Chapter 315 Southward
Chapter 315 – Going South
Shortly after the Goddess Birthday Festival, Duke Guise rallied his soldiers and prepared to head south to Duke Isaac’s territory to plunder again.
Duke Isaac and Duke Guise were in two separate countries and had always had a grudge.
The Isaac family was originally Duke Guise’s bannermen, and betrayed their monarch two hundred years ago, if not for the Grant Kingdom dividing the border land to shelter shelter, I’m afraid that the Guise family would have been killed off and removed from the title.
In that year’s turmoil, the Isaac family occupied the fiefdom of the Guise family, ushering in a radical development.
Some years ago, the Grant Kingdom was not strong enough to give much support to the Duke of Guise, and the Isaac family often mobilized their soldiers to enter the Duke of Guise’s territory to loot. With Duke Brenner winning the Battle of Dragon Canyon, Grant Kingdom ushered in rapid development, not only expanding a large area of land in the north, but also successively establishing the three dukes of Jonathan, Edward, and Fox.
The strength of the country brought very good development to the territorial great nobles. Coupled with the fact that the members of the Guise family would enter the main legion and experience a brutal war for three years, greatly exercising their abilities, by now the power of the Guise Dukes’ territory gradually exceeded that of Duke Isaac.
With the Orc Empire as a great enemy, Grant Kingdom from top to bottom simply dare not slacken off, the cruel environment, also forced the nobles to be shrewd and strong, heroic and good at war.
Even though Grant Kingdom has been established for six hundred years, the degeneration of the army is not serious, and now the kingdom’s military strength can even be compared to the founding elite soldiers.
King Delong’s geographical conditions are superior to Grant Kingdom, more than a thousand years ago it was the backbone of several kingdoms in the northeastern part of the Middle Continent of the Morning Sun Plane, and its strength was so powerful that it could even make the Holy Radiant Empire afraid of it.
Unfortunately, after more than a thousand years of development, the aristocracy of the Delong Kingdom has formed a powerful interest group, and the nepotism is exceptionally serious, occupying all the good positions. The class solidification was exceptionally serious, adopting a strict policy of dumbing down and weakening the people, and the military power was already relatively average. Even if the border nobles were in a better situation, the soldiers of the Duke Isaac’s Domain were not as good at fighting as the Duke Guise’s Domain.
Grant many big nobles, army soldiers to Harland collar most warlike, followed by the northern border central four legions, next is Jonathan Duke collar main force legion, and then only to the turn of the royal capital close guard regiment. These legions were all considered the first class main force of Grant Kingdom.
The fighting strength of the legions under the two Northern Border Dukes, Edward and Fox, was relatively poor, and the Duke Guise’s Collar, because of the frequent outbreaks of small-scale wars, the soldiers were often exercised, and could only be considered as a third-class army in the Grant Kingdom, and even then it was quite a bit stronger than the Duke Isaac’s Collar.
Last October, the Grizzly Legion moved south and entered the Steven Province in late October, easily suppressing a rebellion and sending a portion of its soldiers to attack the Duke of Hubble who was providing support to the chaotic judgmentalists.
Duke Hubble was Duke Isaac’s neighbor, also one of the six dukes in the territory of Delong Kingdom, and because he was a frontier noble, his military strength was relatively stronger. But compared to the Grizzly Legion’s 100 battle elite soldiers, the gap was very serious.
After a battle Duke Hubble’s collar lost 8,000 soldiers, even Duke Isaac’s collar was implicated.
After all, in recent years, when Duke Guise led his troops to capture slaves, Duke Hubble would lead his troops to support them. Now that there are no more reinforcements, Duke Guise naturally wants to intensify his plundering.
Moreover, seeing the Jonathan family seize the Grand Duchy of Stannic, the Guise family is also very jealous, wanting to snatch back their homeland to obtain greater development.
But to achieve this goal, must obtain the support of King Grant, coordinate the domestic forces, especially the royal family and several big nobles, willing to go south is the key?
Duke Guise communicated with King Roger several times and paid a great commitment to get the support of the royal family, and the southward transfer of the Grizzly Legion, in addition to restricting the power of the Harland family, was to develop to the south.
The southern province came to the strong army, the Duke of Guise’s waist naturally hardened some.
Just into the first half of January, Duke Guise completed his mobilization and crossed the borderline with 6,000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry.
The area of Duke Guise’s territory is not as big as Duke Harland’s territory, only about 60,000 square kilometers of land, and the arable land is not very fertile, and can’t support too much population.
Despite developing for many years, it only had a population of 1.3 million.
With a population of one million three hundred thousand, two infantry legions, one cavalry legion, and one magic beast cavalry brigade were organized. There were a total of forty thousand regular infantry, eight thousand cavalry, and six hundred magical beast cavalry, the number of soldiers far exceeded that of the Harland Territory, and the military strength was very impressive.
The development of the Duke of Guise’s collar could be fully described as militaristic, and a large part of the domestic economy had to rely on robbery.
In this invasion of Duke Isaac’s territory, Duke Guise only carried eight brigades of infantry, four brigades of cavalry, and one brigade of magical beast cavalry, with less than seventeen thousand troops in his direct line, and the rest of the 9,000 troops were all bannermen from the Duke Guise’s territory, which included Viscount Fender, an acquaintance that Richard had played with for a number of times.
For this slave hunting operation, the Fender family mobilized eight hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry, almost half of the Viscount’s private army.
Duke Guise entered the kingdom of Delong with his army, and the initial progress was very smooth, capturing two border baronies and capturing forty-six thousand slaves.
According to previous years, it should be taken as it comes. After all, more than forty thousand people, even if they lost some on the way of migration for various reasons, if they could send forty thousand intact slaves to Nolan, they could be exchanged for two hundred thousand gold coins of resources.
Excluding the cost of sending out the troops, the profit was already very substantial.
Only this time the slave hunt, Duke Guise didn’t take the good with the bad, in addition to sending a brigade to escort the slaves, he sent his soldiers deep into the core land of Duke Isaac’s collar, and took the initiative to find the main force of Duke Isaac’s collar for a duel.
In order to protect the territory, Duke Isaac decided to fully mobilize and enlisted 120,000 serf soldiers, along with three legions of regular troops, to duel with Duke Guise.
Even though the regular army of Duke Isaac’s collar had average combat power, the conscripted serf soldiers had a deep grudge against Duke Guise’s collar. After all, the serfs of Duke Isaac’s Collar were captured and plundered by Duke Guise’s Collar every year.
These serf soldiers, despite being untrained, tended to have high morale when they met the Duke Guise’s army, and after a few battles, the Duke Guise had already lost 3,000 soldiers.
Seeing that the situation is not good, Duke Guise immediately gave the order to retreat, but it was already too late, and he fell into Duke Isaac’s encirclement.
After falling into the encirclement, Duke Guise didn’t panic, but took the lead to build a camp, then ordered the Wraith Cavalry Squadron to break through, attacking the enemy’s grain storage points on the outer line while trying to cut off the enemy’s defense line, and returned to the territory to draw more soldiers into the border.
The Dukedom of Guise chose to go to war on all fronts, and the Dukedom of Isaac called for help from the Kingdom of Drones. Despite the fact that the country had been in peace for a long time and was slow to react, dragging on for ten days before organizing reinforcements, the Delong Kingdom still sent three legions to reinforce them.
Seeing that the number of enemy troops far exceeded Duke Guise’s estimation, he had no choice but to ask the Grizzly Bear Legion for reinforcements.
As a border general, William had a great deal of autonomy. After receiving the letter from the Duke of Guise, William thought deeply and decided to send troops to reinforce him. He didn’t expect to fight a few bad battles, but instead, he trapped himself into the war quagmire.
Seeing that the scope of the war was getting bigger and bigger, the matter was stabbed by the people of the Duke of Guise’s family to the top of the nobles’ meeting.
Rumors spread for a while, and many minor nobles gave speeches at the nobles’ meeting to promote their ideas, but they didn’t have much say in the matter.
The ones who could really decide the direction of the nobles’ meeting were the big nobles of Grant Kingdom. For example, Duke Harland’s collar, had twenty-seven votes in the nobles’ meeting, in addition to the three barons, Soros, Burney, and William, and disregarding the influence, the Harland family had thirty votes, equivalent to thirty hereditary barons.
Moreover, the Harland family is the head of the northern nobility, and can influence a large portion of the votes, and often motions that are promoted by several large nobles joining forces can be passed successfully.
The proposal from the Duke of Guise’s collar was like a stone thrown in a pool of water, startling countless waves.
Compared to expanding their territories from the north, the nobles of Grant Kingdom, from big to small, all wanted to go to the south. Compared to the Orc Empire, the soldiers of the Delon Kingdom were much easier to deal with, and today’s national power was a little worse than that of the Grant Kingdom.
Even the land, it was a bit more fertile.
With the rise of Duke Harland’s collar, the Grant family followed the wind, and even the entire Grant Kingdom, the national strength had a greater development.
Now that the conflict on the southern front was so intense, King Roger had plans to expand again.
In the royal family and the Duke of Guise, Duke of Duran joined forces to promote, the motion was passed very smoothly, the formation of the intervention army is once again on the bill.
Sent several war money, now Richard’s thoughts as if Showa staff general, a mind to send war money, will not block, but actively support Grant Kingdom to participate in the war. Several other ducal collars, except for Duke Duran, had a general interest.
The Jonathan family had taken the Grand Duchy of Starnick, and their energies could not be dispersed. Duke Edward’s collar is now facing a transition between the old and the new, and the main members are all sensitive. The Dukedom of Fox was beaten somewhat badly by the orcs, and couldn’t spare any soldiers for a short period of time. Duke of York territory is fertile and has a large territory, the desire to expand is not strong.
After a few days of deliberation, the great nobles compromised, the royal family from the central guards drew two legions, plus a second line of legions as the middle army, the four provinces of the northern border of the nobles of the coalition army plus Harland’s army to form a legion of troops as the left army, the right army by the Dukes of Duran led to send a complete legion.
The three armies added up to more than 100,000, is considered the first batch of reinforcements, if the battle is unfavorable, Grant Kingdom still has the spare capacity to send troops to reinforce.
With those who sent troops, some of the remaining great nobles have contributed money to provide security in terms of supplies to support the intervention army in battle.
Compared to the battle for the throne of Stannic, this time the intervention army encountered slightly less trouble.
The provinces that Richard led his troops southward through were relatively affluent, hoarding enough food supplies for 100,000 troops to consume, and the royal family of Grant was far more generous than Duke Edward, taking out a large amount of food to protect the Intervention Army’s food pipeline.
Richard carefully observed and found that there are even a large number of military stations on the way south, the deployment of troops can not be considered troublesome.
This time, Richard has invested more resources to organize the intervention army, and the Harland soldiers going south have 6,000, including Harland’s first brigade, the scout cavalry brigade, such an elite division, and the beast cavalry has also drawn 300, and the thirteenth and fourteenth brigades that have just been formed, will also be going south to participate in the war, and to accumulate experience in the war.
The four northern provinces, Gerda province conscripted six thousand, Lah province conscripted seven thousand, Gascoigne province conscripted five thousand, Grota province was not established for a long time, hereditary nobles are relatively small, only need to conscript two thousand.
Compared to the last time to form the intervention army, this time the intervention army formation is very active, the soldiers are almost handpicked, the quality of soldiers is far more than before.
In the last intervention war, the Northern Border Union Army suffered less casualties and won extraordinary battle honors, not only did they snatch back more than 200,000 people from Starnic, but also seized a large amount of resources. The military achievements, female slaves, and coins went into the pockets of the officers and soldiers, and even the nobles were paid handsomely.
After the war, the three provinces allied army system got four baronies, Richard’s old leader Sharpe, because of supporting the intervention army more strongly, followed Richard to mix a lot of credits, but also managed to get a piece of baronies, and entered the Starnic Grand Duchy to develop.
Now Sharpe has two baronies, which can be left to different children to pass down the family business. As the son of a tanner, his life was described as inspirational enough for countless people to write about.
Now that the opportunity was once again in front of everyone, the vast majority of the nobles were in favor of joining the war, and countless nobles wished to go to the south to develop and leave the northern frontier.
With Richard’s order, the northern allied army quickly completed its organization. This army, except for the poor quality of the Grota Province Noble Union Army, the other soldiers still looked relatively lean.
After the legions were organized, Richard immediately gave the order to centralize the cavalry and drafted war horses from the noble officers.
Compared to the last time he entered the war, this time Richard’s authority was undoubtedly a bit greater.
Last time, Richard was still a count, so he was not able to dispose of the noble officers. This time Richard has become a duke, has a higher authority, equivalent to the ancient generals in the past life has mastered the king’s order flag, imperial sword, have enough rights not through the noble council, execution of violation of military discipline of the noble officers.
In addition, Richard had won the battle with his soldiers last time, and the Northern Border nobles’ confidence in Richard had increased a bit.
Normally, the integration of the nobles’ allied forces is difficult, and the order to centralize the cavalry is bound to have people resisting the backlash. But Richard is a highly prestigious commander in the Northern Border, his own seniority is a little worse, but his battle achievements are very dazzling, and there is enough status authority.
After receiving Richard’s order, the noble officers did not dare to be slow, not to mention that they did not dare to oppose the block, and they all brought their magical beasts’ warhorses to the magical beasts’ cavalry brigade to assemble.
In just a day’s time, the interfering army had surprisingly increased by one hundred Wraith Cavalry, and the ordinary cavalry had also expanded by three hundred, and almost all of this group of people had been collected by the Harland Leader’s elite soldiers. They could only be returned after the battle.
(End of chapter)