Chapter 58: General Aymel

In the castle of Bernia, the former capital of the Franconian Empire:

"General Amer, the Blue-Shirt Army of the Song Dynasty is already at the gates! Please retreat quickly. The homeland has already signed a peace treaty with Sun Li, and we have no reinforcements left! Let's go, if we don't leave now, it will be too late!"

Inside the dim master bedroom of the castle, a haggard and disheveled dwarf general sat slumped, his eyes gazing blankly at the ceiling.

Why? Why had they suffered such a crushing defeat?! Their army of two hundred thousand dwarves had actually been defeated by a rising human nation! Marshal Agres had fallen in battle just like that...

"Our Dwarf Empire still has over one hundred thousand regular troops at home. We still have the strength to counterattack, we have not failed yet! I will hold my ground on the territory of the Dwarf Empire, I will fight to the last moment! Long live the Dwarf Empire!"

Acting as if he had lost his mind, General Amer stood up and brandished his meticulously maintained commander's saber, shouting and raving as though sheer volume alone could prevent the fall of the capital of Bernia.

The dwarf officers who had been trying to persuade him exchanged glances. Their immediate superior seemed entirely incapable of accepting reality. It was true that the domestic territory of the Dwarf Empire still held over one hundred thousand regular troops; if a general mobilization were called, gritting their teeth to assemble a force of two hundred thousand would be no difficult task.

However! Though these officers did not know what was going through the mind of the Emperor of the Dwarf Empire, the command delivered to them had been crystal clear: abandon resistance, recall all dwarf soldiers back to the mainland, and avoid any contact with the forces of the Song Dynasty!

Yes, exactly that. The great, fearless, and noble Emperor of the Dwarf Empire had issued an imperial decree practically indistinguishable from surrender!

There were no reinforcements, no weapons support. There was only a strict order to completely withdraw from human territory!

The rank-and-file dwarf soldiers and junior officers were largely indifferent; the brutal battle against the Song Dynasty had given these dwarves a sobering realization of this rising nation's formidable strength. Naturally, none of them believed that their current force of a few tens of thousands could block the invasion of over one hundred thousand Song troops—even if those troops were merely second-line local garrison forces, the Blue-Shirt Army!

The dwarves figured that even if the Song's second-line troops weren't as formidable as their Red-Shirt Army, a numerical strength exceeding one hundred thousand was more than enough to crush them. No doubt the Emperor of the Dwarf Empire had signed the peace treaty with Sun Li precisely because he had witnessed the Song Dynasty deploy over one hundred thousand troops directly against them, compounded by their previous disastrous defeat...

Thus, quite naturally, in order to preserve their strength—and perhaps harboring a secret wish to let the powerful Song Dynasty clash with other powers on the European continent—the Dwarf Empire chose a complete withdrawal from the newly occupied human territories. In any case, these lands had been captured only recently and had not yet been digested, so losing them would not fundamentally hurt them.

Compared to the one hundred thousand dwarf soldiers lost by Marshal Agres, giving up these lands truly amounted to nothing!

Yet, within the dwarf army that had been thoroughly brainwashed by the empire, there were always a few who refused to accept defeat, or who had even spiraled into madness. General Amer was one of them.

All the occupied territories were being peacefully handed over—or rather, simply dumped—to the Song's Blue-Shirt Army as they arrived to take control. Only General Amer insisted on binding his force of over five thousand dwarf soldiers to the spot, forbidding any retreat and locking them firmly into Bernia. It seemed he intended to live and die with the city!

Under the imperial order to retreat, dwarves who valued their lives made up the absolute majority. Since the very person they had sworn allegiance to was telling them to save themselves, why on earth should they stay here and throw their lives away for this mad general?!

Clinging to a final shred of hope, just as the Song's Blue-Shirt Army was about to arrive at the gates, the remaining group of dwarf officers made one last attempt to advise General Amer. Clearly, the outcome was far from ideal; these officers confirmed once more that General Amer genuinely intended to commit suicide!

Gazing at the ranting, raving general, the dwarf officers sighed. Gathering in small groups with their colleagues, they walked out of the gloomy chamber. Their immediate mission now was to pack their bags, take their soldiers, and run for their lives!

"We will stay with General Amer to defend the dwarf territory!"

"Run away if you are cowards of the dwarves! Bernia needs brave warriors like us to protect it!"

To the surprise of the dwarf officers, a considerable number of common soldiers sympathized with—or rather, agreed with—the frantic general's views. They were unwilling to hand the city over without fighting a single battle!

Among the units that had previously retreated, there had naturally been plenty of soldiers who wanted to fight to the end, but under the heavy suppression of senior dwarf officers, those who sought martyrdom had been forced to suffer the humiliation of returning home.

Bernia, however, was different. General Amer had already proclaimed his determination to resist to the bitter end and to share the destiny of the city!

With a senior commander leading the way, there was no shortage of hot-headed dwarf soldiers who lacked fear of death and wished to fight the Song invaders to the very end...

Helpless, the dwarf officers had no choice but to take the soldiers whose heads were still clear—those who still recognized the emperor's command—and flee the city by night toward the homeland. As for the dwarves whose brains had short-circuited and who were bent on fighting the Song army to the death, the officers could only leave them to their own fates...

And so, following a series of farcical chaos, fewer than two thousand dwarf soldiers remained in the entire city of Bernia, alongside General Amer and his hardcore loyalist officers, persisting in their defense of the capital of the Franconian plains.

Upon learning that over a thousand dwarf soldiers shared his ideals, General Amer laughed with delight. What thoughts could possibly be running through his mind to make him so happy? Perhaps it was the comfort of finding comrades who shared his mindset, or no longer being viewed as a madman?

All in all, backed by these nearly two thousand fanatical dwarf soldiers, General Amer regained his vigor. He straightened his uniform and delivered what he fancied to be a magnificent defense speech in the central square of Bernia.

Then, amidst the cold, indifferent stares of Bernia's human residents, this fanatical dwarf force rushed to the ramparts, driving the human citizens before them to assist in the defense.

The human residents of Bernia had originally believed they could peacefully welcome the rule of a new human army, only to find themselves driven onto the city walls by these alien dwarf soldiers to serve as cannon fodder?!

A small-scale riot quickly broke out among the populace, but how could a crazed General Amer possibly care at such a moment? Before Bernia could even face the assault of the Song army, it suffered a bloody suppression by the dwarf forces!

With bloody heads, General Amer demonstrated to the human residents that even if the dwarf army was small in number, it was more than enough to easily slaughter human trash like them.

So they had better obediently cooperate with the dwarf operations and stop playing games with their own lives!