Chapter 538 (1/2)

Chapter 538: The Wheel of Time

Translator: TransN Editor: TransN

After being supplied with food and equipment, the First Army was ready to set out once again.

This was the mission for the latter half of the spring offensive: seizing Willow Town and Fallen Dragon Ridge. Capturing Willow Town would unify the Western Region, and taking control of Fallen Dragon Ridge would enable them to have the easiest access to the Southern Territory.

Since these two towns were well fortified, Roland entrusted the command to Iron Axe and he himself would not partake in the expedition. Because they just conquered King’s City, the soldiers were having high morale. Besides, those professional soldiers had gradually formed a prototype of soldiers in a modern army, which meant they could faithfully carry out combat orders without being led by Roland personally. Therefore, Roland was sure they would take the two towns. As long as they made a thorough investigation and used the artillery troops to steadily push forward, they would not face great resistance from the enemies.

The reconstruction of the post-war order should be his focus of attention.

Fortunately, Willow Town was not a large-scale town. He did not need to set a fully-functional secondary City Hall as the one in the Longsong Area, but only to set up offices for each department correspondingly. Nowadays, the Border Area could offer a batch of fundamental management staff, so it would not be hard to add Willow Town to the political system of the City of Neverwinter.

As for Fallen Dragon Ridge, he would hand it over to Countess Spear for management. After the fall of Timothy, Spear had sworn allegiance to Roland and agreed to accept the overall management model of Western Region. In order to help her take over the city and cleaning up the rebel nobility, Roland believed it was necessary to garrison the first army there.

Plus, in the future, whether to further annex the Southern Territory or to conquer Iron Sand City, Fallen Dragon Ridge was the key traffic artery. So, the other purpose of the garrison was to prevent accidents. No matter what, Roland had to take hold of this city.

“In this way, there won’t be many left in the First Army,” after knowing the plan, Iron Axe said, frowning. “500 of them are guarding King’s City, 1,000 will be dispatched to Willow Town and Fallen Dragon Ridge, and the number of soldiers I can freely mobilize is no more than 1,500, most of whom are artillery. Given that, City of Neverwinter probably will temporarily lose the ability to launch the attack.”

“How is the training for the new soldiers recruited during the Months of Demons going?”

“Not even close to the regular troops,” Iron Axe said while shaking his head. “They need to be trained for at least two to three more months.”

Roland could not help laughing. He remembered when he originally set up the Militia to resist demonic beasts, it went to the battlefield only after one and a half months’ training. Now with the increasingly comprehensive construction of the army, the criterion of acceptability also greatly increased. In fact, as long as the soldiers could line up based on the order and take aim to pull the trigger, even in this era it was a strong army—After all, they only needed to aim and shoot without necessarily being under the attack of the enemies and risking their own lives.

“Don’t worry. By then the garrison could be replaced by those new recruits, and it’ll be a sort of training for them to fight against the guards of the noble.” Roland said in a leisure tone, “When the emissary delegation for recruiting refugees returns, the population of City of Neverwinter will reach another peak. We can continue to expand our army then.”

Seizing King’s City was far from an end, and seizing Fallen Dragon was only a start. If everything went well, he hoped to annex the whole Southernmost Ridge before the arrival of the Months of Demons this year.

If he could get a stable supply of black water, he might be able to lead the industries of City of Neverwinter to a new stage.

Soon after Iron Axe left, Nightingale quietly appeared in front of Roland.