Chapter 686 – Preparations for the blockade

The 3rd Infantry Battalion encountered a routed army.

“Commander, the orc army is approaching fast, we must continue to retreat backward.”

“But the orders I received were to hold Fort Silvermoon.”

“Fort Silvermoon? You’re talking about that pile of rotten bricks that can’t be defended.”

Joyce, the battalion commander of the 3rd Infantry Battalion, was arguing reasonably with Sir Henkel, whom he had just met.

He was originally a local lord of the Plains of Blackstone.

By rights, the Ser should be the commander of this group of routed soldiers, but the fact was that not many of those terrified soldiers would listen to his orders anymore.

Only those who were brought out from his own territory still followed Sir.

“The Knights of the King’s Capital? Perhaps they are still behind me, perhaps …… have been overwhelmed, but they may have retreated to the safety of the west. I don’t know where they are, the orcs have split us up and lost contact with each other.”

“The orcs are right on our asses, and I refuse to fight them until Crystal Shine sends stronger support.”

Henkel, after pouring out a pessimistic speech, mounted his horse and hurried away.

Joyce was disappointed, he had expected to be able to use Henkel’s status to gather more routed soldiers to assist in the next battle.

But now he could only rely on himself.

The 3rd Infantry Battalion set up checkpoints at the intersections to collect the routed soldiers, and by the end of the day, including the Kingdom’s troops that were originally at Silvermoon Castle, the Infantry Battalion had collected nearly two thousand men.

In order to feed these soldiers, Joyce ‘borrowed’ a batch of rations from the surrounding villages and towns.

However, the quartermaster who was sent to borrow the rations gave each borrowed person an IOU, to be repaid at a price of ten percent over the market price after the war was over.

This was a strategy that had been decided upon before departure, and the troops on the front line were authorized to prepare their rations in a flexible manner in case they needed more than they expected.

Of course, in the event of a victory, the Arda army would repay the borrowed supplies as promised.

On the other hand, in order not to let the note become a piece of paper, the debtors had better support the Aldar army to win the battle.

The officers and soldiers of the Alda army spent the first day of their arrival at Silvermoon Fortress in an intense rush.

The next day when the east was just dawning, the scouts reported that a small cavalry rushed into the boundaries of Silvermoon Castle.

Judging from the physical characteristics, there was no doubt that it was orcs this time.

The size of the incoming army was probably around a thousand men, and it should have conducted an outpost scout.

Joyce immediately informed the entire army to prepare for battle.

After a day and a night of hurrying, the Arda army constructed a simple fortification on the ruins of Silver Moon Fort, they used stone bricks to build a four-foot-high breastwork wall, with obstacles such as rejecting horse spikes placed in front of it.

Fort Silvermoon was situated on a high hill, below which was the road, through which the enemy was bound to pass.

The soldiers stood behind the breastwork, so that they could be hit as soon as their opponents came within firing range.

Eight six-pounders would provide a powerful fire support, with their blackened muzzles pointing deep out of the breastwork’s gun ports and pointing menacingly down the slope to the main road.

If the enemy broke through the breastwork under heavy fire, the Austrian soldiers, armed with bayonets and spears, would engage them in physical combat.

With everything ready, Joyce set up his binoculars on one of the towers that hadn’t fallen yet and waited for the orcs to arrive.

……

“What a pleasant journey.”

Said Thousand-Master Amur, who served as the vanguard, to his second-in-command, Bayar. “I expected to experience a vicious battle, but I didn’t realize the human army was so weak.”

Bayar was very agreeable to his superior’s words, “The Great Chief is too cautious, if we could have entered here years earlier, perhaps the entire Ordo would be under the iron hooves of the orc cavalry.”

Chieftain Amur said with some regret, “Instead of ‘traveling’ on like this, I would have expected to meet the guys from Jingyao, and if we captured the princess of Aldo, that would surely be the biggest credit for this trip south.”

Although the scale of a thousand cavalry was very small, the order Amur received was to penetrate around towards the human rear territory, creating the sight that the orc army had already penetrated deeper, thus triggering massive panic and chaos.

The orcs’ ploy was successful, a large number of small lords were already in a state of extreme panic after hearing about the defeat in the Sunset Valley, and once they found signs of orc cavalry activity, they tended to abandon their territories and flee, while those ordinary people were even more sketchy.

Bayard cast his eyes to the west, “Perhaps it would be an equally great honor for you to be the first general to see the western coast of Ordo. I think it will be realized before long, the road ahead is so flat that no lord can stand against our armies, they will only flee ……”

He stopped talking for a moment, for on the high slopes ahead was flying high the flag of Aldo, and in addition to that there was another flag, one with a red background and a flying dragon embroidered on it.

“Oooooh, Lord Amur, it looks like we’ve stumbled upon a tough one.”

“Let me see!”

Amur looked forward with one hand on his awning.

“My bones are itching to finally have a good fight again. Oi! Come here!”

Amur summoned his human guide.

“My lord, this is Silvermoon Castle!”

His human guide replied fawningly, “But it is said that the local lord’s family moved to live in the town a long time ago, and the castle used for defense has long been deserted.”

“Is that so?” Amur raised an eyebrow, “Those cold and damp castles built by humans really aren’t good places to live.”

He ordered, “Look further ahead.”

As the orc cavalry continued to advance, they soon realized that it was indeed as the guide had said, the main part of the castle had collapsed and was now nothing more than a pile of rotten rocks.

But as they continued to approach, the rejects, the spikes, and the low breastwork wall appeared in the orcs’ view.

“Hahaha, trying to block me us with these things is a laugh.”

Amur and Bayar laughed without fail.

They had formulated a battle plan a long time ago.

It was a slight overstatement to say that they had formulated it, because the plan was almost ready-made – under the cover of arrows, the warriors climbed up the wall and crushed the human soldiers who hid inside – it was simply a no-brainer to use this trick against those small lords along the way.

The castle of those small lords was very low, and there were not many soldiers inside, so it was very easy to conquer.

If you encountered a hard core that was difficult to gnaw on, you would go around and leave it to the large force behind you to solve.

But the pile of rotten stones in front of us is obviously not among the hard bones to be gnawed.

“Ah, my hands are itching too, I will personally lead the warriors to launch a charge!”

Amur moved his wrists and leapt into action.

“Bayar, the archers are under your command.”

His second-in-command readily agreed.

The orcs quickly began their attack.