After the Retalians arrived, they began making camp beside a river five kilometers southwest of Golden Ear City, settling twenty thousand horses along its banks.
While Charles went wild over the Retalians' arrival, convinced the Bagnians were doomed, Chris was delighted instead by how many horses the Retalians had brought.
Horses were particularly delicate animals. They had enormous appetites, requiring grass equal to 1.5% to 2.5% of their body weight each day, roughly ten kilograms. Warhorses, in particular, also needed high-protein supplements such as eggs and soybeans.
Beyond fodder, horses needed a great deal of drinking water. Depending on the temperature, their activity, and their size, they required twenty to fifty liters a day.
One horse needed more than ten kilograms of fodder and at least twenty liters of water every day. That was nothing for a household raising a horse, but what about twenty thousand horses?
And among those twenty thousand were at least several thousand military warhorses. Their daily requirements for water, fodder, and concentrated feed added up to an enormous figure.
Horses were also timid animals, rather like rabbits. When packed too densely together, they exhibited stress behaviors, fighting and trampling one another, giving their keepers even more headaches.
Chris also knew that these twenty thousand horses were not all the Raitelians had. According to reports from player scouts, Raitelian supply columns were approaching from farther south, bringing over ten thousand reserve horses.
More Raitelian infantry and horsemen were also converging from across Chivilevka Province. They were expected to reach Golden Ear City within the coming week.
Chris estimated that, barring outside interference, more than sixty thousand Retalians would gather here, while the number of horses would rise to forty or fifty thousand.
Sixty thousand people were manageable. With spring here, military provisions could arrive from Raitelia's