Lord Andes along with thousands of Wallachian soldiers marched through abandoned trench lines in the south.
This particular area was the original trench line in the south during the great catholic massacre.
Since then the Wallachians had claimed more land though it was disputed since Hungary wasn't annexed by them but didn't have the power to take it back.
Moving further through the abandoned battlegrounds Andes and his men reached an intersection inside the trenches.
The intersection had two trenches stretching out further south and up north while in-between them there was a gaping hole with stairs leading underground.
A tactic often used by Wallachia during the great catholic massacre was that they would dig tunnels under or near their trenches to provide logistic support.
Later in the war, Austrian General Arnulf was sent with an Austrian Brigade to assist Wallachia and used Wallachias logistic strategy for ambushes, and spying operations.
This strategy took a lot of time to implement and also increased the war debt of Wallachia to Austria a great deal but not enough to over demand from the nation.
Soon the Wallachian army marched through the tunnels for a few days before reaching into an old Hungarian trench line unbeknownst to the Hungarian populist.
The trench line was shabby, to say the least, but trench warfare was still new during the catholic war.
This old Hungarian trench was within Hungary's borders and not too far behind the current system of trenches meant to protect the nation's borders.
Lord Andes brought two thousand soldiers with him through this long-lost secret gateway into Hungary and was going to disable the hostile cannons behind the enemy trenches.
The rest of his forces were going to fake an attack by firing upon the enemy trench line, border skirmishes weren't uncommon after all so most likely the enemy will respond with their own fire.
After a couple of hours, upon becoming dust the men in the Wallachian trench began to fire upon the Hungarian trenches which soon corresponded firing back at the Wallachians.
"Our brothers have started! Take out the artillery and capture the trenches!" Lord Andes yelled to his troops and was echoed by his officers.
In an instant bullets were flying from both sides of the Hungarians with Wallachian soldiers marching on their position from their exposed backs.
The commander of the Hungarian forces Immediately panicked at the sight of thousands of Wallachians surrounding them and started to issue orders hastily but they didn't reach his equally panicked subordinates.
Meanwhile, Lord Andes was personally leading a detachment of soldiers to take care of an artillery crew.
Andes lifted his outdated Austrian service pistol and blasted the nearest Hungarian man blowing off his head, while the squad of men that followed him charged the crew with their already mounted double edge bayonets piercing through the Hungarian's flesh.
After thirty minutes of fighting the battle ended in a Wallachian victory with their opposition surrendering, while lives were still lost on Lord Andes side it was all in all a perfect victory.
The Wallachian noble sat down in the murky trench covered in blood and guts taking a sigh of relief. Andes didn't know about the trench tunnels until Vlad pulled out an old record from his family library and gave it to him.
Without that single document, this battle would have been far more bloody.
The Hungarians ended up having half of their forces protecting the south which wasn't normal since usually, they would only have four groups of five hundred spread throughout the trench line.
Was it a practicalcule strategy? No, not really, but it was one of the few ways they had available to defend their eastern borders especially with a larger threat to their north.
At the end of the day though the battle was won, and Andes men were tired as was he. The Wallachian lord wrote a letter about his suspicion to Vlad before sending it off with his best rider then setting up camp.
After the camp was set up a couple of carts were brought in and their contents...High-grade Austrian whisky from Andes personal stash that he shared amongst his men to keep morale up.
"Don't drink too much lads! We've got to march through half of the country starting at the first light of day." Lord Andes advised his men while also giving their orders for tomorrow.
Despite the Marshal's warning many of the soldiers and officers got hammered one of the soldiers ended up lighting their tent on fire after spilling some whisky on it and shooting his gun in a drunkard stupor.
The man ended up on corpses burning duty for the rest of the campaign after the fire spread to his officer's tent. Luckily no one got hurt, except for the drunkard who went through PT for the whole night.
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At Vlads Palace...
Vlad was seating in his study working on his plans for an Industrialized Wallachia along with going over the Agricultural and military reforms.
The military reforms focused on centralizing the army, establishing a navy, and making a merit-based ranking system. While the Agricultural reforms just focused on farmer taxes and a state-required method for growing crops.
The Industrialization of Wallachia was a lot more difficult though, with plenty of the nation's natural resources are already given off to Germany to pay of Wallachia's debt.
Luckily Vlad's predecessors weren't dumb enough to give the Germans rights to the mines and resource deposits there would just be generally less to work with.
Vlad had already decided to change to the Bessemer process and had his factories were just starting to use it but were still a far cry away from something as grand as the steam engine.
After an hour more of dreaded office work which Berengar was blamed for its creation, giving the title Berengar the Accursed a whole new meaning, someone knocked on Vlad's door.
"You may enter," Vlad uttered as he placed his papers in the appropriate folders and then cabinets before searing back down.
The door opened to reveal a burly man in military uniform holding an envelope. The man bowed and respectively said "Sire, a message from the Marshall."
Vlad nodded before taking the messages "You may take a break the chefs will prepare you something."
The man gave a beaming smile to Vlad before bowing again and replying to Vlad "I thank you for your kindness Voivode, I shall do as you've ordered." then the soldier left the study before softly closing its door.
'Voivode I fear that the Hungarians know of our plans, during the battle at the southern trenches half of their forces were stationed there, please be cautious there may be a spy within Wallachia's court.
-Marshal Andes' Vlad read in his mind.
'Well this isn't unexpected but I'm surprised they were able to gather in time...' Vlad's expression turned stern upon that thought.
Vlad sighed "I'll have to save this for later right now I don't have enough information." Vlad said visibly annoyed by the lack of information.
As Vlad was about to leave his study another knock came at its door before bursting open. The young Dracula unsheathed his sword to protect himself.
A man covered in sweat and breathing heavily with fearful eyes looked at Vlad before raising a letter with the Kufstein family emblem.
Vlad didn't ask questions, he only voiced an "oh shit." before grabbing the letter and slamming the door shut completely ignoring the tired messenger.
Vlad was not expecting the German Empire to get in between the Hungarian and Wallachian war or message him at all so soon.
Vlad tore open the letter but before he could read it there was a gunshot and he immediately left his room to go investigate the disturbance.
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Happy New Year~
I wasn't planning to work on another chap but I decided why the hell not it's a new year let's start it off with the first chapter of 2022!
Also yes cliff hanger, fun fact I'm a sadist 😈
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