The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

Although Linde wouldn't interfere with the specific marching and deployment, he was still responsible for the overall strategic direction; otherwise, White would probably have already gone off on his own and headed straight for the valley.

This time was no different. Although White's Third Army skipped the territories in between and headed straight for Copper Mountain Territory, it was actually Lind's order. Otherwise, White would not have dared to recklessly venture deep into enemy territory alone.

Although White didn't think it was a big deal to venture deep into enemy territory alone, not to mention that the nobles in the North were now terrified, even if they did work together to cut off supplies and trap the Third Army, White had many ways to escape.

Just as White was bombarding the walls of a castle in Copper Mountain Territory, several black cannon barrels suddenly appeared on the enemy's walls.

White recognized it immediately. Wasn't it a model that the Gray Collar had long since phased out? White knew the performance of these cannons very well. Although they wouldn't cause any fatal damage to the Gray Collar soldiers, there was no guarantee that some unlucky guy wouldn't get hit head-on.

The enchanted armor could withstand the aftershocks of the explosion, but being hit head-on by a cannonball would still kill you, so White ordered the eager soldiers to retreat to a point beyond the maximum range of this type of cannon.

White, who originally wanted to continue firing, thought it over carefully and decided to give the other side some respect. He retreated to his maximum firing range, after all, who knows if the other side's cannons had been modified by alchemists.

But White was clearly overthinking things. Copper Mountain Territory had intended to surrender from the start, so they hadn't even used the cannons that Doug had issued, let alone modified them.

After swindling Doug out of his last sum of money, Jefferson finally delivered some defective products and shells to Doug, who quickly distributed the artillery. However, Doug soon discovered an embarrassing fact.

Even with their modified cannons, the defensive artillery on our side was far inferior in range and power to the enemy's field artillery. We hadn't even seen a glimpse of the kind of cannons that could fire magic.

Doug realized he had been tricked; the other party was just trying to fool him with outdated and defective products. Jefferson was also smuggling under Lind's instructions, and Doug hadn't gotten any of the promises made.

However, Doug was not angry about this for long, because he soon found another culprit. The Kingdom of Anjou bought the cannons and the muskets that Doug was researching from him at a high price.

Anjou even felt they had made a profit and continued to purchase cannons and muskets from Doug. So Doug not only didn't expose them, but instead acted as a middleman and continued to support Jefferson's smuggling business.

The cannons in Copper Mountain Territory were distributed by Doug out of respect for the old noble families there, but now it seems that it would have been better to sell them directly to the Kingdom of Anjou.

At this moment, seeing that the enemy's artillery range completely outpaced their own, the Copper Mountain Territory garrison, while being bombarded by artillery, cursed, "Didn't we surrender? What happened to the promise that Northerners don't fight Northerners? Why is the Gray-White Territory army crossing so many territories to attack us?"

"Because the noble gentlemen's flattery backfired!"

The other garrison soldier answered while pulling his hat down low to avoid being hit on the head by pebbles.

The city walls had begun to shake. The garrison soldier peeked out and saw that the gray-collared army had already blasted the city walls, which were equipped with cannons, to pieces and was now about to rush over and scale the walls.

These were all things I'd never seen before. The gray-collar armies always made sure to breach the city walls before taking action; they'd never been this eager.

"Boss, let's surrender! How much money is the lord offering? Why would we risk our lives like this?"

One of the garrison soldiers shouted to the professional on the city wall. The professional on the wall reacted and said, "Alright, the gentlemen can't surrender, but we can! Quick, go open the city gate!"

These nobles are so optimistic that now most of the Copper Mountain Territory's defenses are outsourced.

Seeing the city gates wide open, the soldiers of the Third Army quickly rushed in. Although there were still many nobles' private soldiers resisting in the castle inside the city walls, they were quickly dealt with by the soldiers, and these were just ordinary soldiers.

As for the outsourced teams that surrendered directly, White incorporated them into his own forces, taking all the professionals from each team with him, leaving behind a group of soldiers to guard the city, and immediately went to attack the next city.

The nobles of Tongshan Territory also realized that their flattery had backfired. No, it wasn't just flattering; it had touched a raw nerve.

But they didn't have much time left to criticize the Ambrose family for coming up with this terrible idea, because the Grey and White Collars were attacking too fast.

Such an aggressive approach was something the Gray and White Collar had never shown before. They disregarded supplies, governance, and even whether the cities behind them would rebel again. Their only goal was to conquer the entire Copper Mountain Territory at an extremely fast pace.

Even before the city had been breached that morning, and the surrounding nobles had just received the news, the Gray-White Collar army was already at the city gates.

Originally, these nobles were thinking that the vast Copper Mountain Territory, even if it had declined somewhat, still had many old noble families. They hoped to use their family's strength to resist the Gray and White Territories' attack, and then rely on their family's reputation to find reinforcements while negotiating with the Gray and White Territories.

But to everyone's surprise, the so-called old nobles couldn't stop the Gray-White Collar for even a day. Their whole family was dragged out for trial. The speed of the trial made Copper Mountain Territory suspect that the Gray-White Collar had been holding back when attacking other territories.

Not long after the war began, many nobles from the surrounding areas who had good relations with Copper Mountain Territory rushed to its aid. But the most terrible thing happened: the Third Army of Gray and White Territory did not continue to attack Copper Mountain Territory. Instead, it sent troops to follow the reinforcements and directly wiped out the strongholds of those forces.

At this moment, the surrounding nobles finally understood that this was not only the lord of the Gray Collar avenging his wife, but also using the Copper Mountain Collar as a scapegoat.

Seeing the nobles whose territories had been taken by the rescue team, the other nobles around them all fell silent.

Despite Tongshan Territory having thoroughly investigated the lineage of his ancestors, the surrounding nobles remained unmoved, acting as if they hadn't heard a thing.

They did hear about it, but the nobles who heard the plea for help immediately distanced themselves from it and began to deny the rumors to the gray-collar army that had rushed over in a cloud of dust.

"I'm not, I didn't, don't talk nonsense."

The Third Army's marching efficiency in this era was like a horror story. Not only could it disperse its forces to attack different places and cut you down along the support route, but its projection range also spread directly from Tongshan Territory and even began to push the map in reverse.

The entire Tongshan Territory set a record for the fastest destruction since the start of the war.