Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 253 The Unexpected Dilemma of the Siege Elves

The elves were determined to fight a tough battle against the Xiyue Alliance in Qingze City, but the Xiyue Alliance disagreed.

They can't get hard!

Qingze City is also a large city. Because there are three large magic towers along the Beilu River within its sphere of influence, it has become the largest place for mage apprentices to register, examine, and select in Xiyue, attracting countless young people with magical dreams all year round.

At the same time, this place also houses the largest magic materials and equipment trading market in the western part of the Federation, which handles massive amounts of gold coins and resources every day.

Such a large city, which integrates military, education and economy, naturally has an extremely complete defense system. It not only has a standard royal professional soldier system, but also has a mercenary guild with one of the highest numbers of registered mercenaries in the Federation, and its civilian military strength is quite abundant.

Within half a day of receiving the warning, Qingze City conscripted 2,000 mercenaries and 6,000 militiamen. Combined with the original city defense army and lord's guard, the number of troops defending the city exceeded 20,000.

The number of elves outside the city was only a little over 40,000. According to the common sense of siege warfare on the continent, a two-to-one troop advantage is nothing in the face of a city.

In theory, this should have been a defensive battle with no suspense whatsoever, with Qingze City as solid as a rock.

Therefore, upon discovering that the city gates were tightly closed and heavily guarded, the elves abandoned their plan for a quick attack and instead continued to increase their troops, devising a more long-term siege plan.

Before the next batch of soldiers arrived, Isera, who was in charge of the front line, commanded the existing troops to conduct a "firepower reconnaissance" and "system assessment" of the city's defenses, in an attempt to find the weak points in its defenses.

However, as soon as the two sides clashed, the battle-hardened elf immediately sensed something was amiss.

For many years, the Restorationists longed to return to their homeland, but they could never take the first step because of the existence of human cities.

These massive fortresses and strongholds are insurmountable barriers that drive all other races to despair. Even the human race itself often needs to mobilize three or even five times the number of troops defending the city before daring to even attempt to breach these high walls and thick ramparts.

Most importantly, the advantage of high-level professionals will be severely weakened in siege battles.

In complex terrain such as mountain warfare, jungle warfare, or urban warfare, because the number of enemies faced at the same time is limited, and the attacks encountered at the same time are also limited, high-level professionals, especially high-level warrior professionals, will have a huge advantage. Taking on a hundred enemies at once is not considered legendary.

However, during a siege, if you withstand ten arrows one second, the next second you might be hit by a hundred or a thousand arrows, whistling fireballs, dense ice spikes, or targeted attacks from high-level enemy professionals. Even a Barrier Knight, known for its defensive capabilities, will usually have its defenses breached in an instant.

To put it simply, you might be able to withstand one stone thrown at you every second for a thousand seconds, but you absolutely cannot withstand a thousand stones thrown at you in one second.

An instantaneous attack overload will inevitably break through psionic defenses.

Therefore, for hundreds of years, the Restorationist elves have been preparing for war, but they have no clue how to attack the city and have been unable to take the crucial step.

Elder Eona even went to great lengths to send people to the Orcish territory in an attempt to learn the human race's closely guarded secret technology for manufacturing catapults.

But it was still not very useful. Catapults are siege weapons with a huge advantage, but you have to be sure that the guys in the city have neither the ability to come out nor any external reinforcements before you can use catapults to slowly break through the magic circle and breach the city's defenses.

As for the elves' proud magic archers...

In city battles, due to the limited time available to hold a bow, archers who choose to increase the range of their arrows cannot simultaneously increase their damage; those who choose to increase the rate of fire cannot simultaneously attach vines...

If you add everything, you'll be exhausted after shooting only a few arrows.

Therefore, archers would be in a particularly awkward position when attacking a city. If they were far away, they could only scratch the surface of the enemy, and if they were close, they would have to endure multiple rounds of attacks first.

Originally, there was no such thing as using archers to besiege cities on the mainland.

Now, the Elven race has obtained composite bows from the Vast Ocean Territory.

The significance of this weapon lies in allowing the elven archers to simultaneously enhance their range, rate of fire, armor penetration, damage, and even additional effects, enabling them to engage in long-range firefights with their opponents from afar.

Under Ysera's command, the elven archers formed a neat ranks, raised their bows simultaneously, and arrows flashing with various magical lights soared into the air like locusts, whistling as they pierced the air, raining down on the walls of Qingze City!

At the same time, the magic and heavy crossbows of Qingze City also launched a counterattack.

The two sides then began a back-and-forth exchange of blows, but after only two rounds, Qingze City could no longer withstand it.

For the same reason, although 20,000 soldiers were gathered in the city, the only ones who could actually fight were the city lord's guards, numbering only a few hundred.

In the first round of fire, several hundred elves fell. Qingze City was protected by a magic array, and only the elves' strongest thousand-pound heavy bow could cause damage, so only a few dozen were killed or wounded.

However, the non-direct-commissioned soldiers and mercenaries who had just been firing from the crenellations chickened out.

Why risk your life for a few copper coins to defend the city?
I stood in the front row just now because I thought the enemy couldn't reach the top of the city wall. Now, whoever wants to stand there can stand there!

In the second round, several hundred elves fell, and Qingze City lost dozens more. But this time, the majority of the losses were to the city lord's guard.

That's all the guards on the city wall, since most of them have to stay in the city lord's mansion.

So in the third round, the city's defenses collapsed. After the city lord's personal guards, who had the strongest fighting spirit, were almost all dead, no warrior was willing to step forward again and play this life-or-death game with the elves.

The defending troops on the city wall desperately retreated, burying their heads behind the crenellations. Some even lay prone on the ground atop the wall. The captain of the city wall roared at the top of his lungs, but all that was done was for the archers to fire wildly at the outside without any line of sight. The magic apprentices who had been dragged up to the top of the wall threw fireballs with their eyes closed.

You must never say that they are not resisting.

The flying cavalry in the air gave the signal, and Ysera was overjoyed.

"Each branch of the moon, advance in turn, keep firing arrows without stopping, suppress them with all your might! Suppress their heads completely!"

"Assault team, charge!"

With the Elder's command, the elves advanced in waves of two to three hundred men, continuously bombarding the city walls with enchanted arrows while rolling forward in a smooth, alternating pattern. As the distance closed, the lethality of the elven arrows became increasingly apparent.

A heavy arrow imbued with the Explosive spell struck a watchtower atop the city wall with pinpoint accuracy, instantly obliterating the observer and standard-bearer inside. At this point, even though the elven assault force hadn't even reached the edge of the walls, the morale of the defenders on Qingze City had completely collapsed, and they began a systematic retreat.

Next, without any interference, the elven siege assault team calmly cultivated a dense network of vines beneath the city walls. As they chanted softly, natural magic surged, and the vines climbed and coiled wildly along the walls. In just a few dozen breaths, the majestic stone wall of Qingze City transformed into a lush, verdant "green wall"!
The commando team began to climb.

The assault team scaled the city wall.

The assault team opened the city gates! The elven Silvermoon cavalry galloped in from afar, once again boldly charging through the wide-open gates of Qingze City.

What follows is a replay of the White Stone City storyline, or rather, an upgraded version of it.

After all, the main force of Baishi City was trapped in the military camp, while the troops of Qingze City were all stationed under the city walls.

When these frightened warriors hastily discarded their weapons and shields, scrambling for cover and fleeing into the city without looking back, the entire defensive system collapsed instantly.

A small squad of Silver Moon cavalry could drive hundreds or even thousands of fleeing soldiers to run away, crying for their fathers and mothers.

These routed soldiers, completely out of control, became the elves' best vanguard. In their panic, they ran amok, even breaching the last line of defense of the city lord's mansion.

Amidst the deafening screams and cries that filled the city, the Lord of Qingze City, still not understanding what was happening, was surrounded, or rather, dragged along, by his personal guards. Before he could even put on his armor properly, he frantically broke through a path and fled south without looking back.

The elves took over Qingze City with bewildered expressions.

Later that day, when Major Junzi was preparing to set off to continue observing and recording the upcoming battle of Qingze City, he was stunned to receive a report from the frontline observer that Qingze City had been captured by the elves.

"Wait...didn't you say...we would wait for the next batch of troops to arrive before launching the formal attack?"

That's true. The elves also have an inside agent in Qingze City. Through information transmitted by small animals, Elder Aiona estimated the city's defensive strength and decided to conscript another batch of troops.

Elves were never a large and populous race. At their peak, their population never exceeded five million. After that devastating war, they lost two-thirds of their population.

Even after hundreds of years of recuperation, the population has only just recovered to a little over two million.

The slow population growth is due to a variety of reasons. First, the Elven race has a long lifespan, and the gestation period for women is also particularly long. According to the Eastern Xia time, the average pregnancy period is more than 38 months.

Every newborn is a little Nezha!

This is taking up too much time.

Humans have a lifespan of one year, while elves have a lifespan of three years, so the gap in population growth rates between the two races will only widen.

Secondly, the women of the Elven race occupy a dominant position in the group, participating extensively in combat and administration, which directly affects the Elven population growth.

In the process of reproduction, men are the sowers, who can leave after sowing and can sow seeds everywhere, while women are the nurturers, who not only need time but also space for reproduction.

If the men go out to fight, the women can stay at home and get pregnant and give birth as they please. Even if most of the men who went to war die, as long as a few can come back alive, theoretically it will not affect the continued reproduction of the tribe.

However, sending female warriors into battle not only consumes the time spent on pregnancy and childbirth, but may also directly result in the loss of reproductive space for continued reproduction.

The question of which group will recover faster—one with one man and ten women, or one with one woman and ten men—is almost a no-brainer.

Why is it that in war-torn regions, men are more dominant than women? It's because men are needed to go to the battlefield, to fight and risk their lives for the survival of the tribe, so they must be given a sufficiently high social status.

Otherwise, if you send a cow or horse that has been swindled out of its savings to guard the territory, or a man whose innocence has been falsely accused to defend the country, who knows who will be shot?

In recent years, in order to change this trend among the elves, Eona has greatly promoted the official positions of male elves, promoted many male officers of various ranks, and even tacitly allowed the emergence of high-ranking male generals like Angus in the Watchers camp who were close to becoming the captain of the elven guard.

Learning from humans and making as many men as possible fight for the tribe is one of Iona's key development strategies.

Finally, there's one more thing: the elves lack land.

Why did Iona so persistently and repeatedly call out for centuries that the elves needed "land under the sun"? Because only land under the sun could sustain a large population.

No matter how abundant the resources of a forest are, the output of edible products per unit area of ​​land is far less than that of a plain. One square kilometer of plain can support hundreds of people, but the same area of ​​forest, from gathering wild fruits and hunting animals, can only support a few people at best.

Beyond national sentiment, there were also practical calculations at play. The Grand Elder saw it clearly: without sufficient numbers of people, let alone conquering other regions, they wouldn't even be able to defend this forest sooner or later.

Iona's long-term strategic planning and the establishment of several food procurement channels have enabled her to feed such a large population.

If the food supply is cut off, the elves will probably have to start gnawing on tree bark immediately!
It was precisely because of these complex reasons that Elder Aiona's war mobilization was gradual. When she stepped out of the forest, she only mobilized a portion of the elves' standing army, while the rest was still used to defend against enemies to the north of the forest.

After capturing Whitestone City, the elves immediately launched their first mobilization, replacing the regular army with semi-professional warriors to take over the defensive duties, and drawing all 120,000 regular troops out of the forest.

After gaining control of a large area of ​​plains on both sides of the Beilu River, they immediately launched a second round of mobilization.

According to the original plan, the first batch of mobilized troops would take over the occupied areas, while all regular troops would head south to attack Qingze City.

As a result, things went wrong, even though everything was going well.

At this moment, the elf liaison officer in charge of the liaison was beaming, and his voice involuntarily became a few decibels louder.

"Elder Ysera said that we should test the enemy's attack level, defensive focus, and the strength of their magic array in order to prepare for the army's subsequent attack."

"We didn't expect to win so easily! We didn't expect this either!"

“I really didn’t expect that!”

Junzi's cheeks twitched a few times. He wasn't bothered by the other person's smugness, but rather by his deep regret. As the chief battlefield observer, he had failed to observe this large-scale siege battle and missed such a momentous historical moment.

We can only rely on the reports from those few kids in the team.

Since things had come to this, regret was useless. Junzi composed herself and knew that she still had to continue doing what needed to be done.

So, what important task made Junzi prefer to stay in White Stone City himself rather than entrust a major mission assigned by the Supreme Military Command—such as close observation of the front lines—to his subordinates?
Of course, this only applies to tasks personally assigned by the lord.

Within the elves' controlled territory, seek out some old friends.

(End of this chapter)