Chapter 113

"Now we just need to wait for the opportunity. Once the time passes, the orcs will naturally withdraw their troops, and we will take back the land we lost without bloodshed."

"And..." Orson said, turning his eyes to the direction of the empire's border on the map.

"New land."

Chapter 8: The Troubles of Happiness (7.1K)

Time came at night, and the orcs of the Bloodfire Clan Legion began to evacuate in batches. In order to stabilize the morale of the army, Sven, the chief of the Bloodfire Clan, did not let his clan evacuate first, but arranged it in the middle.

In fact, the design of this location is very particular.

The troops of your own clan are in the middle of the retreating team. On the one hand, the troops who evacuated early can find out the situation of the road ahead for themselves and avoid being ambushed. On the other hand,

You can also let the troops who evacuate late to block the enemy's pursuit for you.

In short, all the benefits were taken by the Bloodfire Clan.

Although other clans knew the benefits of such an arrangement, they dared not speak out.

Even before, when the supplies were distributed, the Blood and Fire Clan received the most supplies.

The reason is very simple, it is because the Bloodfire Clan is the strongest among the legions.

On the other side, Vergil gathered a group of mercenaries behind the orcs, numbering about five thousand.

Because they were unfamiliar with the terrain here, the orcs ignored Vergil's army when searching.

After Virgil obtained these troops, he contacted Orson immediately. Later, after discussing with Orson, he decided to act according to the situation.

The bad weather these days gave Virgil his opportunity.

Then, he contacted Orson through a magic carrier pigeon, and finally formulated an ambush plan.

Although a large area of ​​the mountain forest here was burned by the orcs, there were still several independent mountains and forests behind the orc military camp that were spared from the fire.

The reason is that the orcs who set the fire were negligent, and there was indeed no time when human mercenaries ambush orcs here, so the orcs relaxed their vigilance here, thinking that humans would not appear from these mountains and forests.

Ever since, this mountain forest provided cover for Virgil's mercenary army in peacetime.

When Sven withdrew his army, he happened to pass through this mountain forest.

He glanced at the nearby terrain and asked the military attaché beside him.

"Didn't this forest burn down when we came?"

"Uh...yes." The military attache nodded. "Because we had already advanced to the front here, and there was no trace of human troops nearby, we did not burn this mountain forest, otherwise there might be a mudslide here."

"Okay." Sven nodded when he heard this, and then suddenly laughed.

"General, why are you laughing?"

"Hahaha, look at the terrain here." Sven said, pointing to the mountains and forests on both sides.

"It is high at both ends and low in the middle. We are passing through the valley. If there happens to be an army ambushing here at this time, what will happen to us?"

Then, he laughed again.

When the military attache heard this, he looked at the woods on both sides in surprise.

If the enemy really ambush an army here, our losses will indeed be quite large.

Fortunately, at the beginning of the advance, our side had already wiped out the enemy.

Just as the military attaché was thinking this, gongs and drums suddenly sounded loudly in the woods on both sides, and then countless bows, arrows and crossbows were shot out from both sides.

The orc army in the middle instantly panicked.

No one expected that in the hinterland where they thought they were safe, there would be an enemy ambush.

Moreover, Swain never expected that the enemy would not attack the retreating troops in front, but would choose to besiege his own army.

He didn't understand, but Virgil was fighting Sweyn's army.

After several rounds of volleys, the orc army began to flee in all directions. No matter how much Sven yelled, he could not stop the fleeing army.

Their spirits were already as tense as a fully drawn bowstring. When they finally relaxed, they were suddenly ambushed by the enemy. Before the bowstring could recover, the bowstring was fully drawn again. As a result, the bowstring broke. .

And even if the warriors from the Sven tribe behave like this, it is obvious that the performance of other tribes is even more outrageous.

What was originally a normal path was now crowded with people. The people behind were squeezing forward in order to escape, while the people in front were also desperately trying to escape.

Swain killed several of his men in succession, and then a group of surrounding troops barely regained their organization and began to obey Swain's orders.

Sven glanced at the soldiers around him, then at the scale of the arrows shot in the forest, and finally gritted his teeth and ordered the soldiers to evacuate with him.

After this round of ambushes, a total of more than 5,000 of Swain's men were ambushed, and more than a thousand corpses were left behind. More importantly, after the rout, the number of soldiers Swain was able to gather was no more than one. A thousand.

On the other side, Virgil was leading the soldiers to clean up the battlefield.

Pinch off the head and tail and hit the middle. Virgil had already planned this idea from the beginning of his ambush. Compared with attacking the enemy's leading or rear troops, he often attacks the enemy's middle troops, which will have a greater effect.

Virgil did this and actually achieved the effect he wanted.

Although the number of enemies annihilated was not very large, after the enemy was defeated, the morale of the army was also weakened. It would take a lot of energy to gather and rebuild morale.

This is what Orson proposed, attacking the heart is the best.

Five days later, the orcs' army gathered together again. Compared with the high spirits when they marched, the orcs who returned were more or less dusty and looked like a defeated army.

After the Bloodfire Clan was attacked, other legions except Baru's main legion were also attacked to varying degrees, and suffered casualties ranging from 2,000 to 5,000. This casualty ratio can be said to be quite tragic.

After gathering together, everyone held a meeting in the central army tent.

"We really didn't expect this heavy rain..." Baru said this and lowered his head. "As a battlefield commander, I didn't know the climate here in advance this time, and I really didn't do my job well. I should bear the blame for the failure."

"Humph." On the other side, Sven of the Bloodfire Clan didn't give Baru any face. He had already communicated with other chiefs. Everyone's troops had more or less suffered some losses, but Baru's troops, except for the loss of more than a dozen people due to diseases caused by heavy rain, had no war losses at all.

"How can you blame Chief Baru? Your troops have perfectly carried out the "evacuation" mission, without any losses."

"..." Baru looked at Sven with a calm face, and then he said: "Sorry, I will add soldiers to your legion for your losses."

"Heh, Chief Baru, are you pitying us?" Tucker, another chief of the Graybone Clan, said with an unhappy look.

In this battle, apart from Sven, Tucker of the Graybone Clan suffered the most losses.

"Then I don't know how to satisfy you." Baru said this, frowning.

"Shouldn't the question be asked to you? Baru!" Tucker slapped the table, stood up, and pointed directly at Baru.

"You said you had information about a human insider, and we believed you. Think about it, our ancestors never attacked humans at this time, but you held an orc meeting in advance and asked us to attack at this time, which resulted in us losing tens of thousands of compatriots here in vain!"

Yes, the reason why this war broke out was because Baru said at the meeting of the united orc tribe that he had a human insider, and the specifications of the insider behind the insider seemed to be quite high. That's why a group of orc chiefs pinned their hopes for the future of the tribe on this attack.

Baru is now simply speechless.

He didn't know that the climate here was so strange in this season, and the heavy rain was so exaggerated that it could directly collapse the mountains and forests.

Moreover, before this, according to the intelligence of the human insider, the orcs' attack had always been very smooth, and everyone praised Baru's ability.

As a result, now, just because of a failure, these chiefs are unhappy with me one by one and want to pull me down from the position of chief.

Baru certainly knew what these people were thinking. They just wanted to gain the most benefits for their tribe in this war and to make enough capital for the next attack in twenty years. However, for the sake of the overall situation, he did not say it out loud.

"Then, you guys tell me, in that situation, do we have any other options besides retreating?"

Baru said this, looking at Tucker with burning eyes.

"Or do you think that our previous strategy of burning mountains and destroying forests and taking advantage of the internal discord of the human race to make a breakthrough was wrong?"

"Things like climate are determined by God. We have no way to do anything. Who could have predicted such a result?"

Tucker was speechless now. He could only sit down angrily.

"Then, Chief Baru, tell me, what should we do now? Our food reserves are only three or four days. Now it seems that we can only retreat, right?" Sven asked on the side.

"But if we retreat like this, the results we have now will not be enough for us to use for a long time. If we want to fight back, the human race should be ready by then, and it will not be as easy as before."

"By the way." At this time, on the other side, the chief of the Helmet Clan, Oni, raised his hand.

"I want to know, who is the commander of the opposite side in this battle? He has such courage and boldness, and relies on the time to plan so carefully. He is a very terrifying opponent."

"Isn't it Lucius who killed my father eighteen years ago?" Sven asked doubtfully.

"No, Lucius has been away from the front line for a long time because of the assassination." Tucker shook his head.

"It's Orson." Baru said.

"Orson?" Oni looked at Baru with a puzzled look. "Who is this Orson? When we were preparing before, we didn't hear that humans had such a general."

"He is the son of Lucius." As Baru said this, everyone present suddenly realized it.

In the war more than a decade ago, some of these people were still young and had not been to the battlefield. However, the chieftains who had been to the battlefield at that time were all familiar with the name of Lucius.

Although the orcs plundered a lot of spoils in that war and returned to the desert, the price they paid was also huge.

And the person who made them pay a huge price was Lucius.

Before this attack, the orcs were waiting for news from the inside. After learning that Lucius was assassinated and could not go to the battlefield, the morale of the orcs was greatly boosted.

Unexpectedly, Lucius could not go up, but his son gave him a blow.

At this time, a scout suddenly ran in from outside the military tent.

"Chief, something bad has happened!"

"What happened?" Baru had received nothing but bad news these days. After hearing the scout's report, he had a bad feeling in his heart.

"The spies in front reported that the towns we occupied on the way back have now been flagged by humans for some reason!"

Upon hearing this news, all the orcs present were surprised, and then they all looked at Baru.

"Chief Baru, what's going on?"

Baru looked at the eyes everyone was looking at him, and suddenly he panicked.

Think about it carefully, why can humans suddenly send an extra force to harass themselves behind them?

Are they mercenaries? Impossible, the number of mercenaries fighting with the orcs these days has been counted.

There are only more than 5,000 people in total. I have arranged 10,000 orcs in the rear to defend these cities. Even if they really can't win, they are more than enough to defend the city.

Thinking about it this way, there is only one possibility.

That is, the human army that was originally independent of Orson's command in the intelligence gave up their own garrisons and took the initiative to outflank.

But according to the intelligence given to me by the insider, the human allies have already discussed internally, no one will send troops, just stick to their own positions. Could it be that I have been deceived?

As soon as this idea appeared in Baru's mind, his heart was like falling into an ice cave.

Could it be that this attack was just a strategy from beginning to end, a strategy to lure the main force of the orcs out of the desert and then annihilate them all?

Thinking of this, Baru's back was suddenly covered with cold sweat, and his body trembled slightly because of surprise and anger. He felt a pair of eyes examining him with the look of examining prey.

He had cooperated with the human insiders for twenty years. From the last orc invasion until now, they had been in contact more or less. Why did they betray him this time?

At this time, the voices of others pulled Baru back from suspicion.

"Chief Baru, you have to give us an explanation!" Sven said so with a hint of anger in his tone. "Didn't you say that the other human armies would stay put?"

The orcs arranged a number of troops to contain other humans on the periphery. Although there were also 100,000 troops, most of these 100,000 were ordinary orcs who were put together from here and there. They usually did not have the obligation to fight in the tribe. This time, they were dragged to the battlefield just to fill the facade and to delay other human armies as a trick.

As a result, his own plan seemed to have been discovered, and even the retreat was cut off.

"..." Baru was silent for a moment, and then asked: "Everyone, how much food and grass do we have left in our army now?"

"There are less than three days left. In our original plan, we can directly resupply when we return to the rear city, but now the city is gone, we must retreat to the rear and join the outer troops to get supplies." A chieftain said.

"Then, let's just capture the city." Baru said this and looked at everyone.

"Think about it, the enemy has just captured our city, and the losses themselves must be quite a lot. In addition, with the containment of our outer troops, even if they split their troops out, the number is definitely not large. At this time, we take advantage of the enemy's instability and the small number of troops. It is the best way to capture the city."

"Otherwise, if we take the risk of bypassing the city and the enemy comes out of the city to harass us, it will take at least four or five days for us to join the outer troops. By that time, our supplies will have been eaten up."

"You're right, so whose troops should be sent to attack?"

At this time, Tucker asked.

As soon as Tucker asked this question, the atmosphere on the field instantly cooled down.

Everyone present remained silent.