Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 340: Claude's Defense Line

On 23 October, on the border between Amphiston and Beringana, Mount Mosiraga, Claude was stationed on the hill with Colonel Sevicht, who had arrived three days earlier.

“… the situation in Bering Ghana is even more critical than in the port of Patres, the capital of Robisto, where the city of Brickaman is currently under siege for nearly three months by the Corps of the Colonial Garrison of the Kingdom of Hicks in Carado, and the remaining four towns have fallen. According to the prisoner's confession, the enemy believes that another month will take Brickaman. And once the city of Brickaman falls, the direct authority of Bering Ghana will also fall under the control of the Kingdom of Hicks...

The situation in Robisto was much better than in Bering Ghana, where the capital, Port Patres, was heavily guarded, and the Pancrat Corps of the Colonial Army of the Kingdom of Hicks, which had launched several attacks, had been repelled, reportedly with some heavy casualties. And in addition to the enemy capture of the five towns under the direct authority, three on the other side of the Dolinibara River, two towns located behind the port of Patres are in our hands…

But the crisis under Robisto's administration is not on land, but from the sea. The kingdom of the Six Kingdoms' naval fleet sent a sub-fleet to assist the Pancrats in their attack on the capital, Port Patres, using heavy onboard artillery to bombard the port's city artillery positions. The enemy prisoners confessed that their sub-fleet had lost two battleships and had been shot and wounded three more and had to return to the port of Vibato for refurbishment. Despite winning the war, the port of Patres also lost a lot, the port was almost ruined and the city firecrackers lost half...

It now appears that the direct authority of Robisto will not be in danger of collapse for a short period of time, and the situation is good. However, if Bertrad were to fall under Ghana's direct authority, the enemy's Corps of Craddo would go downstream, join forces with the Pancrat Corps, and the sub-fleet in Port Vibato would come to an end, and the city's firecrackers in Port Patres would not be replenished, then it would most likely not last long under the enemy's attack... ”

This is the real battle situation detected by the reconnaissance cavalry unit of the 131th Battalion for more than two days deep into the White Collar of Ghana and Robisto. The audacious Berklin also led a team personally across the enemy's blockade line into Robisto's capital, Port Patres, where he held a warm and cordial meeting with the Governor, Count Falwalt, and the Governor, Colonel Trestle. Returning to Claude, they conveyed their urgent request that they need city artillery, the more the better, so that they can be confident that they will persevere...

The question is, where did Claude get them the city artillery, which is heavier than the medium-sized infantry field artillery equipped by the Rangers, and is usually placed on the barrel of the city wall as a support point for defensive fire. Needless to say, there are four gates to the entire Amphiston administration, the head of the capital, Castel Grenouille, and no other town is set up.

And even if Claude had a city cannon in his hand, he wouldn't be able to get it to Port Patres. Land is no way to break through the enemy's blockade, so heavy city artillery moves slowly, even if the journey is smooth, I don't know how long it will take to get there. Convenient by sea, such as the sixteen city artillery cannons placed at the port artillery position at Port Patrez, are transported by sea in order to prevent sudden pirate attacks on Port Patrez. Of course, it is now said that there are only seven city artillery positions left in the port...

But now at sea is the kingdom of Hicks' naval fleet in Yangwei, and only a sub-fleet of more than twenty battleships has been dispatched to attack the port of Patres. Even if the split fleet came for a trip, it didn't look very good, and it was seriously wounded and had to go back to Port Vibato to rest. But two or three other enemy light patrol battleships patrol the sea day and night off the port of Patres in case supplies and additional troops are delivered to the port of Patres by sea from other areas under the Kingdom's direct jurisdiction.

Claude has always wondered what the two naval fleets in the kingdom were doing to eat, and the storm fleet was unable to safely escort the new route north but the enemy. But what about the other fearless fleet? There is no shadow at all, leaving more than a dozen broken ships in the Kingdom of Hicks wandering around the territorial waters of the Kingdom as if they were unmanned...

Well, Claude's lost his mind again.

Colonel Sevicht looked around and asked, "Colonel Claude, do you mean we have a defensive front here? ”

Claude nodded in retrospect: "This is the border between the two jurisdictions, and Bering Ghana's territory lies on the Alberto Plains, while Amphiston's territory is mountainous and is dominated by mineral development. So we set up a defensive position on this mosilaga hill, where the terrain is perfectly capable of resisting the attack of enemy forces. As long as this defensive front is set up, we will not have to consider enemies from this direction of the Alberto Prairie.

As for the border between Robisto and Amphiston, the main part of that decade-long flat ground was the easy passage of the enemy's large regiment. We need trenches and shelter walls and fortifications on that flat surface to connect to this defensive front and protect the entire Amphiston rear as it moves south. That way, even if both of Bering Ghana and Robisto fall into the hands of the Kingdom of the Hicks, we can still use this defensive front to drag our enemies down... ”

Colonel Sevicht looked up at the map and looked up at the surrounding terrain from time to time, eventually nodded: “The terrain you chose for this defensive front is not bad, but the amount of work may be too large and it will take a long time...”

Claude laughed: "It doesn't matter how long the workload is. Anyway, we have people, and the Nikantha people in those towns are young and strong enough to work hard for this defensive front. Also, didn't our reconnaissance cavalry at Battalion 131 capture the prisoners of more than one battalion stationed in the colonial army of the Kingdom of Hicks? Believe me, soon their numbers will increase...”

It's not Claude joking, it's the truth. For their young officers, Muried, the war came to earn merit by sending their reconnaissance cavalry into the theatre after suppressing the Nikancha riots in the town and regrouping new local guards for reconnaissance missions, as ordered by Claude.

The Hicks kingdom was originally thought to be the dominant power in the northern part of the Farea continent, and the army must be strong. But in the aftermath of a small-scale contact battle with enemy scout cavalry squads, an unbelievable fact was placed before the ranks of the Ranger One, Three, One Battalion. No one had ever thought that the battle of this colonial army of the Kingdom of Hicks was so bleak that it had nothing but laudable courage. To make a bad point, this is even worse than the Kingdom's local guard battalion...

As Berklin, the captain of the Light Cavalry, described to Claude, the first time he met an enemy reconnaissance cavalry unit, when he led a small cavalry unit consisting of four men, three formations of arrows, a hundred metres apart, proceeded towards Robisto's command. As a result, just turned a mangrove and met a small team from the Hicks kingdom across the street. At first glance, there were only four people in Berlin, and the scout cavalry of the twelve Hicks kingdoms across the street multiplied in courage, pulling the knife and drinking the horse and jumping straight at it.

Berklin said they were also panicking and that the enemy was fierce, fierce and eager to turn around and run. However, when they saw the enemy waving a horse knife instead of picking up the gun, the four Berklin men calmed down, raised their guns and aimed, firing as the enemy approached the distance of 70 to 80 meters, and did not see how the outcome of the war could simply fall and run...

Only after running nearly 100 meters, he didn't hear the movement behind him. He turned around and found out that the enemy had stopped. Carefully counting, four people just hit the first three, about two dead and wounded, and the remaining nine enemies stopped to chase them, picked up their guns and threw them at the four people in Berklin. Obviously, the guns didn't know where they were. Then the enemy cleaned up the body and the wounded and turned around, staring at all four people in Berklin...

Now that the enemy is going to run, the four Berkelins will of course go after them, while showing the two groups of horses that follow them to go from left to right. Reload the gun and chase it straight. The enemy's nine horsemen saw the four men in Berklin chase up from behind, angry, and split the six horsemen and jumped backwards. The four men in Berklin raised their guns, hit the three again, then pulled the knife to greet them...

There was no fighting, no horseback fighting, because the remaining six enemies who were still riding on horseback had lost their heads and fled, ignoring even the wounded and corpses of their companions who had been strapped to their riding backs. Only that none of them had escaped, and two groups of cavalry from both sides to the front had stopped their escape and raised their guns.

So all the remaining six Hicks kingdom scout cavalry strangled the mount, jumped down, and raised their hands and made captives. This result almost broke Berklin's chin because he was so surprised that he didn't believe everything he saw. His mouth was too wide...

“Sir, I think the enemy is really overwhelmed," Berklin reported, "warfare is old-fashioned, even equipped with guns. You can't even imagine that when we attacked a convoy, we realized that those convoy soldiers were equipped with those old guns with horn mouths that couldn't even stick bayonets in them. And when they discovered that we were attacking the convoy, the first time was to blow a queue of whistles, ready to shoot with full fire to resist our raids. I was shocked...”

Berklin said they were lying on the ground and started shooting at this well-lined group of human targets. Actually, only a squadron of light cavalry attacked, less than sixty men. They attacked a logistically heavy convoy escorted by a large group of soldiers from the Kingdom of Hicks of more than 200, presumably preparing to travel to an enemy military camp outside the city of Port Patres, the capitol of Robisto, which was encountered by a searching squadron of light riders from Berklin.

Berklin didn't want to surround him or anything, he just wanted to harass him and kill some of his enemies and ride away on horseback. But he had no idea that the enemy had encountered a raid in which adult targets were arranged and, most importantly, the convoy did not carry light artillery as a defensive fire. Now there's nothing to say. Let's hit the target. Then two rounds of fighting, especially the enemy officer who issued the commander next to the station queue, was supposed to be a large captain. After being shot in the head by Berklin, the enemy collapsed and could not escape the four legs of the light cavalry, so more than one hundred and thirty people still alive laid down their weapons and were taken prisoner.

The number of reconnaissance cavalry, patrols, transporters and so on in the Kingdom of Hicks captured by the Rangers' 131st Battalion is almost 300. These were not only obtained by the Light Cavalry Brigade, each of the reconnaissance teams sent by the four direct field brigades was brought back with prisoners, and the only identical answer they reported to the question of the strength of the colonial garrison in the Kingdom of Hicks was unbeatable. As Muried put it, they are a bird's throw whether it is the Corps of Craddock that besieges Brickaman City or the Corps of Pancrats that is surrounded outside the port of Patres...

Claude decided to take the Trinity Battalion into the direct control of white-collar Ghana to resolve the siege of Brickaman City. Although the port of Patres, the capital of Robisto's administration, is besieged, their situation is much better than that of Brickaman. If the Kingdom of Hicks does not continue to increase its troops, it would be a delusion to use the sparse power of the Pancrats to take down this defensive facility to perfect the city's defensive and robust port city.

Colonel Sevicht has arrived in Amphiston with a Ranger 034 regiment to take over the entire defensive defensive duties. Over the past month, Claude's Range One, Three and One battalion has laid a very good foundation for Colonel Sevicht's succession. Not only did the battles of Bering Ghana and Robisto be touched, but the local guards of Amphiston were rearmed, while the nearly 10,000 Nikantha involved in the riots were young and provided the first workforce for the forthcoming defensive front.

In addition, Claude personally took the lead in surveying the entire Amphiston and Beringena, Robisto, border areas, initially drawing and designing the entire defensive front floor plan and architectural schematics of various defensive installations. Colonel Sevicht could accomplish the tasks entrusted to them by the Division Command in the first batch of reinforcements simply by constructing them as shown.

“When are you leaving?” Colonel Sevicht asked with concern. Compared to his task of building a defensive front and training a reserve, the task that Claude's Ranger Battalion will carry on is called being born to death. Deep into the enemy's rear raid to destroy the enemy's logistics transport camp and cut off the enemy's command and material supplies, it is like a sharp knife into the enemy's heart, becoming the enemy's major disaster, and buying time and security for the arrival of this group of followers of the Royal Rangers.

Even if the forces of the colonial garrison of the Kingdom of Hicks were not as powerful as you might imagine, it might not even be worth mentioning. But after all, the Claude battalion is too few men and fewer than 2,000 men. It is against the enemy's two regiments of more than 100,000 men and horses. The task of this breaking and entering the enemy is called dancing on the tip of a knife and easily hurting itself.

“Two days later,” replied Claude, "I have ordered the battalions to assemble in Mount Rosas, the nearest mountain city to the Bailingana administration, as a base of departure. ”

Two days later, Claude entered the Bailinganese territory with a Range One, Three and One battalion.

At the same time, Colonel Sevicht had begun building defensive fronts along the border with his men and the youth of the indigenous mixed population.

“Sir, what should we call this defensive front?” Colonel Sevicht's deputy asked with the construction drawings. Defensive fronts like this are required to have a name, which is also easier to approve for documents and construction funds.

Colonel Sevicht thought about answering: "This defensive front was surveyed and designed by Lieutenant Colonel Claude. Name it Claude Defensive Line. ”