The battle of Tar Valley was the touchstone for testing this newborn force. Faced with the twenty thousand–plus rabble mustered by "Black Eagle" William, Boles did not choose to meet them head-on.
He personally led the main body of the central infantry, advancing steadily and engaging William's army from the front, yet he did not seek a decisive battle. Relying only on tight formations and the advantage of the local Border Army's familiarity with the terrain, he entrenched himself step by step, delaying constantly and wearing down the enemy's edge.
Meanwhile, Ludwig's Eagle Nest Cavalry roamed at high speed along both wings of the battlefield like the sharpest razor, constantly carrying out intense harassment, flanking strikes, and interceptions of isolated squads.
They tore William's already scattered formation into even more fragmented pieces, continually "bleeding" them, and cleverly used the terrain to lure the impatient main force of bandits, step by step, into the preselected "Tar Valley," surrounded by mountains on three sides with only a narrow exit.
When most of William's army had surged into the valley, their formation crammed together and unable to care for head or tail, Boles's final trump card, which had been hidden all along in the forests on the rear-side slopes—an Assault Cavalry Cluster led by Friedrich von Schmidt and made up of his old troops mixed with a portion of elite Border Army cavalry—pounced down from the slopes on both sides like thunder!
Iron hooves trampled, long spears stood like a forest, and in an instant they churned the bandits' central army until heaven and earth were overturned! Almost at the same time, Charlotte led the newly trained "Rhine Land Corps" to seal off the valley's only retreat.
The momentum of catching a turtle in a jar was complete!
The battle that followed almost