131 – Battle of Waine Plains (4)

In all public places, such as the principal’s instructional speech or the speech given by a battalion commander, regiment commander, or division commander in the army, one-sided words should be short.

This is because people who listen to speeches that are too long do not remember the words, and the meaning gradually begins to fade.

Therefore, a good speech must be restrained so that the message can be conveyed clearly.

With that thought in mind, I went up to the podium prepared for my speech and looked them in the eyes and shouted.

“As you have already heard from your superiors, Duke Akitel declared war on us a month ago! You stand before me, do you know what the justification is?”

The soldier who was suddenly pointed out by me heard this and looked at me blankly, then spoke loudly.

“Your so-called Heinz Miller, I don’t know!”

“They said they would restore the territory for the son of Count Hellsman, who was defeated by me a few years ago. But, what’s even funnier is… The son is not even a legitimate son, but the son of the third concubine. To wage a war to hand down a territory to a guy with no legitimacy… Isn’t Duke Architel a really nice person?”

Although I’ve said it, Duke Akitel probably wouldn’t have thought of finding the concubine’s son and returning the estate with good intentions.

After recapturing the territory, he would use all sorts of justifications, such as age, ability, and danger around him, to take away the actual control, and then gulp it down.

Well, if you look at the other French aristocrats, they will send a woman who can no longer marry a person of a similar class in the aristocratic society as the wife of ‘Count Hellsman’ and manipulate it like a puppet…

Whether I knew it or not, the laughter of the soldiers spread around me as if it were contagious.

“Duke Architel is very generous!”

“hahahaha, His Highness Duke Akitel is so kind that he even takes care of the bastard son of the Hellsman family while sacrificing his own soldiers!”

“As expected, it’s like Franchi who doesn’t know how to do anything other than eat well!”

After a while, I slammed the longsword I was wearing around my waist with it still in its scabbard, and said.

“But, gentlemen. It has nothing to do with the good Duke Architel letting his soldiers die at will. However, I can’t forgive His Highness, the generous Hugoo, for trying to tamper with our land and property, and furthermore, our family.”

At those words, the soldiers let out cheers, and after a while I resumed my speech.

“Now raise your spear and sword to fight those who want to take our land, our families and our property! Then, we’ll get our hands on a territory ruled by those who would trample on your home… We will show all of Europe what kind of end those who threaten our peace will face! After that, I will return with you and reward my wives and my daughter Victoria for your sacrifice, courage and loyalty, and reward them profusely.”

At the word reward, the officers, who always showed restrained behavior to keep their dignity, and the soldiers, who had run out of strength under them, began to cheer as one.

“Let’s win and come back!”

“Victory! Victory! There is only victory!”

Amidst their cheers, I drew out my sword and swung it into the air.

“All troops march! After we win at Waine, we will take possession of all the territories of Duke Architel, who is very generous!”

**

After three days of moving heavy items such as armor and slow-moving infantry on carts, our troops are moving at nearly twice the speed compared to walking.

So I had just passed the village of Miles, which would normally take at least six days of marching to reach.

It’s slower than military vehicles or cars used in the military, but it’s still moving with wheeled carts…

It’s nice to be able to go quickly and comfortably with the soldiers…

We should be able to move like this during the next war.

While I was thinking about that, I looked around and saw the soldiers riding the wagon, sitting comfortably with expressions on their faces.

“Corporal Miller, so… Are you really going to confess to Ailee if you get promoted this time?”

“Yeah, dude… and children… It’s missing. You’re promoted to sergeant next month, call me sergeant.”

“What nonsense. Before promotion, Corporal Cent next to you is the same Corporal as you a month before promotion… ”

“Ah, Sergeant Salt… The sergeant will soon become a sergeant.”

“I failed the promotion test twice… Damn, is it true that you have to know how to dictate in Eline to be a sergeant? Even if it wasn’t just that, it stuck.”

It’s good that I ordered the soldiers to take turns driving the cart and leave the rest to sleep or not, but…

I never thought I would be able to talk like that.

Looking around, I saw that some soldiers were already sleeping under military cloaks.

After watching the soldiers in the carriage next to me for about ten minutes, I heard Lieutenant Short’s voice from behind.

“Your Excellency Count, may I give you a report?”

“Tell me.”

And Short put his horse next to me and began to speak in a low voice.

“To date, the number of enemy scouts we have found is 20, and four of them have been allowed to escape as part of Your Excellency’s orders.”

“Good job. Lieutenant Short.”

“I just did what I was supposed to do. Then, can we continue like this in the future?”

“Let it be. However, if an enemy scout tries to damage our weapons or munitions, immediately capture them alive and interrogate them.”

Hearing this, Short said with a puzzled expression.

“Sir, but enough information that we are moving at high speed must have already been exposed there. But why… To keep letting the enemy scouts go…”

If I had been marching as usual, I would have concealed my position as much as possible so that the enemy would not notice my movements.

Because the more the enemy grasps my movements and movement speed, the easier it is to come up with countermeasures.

However, since this is a special situation that is completely different from usual, this can pose a great threat to the enemy.

I have nothing to do while I’m on the march, so I’ll have to tell the elite spy why I’m doing this.

“Lieutenant Short. I will give you a lesson.”

At that, Short put on a very puzzled expression.

Hasn’t His Excellency ever personally tried to infiltrate or investigate information? A look like that.

So I spoke in a relaxed voice to clear up the misunderstanding.

“I have no intention of teaching you, who is considered the best in our territory, how to obtain information. Only, if you are promoted in the future… In the future, my orders will force me to put myself in the sight of the enemy commander and outright fool him. I will therefore teach you to think in the eyes of the enemy commander.”

Perhaps it was because I mentioned this promotion without a hint, Short began to listen to my words with twinkling eyes.

“First of all, all commanders are like blind people without scouts. However, they are always confidently listening to reports that a scout has a cart 10 meters ahead, and they are just devising tactics pretending to see everything in front of them.”

As a way to know what this is, it would be nice to think that the mini-map is fogged in a certain space game called a national folk game.

The difference from that game is that in that game, if you install a recon unit, you can see the speed and appearance…

In a real war, you can only see the information that something is passing at a time interval of a few minutes to a few hours and sometimes a few days.

“So do i. So, even though I can think of where Duke Architel might be through my scouting now, I can’t really pinpoint the exact location.”

After hearing that, Lieutenant Short nodded as if he understood what I was saying.

“Then now imagine that you are blind. And, what are you going to do if you keep hearing that I’m swinging my sword at you quickly and head-on?”

“Shouldn’t we dodge quickly in any direction?”

I nodded affirmatively at Short’s words and then said:

“You have to avoid it like you said. By the same principle, if Duke Akitel says I am marching at a tremendous speed, he will try to march as fast as possible to arrive at the same time as me.”

“… … According to my experience in the field, the more the commander increases the marching speed, the less the number of soldiers that can follow him.”

“I guess… So we just have to march comfortably. Also, are the rumors of a conflict between us spreading to the enemy nobles well?”

Short said with a really evil smile.

“I had ex-thugs under my command disguise themselves as soldiers with gambling debts, then make them talk to the enemy scouts as if the conflict was high.”

It is surprisingly common for soldiers of this era to get into debt through gambling and then sell out their masters inevitably to the temptation of money.

So, Duke Architel and the rest probably believe that there is a conflict between our vassals.

“Okay then let’s continue marching.”

Thanks to Short’s deception, we can expect the loss of the enemy’s forces even before the start of this war…

**

So while I was marching, I continued to report and give instructions on the operation through shorts, and at the campsite, I would discuss the strategy once every two days for 10 days.

Before we knew it, we were able to reach the nearest village near the plains of Waine.

And upon reaching the village, I and all the commanders received a very encouraging report.

“Lieutenant Short, I report to your Excellency and nobles. As per Your Excellency’s manned operation, Duke Akitel started a rapid march a week ago, and as a result, it is estimated that about 20% of the troops deserted or deserted from the march.”