Honestly... I'm at a lost here. Cuz, I don't know what to do at this point.

I've never heard of anything... ANYTHING having a loyalty so strong that it's completely artificial. From what I just read here, you can flay a dude's wife, put her on a spit roast, grill her, and make her husband eat her. And he'd be perfectly fine with it, because he refuses to betray his country if it means nothing horrible will happen.

The only other thought in my head, is to build a bridge out of stone by channeling... which wouldn't be hard to do I'd imagine. Except we're talking about trying to move 30,000 plus across a river. And something that massive will likely be seen. And any pre-existing bridges are just bottlenecks that can be cut off.

The only other option I can think of that the dark side can take at this point is basically going slice of life instead of trying to attack.