Chapter 362: Sutton Detachment

After the Goddess’ Birthday, the new class of students in Harland Territory will start school soon.

This year, the enrollment work in Harland Territory has been good, with more than 6,000 new students, a growth rate of 23% compared with last year.

Last winter, more than 2,400 people graduated from more than a dozen primary schools in the territory. These teenagers have entered society, and the average quality of citizens in the territory has improved a bit.

Nowadays, primary school graduates are no longer assigned jobs, and the government and the army will only recruit some outstanding members from them.

If you want to have a good future, it is best to graduate from high school. However, it is very difficult to get into high school. The admission rate of high school is less than 30 to 1. Last year, the four high schools only enrolled more than 90 students in total, and an average of one class was enrolled in one school.

After the Goddess’ Birthday, because the number of students enrolled was too small, Richard found his cousin Flora who was in charge of education to talk.

In the past ten years, Flora and Jennings have become important members of the Duke’s territory.

Jennings has repeatedly made military achievements, and his professional level has been continuously improved. He is already a heavyweight officer in the army. He now commands half a legion and is responsible for operations in one direction. Her power in the army is second only to Richard and Soros, and she is almost the third person in the Harland territory army, and her status is becoming more and more important.

Flora is in charge of education and is also a heavyweight official in the territory.

Flora's extraordinary talent is very ordinary. She has been practicing breathing for more than ten years and has only improved her physical fitness. However, her IQ is very high and her memory is particularly good. She has managed the education department in an orderly manner over the years and has made a great contribution to the development of the territory.

Richard found Flora and asked for her opinion on the issue of expanding the enrollment of middle schools.

"Although the literacy rate in the territory is improving rapidly, there are very few people who truly master advanced knowledge. In addition, the territory's scientific research institutes continue to extract excellent students from high school graduates, so the development of secondary education seems a bit slow.

In recent years, we have only trained more than 200 high school students in total, and less than one-tenth of them stay in school. If we expand the enrollment, the teaching staff is obviously insufficient, and it is difficult to guarantee the quality of education. Moreover, the enrollment work this year has been completed, and I don't think it is appropriate to change it.

The expansion of high school enrollment can be left to next year, but fourth brother, you promised me that some graduates with excellent knowledge should also be left for the education system."

After listening to Flora's request, Richard thought for a moment and finally nodded and said: "You can give you eight places for students with middle and upper rankings. The best 20 students will still be allowed to do scientific research."

Nowadays, high school graduates are in short supply in the job market. Harland Territory graduates less than 100 high school students every year. Scientific research institutes, industrial departments, military systems, and civil service systems are all vigorously recruiting high-quality talents.

Richard attaches the most importance to scientific research institutes. Every year they can select the best batch of students.

Then the military system and the civil service system selected another batch of students by relying on their superior position. The education system and the industrial sector can only select the students left by others.

This is not because Richard does not value the education system. Even the worst middle school students have IQs far exceeding their peers and are very outstanding talents in the territory.

Because the enrollment probability is very low now, those who can be admitted to middle schools are all high-IQ students. Such high-IQ students mainly rely on self-study to learn knowledge, and their requirements for teachers are much lower than those of ordinary students.

The courses studied in Harland Primary School are much more difficult than those in Richard's previous life.

In addition to not having to learn foreign languages, the mathematical knowledge that needs to be learned in five years of primary school already involves graphics, functions, solid geometry, algebraic equations, etc., which is roughly equivalent to the eighth grade level in Richard's previous life.

Chinese requires the ability to memorize tens of thousands of commonly used words, write various official documents proficiently, and master some classic classical literature.

In addition, there are history, geography, military science, music, art and other courses starting from the third grade. The academic burden is not easy and many knowledge points need to be mastered.

The average age of students entering school is also around ten years old, and the age of the aristocracy may be earlier.

Of course, the hereditary aristocracy basically has tutors, and the content taught is different from that of schools. In addition to ordinary knowledge, it also involves some management, psychology, economics, and the art of emperors. In addition, the aristocracy must master certain extraordinary knowledge, which is the experience accumulated by their ancestors.

The children of Richard's eleven hereditary vassals did not go to the public school of Harland Territory. They all invited tutors to complete their studies, including Richard's uncle Soros and third uncle Tony. On the contrary, Richard's own children all went to school and came into contact with children from ordinary families, and their thoughts were far more advanced than theirs.

The age of admission is relatively late, so students will of course be more sensible and generally very hardworking and studious.

In order to select outstanding talents, the annual graduation examination of Harland Territory is particularly difficult, with many knowledge points beyond the syllabus.

There are many types of these knowledge points beyond the syllabus, and primary school teachers generally do not master them. Those who can get high scores generally rely on talent and self-study.

Even high school graduates with poor grades have strong self-study ability and extraordinary quality. After all, the enrollment rate of middle school students in Harland Territory is very low, and the difficulty is comparable to that of getting into a 211 university in Southern Henan Province in the previous life.

After negotiating with Flora about the expansion of middle school enrollment, Richard began to be responsible for testing the magic qualifications of the new students. This year, there are more than 6,000 new students, and more than a dozen magicians have been busy for more than ten days to complete the magic qualification testing of the new students.

Among more than 6,100 freshmen, only 53 were found to have magical aptitude. None of these 53 people had top-notch talent, and even the number of people with medium talent was pitiful. Only four of them were on the Mage Association's focus list.

The 53 students with magical aptitude entered a special class. They had to learn basic knowledge for a year before they could get in touch with meditation. After graduating from elementary school, they were basically middle and high-level mage apprentices.

Some talented students could become formal mages in school and often graduated early.

After testing their aptitude, Richard ordered the Lion Cavalry and the Magic Hot Air Balloon Team to strengthen reconnaissance in the northern war zone, while working with Undine to speed up the manufacture of steel golems.

By March, the materials for making steel golems had been used up.

Twenty-three materials were used to make 18 steel golems, which were also sent to the front line of Hurricane Castle by Richard and Undine.

March is the early spring season. The temperature begins to warm up, the snow has melted, and the farmers are about to start spring ploughing. The land of the Duke of Harland is about to usher in a busy scene.

Entering March, the reconnaissance missions in Harland Territory became more and more frequent, and traces of orcs began to appear.

In recent years, the Holy Empire of Light and the Orc King's Court have fought a war. The power of the Orc Empire has been tied down in the central and western parts, and the eastern battlefield can only maintain the situation with the original troops.

Especially the battlefield of Grant Kingdom, which has gradually been unable to maintain the front line in recent years. In just over ten years, two commanders of the front army have been killed.

First, the legendary wild boar man underestimated the enemy and died in battle, and was beaten through the Eagle Mountain Front by the Grant Kingdom.

Then the legendary dragon vein dog head man was surrounded and annihilated by the Duke of Harland.

The orcs' front line retreated again and again, and had retreated from the southern foot of the Eagle Mountain Range to the northern part of the Eagle Mountain Range. If they continue to retreat, there will be no danger to defend, and the road will be flat.

Seeing the approaching orc army, Richard immediately gave Viscount Bolton an order to retreat.

Viscount Bolton's territory is the territory of the elves. This territory was established relatively recently, less than a year ago. In addition to a few elves, there are only some contract slaves responsible for construction work in the territory.

While the orc army has not yet approached, everyone retreated to the Twin Star Castle. With the Viscount Bolton's territory, there are also people stationed in the Demon Hunting City.

The total number of people in these two places has exceeded 3,000. There are many high-level professionals in both places, and the combat force is very capable.

On March 12, before the orc army appeared, the people in both places had retreated to the Twin Star Castle. At the same time, Richard's order had been delivered, appointing Martin as the commander of East Grota County.

Although Sutton has the highest professional level and the most noble title, he used to command small-scale elite mercenaries and had no experience in leading a large army.

Richard was not confident in his ability to command a large army, and of course he could not let him take on the heavy responsibility and serve as the commander of the army.

Although Wilde had experience in commanding a large army, he had few merits in the Harland Territory and it was difficult for him to command the arrogant and brave generals under Martin.

However, Richard transferred the two elite troops, the Special Squadron and the First Squadron, to Sutton, and formed the Sutton Detachment with the elves and demon hunters, stationed outside the Twin Star Castle and responsible for independent regional operations.

In order to facilitate logistics supply, Wendy handed the legendary space bag to her brother, and Richard also gathered the three small and medium-sized space bags in the Harland Territory and handed them over to the Sutton Detachment to extend the combat time of the Sutton Detachment.

There are four space bags with a total of 140 cubic meters of space. If all of them carry food supplies, it will be about 110 tons.

The number of people in the Sutton Detachment is not large, with less than 500 soldiers in total.

Among them, the Elf Squadron has the least number of people, including the half-elves of the Bolton family, with a total of only 29 members. The number of people in the Special Squadron is not large, with a total of 52 members. The first squadron was fully equipped and slightly overstaffed, with a total of 162 officers and soldiers. The Demon Hunter Squadron had the largest number of soldiers, with a total of 228 soldiers.

Despite the small number of people, the Sutton Detachment was very capable. The Elf Squadron was strong, needless to say, with many high-level professionals and very good at fighting. The members of the Special Squadron were also carefully selected from the entire army and were good at sneak attacks.

The first squadron was the backbone of the territory's infantry and was also an all-professional squadron.

The Demon Hunter Squadron was not a regular army, but they were good at surviving in the wild and had considerable combat effectiveness in the jungle.

In addition, the Demon Hunter Squadron was also an all-professional squadron. Even if they did not know how to form a battle array, they could fight guerrilla warfare and harassment warfare.

On March 16, several orc armies had appeared in the northern part of the Eagle Mountains.

First, in the direction of Grotta, eighteen orc main battalions were discovered through reconnaissance, with a total strength of less than two legions.

Six of the orc battalions approached the Twin Star Castle and broke out a frontier battle with Martin's army.

One orc brigade acted as a surprise force and attacked Vito Baron's territory, but was blocked outside the castle by the coalition forces of Morgan, Vito, Grumman and Vida.

Another orc brigade made another detour and attacked Morgan Baron's territory to the west of Vito Baron's territory, but was blocked by the coalition forces of Bernie, Jose and Wendy in the rear.

Eight orc brigades attacked the East Grotta area and fought a fierce battle with the six infantry brigades commanded by Martin.

The Sutton detachment also received a combat mission to attack the logistics line of the East Grotta orc army.

The situation in the West Grotta war zone was equally difficult. A complete orc legion canyon castle wanted to break through the defense line of the Soros unit.

The Sigrota War Zone commanded by Soros has five infantry battalions, including the 4th Battalion, the 10th Battalion, the 11th Battalion, the 17th Battalion, the Legion Guard Battalion, the Reconnaissance Cavalry Battalion, the 2nd Magic Beast Cavalry Battalion, the 3rd and 4th Magic Hot Air Balloon Squadrons, and the main force adds up to more than 10,000.

According to common sense, it is not difficult to stop an orc legion, but Soros's opponent is the elite orc legion, numbered as the 13th Legion, which has always been the trump card of the orc front army and used to fight mainly with Duke Jonathan.

This orc legion has many professionals, and there are many snake tribes in the recruitment area. The legion has strengthened the snake heavy infantry battalion and the half-orc archer battalion, which are very good at attacking.

Although the attack on the canyon castle suffered heavy casualties, with more than 300 snake people killed and injured, the orcs' crazy momentum has not diminished.

Now the camp outside the castle has been broken by the orcs, and the defenders have been forced to retreat to the canyon castle.

Without the camps on the hillsides on both sides to block them, some small orc armies began to cross the mountains and infiltrate behind the canyon castle.

The Normans behind the canyon castle were garrisoned by auxiliary soldiers in the King's Castle. The auxiliary soldiers had poor combat effectiveness and it was difficult for them to go out of the city to fight and deal with the infiltrated orc army.

As a last resort, Soros could only reduce the garrison of the canyon castle and use the reconnaissance cavalry to clear out the orc infiltration troops.

After the battle in the direction of Grotta, orcs in other areas also gradually began to appear. An orc corps number also appeared in the direction of Tani Canyon, but the combat effectiveness of this orc corps was average. Although the strength of the Jennings's garrison was not as good as Soros, they easily blocked the orc attack, and the battle was not fierce.

On the front of the Lothar Basin, a main orc corps was discovered through reconnaissance, numbered as the 17th Corps. This corps is the trump card of the Stanik Front Army. It also strengthened the two all-professional armies of the Snake-Body Heavy Infantry Battalion and the Silver Moon Wolf Cavalry Battalion, which are very brave and good at fighting.

This time, the 17th Legion was also mobilized to the Grant Front Army and used in the front of the Duke of Harland.

In the direction of the Snow Mountain Castle, six infantry battalions of orcs appeared. The noble coalition forces of Pratos and Black River Castle were guarding this direction. Richard appointed Baron Sharp as the commander.

The total number of noble coalition forces commanded by Sharp was 6,000. In order to strengthen the strength in this direction, Richard also transferred 24 infantry battalions to strengthen this front.