Twenty-seven, Plans Can't Keep Up with Changes (Part 1)

  The night was dark and the weather tonight wasn't very good, thick black clouds obscured the starry sky, gusts of autumn wind blew in, bringing a hint of chill. Feili tightened her thin long gown, rubbed her hands hard, and stared at the bonfire in the distant Spirit Camp in a daze.

  "What are you thinking about?" Charlotte appeared silently behind Feri, his footsteps as light as a cat's, with great potential for being a thief in Feri's eyes. "Are you considering the night raid?"

  "Night raid? I think it's a death sentence." Fili pointed to the militiamen dozing off in piles east and west of the bonfire, "To say there are 16,000 people, but only 4,000 usable guns. Lead for bullets can't be found anywhere, and the ammunition storage is almost nothing more than what's in the soldiers' bullet boxes. On average, each gun only has ten rounds! More importantly, most of these people were just gathered together today, not even enough time to organize them, I simply cannot imagine how to get them to charge together! Do you really have confidence in this?"

  "The fairy army only has eight hundred rifles! If we don't get the food back, are we going to let them be targets for the fairies' machine guns and shotguns in the sunlight, or stay here and starve to death, or rob residents all the way south? Uh..." Charlotte had just waved her hand, and immediately grabbed the joint of her left hand where the bone was originally broken, bending down in pain - the pastor's medical skills were apparently not very good.

  Ferli pulled out a bottle of medicinal water and poured it down Charlotte's throat, his complexion slightly improved, but he was still panting. Seeing him like this, Ferli let him lean against the earthen wall to rest, and took out his pocket watch to take a look, finding that there was less than an hour left before the attack.

  The morning combat meeting took less than five minutes to develop a plan for the night raid, which is probably the fastest planning speed in the history of the Imperial Army. In fact, this can't even be called a plan, simply put, it's just waiting until midnight and letting everyone who can hold a weapon rush over together. The meticulousness is not even comparable to that of bandits, at least bandits would arrange people to keep watch, find locations to set up ambushes and so on.

  But such a rough arrangement is also an unavoidable thing, the giant bear legion was not a regular army to begin with, and the northern state civilian team was even more chaotic, without even a leader, let alone a system. Just selecting people who still had some strength from the crowd gathered under Glorious City took half a day's work for all the officers. During this time, there were over ten armed fights, as well as many more cases of theft and desertion.

  It was not until they had finally managed to select a team that they realized there was no time to reorganize, because at dinner time, the cook reported that all the remaining food had been eaten. If they wanted to eat breakfast the next day, they would have to snatch it from the fairies' hands. As soon as this situation was announced, it actually boosted the originally low morale by a few points, and most people at least temporarily steeled themselves to fight desperately.

  According to the arrangements made by several commanders who had never attended military school at the battle meeting, 12,000 strong men selected from the Northern State Militia and the remaining civilians would serve as the vanguard, that is, cannon fodder, and disperse to charge towards the Spirit Camp from various directions after dispersing. Some people brought some flammable materials for arson, while making noise to confuse the enemy, in short, the more chaotic the scene was, the better. Those with guns or swords were formed into a close combat team, which would enter the enemy camp together with the main force of the Giant Bear Army after the fire broke out, not seeking to annihilate the enemy, but just to be able to drive the spirits out of the camp.

  As for the artillery, almost all of the original gunners had fallen on the riverbank yesterday. The temporary shock training "gunners" were really worrying about their level. In the afternoon's test firing, after three consecutive barrel bursts, Charlotte finally gave up the idea of fire cover and handed each of these "gunners" who didn't know how to use artillery an axe, throwing them into the melee team to settle the matter.

  The Governor's Guard and a part of the Independent Battalion under Fili remained in reserve, temporarily left to guard the camp. Prepared to be thrown into battle when the situation is unfavorable, or to cover the governor's retreat - New Enoo State is not under the jurisdiction of Governor Nom, there is no reason and necessity for martyrdom.

  Sixteen thousand against eight hundred, the attacking side had a twenty-fold advantage in military strength, but lacked confidence in victory. This is probably also a strange phenomenon in the history of war. As Charlotte said, "It's probably not as good as the Terracotta Warriors!"

  The moment of attack had finally arrived, the sentry first woke up the officer, and then the officer started kicking the soldiers one by one to drive them away from the bonfire. "Get up, get up, it's time to work!" The soldiers rubbed their sleepy eyes, quickly put on their uniforms, picked up their weapons, and went to wake up the strong men. The camp in the port immediately became noisy, with voices loud enough to be heard even across the river, not to mention the nearby elf camp. Fili could already feel a detection spell sweeping over him, and saw more and more torches appearing in the elf camp. However, it was obviously impossible to keep these guys quiet, so they just had to let it go.

  To avoid exposure, a few old soldiers taught everyone to cover themselves with many grass leaves, especially on the surface of their weapons, to prevent the metal reflection of swords and gun barrels from being discovered by the enemy. However, this is actually not very useful in battles where both sides have mages, as there are many methods in magic to discover them, let alone now that they have already been prepared.

  In the midst of a chaotic atmosphere, the preparations for the attack were finally completed. The young men - actually nearly half of them were women - left the camp and dispersed in all directions. Their role was to create a diversion and incidentally start prairie fires - by the end of September, the prairies had already begun to turn yellow. Due to the west wind blowing at the time, and the port being on the east side of the elf camp, these arsonists had no choice but to take a big detour, starting from the east side of the elves to set fires. The footsteps of these people were really a bit slow, by the time the fire finally started, it was already almost dawn. And the location of the fire made one realize once again what they meant by "planning can't keep up with change".

  "What a bunch of idiots, are they walking or crawling?! And they're blind too!" Charlotte threw down her telescope and cursed loudly at the wall of flames rising between the harbor and the fairy camp. The wall of flames was less than half a mile away from the harbor, and with the strong west wind pushing it, the distance was getting shorter by the minute. People in the camp could already smell the choking smoke. And the area around the harbor hadn't even been cleared of weeds yet...

  "Let's retreat first." Governor Norm rolled his eyes and made a decision for Charlotte, who was still fuming.

  "What are these humans doing, collective self-immolation? Or are they performing some sort of dark ritual?" Idriel gazed at the port being engulfed in flames, scratching his head in puzzlement, feeling bewildered by the bizarre phenomenon before him. Since being startled awake in the middle of the night, he had been keeping an eye on the enemy's movements, but what he saw and sensed through magic only made him feel increasingly strange, to the point where his mind was getting a bit knotted up.

  "I think it's possible that the enemy is trying to escape, so they're burning their own camp," Gilbert, who was always following his superior, speculated.

  "Is that so? But why are they moving so slowly, and in such a strange direction?" Idriel pulled out a crude map, the southern face of the elven camp scattered with red dots indicating enemies. "According to magical scouting, these tens of thousands of people are swarming about like spilled pepper, without any discernible formation, and they don't even look like soldiers. They could have just taken the main road." As he spoke, he drew a line on the eastern side of Glorious City, along the long white line.

  "This... might be to avoid our pursuit, so many people squeezed on one road would definitely be the best target. With their cowardly army, it's extremely difficult to cover several tens of thousands of refugees escaping," Gilbert said, suddenly having an epiphany, and continued according to his own reasoning, "If they just scatter like this, at night heading in different directions, we wouldn't know how to chase them, and most people would be able to leave safely. Anyway, there's no place on the grasslands that can't be walked, as long as you head south, there will always be a way."

  "If that's the case, then those who stayed behind in the camp to set fires and cut off their own retreat should be their elite rear guard." Idriel looked at the harbor engulfed in flames, the continuous explosions of the artillery emplacements, and the refugees running wildly in the fierce fire, and began to somewhat believe Gilbert's judgment.

  Originally, when the large group of refugees fled into the enemy camp in the morning, Idriel was still very tense, fearing that the enemy would arm them all and launch a suicidal charge against his remaining 800 soldiers. For this reason, he even considered giving up the fight once and for all, rather than suffer the harassment of guerrilla fighters along the way, and retreat to North Port instead. Now it seems that such worries are completely unnecessary, and he will soon be able to re-enter Glorious City safely and steadily.

  At the same time, the idea of making a final big win was like an endless mole that kept popping out of Idriel's mind. When several luxurious carriages escorted by Zorvath warriors appeared in the telescope's field of view, the crazy factor on him finally acted up again.

  "There they are, their main force!" Idriel could no longer hold back, jumped onto a horse and loudly ordered his troops, "All out, pursue!"