Warhammer

He summoned the remaining Matoka nobles and respectable people who had not yet fled and were still watching or had ideas in mind, and asked them to set an example and firmly support the war. It would be best if the leading figures went directly to the front-line trenches, city walls and other places to entertain the troops, to show that they were with the soldiers and civilians and to appease the soldiers' morale.

Seeing that everyone was hesitating, Rhine, who was exhausted by military affairs and a bunch of trivial matters, and was more exhausted than squatting in the trenches in Bilbarry and fighting with the greenskins, slammed his sword on the long table and made it clear:

"Here today, in the presence of the gods and the people, there are only two choices: leave or stay!" He raised his eyebrows and shouted to the people, "Those who choose to leave, leave immediately. Even if we die here, the Empire will avenge us and recover Matoka. Those who leave do not need to worry about being branded as traitors. In the name of Julius: you are just cowards who have never picked up a sword. But this city, this land, will no longer have anything to do with you!"

What he meant was that if you want to leave, just leave as soon as possible and don't think about taking your belongings with you, otherwise it will have a huge impact on morale. It is heartbreaking to see civilians fighting to their deaths in the front while the rich are packing up their belongings and running away.

"Everyone who stays here, we will resist until the last moment. The reinforcements have already set out from the Thor Fortress. As long as we have ten to fifteen days, we can win a great victory!"

"We don't need to sacrifice ourselves completely. When things get out of hand, there will be ships at the port to help the soldiers evacuate. I assure you."

So most people chose to stay. Those who wanted to leave would have left a few days earlier. Most people now still have certain ideas in mind:

After all, although the greenskin siege is very risky, if they hold out until the Imperial reinforcements arrive and win the battle against the greenskins, it will undoubtedly gain them huge prestige. Not only will they not have to bear the burden of shameful surrender, but they will also have more opportunities in the post-war border landscape.

It's a gamble, but the benefits of profit are endless.

And...most of them also firmly believed that even until the last moment, there would definitely be a place for them on the ship.

After all, even if the empire came, it would be impossible not to have the assistance of people like them to govern the border areas with provinces.

After gaining the support of these people and unifying the consensus of the upper echelons, Rhine was finally able to ensure that Matoka was "united" and prepare for war.

But it's all too late.

He couldn't do any more because the greenskins were already coming.

203: Temptation

The goblin wolves came roaring.

When the greenskin figure appeared again in the Matoka people's warning range, the atmosphere in the whole city became solemn.

The enemy has arrived.

According to the scouts' reports, the greenskin cavalry occupied several abandoned villages around Matoka. These savage creatures wreaked havoc on the deserted human territories, and then stayed on the ruins, using them as their camp.

Under Rhine's command, the elite expeditionary knights organized a small-scale assault, repelling and expelling the greenskin vanguard composed mainly of goblins. The 2,000-man assault team achieved a record of killing over a thousand people in battle, and also killed the goblin general who commanded the wolf cavalry, and burned the villages that had been ravaged by the greenskins along with the corpses of the enemies.

The first battle was won.

This boosted the morale of the Matoka defenders.

Well-trained and fully armored, the expeditionary knights are all considered "elite" in places like the border.

They generally have a fanatical belief bonus, and the accompanying priests and battle mages can provide them with battlefield support, which is far beyond the reach of ordinary border city defense troops. Under the command of the God-Emperor, this army set out with enthusiasm, leaving the church's affluent life and coming to the badlands to fight to the death with the enemies of order. Their will is firm and will not waver.

With higher military literacy, they can be used as mid-level and grassroots officers in the Matoka mobilization militia. When they are formed into an independent army, they are also a very powerful cavalry unit.

While dismantling the expeditionary force's structure in order to obtain a large number of officers who were at least loyal and capable enough to command the entire army, Rhine still retained a part of the expeditionary force's organization and formed a separate army to ensure that there would always be an elite and mobile force available to fight against the greenskins.

In the first confrontation, the Empire temporarily gained the advantage, but this was far from the true strength of the greenskins, and Rhine and others understood this.

The appearance of the enemy announced the coming of war. They could only speed up and race against time to reinforce Matoka's defenses and open up layers of positions inside and outside. After experiencing the battle of Bilbaly, Rhine had a deep understanding of street fighting. In the plan made by him and Celestine, if the city wall fell, they would have to hold out in the city for at least three to five days.

Through contact with the dwarves, the expeditionary force did everything possible to obtain batches of weapons support from Haimen Pass, including cannons and muskets. This not only made up for the weapons lost when Matoka "paid taxes" to the greenskins, but also greatly strengthened the city's defense.

But whether all this can withstand the test of the greenskin army remains to be seen.

.........

After the Wolf Riders were repelled, the Greenskins suddenly "disappeared" and never appeared in the Matoka's vigilance range again. During the tense waiting, the naive people even had the following thoughts:

Have the greenskins given up on targeting us?

Such naive expectations.

However, all this is just the calm before the storm.

Gomaoliang encountered stubborn resistance at Mirmiden and suffered considerable casualties. It knew that without additional forces, such as the naval guns that blocked the port to provide support for the siege, it would be very difficult for the greenskins to deal with the fortress with their "old experience" and backward technology.

The dwarves blocked Blackwater Bay, cutting off the most convenient and fastest route from the Badlands to the Borderlands. It was also the route most commonly used by the greenskins in the Badlands to harass the border princes for thousands of years. This made it difficult for Gao Maoliang's army to obtain reinforcements from the greenskins who crossed the sea from the other side and joined him.

It must play every card in its hand carefully, whether it is fighting, retreating, gamble everything or finding another way, it must have enough power to implement its great plan.

This is what makes Mao Liang different from most of the green-skinned warlords who have been rampant in history.

It takes into account casualties and estimates gains and losses.

If the dwarves at Haimen Pass fully support the Matoka defenders, the city walls are filled with cannon muzzles, and a large number of dwarf warships outside the harbor provide naval gun support, then Mao Liang will definitely choose to fight to the death without saying a word - advance eastward to break through the pass, bypass Haimen Pass, and replicate the route of the previous breakthrough into the border territory to withdraw to the badlands.

Or they could go south and cross the river. No matter how strong the dwarf fleet is, it is impossible to intercept all the greenskins, which still number nearly 200,000. They would go back to the vicinity of Mirmidon to build boats to cross the river. If the weather is good, they could return to the Badlands in one day. However, this would also cause heavy losses to Gao Maoliang's army...

So it took some time to reorganize the army and also test the strength of Matoka's garrison.

After the fierce battle of Mirmiden, Gao Maoliang had only a little over 150,000 troops under his command. Fortunately, in the southern mountains and the Konos Forest that divided the Tyrell and Border Princes, many greenskins "sensed" through racial instinct that another famous warlord had risen, so they rushed out of the mountains to join Gao Maoliang's army.

The number of guys lost in Mirmiden was slightly replenished, and the strength of Mao Liang's headquarters, the Dragon Warband, led by those black orc warlords who obeyed orders, followed commands and were disciplined, was preserved. This ensured that the core of the entire warband remained intact and was not weakened at all.

Without effective reinforcement, this force is too large for the forces of order in terms of numbers alone. The Lord Alliance established by Aiel after unifying the South has a population of tens of millions, and its standing army is only a little over 100,000, with more than half of them being beastmen who are born warriors.

The dwarves marched south to attack Black Crag, and the High King personally led only 30,000 dwarves on his expedition to the Badlands.

Except for the Greenskins and Skaven, the Order Races other than them cannot be said to have a large number of troops, and even the Skaven have a large number of pure cannon fodder and slave rats in their army.

However, no matter how large the number of greenskins is, it is questionable how much power they can exert.

According to the reports from the greenskins who fled from Matoka and joined the warlord, many people appeared on the human side:

Shrimp in a can!

The general was hacked to death by the big guy!

After hearing this news, Mao Liang knew that it must be the imperial reinforcements that he had planned to ambush at Haimen Pass but failed to lure in to interfere in the war on the border.

It had never come into contact with the empire and did not know the other party's actual military strength and capabilities, so it could only make a judgment by trial and error.

The repelled wolf cavalry brought it more detailed intelligence. The enemy was very strong. The charge launched by the Imperial Knights defeated the wolf goblin riders who were the vanguard of the army, but the strength they showed did not exceed Gao Maoliang's estimation by much.

According to the reports from the spies, there were not many "armored" imperial soldiers who landed on Matoka, only seven or eight thousand people, and there were no dwarves among them.

If these seven thousand or eight thousand people were a fully armed dwarf army, then Gao Maoliang would have to consider the pros and cons of attacking Matoka by force, because it meant that his attack on Matoka would be met with strong resistance from the dwarves, and Haimen Pass would be lost.

But these are just humans...

The big warlord had fought against the Imperials in Estalia before, so he thought he could fight.

written request for leave

Please at the end of the month, rt

Chapter 204: Siege

After a brief probing, the greenskins managed to get a rough idea of ​​the strength of the Matoka defenders with only a few casualties relative to their huge size.

Gao Maoliang is a warlord who truly knows how to use "military tactics" instead of relying on the greenskin's instinctive cunning to fight, which is very similar to [Gorbad Ironclaw].

In order to fish, it also let its loyal and reliable Black Orc guards disguise themselves as ordinary reconnaissance troops and approach the vicinity of Matoka, and collided with the Matoka defenders who had gained the upper hand in the previous confrontation with the enemy's small vanguard troops. In order to boost the morale of the army and civilians, they constantly used mobility to attack the weak with the strong to consume the greenskins' manpower. As a result, those militiamen and the Imperial Knights leading the team stepped on a hard nail and suffered a great loss.

Rhine knew that the enemy was cunning, so he had to abandon this tactic, withdraw his troops back to the position, and focus on defense.

Celestine personally went to the battlefield twice, and each time she led her subordinates like chopping melons and vegetables. Even if it was just a group of militiamen, they could defeat a group of fierce and ferocious giants under the vanguard of the Chosen One.

The extraordinary martial power displayed by the female knight was spread by word of mouth among the militiamen who had the honor of witnessing her heroic demeanor. At this critical moment, the more dangerous it was, the more they longed for a hero to appear. Celestine's existence was like Optimus Prime and a stabilizer for Matoka.

They praised Celestine's strength and cheered for having such a chosen one of the gods standing with the Matoka.

Naturally, all this could not be hidden from the "wise" warlord Mao Liang.

It knew that the difficult "old rival" it encountered in the city of Bilbali, the "Can Woman Blessed by the Man with the Hammer", was also at the border and once again blocked its army.

However, this did not hinder the warlord's determination to take over this place by force.

It had resolved to destroy Matoka at all costs, in order to intimidate the border states that had submitted to it and to clear the way to the east.

Only by solving the recurring flea Matoka can Mao Liang's dream of establishing a government in the border prince's territory become possible, no matter how slim the possibility is.

As for Celestine's personal strength...

—————Gao Maoliang Feilong has decided that he will personally step onto the battlefield when necessary!

No matter how arrogant and stupid a Knight of Barto is, whose brain is burned by fanatical beliefs and who cannot tolerate reason, he will not be so arrogant as to think that a greenskin warlord who can command thousands of armies, travel east, west, south, north, and destroy cities and strongholds like destroying thatched huts, and who has directly or indirectly caused more than one million deaths in the huge waves it has raised, even if he has been relatively "restrained", would be a coward who cannot and dares not fight!

The shamans serving Gomoliang have successfully created and awakened (relatively) large numbers of Gomoliang colossi in the Badlands from dirt, rock, and the body parts of living creatures, which they claim are signs that Gomoliang Wyvern has been blessed by the greenskin heretic god, Gomoliang II.

After all, before this, even the Greenskins who had gathered hundreds of thousands of Greenskins in Black Rock Castle to confront the Dwarf Reconquista did not have two such giant statues. The appearance of these blasphemous creations that imitated the image of Greenskin gods undoubtedly demonstrated a certain meaning:

God's will!

Although Gao Maoliang's personal record has not been prominent since his rise to the present, even in the entire Southern War, when Al wanted to judge the strength of this final boss to ensure a foolproof encirclement and suppression, he could not find a record of battle that was witnessed and reported by someone to analyze Gao Maoliang's individual strength.

He only had a dream about Bilbao's defeat under the great pressure of the Northern Expedition...

If one wants to make up for the difference in strength between the two sides, or to "intimidate" the greenskin army that lives on war, it is impossible, needless to say.

........

Soon, less than three days had passed since the first group of goblin cavalry arrived outside the city of Matoka. The greenskin army attacking Matoka arrived outside the city in one day and night and established a huge siege camp.

To the Matoka defenders who were confined within the city, unable to conduct external reconnaissance and had lost control of their vision, the greenskin army seemed to have emerged from the ground overnight. Although they were mentally prepared, the sudden appearance of the army outside the city after the fog cleared still dealt a great shock to the defenders.

They were very fast, and under Gao Maoliang's full force, even with the greenskins' lax and undisciplined nature, it could be said that they were almost racing against time to prepare for the siege.

The warband of Go Maoliang gathered more than 400 siege weapons including artillery, ballistae, and catapults in Mirmidon. Most of them were scrapped after the siege, but perhaps some kind of "power of thinking" of the greenskins played a role in this. After tinkering with the abandoned cannons, they did some metaphysical hammering on them, added various strange "parts", and successfully created some that at least satisfied:

Able to fire!

Can shoot things out!

The thing has a certain power when it is shot out!

A "junk cannon" of three elements.

The name comes from the fact that both the artillery and the shells can only be described as "garbage" in the eyes of humans and dwarves.

In addition, after destroying Myrmidon, the Gomaoliang warband marched north with the power of a great victory, demanded a large tribute from the city-states that surrendered to the greenskins, and forcibly conscripted more than 30,000 human servants to fight with the army. The direct firepower of the greenskins in Matoka still reached more than 200 "cannons".

Although there are still many doubts about whether it can be detonated, how many times it can be detonated, whether it will explode, etc., this is still a threat that cannot be ignored for the defenders. Matoka is a coastal city, and its geographical proximity to the interior of Blackwater Bay and Barak Seamen has not experienced war troubles for hundreds of years since the Great War. In order to develop the economy and expand the urban area, the city walls have been repeatedly demolished and rebuilt several times. The standard of the last reconstruction was very simple compared to even the time before the Great War, because people generally believed that it would be demolished again sooner or later, and they were just used to pretending.

Some people even proposed to build Matoka into an open and free city-state without city walls, but the idea was temporarily shelved because it was too radical. However, it is conceivable that if Mao Liang had not happened, the old world would still be prosperous and human cities might really no longer have things like city walls and fortresses in the future.

Even after what happened to Mao Liang, the Matoka people secretly strengthened the city's defenses. After the expeditionary force came to "recapture" Matoka, they mobilized all the soldiers and civilians to continuously strengthen the newly built fortifications, but it was still doubtful whether they could withstand the greenskins' artillery.

Chapter 205: The Artillery of Mao Liang

"Bang bang bang!"

Just as Rhine worried.

Although the greenskin army suffered certain losses in numbers after the Battle of Mirmidon, its average level did not drop much. On the contrary, it was improved to a certain extent as the morale rose with the spoils of war and the victory.

Gao Maoliang thought about and improved the greenskins' siege tactics. He concentrated the artillery and tried to break through the whole area with a single point, focusing on suppressing and attacking one side of the city wall, breaking it down first, blasting a gap, and then launching a large-scale attack and breaking into the city after the defenders were shaken.

Even after mobilizing the military and civilians to reinforce and repair the city day and night, Matoka, which had an unstable foundation, showed signs of "crumbling" on the first day alone under such fierce firepower that it had never suffered before.

Under Rhine's command, the Matoka defenders adopted the tactics used by the Estalia during the Greenskin Southern War, which was also the method used by the defenders in the Battle of Mirmidon not long ago. They built a large number of low, relatively light-duty battlements and inner city walls behind the city walls and outer defense lines for defense, which gave them the advantage of being high above the enemy. They also built a large number of soldier caves and tunnels in the city using the existing cellars and houses. This low terrain and narrow width would make any extraordinary warrior who completely ignored mortal weapons feel nervous and hesitate when facing the sharp tips of the four or five spears in front of him.

In this, they took advantage of the greenskins' strengths and weaknesses—their impulsiveness and bellicosity.

After breaking through the outer wall, it is not surprising that the greenskins would launch a fierce attack from the gap and advance into the city. Rhine never thought about the huge gap in firepower between the two sides:

In order to satisfy Mao Liang's previous demands for tribute, Matoka basically dragged out the scrapped artillery pieces that were piled up and gathering dust in the warehouse. The "old men" who were probably older than any three people in the army combined, gave them to the greenskins for delivery. They also went to Blackwater Bay to salvage the naval guns that were covered with algae and moss from the sunken warships to make up the number.

Although the city's military reserves are not completely gone, they are almost empty.

Fortunately, the dwarves were quite righteous and gave face. They did not blame the imperials for promising reinforcements, but they only "ate white rice for half a month" and then turned around and went in the opposite direction from their target in the east to the west. Their behavior, euphemistically called "protecting the homeland", does it mean that the front line is in a tight spot in the rear?

The Empire took advantage of the fact that the dwarves' attention was distracted by the war in the east and they were temporarily unable to deal with the army of Gao Maoliang that was causing chaos in the border prince's territory in the west. Therefore, it took the opportunity to expand its territory and reach out to the badlands to "wash its claws."

This kind of behavior has been rare in the past hundred years since the Holy War, and in the past decade, there has only been a certain saintly ruler who has also marched forward triumphantly under the banner of reinforcements from his allies - even on the ally's territory, and then shamelessly crowned himself as the "Regent King", leaving a large northern city and the greenskins, the second resistance center, to exhaust their vitality, while he snowballed all the way and in the end he personally concocted a drama of wearing a yellow robe 2.0 and wrapped in a white robe, and rightfully usurped the supreme power of a kingdom of order for himself.

This behavior is comparable.

In other words, people in the Middle Ages were generally "honest" and did not have so many cunning schemes. They really believed that it was the will of the people and the destiny... In addition, the ending of the Al process and its subsequent development were perfect, so he was not called a thief who stole the country or a shocking thief.

However, even if there is such an accusation, Al can still defend himself by saying:

"I have never stolen anything! The throne, the country, the power!"

"In the flames of war, I saw the crown of Estalia fall to the ground, amidst the corpses and mud, and I picked it up myself—with my sword!"