The storm is coming (10,000 words)

Author: Ivan the Terrible

The storm is coming (10,000 words)

From the beginning, Hemei had no intention of playing hide-and-seek with the elves. That would simply put the soldiers under his command into danger.

It is foolish to rashly step into the opponent's preset position. The Cossacks sent to the Decaying Forest by Herme have proven this with their blood.

So his solution was to build a fortress, advance step by step, compress the Scoia'tael's activity space, and then force the Scoia'tael to fight on the battlefield of their choice.

There is no need to build a real fortress. A trench, a circle of wooden walls, and a few wooden towers are just a small fortress that is enough to monitor the nearby land.

It doesn't take much time to build such a small fortress. With enough manpower, a week or two is enough to make it stand.

This is the safest way to play, but it does take a lot of time.

But in Herme's opinion, having more time would be better than rushing into a forest controlled by the Scoia'tael.

It is foolish to fight the Scoia'tael in the forest. That is giving up your own advantage and fighting on someone else's home turf.

In the forest, elves can ambush when they want, retreat when they want, and can also lay traps for humans.

They even create false impressions, leading humans into monster lairs, and letting monsters take care of humans.

Not long after Herme came to the Decaying Forest, she already had many examples showing that if you rashly chased the elves into the forest, you would be in trouble.

Therefore, he still forced these elves to step into the battlefield he had planned, and building a fortress was undoubtedly the most effective.

After confirming the plan, Hemei immediately started to advance it. So in the next two months, Hemei focused on this matter.

During this period, there were several pressures from the king. At such times, Herme would hand over dozens of Scoia'tael heads to the king as a display of achievements, to show the king that she was continuing to work, and to facilitate the king.

Show off these trophies.

Advancing the fortress was the safest, he didn't have to rush, and the king saw that he had achieved results, so he wouldn't rush too eagerly.

Every time, Herme would assure the king in the name of Lord Cliff that he would be able to solve the Scoia'tael problem and send the head of Eldan.

With this series of actions and guarantees, the king did not press much.

But Hemei felt more pressure because he knew very well that the king was always watching him, and the nobles who were hostile to him were making up more rumors.

The king is willing to wait, but the longer the king waits, the greater the reaction from the king will be if it fails.

But when she saw her current progress, Hemei's mood improved again.

Because everything is developing very smoothly, if this continues, it is only a matter of time before the Scoia'tael will be finished.

At the beginning, when building these small fortresses, Hemei had help from local residents who had been friends with him before and even powerful local people.

Everyone has the same interest in killing the Scoia'tael.

However, they did not come to work in vain, they also had the reward they wanted, that is, after the siege was over, these fortresses would belong to them.

Of course, Hermey knew clearly about this group of people's calculations that these small fortresses could be used as the cornerstone of forest development.

When building the fortress, in order to open up the shooting range, Hemei's men would cut down most of the nearby forest. Look, if the tree stumps are cleared away, there will be open space for reclamation.

The people of Aedirn were very persistent in reclamation. The plains of Aedirn nourished a large population, and the population continued to grow. The increasing population also required new land to develop, so the reclamation movement in Aedirn came one after another.

Then the cultivated fields nourished more people, and the cycle continued. It was also under this logic that humans conquered this continent.

It can be said that with these fortresses, humans will further develop the decayed forest.

Hermey naturally agreed wholeheartedly. Anyway, he left after wiping out the Scoia'tael. Let's just give these things to the locals. This is also a good opportunity to build a good relationship with everyone.

This is what they deserve. When these fortresses were being built, there was always a lot of harassment from the Scoia'tael. Often a cold arrow would suddenly shoot out from the forest, killing workers and soldiers who were caught off guard.

The Scoia'tael would also launch raids in an attempt to destroy the construction site, but Herme deployed enough soldiers to secure the construction site after the battle.

This was exactly the scene that Herme wanted to create. It was the Scoia'tael who broke into the pre-arranged position of the Adainians, and then were beaten all over the head by the Adainians.

The Aedirn Special Forces used many of the traps they learned from the Scoia'tael on the Scoia'tael. When the Scoia'tael step on their spiked traps, their expressions must be wonderful.

The special forces also went a step further on the basis of the Scoia'tael, smearing a mixture of feces and various poisonous weeds on those spikes, so that if the Scoia'tael were touched, they would die.

Despite the constant fighting, these natives persisted until the completion of these small forts.

On the one hand, they know that these fortresses are strangling the Scoia'tael. As they are completed, the noose around the Scoia'tael's neck becomes tighter and tighter, and the day when they are eliminated is getting closer and closer.

On the other hand, these fortresses have been regarded by them as future development bases. For the future, they must work harder.

During the construction of the fortress in Heme, after knowing what Heme had done, Selchik also sent an Adenian engineering battalion, which was a force specially responsible for building various fortifications.

Since they were fighting against the Scoia'tael, Selchik did not send dwarves specifically, but only human engineers.

Although the dwarves are old friends of the Aedirn army, in the current sensitive situation, no one dares to take the risk of a large-scale defection of the dwarves on the battlefield, so it is better to avoid suspicion.

The engineers demonstrated their strong efficiency as professionals, using various professional tools one after another.

They were even more experienced and skillful when doing the work. It was obvious at a glance that they often did this kind of thing. Their arrival greatly accelerated the project.

After the fortress was completed, Hemei's soldiers were stationed inside - most of them mercenaries - Hemei's request to them was to guard the small fort.

Looking at the gaily dressed soldiers and their costumes similar to the style of Master Dan, Hemei really couldn't think of them as reliable, so she just went to defend the fortress.

The rest of the fortress defenders were those brave rural militiamen. Hemei packed them all into the fortress, leaving only a small number of people as guides.

Anyway, this fortress will probably be their land in the future, so wouldn't it be appropriate for them to defend their own fortress?

This kind of small fortress has not been repaired too much. Heme has only blocked those key nodes.

The key nodes are places where rivers and trees are sparse, and some places where roads were once roads but were covered by vegetation. These are the keys to the Scoia'tael's operations.

And this is enough to make the elves inside uncomfortable, enough to limit the efficiency of most of their actions.

It was precisely because of these key nodes that Hemei was quickly rewarded.

First, the activities of the Scoia'tael were quickly detected, and then Herme's cavalry, led by Malendo, would go down to intercept them.

Now if the Scoia'tael want to go outside the forest to collect food or attack a certain place, they will undoubtedly have to break up into pieces and walk on animal trails that they usually don't take, and then gather together again.

This has undoubtedly greatly reduced the efficiency of their extortion of villages, and the frequency of plunder has also been greatly reduced, which cannot be compared with the past.

Secondly, there are now many corpses of private lords hanging outside every small fortress.

When the soldiers had nothing to do, they liked to watch the corpses of the hanged criminals swaying slightly in the wind, and point and comment on which dead ghost had the most distinctive death.

The so-called private lords refer to a group of businessmen who have no bottom line at all.

Youdao is that money drives the operation of the world, and where there is demand, there is supply.

The Scoia'tael need to dispose of the blood-stained loot and replenish the worn-out equipment.

As a result, forest trade emerged, and a group of private lords emerged. In order to gain profits, they sold food and various vicious weapons to the Scoia'tael.

For example, if you try to pull out a barbed arrowhead, a large piece of flesh will hang out.

There are also arrows that will "split apart" when hit in the abdomen, leaving the victim's internal organs riddled with holes.

Then they collect the stolen goods looted by the Scoia'tael and sell them. In order to get rid of these things as quickly as possible, the Scoia'tael often sell them at low prices, which shows the profits of the private lords.

If 100% of the Scoia'tael's military exploits are attributed to them, 40% must be attributed to them. This group of people has made the greatest contribution to the Scoia'tael's cause.

Without them, many Scoia'tael commandos would have starved to death due to lack of food, while others would have to fight with empty hands due to the wear and tear of their weapons.

If they hadn't been so quick to convert all kinds of stolen goods into weapons and food, the Scoia'tael would not have achieved so many achievements and won so many victories.

The private lord even provided treatment services to bring back Scoia'tael soldiers who were supposed to die due to wound infection.

No one likes these profit-seeking guys, not even the elves. Since such people can betray even their compatriots, what else can they not betray?

Indeed, these people can betray anything. They don't care about the scolding. Anyway, the most important thing is the money in their pockets.

Human beings are even more angry because they have betrayed their compatriots. If a criminal is caught, he will at least be hanged, and it is more likely that he will be tortured before being hanged.

The huge profits still make the private tycoons happy. There are people who have made enough money and come out, and there are people who continue to get involved for the sake of profit.

More people are hanging on the gallows, but there is still a steady stream of people joining, and there are always shameless people who want to make money stained with blood.

Everyone hates them, but in this troubled world and this era of contempt, these people continue to breed.

Then again, today's northern society is in a state of restlessness. The countries' general preparations for war and the increasingly tense social atmosphere have caused many dirty and ugly things to surface, and private lords are just one of them.

But now, the private lord of the Decaying Forest has almost been hanged on the gallows.

This scene makes everyone who sees it feel comfortable.

Hemei blocked the key river leading to the interior of the forest, so all the smugglers were caught at once.

The village that originally provided cover for them also turned against them. After all, Hemei's people moved directly into the village.

Finally, this cannot be considered a gain, that is, the mercenaries guarding the small fortress will receive cold arrows at unexpected times every day.

Soldiers who collect water, change defenses, and transport supplies will also be attacked by Scoia'tael from time to time.

After a group of unlucky ones appeared, all the mercenaries knew that they had to bend down and climb up the city wall.

Then move behind the battlements and wear your helmet, which can really save lives.

When leaving the city, everyone should carry a large shield, put on the best armor, carry arrows that may be shot from all angles, and be ready for war.

Then they went out in full force to cut down trees. As long as enough trees were cut down, it would be less easy for the Scoia'tael to send arrows in.
To be continued...