Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 440: Defensive Front

Claude stood halfway up a cliff, surrounded by lush pine trees. He raised a single telescope and looked closely at the Hicks' barracks, more than 1,000 metres from the mountain. This is the border between the northern mountains of the Nikanca Nation and the colony of the Gulf of Rodex, and Claude wanted to see for himself the situation of the three Hicks standing regiments before sneaking in.

It was mid-August, and the Hicks finally shipped the two subsequent Standing Regiments, known as Shame IV and V, to the Rodex Bay colony. Immediately after the arrival of those two regiments, those three regiments, which had been resting in the colony of the Gulf of Rodex for almost three months, opened and reopened their barracks on the mountainous border of the Nikanca nation.

The Hicks have arranged two standing regiments along the northern coastal mountain border, while only one has been deployed along the eastern mountain border. It appears that the Hicks have focused their breakthroughs on the northern coastal mountains, although, in Claude's view, things do not seem right. Because the battalions set up by the two Standing Regiments are more defensive than offensive than the one on the eastern mountain border...

“General, we have to go.” The Hicks reconnaissance team was active during this time and often went deep into the mountains of the area for reconnaissance, "warned McJackie behind. Perhaps there are also their latent posts nearby, you are the commander of the front line, you cannot easily put your life in danger..."

Claude dropped the single binoculars in his hand, and everything he had to look at was gone, and he really couldn't stay on the front line. Need to go back and talk about it, it is clear that the Hicks will be attacking the Nikanca nation in the near future, but their deployment has left Claude somewhat confused. It is logical that the two Standing Legions in the north should be the main attackers, and that in the east the Standing Legion is attacking and holding back. But what about the defensive camp set up by the two Standing Regiments in the north? Ready to serve as a logistical supply base after the war begins...

General Bitchklin's Defence Front Command was established at the border between the northern and eastern mountains, also to facilitate access to defensive positions in both directions. The headquarters is located in a large, half-hillion-waisted melting hole with a flat mouth, four rows and a half of logs hidden underground, with lots of vines covered in exposed wooden sheds. This leafy climbing plant plays a good role as a cover, and it is easy to ignore those logs by accident in the distance.

Two trenches have also been dug along the flat edge in front of the loghouse, which is a defensive position when the guard post is hidden and the command is attacked by the enemy. By the time Claude brought him here, General Bitchcline had greeted him with concern and asked what Claude had found...

When Claude talks about what he observes and the confusion in his mind, General Bitchcline thinks it's nothing strange. He said that the Hicks were likely to suspect that troops had been sent into the Nikansas in the area of direct jurisdiction, and that perhaps the Hicks believed that if they entered the Nikansas, they should assume the defense of the northern coastal mountainous areas, so they deployed two standing regiments in the north and set up defensive battalions, fearing a sudden attack on two regiments in the area of direct jurisdiction.

General Bitchicklin was right, and Claude believed that if he were a Hicks commander, he would have made the same judgement as General Bitchicklin. As for the eastern mountain border, the dispatch of a standing army is already a very high view of the fighting power of the Nikancas, who, as everyone knows, are the scum, which is overwhelming.

“Any intel on the Commander-in-Chief of the Hicks?” Claude asked. During this time, he travelled all over the eastern and northern border mountains, dining out for nearly two decades, and had little contact with the rear battlefield and the front-line command of Castle Moncnard, wondering whether valuable intelligence had been sent by agents from the Rodex Bay colony.

General Bitchklin nodded: "Yes, the hawk message from the agents said that the commander-in-chief of the Hicks Kingdom was a hereditary Earl and Admiral of the Hicks Kingdom. It was said that the Kingdom of Hicks had made a great effort to calm down the rebellion of the nobles in the country, and that it was trusted by King Machid III. He is now 68 years old and has been assigned to the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial War. His name is Norberton. Pont Belondi..."

“That's all?” Claude shook his head with disappointment. Perhaps this is the inconvenience of losing contact with the kingdom itself, and he wonders about the character characteristics of this Hicks commander-in-chief, what wars he has participated in, what are the characteristics of commanding soldiers, etc.... only knowing the enemy can make a targeted arrangement. These intelligences, like those sent by agents, don't know anything but the name and age of the origin...

Sixty-eight years old... so old should be very stable, don't like to venture in, it's hard to seduce him with profit. At the same time, old generals like this are basically mediocre. They like to make plans for the troops to execute their orders on time. The logistics supply will be well prepared... Generally, he won't like those strange winning tactics. Looks like these three standing armies in the Hicks Kingdom will die after the attack...

“Are our defensive fronts and forward positions in place?” Claude asked.

General Bitchklin nodded: "It's all set, you come over here and I've got a muddy sand plate built based on the terrain. ”

This is a large room separated in a cave with a chandelier with eighteen candles hanging from the top that brightens up the whole room. There is a large table in the middle of the room with a large sand plate on it. This is a terrain sand tray in the mountainous areas of the northern and eastern parts of the Nikancha country, perhaps because of a rush to work, and the hills on the sand trays are rough and bare, without even the decorations of the bush vegetation.

Bitchklin took an elongated wooden stick to point out, pointing to the hills in the sand pan border zone, and said: "We surveyed the terrain of the border and thought it was still easy for the Hicks to find a passable path between the border mountains. There was little interest in travelling to the colony of the Gulf of Rodex after the independence of the Nikancas, where there were no colonies, although there were Nikancas. As a result, there was little interaction between the two sides.

The main reason is that the people of the United Kingdom of the Fox Islands are more averse to the Nikans' colonies, which in those colonies of their country are driven away from the Nikans' colonies and are not allowed to exist. The Nikans in the colonies of the Gulf of Rodex, like the young women captured by the colonists from the Nikans, were raised as servants and had nothing to do with the Nikans.

So in addition to the Hicks, the Nikancas hated the descendants of the Klemmer pirates in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is why they had little contact with the Nikanca colonies on the West Coast after independence. If it hadn't been for our war zone, these Nikanths probably wouldn't have sent people to the West Coast colonies to get help from their fellow countrymen, so they wouldn't know the disaster was coming until the Hicks army arrived...

Now these Nikancas have worked hard to help us build three defensive fronts in the central mountains and even offered to help us set up three more defensive fronts in the rear to resist the Hicks. I told them that was not necessary because the Hicks wanted to capture these three defensive fronts, and that there was only one possibility that one division of our Rock Regiment, which was set up here, would be overrun and none of our troops would survive.

By then, let alone three defensive fronts, and digging ten more will not stop the Hicks from attacking. Without us as guardians, defensive fronts alone will do nothing. After half a month of listening to what I said, the Nikantha sent us 100,000 young men and women, all of whom received junior military training in sending instructors from our theatre, who knew how to fire guns.

Many Nikantha leaders and elders came that day, and the elders who were the chiefs held my hand tightly and said to us that the life and death of their country were on the three defensive fronts in our hands, so they sent me these 100,000 elites, in accordance with the cooperation agreement with us, in the hope that I could defend this defensive front against the Hicks. ”

General Bitchklin lit the middle of a sand tray with three red wool threads pasted on a pile of dirt, representing three deep front and rear defensive fronts, presenting an irregular L-shape: “I dispersed the 100,000 Nikanka youthful armies among the distributors, according to a plan made in advance in the theatre, so that a soldier of our Rock Corps could bring two Nikankas youthful and have the power to supervise the operation of military law.

There are also 40,000 Nikantha youthfully armed, and I have formed them into forty battalions, so that our staff officers of the Rock Corps will serve as responsible officers, placing them at the front of the border in these forty hills with little red flags. This is the way we think the Hicks are likely to attack, and these hilltop positions can alert us for the first time and suppress the enemy's path of attack, creating some trouble for the enemy.

Of course, I don't expect these Nikans to resist the Hicks, but at least they can convince the Hicks that the defenders are all Nikans, at best we have instructors in our theatre to guide them in their defense. It is confident that the Hicks will go forward boldly and that the forty Nikanca camps, which we have positioned in the frontier mountains, will be able to retreat while stalling the enemy's attacks while consuming its weapons, ammunition and grass until they are drawn to our defensive front. ”

This is a strategic plan already in place in the theatre, and it will be Claude's Legion of Thunder's turn to take the initiative before and after the Hicks offensive forces arrive at this defensive position set up by General Bitchcline. They slanted into the mountainous areas behind the Hicks, blocked their logistical supply corridors, and surrounded themselves with reinforcements. So the attacking Hicks had a solid defensive front, followed by an encirclement of the Thunder Army and the breakdown of grass and ammunition, and there was no other way to go but to surrender...

The difficulty in arranging this plan is how to arm the Nikancas to take the initiative to defend the Hicks' offensive in the mountainous areas at the front of the border. Knowing that the plan is confidential to the Nikans, but after a strong defensive front at the rear can be relied upon as a defensive force, the Nikans are also armed to lay defenses in the frontier mountainous areas, wondering if the Nikans misunderstood the war zone to borrow a knife to kill people, resulting in unpleasant and unsuccessful cooperation between the two sides...

But only by letting the Nikancha armed forces in the frontier mountains will the attacking Hicks be reassured to drive straight in until they hit the defensive front of the Rock Regiment. To put it bluntly, the Nikantha forces deployed in the frontier mountainous areas are indeed the role of cannonball, mainly to seduce the Hicks.

Just because Claude didn't expect Nikanca elders and chiefs to be so intelligent, he took the initiative to hand over 100,000 Nikanca youthful men to General Bitchklin's command, which solved the biggest difficulty of this planned programme in the theatre. With the staff officers of the Rock Regiment in charge of these Nikanca battalions, I am confident that these Nikancas will also gain some fighting power, at least they will seriously resist before retreating...

General Bitchklin was very proud to say: "From July to August, soldiers on our defensive front trained the Nikanchas in how to rely on positions for defensive combat. Time is short, but these Nikanchas are at least aware of obedience and covert firing. Depending on the configuration of the three standing regiments of the enemy, I deployed a regiment in the eastern hills, two in the northern hills and one in the rear as a reserve.

According to the situation where one soldier was accompanied by two Nikanchas, the defence front was adequately staffed. Together with these Nikanca camps in the mountainous frontier areas, we could well delay the Hicks' offensive forces for a month in the frontier mountainous areas. Without these Nikancas in front of us, it would only take 15 days for the Hicks to arrive at our defensive front in the central mountains.

With these Nikancha battalions in front of us, I believe the Hicks were exhausted before they arrived on our defensive front, unable to launch another fierce offensive. This would greatly ease our defensive pressures and make fuller use of the defensive front to inflict more casualties on the attacking Hicks. By then, your Legion of Thunder will be surrounded from behind. These Hicks are the fish that have fallen into the net and will have to wait and die... "

Claude looked closely at the layout on the sand tray and found that General Bitchklin had not exaggerated, and that the defensive front in the central mountains and the guarded deployment in the frontier mountainous areas were very old and thoughtful, at least he could not find any flaws.

“Didn't your defensive front command arrange for soldiers to train with the Nikanchas?” Claude asked, when he came here, he did not see a young Nikancha armed man near the command.

“No,” General Bitchklin shook his head, “the reinforcement battalion under my division is fully equipped with new rifles and is not convenient for Nikancha training. So the troops in the north and east have Nikanchas, and I have no Nikanchas in command here. ”

“Okay, I'm going back to Castle Monconade.” Claude is ready to say goodbye: "I suspect the Hicks will soon launch an offensive in recent days, and you must be careful. If you're sure the Hicks won't make it to the defensive front in a month, you can let that regiment behind you as a reserve come with me. The Blackstone Firearms Manufacturing Workshop already has 6,000 new rifles, General Bolognick said to equip the front-line defense forces first..."

General Bitchicklin said, “Really, I'll order that regiment to come back with you. With a new rifle, this regiment can increase its combat power by at least three times. ”

“Well, our Legion of Thunder has just equipped a regiment, and your regiment is back with me, equipped with a new rifle, and after seven days of short-term training, the soldiers will be able to master the operational performance of the new rifle, enough to form a fighting force. Twenty days back and forth, plus short-term training, it'll take a month. You promise you'll be all right here on the front?” Claude always felt a little disturbed, but couldn't think of any omissions, which could only be attributed to the tension before the war...

“I promise you, don't worry, even if the Hicks attack tomorrow, at least a month before they arrive on my defensive front, it will be just enough to equip that regiment with a new rifle to teach these shitty Hicks a lesson.” For the new rifle, General Beechlin is not leaving Claude for dinner either. He couldn't help but have Claude take the regiment of the Rock Legion home early and equip it with a new rifle.

When Claude returned to Frontline Command at Castle Monconard, General Albert told him that the war had broken out: "Seven days ago, the Hicks launched simultaneous attacks in the northern and eastern border mountains...”

This is a message from General Beechlin's hawk. Claude couldn't get it on the way. It took him ten days to get back, in the mountains, and he couldn't help it if he wanted to. The attack only started seven days ago, the third day after his departure, Claudette was relieved, so the Hicks had at least 20 days before they killed the defensive front, enough for the Rock Regiment to equip itself with a new rifle for the main field regiment and then return to the front.

He intends to lead the Legion of Thunder as soon as it is finished and return to the front. But what Claude didn't expect was that, less than five days later, General Beechlin sent another eagle message from the front. Defeated as a mountain, the Nikantha forces deployed in the mountainous areas at the front of the border are simply unstoppable, let alone delayed enemy offense, can't even defensive counterattack, just know the defensive front to the rear collapse...

Most painfully, these Nikansas, who had broken down from the frontier mountainous areas, had not even seen the faces of their enemies. The Nikansas, who had broken down in front of them, had followed them back to their defensive positions, and the Rock Regiments, who had been sent as responsible staff officers, had been unable to stop them from fleeing. Some of the officers who were preparing to carry out military law in the field had also been shot at by the young armed Nikansas.

And the Hicks' army will be in front of General Beechlin's defensive front in three or four days. But now the Nikans on the defensive front are so young that the Nikans who collapsed in front of them are so nervous, maybe when they see the Hicks, they'll blow apart. General Bitchklin can only hope to get Claude to come with reinforcements...