49 – Operation Noose (5)

To sum up the current situation of our military in one word, it would be ‘the cat that completely cornered the rat’.

It’s already been a month since we laid siege to the city of Helsman, and if Sgt.

In a situation where the soldiers do not even have the strength to hold weapons, the citizens who are lower in food supply than the soldiers will slowly wither away in the castle…

I’d rather wait until they open the door myself than break in now.

This is because if we clumsily conduct a siege, we can suffer great damage, like the saying that a cornered mouse bites a cat.

Also, in a situation where food is completely depleted like this, if the commander of the garrison is a cool-headed person, he will surely try to improve the food situation inside by using citizens as human shields…

If that happens, innocent citizens who do not need to be killed will lose their lives, public sentiment, and soldiers.

In that state, if, at least once in a while, the Count of Nantes ignores all the words around him and tries a reckless attack on ‘Hellsman’, and is defeated, and if he hits us with that momentum, he will be 100% annihilated.

Therefore, in order to avoid the worst case, we should leave ‘taking the castle’ as the second priority and continue the siege.

In that state of thought, I picked up a pen and was about to write down a course of action on a piece of paper when I heard Ella calling me.

“master.”

“Uh, who’s here?”

“A messenger with a letter from His Excellency Viscount Creutel has arrived.”

“Let it in.”

After a while, the messenger got down on one knee and delivered a letter to Ella.

When I received it and read it, there was something written in it that I had never thought of.

So, in my surprise, I forgot my dignity and approached the messenger, shaking my shoulder and asking,

“Herald, is this seal really your father’s? Does this make sense!!”

The messenger, who had heard the reprimand without doing anything wrong, looked at me and replied in a voice of regret.

“I don’t even know what is written. I just received orders to deliver it to His Excellency Baron Creutel as quickly as possible.”

That’s right, but nothing will change if you just get angry with the messenger.

Then, I took a deep breath and patted the messenger on the shoulder.

“Sorry, it’s not your fault. I was angry for nothing.”

“no.”

“No, yes. Have you eaten?”

Hearing that, the messenger scratched his head and replied.

“I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday and ran.”

“I will stay here for the rest of the day and then go. And since I was angry, as an apology, I will serve the knights’ meals. Do you like beef?”

When the messenger heard that, his eyes twinkled and he nodded his head broadly.

“I’m going to eat two beef steaks for dinner tonight. If it’s my order, the soldier in charge will bake it for you.”

“thank you!”

After saying that, the messenger quickly ran outside.

After he left, the letter on my desk had the worst news for me after ‘defeat’.

[In the war declared to occupy the county of Helsmann, ‘soldiers below the count of Nantes’ in a village near the plains of Linz raped, plundered, and murdered women.]

Now, even if I had to hold out for another month, I could negotiate with the enemy garrison commander and enter without losing any soldiers…

Why is this Schwein pig sitting with ashes on the finished rice?

When news of this comes, they will inflame their hostility, saying that it would be better to starve to death here than to be raped and robbed of your wife and children.

Now that this has happened, I will have to use that tactic that is used to drastically lower the enemy’s morale.

**

The next day, I summoned all the commanders above the captain who had already been deployed in the siege net completed on the day I received the letter to my camp tent.

The knights each sat comfortably in their seats, but the captains were at a loss as to whether they should stand behind the knights or sit in the far corner, probably because I, the ‘baron’, rarely called them to strategy meetings.

So I looked at them and said.

“Everybody take a seat, and when we do, we’ll start talking.”

After that, the distraught captains began to sit down in their seats in the barracks like the knights.

“Yesterday, a message came to my father that the Count had plundered a village near the Linz Plain. I am very concerned about this situation.”

Hearing that, one of the knights raised his hand and asked in a questioning voice.

“No, Your Excellency. Isn’t looting common on the battlefield? Rather, it is rare to carry all of the ‘food’ like the Baron Creutel family, and in general, isn’t a large part of the enemy’s territory covered by plunder? In the meantime, bad things happen.”

As it is said, generally all armies of this era either eat the food they transport or receive supplies from the village when marching through the territory of their allies.

And if you enter the enemy’s territory, if there is food to transport, consume it or plunder for the supply of food for the soldiers.

In addition, it often happens that women are raped or killed for fun in order to comfort soldiers who go to war without pay.

So, I can say that what the article said is very natural, but…

“As the saying goes, looting in war is common. However, the problem is… when this news reaches the enemies, they change their minds. As Sergeant Short previously reported, the enemy’s morale is low now because they believe that their lives can be saved by surrender. By the way, what if my lord, the Count of Nantes, plunders other villages…?”

The article who asked me replied with a serious expression.

“Citizens and soldiers inside the castle said, ‘Let’s fight because we’re going to die anyway.’ We will unite.”

“Yes. And rather than die of starvation due to the lack of food in the castle, if we open the castle gates and make up our mind to fight us, we will suffer considerable damage. No, you may lose. The enemy’s garrison is only 1,500, but if you include the number of men who entered, there are more than 5,000 men. No matter how ragtag they are, aren’t those guys who are prepared to die and rush at you different?”

In fact, in the position of attacking the castle, even though the number of troops is dozens of times smaller than the enemy, in the First Crusade, only 100 knights attacked the castle with the determination to die, and so on.

Even in a ridiculously unfavorable situation, if you jump at it with the determination to die, this kind of miracle can happen.

There’s no guarantee that’s not the case here either.

After that, Frost, who was sitting in the top seat among the knights, looked at me and asked.

“Then, what plan do you have, His Excellency?”

“There is a plan. A really simple but sure ploy.”

The eyes of the knights twinkled as if they thought of winning after I said ‘there is a strategy’ when I beat the Celts and the Barons of Santoburg.

To answer that expectation, I unfolded a rough map of Hellsman Castle and our encampment surrounding it, and continued the explanation.

“First of all, since we have already completely surrounded the enemies, you probably still don’t know the information that the Count of Nantes plundered them. Therefore, first of all, they are strictly vigilant so that they do not hear ‘the story of being plundered’. And supply officer over there, how much food supply do we have left?”

The suddenly called supply officer looked at me and replied with a serious expression.

“Even if we supply enough in the future, we can survive for seven months. If you save a little, you can get up to 9 months.”

No matter how much they are in a situation where they are reluctant to do a large-scale rotation because they are on each other’s rivers, no matter how long the two of them drag on as long as possible, a decision will be made within the next month.

Then, the chance for us to attack this castle alone is one month at most…

“Then, how long can you last if you have a banquet every day?”

“Usually at banquets, you consume twice as much as normal supplies, so you can last for about 3 months.”

I approached the supply manager, who responded quickly to unexpected questions, and patted him on the shoulder.

“You are very capable. Thank you.”

“thank you.”

Then I went back to my seat and continued talking.

“And now, every day to stir up infighting among enemies and demoralize the enemy, ‘surrender, I won’t kill anyone.’ say the word over and over again. At the same time, have a banquet and play every day out of reach of arrows.”

Upon hearing that, the knights looked at me with puzzled expressions.

However, no one raised an objection, whether they acknowledged that doing what I said would surely lower the enemy’s morale.

“Also, we cannot neglect vigilance, so the two companies become a group, one group guards the watchtower for a day, and the other group plays and rests. Joe, who has been granted rest, is even given time to take a nap if he wishes. Also, after killing the pigs brought from each village, wash the urine bag thoroughly in water, inflate it with air, and ‘sew’ it before bringing it back. All over, disband.”

**

At dawn the day after the military meeting, the sounds of pigs and cows being slaughtered resounded loudly in our barracks.

“Pretty dear!!”

“mmm~!!”

Hearing the sound, the enemy soldiers were on the wall, and the soldiers of the army were sleeping and suddenly ran out of the barracks.

“No, why are you killing cows early in the morning?”

“Could it be that His Excellency is going to feed us beef in the morning just because we are having a hard time?”

“In our training, we said that if we go to war, we should only eat biscuits.”

I passed the bewildered soldiers and moved towards the soldiers holding cows and pigs.

And seeing the soldiers, he shouted loudly so that the enemy soldiers could hear.

“Brave soldiers of Creutel! thank you for your dedication So, we have prepared a banquet, so let’s eat and enjoy and rest!! Unless otherwise ordered, you may eat, sleep, and play, except for those who stand guard.”

With those words, cheers rang out among our soldiers.

“His Excellency Baron Creutel, long live!!”

“I can’t believe the day will come when we’ll have a banquet in front of our enemies dying of starvation…”

“hahahaha, this is so much fun!! I can see why the higher ups say that the pain of our enemies is our pleasure!!”

I left behind the cheers and shouted at the enemy soldiers.

“Poor Hellsman people who are starving to death, if you open the gates even now, I will give you something to eat and guarantee your life! Just as I saved the serfs of your countryside!!!”