WeTried Translations

Translator: Nemui

Editor: Nemui

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Friedrich's Battlefield

Chapter 179: Reenacting Victory

──────

In the previous war against the Kingdom of Arelia, Friedrich had used several indirect methods.

There had been the battle when Duke Ernst Bachstein and Prince Konrad Edelstein joined hands with the Kingdom of Arelia and started a rebellion. In order to retake the important Ostburg Fortress, which the enemy had occupied, Friedrich pretended to be one of the enemy's allies. He staged a flight from the cavalry of the Ferdinand Regiment and easily succeeded in entering the fortress.

There had also been the battle in the border region against the Kingdom of Novakia, which had been defeated by the Kingdom of Arelia. Before the fighting began, in order to drive the Novakia royal family into a corner, Friedrich led a detached force into the Kingdom of Novakia's territory and carried out a scorched earth strategy.

This time, Friedrich decided to use a plan that combined the indirect methods from those two battles and take the city occupied by the rebel army.

First, he temporarily lifted the siege of the city where the rebels were holed up, but conspicuously spread scouts around the city so that the enemy would be forced to remain wary and avoid leaving carelessly.

Then the main force, having lifted the siege and withdrawn once, would carry out a scorched earth strategy against the villages around the city.

That said, scorching enemy territory itself was not the objective, so they did it deliberately mildly. They formed many small units, showed themselves in advance so the farmers would have a chance to flee, and then attacked the villages. They left the fields untouched and only burned some houses flamboyantly, showing that sight to the fleeing farmers to impress upon them that a scorched earth strategy was being carried out. They did not kill those who fled while carrying as much property as they could, but they chased them persistently to instill fear.

When that happened, the Carunan people driven from their villages fled toward the nearby city, the city where the rebel army was holed up. Many of the rebel army were militia, and most of those who had risen in this region were from this area. The fleeing farmers would be relatives, acquaintances, or friends of someone among the rebel soldiers, and when considering morale, the enemy could not refuse to accept the refugees.

The city gate would open, and the farmers would flee inside the walls while the rebel soldiers hurried them along. The pursuing troops of the Kingdom of Edelstein would stop as if they had unfortunately failed to capture the farmers, glare at the city gate, and withdraw.

Such chase scenes were repeated several times over multiple days. Once, the pursuers caught up with the farmers and took them away while the rebel army on the walls watched. At that time, some of the rebel army, apparently unable to endure it, sortied from the gate, but they were, in the end, only a group of militia acting in anger. The pursuing unit made up of regular soldiers easily scattered them and carried off the captured farmers.

Refugees fled into the city and wept that their villages had been burned. Hearing that, the rebel side should think that the reinforcements from the Kingdom of Edelstein were carrying out a scorched earth strategy. They would be furious at the enemy's actions, feel frustration that they had been unable to save the refugees despite once sortieing, and become eager to save the next refugees who came. That was precisely Friedrich's aim.

Then, after several such chases, another unfolded before the city. Dozens of refugees fled on foot or in wagons, and the pursuing unit of the Kingdom of Edelstein, the cavalry of the Ferdinand Regiment, chased them.

The chase unfolded at an exquisite distance where the refugees would somehow reach the city before being captured by the pursuers. At its end, the refugees arrived at the gate.

"Hurry! Get inside!"

"The back is clogged! Leave the wagons behind!"

"We can't! There are children and old people in the beds!"

Shouts from rebel soldiers and refugees flew back and forth, and the retreat inside the walls was somehow completed. The gate closed, and the group of knights who had failed to catch the refugees stopped at a distance from it.

"That was close... You are safe now. Here, you will be all right."

The commander of the unit watching the gate spoke to the refugees who had escaped safely. The soldiers also surrounded the refugees with words of comfort and offered them water.

"Ha ha ha, you must have been badly frightened. All of you have gone pale."

"Y-yes..."

Even when spoken to in a friendly manner, the refugees reacted sluggishly. Only an elderly man sitting on the driver's seat of the lead wagon, whose clothing made him look like a village headman, managed to answer.

All of them looked as if they were still frightened of something even at this moment. The knight in command naturally showed a suspicious expression.

"There are children and old people in the wagon beds, yes? It is safe now, so have them come down."

"You were running hard, so the shaking must have tired them. Is anyone injured?"

The rebel soldiers put their hands on the canvas covering the bed of the wagon where the village headman sat. The next instant,

"Wha!?"

The soldier who opened the rear of the canvas and looked inside showed an expression of shock. With that same expression, his head parted from his body and rolled to the ground. A sword had thrust out from the wagon bed.

The owner of that sword, a large knight, leaped from the wagon bed and slaughtered another stunned rebel soldier. Following the large knight, more knights and soldiers who had been hiding in the wagon bed climbed down.

Seeing this and understanding that enemies had infiltrated, the rebel officers and soldiers were not able to move to intercept them. Instead, confusion swallowed them.

"D-damn it! The enemy got inside!"

"Did the refugees betray us?"

"Calm down! The enemy is few, surround them and call reinforce..."

The commander of the gate watch unit raised his voice toward the panicking militiamen, but the large knight who had infiltrated attacked him, forcing him to respond. He managed to hold out for a moment, but the difference in build was clear, and as the commander himself was still confused, he could not fully display his ability before his stomach was slashed open and he collapsed.

"Just as planned! Take control of the area and open the gate!"

The large knight shouted that and thrust his sword into the fallen commander's throat to finish him off. The infiltrators who had emerged from the wagons answered vigorously and attacked the remaining rebel officers and soldiers in front of the gate, or ran to open it.

"Th-the captain is down!"

"There are so many enemies... It's over!"

"Hey, don't run! Fight! At least go call the other units!"

Among the several dozen soldiers guarding the gate, the regular soldiers of the noble territorial force still tried to respond properly, but the militia were different. Seeing their commander cut down and enemies pour out of the wagons, many lost the will to fight. Some stood frozen in panic, while others threw away their weapons and fled.

The infiltrators, the detached force of the Kingdom of Edelstein, ignored fleeing soldiers, ordinary civilians, and the farmers they had forced to cooperate in the infiltration as they ran away. They annihilated only those who resisted and opened the gate.

"Tch. Cowards. No bite at all."

The large knight, Gunther, who had been entrusted with command of the detached force, spat this out while climbing onto the wall and looking outside. The cavalry unit that had once stopped outside the gate began moving its horses again, accelerating toward the gate.

"Clear the front of the gate! The cavalry is coming in!"

When Gunther shouted the order, the detached force, made up of elites from the Ferdinand Regiment, moved swiftly. They shifted the wagons to the side of the street, told civilians who had failed to flee to move away from the road, and created an entry path for the cavalry.

Rebel reinforcements finally arrived from the center of the city, but from what could be seen, they had few knights or regular soldiers and were mostly militia. There was no way they could stop a mounted charge.

"Form ranks and make a wall of spears..."

"Scatter them! Kill only those who resist!"

The rebel reinforcements were filled with militia, and many of them became terrified and fled the moment they saw the approaching cavalry, causing the unit to collapse. Before one of the few regular soldiers, a knight, could finish giving orders, the Ferdinand Regiment cavalry charged at Battalion Commander Oliver's command. In moments, they crushed the rebel unit and, together with Gunther's detached force, completely secured the area around the gate.

Meanwhile, outside the gate, further units of the Kingdom of Edelstein were approaching. The officers and soldiers who had secretly gathered ran to break into the city.

......

"The detached force seems to have done well."

"Well, the enemy is a rebel army made up mostly of militia. They cannot possibly match our elites."

Watching cavalry and infantry units enter through the already opened gate as reinforcements, Friedrich exchanged words with his adjutant Gregor.

The Edelstein army had gathered while hiding behind hills that were blind spots from the city, and the entire force was already advancing toward the city.

The group of refugees who had fled into the city at the end had not actually been trying to escape capture by Friedrich's cavalry. Their village had been attacked, their family and relatives taken hostage, and they had been forced to cooperate in helping the Edelstein army break through the gate. To make the chase look real rather than staged, they had run desperately while being driven by the cavalry led by Oliver.

Because of the previous refugees, the rebel army accepted the wagons carrying Gunther and the others into the city without any suspicion.

At this stage, victory was already certain. The rebel militia, which had gathered decent numbers but was fragile as soldiers, would lose most of its morale as soon as the situation turned against them. Mercenaries hired with money would not fight to the death in a battle with little chance of victory. What remained were only the regular soldiers serving the noble house that had led the uprising. Their number was small. There were at most about two hundred inside the city. Moreover, they were scattered throughout the city and could not gather immediately.

Just as Friedrich predicted, from then on there was almost no organized resistance, and the rebel army of fifteen hundred collapsed. The city fell into the hands of the Kingdom of Edelstein's army.

Their own dead numbered only a little over ten. On the other hand, more than two hundred enemy soldiers died. Many of the militia threw away their weapons and fled or blended into the city, while the noble who had led the uprising escaped with his family and a small number of retainers.

A noble who had lost the city that served as his territorial capital no longer had the ability to continue the war, and the people who had lost their leader no longer had the strength to rise again. Having defeated the rebel army they had faced, the army of the Kingdom of Edelstein prepared for the next battle.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried