Beuragon was now one of the nobles with the highest status in the current combat force. In order to prevent himself from being surrounded by the enemy, he wrote a letter to Charles II, asking the nobles south of the Bordeaux River to quickly gather all the troops and firmly hold the city of Rayena in the south of Bordeaux. He also asked them to quickly send troops to pick up the soldiers he had gathered, and at the same time, provide them with enough food.
Because of the hasty retreat, the food he had brought was only enough for three days of marching. If there was no follow-up food supplement, then they would be defeated without a fight!
However, when Beuragon led his troops to the north bank of the Bordeaux River, the situation was worse than he expected.
Beuragon found that he was not the first "defeated army" to arrive here … More than 6,000 nobles had gathered in the town by the river. After asking, he found out that some of these nobles were directly defeated and regrouped, and some were ordered to retreat. Anyway, they could meet at this moment because the city of Dunkell was captured without warning. The other nobles were naturally not fools. After hearing that the leading nobles were killed or defeated, they chose to retreat without saying anything …
This place called Lannis Town was suddenly overcrowded. Beuragon didn't think that it was a good thing to have so many people gathered here. Because there was no unified leader, conflicts often broke out when his men gathered together. Because there was not enough supplies, some noble soldiers starved, and some could still get two pieces of bread a day. This led to the uneven distribution of resources, and also buried the hidden danger of civil strife.
In order not to die from internal strife before the enemy arrived, he immediately summoned all the leading nobles for a meeting and quickly discussed a reasonable plan: everyone was divided into districts, separated from each other, and evacuated in an orderly manner in the following time. Everyone had to survive this difficulty first!
Because he gathered more than 1,000 soldiers and more than 800 farmers, he was the one with the largest number, and his title was also high, so he quickly became the leader of this group of temporarily gathered troops. But before he could arrange a plan for the troops to evacuate to the south of Bordeaux, the news from the east made him realize that things were really troublesome …
After Earl Harrison's city was captured, the Efta Infantry Division, which attacked the eastern nobles head-on, did not show any mercy. They directly defeated and dispersed the army of more than 10,000 people.
Therefore, after Bolagon's calculation, he found that the total number of his people, together with the defeated soldiers who had retreated to the north bank of Bordeaux, was estimated to be more than 16,000, which was half of the expected total number of soldiers!
In other words, before their attack even started, half of their men had already been separated or fallen on the battlefield …
Now, these 20,000 people began to cross the Bordeaux River, working hard to reach the city of Rayena, which was 40 kilometers away. Regardless of whether there was enough food or not, the towering city walls had become the soldiers' only hope of counterattack.
"Damn it … Why did the battle turn out like this before it even started!"
Looking at the troops crossing the bridge slowly, Viscount Boragon's face was extremely gloomy.
****
May 14th.
News from the frontlines finally reached the Imperial City.
At this moment, the nobles who had wanted to attack the Holy Cathedral were all dumbfounded. The atmosphere in the meeting hall was almost frozen.
Charles II's hands were constantly trembling. Ever since he received the first accurate battle report last night, he had not been able to calm down. As one letter after another was placed on his desk in the wee hours of the morning, he felt like he was having a suffocating nightmare.
The nobles in the meeting hall all lowered their heads, and no one dared to make a sound. Charles II did not make a sound even after everyone had arrived. Everyone was silent as if they were mourning in a cemetery. Even their breathing could be heard clearly.
"Who can tell me what's going on?"
Charles II asked tiredly. Because he had not slept all night, his dark circles were extremely obvious. Sitting on the throne, he did not have the imposing appearance he had before. Instead, he leaned against the back of the chair and supported his chin with his left hand. His face had also aged a lot.
No one could answer his question. After all, this was the question everyone was asking in their hearts: Why did the enemy directly advance more than 200 kilometers in just three days and directly disperse the nobles' army that had not yet gathered?
"According to the intelligence, Eiffta's army directly split into two routes from the Holy Cathedral and advanced at the same time. One went directly south, the other southeast. In three days, they planted Eiffta's flag in all the territories and forced our newly gathered troops to the north bank of the Bordeaux River." Charles II had already firmly imprinted this information in his mind for the night. But the more he repeated these things, the more he could not suppress his anger.
"So, who can tell me, are all Eiffta's army dragons?! Why can they appear in front of us without a sound, and not a single one of them revealed anything until the war broke out?! "
Not to mention the kingdom's internal intelligence system, even the news from Eiffta had no signs. He had secretly contacted Earl Lys in the Eiffta cabinet, and the exchange of messages between the two had not stopped since the beginning of the year. But just last night, the other side's message still said, "There are currently no signs of Eiffta conscription. The cabinet has only decided to send food to Paar territory in advance."
Now it seemed that Charles II felt he had been deeply deceived!
The enemy's army is almost at my doorstep, who are you still trying to fool?!
If it wasn't for the shrewdness that he had cultivated over the years, Charles II almost had a mental breakdown last night. After all, the current situation was too different from what he had expected. The situation on the sand table in the study was so optimistic, as if he could conquer the Holy Cathedral and attack all of Eiffta. But in one night, not only did he not conquer the Holy Cathedral, the territory he currently controlled had shrunk by two-fifths!
This was like a duel between two boxers. One of them mustered all his strength to prepare for a round of punches, only to realize that the other party suddenly took out a sledgehammer and hit his head three times on the spot.
Eiffta's blitzkrieg was completely beyond Charles II's understanding. It was practically a "foul". Therefore, he was really a little confused. Now, his thinking pattern had become chaotic.
"Our army is now retreating from the Bordeaux River. Who can come up with an effective plan to solve this predicament? Hmm? "
No matter how angry he was, this war was ultimately not a complete failure. It was not a problem to take a beating, but whether or not he could fight back after taking a beating was what the monarch needed to consider. Seeing that no one spoke, he directly called out, "Du Weideng, don't you usually have a lot of ideas?"
"Your Majesty … This … I, I really don't know what to say. The food prepared in advance is basically collected from the territories north of Bordeaux. Now that the territories south of the river collect it now, it may take three or four days before the transportation can start. I don't know when it will arrive at Rayena City …"
Du Weideng was also speaking the truth. Because the road conditions in these southern areas were very bad, it had been raining non-stop for days. Now that the food was collected and transported, it was another matter whether they could eat it or not. Because a large part of it was estimated to be moldy and rotten because of the rain.
"And the most important thing is … it will cost a lot of gold coins."
After saying this, Du Weideng did not dare to say anything. Charles II's face was gloomy. He pointed to another viscount and continued to speak. The viscount, on the other hand, analyzed the reason for the enemy's appearance here. However, it was obvious that nobody at the table had thought of the use of "trucks" and "roads" at all. Although the royal family and the nobles had a lot of sorcerers under their command, they did not realize what "communication circles" and "crystal cannons" that ordinary people could operate meant after all.
Even the thesis written by Earl Harrison was only about how to use magicians as foot soldiers.
After Du Weideng, some people began to talk about the importance of intelligence, and some people said that Earl Harrison had a great responsibility in this operation.
Charles II did not say a word. He listened to this and was even more angry: Harrison must have surrendered, what was the point of pushing the blame to him now?
Finally, an earl spoke up, "Your Majesty, the most important thing now is to preserve combat power. It is not easy to gather nearly 20,000 soldiers. If they are scattered because of logistical problems, then the morale that was gathered with great difficulty may fall short of success! "
Charles II finally nodded because this was what he thought, so he immediately got up and said, "Yes, now is to save people! Save people at all costs! The army coming from the north bank of the Bordeaux River is rushing towards Rayena. This place must be defended and all the soldiers must be settled! "
He already had a plan in mind, so now he spoke in a sonorous voice, "The frontline army was defeated because they were ambushed before they could assemble. Once we have a firm foothold, the enemy will no longer have any chance to take advantage of us!"
"Our counterattack will start from Rayena. There must not be any scene of retreat!"
With such a strategy decided, it was time for the aides and ministers to get busy. Charles II continued to add a few more plans, including immediately transferring a large number of magicians to join the battle, going to the frontline to support the battle, and so on. In order to get everything going immediately, Charles II even began to use the last of the royal family's wealth …
Because he understood that this was a battle of life and death for the royal family, he could not afford to be careless!
When the meeting ended, Charles II, who returned to the study, collapsed on the chair. Seeing this scene, Princess Rowling's heart skipped a beat. She did not know what exactly happened, but seeing her father like this, it was obviously not a good thing.
She came to her father and bowed, then asked, "Father, what do you need me to do?"
In fact, Charles II had been thinking about whether to ask for help from the Dragons — Efta suddenly broke all pretenses of cordiality and attacked so quickly. If he asked for help now, would it make the royal family seem vulnerable?
But seeing his daughter ask this, he understood that the current situation was very critical. What he needed to pay attention to was no longer the problem of the royal family's reputation …
"Is Iscar still unwilling to see you recently?"
He tried to calm himself down and asked softly.
"Yes … Every time I go, he is not here," Rowling replied softly.
Rowling replied softly. She actually hoped that he would never be around, but her father obviously didn't think so. "How about this … I'll send someone to send an invitation. If it's possible, I'll pay him a visit tomorrow."
"O-okay, Father."
Rowling lowered her head. She knew that she had no room to refute …
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