Chapter 300 – The General Attack at Dusk

Chapter 300 – The General Attack at Dusk
After cleaning up the battlefield, Richard went straight to the field hospital to offer his condolences.

When Richard arrived at the hospital, the first thing he did was to console the wounded soldiers. Relying on the better medical conditions, many of the more severely injured veterans were able to stay alive. The vast majority of the soldiers were able to recover physically and rejoin the army. These soldiers who recovered from their injuries would be a great addition to the army’s fighting strength.

The excellent medical capability was an important reason for the superior fighting strength of the Harland Territory’s army.

According to the statistics of the staff officers, today’s raid killed more than five thousand six hundred orcs, of which the corpses left by the Dragon Vein Dogheads left more than nine hundred.

Harland led the troops and not only captured the orc front camp, the Grizzly Legion also captured the orc left camp.

The orc center camp, and the right camp’s loss was also very heavy.

Because the human army won and controlled the battle line, after the battle, not only could they save their own side’s wounded, but they would also slaughter the orc wounded soldiers.

This battle orc casualties alone were as high as five thousand six hundred, and also captured more than seven hundred orc prisoners, in addition there were about more than three thousand wounded into the orc camp.

The casualties inflicted on the orcs in this battle had been no less than ten thousand.

Although the result of this battle was brilliant, the loss of Harland’s collar was also not light.

The first brigade of soldiers had two hundred and eighty killed, more than five hundred and sixty lightly and seriously wounded, with more than eight hundred casualties, a casualty rate close to sixty percent.

Casualties of 60% did not collapse, insisted to the end of the battle, Harland’s first brigade is undoubtedly a strong army.

The Wraith Cavalry Brigade suffered casualties of more than one hundred and sixty people, forty-five killed in action, and more than one hundred lightly and seriously injured, which was a very heavy casualty for a team of four hundred people.

The guard brigade suffered eighty-six casualties and more than two hundred minor and serious injuries, and the Harland territory army that attacked the right battalion suffered more than six hundred casualties.

In this fog raid, the Harland Territory regular army suffered over six hundred casualties and over thirteen hundred light and serious injuries.

Harland Territory casualties were close to two thousand, and the Grizzly Legion’s losses were not light at all.

Because the Grizzly Legion was not equipped with many alchemy bombs, they suffered heavy casualties in the attack on the orc left camp, even though they wiped out quite a few orc legions, with more than eight hundred killed in action, and more than fifteen hundred lightly and seriously wounded.

The human army suffered more than four thousand two hundred casualties in this battle and annihilated more than ten thousand orc armies. Especially the core of the orc army, the Dragon Vein Dogheads, suffered more than two thousand casualties, the loss was already very heavy.

After this battle, the number of human regular armies had surpassed the orcs.

The military forces in the northern part of the Grant Kingdom had gradually become somewhat unbalanced.

After the battle, Richard came to the Grizzly Legion camp and met his father William.

After William went to Fort Grizzly to take up his post, he did not take his family with him. Despite the fact that Fort William was now prosperous, and Richard had extended an invitation to Mrs. Ora, Mrs. Ora still did not want to settle in Fort William, and she and her children continued to live in Fort Black River.

William sat in the command tent and was a little upset that Richard had called off his troops. But Richard was already the Earl of Harland, and his status was a few points higher than his own, so he was patient and did not directly reprimand him.

“Through the morning’s battle, I found that the morale of the orcs has declined, right now the Grizzly Legion still has nearly seventeen thousand soldiers that can fight, Harland’s collar has about thirteen thousand, and together we have a total of thirty thousand regulars. The orcs, on the other hand, have suffered over ten thousand casualties, with only twenty thousand left in the main legion, and six brigades of auxiliaries in the orc rear battalion, which are not at all useful in a field battle. The opportunity for battle has arisen, we should seize the chance to storm the orc camp, I wonder why the Count is closing his army?”

Richard heard the unhappiness in his father’s voice and explained a few words.

“The heavy stone throwers haven’t been assembled yet, there is no long range striking power, and the casualties of a strong attack on the orc camp must be heavy. I don’t think we should be in a hurry, we might as well wait for a while. When the stone thrower unit is assembled tomorrow, under the constant strikes of the long range projection power, we can force the orcs to leave the fortifications to fight with us in the field, so not only will the casualties be lighter, but the probability of winning will also increase.”

Richard’s explanation, William was still not very satisfied.

“If we don’t seize the time to attack and give the orcs time to consolidate, the morale of the orcs will recover quite a bit, and we may pay more sacrifices in the field battle tomorrow. Moreover, if we give the orcs time to recuperate, the orcs will take the initiative, once the orcs retreat this night, we will lose the opportunity to wipe out the enemy, a situation like this can never be forgiven.”

Decision making on the battlefield is always a matter of public opinion and private opinion, William and Richard’s disagreement is mainly determined by the style of fighting.

Although William was older, he commanded the battle with more ferocity than Richard, and was also more greedy for credit than Richard. As long as the opportunity arose, he would cling to the enemy and not let go, not caring how heavy his casualties were. He would do everything he could to defeat the enemy.

Despite his young age, Richard’s command style was rather more stable and not very greedy. Even if a war opportunity appeared, he would still focus on me, minimizing his side’s mistakes and reducing his own casualties.

Such a command style was partly determined by the position they were in.

William was the head of the central army, even if there were battle losses, he mainly relied on the center to replenish them, he didn’t worry much about himself. Richard was a local earl, and relied on his own territory to bear the consequences and replenish battle losses if he suffered a single casualty.

For Harland’s territory, as long as Kiram’s army was repulsed and the casualties on his side were light, it was a great victory. Even if Kiram’s army was annihilated, Harland’s soldiers suffered heavy casualties, and it was still a loss that outweighed the gain.

Because fighting with the orcs is a long term war, after three years the orcs might invest more legions to attack Harland’s Domain. Once Harland’s collar suffered heavy losses and couldn’t recover after three years, there was a possibility that it would face a worse situation.

But for William, annihilating Kiram’s legions was the only way to make a great war achievement. If he killed the Legendary Dogheads with his own hands during the battle, William would also become a count, and the Harland family would take a new count’s collar.

William does not have only one son, Richard, and the odds are that this new earldom will pass to his favorite eldest son, Ron. Or split up into three Viscountships and leave it to Ron, Hayden, George and others.

The essence of the matter was that the interests of father and son were no longer the same.

The two men argued for a few moments, and seeing that Richard’s opinion was very firm, the two sides could only compromise and decided to move the attack a bit earlier, attacking the orc camp in the evening.

Harland collar craftsmen were very efficient and had already assembled twenty successful stone throwers in the afternoon.

Seeing this scene, the orcs sent an army to attack, wanting to delay the process of assembling the stone throwers, but were repelled by Richard and William who were prepared.

The two armies joined forces and organized a six hundred man Wraith Cavalry. With this magical beast cavalry watching over them, the orcs’ actions were bound to be laborious and futile.

After seeing the stone throwers assembled, Kiram knew in his heart that defeat was unavoidable, the human army had already grasped the initiative, and this battle was no longer winnable.

In Kiram’s military career, the experience of defeating battles is not quite a lot, when he just advanced into the legend, he was hanged by Duke Brenner, almost lost his life.

A dozen years ago, he had also been chased by Duke Jonathan, with only a dozen or so of his own soldiers left by his side. But losing to a rising star, Earl Harland, Kiram’s heart was still very unwilling.

Kiram was a person with strong self-control, he quickly suppressed the distracting thoughts and quietly gave orders to the Dragon Vein Dogheads to prepare for retreat after nightfall. With a large number of magical beast cavalry watching, retreating during the day was simply impossible to succeed, and once the retreat became a rout, the losses would be even more disastrous.

Once the retreat became a rout, the losses would be even more disastrous. The retreat of a large-scale army would not be possible without a team to break the back. The Dragon Vein Dog Head was a Kiram clan member and the core of his foothold in the Orc Empire, so of course he couldn’t stay behind to break his back.

Those left as scapegoats could only be the four brigades of orcs from the right battalion.

This morning, the right battalion was attacked by Harland’s leading infantry, and more than six hundred were killed in battle and more than a thousand were wounded. However, after the battle they collected close to two thousand remnants of the left battalion, and after replenishing them, the paper strength was instead strengthened by a few points.

In order to stabilize the right battalion, Kiram personally rushed to the right battalion to inspect and talk with the basic officers.

Just as Kiram finished his inspection and was about to leave, a large army with a neat pace was slowly approaching.

Before the army came close, Kiram heard the sound of neat footsteps.

At the same time, a high-pitched horn sounded, followed by the sound of dense drumming.

Kiram stepped out of the tent and raised his eyes, realizing that the sky was already close to dusk, and it wouldn’t take long for night to fall. Looking at the sunset, Kiram thought in his heart: “As long as we can hold out for a while, the enemy may retreat after holding out until nightfall. No matter what, tonight’s breakout is imperative.”

Two dozen stone throwers fired out alchemy bombs, and a scream was heard in the camp.

In this morning’s battle, the alchemy bombs had inflicted serious casualties on the orcs, and hearing this kind of explosion once again immediately brought back horrifying memories to the orcs, and their military heart was immediately a little unstable.

Although the Harland territory’s numbers were small, their fighting strength was stronger, so their mission was to attack the orcs’ center camp, and the Grizzly Legion, whose fighting strength was slightly weaker, attacked the orcs’ right camp.

As the alchemy bombs continued to be thrown into the orc camp, and the human army slowly approached, the orcs were immediately in a dilemma.

If the orcs stayed in their camp and were continuously hit by the enemy’s stone throwers, not only would they suffer a constant stream of casualties, but the blow to their morale would also be exceptionally heavy.

The orc army was also equipped with heavy stone throwers, but the orc soldiers who operated the stone throwers could only use this weapon with experience. The orcs were used to throwing heavy stone bombs, and the range was very close, so it was impossible to shoot against the Harland territory’s stone throwers.

If they retreat, the orcs organization ability is general, it is very easy to let the retreat turn into a rout, in addition, the human has the beast cavalry staring at, once the retreat is bound to suffer heavy casualties.

The only better option is to deploy troops out of the camp to fight against the humans.

Although Kiram had the intention of retreating, in his heart he took the 8,000 orcs in the right battalion as a scapegoat.

Orc cohesion is general, if Kiram directly ordered them to break the back, the right battalion of orcs officers and soldiers may not follow the order. At that time, it was bound to be a dispersed situation, and would not be able to hold the enemy at all.

So Kiram can only take the method of deception, personally came to the right camp to give officers and soldiers morale, but unfortunately in the evening, the human launched an attack. Seeing that the morale was getting lower and lower with the delay, Kiram decided to let the soldiers of the right battalion fight a counter-charge after a little consideration.

In order to mobilize morale, Kiram decided to take the lead and personally lead the troops in the action.

Commanders taking the lead had a great impact on morale, and soon under the clubs and whips of the orc officers, the four brigades of orcs from the right battalion organized themselves into formation.

“Come on, run faster, get through the range of the stone throwers and we’ll beat the humans.”

The orc officers continuously boosted their morale as the orcs dragged their scattered formations, looking somewhat disorganized as they stormed the Grizzly Legion military formation.

Facing the orcs’ charge, the Grizzly Legion didn’t dare to underestimate it, especially the veterans with rich combat experience. It was this seemingly chaotic attack that broke the Grizzly Army formation three years ago, killing countless Grizzly Army soldiers.

Of course that attack of the orcs three years ago, the scale was much bigger than this time, the orcs that participated in the battle had a total of sixteen orc brigades, more than thirty thousand orcs.

“Don’t panic, shoot arrows! Shoot arrows!”

The officers kept urging as the Grizzly Legion soldiers shot an arrow.

The orcs had thick skin and flesh, and some professionals had dozens of feathered arrows sticking out of their bodies, still charging forward bravely.

A minotaur professional held up his shield, which was densely studded with hundreds of arrows, and ferociously crashed forward. The minotaur professional’s strength was so great that it knocked down three shield soldiers of the Grizzly Bear Legion in an instant.

As the minotaur professional crashed through the shield formation, in an instant a dozen or so orc warriors rushed up through the gap, stirring up the squadron’s formation and sending the squadron into a collapsing dilemma.

The brigade headquarters realized the situation and immediately drew in a few dozen elite soldiers to fill the gap.

These elite soldiers were armed with enchanted bows and had extremely high levels of archery skills, they opened their bows and arrows, and in a single round of unison fire, they resolved over a dozen orc professionals, helping their companions to stabilize their faltering formation.

For a while, such scenes appeared everywhere on the one kilometer long battle line.

Although the orcs’ attack was ferocious, the army’s numbers were smaller after all, far inferior to the Grizzly Legion soldiers.

After half an hour of fighting, the Grizzly Bear Legion soldiers had begun to gain the upper hand.

Seeing that the battle was stalemate, his side had already fallen into a disadvantage, Kiram made a decision on the spot, decided to personally lead the charge, crushed a brigade of human beings, to bring back the disadvantage with a point to the face.

Just see Kiram reached out and pointed, a flame dragon appeared in the sky. This was the bloodline spell of the Dragon Vein Dogheads, and the spell’s destructive power was already at the seventh ring level.

Kiram was a Legendary First Order, and despite his average magical ability, he could use the standard model Flame Gargoyle three times.

The Flame Gargoyle charged downwards and exploded directly into the soldiers, killing and injuring fifty to sixty people in an instant.

Kiram’s single bloodline spell made a squadron suffer more than a third of casualties, and the battle line faltered, the strength of a Legendary Professional was that strong.

(End of chapter)