In the early morning of the sixth day when the army was stationed in Talburg, a small cavalry squad rushed out of the narrow doorway, stepped on the simple wooden bridge in front of the door, and ran toward the east along the carriage path. A cloud of dust rose up behind the cavalry.
The leader of the cavalry team is Ater. After the basic defenses of Talburg were repaired, he decided to take Angus and Ron's light cavalry deep into Swabia to conduct a personal sentinel inspection.
When the sun rose above the treetops, the five cavalrymen had already arrived at the foot of a hillside twenty miles away from Talburg, which was already within the borders of Swabia. The Attes hid their horses in the shade of the trees at the bottom of the slope, then climbed to the top of the slope, stood behind a few miscellaneous trees and looked at the flat and wide land under the hillside.
From where Art and the others stood, one could vaguely see a white dot on the skyline, which was the city of Tebrunn, an important town on the southwest border of Swabia. To the west of Tebrunn was Biltenburg, which was the closest to this hillside. There were four village manors and a dozen small settlements scattered around Biltenburg. In the golden wheat fields on the plains surrounding the manor settlement, farmers are harvesting the first batch of early-ripening wheat.
· Looking at the golden waves of wheat, Reid expected that the villages and manors at the foot of the mountain must be very rich, and even those small settlements must have surplus food. He couldn't help but asked in a low voice: "Sir, should we "attack" those manors and villages first, or "occupy" those small settlements? "
Just as Art was about to answer, Angus's voice sounded: "Now is not the best time. The farmers have not finished harvesting the wheat, nor have they paid taxes, nor have they converted the excess grain into silver coins. You will get nothing by robbing them at this time, but it will cause a strong reaction from the lords."
Matt nodded and said: "We can't rob these farmers yet. Our current task is to do a good job in the defense of Tal Fort and pretend to be bandits to harass their army supply lines. Or pull out some small checkpoints and settlements."
"Why dress up as bandits?" Ron didn't understand. In his mind, the army's battles were always about fighting face to face.
"Little fellow, you are stupid again. If you dare to attack cities and plunder territory under the banner of the Burgundian army today, a large number of troops will come to besiege you tomorrow, and they will first suspect that we are an army from Glaru County. Then they will definitely send troops to capture Tarburg along the carriage road behind you, and then march into Glaru County. No army will tolerate a hungry wolf appearing behind its back. Now Shi The Principality of Waben has not yet declared a full-scale war, and Galalu County is still relatively stable. If Galalu is captured due to our reasons, we will not be able to live in peace. But it will be different if we pretend to be ordinary bandits. The army will not be alerted. Those lords who have already collected enough taxes will not go to clear out some bandits who come out to beg for food at this time unless they have to..." Angus explained for Ron.
Att scanned carefully from south to north and then from north to south, and finally set his sights on the mountainous area more than ten miles to the south.
"Sergeant Major, have you seen the peak over there?" Art moved to Angus' side and raised his hand to point to the southern peak.
"You mean we will come out from there to harass them?"
"From there, the locals will regard us as ordinary bandits, so as to minimize the suspicion of the Swabian Principality's army and the castle lords. As long as a large number of troops do not appear, we people are more than enough to deal with the guards of those village estates."
Matt turned to Angus and said: "Sergeant Major, take Ron there tomorrow to scout out and see if you can find a road that leads directly from Tarburg to the mountainous area, and then find a hidden place nearby where you can store supplies."
"Okay. I will take Ron to do some scouting tomorrow."
The group of people gazed at the hillside for a while, taking note of the size, distribution, and access roads of the villages and estates and scattered settlements at the foot of the mountain. Then they got on their horses and returned to Tarburg.
What's going on?
Otto put down the sword in his hand and walked to Art, "Sir, these businessmen who claim to be Swabians have just returned from trading in Burgundy. Now that the two countries are at war, how can any merchants dare to go to the enemy's country to trade? Moreover, their five armed guys only carried a cart of worthless groceries. They did not look like a caravan at all. We stepped forward to intercept them and planned to ride on horseback. After escaping, they were chased by the soldiers who came and tried to bribe the soldiers to let them go. I tried to search and interrogate them, but they actually drew their swords and resisted! "My lord, what should I do?" After hearing this, Art drew his sword and walked into the crowd. He waved his sword at a guy wearing armor and cut a gash in the guy's head.
Before the few remaining people could realize what was going on, they were already stabbed and chopped down by the surrounding soldiers.
“Leave two alive and kill all the others.” Art pulled out a rag from his arms, wiped off the blood on the sword, turned back and jumped on his horse and entered Talburg.
Those guys who were surrounded and killed in the morning were usually business travelers doing business, but their hidden identities were "Eagle Eyes" who accompanied the business travelers to inquire for information. After some torture, the other guy who was left alive had confessed that he was originally a businessman from Burgundy, but this time he was mainly lured by the guy tied to the pillar, and took his people to the Burgundy County as business travelers to act as "Eagle Eyes" to find out information. They had already scouted out the important military deployment of the Count of Burgundy on the eastern border. This time, they took the Burgundian army layout map they drew to bypass the heavily defended northern border and sneak back into Swabia from the southeastern mountains. They did not expect that this dilapidated military fort that had been abandoned for decades was actually garrisoned by a garrison. They were nervous all the way and naturally relaxed when they reached the mountainous area. However, they never thought that they would actually jump into the checkpoint set up by the Art army that had just been stationed here.
Att poured a bucket of cold water on the fainted "caravan leader". The "caravan leader" groaned and woke up again: "Man, we already know your true purpose. Tell us everything you know, and I can spare your life." "
Matt took out the short-handled hunting knife from his waist, pointed at the crotch of the guy on the pillar and said, "If you don't say anything, you won't be able to be a complete man." After that, Ron took off the guy's belt.
The guy on the pillar spat a mouthful of blood at Art, grinning and roaring: "Bastards, devils, you damn devils, stab me to death if you can!!!"
"As long as you can still talk." Art pulled off the guy's pants and slowly moved the short knife towards his crotch.
The guy's hands and feet were tied up and he could only struggle with his head. Seeing that the dagger was about to cut him, the guy finally collapsed and said with a cry: "I will say! I will say anything!" Ron handed over a wet cloth and wiped the blood on his hands. "Ron, you guys go in and continue the torture. Take out everything that can be taken out of his mouth. Ask whatever comes to mind, and just save your life."
“Sergeant Major, although Swabia does not have a standing army stationed in the southwestern border area, the local lords must still have some defensive forces. If we make too much noise, the local remaining troops will definitely assemble to deal with us. In the short term, the 150 people left behind in Tebrunn and Bilten are not enough to capture Talburg, but we must We have been stationed here for more than half a year. If there is no large-scale battle between the northern armies for such a long time, the Swabian army can send troops back to the southwest border to deal with us at any time. Therefore, we must act cautiously for the time being. When Swabian is exhausted in the north, we will make some big moves. Then they will have no extra energy to deal with us. "
"Well, this is indeed safer."
“Sergeant Major, in the afternoon you take the information we captured about the enemy and the “Eagle Eye” to the city of Glaru, and ask Lord Herreth to send a messenger to pass this information on the mobilization of the Swabian army to the palace. I will also write a private message to Lord Baldwin reporting on our situation at Tarburg, and you can ask the messenger to take it with him. "
"In addition, I will send someone to follow you to the city of Galalu to buy some food supplies. The caravan has not returned yet, so we must stock up on more food supplies in case of unexpected events..."
After a while, Ron also came out, and he walked to Art whispered beside him: "Master, that guy's stomach has been empty of words. He can't be beaten any more. If he is beaten again, he will die."
"Okay, sir, but what about the other cowardly gangster? Have you killed him?" He is proficient in Swabian and may come in handy in the future. Let's keep him for now and give him to Spencer as a hard laborer, but I have to keep a close eye on him and not let him run away." After Art finished explaining, he boarded the patrol post on the castle wall.
On the outer wall, two small groups of soldiers from Bas and Tuba were working with the help of laborers to strengthen several arrow towers and watchtowers on the outer wall with wood cut from the vicinity of Talburg. Other laborers were stacking stones collected from around Talburg into piles every ten paces.
On the sentry tower on the top of the inner fort, a small homemade man-made trebuchet was being assembled and tested under the command of two carpenters. A stone the size of a small clay pot was loaded into the trebuchet's net.
"It's only over a hundred feet away. The power is too small. Add another traction rope~" The carpenter glanced at the mark in front of the fort gate and said to another carpenter beside him.
The carpenter found another thick hemp rope and tied it to the other end of the trebuchet...