um..."

Claude paused, then raised his finger to Karl and pointed at the crown hanging on his chair: "If I dare to say this, within a month, my head will belong to someone else together with it."

"So I'm telling you now, in three hours I will convene a military meeting, and I will tell my Grand Duke and vassals that our enemy is nothing but well-armed!"

"These vicious hyenas relied on deception and sneak attacks to capture the summit tower. According to traditional chivalry ethics, they can now be considered defeated!"

"Next, our 300,000-strong army will march to the Summit Tower, where we will engage in an unprecedented battle with the Imperial Expeditionary Force in Hantu, making the entire world of Order widen their eyes to see that we... Hantu people... How it rises!”

Claude took down the pipe and chuckled a few times.

"Is it worth it?" Karl shook his head, but his eyes never moved away from Claude's face:

"People are going to die, a lot of people are going to die, because we... have to cover up our mistakes, so we let them die without knowing why?"

"It's worth it!" Claude said with absolute certainty, his eyes exuding endless majesty:

"As long as it can bring about the rise of the Francois family and the rise of Hantu, no matter how much sacrifice you make... it will be worth it!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the wine glass filled with scarlet liquid fell to the ground with a "bang!"

He fell to pieces.

Therefore, under the firmness of Claude Francois, the 300,000-strong army continued to advance westward, taking advantage of the end of summer in August.

Of course, even if the Hantu Army is backed by the two most prosperous principalities of Mist and the prosperous Principality of Thun, and the Hantu Army, known as the "three hundred thousand army", is actually only a little over 100,000, it cannot rely entirely on supply lines. All logistics can be provided, so that the leading troops may starve to death before they arrive at the reserved location.

Therefore, this "three hundred thousand army" must advance separately, relying on supplies along the way to reduce logistical pressure - and at the same time, it can also free up some baggage trucks to transport food, transport more munitions, etc.

After carefully weighing the optimal number of troops to maintain combat effectiveness and the balance between the various forces, Claude Francois divided the entire legion into five.

The first is the Royal Legion, formerly the Grand Duke's Guards. It was expanded and supplemented by a large number of new soldiers equipped with equipment from the August Military Factory. The various artillery and infantry equipment are basically not much different from the Clovis army. The most powerful long-range firepower is the twenty-four-pound mortar, and the main firepower is the six-pound infantry cannon. Some elites are even equipped with expensive breech-loading rifles.

Needless to say, this force was personally commanded by Claude Francois; because it had the most artillery in the army, it had to advance along the main road in the center.

Next came the two border legions. The core main force was the mixed Aydin and Thun legions. The infantry equipment was basically complete, or at least one gun per man. The artillery was worse, with only a few field guns, but because There were many private soldiers of the lords mixed in, so there were quite a lot of cavalry.

Their task is to cover the flanks of the Royal Legion. The three legions on the marching route basically move in parallel, but because the proportions of cavalry and artillery are different, the speed is also faster or slower.

In order to demonstrate "mutual trust and unity" within the kingdom, Claude François placed both legions under the command of Archduke Ayden as a gesture of good faith to his old rival.

Then there is the Mist Legion - the reason why it is called by its name is mainly because this legion is almost entirely composed of the troops of the Grand Duchy of Mist. Its equipment level is slightly inferior to the previous three, but it is not ridiculously bad.

Out of distrust of the Mist people (referring to their strength), the mission of this legion is to serve as an outpost and mop up small groups of enemy troops, as well as collect broken troops...well, basically they are cannon fodder and meat sent to die. Shield, used to test the firepower of the Imperial Expeditionary Force.

After all, the Francois family's base is still the Grand Duchy of Thun. For the vast and densely populated Mist, of course, the more people die and the weaker the combat effectiveness, the better the management and rule.

The last one is the "Reserve Corps" led by Henares. It has all the characteristics of a vast army - the size of the organization is chaotic, the quality of the soldiers is uneven, and the weapons and equipment are all kinds... It is called an army, but in fact They are no different than armed refugees.

In order to build an army that could confront the empire head-on, Claude Francois naturally gathered all his financial and manpower - although most of them were still rabble-rousers, at least they were relatively capable rabble-rousers - and Get rid of all the rubbish he doesn't want.

The so-called reserve army that promised Karl to "stay behind to protect the supply line" was just such a garbage collection station... and it was in line with the Storm Division chief of staff's consistent style: never being with the "elite" and always being with the "cannon fodder".

The more important reason is that even with the current financial resources of the Francois family, it is still very difficult to maintain an army of 100,000 people that can fully meet the standards of the "Clovis Military System"; even the current "300,000 army" "I just barely scraped together the equipment.

To be honest, they were already unable to make ends meet; if it weren't for Anson, Hantu would not have been able to sell so many arms at a price "near" cost before the war in the Kingdom of Clovis itself was over.

Once it is dragged into a protracted war or suffers too heavy casualties, the Hantu Legion that has just completed a wave of "upgrades" will quickly degenerate and become their true colors, with their equipment levels completely regressing to before this "Iser Punishment War"... Even worse.

The five major armies, except for the reserve army that was arranged to follow behind, the other four armies continued to advance towards the summit tower according to the original plan; the only difference was that the change from "reinforcement" to "recapture" of this once most powerful force in the vast land. An important fortress.

"...The above is all the information collected so far about this Hantu Army."

In the main hall of the summit tower, Bernard, the deputy commander of the expeditionary force, who was standing in front of the long table, glanced at the knights and staff on both sides of the long table with extremely calm eyes, and looked at Cass who was sitting on the main seat. Commander Pa Herred reports.

"What is the General Staff's plan?"

The grumpy old man asked in a low voice, his gloomy expression keeping everyone silent.

"It's very simple. We stick to the summit tower and use the Hantu people's fortress to block the Hantu people." Bernard concluded concisely and clearly:

"Although the battle to climb the tower did not cause too much loss to our army, proper rest and rest are still necessary; the cost of defending a strong fortress is far less than the loss of a frontal battle in the wilderness. Much more, and it can also significantly improve the supply efficiency of our army."

"At the same time, although the enemy did not have as many as 300,000 people as they claimed, one hundred thousand is still a large number; fighting in the wilderness, five to one means that the enemy's line is at least as good as ours. More than three times, it can form absolute fire suppression and easily outflank our army's flanks."

As he spoke, Bernard picked up the saber from the table and pointed at the map table in the center of the crowd: "The terrain of the Principality of Ayden is broken and barren. Such an area means that once an army is surrounded, it is easy to The supply line will be cut off by a large number of enemies and we will be blocked in a narrow mountain path or between hills."

"At the same time, in terms of mobility, although Hantu's military system and equipment are very backward, they have the same excellent and ancient knight tradition as the Empire, and their number of cavalry is not inferior to ours; in other words, in terms of mobility, we are not There is no absolute advantage.”

"What's more, the situation we are facing now is not optimistic." Bernard suddenly couldn't help but sighed:

"So far, the Imperial Hantu Fleet has lost contact with us for more than ten days. According to the usual results, it can be basically concluded that our fleet has... been completely wiped out."

The moment he finished speaking, Bernard keenly noticed that Casper's face looked a little ugly.

"Of course, this does not rule out the fact that they encountered some difficulties, such as storms at sea. The weather in August is not very suitable for navigation... but this also brings several problems."

The conversation changed and the deputy commander of the expeditionary force stretched out two fingers of his right hand: "First, we have lost a mobile force that can attack the Hantu coastline at any time and disrupt their advancement speed."

"Secondly, this has also completely cut off contact with General Lawrence Igor and his advance army who are far away in Carindia Port; and at present, he probably knows nothing about the situation, let alone received any information. Subsequent orders will make it difficult to cooperate with the expeditionary force in the enemy's hinterland."

"As for the Iser Elf..." Bernard snorted, waved his hand, and put his right arm back behind his back with disdain:

"I can advise you now, don't have any expectations for them; we are the Knights of the Empire, and even more so the Knights of the Ring of Order. We want to protect our allies, but this does not mean that we have to protect a group of …Old God Sect!”

"So if nothing unexpected happens, we may really have to fight alone in this vast war. Under this premise, the staff believes that defending the fortress is the best option."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

Casper nodded with his chin in one hand. He had to admit that defending the fortress was indeed the best choice at the moment...especially now that the fleet was probably finished and the port of Carindia was surrounded by the vast army.

After all, the emperor only gave him 20,000 people, and it was impossible to mobilize more troops to expand the Hantu War to open up a second battlefield; in the event of failure or heavy casualties, Casper Herred would have to bear all the consequences. responsibility.

"Once we block Hantu's first round of offensive, with the combat power of the Imperial Expeditionary Force, we can easily open a breakthrough and defeat their so-called 'three hundred thousand' army."

Turning his lips disdainfully again, Bodnar continued: "It may be difficult to defeat Hantu in one battle, but it can advance steadily and open up the situation for the empire in Hantu; even if we have to negotiate in the end, we can still have peace with the enemy - —Clovis, of course—the bargaining chip.”

"But I don't want to bargain with these scum, and the emperor doesn't want to bargain with these scum!"

Casper suddenly became furious: "What we want is to conquer Hantu and block the Clovis people north of Eagle Point City, not to bargain with them in Hantu!"

"Staff! Does the staff have other plans or plans, or do you all have the same brain?!"

Dead silence, deathly silence.

"If...if your goal is to annihilate rather than defeat the Hantu Army..."

A figure sitting in the corner at the end of the long table suddenly spoke.

In an instant, everyone's eyes immediately turned to the same direction.

Facing a pair of eyes with different expressions, Louis Bernard stood up slowly with a dull expression:

"Regarding this, I have a... less mature plan for your reference."