The Noose Was Set

"Hanma City?"

Young Franz's gaze was fixed on the enormous battle map spread across the table. The staff officers had just updated the markers showing the positions of friend and foe.

The marked area around Red Waterwheel Village Fortress remained calm, with no new developments.

However, the arrow marking an Allied cavalry force of more than ten thousand elite troops was moving southwest across the map at astonishing speed, its target Hanma City. Its charge seemed almost powerful enough to pierce the paper.

About twenty kilometers east of this massive enemy force, a small flag representing a contingent of the Duchy of Weissen Border Defense Force stood quietly beside the marker for a riverside castle.

This unit had been drawn from the Duchy of Weissen Border Defense Force. Its original mission was to receive and shelter any allied troops who might retreat from the direction of Red Waterwheel Village Fortress. It numbered around three thousand, all light infantry, with little heavy armor or firepower.

Facing a tidal surge of more than ten thousand cavalrymen would place suffocating pressure on their defenses.

Worse still, the terrain in the area was flat. Only the rivers and woods could slow the enemy, and there were almost no hills or ravines that could be used as defensible positions. With the weather cold and water levels low, the rivers might not even impede the march.

If the defensive line were spread too thin, the surging tide of ironclad cavalry could easily tear through it. But if the troops concentrated too heavily in one spot, the highly mobile enemy could simply bypass them, leaving them isolated and accomplishing nothing to relieve the siege of Hanma City.

Surveying the overall situation, Young Franz felt a heavy weight in his heart.

The Northern Front Corps, built around the