Chapter 222: Chase
The force used by the Orc Empire to invade the Kingdom of Grant was less than one-tenth.
According to public intelligence, the Orc Empire has a total of 160 regular legions with a total force of about 5 million.
However, if a full mobilization is carried out, the Orcs can mobilize tens of millions of soldiers, but the combat effectiveness of the mobilized soldiers is very low and they can only be used to fight a few city defense battles.
When attacking, the mobilized soldiers will only consume food and send heads to the enemy. When the Orcs go south, there is basically no need for full mobilization and organizing mobilized soldiers to participate in the war.
Because of the constraints of other forces, the force used by the Orcs in the Kingdom of Grant is actually fixed, and at most six to ten legions can be drawn from other regions.
If more legions are drawn from other regions, the situation will be unbalanced.
Since the last Orc invasion war, four legions have been drawn from other regions. As a result, the Kingdom of Grant withstood the pressure, and the commander of the Northern Legion, Zakli, withstood the pressure and annihilated an Orc Legion.
After the war, the Kingdom of Grant increased its troops in the northern region, trained three legions of redeemers, and maintained the balance again.
One of the important reasons why the orcs invade frequently is that the maturity of dog-headed people, snake-bodied people, goat-bodied people, and wild boar-bodied people is much faster than that of humans.
The orc tribes are diverse, and dog-headed people, goat-bodied people, and wild boar-bodied people have strong fertility. Dog-headed people can reach adulthood at the age of seven or eight, and snake-bodied people can reach adulthood at the age of ten. Even werewolves, lions, and eagles are basically adults before the age of twelve.
In order to avoid population explosion and civil unrest.
Every time the orcs invade, they are actually consuming excess garbage population.
This time the orcs invaded, the troops were actually slightly less than the last time.
By now, the war has been fought, and the orcs have lost 40,000 soldiers and snatched 100,000 people. The strategic goal has been achieved, and there is a plan to withdraw.
Since June, the orcs have been shrinking, and the troops have gradually concentrated on the southern foot of the Eagle Mountains. In late July, half of the orc army has retreated into the middle of the Eagle Mountains.
Because he did not save the captured population in Gascoigne Province, King Roger was very angry. By mid-July, his patience finally reached its limit.
King Roger issued an edict, dismissing Stein from his post as the commander of the Northern Army and appointing him as the commander of the Gabriela Army.
He was directly transferred from the commander of the main army to the commander of the local province, and his rank was reduced from lieutenant general to major general. Although he did not lose the battle, Stein had almost no future.
As the new commander of the Northern Army, King Roger chose to promote on the spot, and the first deputy commander and captain of the Warcraft Cavalry Battalion, Rab, was promoted to the commander of the army.
William's old superior Tengwei was also promoted, transferred from the position of logistics minister, and was appointed as the first deputy commander and captain of the Warcraft Cavalry Battalion.
Talak waited for many years and finally got rid of Tengwei and took the position of logistics minister.
Although William's official title did not change, his influence within the Northern Army was improved a little.
Rab and Tengwei were both his old comrades-in-arms, and they had worked in the Northern Army for more than 20 years.
This time, King Roger completely let go of the Northern Army and decided to break the ceiling and appoint capable officers from the frontier to preside over the situation.
In fact, Stein did not make any big mistakes in commanding the battle this time. However, as the commander of the main army, he had no overall concept, did not dare to take risks, and did not make the right decisions during the battle. His command mistakes were the key factor in the heavy losses in Gascoigne Province.
Roger Kingdom had just come to power and did not have many qualified senior officials, so it could only choose to promote local officers, hoping to use local officers to stabilize the situation.
If Stein was too cautious in using troops, the commander of the Laber Legion was too reckless and fierce.
After taking office, Laber abandoned the main force in the first battle and led the Northern Legion Cavalry to attack the orc transportation line, annihilating two orc battalions and rescuing 18,000 serfs.
Due to unstable logistics, the orcs could only continue to withdraw troops to protect the logistics transportation line.
As a result, five battalions of troops were just transferred back from the front, and Tengwei commanded the infantry of the Northern Legion and immediately launched an offensive.
In this battle, the orcs lost their advantage in strength, and their camp was broken by heavy catapults, forcing them to fight a fair positional battle with the Northern Legion.
As a result, the orcs were defeated and lost another 5,000 soldiers.
In two consecutive battles, Rab and Tengwei seemed to have a tacit understanding and cooperated very well. The two of them not only defeated the orcs and lost 8,000 soldiers. They also rescued a group of captured people and pulled the situation back a little.
The orcs on the front line suffered a loss and could only draw troops from the rear.
The five orcs who confronted Richard in the Pratos Mountains drew two brigades to bypass the Pratos Mountains and pass through the Eagle Mountains from the Earl of Martins to support the main force of the orcs near Harden Castle.
The main force of the orcs received reinforcements and slowly retreated to the Earl of Martins.
This passage is still in the hands of the orcs. It seems that the orcs have already planned to withdraw completely.
In a few months, most of the more than 500 wounded soldiers in the Harland Territory have been demobilized, and the shortage of troops has long been made up.
During this period, Richard did not forget to learn magic and mastered the five-ring magic spell force field.
After learning this spell, Richard's defense ability has been greatly enhanced. According to the magic power in his body, after opening the magic force field, even a high-level magician would find it difficult to break Richard's defense force field.
In addition to learning magic, Harland Territory has also added hundreds of snake scale armors in recent times.
This is not just Richard's work. Many magic apprentices in the territory have completed the pre-processing of snake scales. Butler and Anne's enchantment has also been upgraded to the first level, and they can enchant snake scales.
Another necromancer, Heath, had been studying enchantment technology before. During his time in the Tower of Death, he was responsible for part of the enchantment tasks.
With the help of everyone, although enchanted armor was made in the spare time during the war, a year's task was completed in five months.
More than one hundred pieces of enchanted armor were distributed by Richard to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh squadrons.
With one hundred more pieces of enchanted armor, the new recruits also have war experience, and the wounded have all been demobilized. The strength of the Harland territory army has been strengthened a little more than half a year ago.
The orcs withdrew troops from the direction of Pratos, and they could only rob Peter to pay Paul.
As soon as the number of orcs in the direction of Pratos decreased, they were immediately discovered by Richard.
Richard was very decisive in his use of troops. He trusted his battlefield instincts very much. Regardless of whether there were traps or not, he immediately led his soldiers to a decisive battle with the orcs in the north of Pratos Castle.
Half a year ago, Richard could lead the soldiers of Harland Territory to defeat three large groups of orcs.
Half a year later, the army of Harland Territory could still do this in a positional battle.
Although the orc army had more professionals, better physical fitness, and greater strength.
However, there was a generation gap between the weapons and equipment of the orc army and the human elite soldiers. The long-range attack strength of human soldiers was far superior to that of the orcs. In addition, the soldiers of Harland Territory were equipped with a large number of alchemical bombs, and the accuracy of using catapults was also better than that of the orcs.
Even if it was a comparison of physical fitness, Harland Territory also had a large number of elite soldiers. The number of professionals in its army exceeded more than 200 people, which was barely comparable to the orcs.
Moreover, Richard also had Warcraft cavalry under his command, and the elite soldiers were equipped with enchanted crossbows, enchanted armor, and enchanted longswords.
Richard used the same trick again, bringing a catapult to launch an alchemical bomb, forcing the main force of the orcs to leave the camp and fight a positional battle with the soldiers of Harland Territory.
Although the orcs also had catapults, they did not know how to calculate the trajectory and were quite rigid in using them. This time, although they reacted, they also threw several kilograms of stones to fight against the army of Harland Territory.
However, the power of several kilograms of stone bombs was weak, far less than that of chain gold bombs.
After shooting for a while, the orc officers had to give up this bad strategy and had to leave the camp and gather to fight a positional battle with Richard.
The forces of both sides were very close, but their weapons and equipment were far different.
After entering the archers' range, the soldiers of Harland Territory stopped, drew their bows and arrows, and shot down a large number of orcs. The orcs could not shoot against the human soldiers, so they could only speed up their march and rush over to fight hand-to-hand combat with the human army.
In a short distance of 200 meters, more than a thousand orcs fell, and the crying was also very tragic.
After finally rushing over, the magicians of Harland Territory used powerful spells, such as Grease and Spider Web. Various spells restricted the speed of the orcs' movement, and then there was another round of strong bows and crossbows, and the orcs were killed and injured again.
Even if they barely rushed over, the soldiers of Harland Territory were wearing iron armor, enchanted armor, and a large amount of magical healing power, so they were not inferior in hand-to-hand combat.
The orcs had snake-bodied professional troops, and Richard also organized Warcraft cavalry.
The Warcraft cavalry specialized in fighting snake-bodied people, and the orcs were restrained everywhere, and soon more than half of them were killed or wounded.
Although the orcs had a stronger ability to withstand casualties, more than half of the casualties still broke the will of the orcs.
In terms of strength, the three battalions of the orc army were no match for the soldiers of Harland Territory.
A head-on battle has always relied on strength.
If the strength is not as good as others, the failure of the orcs is inevitable.
The positional battle lasted only an hour and a half, and the three groups of orcs had already collapsed one after another.
Seeing that the orcs had collapsed, Richard ordered the Warcraft Cavalry to chase them for several miles and drove them into the primeval forest before stopping the pursuit.
In fact, during the positional battle, only about a thousand orcs were killed, and most of them were shot to death by bows and arrows. The number of orcs killed and wounded in hand-to-hand combat was relatively small. When they collapsed, almost all the wounded soldiers had their heads cut off, and a large number of prisoners were captured.
Many of the orcs who barely escaped into the forest were injured and would face countless difficulties such as blood loss, hunger, and infection. Less than half of them could return safely.
After cleaning the battlefield and listening to the report of the staff, Richard learned that more than 3,000 orcs were beheaded, 1,400 orcs were captured, and only about 1,600 orcs escaped.
Although this battle lost its suddenness, the soldiers of the Harland territory only suffered 600 casualties and 226 deaths, and won a great victory.
After defeating the orc army in the north of Pratos Castle, Richard immediately attacked the orcs' transportation line along the Pratos Valley.
This battle was even more unexpected. The orcs were attacked during the march and were almost wiped out by the soldiers of Harland Territory without organizing an effective resistance.
After cleaning up the battlefield, an orc brigade was completely wiped out with less than 200 casualties. More importantly, 13,000 human captives were rescued from the fortress in the rear.
Including the 6,000 people rescued at the beginning of the war, the Harland Territory has not spent gold coins this year, and the population has increased by about 20,000.
Richard took the initiative to attack and seized the opportunity to fight two consecutive battles.
The results of these two battles were very brilliant. Three orc battalions were severely damaged and one orc battalion was annihilated.
The heads of the orc professionals were sent to the Noble Council, and the captives were handed over to the King's Capital Mage Association. In addition to the military merits rewarded for winning the battle, he actually made twelve great achievements at once.
This year, when the orcs invaded, Richard undoubtedly became a celebrity in the Kingdom of Grant. He launched four consecutive battles, won four battles and four victories, and cooperated with Viscount Romen to severely damage six orc battalions and annihilate three orc battalions.
Almost single-handedly, he changed the war situation in the Kingdom of Grant.
This year, a quarter of the losses of the orc army came from Richard, a quarter from the Northern Legion, and a quarter from the Duke of Jonathan. The remaining hundreds of thousands of troops only won the last quarter of the results.
After four victories, Richard has accumulated 26 great merits and can almost be awarded a viscount.
In the past ten years, in terms of military exploits, only a few heroes such as Zachli, Martins, Roger, and Jonathan ranked ahead of Richard.
This time, the orcs invaded, not only Richard made great contributions, but William also made great contributions.
Although the military exploits of the army led by William could not be attributed to him. But after several battles, William also accumulated three great exploits, plus some military exploits accumulated by Sofia.
The merits of the Harland family in this battle are enough to exchange for a viscount.
After making great contributions, Richard was afraid of becoming the target of the orcs' key attacks, so he immediately returned to Platos Castle and stayed away from the main battlefield.
When it was August, the orcs gradually returned to the northern part of the Eagle Mountains.
This battle was a tiger's head and a snake's tail for the orcs. Although they achieved considerable results before the war began, they suffered losses at the end.
In the six-month war, the orcs lost nearly 60,000 soldiers, captured 100,000 human slaves, and robbed some gold coins and supplies.
Since Richard was sixteen, he has experienced four orc invasion wars. In nine years, more than 300,000 people were abducted by orcs in the Kingdom of Grant.
The three central provinces and three duchies in the northern border of the Kingdom of Grant have a total population of more than 10 million, about 3 million households.
One in ten families in the northern border have relatives who were abducted by orcs. For nobles and poor people near the border, this probability is much higher, almost reaching half.