Chapter 294: Release the Passage.
The canyon castle has a large number of defenders, and with the help of solid fortifications, and the weapons in their hands are far more advanced than the orcs, such a castle cannot be conquered by a single orc brigade.
The orcs' understanding of Canyon Castle was still the same as it was three years ago. Without detailed investigation, they launched an attack rashly and fell into the trap of the defenders.
The orc forward group was easily surrounded and annihilated by the defenders of Canyon Castle, and fought a failed battle.
The garrison of Canyon Fort has sixteen squadrons of infantry, two squadrons of reconnaissance cavalry, a squadron of magic hot air balloons, and a squadron of military police, totaling nearly three thousand people.
The core is the third brigade of Harland Territory. Although this brigade is not as elite as the first and second brigades, it is also the first four brigades established in Harland Territory. There are many veterans who have been in the army for more than ten years.
The commander of the canyon castle garrison is Norman, the captain of the third battalion. This man is Soros's nephew and is considered to be somewhat talented.
Norman is in his forties and has served the Harland family for more than ten years. He is a fifth-level warrior and appears to be shrewd.
Thoros was transferred from the captaincy of the Warcraft Cavalry Brigade to the Grotta River County as the commander. Naturally, the following officers had to arrange people he was familiar with.
After receiving the military information from Canyon Fort, Soros immediately mobilized troops from Norman Fort and King's Fort.
However, there are three canyons in the northern part of Grotta River County that are passable. Now forts have been established. The only canyon castles and riverside castles with complete fortifications are the canyons.
Canyon Castle is the focus of Grotta River County's defense, with a total of 4,000 defenders including auxiliary troops.
Riverbank Castle is relatively close to Iron Lion Castle. There are only two squadrons of regular troops, plus 500 auxiliary troops, the total strength is less than 1,000 people.
Thoros is a cautious man. After receiving the news of the invasion of the orcs, he decisively abandoned the western passage of Grotta River County, placed his troops on the eastern and central passages, and ordered the villages west of the Norman and King's castles to clear the country. Order.
All twenty-three villages were abandoned, their wells were filled in, and 20,000 people were moved east of the two castles of Norman and Kingdom.
Although Grotta River County was merged into the Harland Territory, the focus of development of this territory is still in the east. Facing the invasion of the Orcs, it can only move closer to the Iron Lion Army.
Fort Norman is nearly 300 kilometers away from Fort William. The distance between the two sides is too far and it is difficult to cooperate closely. In an emergency, it is impossible to count on reinforcements from Fort William.
The Soros Ministry needs to rely on the power of the Iron Lion Legion to ensure its survival.
The western passage of Grotta River County did not form a complete defense line. If the defenders wanted to stop the orcs, they could only rely on simple camps.
Now it is an environment where the enemy is strong and we are weak. Soros only has 7,000 regular troops in his hands. It is impossible to abandon the strong city defenses and set up strongholds in the wild to intercept the orcs.
Moreover, Thoros also decided to open this passage for political reasons, allowing half of the legion of orcs to enter the Lach Province, and rely on the power of the Lach Province to completely annihilate this enemy.
If half of the orc army penetrates the Harland Territory, their first opponents will be the defenders of Eagle Castle and the Viscount Nelson Territory.
During the last orc invasion, Nelson Viscounty suffered heavy losses, with tens of thousands of people swallowed by the Haaland Territory. Today, the remnants of Viscount Nelson's family are still running this territory.
Soros knew in his heart that his nephew Richard had already set his sights on this territory, but due to the aristocratic order of the Grant Kingdom, he could not directly seize the territory.
But we can borrow the help of the orcs to swallow up the Nelson Viscounty.
King Grant, a great nobleman from the northern frontier, this kind of operation is almost instinctive. If the small nobles want to be safe, they can only pray that their fiefdoms are not favored by the big nobles or that they are far away from the border.
After the Harland family became prosperous, they only took over the two baronies of Stork and Dirham. Among them, the Stork family still relied on marriage.
Compared to other great nobles, they are already very civilized.
Nelson Viscounty is located in the southern part of Salt Lake County. This territory is surrounded by the Harland family on three sides. Once swallowed, the east and west counties of the Harland territory will be connected. Not only will the hinterland be expanded, but the defense line will also become more complete.
This is also the reason why Soros left a hole for the orcs.
When the orcs invaded, Thoros not only issued an order to strengthen the walls and clear the country, but also sent a letter of request for help to the Iron Lion Army.
Zachary, the commander of the Iron Lion Corps, is a veteran general, and his ability to command operations is several points better than Martins. Despite the ups and downs in northern Xinjiang, he is one of the few people who has an overall view.
Zachary knew in his heart that the northern defense line of Grotta Province would be complete only with the cooperation of Haaland Territory. Once the orcs break through the Harland Territory, they can cross the Grotta River and enter their hinterland.
In this current situation, Haaland leads the eastern region and he and he are both prosperous and devastated. So without thinking long, he sent twelve squadrons of reinforcements to the riverside castle.
Just when Thoros and Zachary were dispatching their troops, the orc army had already appeared nearby.
The orcs attacking this area belong to two front armies. Among them, the Eastern Front Army has three legions. Two legions are east of the Grotta Province to attack the Dukedom of Jonathan.
After Duke Jonathan succeeded Archduke Stanek, he did not give up the title of Grant Kingdom, because he took the main force westward and entrusted the Duke of Jonathan to his eldest son Macmillan.
Macmillan is a ninth-level epic knight with 20,000 regular troops under his command.
Facing the attack of the two orc legions, the army of Duke Jonathan fell into a disadvantage for the first time.
In the past hundred years or so, the Dukedom of Jonathan has yet to have its defenses breached by the orcs and enter the core of the territory.
The orc commanders knew that the Jonathan family was powerful and would often avoid an all-out war with the Jonathan family.
The two sides often confront each other outside the border, and even Duke Jonathan will take the initiative to lead troops to attack the orcs. The orcs often suffer heavy losses in every encounter.
Richard has experienced many orc invasions, and the Jonathan family has suffered minimal losses. In the situation in the northern border of the Grant Kingdom, Duke Jonathan has been relied on to break the balance and push back the orc army many times.
Now that Duke Jonathan led the main force into the Grand Duchy of Stanik, the two orc legions seemed to have entered an uninhabited land, conquering the border defense line of Duke Jonathan in one fell swoop and annihilating three vassals of the Jonathan family.
Even though the Jonathan family used a large number of alchemical bombs, the orc troops acting as the vanguard suffered heavy losses and still broke the balance, gaining the upper hand for the first time in a century.
The Orcs Eastern Front has three legions, two attacking the Dukedom of Jonathan and one attacking the Grotta Province.
Ten orc brigades rushed through the eastern part of the Eagle Mountains and appeared near the Twin Stars Castle and Iron Lion Castle. The main force of the orcs appeared, and Zachary's pressure began to increase.
The Iron Lion Army led by Zackery is, after all, the newly expanded main force. The weapons and equipment are relatively ordinary, with a small number of alchemy bombs and explosive arrows, and only 200 Warcraft horses. The quality of the soldiers is also a bit different from that of the Northern Army. The most troublesome thing is that in order to expand the army, eight thousand new soldiers have been recruited.
Although the number of people increased, they did not have the strength to fight with the orc army in the field, so they could only defend the city. They relied on the castle camp to block the attack of an orc army. The orcs that appear in the north of Canyon Castle are the middle army.
The center army is the core of the orc army, and its commander is the legendary kobold Killam.
Kilam is an orc veteran who has been active in the northern part of the Grant Kingdom for sixty years. This time Kilam personally led the main force of the central army and wanted to destroy the Harland Territory.
The Canyon Castle Orcs are a partial division of the middle route army. There are five groups of Orcs, plus the auxiliary troops transporting food from the rear, totaling about 15,000 people.
The orc deputy commander Gatlin had a gloomy face. Hearing the information about the defeat of the forward brigade, he saw the brigade captain Tanamo constantly defending himself and shirking responsibility.
Gatlin is a lion-man and is considered the core of the orc race, while Tanamo is just a fifth-level kobold. Normally, his status is not comparable to Gatlin.
However, Kilam, the commander of the orc center army, was also a kobold. In order to take care of the commander's face, Gatlin showed some concern for Tanamo.
It was precisely because of Gatlin's care that the kobold captain stood out from his colleagues and became the vanguard of the army.
As a result, the kobolds, the vanguard, underestimated the enemy and fell into the trap set by the canyon castle defenders. The vanguard group suffered heavy losses, with only three to four hundred people returning.
Although he didn't want to offend the commander, in order to enforce strict military discipline, Gatlin was still ruthless and decided to use Tanamo's head to scare the others.
"Your army was surrounded and annihilated. Why didn't you die? Send the order and execute this shameful deserter." Gatlin gave the order and executed the
kobold captain. He looked around and saw many orc officers trembling in fear. .
"Plani, tell me about the investigation."
Gatlin turned his head and aimed his eyes at the harpy squadron leader.
"Deputy Legion Commander, through aerial reconnaissance, humans have stationed about 4,000 soldiers in the castle in front of us, 3,000 of which are better equipped and should be elite soldiers in the Harland territory. The castles along the Grotta River in the east are
stationed There are 3,000 people, and there are about 2,000 elite soldiers.
In addition, there are garrisons in the King's Castle and the Norman Castle behind the humans, with a total of about 6,000 people, and the number of elite soldiers exceeds 4,000.
Because there are garrisons in Canyon Castle Magic flying props, our aerial scouts can't get too close."
After hearing the intelligence summary from the harpy squadron leader Plani, Gatlin frowned and said: "Since when did the human frontline castle have magic? Flying props?"
"It should be a new item invented in the past two years. When we were investigating in the Dukedom of Jonathan three years ago, there was no such fire-breathing magical creation. We received a summons from the headquarters a few days ago, ha. This kind of flying magic prop has appeared in the four central provinces of Randland and the Grant royal family. Our losses are not light." "Human
creativity is far beyond ours! More than
a thousand years ago, mankind relied on magic to revive Movement, defeated us in one fell swoop, suppressed the elves, and occupied the core land of the Central Continent. Seven hundred years ago, humans created the warrior breathing method, allowing ordinary people to break through the shackles of blood, and their heritage increased dramatically. In recent hundreds of years, humans have
also The construction of Warcraft Cavalry began, and now even aerial magic items have appeared. Do we orcs only have the fate of being suppressed? "
After hearing the Harpy's information, Gatlin suddenly became pessimistic. However, he is the deputy commander of the orcs and is in charge of the army. He must not let his pessimism affect the lower-level officers and soldiers.
"Human soldiers are stationed in four castles, with a total of more than 13,000 people. Their numbers are not much different from ours, and their strength is also relatively close. Humans have strong castles, but we cannot attack by force." Gatlin listened to a werewolf below
. The captain spoke and nodded immediately.
There are a total of 10,000 people under Gatlin's command, of which more than 1,600 are lost to the kobold captain Plani. The power in his hands now is not much different from the strength of the army led by Thoros. As for the more than 5,000 auxiliary soldiers behind, a considerable part of them are goats. The goats soldiers are of no use in the field.
In the situation in this direction, the human soldiers had city defenses and actually had the upper hand.
"It seems that we have no chance to break through the human defense line."
The harpy squadron leader retorted: "Not necessarily, humans do not station troops in the Tani Canyon. We can penetrate the Harland Territory along the Tani Canyon and attack Flying Eagle Castle. Or march eastward and enter the Viscounty of Nelson."
"Why doesn't Count Harland build a castle in the Tanney Canyon and establish a defense line?"
Gatlin sighed: "The first possibility is that there are not that many people, and the second possibility is They want to use our help to annex the Viscounty of Nelson. The great nobles of mankind have made such moves many times. If it were not for the disunity of mankind and the power of the Holy Halo Empire, they could defeat us. Everyone is in Savalan
, We have all met the magicians from Markholm Kingdom, and these magicians have been supporting us all these years."
Staring at the map, Gatlin thought for a long time, and finally decided to pass through the defense line of Haaland territory from Tani Canyon and go around to Harland attacked the enemy in the belly of the territory. This was also the order given to him by Killam.
Although Gatlin knew in his heart that this operation was full of risks.
Although there are no redundant soldiers in the Harland Territory, the Lach Province is the focus of the Grant Kingdom's garrison. It has one main army and two second-line armies, with a strength of more than 50,000.
Gatlin's move deep behind enemy lines was actually a military adventure.
Once the Lach Province cooperates closely with the army led by Haaland, Gatlin's Ministry will immediately fall into a heavy siege.
Three days after the battle between the eastern defenders of the Harland Territory and the orcs, three and a half legions of the main orc army appeared in the northern area of the Harland Territory with overwhelming force.
In front of Salt Lake County, a regiment of 20,000 orcs appeared, and there were also more than 10,000 auxiliary troops escorting grain and grass to guard the retreat.
A legion and a half of orcs appeared in the north of the military station, totaling 45,000 troops including auxiliary troops.
In the west of the swamp basin, the orcs marched along the Burnie River. Because the roads along the way were difficult, there were about three brigades of 6,000 orcs.
In addition, from the direction of Platos, seven brigades of orcs pressed forward together.
Four armies launched their forces at the same time, with a total of more than 100,000 orcs, putting a heavy pressure on the Harland territory.
(End of chapter)