Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 276 Supply Difficulties

June was a peaceful and quiet day for Claude, with a battalion of Rangers stationed in this forgotten area and no enemy sightings. Even the reconnaissance cavalry penetrated the Kanas Prairie for three days and three nights and was unable to detect and detect signs of enemy troop movements.

And the three leading troops who entered the second, third and fourth battalions of the Rangers from the northeastern border of the Principality of Eskirin into the Kanas Prairie have similarly found little that the three battalions have now penetrated a third of the grasslands and have not even encountered larger nomadic tribes, apart from sweeping away sporadic pastoralist tents.

After these messages were passed on, everyone at Front Line Command was relieved. In this context, it is highly likely that the Principality of Kanas will concentrate all its forces in the northern Gulf, with the intention of defending the most economically developed areas of the Principality.

The northern bay is the Principality of Kanas and the largest natural great bay in the eastern part of the continent, a natural and excellent military harbour with abundant fishery production. The Principality of Kanas has four major cities along the northern Gulf, and the capital of the Principality, the city of Kampast, is situated there, arguably the essence of the Principality of Kanas. In this regard, the possibility of the Principality of Kanas concentrating its forces on the northern Gulf in preparation for defensive operations is very high.

Since Major Scully was drunk and dragged Claude's hand to reveal his mind, it's always been a little embarrassing for Claude to see Major Scully. Instead, Major Skerry was in a state of comfort and seemed to forget what he had done that night. But this time Major Skerry came to Castle Landes with good news for Claude. The Grand Duke of Eskirin surrendered and the Duchy of Eskirin became the second country to perish in this war.

Speaking of war, Grand Duke Eskilin has now become the most important prisoner of the status captured by the kingdom of Ovieras and the biggest wretch in the anti-Olympic countries. After several regiments formed temporarily to counter the defensive position of that second-line regiment in the Kingdom of Ovilas in the southern three counties, Grand Duke Eskilin felt bad, but in case of delusion, decided to personally go to the front to inspire morale and inspire the soldiers to return home.

It was only on the front line that it was discovered that these temporarily formed regimental soldiers had no intention of war and that even those officers who were nobles had long been unfamiliar with the battlefield. Although the enemy's two or three defensive fronts had been defeated by force strength, the casualties were extremely heavy and the soldiers were no longer able to break through the enemy's final defensive positions.

This was followed by the completion of the construction of a temporary corridor in the Picklet Mountains, with an increasing number of enemy troops rushing to the three southern counties for reinforcements. With that in mind, Grand Duke Eskilin could only order a defensive front to be set up by those temporarily formed regiments in preparation for a sustained defensive battle with the enemy, returning himself to the capital of the Principality, Fort Braviso, to preside over the event.

Only Grand Duke Eskilin did not expect that two days after his departure from the front line, the army of the Kingdom of Ovilas launched a counterattack and several temporary regiments on the front line soon collapsed. The enemy drove straight in, and the day after Grand Duke Eskilin returned to the capital, the reconnaissance cavalry of the Kingdom of Ovilas had appeared beneath the Grand Duke of Braviso. As a result, Grand Duke Eskirin was trapped in the city and had no time to pack his belongings and run away.

With the arrival of the two second-line regiments of the Kingdom of Auvellas, which completely surrounded the Grand Duke of Braviso, the Grand Duke of Eskilin had to die of that broken heart. Actually, it's not that he doesn't have a chance to run, it's just that he's got a whole family and some of those storerooms. If it was easy for him to run out on his own, but the problem was that he had abandoned his family and belongings, he would only be able to go to begging days under the mailman's hedge. So Grand Duke Eskirin is dead and ready to fight a negative corner with the sturdy walls and defensive installations of Grand Duke Braviso.

But surprisingly, the two second-line regiments of the Kingdom of Ovillas did not attack immediately, but were stationed, trapped dead in the entire Grand Duke of Braviso. Grand Duke Eskilin also surrendered thinking that the enemy wanted to trap himself without food, which he was not panicked about, because the city had accumulated enough food for two years for everyone and he was not afraid of the siege of the enemy.

It was not until the end of June that Grand Duke Eskirin finally understood what the enemy was thinking, and two huge and heavy siege cannons were dragged down to the city of Grand Duke Braviso by countless people and cowhorses. What made Grand Duke Eskilin suffer was that the two giant siege cannons were also masterpieces of his Principality. After the outbreak of the war, a large group of technicians from the three southern counties, known for their military work, forged these two siege cannons to demonstrate the strength of the Principality's force and the invincibility of the anti-Olympic alliance.

Then the two siege cannons were thrown in the southern three counties to set them up, because they were too big and too heavy to move, so everyone took the two giant siege cannons as sculptures and left them to the wind and rain. After the Blue Feather Regiment raided the southern three counties, the two siege cannons became a trophy for the Royal Auvellas Army.

Soon after his arrival in the three counties of the south, Grand Prince Hansburg became interested in the two huge siege artillery and again recruited mechanics to repair the two artillery guns, which were reported to remain usable and to exert unparalleled power.

Thus, the Grand Duke of Braviso, the capital of the Principality of Eskilin, became the target of the two cannon attacks designated by the Grand Prince. Moving these two cannons there is indeed a very expensive human and material project. But the Royal Auvellas Army doesn't care. It's an enemy country, and there are plenty of free civilian husbands that can be forcibly expropriated, and plenty of cattle and horses that can be expropriated, even if the Grand Prince orders compensation, at little cost. While moving the two artillery guns, the road to the Grand Duke of Braviso in the three southern counties can also be strengthened, which is a good thing.

In fact, Grand Duke Eskilin almost collapsed when he saw the shadow of these two giant siege cannons. He was well aware of the power of these two cannons. For example, the solid iron bullets fired with a basin weighed nearly a hundred pounds. The walls of his castle could not resist the bombardment of these two cannons. In a few days, the Grand Duke of Braviso would become a piece of rubble.

Therefore, after sending personnel to contact them and receiving a written pledge from the Grand Prince of Hansburg, first to protect the Grand Duke of Eskilin and his family and his private property from encroachment, the Grand Duke of Eskilin simply surrendered and the Principality of Eskilin perished.

The demise of the Principality of Eskirin has considerably eased some of the tensions in the Kingdom of Ovieras, and the current battle balance across the eastern part of the continent has shifted considerably towards the Kingdom of Ovieras. The collapse of the two principalities and the collapse of the Principality of Rimodra, which was struck on both sides, is close to sight. Especially since the largest reinforcements in the Principality of Rimodra were the four armed regiments from the Principality of Eskirin, now that the Principality of Eskirin is extinct, these four regiments have become the biggest destabilizing factor in the alliance of the Principality of Rimodra.

The senior ranks of the Allied Coalition against the Olympics naturally want to keep the four Legions of the Principality of Eskirin in the coalition. They send money to the senior noble officers of those Legions to give women money to talk about defeating the Kingdom of Ovieras and rebuilding the Principality of Eskirin. With all due respect, the noble officers of those Legions have not lost their blood, but are also very much in favour of rebuilding the Principality of Eskirin.

The problem is that the surrendered Grand Duke Eskirin cooperated very closely with the instructions of Grand Prince Hansburg, ordering his family to go to the camp where the four Duchy armed regiments were located and preaching that the Grand Duke had surrendered, that the war was over, that you could go home and not fight again, and wait for those words to instruct the soldiers of those regiments to lay down their weapons and surrender to the army of the Kingdom of Ovilas. Thus, in the uncertain behaviour of the noble officers of the Legion, the soldiers of the four Legions fled for the most part, and finally fewer than one Legion was collected.

Soldiers ran away, but the same position they defended was thrown at the Royal Auvellas Army, so the solid defensive front was suddenly broken through two big mouths and enemy soldiers approached the city. The senior officers of the Principality of Rimodra and the Allied Command, aware that the forces had gone, urgently ordered the Allied Coalition Coalition Fleet to come and guard the three seaport cities of the Principality of Rimodra, the three maritime corridors through which the Allied Coalition forces had fled the despair.

The front line is progressing smoothly and the newsletters are spreading, but the first battalion of the Rangers encounters an embarrassing reality. That was the mountain crossing in the southern mountains, which prevented logistical oversupply, and the mountain crossing from the southern three counties to Squirrel Village, which was refurbished by the prisoners sent by Claude, barely allowed access to a four-wheeled wagon, which was still being supplied. But from Squirrel Village to Kanas Prairie, the highway can only transport supplies with horses.

After careful calculations, the logistics staff of the Front Line Command came to the conclusion that it was no longer possible to send troops into the area abandoned by the nobility of the territory of the Principality of Kanas, because there was no way to requisition material or manpower locally. As long as an additional battalion of troops went to the area, the result was that the supply could not keep pace, so the area could only be guarded by one battalion of guerrillas.

The Front Line Command staff were not concerned, however, because the second battalion of Rangers on the other side would be able to connect with the first battalion of Rangers by a third further distance into the prairie. As for the remaining strength of the Principality of Kanas, there is no need to worry. The enemy should be gathering all its forces to guard the northern Bay area so that no enemy can be found on the prairie.

At present, the logistics and heavy supplies of the Ranger Battalion are entirely dependent on the rear transport, replacing a local guard battalion of the Ranger Battalion, which is also responsible for providing logistical security to the Ranger Battalion, but soon, the local guard battalion was called the Sufferer Battalion, which lost seven soldiers and eleven horses in a month on the highway leading to the Kanas Prairie in Squirrel Village, as well as a large quantity of food and other supplies because the horses rolled into the valley and took the soldiers with them.

There were a number of reasons for the incident, but it also had a lot to do with the fact that a Ranger Battalion was urging them to move supplies as quickly as possible. Fortunately, three supply shipments per month have initially met the material requirements of the first battalion of guerrillas and can be reduced to logistical supply shipments twice a month and once a month thereafter.

The main shortage is food, an area that has been abandoned by the aristocracy of those territories for almost a year now, full of wild grass and grains. And the total number of soldiers in one battalion is 1,3506, and with over a thousand weak and old women and children gathered here, and more than 400 young and powerful prisoners that followed, nearly 3,000. In cases where food cannot be collected locally, filling the stomach can only be transported by materials in the rear.

A horse can only carry more than 400 kilograms of food on a mountain road, and 3,000 people need at least 5,000 kilograms of food a day. Soldiers must not be allowed to fill their stomachs... Although the 100 horses responsible for transporting more than 50,000 kilograms of food can be transported once, even saving up to half the next month's consumption.

Major Skerry let the captives and the gathered youths grow potatoes and melons in the desert, hoping that these short-lived crops would help greatly. Claude, on the other hand, organized soldiers to fish in the rivers and ponds of the area, to take people up the mountain for hunting, and the herds of sheep that had been collected from those herders' houses the previous day, barely accumulated enough to sustain their food reserves for half a month.

Ammunition was not lacking and the consumption could be maintained for more than a month as soon as the soldier battalion brought it in by itself, but Claude was still not satisfied, and he consulted Major Skerry and had to stockpile at least three months of ammunition, food and other military materiel. If the local guard battalion picked up over there is unable to maintain a permanent supply route, Claude is prepared to have the guerrilla battalion organize its own personnel to transport supplies.

Major Skerry has also been badly affected by material shortages, mainly because close to a thousand of those women and children, old and weak, are unable to eat and work, placing a heavy burden on the 1st Battalion of the Rangers. But these women and children cannot be driven away. After all, they are the people of the kingdom and cannot be saved.

“Do you think the enemy will come?” Major Skerry looked at Claude with astonishment: "Didn't the Front Command staff say the enemy was likely to retreat in the Northern Bay area to prepare for defensive combat? ”

“I don't know.” Claude shook his head: “I wish the Front Line Command staff were telling the truth, but I always had a hunch that the enemy would come. I feel very strange about this situation at the moment. I don't know why the enemy has shrunk in the northern bay area. To know that defensive operations also require reconnaissance cavalry to detect hostilities, but now almost all reconnaissance cavalry deep into the prairie have not found any trace of the enemy, which is too suspicious.

I always felt that the enemy seemed to be holding back something, otherwise they wouldn't let us drive this long into the prairie, which is their territory. Send light cavalry to destroy our scout cavalry and shield our ears, eyes and ears, whether offensive or defensive, which is military common sense, but they didn't... so I suggest stockpiling some more grass, ammunition and supplies during this quiet day, or be prepared. ”

“You're right, we have to be prepared so that we don't regret anything until it happens.” Captain Scully nodded.