Iron Harvest: When Farming Becomes Conquest
Chapter 147 - 19: Conquest Knight and Heavy Soldiers

Chapter 147: Chapter 19: Conquest Knight and Heavy Soldiers

Roman held one end of the rope, which was lined with people.

He had no time to count how many people were tied to this rope.

Axes and blades forced everyone to move forward.

These people, hands bound, stumbled forward out of fear.

But Roman believed that in the future, they would understand the value of this rope.

By then, even if he released the rope, they would sincerely follow in his footsteps.

Not now, he had no time or need to explain.

Looting is looting.

Those who resist will be executed immediately!

Those who struggle to free themselves will be executed immediately!

Jet was always ruthless, he ordered the heads of the stewards to be chopped off and hung on the spears of the lightly armored soldiers as a warning.

The heads, stained with blood, with faces frozen in terror, were captured moments before death.

The villagers, hands and feet tied, remembered those faces once reveling in arrogance in the village.

Now, only their heads floated in the air, accompanying them, staring at them with eyes that could not rest in peace.

Jet’s method was remarkably effective.

Even the bravest villagers lost their will to resist.

Everyone realized that this group of mad executioners! Their brutality was no less than the eastern barbarians and the pirates from North Ice!

The effect was successful, but Roman frowned.

Dragging this stumbling group of burdens, it was impossible to speed up the march.

From morning to noon, they had advanced only over ten kilometers, looted two small villages along the way, and passed a knight’s territory, where the Conquest Knight, seeing the situation turning bad, immediately escaped on horseback, avoiding the disaster.

At this time, they reached the second village on the planned map, a place called Vit Village.

Only a few dozen soldiers were left to guard this batch of slaves, and the rest repeated what they did in Doug Village.

Some people reacted and escaped, but most became lambs awaiting slaughter.

Soon, several bloody heads were again hung on the spears and axes of lightly armored soldiers.

With the marching speed unsatisfactory, Roman had to divide his forces.

He ordered Aaron to lead two hundred lightly armored soldiers to capture the third village, called Pudun Village, ahead of time, as their resting place for the night.

It was at this time,

Count Kant’s vassals finally reacted.

The massive convoy was too conspicuous, even directly crossing the borders of some knight’s territories.

When the escaped Conquest Knight told his peers about it, they were bewildered.

An army?

Where could an army come from in such poverty-stricken backwoods?

Soon, farmers who escaped from Egger and Vit Villages also delivered their intelligence.

The Conquest Knights or Barons, at first incredulous, sent messengers to Doug Village to investigate, finding it deserted, with nine-tenths of the villagers likely taken away, and then hearing about the tragedy from Vit Village as well.

"Where did the raiders come from?!"

Everyone was going crazy!

This was outlandish!

Like soldiers descending from heaven!

Rather than believe it was an army, they preferred to think it was mountain spirits and monsters invading the Black Iron Land from the Cangyue Mountains.

"Where is Baron Haas? Why is Baron Haas not here?"

They sent a messenger to Baron Haas’s castle to check the situation.

The messenger’s round trip would take time; they couldn’t just sit and do nothing, struck with a mix of shock and anger!

"Stop them!!"

After reaching a consensus, Conquest Knights from several knight territories gathered, hastily bringing along their knight retainers, hurriedly assembling a cavalry unit of nearly thirty.

In that afternoon, this cavalry unit launched an attack on Roman’s convoy.

Being unable to identify them in time, they regarded Roman as akin to barbarian pirates—what noble would invade another noble’s territory just to capture people.

But this was no ordinary bandit!

A heavy blow must be struck!

Teach this gang of robbers a lesson!

Conquest Knights, who had not fought in years, were indignant.

With absolute force, tell these bandit robbers they were in the wrong place! That Kant Territory was not where they could run wild!

Scouts sent out by Roman used signaling to relay intelligence; when those shadowy figures appeared on the distant hillside, 100 lightly armored soldiers had already taken longbows and arrows from the baggage carts, transforming into longbowmen.

"Archers! Prepare to fire!"

As they closed into a two hundred meter range, Dick gave the order, and 100 longbowmen simultaneously released their arrows.

The arrows traveled at sixty to seventy meters per second, taking three seconds to reach them. The cavalry was running at six to seven meters per second, just in time to meet the raining arrows.

Dick had anticipated and executed the first round of barrage strikes.

However, the effect was poor; there were too few archers, too few targets, unable to complete coverage, and at such a distance, most ended up in the ground.

A rider fell to the ground, the chain armor they had hastily equipped failing to withstand the arrows’ piercing power, causing a slight slowdown in the cavalry.

The scattered arrow shower falling from above frightened them.

But under the encouragement of the Conquest Knights, no one retreated.

Eight seconds later, longbowmen re-armed their bows, poised to release; when the distance shrank to eighty meters, Dick signaled again.

"Fire!!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The damage from the second round of shooting was higher than the first.

Three cavalrymen in total were lost, with two horses struck by arrows, causing their front legs to stumble and crash, throwing off their riders.

As they fumbled frantically for a third round of shooting,

Jet donned a steel mask and shouted loudly, "Heavy equipment formation!!"

The enemy had six fully armored Conquest Knights, whose warhorses even had barding.

They did not retreat in the face of the arrow rain but instead accelerated continuously.

If not intercepted, their powerful impact could bisect the entire team.

And the subsequent riders would further slice the convoy into several segments.

All the heavy armed soldiers charged forward in unison.

Ever since the scouts detected the enemy’s approach, they had taken heavy shields off the vehicles, ready for battle.

"Form up! Brace down!"

After running ten meters forward, under Jet’s command, they slammed the large shields into the ground heavily, tilting them backward at a seventy-degree angle with the ground.

The heavy shields were specially crafted, broad at the front, curved at the sides, with grooves on the back to insert two support legs.

The support legs were made of dwarf chestnut tree trunks, highly sturdy, dense, robust, and impact-resistant.

Even without human support, the shields could stand on their own thanks to the support legs.

The heavy soldiers inserted the legs into the back of the heavy shields, fully hiding behind the giant shields.

Everyone kept their heads down, lacking sight, unsure of who amongst them the cavalry would charge into.

They could only feel the ground’s tremors growing stronger, the sound of a galloping rush getting closer, a massive force seemingly pressing in.

At that moment, all the heavy armed soldiers silently gritted their teeth, their feet seemingly embedded in the soil; the thick and solid shield couldn’t provide them with complete security, only their utmost effort could fend off the impending impact.

More anxious were the Conquest Knights!

For the Conquest Knights, this hundred-meter distance was just a matter of seven or eight seconds.

As they closed to about thirty meters, the shield wall quickly took shape.

A hundred-meter long, one-meter high iron wall stood curving in front, and it was two-tiered!

Damn!

The combat proficiency and organizational capability of this force indicated they had gone through intense training; even the finest pirate barbarians couldn’t have this awareness.

The Conquest Knights instantly realized the issue, their eyes bulging!

Looking ahead from a hundred meters away was unclear; normal vision was only three to five meters, and beyond that, you could at best distinguish between people and dogs.

Of course, they vaguely observed those soldiers carrying something large.

When eighty meters from the enemy, knights would launch a full-speed charge; this was a consensus.

At a close distance, there was no room for deceleration.

Reluctantly, they had no choice but to charge, praying to All Gods that this seemingly solid defensive formation was an empty show.

Thinking optimistically, the enemy’s defense only consisted of two thin heavy-armed layers.

As long as the vanguard knights could pierce an opening, the subsequent cavalry could flood in.

...

At this time, the army led by Aaron and Green was engaged in battle with conscripted soldiers from the third village.