Chapter 294 Opening the Channel
The Canyon Castle has a large number of defenders, and they have strong fortifications to help them. Their weapons are far more advanced than those of the orcs. Such a castle cannot be conquered by a single orc brigade.
The orcs still know the Canyon Castle as they did three years ago. They launched an attack rashly without detailed investigation and fell into the trap of the defenders.
The orc vanguard brigade was easily surrounded and annihilated by the Canyon Castle defenders and fought a failed battle.
The Canyon Castle defenders have sixteen squadrons of infantry, two squadrons of reconnaissance cavalry, one magic balloon squadron, and one squadron of military police, with a total of nearly three thousand people.
The core of the brigade is the third brigade of the Harland Territory. Although this brigade is not as elite as the first and second brigade, it is also the first four brigade established in the Harland Territory, and there are many veterans who have served in the army for more than ten years.
The commander of the Canyon Castle defenders is Norman, the captain of the third brigade. This person is Soros's nephew and can be regarded as somewhat talented.
Norman is in his forties and has served the Harland family for more than ten years. He is a fifth-level warrior and looks quite shrewd.
Soros was transferred from the position of captain of the Warcraft Cavalry Brigade to the Grotta River County as commander. Naturally, the officers under him had to be arranged with people he was familiar with.
After receiving the military information from the Canyon Castle, Soros immediately transferred troops from Norman Castle and King Castle.
However, there are three canyons in the north of Grotta River County that can be passed through. Now that forts have been built, only the Canyon Castle and the Riverside Castle have complete fortifications.
The Canyon Castle is the focus of Grotta River County's defense, with a total of 4,000 garrisons including auxiliary troops.
The Riverside Castle is relatively close to the Iron Lion Castle, with only two squadrons of regular troops, plus 500 auxiliary troops, with a total force of less than 1,000.
Soros is a cautious person. After receiving the news of the orc invasion, he decisively abandoned the western passage of Grotta River County, placed his troops in the eastern and central passages, and ordered the villages west of the Norman and King castles to implement the order of fortification and clearing the fields.
All 23 villages were abandoned, wells were filled, and 20,000 people were relocated to the east of the two castles of Norman and Kingdom.
Although Grotta River County was incorporated into Harland Territory, the focus of the development of this territory is still in the east. In the face of the invasion of orcs, it can only get closer to the Iron Lion Legion.
Norman Castle is nearly 300 kilometers away from William Castle. The distance between the two sides is too far to cooperate closely. In an emergency, it is impossible to rely on the reinforcements from William Castle.
Soros's troops need to rely on the power of the Iron Lion Legion to ensure survival.
The western passage of Grotta River County has not formed a complete defense line. If the defenders want to stop the orcs, they can only rely on simple camps to fight hard.
Now it is an environment where the enemy is strong and we are weak. Soros has only 7,000 regular troops in his hands. It is impossible to abandon the solid city defense fortifications and set up camps in the wild to intercept the orcs.
Moreover, Soros also considered politically and decided to open this passage to allow this half-legion of orcs to enter the Rach Province and rely on the power of the Rach Province to wipe out this enemy.
If half of the orc army breaks through Harland Territory, the first opponents will be the Eagle Castle garrison and Viscount Nelson Territory.
In the last orc invasion, Viscount Nelson Territory suffered heavy losses, and Harland Territory swallowed up tens of thousands of people. Now the remnants of Viscount Nelson's family are still operating this territory.
Soros knew that his nephew Richard had already set his sights on this territory, but due to the order of the nobles of the Grant Kingdom, he could not directly seize the territory.
But he could use the hands of the orcs to swallow up Viscount Nelson Territory.
King Grant's northern nobles, this operation is almost instinctive. If the small nobles want to be safe, they can only pray that their fiefs are not favored by the great nobles, or stay away from the border.
After the Harland family became rich, they only swallowed up the two baronies of Stob and Diram, and the Stob family relied on marriage.
Compared with other great nobles, it is already very civilized.
Viscount Nelson's territory is located in the southern part of Salt Lake County. This territory is surrounded by the Harland family on three sides. Once swallowed, the eastern and western counties of the Harland territory will be connected, not only expanding the hinterland, but also making the defense line more complete.
This is also the reason why Soros left a hole for the orcs.
When the orcs invaded, Soros not only issued an order to clear the fields, but also sent a letter for help to the Iron Lion Legion.
The commander of the Iron Lion Legion, Zakli, is a veteran general, and his ability to command operations is a few points better than Martins. Although he has had ups and downs in the northern border, he is one of the few people who has a big picture view.
Zakli knows that the northern defense line of Grota Province can only be complete with the cooperation of the Harland Territory. Once the orcs break through the Harland Territory, they can cross the Grota River and enter their own hinterland.
In this situation, the eastern part of the Harland Territory and himself are in the same boat. So he didn't think about it for long before sending twelve squadrons of reinforcements to the riverside castle.
Just as Soros and Zakli were mobilizing their troops, the orc army had already appeared nearby.
The orcs attacking this area belonged to two fronts, of which the Eastern Front had three legions, two of which were east of Grota Province, attacking the Dukedom of Jonathan.
After Duke Jonathan succeeded Grand Duke Stannic, he did not give up the title of Grant Kingdom, because he led the main force westward and entrusted the Dukedom of Jonathan to his eldest son McMillan.
McMillan was a ninth-level epic knight with 20,000 regular troops under his command.
Facing the attack of the two orc legions, the army of the Dukedom of Jonathan fell into a disadvantage for the first time.
In the past hundred years, the Dukedom of Jonathan has not been broken through by the orcs and entered the core of the territory.
The orc commanders knew that the Jonathan family was powerful and would often avoid an all-out war with the Jonathan family.
The two sides often confront each other outside the border, and even Duke Jonathan will take the initiative to lead troops to attack the orcs. The orcs often suffer heavy losses in every encounter.
Richard has experienced many orc invasions, and the Jonathan family has suffered minimal losses. In the situation in the northern border of the Grant Kingdom, Duke Jonathan has been relied on to break the balance and push back the orc army many times.
Now that Duke Jonathan led the main force into the Grand Duchy of Stanik, the two orc legions seemed to have entered an uninhabited land, conquering the border defense line of Duke Jonathan in one fell swoop and annihilating three vassals of the Jonathan family.
Even though the Jonathan family used a large number of alchemical bombs, the orc troops acting as the vanguard suffered heavy losses and still broke the balance, gaining the upper hand for the first time in a century.
There are three legions of the Orc Eastern Front, two attacking the Dukedom of Jonathan and one attacking the Grotta Province.
Ten orc brigades rushed through the eastern part of the Eagle Mountains and appeared near Twin Star Castle and Iron Lion Castle. The main force of orcs appeared, and Zachary's pressure began to increase.
The Iron Lion Army led by Zackery is, after all, the newly expanded main force. The weapons and equipment are relatively ordinary, with a small number of alchemy bombs and explosive arrows, and only 200 Warcraft horses. The quality of the soldiers is also somewhat different from that of the Northern Army. The most troublesome thing is that in order to expand the army, eight thousand new soldiers have been recruited.
Although the number of people increased, they did not have the strength to fight with the orc army in the field, so they could only defend the city. They relied on the castle camp to block the attack of an orc army.
The orcs that appear in the north of Canyon Castle are the middle army.
The center army is the core of the orc army, and its commander is the legendary kobold Killam.
Kilam is an orc veteran who has been active in the northern part of the Grant Kingdom for sixty years. This time Kilam personally led the main force of the center army and wanted to destroy the Harland Territory.
The Canyon Castle Orcs are a partial division of the middle route army. There are five groups of Orcs, plus the auxiliary troops transporting food from the rear, totaling about 15,000 people.
Orc deputy commander Gatlin had a gloomy face. Hearing the information about the defeat of the forward brigade, he saw brigade captain Tanamo constantly defending himself and shirking responsibility.
Gatlin is a lion-man and is considered the core of the orc race, while Tanamo is just a fifth-level kobold. Normally, his status is not comparable to Gatlin.
However, Kilam, the commander of the orc center army, was also a kobold. In order to take care of the commander's face, Gatlin showed some concern for Tanamo.
It was precisely because of Gatlin's care that the kobold captain stood out from his colleagues and became the vanguard of the army.
As a result, the kobolds, the vanguard, underestimated the enemy and fell into the trap set by the canyon castle defenders. The vanguard group suffered heavy losses, with only three to four hundred people returning.
Although he didn't want to offend the commander, in order to strictly enforce military discipline, Gatlin was still cruel and decided to use Tanamo's head to scare the others.
"Your army was surrounded and annihilated. Why didn't you die? Send the order and execute this shameful deserter."
Gatlin gave the order and executed the kobold captain. He looked around and saw many orc officers trembling with fear.
"Plani, tell us about the investigation."
Gatlin turned his head and aimed his eyes at the harpy squadron leader.
"Deputy Legion Commander, through aerial reconnaissance, humans have stationed about 4,000 soldiers in the castle in front of us, 3,000 of whom are well-equipped and should be the elite soldiers of the Harland territory.
Three thousand men were stationed in the castle along the Grotta River in the east, and the elite soldiers numbered about two thousand.
In addition, the King's Castle and the Norman Castle behind the humans have garrisons, with a total of about 6,000 people, and the number of elite soldiers exceeds 4,000.
Because there are magic flying props in Canyon Castle, our aerial scouts cannot get too close. "
After hearing the intelligence summary from Harpy Squadron Leader Plani, Gatlin frowned and said, "Since when did the human frontline castle have magic flying props?"
"It should be a new item invented in the past two years. When we were investigating in the Dukedom of Jonathan three years ago, there was no such fire-breathing magical creation. A few days ago, we received a summons from the headquarters, and Harland led, This kind of flying magic item has appeared in the four central provinces of the Grant royal family, and our losses are not light. "
"Human creativity is far beyond ours!
More than a thousand years ago, humans relied on the magic revival movement to defeat us in one fell swoop, suppressed the elves, and occupied the core land of the Middle Continent. Seven hundred years ago, humans created the Warrior Breathing Method, which allowed ordinary people to break through the shackles of blood and increase their cultural heritage.
In the past few hundred years, humans have begun to build Warcraft cavalry again, and now even aerial magic props have appeared. Do we orcs only have the fate of being suppressed? "
After hearing the Harpy's information, Gatlin suddenly became pessimistic. However, he is the deputy commander of the orcs and is in charge of the army. He must not let his pessimism affect the lower-level officers and soldiers.
"Human soldiers are stationed in four castles, with a total of more than 13,000 people. Their numbers are not much different from ours, and their strength is also relatively close. Humans have strong castles, but we cannot attack them by force."
Gatlin listened to the werewolf captain below and nodded immediately.
There are a total of 10,000 main men under Gatlin's command, of which more than 1,600 are lost to the kobold captain Plani. The power in his hands now is not much different from the strength of the army led by Thoros. As for the more than 5,000 auxiliary soldiers behind, a considerable part of them are goats. The goats soldiers are of no use in the field.
In this direction, human soldiers have fortifications and actually have the upper hand.
"It seems that we have no chance to break through the human defense line."
The captain of the harpy retorted: "Not necessarily. Humans have no troops stationed in the Tani Valley. We can break through the Harland Territory along the Tani Valley and attack the Eagle Castle. Or march eastward and enter the Viscount Nelson Territory."
"Why didn't Earl Harland build a castle and establish a defense line in the Tani Valley?"
Gattlin sighed: "First, there may not be so many people. Second, he may want to use our hands to annex the Viscount Nelson Territory. The great nobles of the human race have made such moves many times. If it weren't for the disunity of the human race, they could have defeated us by relying on the power of the Holy Halo Empire.
Everyone in Savaran has seen the magicians of the Markholm Kingdom. These magicians have been supporting us all these years."
Staring at the map, Gatlin thought for a long time, and finally decided to pass through the defense line of the Harland Territory from the Tani Valley and go around to the belly of the Harland Territory to attack the enemy. This is also the order given to him by Kiram.
Although Gatlin knew that this operation was full of crises.
Although Harland Territory had no extra soldiers, the province of Rah was the focus of the Grant Kingdom's garrison, with a main legion and two second-line legions, with a total strength of more than 50,000.
Gatlin's move to go deep behind enemy lines was actually a military adventure.
Once the province of Rah cooperated closely with the army of Harland Territory, Gatlin's troops would immediately be surrounded.
Three days after the eastern garrison of Harland Territory fought with the orcs, the main force of the orcs, three and a half legions, appeared in the northern part of Harland Territory with the momentum of a mountain pressing down on the top.
On the front of Salt Lake County, an orc legion of 20,000 troops appeared, and there were more than 10,000 auxiliary troops escorting food and grass to guard the rear.
One and a half legions of orcs appeared in the north of the military station fort, with a total of 45,000 troops including auxiliary troops.
In the west of the swamp basin, the orcs marched along the Bernie River. Because the roads along the way were difficult to travel, there were about three battalions of 6,000 orcs.
In addition, seven orc brigades pressed forward from the direction of Pratos.
The four armies exerted their strength at the same time, with a total of more than 100,000 orcs, which made the Harland territory feel very stressed.