In addition, Hoffman also recruited dozens of magicians to form a magic group, asking them to directly blow up the ice on the river when necessary.
This plan was standard and there were no major problems. Dick also thought that building a wall was a good idea, so he provided some technical guidance so that the defense wall could be built faster and better!
The main defense wall in the eastern section was made of local materials. Ice blocks were cut directly from the Nie River and used as wall bricks. In the cold winter in the north, the hardness of ice is no less than that of granite.
The rear part of the eastern section is imitating the Prime Minister Cao in the novel, using sand and water to build a frozen soil wall. The efficiency is slightly slower than the western section, but it is also progressing steadily.
Thanks to the harassment from the cavalry sent out by Dick, and the orc army's deep penetration into the human territory, the battle line has been stretched unknowingly, causing their forces to begin to disperse, which in turn affected the speed of advancement.
Hoffman originally thought that they could reach the city in two days at the earliest. However, it was not until the fifth day that a small number of orc vanguard troops appeared on the west bank of the Nie River. They were stunned by the nearly eight-meter-high towering city wall on the other side of the river. The completion of the city wall also greatly boosted the morale of the coalition forces.
"It's incredible, it's simply a miracle!"
With more than 100,000 laborers working in three shifts, they built a huge city. The average height of the western wall is eight meters. The wall is made of "composite materials" from local materials and is very strong. The rear of the eastern section is slightly lower, with a permafrost wall five meters high, but trenches, pits and spikes that are enough to cause people to have intensive phobia were dug on the outside, leaving only a road less than five meters wide.
While repairing the wall, the coalition also urgently built a large number of simplified versions of the counterweight trebuchet according to the drawings provided by Dick. This thing has a decent range, and its main advantage is that it is extremely simple to manufacture, which is simple enough to cover up its shortcomings of being not durable, so a large number of them were manufactured in batches and used purely as consumables.
In the past five days, the coalition forces have increased their strength to nearly 30,000 troops. Lagug has also sent two batches of reinforcements totaling 1,500 troops and a large amount of food and fodder.
As the lord who sent the second largest number of troops, Dick's troops were not only elite soldiers, but also had many engineers and a whole field medical team.
It is worth mentioning that during the construction of the ice city, people were injured from time to time, and hundreds of people were injured in five days. However, except for eleven people who died on the spot and could not be rescued, the rest of the wounded were properly treated in the field hospital in Laguge. This also made Natasha, the head of the medical team, famous. Many seriously injured people who were treated by her personally praised her as the incarnation of the goddess of love.
As a result, Natasha's reputation attracted the attention of local church forces. They were amazed at Natasha's superb art and beauty, and actually came to Dick to ask for her, believing that Natasha was a messenger sent by the goddess to the earth and should join their church.
They first harassed Natasha, making her so annoyed that she used Dick as a shield, saying that she was the Earl's "slave girl" and that she had no say. So the group of people went to annoy Dick again.
This group of charlatans were used to persuading people to donate to the church in the name of God. They thought that Dick was so young that he would be easy to fool, so they spoke in a very exaggerated way, as if Dick would be able to achieve perfection and ascend to heaven if he just gave people to them.
Dick was looking at a map at the time. He didn't get up until the old priest finished talking. He walked over to the other side and whispered something in the counselor's ear. The priest's expression suddenly became very interesting. Then he got up and left in dejection, and never dared to harass Natasha and Dick again.
The old priest who looks righteous and righteous actually plays a lot of games behind the scenes!
On the day the defensive wall was completed, the cavalry unit that had been sent out to harass the enemy returned.
Of the 302 cavalrymen who went out, 268 returned in total. The loss was not very great, but the results achieved were truly impressive. On average, each cavalryman killed more than seven orcs, and the record of the black and white spearmen exceeded 100. It was not that they could only fight one against a hundred, but that they only encountered so many.
In addition, they captured some prisoners alive, including the "Son of Ramon".
As soon as the cavalry troops arrived, Hei Qiangdai, who was walking at the front of the team, attracted everyone's attention.
Many lords who heard the news and rushed to watch the fun saw the black-armored knight take off his helmet, revealing a heroic and beautiful face, and they couldn't help but admire Dick and feel envy and jealousy!
Why are all the retainers under this boy such capable and beautiful women! ?
Is this really reasonable?
Seeing Hei Qiangdai being so ostentatious, Dick felt a bit of a headache.
Many of the girls under his command either never appear in public, or when they do, they slightly change their appearance with makeup to make themselves look more ordinary.
But Hei Qiangdai is the type of person with an extremely flamboyant personality and a strong desire to show off. Not only does he often show his true colors in public, he also goes out of his way to get close to Dick and say some suggestive words. Like this time, Hei Qiangdai went out of his way to run up to Dick, knelt on one knee and kissed the back of his hand, which not only helped Dick to look good, but also attracted a wave of hatred for him.
But after showing off, Hei Qiangdai did not forget the serious business. He turned around and picked up a "humanoid dumpling" on her horse's back with one hand, and took credit to Dick with a bright smile on his face.
"Master! We caught a big fish this time!"
The author says:
Author's words: Happy New Year everyone! I wish you all good health and freedom from depression in 2024!
126. Fight
Raghu is scared!
He was once very powerful. He was the son of Beast King Ramon and the captain of the Beast Cavalry. In his eyes, humans were nothing more than talking buns that he could knead, flatten, and abuse at will.
But things never go as planned. Not only did he lose his bread, but he was now surrounded by thousands of bread men. He was dizzy and couldn't see the faces of those humans, but he could clearly feel the boundless anger in their eyes, as if they would rush up and tear him to pieces at any time!
The ridiculously strong female knight carried him through the crowd and dropped him directly at the feet of a human.
That human was not tall, and looked very small among the already short humans (compared to the orcs). He felt like a little kid who had not grown up yet.
But at this moment, Rag was shaking uncontrollably because of fear.
Although Rag was ferocious and brutal, and some of his perverted behaviors were unbearable even to his fellow beastmen, this was just a disguise to cover up his cowardly nature. He was actually very afraid of death. If his mouth had not been blocked by a rag, he would have already started begging for mercy.
Seeing the fear and pleading in Rag's eyes, Dick knew that he was a coward. With so many people watching around, he used his telekinesis to lift him up from the ground so that his swollen face, which was covered with tears, could be seen by more onlookers.
"It turns out that these beasts are also afraid!"
Dick used magic to amplify his own voice. When the people around him heard this, they were stunned at first, and then, no one knew who started it, they all burst into laughter, leading more people to cheer.
In recent days, as the orcs were getting closer, the refugees fleeing from the west were like they had just walked out of hell. They were all scared out of their wits. They brought all kinds of intelligence and bad news, making the coalition camp always filled with a tense and uneasy atmosphere. Panic spread even faster than disease, seriously affecting the morale of the military and civilians.
So since it is a rare opportunity to encounter such a cowardly orc, we naturally have to make good use of him and use his fear of death to dispel the fear of the human race.
Look! These man-eating monsters can also bleed and feel scared!
After using Lager to boost the morale of the coalition forces, the unfortunate child was then handed over to the special agent team that arrived at the front line with the third batch of reinforcements for interrogation. What awaited him was not traditional torture, but a variety of carefully formulated chemical agents, which could effectively ensure that he was telling the truth.
It is worth mentioning that Count Hoffman also has a team of special agents specializing in intelligence work. This group of people were trained by Isaac. They are considered a beggar version of Mossad and are more adept at physical interrogation.
This group of people had previously tried to infiltrate Lagug, had fought many battles with Tia's "Forget-Me-Nots", and even organized two rescue operations for Isaac, but all ended in failure.
Now the two families have formed a temporary alliance to jointly fight against the orc invasion, and the intelligence agencies have also begun cooperation.
The agents of the two families showed their special powers, using chemistry to treat the symptoms, physics to treat the root cause, and combining physics and chemistry to make specimens! They served Rag to the point of ecstasy, and squeezed him dry in just one night.
Through Rag, the coalition forces grasped the troop deployment and strategic intentions of the orc invading army. They actually wanted to use 100,000 orcs to swallow up all the imperial territory north of the Central Mountains in one go. Their early battles were indeed very successful, and the northern princes who were careless and underestimated the enemy were caught off guard.
However, although the orc army was coming with great force, the tribes were used to being loose, and even if they were integrated by the Beast King Ramon, their military organization was actually no match for that of the human race.
Up to now, the beastman army has been chasing the human race all the way, but they have unknowingly let their own battle line spread too thin and are no longer the clenched fist they originally had.
However, the main force of the central army led by the Beast King still assembled 17,000 to 18,000 orc soldiers.
Fortunately, their target was not the noble coalition, but they headed straight for the pass of the central mountains, intending to seize that strategic location before the human race could react.
The pass of the Central Mountain Range is an important passage connecting the southern part of the empire and is also the gate.
Relying on the geographical advantage, only 5,000 elite soldiers are needed to stop an army of 100,000. Once the orc army takes this place, it will be difficult for the reinforcements from the south to break through, and the human race in the north will unfortunately become the stray dog that is locked up and beaten.
At present, it is not clear to the coalition forces whether the Beast King Ramon has any other trump cards to ensure that his army can 100% capture the fortress at the pass of the Central Mountain Range, but all the details show that there seems to be an expert guiding the Beast King, who not only gives them advice, but also provides a lot of key intelligence.
The next morning, the sentries standing guard on the ice wall were surprised to find that an organized army of orcs had appeared on the other side. The number of people was initially estimated to be around two thousand. It was not known whether their self-confidence had been so high due to their successive battles in recent days that they launched an attack in such a large number.
The sentry blew the battle horn immediately, and the soldiers on duty at the foot of the city wall immediately rushed to the top of the city wall and prepared for battle.
The two thousand orcs on the opposite side were mostly infantry, with a variety of weapons, including various bone weapons for their own use and iron weapons they seized on human territory. Their bodies were covered with all kinds of "trophies" that would make people's SAN values drop wildly. Some of them even tied human intestines around their necks as necklaces, looking like evil spirits running out of hell.
However, these evil spirits are flesh and blood after all. Although the nobles' private army is not allowed to be equipped with muskets and cannons, they have enough crossbows and catapults. The defenders immediately launched a head-on attack on the enemy with long-range weapons, and the tall orcs were easy targets to hit.
What was surprising was that although the hit rate of the first round of bow and crossbow fire was extremely high, not many enemies were knocked down. Many orcs were hit by several arrows, but their running speed did not decrease at all.
Not only do orcs have thick skin and flesh, their bones are also extremely hard, especially their skulls, which are the hardest. The human army's individual crossbows cannot cut their heads open unless they are shot directly in the eyes.
Such a hard skull also makes the orcs, whose metallurgy level is almost zero, very fond of using the bones of their own kind to make weapons. After many orcs die, their bodies are not buried like humans, but are fully utilized, with their flesh and blood becoming food and their bones made into weapons.
So when you see an orc wielding two "skull hammers" coming towards you, it is possible that three generations of his family are fighting together!
However, no matter how thick the health bar was, two thousand orcs charging into a fortress guarded by tens of thousands of people was like an egg hitting a rock. Seeing that the killing effect of the military crossbow was limited, the coalition forces decisively used the more powerful bed crossbows and catapults.
The snow-covered ice surface of the Nie River was soon dyed red with blood.
127. The Big Three
When the orcs attacked, Hoffman had not woken up yet, but the moment the horn sounded, he jumped out of bed like a taut spring. He rushed to the balcony with his bare chest, and looked towards the Nie River in the west, just in time to see the more than 2,000 orcs rushing up.
At this time, Hoffman did not know that this group of orcs were a group of reckless men who did not obey orders and advanced recklessly. As soon as they reached the other side, they took the initiative to launch a frontal attack.
Because this army had been so successful in capturing cities and strongholds before, many castles or manors of small lords were built very simply and did not have many troops to defend them. Therefore, more than 2,000 orcs only needed to rush forward and climb over the wall to kill at will.
This made the orc army feel proud, and they thought that the human city on the other side was just a little bigger and could not stop their invincible orc warriors at all.
Then they were in tragedy!
Of the more than 2,000 orcs, nearly half were left on the ice just after crossing the river, and the other half rushed to the city wall under the crossbows of various calibers. They found that although the city wall did not look very big from the opposite bank, it was ridiculously high when they got close. They could not reach the top even if they jumped as high as they could.
What annoyed them even more was that those cowardly and despicable humans did not engage in fair face-to-face duels with their orc warriors, but instead shot arrows and threw stones at them from the top of the city walls.
At this distance, archers can perform their duties. They can shoot very accurately from a high position and kill without making a sound!
Soon, most of the two thousand orcs were killed or wounded, and the remaining soldiers only realized at this time that something was wrong. They turned around and wanted to run back, but were attacked by the crossbowmen who were rotated in again. In one fell swoop, none of them made it back alive.
As the last orc fell, the victory of the coalition forces defending the city was declared. The soldiers looked at the orc corpses on the ground under the city wall, feeling excited and incredible.
They killed so many orcs with zero casualties on their side!
The soldiers were cheering, but in the forest on the other side of the Nie River, Neg was looking at the friendly army that rushed forward to deliver lives and be annihilated, and listening to the morale-boosting shouts of the human race, he was so angry that his teeth were itching!
"A bunch of idiots! Their deaths were meaningless!"
When this orc army arrived at the west bank of the Nie River, Neg, who had been guarding here to receive reinforcements, tried to dissuade them from advancing rashly.
But the centurion leading this army was an arrogant and stupid tribal chief. He looked down on Neg who tried to stop him from launching the attack and thought he was a coward, so he ignored his advice.
Nag watched them rush forward, and then all of them died. The meaningless death of two thousand orcs not only failed to shake the giant city, but also boosted the morale of the enemy.
Neg, who was in depression, couldn't help but think of what the Beast King Ramon said, that the Orcs were actually a weak and unconscious race.
On the coalition side, this inexplicable attack ended quickly. Hoffman, who was standing on the balcony watching the battle, only realized at this time that he was outdoors in just a pair of shorts. He quickly retreated back to the room trembling.
With human thinking, Hoffman did not think that the orcs' attack was simply brainless (but it was indeed the case). It was most likely a deliberate exploratory attack by the other side. The orcs' large force must be hiding in the woods on the opposite bank at this moment (not really).
So Hoffman hurriedly put on his clothes and ran out of the room. When he passed by the castle's guest room, he happened to see Dick and his two beautiful and strong female knights coming out of the room together.
"My Lord, why are you so panicked?"
"The orcs are attacking. Didn't you hear the noise?"
"Of course I heard it, but there is no need to panic. My people have spies on the other side of the river. Their main force has not yet assembled. The orc army just acted on its own."
"????"
Hoffman was stunned by Dick's words, thinking that Dick was a little too optimistic, but he quickly reacted and thought, "Good fellow, you dare to stay on the other side! ?"
You have to know that the orcs have a strong tracking ability. Their sense of smell is as developed as that of a dog, and their hearing and vision are far superior to those of humans. Hoffman had previously sent many spies to conduct reconnaissance on the other side, but the losses were quite heavy, and they did not get much valuable intelligence. Hoffman had no choice but to terminate this ineffective reconnaissance activity.
Soon, many lords in the coalition gathered together. The orcs' attack made everyone worried. Some people were visibly afraid and trembled without any awareness.
This chaotic scene gave Dick a headache. He glanced around and looked at several powerful lords. The expressions of these big guys all seemed to know each other.
"Can you all calm down? The sky hasn't fallen yet!"
The first person to speak up to calm the situation was another earl from the East, Eugene Banner.
This middle-aged man, who was as strong as a bear, had a beard as thick as a dwarf's and a shiny bald head. Just by sitting there, the whole room became much brighter.
The elder brother arrived very late, only last night, but he brought a lot of soldiers, a full army of 5,000 people. At this moment, there were four energetic young men standing behind him who looked quite similar to him. They were Eugene's four adult sons.
The Banner family is a prestigious family in the north of the empire. They were among the first nobles to explore the north. Their ancestors have been fighting against the orcs, and the family is known as the "Orc Killers."
Dick, Eugene, and Peter, these three are all earls, and they are also the three families that have contributed the most troops in the coalition. Although the relationship between the three families is not harmonious, at least they are of the same mind at this moment.
In fact, the three of them had already met privately for a small meeting last night and had already finalized the tactical and strategic arrangements.
Those lords who are at the forefront consider themselves to be powerful. It's not that they are kind-hearted and can't bear to let those small lords go up to fill in the line, but the opponents are really difficult to beat. They are afraid that the ragtag armies of these small lords will be defeated too quickly, and they will not have enough time to take over from behind.
At this time on the west coast, Xia and Ayane were secretly monitoring the gathering orc army. These guys set up camp in the forest, and there were about four to five thousand people gathered, with more teams arriving one after another.
What concerned the two sisters was that there was a faint evil aura emanating from the center of the orc camp that made them very uncomfortable. It felt a bit like the demon from their original world.
Xia's idea is to go back and report first, but Ayane wants to sneak into the camp to find out what's going on.
Fortunately, Hongye arrived at this time and stopped Ayane from doing such a suicidal behavior that would easily lead to a defeat CG, and brought them a new task.
128. It is impolite to come without returning the favor.
After nightfall, a light snow fell quietly. The camp in the woods was noisy. The roars of orcs fighting and the screams of human captives came one after another. The scene was like a picture of hell.
Neg sat in front of the fire, oblivious to everything around him.
If he was the commander, then with the military knowledge he learned from his teacher, he would never let the military camp become so chaotic. Even the outer sentries were arranged carelessly, and there was not even anyone arranged to patrol and check the posts. As a result, many sentries were seduced away by the fun in the camp while standing there.
Neg tried to report these situations to some of the leaders in the camp, but all he got was ridicule and humiliation.
The reason is simple: Neg was defeated, and it was the first battle of the war, and he was defeated miserably!
Other orc troops attacked the human territory from the west, burning, killing and looting along the way as if they were in an empty land. Seeing how badly Neg was beaten, they naturally looked down on him.
