Accompanied by drumbeats, bugle calls, and Scottish bagpipes, the army—or rather, the warhorses—marched in perfect unison. This required a great deal of skill: the knights' horsemanship, their long-term reaction to drumbeats, their intuition for the warhorses around them, and their familiarity with battle formations.
Not every horse was qualified to be a warhorse!
Some horses would get weak-kneed at the sight of a large crowd, unable to even walk, let alone charge. Others couldn't tolerate loud noises, whether it be sounds, shouts, drumbeats, or cannon fire. These horses were either eliminated, slaughtered, or used as farm horses; they couldn't go to war.
So-called warhorses were one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand!
From this, it's clear what kind of accumulation King Uther must have had to gradually form a force of 100,000 warhorses in Camelot. He probably started implementing the mounted knight program as soon as he ascended the throne.
Thinking of this, Kayal couldn't help but itch with anticipation. The foresight King Uther brought... he was truly a wise monarch. If he had been born a few decades earlier, perhaps this land would have been unified?
Kayal then gave a self-deprecating smile. Even if he had been born a few decades earlier, the situation on the continent might not have been as good as it was now. He estimated that during difficult times, King Uther also proceeded with trepidation, perhaps being cautious with every move he made? One must remember that King Uther didn't have the foresight Kayal had now. Even every innovation was a reform, and it would touch the interests of certain people. Before gaining strong prestige, King Uther probably felt unsure about his every step, didn't he?
This was far from Kayal's leisurely stroll and effortless ease. For Kayal, who came from the future, every step he took was the inevitable trend of the future. Every step Kayal took was the future! Every stride Kayal made was history!
Kayal was the one who created history!
Kayal's ability to act without restraint didn't mean that people of this limited era could do the same. It could be said that standing on the shoulders of giants to look into the future allowed one to see much further and deeper than a king of an old era!
Of course, even Kayal couldn't prove that all his moves were correct. Limited by the times, he could only make the smallest, most subtle changes to the course of history. If he suddenly introduced something like steam-powered electricity, that wouldn't be called changing the course; that would be amputation!
Reckless amputations could lead to massive bleeding and be fatal!
Even Kayal couldn't and dared not act recklessly; he could only proceed slowly... slowly... but enough of that digression.
The warhorses of the knights, spread across the mountains and plains, marched in unison to the rhythm of drums and ox horns. They soon arrived at Bukla City, which was guarded by only three thousand men, at this leisurely pace. The three thousand defenders in Bukla City were all, in the eyes of the knights, mere militiamen—that is, recently recruited infantry with no military training whatsoever, incomparable to Kayal's five thousand elites.
Facing such a large enemy, the defenders were terrified. Seeing the lion banner, they knew King of Camelot himself was present. Looking at the formation and the banners, there must have been no less than twenty thousand men?
Gawain spurred his horse forward, but before he could utter any eloquent words, the opposing garrison officer came out to surrender, along with the lord.
This frustrated Gawain for a long time, but he suddenly understood why Kayal wanted to deal with the noble factions within the country. If a power, say Rome, were to invade Camelot, and if it broke through the Red Leaf Ridge defense line and advanced directly, how many nobles would surrender immediately?
Perhaps the four Grand Dukes would fight to the death, but how many nobles would possess the same loyalty to the King as the four Grand Dukes?
If King Uther were still alive, with his undefeated reputation, no one would dare to harbor improper thoughts.
But if King Uther died, and the current King Arthur was still just a very young girl, for them, would it be better to pledge allegiance to a vast empire or to a little girl?
Thinking of this, it was obvious even with one's toes.
Would that group of pot-bellied nobles think of national interests? Humph! As long as their own territorial interests were not infringed upon, who cared who was king?
Gawain thought of this and couldn't help but greatly admire Kayal's foresight.
Currently, all the nobles in the country are newly established, mainly concentrated in the Knight Order. Those who contribute to agriculture and commerce to be granted lordships are still far from enough contribution points, while military merits are much easier to earn.
Kayal's main goal was to forge the entire Camelot into a warrior nation.
One must know that while a large nation that loves war will perish, so-called artistic nations, such as the Tang and Song dynasties, despite leading the cultural trends of their eras, ultimately forgot about war and were destroyed by nomadic peoples with much lower levels of civilization.
There were three reasons for this: a lack of emphasis on military preparedness, a disregard for invaders with lower levels of civilization, and the emergence of a brilliant and ambitious monarch among the invaders!
The first two points could be avoided, while the last was a matter of chance.
However, if Kayal infused the spirit of combat into the very bones of the entire nation, unless the country was completely annihilated, even if a prodigal king emerged, Kayal would not worry about Camelot's future.
After the army successfully took over Bukla City, the first thing they did was disarm all the defenders, tie them up, and throw them into the dungeon. Kayal and the others did not spare the nobles either, because, in Kayal's words, both those who resisted Camelot and the wealthiest people were among this group. If their wealth was not seized, Scotland would have hope of rising again. Kayal's goal was that there should not be a single Scottish intellectual!
The resulting search truly shocked them. There were two noble families here, one large and one small. The larger one actually had two hundred knights, and the smaller one had twenty knights!
Considering the numerous lords of various sizes within Scotland, even Artoria gasped.
Combining this with the more than ten thousand extra knights from noble families within the country... Artoria suddenly understood why Kayal had to deal with the nobles. Such a huge unstable factor! Not to mention that he had already offended them; even if he hadn't, in the face of the entire kingdom's interests, they could very well unite. Thinking of them, they wouldn't need many, just three thousand knights to cut off the army's and Red Leaf Ridge's supply lines, and these hundred thousand troops would likely fall into chaos!
She had only just taken control of the army! If her prestige was insufficient and she handled it poorly, it would lead to a camp riot and rebellion!
At that point, let alone an expedition to Scotland, she wouldn't even be able to manage the domestic situation!
Indeed, what Kayal usually said about first pacifying the internal before pacifying the external made a lot of sense.
Artoria secretly nodded, but she led Kayal and the one hundred and fifty Knights of the Round Table directly to the battlefield of the Scottish civil strife, wanting to witness it firsthand!
This decision greatly frustrated the thirteen Knight Captains of the Round Table, but they couldn't go because they had to lead troops. Also, with Kayal's various plans and ambushes, they all had various reasons and absolutely no time to go, which was truly frustrating... With just one hundred and fifty light cavalry, accompanied by a group of students, Artoria and Kayal arrived at the plains battlefield.