Mommy Wolf: Raise A Cub, Claimed By His Beast Daddy-Chapter 258: Preparation of War
"Your Highness, we have everyone ready to march into the Roc Forest. Currently, we have about fifteen thousand soldiers at our disposal, ten thousand of our own, and five thousand from the Jing Empire," Rod, the highest-ranked war general in the Barion Kingdom, reported to the Crown Prince inside his tent.
"About ten thousand of them are armored foot soldiers, one thousand cavalry, one thousand archers, one thousand spearmen, and one thousand will be moving the ballistas."
"Two hundred noble knights from various factions will be managing their soldiers, and the rest are the medics, cooks, and handymen, Your Highness."
Crown Prince Ludwig was actually dissatisfied with the arrangement. Of course, fifteen thousand soldiers were nothing to scoff at, but after seeing the terrifying beastmen, he felt that they needed more manpower.
Unfortunately, ten thousand trained soldiers were already the most King Ald could provide, because he refused to do forced enlistment of regular civilians, since they were the backbone of Barion Kingdom’s economy.
Besides, this war was to destroy that pest named the Beast Kingdom to secure a trade route. If they forced the civilians to go to war as well, then who would readily do trade once the war was over?
Besides, fifteen thousand soldiers already put a huge dent in the kingdom’s treasury because of their basic needs and weapons, so Ludwig dared not ask for more, fearing that it would anger his father.
Marik had been listening behind Ludwig, as he had been promoted to become his advisor since the Crown Prince acknowledged his ingenuity despite coming from a humble merchant background.
After listening to the report, Marik said, "Your Highness, I think that’s more than enough to crush the Beast Kingdom. You should go out and start your speech, because they are waiting for your command."
"What Sir Marik said is right, Your Highness. You need to deliver a speech that will rouse their fighting spirit," General Rod said.
"Very good. Let’s go out now. I will make sure everyone will be ready to face death to exterminate those pesky beastmen."
*
The soldiers were all lined up in a meadow outside of the Barion Kingdom, which directly bordered the Roc Forest.
Crown Prince Ludwig looked dashingly handsome and strong wearing his silver armor that glinted beautifully under the sunlight.
Little did they know, it was the same armor he wore when he ran away like a wimp from the skirmish about a month ago.
He took a deep breath seeing so many soldiers waiting for his speech. It was his first time leading such a huge army into war, and he was excited for it. He stood on a tall platform and began his speech.
"My fellow countrymen and allies, we have gathered here under one goal: to destroy those filthy beastmen who attacked our people, looted the merchants, and massacred three hundred of our brothers! We have to pay them back tenfold for what they’ve done to us! This is a war between humanity and the savages, and WE. MUST. WIN!"
"We must win because the lives of our mothers, wives, and children are in our hands! We must win because this is all about survival of the fittest!"
"We must win because we need to protect our kingdom before those beastmen attack us first!"
"WE. MUST. WIN!"
"We must win!""We must win!"
After that, everyone began yelling that sentence over and over. Crown Prince Ludwig deliberately used that instead of "for the glory of Barion Kingdom," because more than thirty percent of the soldiers here were from the Jing Empire. So he had to make sure they would fight to the fullest too, because it was about humanity, not just Barion Kingdom.
Marik saw how Crown Prince Ludwig rallied his soldiers to fight and had to admit this man had charisma just like his father.
But he definitely didn’t have the same military capability as King Ald, nor the same courage.
Most of the soldiers here would become fodder for the beastmen under Kael’s order, but that mattered not for Marik.
Let’s see how you are able to handle fifteen thousand soldiers, you cursed bastard, Marik thought.
**
Meanwhile, Grishaw relayed the report coming from the flying squirrel scouts.
"My King, there are about fifteen thousand soldiers marching through the forest, heading towards our direction. All of them are armored, and it should take about five hours until they reach us."
"Fifteen thousand?" Kael raised his brows. That was an unexpected number for him, because that was huge compared to the beastmen army, which only had roughly two thousand beastmen soldiers at most. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂
Of course, not counting the capital guards and civilians who could fight.
Kael had no intention to force the civilians, and the guards had to stay inside the capital to protect the innocent in case of another sneak attack like what Marik did.
So, it was two thousand beastmen versus fifteen thousand humans.
Kael knew the capability of his soldiers and how it could be one versus three and the beastmen would still win.
But the number of humans was overwhelming compared to the beastmen.
Sometimes Kael was disappointed that beastmen didn’t breed as fast as humans. But at this point, all he wanted was to protect his people.
"Then, I’ll have to make up for the difference," Kael said calmly.
No, he wasn’t scared at all. He knew that he would win no matter what those humans tried to do, but he would be very busy on the battlefield and would take a while to finally return to Sisi and Jojo.
He was worried that his beloved family would be in danger if it took him too long.
"Make sure to tighten the protection for Mistress Sisi and the Crown Prince," Kael said. "This will be a long war, and I don’t want them to get hurt while I am busy on the battlefield."
"Understood, My King!" Grishaw bowed.
Kael walked out of the throne room and saw all the generals who would lead their own troops based on their species had lined up on the training ground.
Kael grinned seeing how none of them looked nervous, and he calmly told them all:
"Let’s go and greet our enemy of today."
