Chapter 682: Defending the City (I)

While Henwell is crossing the river, Cellarwine City has just repelled an attack. Arius personally goes onto the walls to inspect them. The wounded on the walls have already been sent down.

Fortunately, Peace Haven established a hospital in Cellarwine City, and the various units that came after receiving the news have all brought doctors and medical supplies.

But ten straight days of siege warfare have still filled the hospital with wounded.

Because of this, three warehouses have been temporarily requisitioned to receive the injured. Medical supplies are still sufficient, but the number of doctors is severely lacking.

The original assistant doctors and intern doctors have already begun conducting field surgery on their own.

Some experienced nurses have even been forced onto the operating tables as primary surgeons.

The nurses serving now are all women recruited from the city. Those who are brave and meticulous are chosen to assist with the treatment of the wounded.

After inspecting the walls and encouraging the soldiers, Arius returns to the command post.

"What is the current situation inside the city?"

Windson steps forward to report. "Order in the city is still stable. That is thanks to Your Highness eliminating the uncertain elements at the very beginning."

After the pursuers arrived outside the city, Arius sealed the city gates immediately.

Then Arius asked Administrator Hobson for a large sum of gold.

In front of the city hall, he piled up the gold and recruited large numbers of caravan guards and mercenaries stranded in the city.

Under the lure of heavy rewards, everyone becomes excited.

Arius says the enemy outside is a rebel army, and as long as they hold on for a few days, reinforcements will arrive.

By then, everyone who participates in defending the city will receive generous rewards, especially those who dare to go up onto the walls and fight.

Arius pays each person who goes up to fight on the walls ten gold coins in a lump sum. Then he promises an enormous additional reward of five gold coins for every day they hold.

Don't think these few gold coins are a small amount. Henwell's projects often cost millions of gold coins, which makes this money look like pocket change.

But one must understand that Henwell works on major projects on a national scale. Those can't be compared with an individual's finances.

Even now, among the noble knights of Vorry Kingdom, there are many who can't produce one hundred gold coins.

You may be a knight, a noble, or even an extraordinary, but that doesn't mean you can earn money.

In fact, for most nobles, being able to govern their territory well is already worth burning incense over.

Because the security environment for domestic trade is somewhat better, caravan guards don't earn high incomes.

Sometimes a single job earns only a few gold coins, and it can take half a year.

Caravan guards and mercenaries are also not as powerful as people imagine. The mercenary rangers from stories are extremely rare.

Those extraordinary mercenary rangers stand at the very top of the trade.

It is only because of special reasons that they remain in this line of work. If they had any better choice, they would change jobs.

As for most mercenaries and caravan guards, they are actually soldiers who retired from the battlefield.

Put that way, should these old soldiers not be quite formidable?

It is exactly the opposite. The truly formidable ones are kept in the army or recruited by nobles.

These old soldiers weren't troops from proper legions either. Most of them came from noble private armies, participated in one or two muddled battles, and then were lucky enough to return home.

In this world, all knowledge is expensive, especially knowledge related to fighting and killing.

Aside from noble private soldiers, some mercenaries are young people who learned a few combat techniques and then went out to make a living.

They slowly muddle along in mercenary circles and participate in actions to drive away bandits.

Mercenary tavern culture causes them to look down on regular armies.

After all, once a group of men have a little wine in them, the bragging begins.

In the end, other than mercenaries who have truly seen battle formations clash, most mercenaries even believe that they are far stronger than regular soldiers.

Unruly, armed, and ready to break the law.

This is how rulers view mercenaries.

Peace Haven has no mercenaries. Its caravan guards are also paramilitary units and salaried personnel.

There are many caravans here, so there are naturally many mercenary guards as well. In order to prevent them from causing any trouble, Arius must deal with this hidden danger immediately.

Drive them out?

That would look bad and could easily unsettle the people inside the city.

Besides, they are usable manpower after all. He has to make them provide as much value as possible.

The pay Arius offers is already enough to make the mercenary guards' eyes turn red.

They all join the defense of the city, especially after they receive standard armor and weapons.

They become even more convinced that defending from behind city walls and dealing with some kingdom rebels will be an easy matter.

This money is practically lying on the ground.

After that, no battle happens for an entire day.

All they have to do is wear armor, stand on the walls, and brag to each other.

During this time, Hobson and the others divide the serfs from the demonstration zones into unit after unit.

Arius spends the entire day on this alone. He places a table in front of the city hall.

He personally signs for every serf who arrives, declaring them free people and his glorious Guard army.

The next day, Arius begins paying every mercenary guard defending the city five gold coins as promised.

This makes even more people rush to sign up and join the defense on the walls.

The serf soldiers have already begun receiving their weapons and equipment, and they train in various formations under the officers' command.

Archie's "bandit groups" and the members of the armed teams from the demonstration zones are all assigned downward to serve as grassroots officers.

Each person leads ten serf soldiers and formally teaches them the killing techniques of battle formations, as well as the meaning represented by each command.

Originally, Arius wanted to assign his own guards down as well, but Archie refused.

Arius isn't trying to seize authority. He simply understands very clearly that this Freedmen Guard Army, which has not yet grown, will be able to endure its first baptism of death mainly by relying on these grassroots officers.

In the battles that follow, grassroots officers will face heavy casualties.

But Archie says that these serfs are used to Peace Haven's command.

Many military orders are connected to the instructions used in the demonstration zones.

This can allow the Freedmen Guard Army to grow in the shortest possible time.

To prevent the former serf soldiers from collapsing under the pressure of death, every hundred-man team has two veteran squads formed by Peace Haven armed personnel.

When the battle situation becomes critical, they will charge up to hold the breach and stabilize the defensive line again.

In this way, more than half of the armed forces Peace Haven left here is poured into this newly formed pure-infantry legion of fifteen thousand men.

The remaining armed forces are gathered into two thousand-man battalions responsible for patrol duty inside the city.

After all, these people understand Cellarwine City. When the city's residents see familiar faces from the patrol battalions, the pressure in their hearts will lessen as well.

As for Arius's people, their elites are drawn out to form a cavalry battalion, which will serve as the force for a counterattack if the city defense is broken.

The rest of Arius's subordinates combine with the original city defense guard force and form a warband.

The city defense guard force had fewer than five thousand men to begin with. After Peace Haven's armed personnel withdrew, only two thousand remained.

Originally, that wasn't enough to form a warband. Fortunately, some nobles in the city also announce their loyalty to Arius and contribute their soldiers and guards.

Only then do they barely piece together a warband of fewer than five thousand men to serve as the city defense reserve warband.