Lord of the Oasis - Chapter 475
Chapter 475: The Turmoil in the Dukedom of Leo
In just a few days, the logistics supply line of the knight corps had suffered a devastating blow.
A large number of transport convoys from the Lion Fort and Lionheart City were all targeted by the light cavalry troop led by Rolf. Then, they took advantage of the night when everyone was relaxed to launch a sudden attack. They did not linger for long and set the carriage on fire before running away.
With the raging flames, although the transport caravans did not suffer too much damage, they lost a lot of resources.
Sometimes, even the people were slaughtered.
It was a typical act of bandits!
No, that was not entirely true.
Although the various noble families in the Dukedom of Leo had done many filthy things, there were actually not many true bandits.
They were all wolf dogs reared by the noble families. Only at certain times would they attack the trade caravan. However, when the orders came from their master, it was as if they were chained again, completely silent.
Therefore, the various forces in the Dukedom of Leo were all dogs reared by the noble families.
If it was necessary, they would be unleashed and bite people.
There was no need for that, they would stay at home quietly.
As for the current Rolf, he had started to act unscrupulously in the plains of the South County and all sorts of farms. He would burn, kill, and plunder anything. That was simply something that he didn’t even dare to think about!
But because of that, the management of the South County and the noble families didn’t even have time to react!
In three days, Rolf had burned more than 50 farms in the South County.
Even more than 10 villages had been burned, causing close to 10,000 refugees to gather towards Lionheart City.
The entire South County was in chaos. In addition, Rolf’s troop could attack at any time, plundering and looting the grain of the transport team. They even distributed the grain to the refugees. Rolf made the situation even more chaotic.
They were all light cavalry, causing the knight corps of the South County, who were used to fighting in groups, to be at a loss.
That was the function of the irregular cavalry.
Harassment!
Apart from having a mobility advantage when fighting the infantry on the battlefield, in non-battlefield areas, they could also cause all sorts of trouble to the enemy. For example, a lack of food would cause a famine!
Of course, there would be famine in the army.
Not to mention, it was an army of over 20,000 heavy cavalry soldiers. The amount of food they needed was an astronomical figure!
The amount of food they consumed every day was equivalent to the consumption of 50,000 infantrymen. If it was before the start of the war, the amount of food they needed would increase even more. After all, they needed to maintain the physical strength of the army in the short term to ensure that they could continue fighting on the battlefield for a long time!
This was how Rolf impacted the knight corps of the South County.
He attacked the grain channel.
He harassed the traditional planting areas.
He drove the peasant to become refugees and destroyed the agricultural structure.
He even blocked off the areas, attacked the transportation lines, and harassed the cities and the troops that came to sweep the area.
He did this so that in this battle, he would constantly harass the enemies and make them run for their lives. Under this high-pressure status, the enemy would collapse on their own, or rather, walk towards destruction!
The noble infantrymen who had already formed a defensive formation did not care about the charge of the knights at all.
The infantrymen who could line up into a square formation with lances and spears in their hands were as spiking as hedgehogs.
Want to attack and charge?
What a joke!
Those members of the knight corps would definitely leave behind corpses on the sharp heads of lances and spears!
Even if they used the weight and inertia of the warhorses to break through a part of the square formation of the long lance, how could the cost-benefit ratio of both sides be proportional? A group of low-quality conscripted militia and hired peasant in North County could exchange their lives with the lives of these knights who had been training all year round just by receiving a few months of military training every year.
It was worth it just by looking at it, not to mention that in order to break through the layers of defensive lance formation, they would have to lose at least 5,000 knights or knight attendants in order to do so!
Most importantly, they would suffer severe casualty.
If 5,000 knights died in battle, wouldn’t that mean that the remaining people were all injured?
This was a conservative estimate, because among the 20,000 infantrymen, there was still a heavy cavalry unit of over 3,000 people. They were fully armored, and their strength was not inferior to the knight corps of South County!
If a battle really broke out between the two sides, it would only happen if one side fell!
The battle situation would be extremely tragic!
However, based on the current situation, the troops of the North County might had to stand on the spot and defend the borders of the South County. In that case, they would be like hedgehogs, the noble knight corps would not be able to bite them.
Even if the troops of the North County moved slightly, they would be able to form a gap and create a flaw.
That was the door through which the knights charged in.
However, the infantrymen of the North County did not move at all. They continued to stand guard on the spot.
They did not even care about the transportation teams. Even if the South County sent the light cavalry to scout or harass them, they would not do anything.
The biggest reason was that as the commander of the troops of the North County, Firentis did not care at all.
The advantage of the South County was that their cavalry unit was formed by the heavy cavalry, not the light cavalry.
The light cavalry, who wore simple leather armor or did not wear armor at all, only had the role of scouting.
It was laughable to let the light cavalry to charge at the transportation team that was protected by the longsword soldiers. As long as the carriages were lined up in a chariot formation and connected into a low wall, the light cavalry that held a spear or longsword would be useless.
After a few days, the knights of the South County recalled their light cavalry.
It was not because the effect was not good.
It was because an even more unexpected trouble had arrived!
In the various farms deep within the South County, the slaves that were originally prisoners of war of the Silver Platter Kingdom had started a massive uprising. They had killed many of the farm’s owners and taken over the farms, starting to rebel against the rule of the South County territory.
This was an extremely unexpected incident, many farms in the South County were destroyed in a short period of time.
The rebellion had erupted!
Other than the area around Lion Fort and Lionheart City, the other places were all in a mess.
That’s right, the prisoners of the Silver Platter Kingdom had rebelled, calling themselves the uprising army. They didn’t gather at the same place but spread in all directions. They destroyed the farms in the South County of the Dukedom of Leo, saving more slaves, and at the same time, they plundered more peasants. This made the civilians who originally lived in the villages become rebels.
In just a few days, they had already become an army of more than 20,000 people. Compared to Rolf’s light cavalry, they were even more savage. They swept through everything like locusts, eating, drinking, killing, and burning. They completely focused on destroying the South County!
The entire north bank of the Resniston River was in complete chaos.
Even the private armies of the noble families began to struggle to quell the chaos, but the effect was limited.
Everyone’s vision was drawn to the allied army of the North County. They had never thought that the slaves under their care would also start a rebellion.
Moreover, because it was the captives of the Silver Platter Kingdom who started the rebellion, they did not care about how much damages they did to the Dukedom of Leo. Everything they encountered was burned to the ground, including the originally lush fields and forests, and even the villages. It seemed that they had the resolution to die, and they definitely did not want to let the Dukedom of Leo have a good time!
