When the reinforcement was over and all the believers had adapted to their own strength, he asked Alfonso to write a submission of the Church of Life and Wisdom to conquer the Holy Church, officially announcing the start of the holy war between the God of Life and Wisdom and the Holy God.
The war between churches of different beliefs is called a holy war. It is a war beyond the mundane world. The noble lords can choose to participate in the holy war or not. In theory, they will not be subject to post-war liquidation.
But this is only in theory. In fact, the nobles and lords of Dell Province basically have no choice.
They are all in this small piece of land, so how can they stay out of it? The holy war involves all believers. Many knights or soldiers under the command of the major lords are believers of the Holy Church. When the church calls for conscription, your subordinates will go to the war. Can you, as a lord, stay out of it?
So there is no choice. In this battle, Lin Xiao is destined to challenge all the lords of Dell Province with Alfonso's territory.
It was difficult, but there were also benefits. If he could win, especially by showing irresistible power on the battlefield, once the Holy Church was defeated, the faith of the entire Dale Province would collapse immediately. It
might take a long time for civilian believers to change, but the speed at which noble lords changed their faith would definitely be very fast.
The most important thing was that this was a world without magic. The Holy God had not yet been born, and there was no mechanism for changing faith to be punished by God. Even if the fanatics changed their faith, it would be fine. This gave many lords the opportunity to change their faith with confidence.
Faced with his provocation, the Holy Church was furious. Many bishops scolded Alfonso as a heretic and unanimously wanted to punish the Gibson family.
But this voice was loud but little rain, because at this time the Holy Church Knights of Dale Province were fighting with Hook Territory in the north and could not spare any effort.
It was beyond everyone's expectations. It was thought that the battle between the Church Knights and many speculative noble private soldiers against the small Hook Territory would be a sweeping battle, but in fact, after fighting for several months, Hook Territory had not been captured.
The other side had been prepared to defend the castle of the original lord of Huk Territory. Not only did they have an elite army, but they also had a very sharp weapon for defending the city. After more than two months of encirclement of Huk Territory, they not only failed to capture it, but also suffered heavy losses.
Of course, the Church Knights have an absolute advantage in numbers after all. Even if they suffer great losses, they can still hold on. As long as they can bear the loss of their subordinates, it is inevitable that they will eventually capture Huk Territory.
The leader of the Knights, Bartos, originally wanted to use the noble private soldiers and militia cannon fodder that came with the army to consume the enemy in this way. At this time, after two months, the enemy was exhausted and the defense strength was significantly reduced. Seeing that the castle was about to be broken, he received news of the holy war from the cathedral, which put him in a dilemma.
After thinking for a long time, he wrote a letter to the cathedral, suggesting that the cathedral defend first and wait for him to quickly eliminate the opponent before returning for help.
However, the plan was good, but the plot did not develop as he imagined.
Less than two days after Bartos sent this letter, he received a second letter from the cathedral, which wrote a message that made him unable to sit still.
"The pagans defeated an army of Viscount Fetan and Earl Dyson at the border of Viscount Fetan's territory. They have already captured Viscount Fetan's territory and are attacking Earl Dyson's border outpost."
"Which side does this God of Life and Wisdom belong to?"
In Hook Castle, Daryl, the son of the Spirit Realm, looked at the secret letter in his hand and pondered for a long time without moving.
As an ambitious son of the Spirit Realm, he attaches great importance to intelligence and has sent believers out to establish an intelligence network early on. So when Lin Xiao's holy war surrender document came out, his believers sent the news back.
Looking at the content of the secret letter for a long time, he was thinking about how to deal with this situation.
"The other side should be panicking and want to withdraw. When the Holy Knights withdraw, I have to wait and see the situation, and by the way, find out which side the God of Life and Wisdom belongs to, and by the way, be prepared to deal with changes in the situation."
As an elite descender, Daryl has his own unique insights into the situation and immediately understands that the situation in Dale Province has entered a critical moment.
Regardless of who wins or loses between the Holy Knights and the Church of Life and Wisdom, it is his chance. He has been thinking about waiting for the Holy Knights to withdraw, and then following them to the edge of their decisive battlefield after a short rest to wait for the opportunity.
However,
outside the city, in the camp, after receiving the second urgent letter from the cathedral, Bartos stood there in silence for a while. About ten seconds later, he ordered all officers to hold a meeting.
Ten minutes later, a dull horn sounded, and many resting knights rode their horses again and approached the city wall. All the troops besieging the city were mobilized, and even the reserve troops were called up.
"Damn it!"
Daryl, who heard the war horn and climbed up to the castle wall, immediately realized that his prediction was wrong. The Knight Commander Bartos did not withdraw immediately, but wanted to go out in full force to fight again.
A day later, under the continuous and fierce attack of the Church Knights at all costs and losses, the Hook Castle, which was at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers, was finally not defended and was broken. After a fierce
battle, the leader of the Hook Castle garrison broke through the siege with a small number of core subordinates and escaped, and the entire Hook Territory was recovered.
After that, some noble speculators and their private soldiers were left to wipe out the remnants, and Bartos led the army back to Dale City.
At this time, Alfonso's army had crossed the territory of Viscount Fetan and entered the territory of Earl Dyson.
After knowing Alfonso's strength, Earl Dyson chose to shrink his defense, gave up all the outer territories and retreated to the core of Dale City, preparing to defend Dale City with the Holy Church, so the army came to Dale City without fighting. A
day later, Lin Xiao came with dozens of holy warriors, and he could see the pointed spire of the cathedral in the center of Dale City from a distance. A white light column that ordinary people could not see rose into the sky, which was an extremely rich power of faith.
The Dale Cathedral has been established for thousands of years. The accumulation of countless believers in the entire Dale Province for thousands of years is unknown. How much faith power has been accumulated. Because of the world's restrictions, this world cannot give birth to extraordinary beings, and naturally there is no so-called sacred god. Therefore, these faith powers have been accumulated in the statues in the cathedral. The time is too long and the number is too large, so it can be seen from a distance.
Lin Xiao has ten thousand ideas in his mind about this, and he is quite eager for these faith powers.
"Don't hold back, break through Dale City in one go, I will assist you."
At the pre-war meeting, Lin Xiao directly gave a death order, he didn't want to have too many dreams at night.
In the early morning of the next day, the sound of thunderous drums rang out in the camp, and many soldiers who got up early, had breakfast and prepared began to gather, lined up in neat formations and left the barracks.
Although there are not many people, even if the surrendered soldiers and the private soldiers of the speculators are included , the total number is only seven or eight hundred, which is far less than the nearly two thousand defenders on the city wall, but their morale is very high.
The huge tents in the camp were opened one by one, and inside were the huge siege rams, crossbow carts and catapults made of all metal that Lin Xiao secretly put in last night.
All of them are primitive and bulky, but they are considered high-end war machines in this world, and they are all provided by the military.
The surface of this all-metal battering ram is a thick steel plate that can block all arrows and small catapults. The battering ram itself is driven by mechanical gears, and only two or three soldiers are needed to control and push it. However, at this time, there are dozens of people hiding under each battering ram. The rain of arrows pouring down from the city wall hits the roof and makes a clanging sound, but it is impossible to penetrate it.
The crossbow ram is also a full metal structure, and there is a thick steel plate behind the launch pad to protect the operator. The
catapult does not have these protections. This thing has always been in the rear, and no attack except the enemy's catapult can affect it. The only change to this thing is that the metal structure is thicker and thicker, and it can withstand the enemy's catapult bombing without deformation.
There are only two metal battering rams, but they are unstoppable. They rush all the way to the city wall and stop inside the city gate under the rain of arrows. The huge metal hammer with a diameter of nearly half a meter is raised backwards and slammed forward fiercely.
"Boom!"
The huge metal hammer hit the thick wooden door hard and shook violently, and countless wood chips mixed with smoke and dust were raised.
Behind the battlefield, huge crossbow carts gradually approached the attack range. These metal crossbow carts were modified large crossbow carts. Each crossbow cart had ten launch ports and could launch ten crossbow arrows at a time. A total of ten large crossbow carts were lined up in a row. With a series of launch sounds, crossbow arrows rushed towards the city wall one after another.
A wave of one hundred crossbow arrows, a moment of intensive attack directly suppressed a section of the city wall. The defenders on the city wall looked at the broken stones on the top of the city that were smashed by the fine steel crossbow arrows and did not dare to stick their heads out.
The catapult launched a stone as big as a table and wrapped in a layer of oil-soaked shell. Before launching, the oil on the stone was ignited and thrown out to form a burning fireball.
After landing, the oil-soaked shell exploded, and countless flames flew, causing great damage to the city.
At this time, no one cared about how much damage the flames would cause to the city. At this time, they would first capture the city and then destroy it with fire.
Moreover, although this catapult is primitive, it is very advanced in workmanship, with very high accuracy and a standard way of use. As long as it is used according to the standard card, it can basically throw whatever it points to.
Shortly after the siege began, before the army approached, several rounds of accurate catapults and crossbow bombardment made the defenders a little overwhelmed.
As several soldiers used magic to fly up and found the garrison headquarters hidden in the city gate tower, several rounds of stone throwing and concentrated fire directly blew down the city gate tower.
It is unknown whether the enemy's generals defending the city were all killed, but they were definitely scared, and the morale of the defenders also plummeted.
This bombardment lasted for less than half an hour, and the city gate was forcibly knocked open by the battering ram, but they did not attack the city directly, but continued to hit other sections of the city wall. At the same time, the catapults began to focus on bombing a section of the city wall.
Two hours later, three huge gaps were forcibly blown out of the city wall of Dell City, plus a total of four gaps in the city gate that was knocked open. Only then did Alfonso order an attack.
(End of this chapter)