Considering the logistical capacity of the Crownlands and the efficiency of obtaining supplies along the way, when Aegor led the main force of the Western Expeditionary Army on their journey, he sent away or dispatched the weaker Riverlands soldiers and the less controllable Northmen to other theaters. The actual forces he commanded numbered slightly over thirty thousand, though they were publicly stated to be forty thousand. This number included non-combat personnel. After conquering territories along the way, a hundred or so men had to be left behind at each captured castle to guard and control it, and there were several rounds of tactical battles with the harassing Reach cavalry along the supply lines, with victories and losses on both sides... By the time of the decisive battle today, the forces he could actually deploy were less than thirty thousand.
This was a paradoxical and unsolvable dilemma: if they had not split their forces initially but had moved as a unified fifty-thousand-strong army, this decisive battle would not have been so difficult. However, it was more likely that, facing the Reachmen's scorched-earth tactics, a fifty-thousand-strong army that had not been streamlined would have exhausted its provisions before even reaching Highgarden, forcing them to turn back.
In this battle, the Western Expeditionary Army narrowly won despite receiving unexpected aid. Now, they needed to address the sword hanging over their heads, named "insufficient provisions."
There were two options before them.
The first was to forcefully requisition from the villages surrounding Highgarden, as armies of this era typically did. But doing so meant Aegor would risk his battle-weary troops being dispersed into smaller groups for looting, potentially facing counterattacks. Such a dispersal would not only severely disrupt his siege and surrender negotiation plans for Highgarden, possibly reigniting the conquest war that had seemingly settled, but also gravely damage his image in the eyes of the Reach inhabitants, thereby undermining the stability of Daenerys's rule.
Alternatively, they could strike while the iron was hot, capture the Reachmen Allied Army's camp in one go, and solve the problem by living off the land, completely avoiding negative consequences, just as the Reach Army's supplies he captured during the Battle of the Blackwater became the initial provisions for his western campaign.
Any fool knew which option to choose.
Aegor certainly wanted to send troops to flank and directly raid the Reach camp!
But the reality was that the more than twenty thousand soldiers he had could not spare a single man in the decisive battle against the nearly one hundred thousand Reachmen Allied Army.
Not to mention, with the Reachmen completely controlling the initiative around the battlefield using their numerical superiority in cavalry, setting up a dense net of scouts, patrols, skirmishers, and harassers, even if he intended a risky maneuver, it would be impossible to hide it from his opponents.
Therefore, Aegor ultimately chose the prudent method: fight the decisive battle normally, and after completely routing the enemy, have a few hundred rear-echelon soldiers who had best preserved their strength carry the captured enemy banners from yesterday, charge directly into the enemy camp through the gaps among the routed Reach soldiers, mix in before the enemy could close their gates, and then burst forth to seize the gates when the main force arrived, completing an unbelievable pincer movement from inside and out to capture the camp in one fell swoop.
He did not have Daenerys pursue the routed enemy to the west on dragonback, not only because "the Reach cavalry had a higher proportion of nobles and were more threatening," but also because not letting the dragon's presence stimulate the routed army's defenses and vigilance was necessary to successfully capture the allied forces' camp intact!
Hundreds of infiltrating soldiers disguised as routed Reach soldiers tied towels around their arms, splitting into over a dozen teams to run a desperate race alongside tens of thousands of fleeing Reach infantry. Ultimately, over fifty people successfully infiltrated the enemy camp. Although their numbers were pitifully small, they seized the allied forces' camp's eastern gate in a surprise attack, preventing their enemies, who outnumbered them by hundreds of times, from getting even a moment's rest.
Jon Connington now experienced the legendary taste of "a mix of ice and fire":
His body below the neck was cold as if plunged into an ice cave, because he realized he had lost completely and was about to lose everything, down to his underpants.
His face above the neck was burning hot and painful, yet he realized that such a childish trick as "cross-dressing disguise" had actually fooled the entire Reach-Golden Company Allied Forces twice in one day!
...
"This bastard!" The one who roared was the young Prince Aegon. He drew Blackfyre, the Conqueror's sword, from his waist and shouted loudly to the soldiers beside him, "Bring me my horse! Soldiers, follow me to retake the gate!"
There was no response. The Golden Company soldiers looked at their lord, while the Highgarden soldiers looked at Daenerys's father-in-law. Those who had not participated in the decisive battle still had some fighting capacity. Eliminating the dozens of soldiers who had seized the gate would be effortless, but the question was: could they do it before the main pursuing enemy force charged in?
"Lord Tyrell, Lord Harry!" Jon Connington said with a pale face, "Please escort the prince back to Highgarden. I will stay and command the rearguard!"
When he woke up this morning, he had sworn in his heart to put Rhaegar's son on the Iron Throne. But at this moment, only one thought remained in Connington's mind: his beloved silver prince... absolutely must not be left behind.
The originally sturdy camp now became an obstacle to escaping. The most capable Golden Company forcibly escorted the defiant prince toward the western gate, and the relatively intact Highgarden guards also quickly slipped away under the command of the terrified Lord Tyrell. With these two vital forces retreating, the remaining routed soldiers, though numerous, were in complete disarray and utterly unable to organize. Forget "holding the rearguard," even the task of setting fire to the three provision warehouses that Randyll had previously ordered to be arranged could not be carried out smoothly in the chaos.
Among them, one group, in their haste, did not even have time to find all the tools needed for the fire before being terrified and deserting their post, running with the crowd. Another group found the lamp oil and flint, but the commanding officer changed his mind at the last moment, deciding to keep the warehouses intact to offer to "the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch whom he had long admired." Only the warehouse closest to the southwestern corner was set on fire under Jon Connington's personal supervision and urging, quickly burning into a towering pillar of flame, its light briefly rivaling the evening glow in the western sky.
Having shed another layer of skin, the remaining remnants of the Reachmen Allied Army fled their own camp.
The five-thousand-strong main force of Reach infantry, which had been vast and formidable in the early morning, was now reduced to less than a tenth, but conversely, they became easier to control. So a mid-level commander proposed turning back, circling the camp from the outside, and then breaking in through the eastern gate to stab the "enemy who had already stabbed their own backside" in the backside, retake the captured camp, and launch a counterattack.
Honestly, this nested thinking did have some flavor of a clever strategy, but unfortunately, most people at this moment were only thinking of escaping with their lives and had no courage to stop and kill even half an enemy.
To the west, Highgarden was close at hand. With the setting sun at its back, this most beautiful castle in the Seven Kingdoms, contrary to its diamond-like dazzling brilliance under the daytime sun, transformed into a small, sharp, deep silhouette against a red backdrop, casting its own slender shadow across the vast Reach plains.
The White Castle, as the capital of the Reach, was indeed famous for its beauty, but this was because it had never had the chance to prove its defensive capabilities. Anyone with a bit of military insight could see at a glance that it was also one of the most solid castles in all the Seven Kingdoms. Three high walls gave it good tolerance for error in defense, while its almost perfect arched hill structure forced attackers to assault uphill in every battle. Although the design did not consider how to deal with artillery bombardment or aerial threats, well...
Who cared!
Everyone just wanted to hide inside the castle now, catch their breath behind the thick marble walls, drink half a bowl of hot soup, and sleep soundly. As for what to do tomorrow, let the lords who held meetings all day worry about that!
However, even this humble wish, buried in the dirt, was destined not to be realized.
In the long, narrow shadow of Highgarden and the hill it sat upon, a cavalry unit that seemed to appear out of nowhere suddenly burst forth and positioned itself between the allied forces' camp and the castle. The retreating soldiers initially thought this was a force dispatched by Tyrell to meet them, but then someone shouted a reminder that "no cavalry was left inside the castle." This group numbered around two to three thousand, forming a narrow horizontal line. Right in front of the Golden Company and Highgarden forces, they leisurely dismounted, organized their equipment, and began to form a line against the enemy!
Aegor's Western Expeditionary Army had only this one cavalry unit. Coming from Casterly Rock in the Westerlands, they had experienced two minor skirmishes with the Golden Company cavalry during the great battle, dispersed the light cavalry designated by Jon Connington as the rearguard during the final Reachmen rout, and were then ordered to ride west without rest, ignoring the enemy cavalry and instead continuously passing their own pursuing infantry, mixing in with the infiltrating enemy personnel, and the real enemy from the south, exhausting all their strength, just managing to catch the Golden Company and Highgarden forces at the moment they were startled out of the camp and fleeing toward Highgarden.
Their mission was singular: prevent the enemy from safely retreating into the castle, reversing Highgarden's vulnerable state as an "empty city."
These Casterly Rock men were equipped with cavalry gear unsuitable for foot combat. Everyone was panting, covered in sweat, their feet on the ground and hands holding weapons were numb or trembling... The reason they dismounted and formed a line was not because they were more confident fighting on foot, but because their horses were completely exhausted and could no longer charge.
If a fight broke out at this moment, the outcome was actually still uncertain!
But by coincidence, and yet inevitably, something even Aegor had not calculated when giving the order was that all of this was perfectly concealed by the brilliant glow of the setting sun behind them.
The terrified Golden Company infantry and Highgarden guards could not see through the true state of this surprising force. In their eyes, there was only a dark line of killing gods arrayed with their backs to the sun, equal in number to their own forces, with an invisible killing intent overflowing from their faces hidden in the shadows.
Only a few miles separated them from Highgarden, but because of the presence of these enemies before them, these last few miles became an insurmountable chasm.
"Don't panic, they aren't cavalry, otherwise they would have already charged!"
The current Golden Company commander was skilled in logistics and negotiation, but when it came to tactical judgment and courage, he was rather unremarkable. Quite reasonably, Harry Strickland was also misled into making the wrong judgment.
He calmed his subordinates, waved his hand, and issued an order that was not exactly wrong but played right into the enemy's hands: "Protect the prince. We retreat south!"
(To be continued.)
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