Chapter 524: Pressure and Persuasion

The Knight's Sword increased the morale of the whole army by 5 points, and the attack and movement speed by 10%, which is a pretty good flag.

Even with such attributes, it is not even among the top flags.

But if the Knight's Sword increases the knight's troops, the effect is terrifying, almost as good as a holy weapon, or even a divine weapon.

20 points of knight's morale, 20% attack and movement speed bonus, 25 points of attack and defense life blessing, this flag was instantly raised to the top ranks.

Xu Lai had captured the flag of the stronghold camp. Relatively speaking, the attributes of the Knight's Sword and the Behemoth King's Flag are not much different.

Especially the Behemoth King's Flag's terrifying effect of ignoring defense, the restraining effect on defense is too strong.

If the flag owned by Aini was the Behemoth King's Flag, then Reina and Aini would never win the head-on battle, and could only rely on the guerrilla warfare of the archers to consume.

But the Behemoth King Flag's effect on Xu Lai is definitely not as good as the Knight's Sword.

Xu Lai's main force, whether it is his own troops or the Qingfeng Legion, is undoubtedly knights.

So the bonus that this flag can bring to him is extremely terrifying.

On the contrary, the Aini tribe, because there are not many knights at all, they are just a mob, disobedient and low-level.

No matter how strong the effect of the Knight's Sword is, it is equivalent to raising the knight by one or two levels at most.

And Count Aini's own expertise is too different from Lena's. Having this flag only slightly makes up for the gap, and cannot change the reality that his own knights are far weaker than Xu Lai's knight troops.

Besides, Xu Lai also has knights like the Fearless Knight, who carry the effect of the Horror Aura.

Xu Lai directly absorbed the Behemoth King Flag to Tahan.

It is equivalent to Xu Lai's knight troops, which have a Behemoth King Flag and also enjoy the effects of two flags of the Sea King Flag.

However, although Xu Lai seized this flag, he cannot use it immediately.

Tahan seized the flag in its entirety, without leaving it incomplete, but the flag depicted the ancestor of the Aini family.

He was able to obtain such a flag because he had made great contributions to the first Supreme King.

The flag was embroidered with a knight who looked extremely heroic, holding a shield in one hand and a long sword in the other, and the figures of countless charging knights could be vaguely seen behind him.

If it were just these, Xu Lai would not care. As long as Aini could not speak again, who would know that this person was his ancestor.

However, the flag also had the signature of the Aini family, including their family emblem, etc.

Xu Lai would definitely use this flag, but before using it, he had to find a tailor who was at least senior to modify it.

If the properties of this precious flag were destroyed in order to modify the flag, it would be more trouble than gain, so he must find a tailor who was at least senior.

But before modifying it, this flag had another use.

"Come on, take it with you and go for a walk."

Xu Lai walked a long way. He not only went around the main roads in the city and the garrisons of the city guards, but also went to the military academy he had visited before.

These places are where Aini has garrisons.

Although the people here have surrendered to Xu Lai, they may just be forced by the situation and may not really surrender to Xu Lai.

It may be okay during the day, but at night, they may plot to do some small actions.

Xu Lai is short of manpower and it is impossible to find someone to watch them.

What's more, even if he watches them, if they want to do small actions, there is no good way to stop them.

They are local snakes, and their number is much larger than theirs. It is too easy for them to do small actions.

It is said that there is only a thief who can do thieves for a thousand days, but there is no one who can guard against thieves for a thousand days.

Xu Lai does not want to guard against thieves for a thousand days, so he can only eliminate these people's hopes from the root.

"Humans defected, orcs puppets, the former Count Aini of the Empire, has been defeated by the grassland coalition.

Now, there is the captured Aini family flag as evidence.

If there are still those who resist stubbornly and are half-hearted, they will all be guilty of the same crime as Aini, and their families will be confiscated and exterminated."

Xu Lai asked Tahan to carry the big flag and took a group of loud knights with him to walk around and shout, insisting on conveying these words to everyone.

More than 20 big men took turns shouting, and when they shouted under the castle, they couldn't bear it anymore, and their voices were almost hoarse.

Xu Lai kindly let them rest, and then asked them to find Joseph to replace a new group of people.

The noise Xu Lai made was not small, not only the people in the city heard it, but the people in the castle also heard it a long time ago.

The guard Connors even called Aini to confirm the matter.

Of course, Aini refused to admit his defeat. Otherwise, once he told the other side that he had not only lost the battle, but also abandoned all the troops and fled back to another castle, what would happen?

He himself didn't know how many troops he had now, but even if the garrisons of all the remaining territories were added together, it was estimated that he could only gather 20,000 to 30,000 troops.

20,000 to 30,000 troops were not enough to defend his existing cities, let alone counterattack Conaston.

Even if he recruited soldiers and hired mercenaries immediately, it would take at least one or two months to gather 70,000 to 80,000 troops.

This did not include the time for reorganization. If it was included, it would take at least 3 months.

Besides, don’t we need to prepare siege equipment to attack a city?

In order to attack the city of Martell, a large number of siege equipment had been lost, and a batch that was urgently produced was still on the way.

Aini contacted his logistics manager, but after a long time, there was still no news.

In this case, there is probably something wrong, and it is very likely that like his own army, the whole army will be annihilated.

This means that Aini still needs to reorganize the logistics force and rebuild the siege equipment.

The key is that now that the most important and largest Kaunaston has been lost, Aini has lost most of its soldiers and financial resources.

If there is no interference from external forces, the most optimistic estimate is that he seized the time to recruit a group of soldiers and relied on these soldiers to guard the only two remaining cities.

As for counterattack? Even if it is far away.

So he couldn't tell the other party this.

Because once they tell Connors and the others, as long as they don't want to die, they will definitely stop working for Aini.

If they refuse to sacrifice their lives, then the wealth, wife and daughter he left behind in Kaunaston Castle will become someone else's.

So, Aini severely reprimanded Connors in the Magic Stone.

Aini told Connors that the opponent was holding a false flag, and he himself was still attacking Martell.

Aini told Connors to hold on for a while and he would immediately gather soldiers to come back for reinforcements.

As long as he can hold on until he comes back to help, then Connors will be Aini's number one hero. When he returns to Conaston, he will definitely make him a viscount.

The viscount is already the biggest benefit that Aini can promise. If you go further, do you still want to give up your earl to the other party?

Even if he is willing to give in, his so-called concession has no legal effect and will not be recognized by anyone.

The most important thing is that Connors won't believe it either.

Otherwise, Ani doesn't care whether it is effective or not, as long as it can make Connors work hard, he can agree to it.

The empire is in such a broken state. Even when his collusion with the orcs was announced, no one cared about it. Who would care about whether it was effective or not.

Connors was very tempted by the viscount Aini promised, so when Xu Lai and the others appeared, he was not moved at all.

He even mobilized archer troops to take advantage of the city wall to shoot arrows at Xu Lai and the others.

Now that the banner of the Knight's Sword is here in Xu, the knights under his command have added many attributes.

Even if you just stand still and let the opponent shoot, unless it is an armor-piercing arrow, it will not bring less health.

It's just that the mount under his crotch can't bear such a rain of arrows.

These mounts are covered with vests, and the higher the level of the mount, the thicker and heavier the vest.

But after all, the vest cannot cover everything, and it has to expose the eyes, horse legs and other parts.

Xu Lai wanted to persuade him to surrender with good intentions, but he was shot all over his face, which made him feel bad instantly.

"Listen to the city defenders. You are required to surrender tomorrow morning before the sun rises.

Otherwise, I will launch a siege as soon as the sun rises.

At that time, I will execute all those who still have weapons in their hands, leaving no one behind! "

Those with weapons in their hands are warriors, not civilians.

Since he is a soldier, he must have the consciousness to die in battle. Xu Lai will kill them without any psychological burden.

However, there are still nearly 20,000 soldiers in the castle after all.

Even if it is difficult to recruit soldiers to surrender, there are still at least 7,000 or 8,000 soldiers. If they can be absorbed, Xu Lai will be able to feel much more at ease.

We didn't attack the city before because we didn't have enough manpower.

Now that there is a large amount of manpower added, Xu Lai doesn't have to wait any longer.

After leaving enough psychological pressure on the soldiers and officers in the castle, Xu Lai ordered people to open all the blacksmith shops in the city.

By the way, all the catapults, ballistas and other equipment used to defend the city on the outer city wall were removed.

In the prairie city, Xu Lai believed that there was no need to retain city walls. Even if there were, a castle that could accommodate thousands of people would be enough.

His Qingfeng City was built as his hometown, and it was different from Conaston.

Although Qingfeng City's business capabilities have improved, it is still unable to compare with the core cities on the grassland that have existed for hundreds of years like Conaston.

Founder Xu Lai also owns Qingfeng City, and he also plans to build Qingfeng City into a super giant city like Emerald City.

Simply, he wanted to demolish the walls of Qingfeng City.

After the city wall is demolished, it will be more convenient for the commercial development of the city.

Secondly, Xu Lai didn't have that many troops, so it was enough to defend the core castle. The peripheral cities had no walls, so even if they were occupied, it would be easier for him to take them back.

Thirdly, all the large amounts of wood, stone and other resources obtained by dismantling the city wall can be transported back.

Even if Qingfeng City is expanded, it can still be used as reserve ammunition for catapults.

Besides, Xu Lai also plans to build Mingyue City into a fortress-like city and wants to rely on Mingyue City to defend Moriel's attack.

Moreover, demolishing the city wall of Conaston is a huge project.

Not to mention that the Heart of the Castle is not here with Xu Lai, even if it is, he cannot rely on the Heart of the Castle to demolish the city wall alone.

Xu Lai also took advantage of this project to allow his people to become managers of various positions and slowly eliminate the old municipal bureaucrats.

Of course, if there are good performances, Xu Lai can stay in office.

In general, he doesn't care much about what others call "loyalty".

Loyalty has to be paid for. After all, loyalty can't be eaten. People go to high places and water flows to low places. That's the law of nature.

What he cares about is that after paying enough, he still can't get loyalty.

That's called betrayal.

Of course, those are all later. Now Xu Lai still has to rely on the original bureaucratic system.

And demolishing the city wall is just an idea of ​​Xu Lai now, and it can't be implemented for the time being.

But Xu Lai dismantled the city defense equipment, and the people on the castle saw clearly the actions of the catapults, medium-sized or large-sized crossbows, and ballista carts.

Moreover, every time a catapult or crossbow cart came, the officers and soldiers on the castle felt a little nervous.

There are catapults and crossbow carts for defense in Conaston Castle.

But after all, Conaston Castle only occupies a corner of Conaston City, and its size is far from comparable to Conaston City.

Even part of the wall of Konaston City is connected to Konaston Castle, but it suddenly rises more than ten meters at the edge of Konaston Castle, so they are not connected to each other.

The night is getting darker and darker, and there are more and more catapults.

The soldiers on the wall are feeling more and more depressed.

Not long ago, Xu Lai left a harsh word when he left. Although the voice was not loud, it was remembered by everyone.

"Do you think that Xu is a man who keeps his word?"

"You ask me, how do I know? But the flag they are holding doesn't look fake to me."

"Yes, yes, yes, I have seen the flag of Earl Aini. When the orcs attacked the city some time ago, I happened to be guarding the city wall and saw it up close.

The two flags, even the emblems on them are exactly the same."

"So, Earl Aini really lost?

But if even the earl lost, then why are we guarding this castle for him?

Do we have to give our lives here for that vampire-like earl?"

After hearing this, the rest of the people were silent for a moment, and they all looked at each other unwillingly.

Unlike these soldiers, the officers were also talking about surrender.

They were not like Connors, who was promised a viscount title by Aini, and his heart was already lost.

However, these officers had to rush to the front in the battle, but they could not get any benefits.

The most important thing is that they have all heard of Xu Lai's reputation to some extent. Even if some people don't know, it will soon spread.

They don't know how much Xu Lai's reputation is. At most, they only know that the merchants who have passed by have a high opinion of Qingfeng City.

But no matter how much Xu Lai's reputation is, if they fail to defend the city tomorrow, their lives and property will most likely be gone.

"I was on duty in the castle just now. The servants in the castle were all packing and gathering things."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, I just want to tell you that they are preparing a way out for themselves. Should we also prepare a way out for ourselves?"

"How can we prepare a way out? Now it is at most 7 or 8 hours before dawn.

When the sun rises, their catapults will hit us, and we will retreat in a hurry. We don't have many weapons and ammunition left. How many days can we hold on?"

"How many days? Have you forgotten how Conaston City was broken?

Those Seraphim flew to the castle. Who dared to do it? Who could do it?

I think we should wash it clean early and die cleanly tomorrow."

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, just when the officers and soldiers were all whispering, many arrows suddenly flew onto the top of the city.

Xu Lai was not lying. He launched an attack at night.

These arrows have been removed from the arrowheads, so it doesn't hurt even if they shoot people.

And all of these arrows without arrowheads, without exception, were tied with a letter.

The content of the letter is still unknown, but the letterheads are all from relatives outside the castle. (End of this chapter)