Novels online

Chapter 366

My Villains Episode 366

61. art of war(8)

Prince Ulkar has proven his bravery, leadership skills, and tactical knowledge in numerous wars. Not only has he never suffered defeat before, but he ultimately won even when he was outnumbered..

As he is a general with a reputation beyond the Kingdom of Milanol and on the continent, I thought Ulkar might have a special secret..

A plan to deceive both the enemy and the sky at the same time, an invincible strategy that can pay a one-sided exchange fee, or a supernatural power that can read the opponent's psychology... … Something like that..

But what I realized while rolling under Ulkar recently was that there is no such thing as a special secret..

At the same time, I learned that there are very basic things that must be followed to become an effective general..

In other words, Ulkar was a commander with good ‘basic skills’. Therefore, it was only natural that supply was given top priority among the four main tasks..

It was evidence that the prince placed importance on supply by appointing the Margrave of Landry, who was second in rank after the prince at High Castle, as the person in charge of supplies, and appointing General McNeil, the actual commander of the Antram Army, as the deputy person in charge..

As a former reserve sergeant, I also know that supply, that is, feeding and clothing soldiers properly, is important. This is a fact that anyone realizes when they stand on duty in the middle of the night in the middle of winter, relying only on a smelly field jacket without a bowl or hot pack, or when they march with the soles of their combat boots rattling around without a candy bar in their gas mask pocket..

However, what Eulkar wanted was not simply to feed and clothe properly. He wanted to be ‘very well’ fed and ‘very well’ clothed..

First, he ordered that all soldiers be distributed with more than 1 kg of food per day..

Of these, four percent had to be meat, whether pig, cow, or sheep, one percent had to be vegetables, and the rest had to be grains. Even beer had to be provided once every two days, even if it had become dull due to too much water..

Weapons and armor were also distributed to poorly armed soldiers..

Short spears and gambisons were the basics, and iron helmets and round shields were also aimed at being provided to everyone. He even ordered that the soldiers who would act as leaders be provided with chain armor and swords..

As if this wasn't enough in Ulkar's eyes, he ordered horse fodder, arrows, oil, etc. to be piled up like mountains at the 17 elements of the city..

Margrave Landry and General McNeil called it nonsense and claimed that the level of supply was impossible. Then our Prince Silver brought out three chests full of gold and silver to silence them..

Of course, just because there is a lot of money does not automatically mean supply, and the two supply managers had to continue their forced march, sleeping less than three hours a day. Seeing him with dead black under his eyes, whipping the police and scolding the main compensation dealers, made me feel a bit sorry for him..

‘It was only natural that Margrave Landry and General McNeil took the third and fourth places, respectively, in the ranking of 'planter Ulkar's hard-working slaves'..

Vigilance was as important to Ulkar as supply. So the 'arrogant' Sir Lyam, a knight trusted by the prince and a steadfast commander, became the man in charge..

Of course, Highcastle is the largest city on the plateau, and there are thousands of soldiers mobilized to guard it, so Sir Lyam cannot handle everything alone. He divided the city into north, south, east, west and center and appointed garrison commanders..

Baron Rujan from Antram was in charge of the east, and Gilbert, a veteran sergeant under Ulkar, was in charge of the north. The south was entrusted to Captain Arvecon, a vassal of the Margrave of Landry and the original garrison commander of Highcastle, while the west, where the enemy was encountered, was directly supervised by Sir Lyam..

Not only soldiers divided into three shifts are mobilized at the border, but also magicians. There are a total of thirty-seven magicians on our side, twenty of whom are carrying out border operations, so the majority of our magic power is being invested in border operations..

What made sense was that the enemy was currently using magicians to constantly pull out tricks..

A spying familiar with the appearance of a bird or insect. Send out familiars, infiltrate skirmishers with spells such as 'camouflage', 'blur', and 'obscure', or use the 'whisper' spell to send a voice urging surrender on the wind.…….

Anyway, I'm doing all sorts of things..

The person who could deal with this most effectively was none other than a magician. So, Prince Ulkar gathered among the allied magicians those with excellent detection abilities, such as those who had learned the 'detection' spell, were sensitive to the flow of mana, or could expand their senses through other means, and sent them to Lord Lyam. I left it to you.

As a vicious knight favored by an evil boss, Sir Lyam worked tirelessly on the twenty wizards assigned to him, so the wizards who gathered in high spirits from all over the kingdom would act like zombies and wander around the city. Some of them were even ranked among the ‘unblinking minions of the merciless lord Ulkar’..

Reconnaissance, that is, observing the movements of the enemy lurking in the forest, was a task as important as supply and security..

So Ulkar committed close to a thousand troops to this reconnaissance mission..

Half of them, the five hundred, were a typical skirmishing force made up of light infantry under the direct command of Prince Ulcar and the Margrave of Landry. The captain was Harold, the prince's commander, and the unit commander was none other than the 'Shield Maiden' Grania..

It turned out that Grania was the leader of the mercenaries recruited by Prince Ulkar in South Harbor. It is said that it was not like that from the beginning, but it came naturally as he served under Ulkar for the past six months and was recognized for his expertise and abilities..

It is said that most of the mercenaries from South Harbor were transferred under Ulcar's direct control, and Grania was also assigned a role similar to that of a mid-commander..

Anyway, the scouting party led by Harold and Grania carried out reconnaissance in a very traditional way. The method was to send nimble soldiers under the cover of night to observe enemy lines and capture enemy scouts or deserters to obtain information. It was natural to attach several wizards to assist the mission, just like the enemies did..

However, as if Prince Ulkar was not satisfied enough, he organized an additional cavalry unit and used it for reconnaissance..

Since the goal was not ordinary reconnaissance, but powerful reconnaissance that also served as a check, the unit was composed mainly of heavy cavalry, not light cavalry..

The squire they brought with them centered around 150 knights drawn from all over the army. He formed a heavy cavalry force of 500 men, including 200 auxiliaries and 150 of Ulkar's personal guard cavalry..

The captain was the prince's second knight, Sir Ankir the Great, and the vice-captain was Sir Dailecid of Odenloc. In addition, Sir Ecbert, an old knight of Abiden, called ‘Bronze with an Axe’, and Seto, a cavalry officer of Antrum, assisted in the command..

Sir Ankir was a knight who, despite his rough and vicious appearance, was cunning and adept at improvising. It was very suitable for power reconnaissance missions where quick decisions had to be made at the time..

Their mission was to monitor the enemy from a distance and check their approach..

The distance from the forest where the great army of the empire lurked to High Castle was literally a short distance, but there were obstacles in between that could not be ignored..

One was 'Asag', a vast wetland extending north to the north and west of High Castle..

Asag is also called the ‘sick land’ or the ‘land of the dead.’ From the outside, it looked like just a soggy swamp, but deep inside it was a terrible land full of poisonous lakes, living swamps, giant drakes, and corrupted spirits..

It was definitely not a place that could be used as a maneuver route for a large army, but if the enemy passed through this place and passed High Castle, it would be a disaster..

To prepare for this, four beacons were installed at the border of the wetlands, but Ulkar did not think this was enough and had the heavy cavalry periodically scout the area around Asa..

Another obstacle was the valley that begins northwest of Highcastle and runs south..

It was still mid-February, so the water in the valley was dry, but the slope was steep and the terrain underfoot was dizzy, so it was not an easy terrain to pass through..

However, compared to Asag, this side was more suitable for attacking High Castle, so reconnaissance was mainly carried out along this valley..

Lord Ankir led his troops along the valley, and sometimes crossed over it. Still, the enemy barely responded..

It is a heavy cavalry unit that includes many knights, so although it is a threatening force, it is only about 500 cavalry. In the eyes of the 15,000-strong army, they would have looked like nothing more than mouth-watering prey, but the enemies just continued preparing for siege in the forest and did not even flinch..

Well, I can roughly guess their intentions. If you put aside petty battles and destroy the castle from the front, that's the end of the game, right?.

Not only I but also Prince Ulkar and Lord Ankir know this well, but they have not stopped scouting for power..

Leaving the Margrave of Landry to provide supplies, Lord Lyam to guard, Lord Ankyr and Commander Harald to scout, Prince Ulkar himself took on the final task..

The final task was training..

Ulkar said that the training ground built near the inner wall was too small, so he created a temporary training ground between the inner and outer walls. Thanks to this, it was possible to train more than 1,500 soldiers at the same time..

Because routine operations, including security, had to be carried out simultaneously, the actual training time for each soldier was only four or five hours a day. However, for a short period of time, Ulkar and his officers and non-commissioned officers beat the soldiers to the point where a bitter taste came out of their mouths..

It goes without saying, but training that many soldiers is definitely not an easy task. This is especially true if more than half of the troops are conscripts from serfs..

After all, serfs are people who have no need to receive lifelong education. Maybe that's why, no matter how well I explained it, there were still too many people who couldn't understand what I was saying or couldn't understand the orders. I had to add a little bit of exaggeration and make it seem like I was teaching a kindergartener. This means that everything you say should be very easy and simple..

Of course, most knights, officers, and non-commissioned officers chose a much easier and faster method than refining their language to make it easier to understand. was whipped.

If he didn't understand what I was saying, he would lick his ears, if he was slow to move, he would kick his butt, and if he disobeyed orders, he would beat him to the brink of death or even kill him..

It was quite shocking to me, but no one questioned it. Even Ulkar, who is called 'the great warrior of all the weak', was the same. The prince only clearly laid out regulations related to beatings and executions in the name of establishing military discipline, but did not prevent these acts themselves..

It was a difficult thing to understand, but it was also worth noting to do it. Not only foul-tempered guys like Fritz and Donnell, but also relatively moderate subordinates like Esson and priests like the monk Okan and the cathedral knight Kavar take this for granted.

Is it a yard?.......

I just closed one eye, feeling like a two-eyed person in a one-eyed village, convinced, ‘Ah, this is what the medieval army was like.’.

Anyway, that's my impression, the training went smoothly. As I watched the soldiers getting faster every time they got slapped, I felt like the common sense I had as Kim Seung-su was being shattered..

Meanwhile, Ulkar did not only train soldiers. The ones he treated more harshly were none other than officers and non-commissioned officers..

The prince summoned officers and non-commissioned officers from all over the army several times a day and held mock battles using maps and horses..

In short, it was a 'war game', and at first glance it seemed quite fun. It was just like a board game..

Move a horse with inscriptions such as '250 infantry, 100 archers' or '10 knights, 40 heavy cavalry' on a grid map. The distance a horse can move is limited depending on the unit's mobility and the environment. When the words of the enemy and allies collide, a heated debate begins, and the battle power of the unit and the battlefield situation are taken into consideration to determine victory or defeat and to calculate the amount of damage..

All participants take turns as the commander-in-chief of the mock battle, that is, the game players. Thanks to this, everyone from lords and high-ranking commanders to junior officers and non-commissioned officers were able to express their opinions freely. No, I had to give it up. If the horse moved like a body, I had to explain why..

Thanks to this, those of higher rank gritted their teeth and engaged in mock battles to protect their own prestige, while those of lower rank gritted their teeth to show their abilities to their superiors. The method was interesting, and the educational effect was great as competition began to arise. This is because it was impossible to win a mock battle without knowing the strength of the enemy and allies, as well as the surrounding terrain..

By the time a week had passed since the mock battle, even a non-commissioned officer could easily memorize the enemy's major commanders and their tendencies..

In addition, Ulkar continued to explain his command intentions during the mock battle. Persuading the audience with the words, ‘If it were me, I would have moved this way in this situation’ and the tactical logic that follows.

did it.

Prince Ulkar, so to speak, as Commander-in-Chief, was transplanting his fighting style to all his officers and non-commissioned officers. Only then can the entire army move as one body..

I was not an officer or a non-commissioned officer, so I did not participate in the mock battle, but since I was a knight of Ulkar by name, I listened closely to what he said..

……But I don't know if this effort will really be useful. I'm saying this because I don't think my role in this war is commanding on the battlefield..

“-lily. Phoenix Nari.”

“……Ah,.”

Perhaps it was because he cursed thickly unconsciously, but Goleman, who came to see me on a day when I was sleeping, started shaking..

But that was only for a moment, and Goleman snatched the blanket I was covering with a determined look on his face..

“The sun will rise soon, dear! The prince will find it!”

“……Five minutes, five more minutes……

“Nari, come on! If you keep doing this, I'll carry you all the way to the castle tower.!”

“Ah, Mr..”

Alam Golman, the human I personally appointed, was not usually persistent, even if he was persistent. In the end, I had no choice but to raise my upper body while groaning..

“……Ha, I'll search..”

I don't know how long it's been since I've felt this stiffness since I got Poynix's body..

With 31 points of health and recovery power comparable to that of a troll, you make me tired. After all, it's Ulkar. I want to become a king of murder..

“……Nothing much happened?”

“Last night, three assassins came in, but we caught them all..”

“They were targeting someone.?”

“One for the Margrave, two for the Prince..”

“Um, I see..”

“Don't waste time pretending to worry, get up quickly. You have to go quickly..”

You ugly bastard.

But what Goleman said was true..

There was no time to hesitate to carry out my duties as the commander of High Castle's central guard, the vanguard of the heavy cavalry for reconnaissance, and a swordsmanship instructor for non-commissioned officers..

……Ah, it's war, it's a mess, and I just want to jump out..