Chapter 294 – Letting Go of the Passage

Chapter 294 – Letting Go of the Passage
The Canyon Castle’s defenders were numerous, with the help of sturdy fortifications, and the weapons in their hands were far more advanced than those of the orcs, such a castle was simply not something that could be conquered by a single orc brigade.

The orcs’ knowledge of Canyon Castle was still the same as it was three years ago, and without detailed reconnaissance, they rashly launched an attack and ended up falling into the defenders’ trap.

The orc vanguard brigade was easily surrounded and annihilated by the Canyon Castle defenders, fighting a losing battle.

The Canyon Fort garrison had sixteen squadrons of infantry, two squadrons of scout cavalry, a squadron of magical hot air balloons, plus a squadron of military police, totaling nearly three thousand men.

The core of which was the third brigade of Harland’s territory, this brigade was not as elite as the first and second brigades, but it was also the earliest four brigades to be established in Harland’s territory, and it contained a number of veterans who had enlisted in the army for more than ten years.

Fort Canyon garrison commander for the third brigade brigade commander Norman, this person is the nephew of Soros, counting on some talent.

Norman was in his forties, had served the Harland family for over ten years, and was a fifth-ranked warrior who was relatively shrewd from the looks of it.

Soros had transferred from his position as the brigade commander of the Wraith Cavalry Brigade to the Grota River County as a commander, and it was only natural that the following officers should be arranged with people he was familiar with.

Receiving the military intelligence from Fort Canyon, Soros immediately transferred troops from Fort Norman and Fort King.

But there were three canyons in the north of Grota River County that were passable, and now that the forts were established, the only ones with complete fortifications were Fort Canyon, with the Riverbank Castle.

Canyon Fort was the focus of Grota River County’s defense, counting the auxiliary soldiers there were a total of 4,000 defenders.

The Riverbank Castle was closer to the Iron Lion Castle, and had only two squadrons of regular soldiers, plus 500 auxiliaries, totaling less than a thousand men.

Soros is a prudent man, received the news of the orc invasion, decisively gave up the western passage of Grota River County, put the troops on the eastern and central two passages, ordered Norman, the king of the two castles west of the villages to implement the order to hold the wall and clear the field.

All twenty-three villages were abandoned, wells were filled in, and 20,000 people were relocated to the east of the two castles of Norman and King.

Although Grota River County was annexed into Harland’s Territory, the focus of this territory’s development was still in the east, and in the face of the orc invasion, it was only possible to close in with the Iron Lion Legion.

Fort Norman is close to three hundred kilometers away from Fort William, and it is difficult for both sides to work closely together when they are too far away. In case of an emergency, counting on Fort William for reinforcements is simply impossible.

The Soros Ministry needed to rely on the Iron Lion Legion’s strength in order to guarantee survival.

The western passage of Grota River County did not form a complete defense line, and the defenders could only rely on simple camps to fight for their lives if they wanted to stop the orcs.

Now it was another environment where the enemy was strong and we were weak, Soros only had 7,000 regular troops in his hands, it was impossible to give up the strong city defense fortifications and go to the field to set up a fortress to intercept the orcs.

Moreover, Soros also considered politically and decided to let go of this passage, letting this half legion of orcs enter the Lahar Province, relying on the power of the Lahar Province to completely annihilate this enemy.

If the half legion of orcs pierced through Harland’s territory, the first opponent would be the Soaring Eagle Castle garrison and Viscount Nelson’s territory.

In the last orc invasion, Viscount Nielsen’s domain suffered heavy losses and was swallowed by Harland’s domain with tens of thousands of population. Nowadays, the remnants of Viscount Nelson’s family are still running the territory.

Soros knows in his heart that his nephew Richard has long had his eye on this territory, but due to the order of the nobles in the Kingdom of Grant, he can’t directly seize the territory.

But you can borrow the hand of the orcs to swallow the Viscount Nelson’s territory.

King Grant’s northern border great nobles, this kind of operation is almost instinctive. Smaller nobles who want to be safe can only pray that their fiefs are not looked at by the big nobles or are far away from the border.

After the Harland family made their fortune, they only ate two baronies, Sto Fear and Dillam, of which the Sto Fear family still relied on marriage.

Compared to other great nobles, it was already very civilized.

Viscount Nelson’s territory is located in the south of Salt Lake County, this territory is surrounded by the Harland family on three sides, once swallowed, the east and west counties of Harland’s territory will be linked together, not only expanding the hinterland, but the defense line has also become more complete.

The reason why Soros left an opening for the orcs also had a reason in this regard.

When the orcs invaded, Soros sent a letter of request for help to the Iron Lion Legion in addition to issuing an order to hold the wall.

Zachary, the head of the Iron Lion Legion, was a persistent general whose ability to command battles exceeded even Martins by a few points. Despite his ups and downs in the Northern Frontier, he was one of the few people with a big-picture perspective.

Zachary knew in his heart that the northern defense line of Grota Province was only complete with the cooperation of Harland Territory. Once the orcs broke through Harland Territory, they could cross the Grota River and enter their own hinterland activities.

Now in this situation, the eastern part of Harland’s territory and himself were both honored and dishonored. So he didn’t think for long before sending twelve squadrons of reinforcements to Riverbank Castle.

Just as Soros and Zachary deployed their troops, the orc army had already appeared nearby.

The orcs attacking this area belonged to two front armies, of which the Eastern Front had three legions, two of which were east of Grota Province, attacking Duke Jonathan’s territory.

Duke Jonathan did not relinquish his knighthood in the Kingdom of Grant when he succeeded Archduke Starnick, for he traveled west with his main force and entrusted Duke Jonathan’s domain to his eldest son Macmillan.

Macmillan was a ninth-rank epic knight with 20,000 regulars under his command.

Facing the attack of two legions of orcs, the army of Duke Jonathan’s collar fell into a disadvantage for the first time.

In the last hundred years or so, Duke Jonathan’s Territory had not been attacked by orcs who had broken through the defense line and entered the core of the territory.

The orc commanders were well aware of the Jonathan family’s strength and tended to avoid an all-out war with the Jonathan family.

Both sides tend to hold each other outside the border line, and even Duke Jonathan will take the initiative to bring troops to attack the orcs, and often the losses of the orcs in every encounter are not light.

Richard experienced a number of orc invasions, the Jonathan family’s losses were minimal, the situation on the northern border of the Grant Kingdom, there are many times to rely on Duke Jonathan to break the balance and force back the orc army.

Now Duke Jonathan entered the Grand Duchy of Starnick with his main force, and the two legions of orcs seemed to have entered a no man’s land, and in one fell swoop, they attacked the border defenses of Duke Jonathan’s territory, and wiped out the three bannermen of Jonathan’s family.

Even though the Jonathan family used alchemy bombs in large quantities and the orc troops acting as the vanguard lost a lot, they still broke the balance and prevailed for the first time in a hundred years.

Three legions of orcs from the eastern front, two attacked Duke Jonathan’s territory and one attacked Grota Province.

Ten orc brigades rushed through the eastern part of the Eagle Mountains and appeared near Gemini Castle, Iron Lion Castle, the main force of the orcs appeared, and Zachary’s pressure began to increase.

The Iron Lion Legion led by Zachary was, after all, a newly expanded main force legion. The weaponry is relatively general, the number of alchemy bombs and explosive arrows is relatively small, there are only two hundred magical beast war horses, and the quality of the soldiers is also a few points different from the Northern Legion. The most troublesome thing was that in order to expand the army, eight thousand new recruits were incorporated.

Although the number of people went up, they didn’t have the strength to fight with the orc army, and could only defend the city. They relied on the castle camp to block the attack of an orc army. The orcs that appeared in the northern part of Canyon Castle were the Middle Road Army.

The center road army was the core of the orc army, and the commander leading the army was legendary dog-headed man Kiram.

Kiram was an orc lodger who had been active in the northern region of Grant Kingdom for sixty years. This time, Kiram personally led the main force of the Middle Road Army, wanting to destroy the Harland Territory.

The Canyon Fort Orcs were the center road army’s partial division, there were five brigades of orcs, together with the auxiliary soldiers carrying food from the rear, adding up to about fifteen thousand people.

The orc deputy army chief Gatlin grimaced, listening to the intelligence of the defeat of the forward brigade, and seeing the great captain Tanamo constantly defending himself and shirking his responsibility.

Gatlin was a lionman, considered the core of the orc race, while Tanamo was only a fifth-order dogman, normally the status was not comparable to Gatlin.

However, the commander of the Orc Middle Army, Kiram, was also a Dogman, so in order to take care of the commander’s face, Gatling would take care of Tanamo.

Because of Gatling’s care, the dog-headed captain stood out from his peers and became the vanguard of the army.

As a result, the dog-headed man, the vanguard, fell into the trap set by the defenders of the canyon fort, and the vanguard brigade suffered heavy losses, and only ran back to three or four hundred people.

Although do not want to offend the commander, but in order to strict military discipline, Gatling still ruthless, decided to use Tanamo’s head to make an example of, to deter the crowd.

“Your army was surrounded and annihilated, why aren’t you dead? Pass the order down, execute this shameful deserter for me.”

With an order, Gatling executed the dog-headed man’s great captain, his eyes looked around and saw the many orc officers suddenly trembling.

“Prani, tell us about the scouting.”

Gatling turned his head and aimed his eyes at the Hawkman lieutenant.

“Lord Vice Legionnaire, through aerial reconnaissance, the humans have stationed about four thousand soldiers at the castle in front of us, and three thousand of them are better equipped, so they should be the elite soldiers of Harland’s territory.

The castle along the Grota River in the east has three thousand men stationed, with about two thousand elite soldiers.

In addition the king’s castle in the back of the human race, Norman’s castle had a garrison, adding up to about six thousand people, and the number of elite soldiers was more than four thousand.

Because of the magical flight props in the canyon castle, our aerial scouts can’t get too close.”

Hearing Hawkman Squadron Leader Prani’s intelligence summary, Gatling frowned and said, “Since when did the human frontline castles have magical flight props?”

“It should be a new item invented within the last two years. When we were scouting in Duke Jonathan’s territory three years ago, there were no such fire-breathing magical creations. A few days ago we received a transmission from the Commanding General that this kind of flying magic props had appeared in the Harland Territory and the central four provinces of the Grant Crown, and our losses were not light.”

“The creativity of humans is really far beyond us!

More than a thousand years ago, humans relied on the Magic Revival Movement to defeat us in one fell swoop, suppressing the elves and occupying the most central land in the Middle Continent. Seven hundred years ago, humans created the Warrior Breathing Method again, allowing ordinary people to break through the boundaries of their bloodline, and their underpinnings skyrocketed.

In the last few hundred years, humans have begun to build magical beast cavalry again, and now even aerial magic props have appeared. Could it be that we, the orcs, only have the fate of being suppressed? “

Hearing the intelligence from the Hawkman, Gatling’s heart became pessimistic. But he was the orc deputy army chief, commanding the army, he must not let his pessimism affect the lower level officers and soldiers.

“The human soldiers are stationed in four castles, adding up to over thirteen thousand people, the number is not too different from us, and their strength is relatively close. The humans have sturdy castles, we can’t force an attack.”

Gatling immediately nodded as he listened to a werewolf brigadier below speak.

Gatlin had a total of ten thousand main forces under his command, of which he had let the dog-headed human great captain Planey lose more than sixteen hundred, and now he had in his hands a force that wasn’t too far off from the strength of the large army led by Soros. As for the back more than five thousand auxiliary soldiers, a considerable part of them were goat-bodied people, goat-bodied soldiers in the field battle can not play a role at all.

The situation in this direction, the human soldiers had city fortifications and actually had the upper hand.

“It looks like we don’t have a chance to break through the human defenses.”

The Hawkman Squadron Leader retorted, “Not necessarily, the humans aren’t stationing troops in Tani Canyon, we can follow Tani Canyon to fight through Harland’s Territory and attack Soaring Eagle Castle. Or march east into Viscount Nelson’s domain.”

“Why didn’t Earl Harland build a castle and establish a defense line in Tani Canyon?”

Gatling sighed, “Firstly, he might not have that many people, and secondly, he might want to use our hands to annex the Viscount Nelson Territory. The great nobles of the humans have made such a move many times. If it wasn’t for the disunity of the humans, relying on the power of the Holy Halo Empire would have defeated us.

Everyone in Savalan has met the magicians of the 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 cross the defense line of Harland’s territory from the Tani Canyon and go around to attack the enemy in the belly of Harland’s territory, which was also the order Kiram gave him.

Although Gatlin knew in his heart that this operation was full of crises.

Although the Harland Territory no longer had any extra soldiers, the Rach Province was the focus of the Grant Kingdom’s garrison, with one main legion, two second-line legions, and a strength of more than 50,000 men.

Gatling’s move to go deep behind enemy lines was actually military adventure.

Once the Rach Province and the Harland Territory army were closely coordinated, Gatlin’s ministry would immediately fall into a heavy siege.

Three days after the eastern garrison of Harland Territory fought the orcs, the main three and a half legion army of the orcs appeared in the northern region of Harland Territory with a titanic momentum.

On the front of Salt Lake County, an orc legion of 20,000 troops appeared, and the auxiliary soldiers who escorted food and grass and guarded the back road also had more than 10,000 people.

In the northern part of Fort Hyrule, a half legion of orcs appeared, counting the auxiliary soldiers, there were 45,000 troops.

In the western part of the Swamp Basin, the orcs marched along the Burney River, because the road along the way was not good, there were about three brigades of six thousand orcs.

Also in the direction of Platos, seven brigades of orcs pressed on together.

The four large armies were all at work at the same time, totaling more than 100,000 orcs, making the Harland territory feel heavy pressure.

(End of chapter)