The Lord of the Rings: Lords of Middle-earth.

Chapter 402 Lagrange Empire Vanguard Knights

Under Roland's command, this small but elite mobile force quickly split into twenty squads. Led by the vanguard knights of the Lagrange Empire, they advanced in all directions, and it seemed that nothing on this wasteland could stop their advance...

……

"Captain, which way do we go?" an Imperial Vanguard Knight asked.

"Whatever happens, happens!" the captain said casually.

"Uh... is it really that casual?" The knight who asked the question was a little confused. He never expected his captain to be so lazy.

"What do you plan to do? Lord Caslo and Lord Ajax are both missing! Without the exact location of our target, we can only search like this, like looking for a needle in a haystack!" The leading Imperial Vanguard Knight captain shrugged, but the heavy plate armor made of Star Silver Steel made this movement very difficult...

"Dragon God..." The others sighed like defeated dogs.

"Stop complaining! Look around carefully! If you miss the target, I'll beat you to a pulp!" the temporary captain said with a headache. Although His Highness Roland had given the target, the area was too big, wasn't it?
"Sigh... Don't let me find them! Otherwise, I'll ask these people how they turned supporting us into supporting themselves..."

"Don't say anything more, I'd like to ask too... Let's just take it one step at a time!"

"Sigh... Could the commander on the other side be a gilded nobleman?" someone wondered.

"Ahem! Be careful what you say!" The temporary captain coughed lightly, knowing that if he continued, he risked being censored.

"Oh..." the group said weakly, their eyelids drooping.

……

“Your Highness…forgive my bluntness…” Omske scratched his head, seemingly wanting to say something but then stopping himself.

"Go ahead and say it, there's nothing to hold back!" Roland said casually.

“Ahem, which genius is leading this time? How did someone who can get lost survive? I really…” Omsk looked at Roland, hesitating to speak.

"It's nothing, their magical communication equipment was just damaged. They're not some nobles who came with gilded plates..." Roland shook his head with a smile. How was he supposed to explain? Tell Omske that this thing was parachuted in by the system?

However, judging from the results of the last half of the Swiftflow Legion and the refugee crisis, these nobles who commanded the army were quite competent. If the system really sent a few fat, useless nobles, Roland would probably kill those good-for-nothings first, and then find a way to uninstall this broken system!
At worst, Roland could fight until he was sixty and then lie down after Aragorn launched the War of the Ring... Roland refused to believe that with his current conditions, he couldn't build up three hundred-man knightly orders in sixty years.
You want to let the chariot people try? They'd beat their own piss out of their mouths! The impact of 300 knights on the plains is probably something no army would dare to try, especially since Caslo and Ajax should be sixth-tier dragon rider commanders by now! Even if Adile can no longer fight, Roland still has four sixth-tier combatants! Leaving aside talk of counterattacking the Black Gate, no one can really do anything to the Kingdom of Lagrang for self-defense. After all, the flat Lagrang Plains are a nightmare for orcs… just imagine being chased by bulldozing Lagrang knights! The only organized cavalry force the orcs currently have, the wolf riders, is even more pathetic. You could say they're good as rangers or horse archers, but asking them to be lancers is just too much! The physical structure of war wolves means they can't carry the terrifying heavy armor, so heavy cavalry for the orcs is simply out of the question.

In terms of defending the city alone, those Battanian archers who wield hammers more skillfully than arrows say they have no idea what their opponents are when they stand on the city walls! The armor-piercing hammer is enough to make all heavy armor units cry, and ranged attacks are the most reliable form of archers in the Lagrang Kingdom. With Battanian archers inside and the Knights outside, Roland has no idea how he can lose!
……

“Lulong Fortress is too far away!” Roland sighed sadly. He suddenly remembered the war fortress that was outside the control of Jiliu City. Roland knew that once a war broke out, that city would be an isolated city! No one could come to its aid except for the reinforcements in the sky! Although they were blocking the Dark Forest Old Forest Road and the Southern Wasteland, their situation was still dangerous.

"Does the Sage Yunfeng have a way to repair the teleportation array?" Omske asked after a few seconds of silence. He knew that all the Empire's war fortresses had teleportation arrays, which was why the Empire's fortresses never fell easily. A steady stream of reinforcements would travel through the teleportation arrays to reinforce the fortresses...

"So what if it's repaired? We still need two teleportation arrays!" Roland said calmly, glancing at Omske.

“Yunfeng should have the technology! And the goblins should also have their alchemical knowledge…” Omske said doubtfully.

“It’s a materials problem!” Roland sighed, staring at Omske.

“Our space stones are more than enough to make some space storage equipment, but…” Roland didn’t continue.

"..." Omske also fell silent. Such a large teleportation array requires a huge amount of space stones. Given Roland's current impoverished state... it would be more practical to wait for the system to reward him with some some someday.

"What do you mean?" Omske asked, puzzled.

“Our development will now focus on the south! After all, Lulong Fortress is one of only two cities in the kingdom! We can’t let it fall outside the kingdom’s sphere of influence! You are the main garrison commander in the south, and you should understand that Caslo and Ajax won’t be stationed there permanently. You need to give me a plan… a plan to connect the kingdom’s controlled areas!” Roland said calmly.

Due to the issue of national strength, the current territory controlled by the kingdom is actually divided into two parts. The area within a radius of several dozen miles around Jiliu City is the place where the kingdom has the strongest control, followed by an exclave within a radius of several miles around Lulong Fortress. The large wasteland in between is a vacuum of power for the kingdom!
“You need cities, towns, populations, nobles… to manage these places! Unfortunately, you have none of those!” Omske shook his head helplessly.

“There will be! I hope you can give me a route when I can produce these! I will build towns near this route!” Roland nodded, agreeing with Omske’s words. After all, they were indeed poor now, but once they developed, they could connect the two places by relying on various town nodes.

“I will, by the way! This is my advice as a subject of the kingdom! Protect your only knightly order, which may be the only knightly order of the northern humans for a long time to come.” Omske looked at Roland with some pessimism.

"I will!" Roland said resolutely. No one knew better than him how pathetic the Northern humans were now, stripped of their essence. Calling the Northern human army beggars was an understatement; a knightly order? Dream on! Don't believe me? Look at the River Valley! That's the best illustration of the Northern humans!

Second update, begging online for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, and tips. The author is almost starving.
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(End of this chapter)