Chapter 152: Pre-War Preparations (Part 1)

Warfare is a matter of vital importance to the state; it is the province of life or death, the road to survival or ruin, and must be examined with the utmost care.

Even without much study of Sun Tzu's Art of War or the Thirty-Six Stratagems, Allen knew that launching an offensive war with his own country as the main body required an overwhelming amount of preparation. This was different from passive defense, where one simply resisted an invader's attack in familiar territory; it was also different from the battle at the Lonely Mountain, where he had viewed everything from a god's-eye perspective. He had known the outcome and the support his side would have; all he had needed to do was minimize his own losses.

This time, however, it was completely different. Because of Allen himself, the arrival of the Easterlings had completely deviated from the trajectory he knew, so the outcome of this war could only be fought for through his own efforts.

Precisely because of this, Allen felt there was a great deal of preparation to be done before the war. The first task was to gain a certain understanding of the enemy's current situation; as the saying goes, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

To this end, Allen dispatched all the Scout Cavalry at his disposal, along with a group of children who could communicate smoothly with animals, to scout the specific strength of the Easterlings currently in eastern Rhovanion.

The children who had graduated from Beorn's Garden over the past few years varied greatly in age, ranging from ten to eighteen, but there were very few over twenty. So far, only one had graduated who was exactly twenty years old, while there were seven children between the ages of fifteen and eighteen; these eight were the oldest among them.

It was these children who were sent out to scout; the other children either hadn't graduated yet or were too young and might not be able to endure the hardships of the wild, so they could just do scouting near Wilderness Town.

Allen gave these children the treatment of regular soldiers, with pay much higher than that of ordinary soldiers, and bestowed upon them a green flag painted with birds and hounds. He also granted them the title of "Animal Friend." The reason there were hounds on the flag was entirely because there was a child named Alai who simply couldn't communicate with birds, but had found a different path, becoming friends with many large dogs. He alone could smoothly command over a dozen large hounds to participate in hunting, and these hounds could also help him a great deal in battle. He was eighteen today and was one of the children sent out to scout.

Allen's orders to these scouts were only to find the locations of enemy gathering points and their approximate numbers; they were not to make close contact with the Easterlings unless necessary, as they had to keep a low profile while operating in the enemy's base camp.

Besides this, if the timing was right, Allen also hoped these scouts could go to that valley to see if the few hundred Northern Men still living there were surviving.

Following Allen's orders, one team of scouts after another left Wilderness Town, passing through Heidelberg and Long Lake Town, and fanned out toward the east of Rhovanion.

At the same time, one messenger after another carrying letters also set off toward the north and east in accordance with Allen's orders.

As the saying goes, "Those who follow the Dao receive much support, while those who abandon it receive little." Since arriving in Middle-earth, Allen had stood firmly on the side of the Free Peoples and had been committed to fighting the minions of the dark forces, gaining the friendship of the Dwarves of Erebor and the Woodland Elves in the process.

Now, Allen was about to launch a war against the Easterlings. Beyond gathering his own strength, he also greatly needed the support of his allies. In the previous year, he had used the Star of Earendil, a treasure of Arnor, to win over the Dunedain living in hiding in Eriador. Now, he needed to ask his two allies, the Lonely Mountain and the King of the Woodland Realm, for some help.

In his letter to Thorin II, besides explaining the harm caused to Dwarves and Humans by the Easterlings entrenched in Varonian, Allen promised that the wealth temporarily stored in the Lonely Mountain could be used as payment. If Thorin did not like or need treasure, Allen guaranteed that if the Dwarves wanted to retake Moria or expel the Orcish from Gundabad, he would not hesitate to lend a hand. Allen already had some preliminary ideas on how to deal with the Balrog of Moria.

As for how the King of the Lonely Mountain, Thorin II, would choose, Allen could not control that, but he still had full confidence that Thorin would not refuse his request for aid.

As for the letter to Thranduil, it did not demand that the Woodland Elves must send troops, but rather hoped that the Woodland Realm could first allocate some longbows, arrows, spears, and even armor for his use. Allen promised to repay this debt with other supplies or treasures in the future. Even if Thorin chose the wealth Allen had temporarily stored in the Lonely Mountain, Wilderness Town still had plenty of gold and silver jewelry to pay Thranduil.

In addition to writing to his two allies, Allen also specially dispatched a Dunedain Ranger to Rivendell to deliver a letter to Lady Gilraen. In the letter, Allen stated that the war would likely break out in the autumn of the Third Age 2945, and he hoped that the last batch of supporting Rangers could arrive before then to facilitate further arrangements.

Yes, less than two months after Lady Gilraen returned to Rivendell, the first batch of Dunedain Rangers, led by Allen's "old acquaintance" Abinas, arrived at Wilderness Town. They were all tall and strong warriors, and the vast majority of them had a "Star of the Dunedain" pinned to their left shoulders. However, judging by their attire, Allen felt that the current living conditions of the wanderers could not be considered very affluent.

Apart from the longbows and arrows on their backs and the longswords at their waists, which looked well-maintained, most of these dozens of Rangers were equipped only with simple leather armor and dull-colored cloaks. Such armor was not even as good as what Allen had prepared for his own conscripts, which, after all, were produced by the Simulator and were standard-issue equipment.

Allen did not know if these Rangers were intentionally doing this to keep a low profile, or if, as he imagined, they had been unable to afford better weapons and equipment after hundreds of years of displacement. But Allen could not let these elite warriors head to the battlefield like this; it would be a huge waste of combat power.

A large portion of the weapons he requested from Thranduil were prepared for these five hundred Dunedain Rangers, which would allow them to play a greater role on the battlefield. At the same time, Allen prepared to redeem some fine iron armor from the Simulator for these Rangers to increase their survival rate in battle.

Besides this, Allen also arranged for Abinas to take his people to Horse Pasture Village to select horses. Only a small number of them had ridden horses when they arrived; the others had all come on foot.

In his communication with Abinas, Allen learned that these people had also undergone some training in how to fight on horseback. Although the Kingdom of Arnor had declined, the training methods for Knights had not been lost and had been passed down from generation to generation. Allen's Horse Pasture Village was not short of horses; the first generation of foals had just passed their coming-of-age ceremony last year and were already at the stage where they could be ridden, and Tuoju had trained them well.

It was just that the number of crossbred horses Allen had instructed Tuoju to breed was not particularly large. There was a batch of Elf-crossbred horses that had just reached adulthood and had been allocated to those female Knight apprentices. As for the foals crossbred with Jatu Warbeasts, they were still in their infancy and were afraid they would not be able to provide Allen with any help in this war.

Abinas had no objections to Allen's arrangements. Before arriving, he had received instructions from Lady Gilraen that as long as the requests were not extremely unreasonable, he must follow Allen's orders. What's more, being provided with horses, even young ones, was a happy thing; in their group, they were not wealthy enough to have a horse for everyone.

Besides weapons, Allen also specially cleared out most of the inns in the town for these Dunedain to live in, and instructed Yamila to arrange for their food and clothing. But Abinas refused Allen's arrangement, telling him that the Dunedain were not yet suited for such a comfortable life.

So, after selecting the horses, Abinas arranged for a few Rangers to stay by Allen's side as a means of liaison and to receive other Dunedain. He himself, however, took sufficient supplies, tents, and Allen's letters, and led the other Dunedain Rangers toward Heidelberg via the Mirkwood Road.

He needed to familiarize himself with the upcoming combat environment, and the waters of the Running River near Heidelberg were not peaceful; Easterlings appeared in the vicinity from time to time. It was only right to get to know one's enemy before the war.

Seeing Abinas so insistent, Allen did not continue to stop the old Ranger's decision. Instead, he wrote a letter conveying most of the information to Alayen. However, Allen did not hand over command of the Dunedain Rangers to Alayen; he felt that letting Abinas act freely might be better. If possible, effectively weakening the Easterlings before the war would be good.

After all, Allen had adopted a defensive strategy for the past two years, which had made those Easterlings increasingly arrogant. A few months ago, a small squad of dozens of people had actually secretly crossed the Running River and plunged into the southern part of Mirkwood, heading toward Ioviah from there.

Fortunately, Allen had made arrangements beforehand, and these Easterlings ran straight into the patrolling Skin-changer Wulf there. The result went without saying. From that time on, the Easterlings never tried to do that again; instead, they drove their War Chariots, showing off their power on the plains opposite Heidelberg, irritating the nerves of the young lord, Alayen.

Now that Abinas was leading his people to engage in some small-scale battles with the Easterlings there, Allen was not worried about alerting the enemy. By the time his army crossed the Running River, no matter how slow the Easterlings were, they should know that a fierce battle was inevitable. So, let these Dunedain Rangers do the small skirmishes before the big war; it would also serve to cover the light cavalry scouting into enemy territory.

As for these Rangers, Allen only needed to receive the subsequent Dunedain and transport the weapons Thranduil had allocated to him to the vicinity of Heidelberg to arm the Dunedain Rangers who were already engaged in guerrilla warfare with the enemy.

Because the distance was closer, Thranduil's reply arrived in Allen's hands a step ahead of the Dwarves'. Along with the letter was a full list. The top half of the list was the supplies Thranduil provided to Allen: a total of eight hundred Elven Longbows, five hundred spears of the Woodland Elves, and three hundred sets of Elven Plate Armor that shimmered with a faint golden light in the sun, and finally, a large quantity of arrows.

The bottom half of the list was the supplies Thranduil hoped Allen could provide him. In addition to various kinds of wine, there were cheese, honey, fruit, iron, various seasonings, and other common supplies. In the letter, Thranduil stated that he truly could not let his people leave Mirkwood, but he would have his people guard the waters of the Running River on the edge of Mirkwood to provide Allen with a relatively stable rear. Allen was extremely satisfied with this result.

However, at the end of the letter, Thranduil requested that Allen must send a large batch of wine in the near future, as he had an urgent need for it. This made Allen guess something: perhaps life for the Woodland Elves was not easy either.

In fact, ever since the Easterlings arrived, the life of the Woodland Elves had been greatly affected. Although staying in Mirkwood was indeed relatively safe, and the vast Mirkwood could basically provide these Elves with basic survival supplies.

But the trade between the Woodland Realm and most other forces had been cut off due to the looting by the Easterlings. A portion of the supplies could be resolved through trade with Wilderness Town, but there were some things Allen could not solve.

For example, the wine produced in Dorwinion had not appeared at Thranduil's banquets for nearly two years. In this Elven King's inventory, only a few barrels from the debt Allen had previously repaid remained. After all, once there was no food crisis, Allen stopped spending Dinar to trade with the Woodland Realm, but instead changed the traded goods to other supplies.

Most ordinary Elves now drank the Honey Mead and beer traded from Allen's side. The climate around Wilderness Town was still a bit cold and not particularly suitable for growing grapes, so after several years, Allen had no intention of making wine his own commodity reserve.

Although there were some merchants from Eriador who traveled thousands of miles to transport some wine and other supplies to the Woodland Realm, for the Elves of Mirkwood, this was simply a drop in the bucket. In addition, the long-distance land transportation and the tariffs Allen increased made the prices of these things very high, and not all Elves could afford them.

The lack of various supplies due to the severance of trade caused the living standards of the Elves to drop by a notch, which was something Thranduil could not quite tolerate. The request for aid sent by Allen just happened to provide convenience for this Elven King, taking this opportunity to exchange a large batch of stockpiled weapons and equipment for a large amount of supplies and wine from Allen to improve the living standards of the Woodland Realm.

As for those three hundred sets of plate armor, they were specially allocated to Allen by Thranduil. Although he was unwilling to send troops directly to assist Allen, he also hoped that his ally could win this war, drive the hateful Easterlings out of Rhovanion, and let life in the Woodland Realm return to what it was before.

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Allen did not know Thranduil's thoughts, but looking at the three hundred sets of Elven Plate Armor, he felt a little troubled. One had to know that the average height of Elves was over two meters; the size of these plate armors was simply too large, and he had almost no soldiers under his command who could fit into these armors.

Moreover, when these plate armors were crafted, they contained Elven craftsmanship, and expecting Allen's blacksmiths to modify them was asking too much of them. The Dwarves should be able to do it, but Allen only had a few Dwarf blacksmiths, and they each had their own responsibilities. Having them do this was really not worth the cost.

Finally, after some thought, Allen decided to lend these armors to the Dunedain Rangers. Their heights were all between 1.9 and 2 meters, so they could barely wear the Elven armor. This would also save Allen some Dinar to arm his own conscripts; the weapons and equipment for those three thousand people were what Allen was most worried about.

As for Thorin's reply, it also arrived in Allen's hands half a month later, and the help the Dwarves could provide was much more than that of the Elves.