Chapter 442:
Chapter 441: Linked Together
With the orcs’ two front armies cooperating and invading southward from the Silver Wolf Mountain Range, the pressure on Grand Duchy of Starnik was heavier than Kingdom of Lane.
Although Archduke Jonathan successively drew back 120,000 troops, and there was also the Linus family Holden to hold the enemy, but Starnik Grand Duchy’s losses were still very heavy, the border castles were captured by the orcs more than a dozen, and a large number of border baronies were lost.
Because of the sudden invasion of the orcs, Archduke Jonathan and the Linus family army are caught in the orc legions surrounded.
Only Archduke Jonathan had enough reinforcements to hold back a large number of orcs, and although the retreat was cut off by the orcs, the situation was not too serious.
But the Linus family, didn’t have the energy for the Lane Kingdom to risk sending reinforcements. The orcs didn’t care about the conflict between the two great families of Jonathan and Linus, as long as they were human nobles, they were all enemies of the orc army.
Seeing that the situation was critical, as a last resort Holden could only risk breaking out. He is a legendary second-ranked knights, launched a fierce fighting strength amazing, in Holden’s first charge, in one fell swoop broke through the orcs three legions of encirclement. But this battle Linus family suffered a big loss, lost more than 10,000 people.
This war, Linus family did not take advantage of, first with Jonathan’s war loss of 6,000 troops, and then because of the orcs to stir up the situation of more than 10,000 dead and wounded. Linus family itself only has 40,000 old base, the loss of more than 40% of the force, a short period of time can not replenish.
After receiving Duke Jonathan’s letter of request for help, Richard decided to bring his troops north to help Grand Duchy of Starnik defeat the orcs.
This year’s Five Nations War, the casualties in Harland’s Territory were not very serious.
The remaining army fought with the Sith Kingdom’s Cloud Sea Slave Catcher Regiment and lost more than 3,000 people, the casualties mainly came from the auxiliary soldiers, the regular army’s losses were very light. Although the auxiliary soldiers suffered a lot of casualties, it was relatively easy to replenish them.
In addition, the main force of Harland’s territory in the northern part of the Eagle Mountains confronted the orcs in the eastern part of the Prairie Governor’s Region, and several small-scale battles broke out, resulting in more than 800 casualties. The Prilan region garrison, this year, fought with the undead from the south of the Northland Icefield and lost more than four hundred men.
If this territory exchange is completed, Harland’s territory in the northern border will be linked together and very complete. Occupying a large swath of territory in the north, it already had the reserves to form a kingdom.
As Richard led his troops northward, he would likewise leave behind a heavy force in the newly occupied area. After much deliberation, Richard decided to have Wilde’s fourth legion stationed at Castle Novena, and the Duke of Madison’s collar to leave 30,000 auxiliary troops to sit on the ground.
After this war, Wilde also finally gained enough merit to be promoted to the hereditary noble class. But where his territory was sealed was uncertain for the time being.
The Southern Expeditionary Army led by Richard fought several battles with the Kingdom of Lane, with losses adding up to more than six thousand men. All fronts combined, the Harland Territory army lost about ten thousand men.
Harland Collar Auxiliary Soldiers, the fighting strength was also not weak, equipped with a large number of steel armor and alchemy bombs, because Harland Collar could provide a large number of Teng Hui potions, an auxiliary squadron of professional officers roughly three or five people, equivalent to the level of the sixth brigade of the Wild Lion Legion that Richard had served back in the day.
There is another reason why Richard is willing to help in the war, he is prepared to negotiate with Archduke Starnick, using the Duke Madison’s territory that he occupied this year, in exchange for Duke Jonathan’s territory.
Last year, he captured the Prioran region, Richard formed the fifth legion, the construction of the legendary magic ship was successful, and formed the Black River Water Army, these are the regular army establishment, and the missing personnel can only be supplemented from the auxiliary army.
Fifteen hundred and sixty thousand troops, more than ten thousand casualties a year, the casualty rate is only about six and a half percent, which is not considered very serious. In addition more than half of the wounded soldiers could rejoin the army, and the actual attrition this year was only about three thousand killed in action, with more than eighteen hundred discharged with serious wounds.
With less casualties in the army, the fighting force can be maintained well enough to help the Grand Duchy of Starnic repel the orcs.
According to the feedback from the battlefield, it could fight against the regular army corps of Lane Kingdom. But it was slightly inferior to the Grant Kingdom’s border army.
Richard left 50,000 troops to defend the newly captured territories, and personally led 24,000 troops northward to reinforce the Grand Duchy of Stannic.
Harland’s territory has a dream tree, which can be used as a magic radio, and the transmission of intelligence is very easy, and every night Richard will enter the dream of an important intelligence officer, and do a short communication with the station chief of an important intelligence station.
Especially the four legions of the North, Grizzly Bear, Wild Lion, and Iron Lion, placed in the eastern countries of the Middle Continent, are considered to be the first class of strong soldiers, and can defeat the orcs in field battles with the same amount of troops.
The most important point, Richard went north to reinforce is actually paid, after winning the Grand Duchy of Starnik is bound to reward the credit, no matter if it is land or other resources, it is always necessary to give a share to the Harland Territory.
Together with the new recruits organized into the army this year, the number of Harland’s collar army already has 156,000 people, of which 112,000 regular soldiers and 44,000 auxiliary soldiers.
Richard brought his troops north to reinforce them, which could make the Grand Duchy of Starnik owe a favor.
Because the battle had just ended, the Kingdom of Grant hadn’t yet had the time to knighthood and reward the merit.
Before going north, Richard also left the first brigade of magical airships, the Bipedal Flying Dragon Knights at Castle Novena, enhancing the scouting power in Wilde’s hands. With this force, Wilde was able to detect the enemy’s movements in advance and request reinforcements when the enemy attacked in force and mobilized supplies.
Because the nine elite legions under the Grant royal family, also equipped with a large number of alchemy bombs, although the royal family can not be sold to the outside world, with the Harland collar to steal business, but equipped with enough alchemy bombs, the combat power is even stronger than twenty years ago.
Richard had just entered the Grand Duchy of Starnic with his troops, and good news immediately reached his ears. The first was Sophia, who broke through the bottleneck after a meditation session and was promoted to a Ninth Ring Magician.
After being promoted to the ninth ring, Sophia’s mental power increased to forty-nine points, just one step away from awakening her fifth talent.
Sophia was three years older than Richard, promoted to the Ninth Ring at the age of forty-two, and possessed a long time to impact the Legendary bottleneck. She had refined a bottle of Water of Life and still had over two hundred years of life left. With this foundation, as long as she didn’t encounter any major accidents, advancing to Legend was basically a sure thing.
During this period of time, not only did Sophia succeed in her promotion, Richard’s eldest daughter Margaret also broke through the bottleneck, Margaret was promoted to a four-ringed magician at the age of seventeen, and her progress in meditation was a few points faster than even Sophia. This time in the war, in order to let the children receive exercise, Margaret went south with the army, while Philip stayed in the northern border, under the care of Jennings and the others, and experienced the war first hand. Even during the battle, Philip personally killed a dog-headed man.
Although Richard had only brought one legion plus a few thousand professional armies north, the attack power of this force was quite strong.
After entering the Silver Wolf Mountain Range area, Harland led the legion to take the initiative and captured Hawkins Pass in one fell swoop, cutting off the supply lines of the two orc legions.
Harland Collar has magic crystal cannons, the Starlight Bomb in Richard’s hand is powerful, the frontal attack ability is extremely strong, the six thousand orcs that stayed behind could not stop the Harland Collar army from attacking at all.
The supply lines of the two orc legions were easily cut off by the Harlanders.
Harland’s main army corps appeared on the battlefield, Melonella decisively ordered the withdrawal of troops.
After receiving the order from the headquarters, the orcs in the direction of Starnic retreated back to the northern part of the Silver Wolf Mountain Range with the bountiful loot.
Richard and Harland led the legion, decisively attacked and advanced to the west, penetrating deep into the middle of the Silver Wolf Mountain Range, and took the initiative to attack a legion of orcs, routed the enemy, and rescued 70,000 to 80,000 prisoners.
This time, the orcs invaded, taking advantage of the war within the five human kingdoms, and had already reaped a lot of benefits. Not only had they captured dozens of castles of the Lane Kingdom in the northern part of the Silver Wolf Mountain Range, expanding more than 100,000 square kilometers of territory, they had also pushed their defense line past the middle of the Silver Wolf Mountain Range and reached the southern foothills of the Silver Wolf Mountain Range.
This battle turned the decades of expansion of the Lane Kingdom in the Silver Wolf Mountains into a useless endeavor, losing over 600,000 people, 80,000 troops, and dozens of border nobles killed and wounded. Together with the 200,000 square kilometers of territory lost in the south, the Kingdom of Lane lost nearly 400,000 square kilometers of territory, occupying roughly a quarter of the total territory, hurting the root of the problem.
In this war, King Lane lost 120,000 soldiers, and the loss of population was also exceptionally severe, adding up to about three million or so. The war initiated this year, because of the orcs stirring up trouble, the Kingdom of Lane can be said to be a great defeat, the national strength of the country a serious loss.
The Kingdom of Lane lost a big loss, the Grand Duchy of Starnick was equally bad, letting the orcs attack the royal jurisdiction territory, the border nobles lost a lot, and the orcs snatched away hundreds of thousands of population. Although the Kingdom of Delong and the United Kingdom of the East Coast did not lose the war and maintained the battle line, they did not recover their territories, and fought a fierce battle, laboring and hurting the people but with little benefit.
Only the Kingdom of Grant, although the national strength is greatly depleted, after all, the expansion of more than 200,000 square kilometers of land, to be able to meritorious generals knighthood granting the land, do not need to be the great nobles and the royal family back benefits.
More than 200,000 square kilometers of land, enough to split into two dukes, this land is Harland collar down, but without the Grant Kingdom 600,000 large army to hold, Harland collar army can not take such a large benefit to defeat the enemy.
In the end, several great nobles of the Grant Kingdom repeatedly communicated, and after discussing with the Grand Duchy of Starnik, the newly expanded territory was turned into a Duke’s Collar and three Earl’s Collars.
Among them, Harland’s collar has the most credit, divided into a duke’s collar, a count’s collar, the remaining two count’s collars, one divided to the royal family to establish a province, one divided out of six viscounts, twenty-four baronial collars, divided to the Grant Kingdom of meritorious aristocrats. The rest of the land in the province is also owned by the Crown.
Because this battle captured a lot of land, these three provinces have a large area, each with an area of more than 30,000 square kilometers or so. The land in the south that was ripe for development was divided into fiefdoms with a smaller area, the Viscount’s domain was only two thousand square kilometers, and the Baron’s, because they were better bullied, only had an area of around three hundred square kilometers.
Six Viscount Lords, plus twenty-four Baron Lords, the total area is only nineteen thousand square kilometers, the remaining territories under the direct jurisdiction of the royal family, there are also about thirteen thousand square kilometers.
Moreover, the nobles who obtained the fiefs, although many of them came from the big nobles, such as the six viscount collars, were all from the six ducal families of the Grant Kingdom. But all these nobles who were granted fiefs were nominally directly under the royal family.
The essence of this battle was that the Harland Collar expanded 130,000 square kilometers of land, the royal family directly expanded about 45,000, and the remaining 46,000 square kilometers of land belonged to the other great nobles of the Grant Kingdom and the newly promoted military nobles.
For example, the four marquises in the east and the seven counts in the south all gained something after the war, and the territories granted to the newly promoted military nobles were only thirteen, which was actually very rare.
Of course together with the bannermen under the great nobility system, this year’s battle, which was millions of people in size, promoted more than twenty hereditary nobles. For example, Wilde of Harland’s collar, this battle has accumulated enough military merits that Richard is also prepared to seal him to the southern territory, and the fourth legion under Wilde’s command, Richard is also prepared to let them hold on for a long period of time.
After the territorial demarcation was completed, Richard directly approached Archduke Jonathan and asked to exchange the southern dukedom for the Jonathan family’s territory in the Grant Kingdom.
Although Duke Jonathan’s territory possessed the Dragon’s Nest, a natural medium-sized magic well of notable value, in order to avoid becoming a thorn in Richard’s side and to centralize the territories in one place, Archduke Jonathan pondered for a day and decided to agree to Richard’s proposal.
Richard’s territory in the south had more than 1.2 million serfs, and Duke Jonathan’s territory also had a population of 1.6 million people, both sides reached a population exchange by the way, and in the end, Duke Jonathan only needed to move two legionnaires soldiers with the territorial bureaucrats, and with their families, it was about 300,000 people or so.
After the two dukes completed the exchange, the Duke of Harland’s territory had been linked together, and the area also exceeded more than a million square kilometers, counting Richard’s count’s territory in the south, the population also increased to nearly ten million people.
The three southern counts were named Novena Province, Campa Province, and Philip Counts, because Richard was the biggest contributor in this battle, the right to name the new territories naturally belonged to him.
After the territories were divided, Roger Kingdom transferred a royal guard legion into Novena Castle, while Wilde withdrew the fourth legion to garrison the Philip Counts.
Due to the transfer of royal and other noble armies, Harland’s Domain also slowly reduced its garrison to the south, eventually maintaining only around 32,000 men. However, the Bipedal Flying Dragon Knights and the First Brigade of Magic Airships stayed in the south for the time being.
This time it wasn’t that Richard didn’t want to exchange the northern territories, it’s just a pity that Roger Kingdom wanted to let Harland Territory put some of its energy in the south, after all, the alliance of Lane, Delong, and the East Coast was giving more and more pressure to the Grant Kingdom, and without Harland Territory’s full support, the Grant Kingdom couldn’t withstand it at all.
The royal family is not willing to exchange territories, Richard can only look for the neighboring Duke of York and the Grand Duchy of Starnick.
The Grand Duchy of Starnik was also of the same consideration, and wanted the Harlanders to place a portion of their troops on the borders of the Kingdom of Leyen to protect their southern part. The Duke of York was equally unwilling to exchange territories, after all, with Harland’s Domain in the north, the Duke of York didn’t need to face the threat of the orcs, and was certainly unwilling to divert its energies to go to the south and fight with the mighty Kingdom of Lane.
(End of chapter)