Map Room, Great Palace, Jin-Hark, Kingdom of Louria
"Your Majesty, I believe that with our new flame cannons, the Lourian Navy will be able to win a direct engagement against the Qua-Toynians even when outnumbered," stated Grand Duke Sharkun.
"So you can win naval battles, but what of this potential war?" asked King Hark IV.
The Grand Duke tilted his head slightly with his eyebrows furrowing. "The Qua-Toynian Navy is an armed merchant navy. Their ships are built to quickly transport and protect their food shipments across the South and East Parpaldia Sea. Even if we force them into a large battle against our concentrated fleet and then blockade or capture their ports, by the nature of their fleet, there will be a large number of ships able to continue the war as they return from their many voyages to defend their home waters.
Our ships are too few and too slow to be able to spread out and destroy the Qua-Toynian Navy as a whole across the seas, and we may not be able to prevent Fenn reinforcements from landing before we fully establish the blockade under the invasion plans."
Grand Domestic Junfila spoke up, "Your Majesty, the Fenn pledge of military support to the Qua-Toynians is of only 2000 men. Even if they are armed with their reported chargeguns, I do not believe the Fenn reinforcements will prove a significant factor in this proposed war. As long as the navy can guarantee the safety of a supply route over water, the numerical superiority of the Lourian Army and our expertise in siege warfare should enable us to attain a decisive victory against the armies Qua-Toyn and Quila muster against us.
The newly rejuvenated ancient strategy of building roads and forts along our line of advance should negate the crippling advantage the Qua-Toynians historically enjoyed from their rapidly growing forests. The loss of Aquila at the Varun Disaster, otherwise known as the Battle of the Inner Gim Forest, shall not be repeated.
In addition to our change of strategy, the new repeating arbalests finally give us an answer to elven longbows. The infantry arbalest exceeds the effective range of a long bow with accurate fire up to 365 metres. The dragoon arbalest, while being lesser ranged and power, enables cavalry arbalists to let loose its entire magazine of ten bolts as quickly as they can work the lever. In open terrain, we can rapidly destroy longbow archers while they are forced to use plunging fire."
Junfila's enthusiasm swept aside most of King Hark IV's doubts, but the Lourians never had a tradition of using ranged light cavalry before as their cavalry was mainly composed of cataphracts. "Will the newly trained dragoon arbalists be up to the task?" he asked.
The Grand Domestic answered, "The Parpaldian advisors have taught us their battle-tested tactics regarding the use of dragoons. From what I've learned, they are meant to attack ahead of cataphracts, screening the movements of the heavy cavalry. After they finish unleashing their barrage of ten bolts, they move away to allow the cataphracts to charge in. Once a rout occurs amongst the enemy, the dragoons quickly pursue to finish them off in the melee.
Thus our training focuses on getting the dragoons to get their pacing and time of movement coordinated with the cataphracts rather than actual individual skill at using arbalests from horseback. The light cavalry formations we've converted into dragoons have had no big difficulty in adapting. I would dare say they're already ready."
"What about the dwarfen clans? Would they continue their policy of neutrality should we invade?" asked Sharkun.
"On that, Grand Duke, I can answer," said King Hark IV. "The dwarf clans have confirmed that in the event we invade Qua-Toyne, as long as we respect their self-governance and only ever impose non-prohibitive taxes at internal trade rates, the clans will not directly intervene. You do not have to worry about dwarfen nail makers and carpenters abandoning your shipyards. However, dwarfen pike mercenary companies will still conduct business throughout the war. The free companies are expected to honour their current contracts to Qua-Toyne, so Junfila here will still have to deal with them on the field."
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The Big Ones
FanfictionFor years, the United States of America has dominated the skies with SAC's nuclear-armed bombers and fighters since the nuclear annihilation of Germany in WW2 in the event known as The Big One. Now suddenly transported to a New World during the earl...
