Volume 9: Home Chapter 299 I want them all!
"Come on! Let's fight it out in a fair fight!!"
Andrew & the Moon Bear generals roared in unison.
The vanguard rushed out of the formation and silently rushed towards the wolf cavalry of the Snow Wolf Clan like a surging wave.
These elite warriors of Moon Bear City did not need to undertake exploration missions or hunting, and the harassment tactics of recent days had not caused them to lose men. In addition, no matter how poor the military supplies were, no one would cut their rations. Each of them was full of energy and vigor, wearing armor weighing at least 30 kilograms on average and carrying heavy long-handled sabers. When they ran in a group, even the earth shook!
In contrast, the central army, which was moving slowly and chaotically to the sides, and the front army, which had been bombed and suffered heavy casualties and was only responsible for the central raid, were much less imposing... You have to know that apart from the baggage camp that was attacked by the enemy's concentrated fire, the soldiers who suffered the most combat or non-combat casualties were these soldiers. If more than 20% of the casualties of the soldiers did not occur in one day but accumulated over many days, even if the leader was General Andrew, the army would inevitably mutiny...
The four groups of wolf cavalrymen that emerged from the earth wall gradually moved together, forming a high-speed moving steel arrowhead, and slammed fiercely into the vanguard of the Moon Bear Tribe!
The orcs and the elves have been entangled in grievances for thousands of years, and both sides have actively learned each other's tactics and experiences. The long-handled saber used by the moon bears was imitated from the snow elves, and it was modified into a shape more suitable for the bears: a one-meter-long handle and a thick, heavy blade of nearly 1.5 meters in length. Although it is difficult to use in close combat, it is a powerful weapon to restrain cavalry.
The standard spears used by the wolf cavalry of the Snow Wolf Clan also originated from the snow elves... The spears are longer than spears, and have a thicker, more durable and less likely to break. They can create a bloody hole when stabbing during a galloping battle, and are the most suitable weapon for cavalry.
In the wolf cavalry formation, Yu, who served as the "arrowhead", was the first to come into contact with the enemy. The strongest warrior in Fire City sat astride the neck of his partner A'lu, holding the middle of the spear with his right hand and lightly supporting the tail of the spear with his left hand. The tip of the spear pointed forward diagonally, and the cold spear body drew a cold silver line during the high-speed sprint.
Three hundred meters, one hundred meters, fifty meters, twenty meters, ten meters - five meters!
Right in front of A-lu who was running close to the ground, the Moon Bear Vanguard was striding forward without any fear. He raised his saber diagonally with both arms and chopped at him with a whistling sound!
Yu, who was holding the spear, gently stepped forward with his left hand and actively extended the three-and-a-half-meter-long spear forward half a meter.
The spear is longer than the saber!
The tip of the special alloy steel spear passed over the saber and pierced the neck of the Moon Bear Vanguard, leaving a line of blood that was extremely gorgeous yet extremely shuddering!
The big wolves transformed from adult snow werewolves have an average shoulder height of about two and a half meters. The rider riding on the wolf's back will naturally have an advantage by attacking from a high position!
The Moon Bear Vanguard fell down holding his neck. A-Lu took advantage of the situation and stepped on his back, leaped high, and rushed down at an enemy with a roar and showing his ferocious wolf fangs!
The terrifying thing about the wolf cavalry is that it's not just the riders who are lethal - the next second, the Moon Bear Vanguard, who hadn't even had time to hand over his saber, was bitten on the head by A-lu and thrown away!
The huge A-Lu tore a hole in the Moon Bear Vanguard Army's formation, but she and her partner on her back were also trapped in the enemy's formation, with sabers slashing at them from all directions!
Ah Lu suddenly lowered her head to the ground and lowered the wolf head to below the height of her shoulders; Yu on her back grasped the long and thick white hair on her neck with one hand, and held the spear in one hand, spinning it suddenly - wherever the tip of the spear passed, sparks flew or blood splashed!
After forcing back a wave of enemy attacks, A-Lu completed the charge with an evasive move and jumped high again, roaring as he went deep into the enemy camp!
The gap that she and her partner Yu had opened was instantly filled by other wolf riders!
In an instant, the wolf cavalry, charging forward like arrows, pierced into the belly of the Moon Bear Vanguard Army like a red-hot fork inserted into a cream cake!
Admiral Andrew, who was observing the battlefield while surrounded by the front army, stood up suddenly with a look of horror on his face.
The team he brought to the grassland was formed by selecting elite troops after the elders of Moon Bear City reached a consensus. Especially the vanguard army. The two thousand vanguards were all elite warriors of the tribe, without any water in the wind!
As for the wolf cavalry on the opposite side, a veteran like Andrew could confirm at a glance that there were no more than 500 of them!
With four times the number of troops as the enemy, they couldn't even stop the enemy's first charge? !
"--These bastards!! They are so shameless!" Admiral Andrew could hardly control his emotions and started cursing on the spot.
Even if Andrew's brain was stuck in the door, he could tell from such an obvious defeat in the battle that the Snow Wolf Clan had recovered their heritage!
Clearly, he had recovered the inheritance and was able to fight them in an open battle, yet he went on to harass their march in every way possible and came up with so many sinister and shameful tricks!
Admiral Andrew really wanted to beat the prairie commander who came up with such a bad idea to death - if the other side had not been playing dirty tricks and making him think that the other side did not dare to fight them head-on, how could he be so careless as to let the most important and precious vanguard army directly withstand the most fiercest first wave of charge of the Wolf Cavalry!
"The central army attacks and outflanks the enemy!"
The battle between the vanguard and the wolf cavalry lasted less than five minutes. The commander of the central army had just organized his troops and formed a battle array on both sides of the battlefield when the admiral's order came. The generals had no time to question and worked hard to lead the army forward.
Moon Bear's central army was not as elite as the vanguard, but its organizational strength was not too bad. The central army advancing in both directions outflanked the enemy's rear in just a few minutes.
Just as the central army was surrounding the enemy's rear, the front army, which had been left behind due to heavy casualties, shouted and killed at the same time on both sides...
Admiral Andrew looked in horror in the direction where the killing sounds came from, and saw... countless snow wolves, cat warriors & magicians, snakes, gray dwarves, centaurs - and even humans in robes - jumping out from behind the hills, in the woods, in the grass , and behind the bushes!
The thick-skinned and tough snow werewolves led the charge, while the cat and snake warriors crouched on both sides of the snow werewolves who acted as meat shields. The gray dwarves wearing heavy armor and holding hammers followed closely behind.
The smallest number of centaurs carried longbows and fought guerrilla warfare on the periphery, specifically targeting the bear-headed creatures who were preparing to cast spells and fight back.
The cat and human spellcasters were responsible for providing firepower cover during their own warriors' charge, and their magic spells were thrown into the front formation of the Moon Bears without any effort...
The Moon Bear Front Army was originally stronger than the Central Army, but they suffered heavy losses in the previous explosion, and only about 2,000 combat-capable soldiers were left. With such a small number of troops, they had to protect the baggage, the generals, and the auxiliary soldiers. The defense line was so thin that it was unbearable to look at... After approaching the enemy formation unscathed under the firepower cover of the friendly spellcasters, the Snow Wolf Warriors who led the charge tore through the defense line with almost no effort...
Admiral Andrew's face instantly lost all color, and he spat out a mouthful of blood... Even shamelessness has to have a limit! Please, can you please have a lower limit!!
The Snow Wolf Tribe, which had only recovered its heritage a few years ago, certainly couldn't train all its warriors into qualified soldiers so quickly. It was also impossible to train warriors who could cooperate closely with their partners, and single dogs like A Yan, so they couldn't leave the infantry sequence for the time being.
In a battlefield dominated by cold weapons and supplemented by magic, infantry is undoubtedly the fastest expendable type of soldiers. Xiao Yun must be reluctant to use the small number of adult tribesmen as consumables, so before sending his own infantry to gain battlefield experience points, he must find ways to weaken the opponent to ensure the survival rate of his own infantry - what's wrong with the wretched flow? Except for the gods who use cheats, only the wretched flow has the highest chance of winning the game!
Anyone who wants to fight the opponent in full condition can do so, but Xiao Yun won’t fight!
Here, the grassland infantrymen were about to achieve the achievement of "killing the general and seizing the flag", while over there, the commander of the central army who had just pressed into the enemy's rear was almost so angry that he vomited blood.
None of these Moon Bear generals were fools, and no one shouted to rescue the general. Instead, they all launched an attack on the Wolf Cavalry who were in a stalemate with the vanguard army. They bypassed the thousand-meter-long battlefield to rescue the general. The formation that they had finally managed to pull together was definitely going to be broken up. Was it to save people or to give up their lives?!
It would be better to eat the opponent's wolf cavalry first!
Then... a wolf howl was heard from the vanguard army. All the giant wolves that were fighting fiercely with their opponents turned around at the same time and worked together to attack the vanguard army's eastern defense line...
The Moon Bear Vanguard in this direction was already being killed by the spearhead team of Yu & A Lu. The bear heads tried their best to intercept them but it didn’t delay them for much time. After a few dozen seconds, the Wolf Cavalry Brigade broke through their formation and rushed towards the already shaky Moon Bear Vanguard...
"Surrender and you won't be killed!"
As soon as the Wolf Cavalry Brigade rushed to the enemy's front position, the gray dwarves with particularly loud voices stretched their necks and roared towards the enemy.
The Snow Werewolves, Cats, and Snakes shouted in unison: "Drop your weapons! Get down and hold your head! Surrender and you won't be killed!"
"Drop your weapons! Get down on your knees and hold your head! Throw yourself in and don't kill me!"
The vanguard troops who took the wolf riders' claws with their faces suffered over a hundred casualties in just over ten minutes of fighting, but this was not enough to cause the bear army to collapse. Moreover, the central army did not engage in combat with the enemy at all and remained unscathed. At this moment, the Moon Bear Army was far from considering surrendering.
However... in the eyes of the vanguard troops and auxiliary troops who were holding the line, they had been surrounded by the enemy, their defense line had been torn apart, and the wolf cavalry had rushed into their formation!
In the chaos, they couldn't see the vanguard and central troops who were still able to fight a thousand meters away!
White Bear Hal and his companions had no weapons in their hands, so they squatted down without any psychological burden, holding their heads in their hands.
In this atmosphere of panic, hundreds of people squatting down and holding their heads together was undoubtedly highly contagious. The panicked auxiliary soldiers around them had no time to think and followed suit subconsciously.
These auxiliary soldiers who followed the crowd influenced more auxiliary soldiers...
The thousands of auxiliary soldiers who squatted down one after another affected the combat soldiers...
Amid the clanging sounds, the frontline soldiers dropped their weapons one by one...
By the time the relatively intact central army and the vanguard army, whose battlefield casualties were less than 10%, rushed back, their generals, vanguard soldiers and commanders, baggage and auxiliary troops had already fallen into the hands of the enemy.
These bear-headed men, whose faces were either covered in dust or blood and sweat, looked at each other and threw away their weapons in anger, despair, or relief.
When the tied-up Admiral Andrew and the generals were sent to the tents in the earthen fort and imprisoned separately from the non-commissioned officers and soldiers, they discovered... that these tents in the fort were prepared for them.
"Fifty-six people were seriously injured, and more than four hundred were slightly injured. Not bad. It's worth all the preparations we made before the war."
Xiao Yun waited for the casualty report a day later. After looking at the losses on his side, his heart, which had been hanging in his throat for more than a month, finally settled down in his stomach.
"Almost all members of the cavalry brigade were injured. The vanguard troops that they concentrated their supplies on caused the most damage to us." Yu, whose head, arms, and stomach were wrapped in gauze, said in a deep voice, "Alu's armor didn't cover her limbs. Her two front paws were chopped off dozens of times, and her left paw was almost chopped off. She was holding on and didn't say anything until the fight was over."
Under normal combat circumstances, the highly mobile Wolf Cavalry Battalion would not have suffered heavy casualties in a fight with the pure infantry Moon Bear Vanguard Army. Three hundred pairs of heavily armored cavalry could have easily crushed the opposing positions several times...but in order to trick the enemy's center into transferring and buy time and space for their own infantry to safely attack the enemy's rear (reducing their own casualties), the Wolf Cavalry Battalion broke into the enemy's position and sacrificed its mobility to engage in a "stalemate" with the vanguard army, and naturally suffered injuries.
Xiao Yun nodded and turned to look at Hongye.
Hongye said solemnly: "We are studying how to make soft metal that can fit our limbs in wolf form. The armor leaves we made before would hinder our movements no matter how we weave them, and our running and jumping would be restricted, so they didn't cover our limbs."
Yu moved his lips, wanting to ask why he couldn't buy the soft and protective silver armor from the snow elves, but thinking about the price of the silver armor mixed with magic ore and the quantity needed for wolf cavalry equipment, he held back - at least four pieces of snow elf soft silver armor could protect one of A'lu's claws, and the cost-effectiveness was really too low.
"How about this, we will contact the Alchemist Association later and see if we can buy the alloy formula we need from them." Xiao Yun said.
He said so, but the senior executives of Fire City, including Yu, in the conference room did not think that this trick would work... The reason was very simple. Fire City had offended the Alchemist Association too badly.
There was nothing they could do about it. In the early days, the Fire Department was too poor to buy alloy formulas that cost thousands of gold coins, so they had to trick Carlisle's good friend Tim Humphrey into stealing them secretly... Later, when the Fire Department was selling farm machinery, the Alchemist Association discovered that the grassland people had used a lot of their formulas without paying, which was very embarrassing...
Xiao Yun also knew that the problem was mainly his fault. He was reluctant to pay the "patent" fee before the incident was exposed. Now he would not accept the money even if he was willing to pay... Xiao Yun coughed falsely and changed the subject out of shame: "This battle with Moon Bear has given everyone the opportunity to understand the combat effectiveness of the traditional army of the empire. What do you think of this biggest enemy of ours?"
After saying that, Xiao Yun looked at Harris, who performed brilliantly in this "tiring the enemy tactics".
Harris was attending a high-level meeting of this scale for the first time. He said shyly, "Well... I think the difference in treatment between auxiliary soldiers and combat soldiers is too obvious. This will reduce the auxiliary soldiers' sense of honor for the battle and the army. Even without the captives taking the lead for them, the auxiliary soldiers' fighting spirit will be greatly reduced."
Xia felt a little uncomfortable when he saw that Harris was so valued by Xiao Yun. As soon as Harris finished speaking, he continued, "Until yesterday, except for the team officers and battalion officers, the Moon Bear auxiliary soldiers have not had a full meal in nearly ten days. The combat soldiers of the front army and the central army are only slightly better than the auxiliary soldiers. This is partly because their generals are too hasty and unwilling to slow down the march to hunt and gather enough food. I personally guess that their generals hope to fight the enemy, that is, us, as soon as possible, and use indulgence in looting to appease morale after defeating us. I think we should learn from this desperate mentality. As generals, we should not only consider success but also failure."
Xia's considerations were obviously more in-depth than Harris's. The executives present at the meeting nodded one after another, making Xia secretly proud.
Xia continued, imitating Xiao Yun's fake cough, "I think it is wrong to exploit the loyalty of soldiers and then make amends, thinking that the soldiers will have no complaints. Healed wounds will leave scars, and neglected soldiers will gradually lose their loyalty to their generals and the army. If the imperial army treats soldiers in this way, then I think that many of them will be successfully converted like the previous batch of prisoners."
Xiao Yun looked at the leopard with satisfaction. To be honest, he was able to suppress his rebelliousness. This guy was really useful - he could understand what he meant without eye contact and proactively paved the way for his next action. How smart!
This time, more than 19,000 moon bears were captured. Although no one came to Xiao Yun to discuss how to accommodate such a large number of prisoners, Xiao Yun knew that many people had different opinions on whether to accept it in full. The reason was very simple - all the warriors of Huoyan City, including the gray dwarves and centaurs, were less than 4,000 people!
With so few soldiers, they have to train and do daily patrols, how can they keep an eye on so many prisoners!
In this regard, Xiao Yun’s idea is: I want them all!
