Chapter 317 – The Night March

Chapter 317 – Marching Through the Night
After the United Kingdom of the East Coast entered the war, it sent a legion to march towards Duke Hubble’s Territory. The vanguard of this legion had just entered Duke Hubble’s Territory and had already leaked their whereabouts.

After years of development, the Harland Collar’s reconnaissance force had become quite advanced, and after five long years of cultivation, the tamed Lion Rashers had expanded their population. Nowadays, Harland Collar’s scouting brigade is complete with a twelve-member Lion Overdrive Cavalry squad, in addition, there are twenty young Lion Overdrives that are considered to be a reserve force, and in another three years, the Lion Overdrive Cavalry can be expanded to thirty people.

In addition to the Lion Overdrive Cavalry, the Magic Balloon Squadron has been expanded to an eighth squadron, and two Magic Balloon Squadrons will accompany the army on this expedition.

In the large occupied area, there were Lion Overdrive Cavalry and magic hot air balloons in the air every day to scout the enemy situation.

Although the soldiers of the East Coast United Kingdom called the soldiers fast, in just twelve days they completed their mobilization and marched five hundred kilometers to Duke Hubble’s territory. But this army easily exposed its movements and lost its suddenness when it appeared near the battlefield.

After all, the officers of the East Coast United Kingdom didn’t know that Harland’s Collar had already cultivated a scale of Lion Overwhelming Cavalry, not to mention that they weren’t clear about the working principle of magic props like magic hot air balloons, and had never seen telescopes made by Harland’s Collar. Instead, the orc forces that often fought with Harland’s armies would always keep an eye on the air, sending Hawkmen to suppress scouts in Harland’s airspace.

Since entering the kingdom of Dron, Richard scattered the four provinces of the noble alliance army stationed in the occupation area castle, Harland collar troops concentrated and stationed in the Sark castle.

The air scouts of Harland’s Collar were mainly centered on Sark Castle and operated within a radius of two hundred kilometers.

As the information came back one by one, the simple sand table of Sark Castle was filled with all kinds of flags, and the enemy’s situation had basically been mapped out.

“We have the advantage of air reconnaissance in this battle, and the enemy’s situation is almost transparent to us one way. There are three brigades in the enemy’s vanguard, nearly five thousand men. This force has appeared in Duke Hubble’s territory, about one hundred and twenty kilometers from Duke Guise’s forces and about one hundred kilometers from Sark Castle.

After the enemy appeared, I ordered the Lion Overdrive Knights to penetrate deeper into the enemy territory and enter the United Kingdom on the east coast to scout the enemy’s main brigade. The enemy’s main force is about eighty kilometers away from the vanguard, roughly a two-day journey.

Our air scouts remain on the enemy to observe their next move.”

Holding a whip, Richard pointed to the flags on the sand table and briefed the officers on the general military situation.

Harland’s collar had been making sand tables for more than ten years, and the staff officers at the headquarters had a good level of math and were well versed in contour lines, scales, and other studies.

The General Staff had developed qualified map-making staff officers with a deep level of knowledge of operational maps.

Hundreds of people with a wide variety of expertise are needed behind the scenes to draw a more accurate sand table, many of whom need to have a secondary school level of math.

Given the situation in the Morning Sun Realm, there weren’t many talents proficient in mathematics, and most of the math talents were still magicians on the side. Although there were quite a few magicians in the East Coast United Kingdom, it was impossible to arrange hundreds of them in a single legion.

The appearance of the sand table was considered a high-tech product for both sides of the warring parties, allowing the officers to visualize the whole situation and improve their command level.

“The enemy’s current movement is unknown, they may wait to join up with the main force, they may move south to attack the Duke of Guise, and of course they may attack west to fight us. My opinion might as well wait and observe the enemy’s movements before making the next decision. While we’re at it we should issue a regrouping order to centralize the allied forces of the nobles of the four provinces first, in order to deal with unexpected situations.”

Sura broke the silence and was the first to offer an opinion.

Entering the Harland Territory for sixteen years, Sura was considered to be the oldest group of people with the highest qualifications, sixteen years of hard training, after the Goddess’ Birthday Festival Sura finally advanced to the fourth rank, and was appointed by Richard to be the brigade leader of the thirteenth brigade.

Legion brigade captain, barely already counted Harland collar’s senior, in the army’s right to speak greatly increased.

Sura is a person with a conservative character, and is more steady with his troops.

This kind of person who used troops steadily, although it didn’t look very stunning, it was hard to achieve a big victory. But used in key places, it could likewise achieve very good results.

This time, Richard specially mobilized a group of backbones from Delong Kingdom, and more than half of the officers under Sura’s command were from Delong Kingdom.

Because of the serious class solidification policy implemented by the Delong Kingdom, these people generally didn’t have any good feelings towards this country, and instead had a deep hatred towards the old nobles of the Delong Kingdom.

With a large number of locals joining the army, Richard’s troops were familiar with the local climate, geography, and people’s conditions, and were not considered a mere guest army.

“I don’t agree with Sura’s opinion, this is too conservative and passive. The enemy’s front is only three brigades, we should take the initiative to attack and eat this enemy.

We have six thousand soldiers in Sark Castle, and our weapons and equipment exceed the enemy’s, as well as elite soldiers like the first brigade, and another three hundred magical beast cavalry to help us, so we can definitely win this battle by surprise. The enemy is about 100 kilometers away from us, and it’s only a day and a half’s march. I think we should decisively seize the opportunity of battle and eat the enemy’s vanguard first.”

The one who raised the objection was Martin, the captain of the first brigade, who, despite his old age, was very radical in his use of the army.

“After a sharp march, we need half a day to rest and recuperate. If the enemy doesn’t give us time to rest and recuperate, and attacks us instead, we will be in a very passive position, and our losses will definitely not be light by then.” Hearing Martin’s opinion, Sura still spoke out against it.

In fact, in the Harland Collar’s army, because of the repeated victories, most of the officers were the ones who used their troops aggressively, on the contrary, the ones like Sura who had a stable character were the minority.

After years of leading the army in war, Richard’s style of using the army was equally aggressive, but he had the advantage of being able to listen to different opinions. He was good at military democracy and was good at making decisions and weighing them.

Richard stared at the sand table and suddenly turned his head to the logistics staff and asked, “How many ships do we have in the Quarrosa River grain fleet, and can we transport six thousand troops at a time?”

The Quarrosa River is a tributary of the Oram River, the artery of the Grant Kingdom, originating from Duke Isaac’s territory, although the terrain of the southern region of the Grant Kingdom is high in the south and low in the north, and the transportation of food to the front line from the Grant Kingdom is against the current, compared to land transportation water transportation still has a lower cost.

“What His Excellency the Duke means is that we take a section of water transportation?” The logistics staff used a ruler to measure the distance and said in a sudden realization, “In this way we first need to march twenty kilometers to the riverbank of the Quarrosa River, then march eighty kilometers against the current through water transport, and then continue to march thirty kilometers next to appear near the enemy’s front line. By marching in this manner, strength is better preserved and no long rest is required.”

Richard nodded and continued to ask, “How deep is the Quarrosa River channel, and can boats pass at night?”

After the logistics staff flipped through some paperwork, he replied with certainty, “We have five hundred ration boats of various sizes on the Querosa River, in addition to twenty thousand serfs who work with the ration boats to pull fibers, so we can transport six thousand troops at once. The water in the upper reaches of the Querosa River is not deep, the road along the river is relatively flat, the width of the river is no more than thirty meters, and with a well organized team of slimmers, the boats can pass at night.” Hearing the affirmative answer from the logistics staff, Richard weighed it a little and gave the order decisively.

“Harland lead the various units to complete their assembly in the morning, march immediately after lunch, and be near the Quarrosa River by evening. The headquarters personnel will immediately ride fast horses, prepare boats and slender men before evening, and march overnight into Duke Harbor’s territory; tomorrow morning, our army must appear near the enemy’s front.”

After Richard made his determination, the personnel of all departments immediately took action.

The six thousand soldiers quickly completed their assembly, ate lunch and began to march briskly, easily covering a distance of twenty kilometers in one afternoon.

The logistic personnel’s organization was also very good, prepared the boats in advance, and before nightfall, the six thousand soldiers were lightly packed and boarded the transport boats.

In order to mobilize the enthusiasm of the serf slenders, Richard promised them that as long as they completed the transportation task, he would give them land distribution and pardon them to become free citizens.

One night passed, the slender men accomplished an almost impossible task, exhausted more than two hundred people in one night, and finished the journey of eighty kilometers in ten hours.

Early in the morning of the second day, Richard looked at the paralyzed Slender Man and couldn’t help but sigh with emotion that the power of the human spirit was so strong that it allowed ordinary people to create a military miracle and finish the eighty kilometers of waterway. Of course the reason why the slender men were able to accomplish this miracle work, the relatively light load of the ship was also an important reason.

Time is urgent, Richard simply does not have much time to lament, after disembarking from the boat he quickly organized the formation, the soldiers casually ate a few mouthfuls of dry food and immediately began a hasty march.

After resting on the ship at night for a day, the soldiers had fully recovered their physical strength and looked more energetic in the morning.

At about ten o’clock in the morning, the soldiers of the United Kingdom on the East Coast had just eaten breakfast, put away their tents, and were about to march to the south when the soldiers of Harland’s Leader had already appeared in the vicinity.

The soldiers of Harland’s Collar seemed as if they were divine soldiers, surprising the enemy.

The United Kingdom vanguard forces on the east coast had not yet released their scouts, and were caught in the midst of an encounter with almost two eyes.

The soldiers of the first brigade of Harland’s leadership went into battle without any rest after a morning’s hasty march. They formed a dense formation and rushed towards the enemy camp without any hesitation.

Martin looked at the enemy two hundred meters away in front of him with a grave expression, as the most senior and highest ranked officer in Harland’s collar, he led three infantry brigades of four thousand and five hundred soldiers to storm the enemy line. At the head was his old unit, the 1st brigade, which was also the core of Harland’s infantry.

The first brigade was well-equipped, every soldier wore heavy armor, the number of enchanted armor exceeded six hundred collars, and there were more than two hundred professionals in this infantry brigade. Among the first brigade, they were also equipped with three hundred scorching ray guns, equipped with more than two thousand alchemy bombs, almost armed to the teeth, and their combat power was amazing.

Even the orc infantry brigade couldn’t stop the charge of Harland’s first brigade. With the first brigade as the core, it was as if a tiger pounced into a flock of sheep, easily tearing apart the military formation of the Sixth Army Corps of the United Kingdom on the East Coast.

Seeing Harland’s soldiers charging, the 6th East Coast United Kingdom Army’s vanguard brigade immediately formed up. Although the three vanguard brigades were also elites, they could not hold back the enemy armed to the teeth.

Although Harland’s soldiers did not carry stone throwers in order to travel light and simple, and did not carry out fire suppression and fire strikes before the battle, but after entering the range of two hundred meters, the scorching ray guns sent out a channel of flanking shots, so that the enemy army suffered heavy losses.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

With a loud explosion, the enemy soldiers lost over a hundred people at once.

Seeing that the Scorch Ray Guns were so incredibly powerful that they could easily pierce through the large shields that the soldiers were equipped with, the soldiers of the Sixth Legion of the United Kingdom of the East Coast turned pale, and could only barely maintain their formation as they shot out a crossbow in the hope of suppressing the Scorch Ray Guns gunmen.

A round of feathered arrows were fired, but they simply couldn’t penetrate the magic shields equipped by the soldiers of the first brigade. Only one side of the force field shield released a magical force field, fixing an arrow in the air.

Seeing that they couldn’t penetrate the enemy’s defense, the soldiers of the East Coast United Kingdom’s Sixth Legion were filled with fear, and seeing that their side was constantly being massacred by the enemy’s long-range attacks, they could only despairingly charge, hoping to rely on melee battles to defeat the enemy.

The soldiers of the 1st Brigade of Harland’s Collar were all veterans who had joined the army for more than five years, and not only did they have a lot of professionals within them, but they were also equipped with all kinds of magical shields that strengthened their strength, and they were very proficient in the techniques and tactics of melee assassination. Even in close combat, they were able to defeat the orc infantry.

The physical combat ability of the soldiers of the Sixth Legion of the East Coast United Kingdom was far inferior to that of the orcs, and even if they were in a hurry to fight for their lives, the gap in strength was too great to penetrate the military formation of the First Brigade.

The encounter lasted only half a quarter of an hour. The casualties of the enemy’s forward brigade had already exceeded one third, the remaining part of the soldiers still bravely rushed forward, but it was just a waste of time, being shot by the first brigade of archers on the way to the charge.

The Morning Glory realm has transcendent power, in this kind of army clash, the strength of the army is clearly distinguishable, unless relying on special geographical environment, it is extremely difficult to overcome the strong with the weak. As long as the commanders are not too stupid, the weak brigade can’t beat the strong army in the field battle.

The Sixth Legion of the United Kingdom of the Eastern Sea Road is not a weak brigade, and its fighting strength is a bit stronger than the noble legions of the Kingdom of Grant, but the soldiers of the Harland Collar have been refined by the orc war for many years, and have already been called a strong army. The fighting strength of the first brigade was enough to fight against the same number of magical beast cavalry.

Both sides were unequal in battle, and before Richard could put in his reserves, the first brigade had already pierced through the enemy’s vanguard in a very short period of time.

The first brigade of soldiers surged through the gap and brought the thirteenth and fourteenth brigades to quickly crush the enemy.

Seeing that the enemy army was in a situation of defeat, Richard immediately ordered the Wraith Cavalry, the Scout Cavalry to flank the enemy army.

The army led by Richard not only had three brigades of infantry, but also a brigade of scout cavalry. The scout cavalry were all carefully selected and proficient in a variety of wilderness survival skills, generally speaking Richard would not use the scout cavalry to charge the formation.

But today, the enemy army was all routed, in order to expand the results of the battle, Richard immediately ordered all the cavalry to go out in full force to capture the enemy’s routed soldiers.

The two armies fought for less than half an hour, and Harland led the soldiers to rely on superior strength to easily eat this enemy. Because of the surprise, the casualties of this encounter were relatively light as well!

(End of chapter)