The Grodunning family's choice undoubtedly made everyone in Argauland very angry.
At present, the foreign enemy has no regard for the overall situation and consumes precious troops for no reason for a small territorial dispute? The Grodunning family is simply unreasonable.
Otto can also understand the choice of the Bern Territory. After all, it is them who lost the territory, not Otto. Who knows whether the Kingdom of Lotharingia will still exist after the next war.
Rather than picking up precious troops and throwing them into a war with an uncertain future and few benefits, it is better to secure some benefits for yourself in a down-to-earth manner.
If it were Otto, he would have made the same choice.
For the two upcoming wars, the nobles of all sizes in Aargau showed great enthusiasm, including several vassals who came all the way from the Principality of Swabia.
After all, if there was no war, where would they go to make meritorious deeds? Without merit, where would the sons and nephews of the family go to obtain fiefdoms?
As for the turmoil in the Kingdom of Lotharingia and the future of Argau? Then there is no need to worry about the internal fighting in the Carolingian dynasty. After the fight, everyone can just change to another king and swear allegiance.
Otto, who knew the final trend of history, didn't care even more.
According to the script, bah, according to historical trends, the Swiss region where Aargauland is located will become part of the Kingdom of East Francia. And the Alahorf family was originally vassals of the Kingdom of East Francia, so there is no pressure to change their status.
Facing the battle in the Bern Territory, Otto did not want to delay and quickly negotiated the time and place with the other party.
As expected by Otto, the battlefield chosen by the Bernese side was indeed not suitable for cavalry.
It has to be said that this is the most correct choice made by the opponent in the face of Otto's cavalry, which is said to be thousands.
It's just a pity that the protagonist of this war is not the cavalry, but the crossbow.
Under the crossbow arrow, all living beings are equal.
Nearly five hundred of the latest crossbows, as well as hundreds of other crossbows. After this round of volley fire, how many soldiers can still stand on the opposite side?
As the busiest period of the autumn harvest passed, the Aargau and Berne territories each gathered their armies and went to the predetermined locations for battle.
When the appointed time came, Otto personally led the army to go to war.
On the Aargao leader's side, a total of 2,000 troops were assembled, including 200 cavalry, 500 armored infantry and 1,300 ordinary levies.
Among them, the troops in the territory directly under Claire accounted for the absolute main force, with cavalry composed of more than 100 "quasi-knights", 300 heavy infantry and 500 crossbowmen drawn from various castles, which demonstrated the strong strength of Alaholf.
The remaining troops were supplemented by troops from vassals.
On the other side, Bern's army seemed much stronger.
Grodunning is a family with multiple noble titles, and the combined strength of the various branches of the family should not be underestimated.
This time, the Grodunning family gathered a total of 5,000 soldiers. Although half of them were conscripts, their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated.
There are more than forty knights, including six regular knights, hundreds of cavalry, four hundred multi-armored infantry, thousands of spearmen wearing leather armor and hundreds of archers.
With such an army ratio, it is no exaggeration to say that a duke's army is enough to dominate the entire Swiss region.
It can be seen that the Grodunning family is serious.
Unfortunately, they met Otto.
A not-so-wide valley is a battlefield for both sides.
Since this was a "war between nobles", even though the number of armies on both sides was so staggering, there was not much sense of tension overall.
To this end, it is the tradition of this kind of war.
According to tradition, Otto and several barons, along with their guards, had a meeting with the other party's commander.
"May the gods bless you. Good afternoon, Baron Otto, nobles." Adal, who was wearing armor, looked quite impressive and looked very confident while riding a horse.
His confidence came from the fact that he had twice as many troops as Otto.
Five thousand versus two thousand, no matter how you look at it, I have the advantage!
Otto smiled and greeted the nobles from Adal and Bern. This was the most basic noble etiquette. Otto had to abide by the rules no matter how disdainful he was.
After a simple greeting, Adar got down to business.
"Baron Otto, the kingdom is in crisis now, and I don't want to be your enemy.
Let's do this. As long as you return the occupied land in Bern and compensate for the losses, we can have a truce and get back on good terms.
Baron Otto, for the sake of the gods, this is the most generous condition I can give you before the fight begins. If you are defeated later, I am afraid it will not be just this condition."
Otto shook his head. The heir to the Bernese Territory had not yet understood the situation clearly, and thought he had a chance to win and began to show his mercy.
Unfortunately, he must have forgotten that there is no relationship between the number of troops and their combat effectiveness.
"Thank you Baron Adair for your generosity, but I think the winner of this war should be me. Well, Baron Adair, I will also give you a generous condition.
If you surrender now, you only need to pay me a gold coin to apologize, and I will pretend that nothing happened. What do you think?"
"Humph." Adal's face fell instantly. "In this case, there is nothing more to talk about. Let's compare whose sword is sharper.
May the gods bless you, Baron Otto."
"May the gods protect you, Baron Adal, and be careful of stray arrows." Otto's expression did not change.
Adal stopped talking and returned to his headquarters with a group of nobles.
Otto shrugged. This guy was really ungrateful, but he was kind enough to remind him.
The power of the crossbow is so powerful. If the heir to the Berne territory is accidentally shot to death, it will be great fun. I am afraid that I don't want to annex the entire Berne area.
Thinking of this, Otto quickly ordered Baron Dillon on the side:
"Tell the crossbowmen not to shoot cavalry and nobles, but only shoot the opponent's infantry phalanx."
Baron Charlie nodded solemnly. Having seen the power of the crossbow, he also understood that if the knight was shot, the armor on the knight would not be able to block the crossbow arrow.
It's just a battle between nobles. There is no need to cause a large number of noble casualties. If word spreads, it will scare people.
"I understand, don't worry, Master Otto."
Not long after the commanders of both sides returned to their respective military formations, the two armies began to move.
In this narrow terrain that was not conducive to the performance of cavalry, both sides chose the same tactic, which was to use infantry as the main force, with the archers behind, forming a square formation and advancing forward. The elite cavalry covered the flanks and waited until the enemy's infantry was ready.
The formation showed signs of decline, and elite cavalry was used to cover it up.
Such tactics are not very clever, but they are very useful.
Following the order, the heavy infantrymen from both sides rushed to the front, holding broad shields.
The distance between the two sides gradually shortened, and they entered the shooting range of the archers. The archers on the Bernese side began to fire arrows, and the arrows rained down on the heavy infantry in the Allgäu.
The infantrymen in the front row raised their giant shields and continued to advance slowly against the rain of arrows. For a while, the sound of arrows hitting shields and armors was heard on the battlefield.
From time to time, an unlucky guy would be hit by an arrow in a part that the shield and armor could not protect, and he would fall to the ground with a miserable wail, but his companions ignored him and continued to move forward.
"Strange, why didn't the other side fire arrows?" A nobleman on the Bern side muttered softly when he saw the situation on the battlefield.
Soon, he knew why.
With a loud shout of "Let go!" the buzz of the crossbow machine and the sound of arrows piercing the air were heard, and the crossbow arrows, far denser than those on the Berne side, flew towards the infantry phalanx on the Berne side.