Preparations for war

Breckland Castle

This was Strongstone Beach, a subordinate territory of House Strongstone.

House Strongstone held four domains within Strongstone Beach, and was actually stronger than House of Wickenden, which held three!

But why had they submitted to House of Wickenden and become its vassals?

Because House of Wickenden was the greatest cultural and religious center in the Kingdom of the Vale, and even all of eastern Westeros. House Waxley's Wickenden Library rivaled the great library of Oldtown!

Most southern territories, at least those of baronial rank, had a church!

But Runestone Territory had none.

Because, publicly, the lord of Runestone Territory still worshipped the Old Gods! The blood of the First Men remained dominant there!

However, the Faith of the Seven had no overt religious army! Thus, it could not force people's beliefs!

Except for one man, "Little Sparrows!"

He intended to reorganize the Faith's army! But supreme royal authority had kept him suppressed!

The church had the ability to influence the nobility!

In the south, a marriage was only legal if witnessed and blessed by a bishop or priest!

Noble marriage records were kept jointly by three powers: the church, the king, and the maesters!

This prevented people from impersonating nobles!

The church also decreed that followers of the Seven could have only one lawful wife! Domestic matters involving mistresses, adulterers, and the like also fell under its jurisdiction!

That meant the church held power!

Then who had given the church that power?

The nobles! The gods! The foolish masses!

Through the combined workings of all these parties, the church had acquired power!

On the surface, the church was a religious institution devoted to the gods, but behind the scenes, it colluded with nobles and served as an accomplice to their exploitation!

Breckland Castle also had such a church, called Breckland Church.

Groups of soldiers were stationed here, though who knew why?

Perhaps the nuns inside knew why troops were stationed near the church!

In contrast to the tension and frenzy inside-

The army of Runestone Territory was currently stationed outside Breckland Castle!

A full 3,300 men!

They simply surrounded it without attacking!

They would see whether the other territories sent reinforcements!

The walls of the Breckland Castle estate stood four meters high, with each side roughly one kilometer long. It was actually quite large!

But how many soldiers were stationed inside?

According to intelligence, there were 500 iron-armored spearmen, 200 longbowmen, and 400 spear-wielding militia!

One thousand men were defending this manor castle!

That raised the question: could they hold it?

A direct assault by 3,300 men might incur somewhat heavy casualties, but they could certainly break in!

Why?

If evenly distributed, each wall would have only 250 men!

The main concern was minimizing casualties!

A capable commander would certainly seek the best casualty exchange ratio with the fewest losses!

The walls were only four meters high! One small siege tower would do! Surely they had to sleep at night!

The siege towers here were large pieces of siege equipment!

They could be built twenty meters high! They were huge and had wheels! Their main structures were made of planks nailed together!

Their exteriors were covered in wooden walls to block arrows, with many wooden ladders inside!

During an assault, the first-assault soldiers raised their shields and climbed through the siege tower to its highest assault platform. Then, still holding their shields up, they followed the heavy plank walkway laid across the battlements and fought fiercely with the defenders on the wall, vying for control of the high ground!

This device was a large siege troop-transport tower!

The troops who first had to seize a section of wall and secure a safe landing point for the light infantry following them were generally very well paid: the first-assault troops!

First-assault troops generally wore full armor and were responsible for braving a rain of arrows to clear enemy infantry from around the landing point!

Then they let the greatshield bearers enter and establish an initial wall of shields atop the ramparts to block the archers inside the city! Next, the light infantry rapidly entered, advancing quickly from behind the greatshield bearers to fight for more of the wall! Ideally, they would take control of the gate!

Once the gate opened, light cavalry rushed inside, followed in order by the remaining infantry and other troops, quickly entering the city to fight street battles. Only after the defending soldiers were finally defeated would the siege be declared a victory!

Taking Breckland Castle would not be difficult! But casualties still had to be minimized.

As long as the informants inside provided a little intelligence, secretly breaching it at night would be a matter of minutes!

The problem was that the iron-armored spearmen were heavy-armored units. They still had to win through cunning!

The central command camp

At that moment, Yaron Royce wore knight's armor and gazed toward the walls, waiting for the siege weapons to be assembled!

There were battering rams too, capable of smashing gates! They were all fairly good siege weapons!

Four-meter walls stopping an assault by 3,300 regular soldiers? Was this a joke?

Although Gull Manor's walls were only four meters high too.

Back to the matter at hand: how long would Yaron need to besiege Breckland Castle?

That was hard to say. History had no shortage of sieges lasting years or months.

First, they had to wear down the enemy's morale, then seek an opportunity to take the castle with thunderous force!

If three assaults on the walls failed, they would have to withdraw and seek another method, because their own morale would plummet and they would need rest! They would have to reward the troops and raise morale.

After thinking through his siege tactics, Yaron sat in the commander's tent and tasted the fresh corn porridge.

It tasted truly excellent! Yet he could only sigh.

"What a shame it can only be grown on that boy's land. And there's a Dragon God's blessing too?"

"How am I supposed to protect you when you do things like this?"

He could only turn to their old ally, House Stark. Their old ally had proved loyal, directly throwing its support behind House Royce's son-in-law!

With nothing to do, Yaron held a book, a novel about Valyrian magic. Now the whole of House Royce was interested in magic. Even the youngest, Waymar, had begun spending every day in the library!

Seeing magic exist with their own eyes made all the difference.

Fortunately, House Royce had spare amethysts for Delia and that boy to squander.

Yesterday, Delia had requested two amethysts. Who knew what she wanted them for!

Yaron had a headache. His daughter was siding with an outsider now. One amethyst was worth a thousand gold!

It could provide light at night and was also a source of magical energy for the Wall!

Yaron silently finished his corn porridge and continued leafing through the book, waiting for all preparations to be completed.

The archery range at Gull Manor's training grounds

Su Qin was practicing archery.

The new horn bow was red all over, of moderate length, and weighed three jin! Only the points where the bowstring attached were made of hundred-forged iron!

Su Qin concentrated, lifting his chest and lowering his head to aim, his lower abdomen drawn in slightly.

Suddenly, he released both hands.

The fifty-centimeter-long, feather-fletched arrow shot from the horn bow like a bullet, flying straight toward the wooden target one hundred meters away with a series of whistling sounds as it cut through the air.

A silver streak flashed past and struck the bull's-eye!

Minister of War Leike and the personal guards with him burst into cheers.

Su Qin put away the redwood horn bow and spoke to the centurions and squad leaders beside him.

"Did everyone see clearly? This is the stance. When you shoot, you stand there like logs. You don't aim with your eyes, brace your lower abdomen, or shift your backside back a little. How do you expect to hit anything?"

"Get back to it. Shoot at least five hundred arrows every day. The first person to hit the bull's-eye ten times in a row gets fifty gold!"

The officers returned to their units, while Leike personally instructed the Qilin Guard.

Shooting five hundred arrows every day was absolutely necessary.

Just like shooting a gun, were sharpshooters really made through stance training alone?

Not necessarily. The key was the muscle response developed through hundreds and tens of thousands of shots taken with a proper stance.

It was just like using swords and sabers.

If you exchanged blows with others every day, then believe me, after practicing continuously for a few years, you would be very good too.

That was the power of experience!

So these first fifty men equipped with horn bows had to practice at least five hundred times every day!

Their physical condition was already very good. If they were later given the archer template of some dynasty, they might even reach elite (blue) level.

This was Su Qin's plan for December. Aside from developing the economy, his military goals were to prepare bows and arrows, train elite troops, and produce leather armor.

Of course, this one month was nowhere near enough for the entire process!

Once everything was ready!

He would first seal off the roads leading out from the Moon Lake clans! That would keep them from coming out and harming people!

The arrow-tower fortress (blue) Su Qin had personally designed was intended to block the roads the barbarians used to come out!

Indeed, Su Qin was not needed on the main battlefield, but Yaron had assigned him to prepare for the triennial campaign to wipe out the Moon Lake clans next July.

Meanwhile, his wife Delia was responsible for helping Su Qin handle administrative affairs and develop farmland. With her political ability of 20, he would be a fool not to make use of it for free!

In December, on the economic front, the corn would be dried and stored properly. Next January, all 2,800 farming households would sow it, meaning at least 11,200 mu would all be planted with corn!

The yield would be terrifying!

With 11,200 mu yielding 2,000 jin per mu, next year's grain production would reach 750,000 units. Even after paying Aerys II 200,000 units of grain in protection money, 550,000 units would remain, enough to feed tens of thousands of households!