Chapter 219: Annihilation Battle III
Richard led his soldiers to the rear of the orc camp, causing chaos in the orc camp.
In the battle the day before yesterday, Richard released multiple powerful spells, and his magic power had been consumed by more than half.
Now, after a day and a half, his magic power has not been fully restored.
Now that he launched a surprise attack, Richard did not use spells, but pulled the bowstring.
He poured his fighting spirit into the enchanted arrow, and the enchanted arrow burst out with a white light and shot fiercely at a third-level orc officer.
The arrow made a sharp whistle and passed through the throat of the third-level minotaur.
There was no time to wait for the orc shaman to treat him, and the third-level minotaur captain died on the spot.
The death of the minotaur captain immediately caused chaos among the orc soldiers under his command. The orcs panicked, shouting for their companions, sounding the alarm, and fighting the human army reluctantly.
In order to be quick, Richard did not carry a heavy catapult.
They launched the attack very suddenly, and the orcs never expected that human soldiers would appear from behind them.
During the reconnaissance, the harpies were basically in the south. There was not much defense for their own rear road, only a small number of werewolf scouts, and the reconnaissance range was only a dozen kilometers away.
As a result, these werewolf scouts were killed by the scouts of Harland Territory.
When the orcs realized something was wrong, Richard and his army were less than one kilometer away from the orc camp.
A distance of one kilometer is almost instantaneous for the Warcraft Cavalry Brigade.
When the Warcraft Cavalry launched a charge, it took two or three minutes to rush over a distance of one kilometer.
Richard did not let the precious Warcraft cavalry charge directly, but led the infantry to attack the orc defense line.
The orcs were not good at long-range combat, and the trebuchets were all aimed at the direction of Graveson Castle. It was very difficult to turn the large trebuchets, and it was not possible to do it in a few minutes.
Even if he used infantry to charge, Richard had some chances of defeating the orcs.
Time passed very quickly on the battlefield. In just a few minutes, Richard led the soldiers of Harland Territory and broke into the orc defense line.
The orc army that lost its commander could not resist the fierce attack of Harland Army. After a moment, it completely collapsed.
The patrolling orc squadron collapsed without resisting for too long, allowing the army of Harland Territory to quickly approach the orc camp.
Richard stopped thirty meters away from the orc camp, and then commanded the soldiers to shoot feather arrows.
The rain of arrows continued to fall into the orc camp. Many orcs had not yet organized themselves. They were shot and killed by arrows as soon as they walked out of the tent.
"Light the brazier, shoot rockets, shoot rockets quickly!"
The grassroots officers kept commanding and shouting. It didn't take long for the soldiers of Harland Territory to light the brazier, and the archers shot rockets one after another.
The rockets hit the tents and wooden stakes, and immediately set the orc camp on fire.
Thick smoke rose from the orc camp, and a raging fire burned instantly, stringing up a large area in a very short time. .
The orcs were suddenly attacked by Richard, and they had no time to react, and many soldiers were killed and injured immediately.
The orc commander suppressed the panic in his heart and immediately organized his guard squadron. Although the situation was very serious, he still gritted his teeth and rushed out of the camp, hoping to contain the army of Harland Territory and drive the soldiers led by Richard away.
"Grenadiers, throw alchemical bombs, don't let the enemy organize, and kill as many enemies as possible in the chaos."
Seeing that the orc guard squadron entered the range, under the command of the grassroots officers, the grenadiers threw dozens of alchemical bombs.
Dozens of alchemical bombs exploded in the orc guard squadron. The grenadiers were very accurate. After a burst of gunpowder smoke, most of the orc guard squadron had been killed and injured, and there were almost no intact soldiers.
Then the archers shot arrows one after another, shooting some surviving orcs.
Although the orc commander tried hard to turn the tide, unfortunately, there were too few soldiers organized. Before they could rush to the front of the soldiers of Harland Territory to fight hand-to-hand, the guard squadron was wiped out.
In just a few minutes after the surprise attack, the orcs had lost hundreds of soldiers in an organized manner, two squadrons were wiped out, and many soldiers were shot and burned to death.
The total number of the orc army of Graveson was only 4,000, and one-tenth of them were lost in such a short time.
Seeing that the soldiers of Harland Territory were so fierce, the orcs did not dare to continue to send a small number of soldiers to drive them away.
The orc officers kept shouting in the camp, organizing teams of orcs, preparing to fight the enemy after gathering a large number of troops.
After Richard led his troops to launch the attack, Viscount Romen stationed in Graveson Castle reacted quickly, immediately gathered troops, and cooperated with Richard to launch an encirclement and annihilation battle.
After realizing that the battle was going badly and the fire in the camp was difficult to put out, the orc commander ordered his troops to set up a quarantine zone and ordered the trebuchet troops to tighten the capstan as quickly as possible, load stone bombs, use the trebuchets to block Viscount Romen from leaving the city, and kill the defenders of Graveson Castle.
Then he ordered the snakemen and eaglemen to gather and attack the army from Harland Territory, playing almost all the trump cards, hoping to reduce the pressure on the camp and buy time for himself to organize soldiers.
Stone bombs kept falling, and 200 kilograms of stone bombs fell from the sky. Even high-level professionals did not dare to take them head-on.
Fortunately, the orcs did not know how to calculate the trajectory, were not proficient in classical mechanics and ballistics, and had poor accuracy and slow speed in throwing.
Although the counterweight trebuchet is powerful and can throw stone bombs weighing 200 kilograms, it also has obvious weaknesses. Its range is almost fixed. Even if the range is roughly changed by adjusting the winch and the lever arm, it is impossible to attack the enemy who is too close.
The counterweight trebuchet has appeared in the war for six years. As the first country to use the counterweight trebuchet, the Kingdom of Grant is very familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of this weapon.
Seeing that a few stone bombs caused more than a dozen casualties, Viscount Romen kept urging the soldiers to speed up. After several rounds of stone bombs, although more than a hundred soldiers were killed, Viscount Romen and the noble coalition also rushed past the limit of the trebuchet range.
Seeing that Viscount Romen and his soldiers were less than a hundred meters away from the camp. The orc commander immediately ordered to separate some personnel to resist Viscount Romen.
Viscount Romen seized the opportunity and cooperated very well with the soldiers of Harland Territory.
The appearance of the defenders of Graveson Castle undoubtedly reduced the pressure on the army of Harland Territory.
As soon as the eighty snake-bodied people organized themselves, the Warcraft Cavalry bypassed them from the side and rear, and fired a hundred magic missiles at the snake-bodied people's formation by manipulating the iron-horned horses.
Although the magic missiles were a ring of magic, one or two shots could not kill the snake-bodied people. However, the hundred magic missiles hit the snake-bodied people's formation, causing more than twenty snake-bodied people to be killed.
Such dense magic missiles left the snake-bodied people with no place to dodge.
After firing a round of magic missiles, the Warcraft Cavalry drew their bows and arrows and fired a round of feather arrows at the snake-bodied people.
The Warcraft Cavalry is good at attacking and has a high speed. The iron-horned horses they ride also have a certain magic lethality, which is very restrained against the army of professional snake-bodied people.
Although the snake-bodied people have strong melee capabilities and can spray venom, their medium-range lethality is also quite good. But they are very afraid of such fast and powerful opponents.
The Warcraft Cavalry bypassed the snake-bodied people's formation, and the first round of attacks caused more than thirty snake-bodied people to be killed.
The snake-bodied people wanted to catch up with the Warcraft Cavalry, but they were too slow to catch up with the Ironhorn Horse.
If the Warcraft Cavalry was left alone, when the snake-bodied people fought with the human infantry, the Warcraft Cavalry would still attack the snake-bodied people from behind, and the snake-bodied people would be in a dilemma for a while.
After discovering that there were Warcraft Cavalry in Harland Territory, the commander of the snake-bodied people could only bite the bullet and hope to rush through this distance and fight with the soldiers of Harland Territory in close combat.
Once the two sides started hand-to-hand combat, in order to avoid hurting their own people, the threat of Warcraft Cavalry to the snake-bodied people would be greatly reduced.
On the battlefield of Graveson, the soldiers of Harland Territory joined forces with Viscount Romen, and their combat effectiveness far exceeded that of the two orc battalions.
Moreover, Richard also had Warcraft Cavalry under his command, and the soldiers were also equipped with a large number of enchanted armor and alchemical bombs.
Unless the orcs used surprise troops, they could only make up for some disadvantages.
But it was Richard who used surprise troops. He led the soldiers of Harland Territory to kill and wound hundreds of orcs by surprise. The fire destroyed the orc camp and made the orcs suffer from attacks from all sides, making it difficult for them to move forward.
When the situation developed to this point, the orc commander weighed the pros and cons and decided to kill the commander of the human army with his personal soldiers.
If Richard could be killed and the soldiers of Harland Territory collapsed, there would still be hope of winning this battle.
Unlike Duram, who was killed by Richard, the commander of the orcs in the direction of Graveson was only a sixth-level commander, and his official title was only a senior captain, and his status was equivalent to that of Richard's defeated general Maruland.
He led the orc soldiers around him and rushed towards Richard without hesitation.
The main force of Harland Territory had already started fighting with the orcs. Only the guard squadron, the reconnaissance squadron, and the territory's mage regiment were protecting Richard.
Richard carefully observed the battlefield and evaluated the power comparison between the two sides.
Seeing the orc commander rushing over with his personal soldiers, he immediately raised the lightning staff. The magic power in his body flowed, and he invested a lot of magic power. In an instant, a huge lightning had condensed into shape.
As the magic power surged, the lightning became brighter and brighter, and the busy light of magic flashed slightly.
The lightning went straight to the orc captain.
Using the lightning staff to release lightning attribute magic, the power increased by 50%, and the consumed magic power decreased by 30%.
Richard invested ten points of mental power and used the lightning staff to release lightning magic, and the power exceeded the ninth ring. Such a powerful lethality is equivalent to a weakened version of legendary magic.
Even the eighth-level boarman Duram was killed by the lightning magic, and the sixth-level orc captain was not spared at all.
He was hit by a thick lightning in an instant and received a box lunch on the spot.
Richard led the reconnaissance squadron and the guard squadron to defeat the army led by the orc captain, successfully controlled the battlefield, cut off the head of the orc captain, and then hung it on a long wooden pole.
As soon as the orc captain died, his head was hung up.
Such a tragic scene immediately crushed the will of the orc soldiers.
Seeing that defeat was inevitable, the remaining orc officers immediately planned to retreat and break out.
As soon as the orcs retreated, they were immediately defeated.
If it was a head-on battle, it would not be easy to kill an orc. But once the orcs fled, they lost their organization and exposed their backs. It was quite easy to kill the orcs. As long as they shot a feather arrow, they could shoot and kill the orc officers.
Richard and Viscount Romen cooperated very well, and each of them dispersed the organized orcs. They chased the orcs into the jungle, and then cleaned up the battlefield in their respective controlled areas.
Because the orcs had not yet invaded the Geda Province, the spoils were pitifully small. Only more than 3,000 human slaves were captured, and Richard gave Viscount Romen 1,000.
Counting the more than 4,000 human slaves rescued from the military station, the population of Harland Territory has increased by 6,000 since the start of the war this year.
The orc slaves were captured, the heads of the orc professionals were chopped off, the snake-body human scales were pulled off, the battlefield was cleaned up, and the casualties were counted.
This battle was fought beautifully. The casualties of the soldiers in Harland Territory did not exceed 200, and only 50 were killed.
Viscount Romen's coalition suffered slightly more casualties due to the attack of the catapult, with 400 casualties.
The noble coalition of Geda Province annihilated two battalions of orcs at the cost of 600 casualties, chopped off more than 2,700 orc heads, and captured more than 700 orc prisoners. Only more than 600 orcs escaped from the battlefield.
Including the remnants of the military station, there were more than 10,000 orcs in five battalions, but less than 3,000 of them survived.
These more than 3,000 orcs have become frightened birds, scattered in large forests, and are no longer a hidden danger.
If there is no long-term replenishment, according to the morale of these orcs, it is basically impossible to fight.
After cleaning up the battlefield, Richard led the soldiers to the Graveson Castle to rest for two days, and then returned to the Harland territory with the spoils.
While the orcs had not yet reached the Black River, Richard used a boat to send the orc prisoners and heads to the Light Castle to ask for merit, and reported the details of the two battles.
Roger is now a veteran in the kingdom. He has participated in many wars, and it is easy for him to see through false reports of military exploits.
Moreover, the Council of Nobles dealt with false reports of military exploits very strictly.
So Richard's war report was straightforward and told the course of the war.
In this battle, Richard led the soldiers of Harland Territory and cooperated with Viscount Romen to annihilate five orcs in two battles, and also killed Duram, the deputy commander of the eighth-level wild boarmen, and the sixth-level werewolf captain. In addition to the merits of killing low-level orc professionals, after confirmation by the Geda Province and statistics by the Noble Council, a total of 14 major merits and 6 medium merits were made.
Geda Province had just won a victory, and bad news came immediately. The orcs once again broke through the Martins Earldom, and as many as four orc main legions overwhelmed the Martins Earldom.
The new Count Martins died in battle, and the Earldom was once again lost.
Even the Redeemer Legion stationed in the Martins Earldom was beaten by the orcs and lost more than half.