"In this war, we will lose without doubt!"


    Inside the tower of the eboden wall, Loren Turin opened the whole pre war conference with these words.


    The voice fell and the whole war room was quiet.


    For a full minute, there was no one at the map table, and the atmosphere was embarrassing to death.


    The two mercenary commanders did not dare to speak. The commander of the urban defense army and the commander of the imperial Corps looked at each other. Isaac did not know what had happened at all. The Earl of anger castle, Eckert, and the consul of corona kept smiling.


    With a slap, Lucian patted his face directly, and the corners of his mouth twitched.


    Lord Loren is absolutely unprecedented in using such words as the final mobilization before the war.


    Fortunately, this was the last pre war meeting, and master corona stopped all the free nobles by virtue of his status as consul.


    Otherwise, if people outside hear their commander''s remarks, they will be willing to stay and defend the city!


    Of course, he is Lord Loren, Loren Turin - the guy who believed the nonsense of a deserter, went alone into the glacier wasteland to find the Dragon King City, and finally succeeded; So it''s not surprising what he did.


    "Please don''t get me wrong. This doesn''t mean that we can''t stop the enemy''s front - of course, in a sense - nor that we can''t hold eboden... Er, it''s really impossible to hold it; let alone make everyone prepare for retreat in advance, although you really need to prepare for retreat in advance..."


    "Please speak to the point." looking at the darker Loren, count Eckert quickly stood up to ease the atmosphere for him: "I think... Everyone present should understand your idea."


    "In short... The way we fight against the enemy must not be limited to the conventional city defense. We can carry out passive defense by unswerving walls and clearing the fields and killing the enemy a lot. There will be no good results in such a battle."


    Loren had to explain, "we should turn passivity into initiative and lure the enemy to attack. We want them to attack in the direction we want them to, so as to achieve the goal of defending eboden."


    Looking at the confused expression of the people present, the black haired wizard had to sigh.


    "To be more specific, we should use the weak but equally complex urban defense system of eboden city to lure the enemy to deliberately attack it, so as to delay their speed of seizing the city."


    "We don''t want to turn eboden into a flesh and blood mill, but let them capture eboden City bit by bit; lure the enemy''s heavy troops to besiege the nodes we deliberately use as bait, so as to reduce the pressure on the whole front; and give the bait to the enemy or destroy it altogether before causing heavy casualties to us!"


    "Just like the prince who saved the princess in the legend, each volume has to overcome a difficulty; we are the villains who set difficulties for the prince. What we have to do is to delay the time spent by the prince at each level; when he had better see the princess, both of them are already bent and dying!"


    The commander of the urban defense army looked surprised, and corona''s eyes lit up.


    Only the imperial Legion commander frowned: "so, it''s not that eboden will fall, but that you''re ready to abandon eboden?"


    The voice fell, and everyone''s eyes turned directly to the calm black haired wizard.


    Even the Legion commander was amazed by his own answer.


    Which garrison commander in the world began to plan how to make the city fall before the battle began?


    Only Isaac remained stunned, as if he were anxiously waiting for something.


    "Yes, neither."


    Facing the public''s eyes, the black haired wizard shook his head, leaned forward unconsciously, and pressed the map on the table: "first of all, thank you for finally understanding my plan, and secondly... You seem to have forgotten the most important thing."


    "What is the purpose of this campaign?"


    At the map table, all the faces were stunned.


    So master corona stood up and announced the answer: "it is to delay the enemy as long as possible and buy time for the Empire to assemble troops and materials."


    "That''s right." Loren snapped his fingers and sighed softly, "we only have less than 30000 troops. If we spread them evenly to the whole eboden city defense, it will only be barely enough."


    "In other words, once the enemy launches a full-scale offensive, it seems that there are enough troops, and they will soon be stretched out; once they fall into the battle for an important fortification or fortress, it is certain that they will compete with the enemy."


    "I don''t know if I can hold eboden in this tragic way as much as possible; but even if I hold it... How many of these 30000 people can survive?"


    The expressions of the two heads of mercenaries became dignified.


    "But it''s about the honor of the Empire. It''s a great shame to abandon the city in front of the enemy!" the regiment commander frowned: "you''re a Bain. I always thought that Bain people had the courage to sacrifice for honor and dignity..."


    "If the city is lost, we can try to get it back... We''ll die together and build another one in the future. When people die, what do you rely on to fight the next war?" Lauren interrupted, staring at him coldly:


    "And you seem to have misunderstood the difference between sacrifice and death - in order to win, the Baines will never resist sacrifice; but wasting their lives that could have continued to fight is called deliberately seeking death."


    "I think... The Duke is right." the silver blood, who had been silent just now, finally opened his mouth: "the silver blood mercenary Corps agrees with the Duke''s point of view and is willing to continue to serve the Duke and the empire after this battle."


    The "black blade" next to him nodded and twitched his throat silently.


    The regiment commander finally stopped talking.


    "You''d better tell us about your specific plan." corona glanced at Isaac, who was almost impatient next to him, and missed the opportunity to smile:


    "If you want to lure the enemy, you must have a specific target."


    The black haired wizard nodded, fumbled with his index finger on the eboden map and stopped at the castle on the other side of the gem River: "this fortress is our first bait."


    The dignified voice of words made everyone''s expression serious.


    "Once the Azores fleet approaches, the first problem they have to face is the iron chain directly in front of the coastline - if they want to lift the iron chain blockade, they must break through one of the two forts."


    "I arranged a large number of temporary fortifications around the circular fortress at the port and turned it into our battlefield completely, in order to lure the enemy to turn his main attack target to this ancient castle hanging on the other side of the river."


    Loren quietly raised the corner of his mouth: "as long as the castle doesn''t fall for a day, the enemy fleet can''t even get close to the harbor of eboden, not to mention the gem River, so they must come."


    "The next battle will become a battle for the ancient castle; once confined here, the width of the battlefield and the size of the ancient castle itself will have to reduce the scale of the battle. In order to win her, the enemy will not stop the offensive in the circular fortress to let us take care of this and lose the other, but the real battlefield is still here."


    "What''s next?" the commander of the urban defense army began to be curious: "in the end, the enemy will be desperate to seize the ancient castle."


    "That''s right, so we should count the time and abandon the city and retreat." Lauren smiled with a "finally enlightened" expression: "we should destroy all urban defense weapons and baggage, but not too much, otherwise the enemy will not be fooled."


    "With the fall of the old castle, the enemy''s army can finally launch a full-scale attack - but they still have to face the ring fortress of the harbor, the tower under our feet, and the wall of eboden."


    "They can only attack in one direction, and the width and depth of the battlefield still determine that the enemy''s troops can be invested, which is still very limited - what will they do at this time?"


    Lucian''s eyes lit up: "they attacked the lower sluice?!"


    "Very likely!"


    Loren gave him a thumbs up: "there are two possibilities - first, attack from the castle to the inner city wall and directly attack the inner city wall; this is not good for us, so we have to destroy the channel and lock the sluice first."


    "The second is to use the impulse of the water flow, and then build several warships, hang chains, drag at the downstream sea entrance and destroy the sluice; this possibility is also very high."


    The black haired wizard''s fingers moved away from the castle and moved upward along the channel of the gem River: "what we have to do is to get in front of them and block the sea entrance from the upstream to the downstream - don''t block it all, as long as the enemy''s warships can''t get in."


    "Destroyed houses, scuttled warships, domestic garbage... Anything will do. As long as the port of Baoshi River can be blocked within a month, it will be a victory!"


    "Then they understand that they have been cheated; then they will understand that they have wasted more than half a month on such meaningless things." take a deep breath and the smiling Lauren closes his eyes:


    "Then they will find... Winter is coming."


    "The sea will begin to freeze soon."


    "The first batch of reinforcements and supplies of the Empire have also arrived in eboden. This city is no longer a fragile port that can be easily captured, but a powerful military fortress with tens of thousands of troops."


    "They will launch an unprecedented strong attack, sacrifice and loss with three to one, five to one or even ten to one or more troops, attack and seize eboden, and exchange the dead mountains and blood for eboden''s port!"


    "We have enough materials to deal with them; when the city wall is broken, we withdraw into the inner city, take the fortress as the stronghold and the underground passage as the contact network, delay the enemy''s time to seize the city, and cause a lot of casualties to them at the same time."


    "Until the severe winter comes, withdraw from the city with the assistance of the Imperial Army, leave the Azores with a ruins and a frozen port for three months, and wait until the next spring to fight with this winter hungry enemy..."


    "Decisive battle!"


    The resounding words echoed in front of the map table.


    The dark haired wizard opened his eyes and stared at the eboden map in front of him.


    "How can we lure the enemy into the bait?"


    In front of the quiet map table, the regiment commander said coldly, "this is the key to the whole plan, isn''t it?"


    "Yes, whether the first step can succeed or not can be said to be the top priority." Loren nodded and calmly said, "so please let your 1000 Legion soldiers garrison in the ancient castle."


    "In this way, we can not only make the enemy realize the importance here, but also mistakenly think that there are contradictions within the Garrison - after the war is tight and the enemy starts a strong attack, two mercenary regiments will help you, so that they can further confirm their judgment."


    "As for how to fight the Azores..." the black haired wizard smiled and sighed, turning his eyes to Isaac, who was almost able to kill himself with his eyes: "let our genius wizard Isaac Grantham report his latest findings to us!"


    The voice fell, and everyone''s eyes turned to a "genius".


    "You made me wait so long on purpose, didn''t you?"


    With a fierce stare, Isaac with exaggerated expression pushed Loren aside and stood in front of the map table; He coughed twice and then straightened his waist:


    "Gentlemen, after six hours of careful study, I have read all the foreign trade and transaction records of eboden, and I have found a lot of information about the Azores."


    "Yes, it is not the first time in the history of eboden that we have had contact with this race, although almost all of them are unilateral..."


    "Six hours?"


    The blood of silver frowned and looked very unbelievable: "I don''t know how much the ''records'' are, but in six hours... You''ll have read them all?"


    "Yes, over the years, I can probably understand your idea. In the eyes of ordinary people, it is really impossible to finish 1062 books, 576666 pages and 443456154 words in six hours."


    "But I can, because I''m a genius... A genius who can read all the books in the library of the imperial Royal College of wizards in one day."


    At the map table, everyone''s expression was more stunned than just now.


    Only Loren, Lucien and corona are still used to it.


    "Do you have any other questions? If not, I''ll continue." the pretending plain Isaac almost cocked his tail proudly: "according to my careful search, I found some important information about the Azores elf army."


    "For example... They are used to fighting with light armor, and the weapons they use are mainly weapons such as long knives and spears, and rarely wear shields or armor breaking weapons; there are many long-range projection weapons, but like us, they also use bows and crossbows."


    "Oh, and the most important one - the Azores have a very special tradition, which is to sound a flute like ''horn'' before the war to announce the beginning of the war to the enemy."


    "The sound of this horn is said to be very similar to that of an eagle..."


    Just then, a faint howl of an eagle came from the port of eboden;


    Everyone was stunned.


    Stunned Isaac looked at the crowd, nodded silently and pointed out the window:


    "Well... That''s it."