Unknown Knight

Fortunately, these troops that came to support the king did not seem to have a unified leadership. Instead, they lurked around like lone wolves and beasts, cautiously probing and trying to find an opportunity to enter the city.

After receiving the intelligence, Aix, on the one hand, sent additional patrol teams to resolutely prevent these enemy reinforcements from joining forces with the enemies in Berbera. On the other hand, he sent out large forces to conduct a sweep around the city. Once an organized enemy was found, those who could be annihilated would be annihilated, and those who could not be annihilated would be defeated.

Although these enemy reinforcements are only small groups of stragglers now, there is no guarantee that they will increase in number. After realizing that it is hopeless to break into the city, they will finally choose to gather together. Once they form a force, they will attack from both inside and outside together with the Lord of Humamu in the city, which will be very dangerous for us.

Aix had foreseen this situation, but he had always fought smoothly against the forces of Berbera and had developed a contempt for the enemy. However, when he actually fought, he found that the defense of Berbera was so strong that it would be difficult to capture it in a short time, and it would be almost impossible to take it down with the existing means. Even if he attacked at all costs, the estimated losses would be unbearable for him.

Apart from this, the soldiers of the territory were good at the tactic of digging tunnels. However, according to intelligence obtained from previous captives, the Lord of Humamu had seen this tactic before, and there were eavesdropping urns installed everywhere in the city to monitor the tunneling and siege.

Moreover, digging tunnels is time-consuming and laborious, and the logistical pressure is already great. The long-term consumption is something that Aix cannot afford. Even if a lot of effort is put in to dig the tunnel, there is a high probability that it will be discovered by the enemy, which ultimately means that it is a useless effort and there is a lot of gambling involved.

Other methods like carrying soil to fill walls, persuading surrender, long-term siege, etc., were either limited by their own conditions or trapped by the surrounding environment. They were not acceptable siege methods in Aix's mind. For a while, he really had no idea how to deal with the city of Berbera.

It is definitely not a good idea to just keep wasting time like this. Not only will it waste military supplies and morale, but it will also cause disadvantages and dangers to accumulate on our side.

However, danger always coexists with opportunity. This scene reminded Aix, who loved military history, of the predicament of his instructors during the Autumn Harvest Uprising. Since the city of Berbera could not be taken in a short time, why not attack the surrounding towns that were easier to take first, which is the so-called "surrounding the cities with the countryside".

This strategy not only cuts off the support of surrounding enemies and eliminates potential hidden dangers, but also strengthens one's own strength and solves the current tight supply of food and grass. Regardless of whether Berbera City can be attacked in the future, the benefit of killing two birds with one stone made Aix decide to do so immediately.

Moreover, as the saying goes, "A centipede will die but its body remains stiff", and the city of Berbera is the centipede. According to the intelligence we have learned, the other two small cities and the surrounding strongholds are the centipedes of the city of Berbera. Whenever external forces invaded here in the past, it was these centipedes that continued to provide blood transfusions to the city of Berbera to prolong its life.

If we cut off all the centipedes of this tiger, I am afraid it will not be killed in a short time, and the tiger will be at the mercy of others, and it will not last long. From this point of view, this method seems to be a good way to capture the city of Berbera.

Immediately, Aix ordered Niza to lead more than a thousand people to defend the current camp and keep the lord of Humamu firmly in the city. Almost all of the more than 400 cavalrymen were left to Niza to assist in the blockade of the surrounding areas.

According to Aix's estimation, the cavalry in Berbera was less than 200 at most, and the regular soldiers should be more than 1,500, which was enough to deal with the threats within the city.

He himself led more than a thousand people to attack a village with less than two thousand people ten miles away.

This small town is the closest settlement to Berbera besides Nico Town. The city defense is obviously insufficient compared to Nico Town. Aix was in a hurry and did not do any preliminary reconnaissance or wait for the right opportunity to take action. Instead, he directly assembled two siege towers and three catapults and began to attack the city.

The entire siege process was also very simple. Aix first used the long-range attack soldiers on the siege tower and the archers under the city to carry out long-range suppression. When the siege tower was approaching the city wall, he ordered the catapult to throw several flaming oil tanks at the place where he was going to climb the city wall, and used the raging fire to clear a piece of white land. After the fire burned out, the siege tower lowered the planks, and the heavily armed soldiers went up to the city with shields to protect the tight shield formation and advance forward.

If the enemies on the city dared to use shield formation to block the city, the catapults below the city and the slingers standing on the siege towers would use burning oil tanks to teach them a lesson. There were not many soldiers available in the town. The regular army had basically been withdrawn from the city of Berbera. Most of the militia were defending the city. They were soon stunned by the advanced attack mode of this highly coordinated army plus chemical weapons. They completely lost the ability to resist and had to kneel down and surrender.

The entire battle was unremarkable. There was no fierce back-and-forth tug-of-war, and no sudden accidents. From the time we arrived at the city to assemble siege equipment to the end of the battle, the entire process took less than four hours, and most of the time was spent assembling siege equipment at the city.

With the precedent of Nico Town, after Aix occupied the town, he first dealt with those who led the resistance, and then began surprise interrogations. After grasping the situation, he held a public trial and dealt with a group of noble bullies, local tyrants and evil gentry. Then he distributed land, money and materials. Except for the urgently needed military supplies and precious gold, silver and jewelry, almost everything else went to the residents of the town.

This series of measures enabled Aix to gain the support of 90% of the local people in just three or four days. Most importantly, it also obtained urgently needed food and supplies, as well as more than 400 paramilitary young and strong men who could be recruited at any time, greatly enhancing its overall strength.

Then Aix followed the same method, and in just about ten days, he captured six nearby towns. The same formula, coupled with increasingly skilled operations and more and more manpower, made this vigorous and bloody land reform proceed very smoothly.

By this time, Aix had controlled eight towns. Except for the two cities of Memphis and Ripero, and six other more remote towns that had not been conquered, all other territories were under his control.

The number of soldiers and civilians under his command reached more than 25,000, the number of combat soldiers increased to more than 4,000, and there were more than 2,000 militiamen who could be used as auxiliary troops. Such an army of more than 7,000 people, claiming to be 10,000 people, had no rivals on the ground in the Blackwater River Basin.

However, as the bloody land reform progressed, the distinctive policies of the Aix class also spread with the escaped nobles. All the Berbera lords knew his cruelty and terror, which made the remaining strongholds feel like they were facing a formidable enemy. The nobles, landlords and village clerks who ruled there knew that their doomsday was not far away, but they were unwilling to be killed. They paid huge sums of money out of their own pockets and frantically armed the towns under their rule.