Ch.625The Prolonged War

After extensive discussions with his staff spanning dozens of minutes, Ludwig refined my woefully inadequate troop transport plan into a “feasible plan.”

The solution involved extremely lightweight carts… or rather, objects closer to wheeled planks than actual carts, carrying infantry stripped of all armaments to various points along the wall.

Using unarmed soldiers for defensive warfare might sound insane, right? I thought so too.

“How are they supposed to fight without armor and weapons? By throwing stones?”

It was natural to have such doubts.

“No need to worry about that. Supplies and equipment are stockpiled at various points along the wall in preparation for enemy raids. They can rearm themselves with the equipment at their destination.”

Of course, as always, Ludwig had a plan.

According to Ludwig’s explanation, the dozen fortresses and twenty barracks established at strategic points along the wall were filled with emergency supplies and military equipment.

These were originally stockpiles in case supply lines were cut off. Thanks to Landenburg’s thorough preparation, one critical problem was solved without issue.

—-

It took considerable time for the refined plan to enter the implementation phase.

First, the Imperial Army, following Ludwig’s orders, mobilized every piece of timber they could find to create temporary transport carts.

The forces to be dispatched to various points along the wall numbered fourteen thousand, including infantry and archers.

To transport this enormous number, not only did they requisition all of Landenburg’s carts for transport, but they also had to cut down virtually every available tree.

The human carts thus created… looked far from safe or comfortable. About as far as the distance between divorced spouses facing each other in a headwind.

“…Is it really safe to ride these?”

“As long as you don’t roll off, it should be fine… probably.”

The Imperial infantry, confronted with the sorry state of the carts, muttered quietly with expressions mixed equally with suspicion and anxiety.

A reasonable reaction, of course.

The flat wooden boards with axles and wheels attached, covered with just a single piece of leather, didn’t look particularly trustworthy. For the sake of weight reduction, there were no cart walls, no roof, and even the shock absorbers were woefully inadequate.

Moreover, to prevent soldiers from being thrown off the carts, they had to be tied down with ropes. In terms of ride comfort, it probably rivaled a slave ship.

Well, that’s how field military equipment tends to be.

Anyway, thus was born the Empire’s first motorized infantry.

If I claimed these were motorized infantry, historians would be justified in beating me over the head with stacks of research papers… but a cart is technically a vehicle, right?

—-

“The Ka’har’s objective will be to find sections with insufficient defensive forces and break through with several thousand-man units. To prevent this, we must deceive their eyes and ears.”

After completing all transport preparations, Ludwig summoned the commanders of the defensive forces heading to various points along the wall and issued several directives:

– Make noise when your forces are few, and maintain silence when your forces are many.

– Raise as many flags as possible during the day, and hold as many torches as possible at night.

– Reduce the number of military flags and torches whenever new forces join you.

– After fighting three times, do the opposite of all the above instructions.

These were all deception tactics to mislead the enemy about the number of defensive troops.

From the Ka’har’s position, forced to look up at the wall, they would have to gauge the size of the defensive force by the number of military flags on the wall, the noise of the soldiers, or the number of torches.

So the plan was to disguise small forces as large armies and large armies as small forces, inducing the enemy to target the most heavily defended areas.

[Indeed. Most warriors are short-sighted, rash, and foolish, so deceiving them shouldn’t be difficult.]

Hersella also seemed to highly rate Ludwig’s deception tactics. Or more accurately, she was underestimating the average intelligence of the Ka’har.

‘That’s a harsh assessment. Come to think of it, aren’t you also a Ka’har warrior?’

[Do not place me in the same category as those fools who cannot even write their own names. Had anyone else uttered such words, I would have considered it an insult and cut them down.]

So don’t treat her the same way?

What a complicated personality. While she despises and scorns most Ka’har warriors including Orhan, she maintains a strange pride in her Aishan-Gioro bloodline and her identity as a Ka’har warrior.

‘Yes, yes. How could the descendant of the great sorcerer “Sky Horse” and the incarnation of the Sky Wolf on earth be on the same level as those idiots? I went too far.’

[Ugh…!]

Perhaps my joke reminded her of her embarrassing behavior at age 15. Hersella let out a strange groan and then firmly shut her mouth.

======[ Along the Wall ]======

After the troop transport carts departed for various points along the wall, the Imperial Army and the Aishan continued to engage in sporadic battles, maintaining a meaningless war of attrition.

Even with transport carts, it was impossible to match the speed of the Ka’har cavalry, so the Imperial Army always had to respond after being outmaneuvered… but fortunately, they weren’t completely overwhelmed.

Whenever the wall was in danger of being breached, reinforcements would arrive, albeit slightly late, to strengthen the defenses in that area.

The situation resembled a chess game. Reading the opponent’s tactics and responding accordingly, constantly moving frontline troops to repeat small-scale offensive and defensive battles.

Somewhere along the wall, Ka’har warriors quietly climbing the walls would fall back amid a shower of arrows from hidden defenders, cursing as they plummeted. Elsewhere, warriors who had managed to climb up and engage in close combat would eventually retreat, unable to withstand the endless waves of reinforcements.

Thousands of clashes repeated daily. Looking at the results, both the Ka’har and the Empire were just piling up corpses without any significant achievements.

The Ka’har couldn’t cross the wall, and the Imperial Army couldn’t annihilate the Ka’har, thus suffering from continuous attacks.

In truth, even for Ka’har warriors, climbing the wall without proper ladders was no easy task.

A Champion might be able to reach the top of the wall with several leaps, but if hit by something during the jump, they risked bouncing off the wall and falling dozens of meters below.

That’s why Orhan had ordered his warriors to concentrate their forces on sections with weak defenses.

However, warriors deceived by Ludwig’s tactics often attacked areas full of elite troops rather than weakly defended sections.

“Now! For Landenburg!”

“Damn it, another trap!”

Each time, their forces were significantly diminished.

—-

Thanks to Haschal’s proposed troop transport carts—dubbed “Tailbone Crushers” by their riders—Ludwig’s deception tactics, and the knights’ bravery, the Imperial Army managed to fend off the Ka’har’s attacks reasonably well.

Of course, it was far from perfect defense.

It wasn’t uncommon for dozens or hundreds of soldiers to be slaughtered by warriors who had painstakingly climbed the wall, and even when they successfully repelled the enemy, their forces couldn’t pursue and annihilate the retreating enemies, so they had only bought themselves a day or two of respite.

Such battles continued for over ten days, during which the main forces of both sides maintained a psychological warfare without direct confrontation.

When Orhan’s army loaded corpses into catapults and sent them as “gifts” over the wall, the Landenburg side responded with Frederick’s explosive javelins, ballistas, and rock projectiles.

For Ludwig, this situation was advantageous. Time was on his side.

Unlike fortresses or castles that must rely on stockpiled supplies when surrounded by enemies, the wall could continuously receive supplies from the wide-open rear.

This meant that unless overwhelmed by superior forces, it would be impossible to cut off supply lines and starve them out.

Of course, the advantage of maintaining stable supply lines applied to the besieging side as well, but—

‘Most of the Ka’har forces are cavalry. Just maintaining their troops consumes enormous resources, yet their supply capabilities are terribly poor. They can’t even maintain their army without plundering.’

This was a fundamental limitation of nomadic peoples.

In peacetime, they could live without hunger with mediocre farmland and prairie grasslands, as they were scattered across the steppes.

But with thousands of troops gathered in one place as now, it was impossible to feed so many war horses through nomadic herding or grazing. When tens of thousands of horses start grazing in one area, even lush prairies quickly turn into wastelands.

That’s why the Ka’har at war relied on plunder for about half their supplies. Since their own productivity couldn’t possibly sustain their forces, they had to make up the difference by seizing enemy resources.

‘However, without crossing the wall, plunder supply is impossible. Without defeating Dane’s main forces, they can’t plunder Dane to supplement their supplies.’

Orhan was aware of this fact and had gathered and stockpiled considerable supplies at strategic points across the steppes, including Ordos…

‘The grasslands and granaries near the wall have all been burned by Joshua, and the stockpiled supplies in Ordos are being consumed to feed the refugees created by Haschal. How long can you maintain an army of tens of thousands while waging war against an enemy you cannot plunder, Orhan?’

Ludwig smiled. Time was on his side.