Chapter Forty-Nine: The Fierce Battle (Part Two)

Marshal Agris, the frontline commander of the Dwarf Empire, after analyzing the composition of the Song army, concluded that the enemy possessed indomitable willpower, strict discipline, high-caliber officers, and the capability to rapidly adjust tactics during small-scale skirmishes. Furthermore, they boasted a massive number of artillery pieces, all equipped with devastating high-explosive shells!

Well, in subsequent intelligence reports, Marshal Agris also learned that the Song army included a formidable cavalry force of over 10,000 troops. These horsemen were akin to the lancers of the chivalric era, each clad in a cavalry half-cuirass, with an estimated shocking impact force. While they might fail to break a dwarf infantry phalanx in a direct frontal charge—a fact already proven by the Franconian Empire's cuirassiers, whose cavalry were entirely wiped out when they frontally charged the dense dwarf phalanxes without piercing the formation—clearly, the Song commander would not be foolish enough to repeat this. In this era, very few commanders ordered cavalry to directly charge disciplined infantry squares; the Franconian Empire had only done so out of desperate, last-ditch measures when pushed into a corner.

Due to their physiological build and stature, dwarf soldiers were unable to ride warhorses. Well, it was primarily because a dwarf's weight was simply too heavy... Despite their short height, they weighed even more than humans, which explained why they possessed such tremendous strength...

Finding warhorses capable of bearing the heavy load of a dwarf was like searching for a needle in a haystack, a rare one-in-a-thousand treasure. Naturally, this prevented the Dwarf Empire from forming large-scale cavalry units...

However, Marshal Agris was well aware of the true role of cavalry: they were primarily utilized when infantry entered close-quarters melee, or for pursuing fleeing enemies to expand victory gains. Of course, if one's own side was on the verge of collapse, the cavalry would also have to bite the bullet and rush in to put out the fire...

Very well. Having summarized all this, Marshal Agris completely abandoned his initially formulated plan to divide forces and encircle the enemy's landing port. Given the strength of the Song army, splitting the dwarf forces would likely result in them being defeated in detail—and defeated so rapidly that they wouldn't even last until reinforcements could converge!

Moreover, judging by the Song army's performance in small-scale combat, Marshal Agris did not believe he could gain any advantage in a war of movement. Therefore, the most convenient, simplest, and quickest way to resolve Sun Li's massive army was undoubtedly a decisive, once-and-for-all main force pitched battle. Leaving behind only the necessary garrison troops, Marshal Agris assembled 150,000 elite main legions of the Dwarf Empire and, with great gentlemanly conduct entirely fitting for the atmosphere of this era, issued a formal challenge of battle to Sun Li!

Both sides agreed upon a reasonable location and a perfectly fair method to fight a decisive battle that would determine the ownership of the vast territories in western continental Europe!

Holding a pitched battle at a pre-arranged location—what a time-saving and effortless method! In any case, warfare between most factions in this era was conducted this way. Naturally, if one side felt too weak—meaning they turned cowardly—they could refuse, but such behavior, once spread, would deal a devastating blow to morale...

For Sun Li, however, morale was not an issue at all. If he ordered his 100,000 troops to commit suicide, these zealous soldiers would likely plunge their bayonets into their own bodies without a moment's hesitation.

Nevertheless, for Sun Li, who was a complete stranger in the Fornibo region, resolving the problem through a single decisive battle held immense temptation. He had already grown utterly sick of scouring the Jinzhou continent everywhere to suppress and encircle scattered, chaotic enemy soldiers!

Besides, given the status of the Dwarf Empire as invaders in the Fornibo and Franconian regions, as long as they were frontally crushed—or even simply defeated—the ownership of this entire region would seamlessly fall into Sun Li's hands.

Naturally, therefore, Sun Li accepted Marshal Agris's challenge to battle.

Subsequently, backed by intelligence support from the Brocade Guard, Sun Li marched toward the designated battlefield. Believing themselves to be the stronger party, both sides naturally positioned themselves as the advancing force, setting the stage for a proper, upright field battle.

Before the main armies made contact, their respective reconnaissance forces clashed first. Armed with hussars for reconnaissance, Sun Li held an overwhelming advantage in these armed conflicts involving a few individuals, dozens, or at most a hundred troops.

At the cost of several hundred casualties, Marshal Agris once again deeply realized another special significance of cavalry: damn it, reconnaissance and small-scale raids were simply too overpowered!

Observing the one-sided reconnaissance skirmish—or rather, armed massacre?—Marshal Agris decisively recalled the doomed dwarf reconnaissance troops and threw his entire army forward, driving Sun Li's hussars all the way back...

Sun Li naturally refused to show weakness and led his main force straight forward. Although the Song army held the advantage in battlefield intelligence, Marshal Agris was keenly aware of his own shortcomings. On the march, he kept his army tightly clustered together, securing logistical supplies easily by living off the land. This nipped Sun Li's plan to harass supply lines and "starve out" the dwarf army firmly in the bud. He could only blame the fact that the Fornibo region was absurdly fertile, filled everywhere with black earth that yielded outrageously high crop outputs. Cutting off food and water to starve the dwarf army was truly out of the question...

Thanks to the primitive performance of weapons in this era—the exasperating flintlocks that could fire only three or four rounds a minute even when operated by the most elite and experienced musketeers, while artillery firing rates were frankly laughable—the armies could effortlessly carry all the ammunition needed for a massive pitched battle, with quite a surplus to spare...

Consequently, apart from employing a large number of laborers to drag their hundreds of artillery pieces, the dwarf army, much like ancient cold-weapon forces, could ignore logistical pressure once their food and drink were sorted out, advancing rapidly toward the battlefield!

One must admit, poor weapon performance was not entirely a bad thing, was it? Just like back then, why the little Japanese insisted on using the wretched Arisaka rifle, forcing the soldier to manually cycle the bolt after every single shot, only to be utterly pummeled by the semi-automatic and fully automatic rifles of the American G.I.s...

The reason was simple: to conserve ammunition! It wasn't that Japan lacked the high-tech tree for semi-automatic and fully automatic rifles; they were simply too poor to afford them! Equipping assault troops with a few submachine guns required endless debate; if they had equipped the entire army with semi-automatic rifles, the ammunition supply would have driven that pompous Imperial General Headquarters to tears!

Well, supplying ammunition for muzzle-loading flintlocks was even less of a problem...

Thus, Sun Li's 100,000 troops and Marshal Agris's 150,000 dwarf tin cans met upon a vast plain.

For the attacking side in this era, everyone held a deep fondness for such level battlefields: broad fields of vision where armies could deploy on a massive scale. For a pitched battle involving hundreds of thousands of troops, only such expansive plains could satisfy a commander's demand to survey the overall situation and issue timely commands.

The decisive battle officially commenced!