120 – Coronation – 3
A story about Leonia attacking Salerno Castle.
Philip of Swadia heard the story and immediately led his soldiers out.
This is because there was no benefit to staying in the destroyed castle against an overwhelmingly large number of enemies.
So, 25,000 and 15,000 troops from both armies faced off on the plain.
Leonia was amazed when she saw the army of Philip de Swadia.
“For sure. A well-trained army. All of them are elite. Their charging power will be amazing. “It will be a tremendous cavalry charge.”
That was right. Their cavalry charge would probably be enormous. Although it is an old-fashioned army, it may surpass even the newer army.
“But now times have changed. “It’s time to teach them that too.”
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Will it work out as expected? There was that question, but the matter had already been decided. Since I couldn’t show my back to the enemy, I just prepared for defeat.
“But where is your escort who was always there?”
I answered Leonia’s question as follows.
“For a moment, to the Kingdom of Illya… “
“Ilya Kingdom?”
Leonia said after thinking for a moment.
“You are trying to take out insurance.”
“Yes.”
I thought I was going to lose this battle. As such, I couldn’t help but think about what happened next. That’s why I temporarily separated Glacia, who is the most important person to me.
“Well, a situation where everyone firmly believes in victory might not be very safe either. “I will respect your judgment.”
At times like this, I am grateful for Leonia’s magnanimity. If it were another monarch, he might have been angry at me for lowering morale.
“However, there is no need to worry too much. “The enemy’s knights and cavalry are of such good quality that they can be said to be the best in the world, but the average infantry is only a match in number.”
Leonia was right. Swadia was, after all, a nation of knights, which meant that it did not care much about anything other than knights.
“For this reason, if you just defeat the knight, even if there are 25,000 enemies, it’s not that scary. So there is no need to look at it pessimistically.”
If I really won, I couldn’t ask for anything more. If only Swadia, the world’s most powerful country at the moment, was retired, the rest would go by easily.
But I do not view the situation so optimistically. It would soon be revealed whether it was Princess Leonia or me.
And soon the battle began.
—–
It was the horn sounded from the Swadia side that announced the start of the battle.
Originally, a war begins with a shooting battle between archers. If one side gave up the firefight, they would unilaterally take damage from the fire, so it was standard practice to force the opponent to give up the firefight first and charge.
And Leonia was very confident in such a shooting battle. This was because our musketeers had quite high firepower and were well trained.
“The longer the firefight lasts, the greater the benefit to our troops. “We need to make the firefight last as long as possible.”
I believed that, but.
The enemy, Philippe de Swadia, gave up on shooting and started with an infantry charge. He meant that he was willing to suffer losses due to early shooting.
Meanwhile, Philip had also sent several spies to the fight on the Taspilia Peninsula.
So, I knew very well how Leonia won the battle.
Leonia won because it properly utilized the pike and musket strategy. Win at long range with the musket and block at close range with the pike. Such a strategy was Leonia’s strategy.
This was a viable strategy because muskets were stronger than archers and pikes were stronger than knights.
That is why Philip did not give the muskets any room to play in the first place. Even if many casualties were caused by muskets in the early stages of the battle, the intention was to immediately attach themselves to the enemy and prevent the muskets from being active for a long time.
So Philip’s archers were somewhat relaxed. Even though the battle had begun, they were just waiting for the monarch’s call from the rear.
Meanwhile, Philip’s infantry.
-Kwakwakwaang!!!
Hundreds of infantrymen fall under a volley of musket fire. However, the infantry in the back row were not afraid and continued to charge.
-Kwakwakwaang!!!
Musket fire continues in succession. This time, hundreds of people fell.
But as soon as the distance got closer…
“Musket soldiers retreat! Forward the spearmen!”
According to Leonia’s orders, the musketeers fell back and the pikemen began to come forward.
The infantry of Philip’s army were infantrymen carrying a standard 1.5 To 2 meter long spear and shield.
Therefore, even if they rushed in, there was no way they would be able to break through the ranks of well-trained spearmen.
The ordinary spearmen of Philip’s army and the long spearmen of Leonia’s army began to clash with each other.
The spearmen tried hard to shield themselves with their shields and produced their weapons, but they fell without being able to touch the opponent’s body, and those holding swords rather than spears were unable to even produce their weapons.
When Philip’s army suffered unilateral losses and the damage was accumulating, Philip de Swadia shouted.
“Knights, follow me!”
Philip de Swadia led the knights directly from his vanguard and began to charge.
Of course, it was planned to retreat before the conflict with the enemy began, but even so, the difference between whether the monarch himself stepped forward or not was significant.
Philippe de Swadia. He was not a genius like Leonia or Emilia. He was not very competent in internal affairs, and although his military talent was outstanding in its own way, the fact that he did not receive a high ability score in the game clearly meant that he also had weaknesses.
But only for this battle, he chose only the correct answer. This meant that even though he lacked talent, as the next king, he had extensive knowledge of strategy and tactics since he was young.
Philip led his cavalry and charged the Leonian pikemen. Leonia felt victory at that moment.
“Musketeers, fire!”
The musketeers hiding behind the pikemen fired their muskets over the pikemen’s shoulders and toward the cavalry. This was possible because the height of the cavalry was much higher than that of the pikemen, combining the height of the horse and the height of the man.
Hundreds of knights and cavalry fell as a result. An ordinary monarch would have been in a state of panic, but Philippe de Swadia was taught by his predecessors to be a blind chivalric man who never retreated from war, so he was inwardly afraid but never intimidated.
“Don’t pay attention to enemy fire! “All troops, charge!”
Philip’s knights began to charge without mercy. And the first thing they trampled…
“Ugh!”
“Why on earth are we…?” !”
It was the friendly infantry that was causing trouble. This was nothing unusual for the Swadia army, and some sacrifices by the infantry were taken into account in order to allow the cavalry to charge smoothly.
As Philip’s army’s infantry began to be trampled, the infantry had no choice but to move to the side, or those who did not even have space to do so began to charge forward, and the pikemen suddenly had a moment to spare as they stabbed the enemies flying forward. .
And then the knights began to charge towards the gap.
-Quang!
After a while, the long spear soldiers of the Taspilia army and the heavy cavalry of the Swadia army began to clash.
The length of the spears of the Leonian pikemen was 5.5 Meters, slightly longer than the length of the lances of the Swadian army, which was 4.5 Meters. And that narrow difference became the right to go first, allowing the knights who were attacked first to fly into the sky.
The horses that were pierced by the long spears were greatly shocked and died instantly due to the recoil of the charge so far, and the knights riding them flew into the sky due to the recoil of the horses’ charge that suddenly stopped. Although the situation seemed advantageous at first glance, it was not really so.
Among the knights, there were those who succeeded in charging based on the overwhelming defense and weight of their barding and armor, and the charging of such horses even completely destroyed part of our troops’ ranks.
The fight continued, neither completely advantageous nor completely disadvantageous. Some Tersio regiments were defeated when enemy knights successfully charged, while others were victorious.
Both sides were being harmed equally. If infantry and cavalry suffered similar damage, it was actually the same as cavalry suffering overwhelming damage. This is because the cost of training heavy cavalry was overwhelmingly more expensive than that of pikemen.
However, Philip did not become discouraged or retreat just because he suffered losses. This was because he had been taught from a young age to never retreat from his previous king.
Isabel said while looking at the scene.
“The enemy’s heavy cavalry, which is expensive to train, and our long spearmen, who are cheap to train, are suffering similar damage, so our troops are benefiting.”
However, Leonia told a completely different story than expected.
“Isabel, prepare to retreat.”
“Yes?”
“Prepare to retreat. I thought wrong. “This war will be our army’s defeat.”
That’s right. Leonia was also slowly realizing this. The fact that this war is going as Count Rochepol predicted.