Why did the lord rebel

Chapter 298
Apart from the nonsense things like "The Book of Getting Rich in the Territory", the Duke of Shuangfengling, who has returned to his own territory, still has some serious business to worry about—

— such as war.

Since Xia Houyan returned to the Land of Soul Cracking with the news that "the orcs are about to launch an offensive", the entire Shuangfeng Ridge has entered a state of intensive preparations for battle.

In fact, to some extent, the potential crisis of "orc invasion" is a good thing for this wasteland territory:

Because the "Igor Pioneering Army", which has been expanding continuously for a year, has been a battle-hardened division tempered with blood and fire since its establishment:

From resisting the invasion of foreign forces to clearing up bandits and appeasement of the wilderness, the soldiers of the Igor Pioneering Army were completely tempered in one fierce battle after another;

This even saved Mountbatten, Karen, and Lawrence, who were in charge of training the Pioneer Army, a lot of effort:
As long as he can grasp the territory of more than three bloody bandit heads, then this pioneer army soldier can be regarded as having graduated from the war university——

——Soldiers carefully selected from the backwaters of the Land of Souls, their physique and combat power are at the top level on the mainland. With a little practice, they can be alone in the war. As for Karen and Mountbatten Advanced military technical and tactical training is nothing more than icing on the cake at best.

However, since the end of the five major siege victories, the situation of Igor's pioneering army is a bit embarrassing:
The wasteland bandits on the land of cracking souls can be regarded as having some combat effectiveness, but they are not enough to compete with the mighty Igor pioneer army. They are simply natural training targets:

Using Shuangfengling's standard saber to chop off the heads of a few bandits, even an unweaned baby is enough to grow into a veteran of the battlefield.

However, now that the wilderness bandits have been wiped out, the recruits of the pioneering army have no scarecrows to practice with;

Whether it is Mountbatten or Karen, they can only use day after day physical training and tactical exercises to fill the daily time of the boring pioneer soldiers.

The crisis of the orc invasion just happened to find some work for the soldiers of the pioneer army.

After the lord returned to the territory, the entire Igor pioneer army began to run continuously like a sophisticated war machine:

Every day, there are countless cavalry and infantry detachments of the pioneering army, with the Tongquetai barracks in Shuangfengling as the center, spreading out across the wasteland of the land of broken souls like a big net.

Their task, apart from detecting the clues of the orc invasion and preventing Shuangfeng Ridge from being caught off guard, is also to clear the wilderness in this wasteland.

Whether it is Quentin's Chief of Staff who is far away in the imperial capital, Grand Duke Rosario who is healing in the East, or the high-level officials in Shuangfengling, the judgments of this future war are surprisingly consistent:
Since the orcs are preparing to send out elite soldiers for a surprise attack, the supplies they carry with the team must be limited. Troops with a large amount of food and grass will not be able to achieve the strategic goal of "attacking the enemy without preparedness" in any sense;

Therefore, the strategic goal of the human empire in this southern wilderness has never been to completely annihilate the invading enemy, but to defend the fertile interior as much as possible under the blade of the orc elite soldiers——

——As long as the orc troops run out of food and grass, they can only retreat without fighting even if they have superb abilities.

As long as the orcs retreat, this southern offensive will not put pressure on the eastern border where Grand Duke Rosario is stationed, then the empire will be able to regain a victory on the balance of war:
When the support from the Central Army, the Northern Army, and the Western Army arrives, even if the Glorious Federation has the "Ice Demon Mammoth" to assist in the battle, it may not be able to please the empire that the reserve team has exhausted its cards.

Under the guidance of this strategic intention, whether it is to abandon Frost Maple Ridge and retreat to the Lion Heart River as suggested by Quentin's chief of staff, or stick to Phoenix Terrace as advocated by some nostalgic old people in Frost Maple Ridge, as Frost Maple Ridge, the owner of the wasteland, must cut off any chance for the orc troops to get extra supplies here!
Fortify the wall and clear the field, this defensive tactic is famous in the history of war, but behind the words are often the blood and tears of countless innocent people:
Take the "Doomsday War", an epic war between the empire and the demons, as an example. At the critical juncture of humanity's most disadvantaged situation, the entire empire even mobilized more than half of the people, and completely wiped out the imperial capital of [-] people in the war that lasted several years. Only then did they barely exhaust the supplies of the overly long demon army. Finally, under the leadership of Count Olaf, the "Light of the Empire", the horn of counterattack was sounded;

According to the statistics of historians, in this extremely tragic war, the human empire lost nearly one-fifth of its population, and the demons also suffered heavy losses!
Some scholars even asserted that if the "Doomsday War" had not excessively consumed the vitality of the two races, how could the orcs, who were regarded as barbarians at that time, rise so strongly in the east of the mainland?
In this war, whether it was the farmers who were mobilized as militiamen and died under the sword of the demons, or the women and children who were forced to leave their homes and watched their hometowns fall into ruins, their sacrifices and dedications have been recorded in the history books. It's just a few extremely pale numbers, and the seemingly light but heavy words of "solid wall and clear field".

But in the face of the war in front of us, the Frost Maple Ridge of the Igor family can be regarded as "unique" in another sense:
In the entire Soul Breaking Land, there are no human settlements or sources of supplies that need to be "cleaned up"!

God is sorry, this southern wilderness, which is hated by gods and ghosts, seems to be naturally built to support the undead rather than the living. The camp was completely wiped out by Igor's pioneering army, so that Xia Houyan could only think that if the orc invaders could find some food and grass in the land of cracking souls, unless they went to eat Guanyin soil.

Therefore, "Strengthening the wall and clearing the wilderness", which is enough to make any aristocratic territory exhausted, came to Shuangfengling, but it was nothing more than cleaning up the newly built road rest area and taking the expatriate staff back to the territory:

Considering that it is currently the off-season of trade, the wasteland rest area has no income, and this move does not even cost any;

Even the basic buildings in the highway rest area were not demolished by Shuangfengling at all, but the food, supplies, and armaments stored there were all removed:
What the Glorious Federation's army lacks is food and grass, not shelter. If these green-skinned orcs show kindness and don't destroy the rest area, then the road service industry in Shuangfeng Ridge can even open again before the peak season next year!
——Different from the conservative estimates of the staff of the Imperial Army, Xia Houyan actually never thought of prolonging this defensive battle for too long.

In addition, Xia Houyan also sent elite sentinels and Wraith Messi to go deep into the east of the land of broken souls, between the precipitous and towering dust mountains, looking for even the slightest clue about the so-called "secret passage".

Regarding this matter, the entire Shuangfeng Ridge has no hope at all:
After all, the huge mountain of dust, the terrain surrounded by mountains is simply not something that can be simply described by "Nine Twists and Twists";

Even though they knew that the orcs might find a secret passage from the mountains, but the human empire, which knew little about the Dust Mountains, still had a hard time finding the claws and claws of this "secret passage"—

Sometimes, the "secret passage" is like a red-light district. Even if you enter it once, you will be familiar with it, but it will still be covered with a veil of mystery before the field visit.

The real intention of Xia Houyan to send sentries to explore the mountains is to let them arrange the so-called "Paradise Sentinels" at some key nodes:
As long as a large-scale army passes by, these magic items bought at a high price before the imperial capital left will send an alarm back to the central node of Frost Maple Ridge to remind the orc army of the invasion location.

The Dusty Mountains that traverse the entire East of the Land of Cracked Souls are too majestic and long, and only by clearly knowing the invasion route of the orcs can the Igor family, who know themselves and their enemies, take the lead on the battlefield.

If the above measures are all necessary measures recognized by all human beings, then the actions below Shuangfeng Ridge are somewhat intriguing:
Although the imperial nobles on the north bank of the Lionheart River have sent letters to Shuangfengling more than once, requesting "Honorable Duke Igor" to go to the north bank to discuss and determine a unified defense strategy for the entire south, the Xiahou officials have always Sitting on the Phoenix Terrace in Shuangfengling, there is no intention of moving;
Even the official letter sent by Count Dimitri, the governor of the southern border of the empire, requesting Frost Maple Ridge to transport heavy weapons to the north bank of the Lion Heart River, was completely ignored by Lord Frost Maple Ridge.

The water surface of the Lion Heart River is extremely wide. If you want to garrison on the north bank to resist the attack of the orcs, apart from hitting the orcs halfway while they are crossing the river, and meeting them on the beach after the orcs land, conventional projectile weapons such as bows and arrows and hand crossbows cannot be used at all. use;
Even the most clumsy human staff will know that to defend the Lionheart River, siege weapons with extremely long ranges such as the "Lion's Seventh Style" and "Cromwell Annihilator" are the only weapons that the Empire can rely on the big killer;
——Only these heavy equipment can cause some damage at a high range before the elite orcs actually cross the river.

However, Frost Maple Ridge, which has made a lot of money from the southern army, completely rejected the proposal to transport the extremely important siege weapons to the north bank, which undoubtedly violated the empire's war in the south. overall situation;

Even the citizens of Frost Maple Ridge watched helplessly as several "Cromwell Annihilators" with teeth and claws stood up behind the solid stone wall of Phoenix Terrace!
Master Nicholson also took several craftsmen from the "Manhattan Laboratory" to carefully strengthen the structure of the fixed ballista.

All of this prompted Mayor Joel to ask the lord aloud at a high-level meeting:

"My lord, do you intend to stick to Shuangfeng Ridge like this and meet the orcs on the Phoenix Terrace?"

However, what puzzled Mayor Joel was that the lord neither gave an affirmative answer nor gave a negative answer. Instead, he smiled playfully and asked:
"Mayor Joel, if, I mean if... if we meet the orcs on this Phoenix Terrace, what harm will there be?"

Mayor Joel stood at the table in a daze for a while, and Knight Commander Cousins, who was more familiar with military affairs, took over the conversation, got up and replied:
"My lord, although the defensive strength of Frost Maple Ridge is much higher than before, the area of ​​this platform is too small! If the orc army is really as large as a division as Chief of Staff Quentin said, they It is absolutely possible to fully deploy the army on the vast wasteland and surround Shuangfengling! At that time, with Shuangfengling's extremely limited area and reserves, it will be difficult for us to hold this platform!"

The lord groaned and nodded, saying:
"So...we can't meet the orcs in the wasteland. The terrain here is really not suitable for defensive operations..."

"That's right!" Knight Commander Cousins ​​said eagerly, "What's more, the orcs have wolf cavalry who are the best at running and fighting on the plains! It's too difficult to defend against the orcs without relying on natural dangers like the Lionheart River!"

"Lion Heart River..." the lord murmured, suddenly chuckled and shook his head, "...not necessarily."

All the senior members of the family looked at each other, not knowing why, only Sean Mountbatten leaned on his cheek and thoughtfully.

That night, the leaders who got up at night saw that the craftsmen of the "Manhattan Laboratory" removed the reinforcement rivets of the "Cromwell Annihilator" ballista overnight.

(End of this chapter)