Chapter 364 Opening up the Situation

Now the defense line of Harland Territory is 500 kilometers wide. It takes half a month to transfer troops from the direction of Platos-Snow Mountain Castle in the west to East Grota County.

There are four battlefields on the 500-kilometer-wide defense line, and brutal reconnaissance battles are carried out in other areas every day.

The defense line is intertwined, and the main forces are restrained by each other, like a huge chain that locks the mobility of Harland's army. Every line of defense cannot be relaxed. Once the orcs break in, they will burn, kill, and loot in the territory, causing a large loss of population. Even if the orcs are defeated, it will be meaningless to Harland Territory.

Because the orcs have an advantage in manpower and can fight in separate forces, from a strategic perspective, the situation in Harland Territory has always been very bad. Troops must be divided on each front, and the main force cannot be assembled at all.

The Sutton Detachment fought twice in a row. Although the scale was not large, it was constantly changing the strategic situation and untying this chain.

"Order the soldiers to clean up the battlefield faster. We just annihilated the orc brigade, and the nearby enemy troops have not noticed it yet. Please keep up the good work and immediately reinforce Baron Morgan's territory to eliminate all the orcs."

After the Sutton detachment was established, Richard gave it the power to make arbitrary decisions on the spot.

In this war, Sutton had enough authority to command the vassal coalition, auxiliary troops, security troops and other second-line legions.

Besides, Grumman and Vida were also experienced people, and they immediately understood Sutton's strategy.

Sutton obviously wanted to take advantage of the enemy's division of troops to annihilate the orcs' surprise troops, and then assemble the noble coalition to cut off the orcs' food supply.

This strategy is upright from the perspective of military strategy. It is said that small victories accumulate to become a big victory. Once the orcs of the East Grota tribe are annihilated, the West Grota orcs will be attacked from both sides, and the situation of the orcs will become very dangerous.

Sutton left a small number of soldiers to guard Fort To, and rushed to Fort Morgan with two thousand officers and soldiers.

The garrison of Fort Morgan is led by three barons, Bernie, Jose, and Wendy.

The Baron of Wendy is managed by Richard, and it has developed very well. It has trained 500 soldiers, but this army has been established for a short time. Richard has drawn a group of backbones from the regular army, and its combat effectiveness is only slightly stronger than that of the city defense army.

The Jose family is an old noble family in the province of Gabriela, and has been passed down for hundreds of years. Although it has gone through three generations, this family is very united.

In just a hundred years, the Jose family has branched out, and five members of the family have been promoted to hereditary barons. Although they are not great nobles, they are the strongest viscount families.

After Jose was promoted to hereditary baron, he received support from various branches. He has a private army of 600 barons under his command, which is stronger than the Baron of Wendy.

Baron Bernie's territory is the weakest, with only 400 noble coalition troops now. The three legions together have a total of 1,500 soldiers, but their commanders are far less good at fighting than Grumman, Vida and others.

After all, Bernie and Wendy are not in the territory, and this noble coalition lacks high-quality middle-level commanders.

After the defeat of the orcs in Baron Vito's territory, some of the defeated soldiers fled to Baron Morgan's territory and were soon discovered by the orc scouts outside the castle. Through the story of the defeated soldiers, the orc captain soon realized that the situation was very bad.

Now his brigade is under the strong city, and there are elite human soldiers next to them. After realizing that the situation was not good, the orc captain immediately set up a false formation and planned to retreat.

The orc captain reacted quickly and issued a retreat order before the Sutton detachment arrived. Although Baron Jose in the castle noticed everything, he felt that he could not fight the orcs in the field and had no intention of pursuing them.

The orcs had just withdrawn and were discovered by the wyvern knight halfway.

Because the magic balloon team in the Grotta direction suffered heavy losses, Richard directly transferred the wyvern soldiers to the Grotta battlefield.

Although Harland's wyvern soldiers were few, their combat effectiveness was far superior to that of the harpy.

The wyvern itself was a high-level magic beast, while ordinary harpy was only level three. The speed and distance of the wyvern's flight were far superior to that of the harpy. If they met in the air, they would immediately be crushed.

The four wyvern soldiers were transferred over and immediately took the initiative in scouting the battlefield. The wyvern knights found the news of the orcs' retreat and immediately passed it to the Sutton detachment, and directly informed the orcs' marching route.

Now in the direction of Grotta, the orcs' intelligence was almost unilaterally transparent to the Harland territory. The Sutton detachment seemed to have turned on the map, and directly cut off the retreating orc brigade by bypassing the mountain road.

The combat effectiveness of the orc brigade was far inferior to that of the Sutton detachment, not to mention that there were two thousand noble coalition forces to help.

Instantly, the shouts of killing shocked the valley. Commanders such as Grumman, Vida, Morgan, and Vito were like tigers descending from the mountains. The orcs could not resist for too long and were annihilated by the coalition forces.

In less than ten days, the Sutton Detachment was active behind the enemy lines, winning three battles and three victories, with less than seventy casualties, and annihilating two main battalions of the orcs and one auxiliary battalion, with a total force of more than six thousand.

Of course, the noble coalition also participated in the battle, with a total casualties of about five hundred people. Richard did not need to provide pensions for the casualties of the noble coalition, but only needed to issue some merits, but this merit was far from the Sutton Detachment.

After annihilating the orcs' surprise troops, Sutton ordered the soldiers to clean up the battlefield while ordering Baron Jose to join the troops.

By the afternoon, Baron Jose had already brought his troops over. After Sutton joined the three troops, the total force had reached more than 3,400 people.

He led this large army straight to the orcs' grain storage point.

The north of the Eagle Mountains is the famous northern prairie. This prairie is very vast, with a depth of more than 1,200 kilometers from north to south and a width of 2,400 kilometers from east to west.

From the east coast plateau, along the Dukedom of Harland, the Dukedom of Edward, the Dukedom of Fox, the Grand Duchy of Stannik, the Kingdom of Ryan, the Principality of Larson, and the Principality of Kromia, the total area of ​​this prairie exceeds 3 million square kilometers, which is larger than the two northern powers of the Kingdom of Grant and the Kingdom of Ryan combined.

The Orc Empire established a governor's district on this vast prairie to unify the command of the operations in this area.

The orcs of the Kingdom of Grant are divided into the Eastern Front of the Prairie Governor's District, which generally has twelve to eighteen legions under its jurisdiction.

In recent years, the orcs have suffered a series of defeats in the Kingdom of Grant and have lost several legions one after another.

Now the Eastern Front of the Prairie Governor's District has a total of fourteen legions. Except for two legions acting as reserves to protect the logistics line, the remaining twelve legions have all participated in the war.

In such a vast area, the two orc legions cannot guarantee the logistics line at all. Therefore, a large number of food storage points can only be left for the orcs' auxiliary soldiers to garrison. Once the Eagle Mountains are conquered, the orcs' food supply becomes extremely weak.

Sutton led his soldiers to the north of the Eagle Mountains and easily captured two food stations, cutting off the supply line of the East Grota orcs.

In the process, Sutton also rescued 6,000 human slaves. Because they could not be brought back to the rear, they could only be given some of the orcs' weapons and equipment and settled in the food stations.

After Sutton cut off the food supply of the East Grota orcs, the East Grota orc army immediately fell into panic.

This orc army was blocked by Martin in the Twin Star Castle and could not break through the East Grota County defense line at all. Now the rear road is cut off again, and the food and grass can only last for more than ten days at most. Even if they rely on auxiliary soldiers, they can only barely support twenty days.

If they want to ask for help from the headquarters, the air channel is cut off by the two-legged dragon soldiers. Relying on ground messengers to ask for help from the rear is not enough. It will take at least a month for the letter to be delivered and the reinforcements to arrive.

In desperation, the orc army leader Rumi La could only choose to withdraw and go back to open up the transportation line.

The orcs wanted to withdraw, and Martin certainly would not let them do so.

There were wyverns and magic hot air balloons in the sky, and the camps of both sides were intertwined. As soon as the orcs took action, the Twin Star Castle immediately sent soldiers to attack. In order to avoid the army's collapse, the orcs could only turn back and fight.

At this time, Martin was not in a hurry to fight a decisive battle with the orcs.

The orcs were unwilling to bear heavy casualties and could not retreat every time. After several battles, the orcs' withdrawal was very unsuccessful, and they lost two thousand soldiers.

This delayed for four or five days. Seeing that the situation was getting more and more dangerous, the orc army leader left two battalions behind and retreated decisively with three battalions.

Although they successfully withdrew this time, the two battalions behind were completely wiped out by Martin's army.

After Martin wiped out the rear troops, he led the army to chase all the way.

Along the way, the orc army not only had to face the attacks of infantry, but also had to be thrown alchemical bombs in the air by the wyvern knights and the magic balloon team.

At this point in the war, the harpies in the East Grota direction are already at a comprehensive disadvantage. The brutal air battles have been fought for more than ten days, and the air force of the orcs in the East Grota direction has been exhausted.

Now there are only more than 30 harpies left under Rumi's command, and they can only survive. Once they take off, they will be targeted and killed by the wyverns and magic balloon teams.

The orcs have to defend against air raids at any time, and the speed of marching has been affected, and they cannot get too far away from Martin's troops.

In this way, Martin's vanguard fought several small-scale battles with the orcs and annihilated half a large group of orcs again.

The distance between Martin and the main force of the orcs is no more than 30 kilometers, and the rear guard only bought Rumi's army commander half a day.

Rumi La retreated all the way, and the retreat has turned into a rout. Now there are only two and a half of the six battalions left, and the casualties have exceeded 7,000.

The losses of Martin's army added up to less than 1,300, and only more than 400 soldiers were killed, and the combat effectiveness remained undiminished.

Rumi La led the remnants of the defeated army and wanted to attack the grain storage point guarded by the Sutton Detachment. Not only can they obtain supplies by taking down the grain storage point, but they can also defend it for a period of time and wait for reinforcements.

Unfortunately, the morale of the orcs was low. They were attacked from the flank by the Sutton Detachment just after organizing the offensive. The continuous attacks caused the orcs to collapse mentally, and a large number of deserters began to appear.

Rumi La finally led the guards to repel the Sutton Detachment and stabilize the team. Just as he was about to bypass the grain storage point, he was blocked by the garrison of the grain storage point.

The orcs mustered up their last remaining courage and broke through the defense line of the noble coalition commanded by Grumman and others. The first battalion of the Martin's vanguard had already arrived at the front line.

The First Battalion is the most powerful battalion among the infantry of the Harland Territory. This battalion has a strong fighting will and outstanding physical fitness. They wore heavy armor and marched for 18 hours continuously. They also fought several battles with the orcs' rear guard troops on the way. They walked 140 kilometers of mountain roads and directly engaged in the battle, which directly laid the foundation for the victory of this battle.

Under the attack of the two strong troops of the Sutton Detachment and the First Battalion, the orc army was completely annihilated, and the eight orc battalions on the East Grota front were surrounded and annihilated by Martin and Sutton.

In this battle, the East Grota Department of the Harland Territory successively annihilated eight orc main battalions and two half-orc auxiliary battalions, and completely annihilated 21,000 orc troops.

The total casualties were only 2,600, including 400 city defense troops, 800 noble coalition troops, and 1,400 casualties in the main army. Among them, the Sutton detachment suffered more than 100 casualties, and the first battalion suffered more than 300 casualties, nearly 80 of which were due to physical exhaustion during the march.

The victory in the East Grota direction means that part of the main force of Harland has been freed up to untie the chains.

Because the soldiers were very tired, Martin and Sutton ordered the soldiers to rest for three days, and after recovering their physical strength, they continued to move to the northwest area to prepare to cut off the logistics line of the Orc Thirteenth Legion.

Just as Martin and Sutton won the victory, the situation in the west of Harland Territory became more and more dangerous.

The 18 orc battalions crossed the Kaia River several times to attack the rear of Gascoigne Province, and a brutal battle broke out with the noble coalition of Gascoigne Province.

Five brigades of orcs attacked together on the south bank of the Kaia River, frequently pulling and mobilizing the noble coalition forces, taking advantage of the poor command of the noble coalition forces, and annihilated the 6,000 noble coalition forces of the Gascoigne Province. In the process, they also captured five baron castles, and Richard's neighbor, the Baron of Paul, was not spared.

After conquering the Baron of Paul, the orc army marched north and entered the southwestern area of ​​the Duke of Harland, but was blocked by the defenders of the Iron Lion Castle.

There were 4,000 noble coalition forces from the Roman County and Brena County, 700 students from the Knight Academy of the Kingdom of Grant, more than 2,000 city defense troops, security troops, and auxiliary soldiers operating catapults in the Iron Lion Castle, with a total of 7,000 defensive troops.

The orc army tried to attack several times, but failed to capture the Iron Lion Castle. Instead, it continued to penetrate the Duke of Harland and plundered the southern foothills of the Eagle Mountains.

Although the territory had implemented the strategy of clearing the countryside in advance, the losses were still tragic. In just a few days, the population of this area lost 13,000 people, tens of thousands of houses were burned down, and the economic losses were probably more than one million gold coins.

Because the orcs had penetrated the two lines of defense of the Count of Martins and the Province of Gascoigne, the west side of the Duke of Harland was exposed to the orcs. Richard immediately wrote an emergency letter and asked for help from the Northern Army.

The situation has gradually become clear at this point in the war. The commander of the Northern Army, Rab, has already made a decision to bring the main force of the army to reinforce the Flame Castle and put the orcs besieging the Flame Castle into the encirclement.

After receiving Richard's letter for help, he did not send soldiers to reinforce.

The reinforcements of the Northern Army did not arrive, and the Harland territory continued to lose blood. Richard weighed the pros and cons for a long time and decided to launch a decisive battle in Hurricane Castle when the conditions were not fully mature.

Richard originally planned to consume the orcs for a while, wait for the orc army to be exhausted, and then launch a decisive battle.

But now the rear is in urgent need of reinforcements, and reinforcements must be sent in a short time.

If troops are withdrawn from the front line, the strength of the front line will be diluted, and the war will continue to drag on. It is better to launch a decisive battle continuously, defeat the orc army, and then free up hands to naturally transfer troops to the south to stabilize the front line.