Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The essence of the Storm Plan boiled down to just one sentence: force the Terdun people into a battlefield where cavalry could not exert their full power.

How to accomplish this?

Winters's strategy was simple and straightforward—block all other routes.

Defense must rely on the dangers of mountains, rivers, and streams. But what to do at the Panto River, where there was no natural terrain to defend?

The only solution was to create man-made mountains and rivers.

Walls, that is, man-made mountains.

Between the two fortifications, the Shield Wall was constructed under the supervision of Bard, having broken ground concurrently with Winters's mobilization and evacuation of the lower Iron Peak County population.

The manpower Bard used came from the refugees of Blackwater Town and Wugou Town.

Conscripting refugees to build the wall was not solely to meet military needs but also a way of managing and providing relief.

The total length of the Shield Wall was about 18 kilometers, mostly across uneven terrain difficult for a large army to traverse. The construction method used the traditional "dig trenches and pound earth into walls."

Bard deliberately left open the roads leading to Niutigu Valley and to the small town of Shizhen—per Winters's demands.

So Tie Chi had actually wronged his subordinates.

The scouts with Green Plumed Feathers did not lie; when they crossed the river to inspect the two main roads, they indeed saw nothing. Not walls or trenches—the roads were as flat as a pancake, without even a ditch in sight.

On the night of the Terdon Tribe's second attack on the fording point, Winters led the main force to the battlefield and used stakes, baskets, mud, and a new method of earthworks to construct nearly 4 kilometers of the Dagger Wall overnight.

When the Terdon Tribe's army crossed the river the next day, they were confronted with the sight Tie Chi saw before him: a short wall, not very tall, blocking their way, stretching endlessly to the horizons at both ends.

Subjects and slaves might feel fear at the rumors that "demons helped the bipeds build a city overnight," but people like Kota and Nayen were somewhat accustomed to such strange occurrences.

Although the Terdon nobility still had no idea how the bipeds had constructed a wall several kilometers long overnight, they had seen sturdier defensive structures in their years of warfare.

The real question was, how to breach it?

...

Terdun horsemen loaded with soil-filled sheepskin bags took turns charging to the trench side, dropping the soil bags.

The Iron Peak County militia counterattacked with bows and arrows while hurling fierce fire pottery jugs filled with kerosene, yet they still couldn't prevent the dirt bags from piling higher and higher.

The wall was embarrassingly low, low enough that an adult could clamber over it with some effort.

Of course, the Terdun Barbarians wouldn't miss this detail.

While horsemen attacked head-on with soil bags, armored soldiers quietly circumvented to approach the wall, cooperating with each other to scale it.

The watchtowers on the wall saw this, immediately sounded the alarm bells, and waved flags to signal their location.

A Terdun armored soldier had just climbed onto the wall when a gust of wind sounded by his ear; the next moment, a flail smashed his skull, sending him tumbling down, his head bloody and broken.

On the other side of the wall, a simple and honest militiaman couldn't help but excitedly shout, "I killed one!"

Most of the militia were just ordinary farmers half a month ago. Compared to the brutal hand-to-hand combat, they were braver when swinging flails at "thieves" climbing the wall.

Before the simple militiaman could rejoice for long, consecutively more Terdun armored soldiers vaulted over the wall.

Having just "claimed a level" his courage bolstered, the simple militiaman yelled and swung his flail at the Barbarians.

However, the Terdun soldier calmly raised his shield, meeting the flail with a slight angle.

The flail head merely left a scrape on the shield. The Terdun warrior took a large stride forward, raising his curved sword and viciously chopping down.

The stunned, simple militiaman, slow to react, nearly had his neck split in two, dying instantly.

Witnessing their comrade's brutal death, the other militiamen scattered in panic.

The Terdun soldier laughed ferociously, his personal slave uncontrollably knelt and dry heaved.

However, the Terdun soldier's laughter was short-lived, and his slave couldn't vomit anymore—because they were both dead.

The slayer of the Terdun soldier wielded a cavalry lance. The man holding the lance was Bart Xialing.

Bart Xialing didn't linger by the body; he had other Terdun soldiers to pursue.

Ancient military strategists described the Herders thus: "These barbaric people have short and weak lower limbs, atrophied from years of horseback riding, to the extent that they cannot walk for extended periods, let alone fight on foot."

Of course, this was a complete misconception. The Herders could, when necessary, fight on foot.

But the very existence of this misunderstanding illustrates that the Herders would avoid dismounted combat if possible, to the point where their enemies almost never witnessed it.

Once deprived of their warhorses, the Herders were stripped of their most powerful weapons.

Take, for example, these first-to-scale Terdun armored elites. They never imagined they would become the bipeds themselves, with the bipeds mounted on horses, spears clasped tight, charging at them.

Bart Xialing, leading three teams of ten cavalry, overthrew the wall-scaling Terdun soldiers with a single charge.

Then the Terdun soldiers took to their feet in flight, while the Paratu Cavalry raised bone maces high, smashing down on the back of the Terdun's heads.

This scene occurred not only in Bart Xialing's sector but also simultaneously in three other flat areas suitable for cavalry assault.

...

Although it was just a low wall, Winters and Bard had made careful plans:

On one hand, they adapted their construction to the terrain, minimizing the amount of work; on the other hand, they selected positions difficult for cavalry to traverse, taking advantage of the natural landscape.

A glance at the map might easily give the impression that Iron Peak County was flat terrain.