Chapter 692 — A Thousand Troops and Ten Thousand Horses, Squatting Tiger-Like at the Impregnable Pass

At Longwind Keep, Maggie finished his communication with the Mechanical Manufacturing Bureau. Only then did the adjutant standing beside him dare to speak up: "General, are you planning to arm those newly conscripted recruits with a batch of fake arcane equipment?"

Maggie nodded. "That is exactly the idea—let them wear fake equipment and stand on the city walls. And that is still far from enough."

"Not enough?"

"The Southland can only supply a limited quantity of 'duds' within a few days, and in the short term they can only cover individual soldiers' gear. I'm afraid these things won't frighten the Typhonians. We'll have to figure something out ourselves," Maggie continued. "The engineering crews that were reinforcing the camps earlier should be idle by now—pass my orders. Start construction work in the hills north of Longwind Keep and the Palemel Heights, and haul all the timber piled up by the shallows over there. Let me tell you what I intend to do..."

The garrison of Longwind Keep swung into action once again. Before the next Typhonians reconnaissance wave arrived, several engineering crews began a large-scale construction effort under Maggie's orders—from the hills north of the fortress to the Palemel Heights to its south, more than ten defensive works and firing positions began to rise.

At the Number Four "artillery position" on the Palemel Heights, engineers were hard at work digging trenches and leveling the ground. Fully armed sentries stood on hastily built watchtowers, constantly and warily scanning the open wasteland around them. Two soldiers equipped with engineering arcane terminals were cutting timber, while several others handled great bundles of tarpaulin and coiled ropes. The site was a hive of activity, yet orderly.

The commander in charge of the engineering crew walked past a freshly dug earth trench, glanced at the soldiers' progress, nodded slightly, and said to a nearby soldier: "Keep up this pace—get the frames up before noon."

"Sir, will this really work?" The soldier scratched his hair. "Scaring people with these fancy shells?"

"Carry out the order," the commander said, glancing at the soldier. Then he grinned broadly. "And I think it's very workable."

He looked up and saw several soldiers nearby nailing the cut timber together and propping it against the slope of an earth mound, then covering it with tarpaulin, the four corners of which were firmly pegged to the ground. In another earthen pit, a real arcane crystal railgun stood upright, its acceleration rails pointed toward the plains, the tarpaulin on its barrel half-drawn.

In fact, that was the only real gun on the position; every other railgun was built from wood or scrap iron.

This was a fake position—a fake position convincing enough to pass for real. Several similar positions stood nearby, and more lay to the north of the fortress. But not all of them were fake—about a quarter of the dozen or so positions were real, manned with railguns urgently transferred from the Holy Spirit Plains and ample troops. Those would be genuinely tough nuts to crack.

This was battlefield cunning such as traditional noble armies had never conceived—deceit utterly divorced from so-called chivalric virtues of "honor and honesty." Yet every battlefield, great or small, that the Cecil Legion had fought on proved one thing: the age of knightly warfare was over, buried in the smoldering ashes of cannon fire. The standard of justice in the new era was calculated jointly by caliber and range.

"Don't forget one thing—those Typhonians have never been shelled by arcane cannons," said the commander, promoted from the ranks of veterans, grinning at the soldiers beside him. "Most of them don't know what real arcane equipment looks like, especially after we've done our camouflage work—if they can't see through it within this week, the Iron Throne is as good as come!"

...

On the walls of Longwind Keep, Maggie stood leaning on his sword beside an arcane crystal railgun. Not far from him, at a gun emplacement right next to a genuine arcane cannon, soldiers were assembling steel plates and concrete blocks originally meant to reinforce the walls. A patrol marched past not far behind him—the patrolmen wore light armor of peculiar design, moving in neat formation, spirits high.

At least, that was how it looked on the surface.

"The armies on the Typhonians border have never seen arcane equipment with their own eyes, but their intelligence officers have surely reported its general form and power. That is where the information gap lies," Maggie said softly, exhaling, to his adjutant. "Once Position Eight is complete, conduct a round of artillery coverage toward the Grey Pool Marsh—spread word beforehand that it's a test of the second-generation new weapons. Do the same once Position Twelve is finished."

"Yes, General." The adjutant bowed his head in acknowledgment.

Maggie nodded, his gaze passing over the battlements and down upon the vast wasteland in the distance.

The false deterrent was in place, but he must also prepare for the possibility that the Typhonians might see through it early or simply refuse to take the bait. In war, after all, hard power had the final say—while building those fake positions, Maggie had also been steadily strengthening Longwind Keep's real defenses. Minefields had been laid at several key crossings; the traps and trenches around the fortress never paused for a single day; and inside the fortress, the training of new recruits proceeded without the slightest slackening, always in orderly fashion.

After all, besides those hollow shells of "arcane equipment," a batch of genuine arcane armaments had also arrived from the rear—and the greatest feature of this equipment was that it was easy to operate and easy to forge into combat effectiveness. An ordinary person needed only three days of training to shoot correctly; new recruits could barely manage to stand on the walls after a dozen or so days. At this most critical moment, every additional soldier trained was one more guarantee for the safety of the empire's border.

He had once lost a fortress. In his lifetime, he did not wish for the same thing to happen a second time.

Beside him stood the young adjutant who had followed him for many years, ever since the days of Boulder Keep, who had accompanied him through the Boulder Campaign, the labor reforms, and the God-Hunt Campaign. The young man was also gazing out over that vast defensive line, and on his bronzed face there seemed to be complex emotions.

After a few minutes of silence, Maggie spoke: "Payne, what are you thinking about?"

"General..." The young adjutant hesitated, then finally opened his mouth. "I was just suddenly struck by something. The last time we defended a fortress, chivalry was my only creed."

"Defending home and country is chivalry too—and a higher chivalry at that. By holding this place, we are protecting more people," Maggie said, shaking his head. "As for the methods used on the battlefield... times have changed, Payne. I had an epiphany before the great cannons. You should try it too."

"...You have a point, General."

...

The changes at Longwind Keep and along its surrounding defensive line did not escape the Typhonians scouts. A steady stream of intelligence soon converged on the command post at Winterwolf Keep, and An Luo??Wendel actually rose to his feet in surprise when he received it—this young wolf general had never expected the Cecil people to suddenly construct a second defensive line.

Faced with the Typhonians' mounting military pressure, the Cecil people had not adopted a strategy of contracting their defenses; instead, they were actively building a new batch of positions. Did this mean... their reserve manpower was even greater than initially imagined?