Chapter 370: Wounds that rot and pus cannot heal
This time the march is not that easy. Even though Qi had prepared for it early, the actual difficulties encountered were still far beyond beyond his belief.
There are no high-pitched songs, the fear is brought by the mad running, and the devastating offensive.
Escape in embarrassment, break up, peek, and attack in dark moments.
Perhaps Qi should understand why in this era, the status of rat knights is getting lower and lower. Villages and towns have been turned into fortresses, and a large number of ordinary militiamen are equipped with magic rifles.
An efficient early warning system, and a group of frontline troops who have returned from the front line for repairs.
Qi and the army in his hands seemed to be locked up after crossing the big river. Scattered rangers continued to appear, and some strange magical creations hovering in the air appeared in all directions of the army.
The first time Qi attacked a stronghold that had been transformed from a manor into a fortress, he was ambushed by the Youyan tribe.
If it weren’t for the fact that the army that ambushed him was not large enough, I’m afraid he would have been sent away on the spot in this first battle.
This was even under the premise that as a rat warlord, he had gathered a large regular rat army under his command, but he still suffered such a disastrous defeat.
It's hard to imagine how those rat knights would deal with such a situation.
I am afraid that most of them broke through the battle line in the form of a suicide attack, and then withered in this vast land with a posture that was difficult to leave even a single survivor.
One thing that must be admitted is that the rat people are better at fighting positional warfare and war of attrition.
With technology and soldier quality lagging behind in these two aspects, they continued to draw out long and fierce battle lines, consuming the Youyan human race in a crazy manner, which became the Rat The choices people have to make.
To be honest, the rat lords, rat priests, and temple guards didn’t quite understand that in the last expedition, they were defeated steadily by rat wars and were even torn in half at one point. Human beings are in danger, why do they seem to have changed their attitude in this short period of time, becoming so difficult and annoying.
The promotion of the magic industry and the transition of national power have indeed saved the Dark Eye Human Empire. In just three years, the nobles have quickly reached the point where they exist in name only.
Things, industry, promotion channels, entertainment, these were all widely put down under the promotion of the new emperor.
Everything was very radical. In the first year of the Three Years' War, the emperor eagerly did many things, cracking down on the long-term contracts between nobles and commoners, and unifying the various noble territories. tax rates, abolished private slavery, and forcefully gave the right of free passage to every citizen of the empire.
All these things triggered a tsunami-like rebound, but it was all suppressed.
Caesar showed a kind of madness comparable to that of the rat men in this crisis.
He called back all the personal guards who resisted the rat-man invasion in the Plains Province, and suppressed the rebellion with an extremely tough attitude, without any compromise or negotiation.
Such madness is simply jaw-dropping.
The nobles were afraid, and eventually everything calmed down. The noble families that had lasted for hundreds or thousands of years were unable to recover since then, and the guy who raised the butcher knife was the largest noble in the empire. The emperor of the empire.
In the second year of the Three Years' War, under circumstances that no one expected, the emperor took it upon himself to introduce an education reform ordinance, and the Mages Association put him on the throne, but But he chose to attack the mages without hesitation.
The eight great mages gathered in the capital of the empire were invited into the palace one by one. At the same time, the young reserve troops who worshiped Caesar in various cities began to take action. They surrounded the magic towers one after another and moved those The magic weapons provided by the Mages Association were aimed at these mages.
Caesar wants to collect all spells and magic technology, and he wants to build a huge imperial library, in order to break the influence of each mage school relying on its own unique magic technology on which mage is about to be screened out.
Magic schools one after another have screened out the first batch of one million mage apprentices, although about 90% of them will only be ordinary trainee mage in their lifetime. up.
But just that ten percent is enough to rapidly expand the mage schools built around the archmage.
So Caesar chose to build a large library and unify all magical knowledge in the Mage Association as a whole to eliminate this possibility.
This crisis finally ended with the compromise of the mages, because of the compromise given by Caesar, the magical knowledge was unified and affiliated with the Mages Association, rather than being controlled by the imperial royal family.
At the same time, there were internal conflicts. Four archmages clearly chose to support Caesar, three chose neutrality, and a large number of ordinary mages and some young aristocratic mages chose Caesar.
If this resolution cannot be pushed forward, what will come first will not be a magical war to overthrow the tyrannical emperor, but a horrific civil war between mages.
The remaining archmages chose to compromise.
What is interesting is that compared to the resentful old nobles, Caesar's prestige among young people is almost visible to the naked eye, whether they are young mages, nobles, or farmers' children.
Indeed, Caesar is indeed quite charming. He was born of the noblest blood, fought against the most terrifying enemies, and stood up again when he was most depressed. This is simply a living protagonist.
But even this kind of Caesar would sigh frequently in a corner they didn't know.
With the support of magical agriculture and the legacy of Golden Wheatfield Academy, there is a great abundance of food every year. A large number of farmers who could only stay in the farmland their whole lives are enjoying this abundance. , with the increasingly low food prices, I was able to leave the fields, go to big cities, and find a job in those magic workshops.
Young people are no longer numbly repeating themselves, and the habits and stories among the mages have finally been passed on to all parts of the empire.
After all, for a long time, these seemingly crazy mages have always been the most adventurous among mankind.
The wind of progressive thought began to blow.
These young children began to tell the world loudly, what I want to do, what I want to bring, instead of always emphasizing those old-fashioned glory, bloodline or other things.
Caesar liked those children quite a lot. Well, when he was young, what was he doing when he was the same age as these children.
Reading knight novels? Read the biography of Xiangyan? I couldn't take my eyes away from staring at the huge soft place of the maid in the royal fortress, and when I was found out, I still pretended to be serious and coughed like the protagonist in the knight's biography?
Okay, all of them.
He appreciates the progressive thoughts in the empire. After all, he is still a young emperor, and he undoubtedly prefers progressive and upward things.
But only if the specter of war dissipates from the skies over the Empire.
The never-ending war is like a wound that keeps bleeding.
Two reports were placed in front of Caesar.
One letter is about the casualties of soldiers on the front line last week and the pensions that need to be paid, while the other letter is about the number of new babies born in the Human Empire throughout the last year. The number of soldiers killed in the last week has reached 50,000. This is only one week's casualties. About 2.5 million soldiers die on the battlefield a year.
Last year, the Mage Association estimated that there were only three million newborns born in the Human Empire.
The existence of the rat people, this war, is like a gaping wound, the rolling flesh and blood, almost everything is slowly consumed.
Those farmers looking curiously at the big city, those children running in the fields, those young people with ideals and hopes, all are objects of consumption.
Hot, bright red blood flowed out from this hideous wound that opened the flesh, fell to the ground, and accumulated into a pool of lifeless, filthy, rotten blood.
Caesar wanted to stop all this, he wanted to stop all this, but he couldn't. He could only watch it all happen, and he could only watch it happen in the dead of night, with the indelible look on his face. of sadness.
Ratmen, ratmen, ratmen, this group of crazy guys are a disaster. They destroy everything. They don't care whether they trample on light or darkness. They don't care what they trample on, even themselves.
In the dark night, the flag lit up the flames in the wheat field that was already covered with a hint of golden color.
The rolling flames rolled in the dark night, and the black smoke rose, becoming a beacon.
Qi also found his own way to deal with it in that endless pursuit.
That is dispersion. After an attack, the entire huge army quickly dispersed and fled in all directions. And when it was time to gather together, just like now, ignite everything and destroy everything. , those rat people wandering around can naturally gather together, and then run wild in the night when they have gathered enough to attack those outposts, villages, and fortresses, and after success, they scatter again.
This is an extremely effective strategy.
After all, all the temple guards asked Flag to do was harass and attract attention.
As long as Qi is still running wild in this area, no matter what he does, it fully meets the definition of harassment and attracting attention.
Of course, this strategy is not perfect enough. If it is too dispersed, it will inevitably be difficult to gather enough rat troops when needed. This is an unavoidable problem.
But solving this problem is also simple.
All it takes is a steady stream of ratmen to be injected into this area.
Can Qi do this? Of course, of course he can't, but just because he can't do it doesn't mean that the temple guards can't do it.
These guys have also become ruthless recently in order to make progress in this war.
All of this is still related to Caesar's reforms.
During the three years of war, who was stuck in Lianyen Province with no progress? It's you! Temple guards!
oh! Look at those traitors you brought with you. They are stuck here and cannot move. They are really rude!
This is probably the attitude shown by the rat lords in the rat council now. Although the mysterious temple guard leader still remains calm about this, the other leaders of the temple guards are going to Furious.
This allowed them to spare no effort to invest their strength on the battlefield.
The problems faced by Banner's strategy are also solved by sparing no effort. Every once in a while, a large number of rat warriors will be injected into Banner through that flat river to torture them. of this area.
All of this is related to Caesar's suppression of the nobles. After he transferred the troops on this front, the rat army led by the private army leader made a mad advance for a long time. distance.
In the dark night, in the flames, little bits of red appeared, rustling sounds, and sneaky figures gathered in the diffuse flames, converging around the figure standing in front of the flames.
Qi waited for his army to come. At this moment, he raised the flag high and roared loudly.
"Follow me! Kill them! For the gods! And for yourself!"
The rat people began to respond to this roar, raising their weapons high in the dark night, Excitedly shouting along.
“For the gods! And for myself!”
Indeed, the Skaven brought almost nothing but destruction.
In the dark night, the rat people gathered in groups and began to run wildly under the leadership of the flag held high.
Not far away, there was a small town built like a fortress. A man holding a torch started running around the village. In an ordinary farmhouse, a tired man sat up carefully. , stretched out his hand just to grab the long gun hanging on the bedside.
Not far away, young children were still fast asleep. Two brothers of similar age hugged each other, and even the snot bubbles flowed out. The sound of shouting outside the house did not wake them up. A little guy.
The tired man glanced at the two little guys. Seeing their strange appearance, a smile appeared on his face. He thought of something. When he turned around, he saw the boy sitting up like him. woman.
The woman was frightened by the rat cavalry who broke into this place not long ago, and the fear was still buried in her heart. Listening to the shouts outside and looking at the man like this, there was a little more fear on her face, but she didn't. There was no stopping the men.
There were tears in my eyes, and I just sat on the bed and wiped my tears blankly.
The man looked at the woman's appearance, and the expression on his face was a little more complicated, but he did not stop. He picked up the leather hat from the table and stood up. .
The steps are light.
"Wait for me, I will be back soon."
After leaving such a sentence, he left in a hurry.
The flames lit by the flag alarmed the town not far away, and a mobilization began.
The relationship between the two sides is not friendly. It can only be said that from the time the rat people crossed the narrow continental bridge and arrived at this continent, the fight between the two sides has risen to the level of a fight to the death.
(End of this chapter)