When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1081 Smoke Bomb

The news that Longbow Castle had escorted the envoy from Wonew City out of the city was quickly noticed by sharp-eyed merchants.

Carrier pigeons, riders, and carriages all became exceptionally busy within a few days.

Outside the city, one can always see carriages and riders crowding the streets, and pigeons often fly overhead.

It is unclear who was so clumsy, but Lady Joan of Arc, who was only eighteen years old and already ranked as a junior officer, managed to intercept the carrier pigeon at the Longbow Fort camp.

That evening, people saw Tora, who was in charge of secrecy and counter-espionage within the city, being dragged to the camp and scolded.

This was a serious matter. Tora, who had initially only been slacking off in organizing the military police, suddenly became radicalized.

It should be noted that Tora, who was in charge of the military police, although shouldering the heavy responsibility of counter-espionage, had mainly focused on developing the organization for the past few months.

He gathered a large number of unemployed witchers and formed five squads of ten, which spent their days training and capturing, rarely showing themselves.

However, after this incident, seemingly afraid of losing his position as captain of the military police, he immediately proposed launching a city-wide investigation.

Even more strangely, the seven oligarchs seemed to have been provoked or pressured by Joan of Arc, and all chose to follow suit.

When news of Leia's military intervention spread, the Council of Sixteen and the Guild of Forty-Five directly authorized the Dawn Island Defense Committee to bring Longbow Keep into a state of war.

Soon, the citizens were divided into groups of ten households per neighborhood to supervise each other.

Furthermore, everyone must collectively swear an oath before the holy image in the church, ensuring that everyone is devout and passes the test.

At the same time, it prohibited the entry and exit of outside clergy (most of whom were spies), forced nearby monasteries into a state of seclusion, and prohibited outside monks from staying there.

Unfortunately, this method actually helped Tora uncover several spies, leaving the citizens with no reason to object.

The merchants who used to frequently travel along the trade routes and act as opportunists, passing messages to Leia, suddenly calmed down and dared not be as unrestrained as before.

Leading their donkeys and mules through the city gate, and gazing at the patrolling demon hunters with their beast-like eyes, the scouts ultimately chose to lie low for the time being.

Currently, Longbow Castle is escorting the envoy from Wonew City out of the country, and judging from the current situation, they will likely only provide assistance other than sending troops.

There probably won't be any important news to share in the short term.

What they didn't know was that just a few days earlier, while they were blaming each other for their messy dealings, Jeanne and Drum met again in a monastery outside the city.

Standing atop the monastery, Drum breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the familiar Joan of Arc banner approaching.

He quickly washed his face and changed his clothes, put on his most charming smile, and went to greet Joan of Arc.

"I thought you were lying to me and weren't planning to come? It seems I was too narrow-minded. In that case, I'll punish myself by drinking three cups of wine for you later..."

Jeanne raised her hand: "Stop, stop. I'm not here to drink. Have you packed your luggage?"

Drum was a little stunned: "Not, not yet..."

“The password, run!” Jeanne glared at him. “You ride back to Owen City first, try to organize an army of a thousand men, make sure they are locals from Waterwheel County, and meet them at the border of Dover County.”

"Okay, I'll be off right away."

Defland County is the county where Longbow Fort is located, but the most prosperous Longbow Fort is not the county seat, but another small town.

That was the territory of a local duke, which was raided by Jeanne's cavalry just last week, forcing the duke to flee in disarray to his father-in-law's house.

For at least a month or two, things will be very stable here.

This gave Jeanne the confidence to mobilize her entire army.

Standing on the mound and looking down, you can see a long, dragon-like procession moving through the green grass and yellow mud.

The cavalry, riding in stirrups, patrolled the area, while the Papacy infantry followed closely behind their officers.

The late autumn sun was scorching, making people itch to the bone, but they still had to march under their silver helmets.

During the large-scale investigation over the past few days, three infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment, and a total of 2,200 servicemen had already sneaked out of the city in batches under the cover of night.

As for the main camp, several more food stalls were set up, and two new regiments were recruited and trained to conceal Jeanne's troop movements.

The Leia's informants have either been exposed during the major investigation or have gone into hiding, afraid to make any moves.

This gave Jeanne the opportunity to secretly transfer her troops away. But since it involved the movement of two thousand men, it couldn't escape detection.

Information can still be controlled around Longbow Keep, but it's hard to say what will happen outside of De Vries County.

That's why Jeanne asked Dram to go back to his hometown to assemble the army. As for whether it would be too much trouble for the city of Owenu to assemble the army in a short period of time, she didn't think so.

The mayor of Okinawa is a former military officer, and he also has reinforcements from other free cities supporting the Five Cities Alliance.

While it's difficult to gather one or two thousand people in a short period of time, it's not impossible.

If you're going to keep making excuses about something that's a matter of life and death, then you, Piast, might as well just die.

Having arranged Drum's whereabouts, Jeanne immediately went to find Bradak.

When I met Bradak, he was talking with the quartermaster about military supplies procurement and stationing issues.

Upon seeing Jeanne approaching in full armor, they all stopped their discussion: "Good morning, Lady Joan of Arc."

"Good morning." Jeanne waved back, then turned her gaze to Bradak. "You're a local, and you're quite famous. We'll be relying on you to deal with the villages and towns along the way."

Bradak swung his hammer at the left chest: "I will definitely fulfill your obligation."

"Okay." After confirming with Bradak, Jeanne turned and left again.

Seeing that Jeanne was about to leave after speaking, Bradak hesitated for a second but couldn't help asking, "Your Excellency, this is not something I should comment on, but we need to know where we're going on this march, otherwise I won't feel at ease."

Jeanne stopped and turned to the other quartermasters: "Do you all have this problem?"

“Yes, but we are soldiers, and obedience is our duty, so I won’t ask,” the quartermaster next to him immediately shouted.

This immediately drew a furious glare from Bradak.

Jeanne laughed: "You're asking me, but I don't know either. Plans never keep up with changes."

If you ask me about the specific objective, I can tell you: it's to go to Waterwheel County, lure out the Leia vanguard, and give them a crushing defeat.

As for how to achieve this goal, the Privy Council monks are happy to tell you, but I may not necessarily follow their instructions.

War is ever-changing.

If Leia's vanguard increases, then Jeanne definitely won't be able to fight.

Because of the vast disparity in troop strength, and because she wasn't leading only veterans of the Holy Alliance.

If Leia's vanguard is smaller, they will definitely defend the city to the death and refuse to fight in the open field. It will be almost impossible for two or three thousand men to take the city.

Or perhaps, although the number of people is neither too many nor too few, their generals are very determined and refuse to come out no matter what, then Jeanne has no good way to deal with them.

From this perspective, war is a massive, cascading current.

Try your best not to make mistakes yourself, wait for others to make mistakes, and then seize the opportunity to infinitely amplify the enemy's errors.

Therefore, we must act in a timely manner and adapt to changes.

This is Horn's weakness, but Jeanne's strength.

This is also Jeanne's conducting style; she doesn't have Horn's cautious, step-by-step approach, but is instead very bold.

"So you mean, this trip is a gamble, even if there's no chance?"

Jeanne shrugged: "If the enemy's defenses are strong, we cannot rule out the possibility of returning empty-handed."

Bradak and the local quartermaster were somewhat stunned, while the other members of the Holy Alliance looked completely at ease.

"We always have to take action. You won't know if it will succeed if you don't. We have sufficient resources now. If the plan fails, it will just be a waste of time."

"Is there any possibility that our efforts will be in vain?"

“It wasn’t a waste of time.” Jeanne put her hands behind her back and raised her chin. “Look, isn’t this training for long marches?”

　P.S. It's too late and I'm too sleepy. I'll update the second chapter after midnight during the day. I'll update the second chapter as usual tonight.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)