"Count me in."
As the lords spoke, they drew their swords and came together to swear an oath. Dick also took out his staff and came forward, swearing to stand together with his allies.
The seven lords present gathered a total of 6,000 cavalry. Although more than half of them were just infantry who could ride horses, and some of the horses might not even be truly standard war horses, at least they were more mobile than pure infantry, which met basic tactical requirements.
It is worth mentioning that one of the lords present suggested that they should give themselves a name, such as "The Second Coalition Army". Dick hesitated for a while after hearing this, thinking that it was not very auspicious and did not sound very loyal.
However, they did need a name that was loud enough, so the name "Northern United Front" came into being, and Dick naturally became the leader of the alliance.
146. Advances in Two Directions
"Wait a minute! How did we become part of the Northern Alliance?"
In the port office building of Xingang, when the ship girls stationed there learned that Dick named the newly formed allied forces "Northern United Front", everyone fell into collective confusion.
There are a total of five ship girls under Dick's command. Belfa is from the Royal Maid Team, Ding'an is from Donghuang, Kashino is from Sakura Empire, and the Royal Fortune and Golden Deer are sailing ship girls. There is not a single Mao girl from the Northern Alliance, which makes everyone a little jealous.
"Master, you don't want to make a wish here in advance with a girl from the Northern Alliance, do you?"
"How could that be! The alliance is called the Northern Alliance simply because we are really in the north! You have to believe me."
"I don't believe it unless you come back to the room with me and I'll take a lie detector test."
"You better really be a polygraph tester."
Dick opened the tentacles of the Golden Deer with an embarrassed look on his face. He was somewhat overwhelmed by this octopus girl who always brought her own lubricant. This was mainly because Dick was relatively conservative and had some psychological resistance to the pervasive tentacles.
After all, Dick only likes to develop others, not be developed by others!
So in order to change the subject, Dick started talking about serious matters.
The ship girls will also join in this expedition. They will escort the transport fleet in the early stage, and after the mobile force lands, they will go deep into the wilderness inland and serve as artillery units.
When the ship girls unfold their ship form, they only need an area of water under their feet that can float their bodies. As the Orc City is a large settlement with a population of hundreds of thousands, there is naturally a water source nearby.
The orc city is near the snow-capped mountains, which they call the holy mountains, and the lake formed by the snow water at the foot of the mountains is called the holy lake. The holy lake just meets the needs of the warship girls to deploy combat forms, and it is right next to their city. Theoretically, Belfa's ship-mounted artillery can cover the city, and the range of the other four warship girls is slightly inferior, but they can also attack nearby targets.
This time, Dick plans to bring all of his high-end combat forces, including the Black and White Gun Dai, Rita and Lukoa who have quasi-saint strength, as well as the high-level combat forces of Yoel and the female ninja trio.
Honoka's fighting ability is not bad. She is a talented martial artist and is at least at the same level as the three female ninjas. But this girl is a real high school girl and has never killed anyone.
Natasha and Shizuka Marikawa will also lead the medical team to the north, but they will not go to the most dangerous front line with the troops, but will stand by on the relatively safe transport ship.
Everything was going according to Dick's plan, and preparations were proceeding in an orderly manner.
Meanwhile, in the Allied camp on the other side, Richard's conscription was in full swing, but he was apparently too obsessed with recruiting soldiers and forgot to send people across the river to scout the enemy situation on the other side.
Otherwise, he would be surprised to find that the orc army on the other side had been reorganized and received a full 8,000 reinforcements. Along with the reinforcements, there were also two heavyweights!
These 8,000 reinforcements were drawn by Ramon from the opposing troops on the border. The two heavyweight characters were both powerful holy-level warriors of the Orcs, one was an archdruid who was already very rare in the world, and the other was a holy warrior blessed by the gods.
Ramon sent these two to support the east in order to hunt down the human race's Saint-level strongman, that is, Dick who had made a big splash in the previous battle.
However, the intelligence from the orcs was obviously lagging behind. After the two masters came to the east, they lurked on the west bank of the Nie River. They did not know that the target they were aiming to kill had already left the coalition ahead of time due to internal conflicts among the human race.
After several days of preparation, Marquis Richard finally got his wish and assembled the "100,000-man army" he had longed for, ready to launch the sacred "Reconquista" to the west.
Richard had already formed an obsession in his heart at this time, that is, he must prove that he is stronger than Dick and old Banner, and that he is the most powerful and noble lord in the entire northern empire.
However, although the army he had forcibly assembled seemed to have a large number of people, and the mighty team that marched forward from the coalition camp stretched for several kilometers, most of the soldiers in the team were pale and skinny refugees who were hungry, cold, and poorly dressed, using extremely simple weapons, and were forced to move forward by the well-equipped supervision team behind them.
They stumbled forward in confusion and panic against the biting cold wind. Their numb bodies and minds could not even muster the thought of resistance. Many people even simply prayed in their hearts for a painless relief.
Richard himself, under the protection of his family guards, rode a tall horse in the middle of the team with a proud look on his face. He was happily imagining that after the victory, if the emperor in the imperial capital knew about his heroic fight against and victory over the brutal orcs, would he upgrade his title to Duke and allow him to settle in the imperial capital.
After all, the north of the empire is still relatively poor and cannot be compared with the glamorous world of the imperial capital!
On the other side, the elite soldiers from the seven lords have also assembled in Laguge. The members of the army are the most elite cavalry among the private armies of each family. Some of the temporarily transferred "mounted infantry" are also carefully selected masters, and they are well-deserved "best fighters."
After these 6,000 elite troops were fully assembled, they did not set out immediately, but first underwent a simple training session in Laguge for several days. All the food and drink expenses during the training were provided by Laguge. A grand dinner was held the night before the expedition, with wine and meat provided.
"The best soldiers deserve the best enjoyment. Let's drink tonight. Tomorrow we will set out for the battle. Let's have fun. This is the order of the leader!"
With the thunderous shouts of "Yes, sir", the expeditionary camp was filled with jubilation. Not only were the soldiers convinced by Dick, but the other lords also admired Dick's arrogance and courage after seeing the background of Laguge, thinking that he was a man who could accomplish great things.
After experiencing the intrigues within the coalition, the current "Northern Alliance Seven" can be said to be a staunch ally after a second round of screening. After all, some things need to be compared. Compared with Richard, a stubborn and incompetent guy, Dick is obviously a leader who meets everyone's expectations.
Eat more, take more, and take more responsibilities. Who would not obey such a boss who is really capable of doing things?
It is worth mentioning that at the banquet, Dick invited a distinguished guest and introduced him to other allies present.
When the lords learned that the gray-robed old man in front of them was the famous holy-level magician Behemoth, and that he would fight alongside them, they were extremely excited.
Add Dick himself, and there are two Saint-level magicians. When have these local lords ever fought such a prosperous battle?
Seeing how excited they were, Dick didn't have the courage to tell them that there were actually several hidden Saint-level masters in their team.
Since Dick broke through to the Saint level, thanks to the abundant supply of magic power, the strength of the beautiful girls under his command has also risen. The former quasi-saint level has now reached the true saint level, and they don't have to fight against seconds like Ultraman.
Dick speculated that there must be more than one Saint-level master in the Orc Capital, and it is not impossible for a demigod to emerge, but the probability is very low. This is what Behemoth said.
Behemoth volunteered to fight this time, to defend the dignity of the human race, but at the same time, the old magician was also very interested in the treasures of the Orc City.
Since the orcs often worship some evil gods from the warp, they often have some strange things in their hands. In Behemoth's opinion, these are of great research value.
The next morning after the banquet, the expeditionary force boarded the ship in Newport. The leader of the fleet was more easy to talk to than Dick expected. When Dick proposed to borrow their paddle steamer to transport the troops to the wilderness for battle, the other party agreed without hesitation and respectfully called him "Master".
It's ironic that Dick has lived in the Duke's Mansion for eighteen years. Not only do his half-brothers and sisters not treat him as a relative, but even the servants in the mansion never call him "Master". The better ones just deliberately omit the title. Some servants who rely on the power of others dare to boss him around.
So when someone from the Best family suddenly treated him with such respect, Dick didn't feel flattered by this kindness, but he did find it very strange.
The person in charge called himself "Rogland". He was an orphan adopted by the Best family and vowed to serve the Best family all his life. However, he had always been working in the family fiefdom in the south, so Dick had never seen him in the Duke's Mansion in the imperial capital.
The support for Laguge this time was an order issued personally by the head of the family to the southern fiefdoms, requiring them to fully obey any instructions from Master Dick. Therefore, if he wanted to use the ships, Rogland would naturally not refuse.
Even if Dick gave the order, the hundreds of sailors in his fleet would take up arms to support the expeditionary force without any complaints.
"It is my duty and honor to serve you."
Rogland kept saying this all the time, and his tone was very serious, without any trace of perfunctoriness.
After the fleet set off, it headed north along the coastline. The paddle steamers were self-powered and had a large tonnage, so they were very stable when sailing in the near sea where the wind and waves were not too strong, and only a few people got seasick.
The paddle steamer sailing against the ocean current at an average speed of eight knots is expected to reach the target landing point in four days. In the cabin, Dick and other lords and senior officers under him repeatedly conducted simulation drills on the map, hoping to avoid some emergencies in actual combat.
On the other hand, the coalition forces encountered their first battle on the second day after setting out on the expedition.
The coalition's vanguard cavalry discovered a force of about two hundred orcs. When they saw the human cavalry, they immediately turned around and ran away like frightened roe deer without saying a word.
When the vanguard cavalry saw that the originally ferocious orcs were fleeing in panic, they thought that the orcs were frightened by the great victory a while ago and no longer had the courage to face the powerful human coalition. So, with the idea of chopping off a few more heads to win the first credit, they chased after them without hesitation.
Then this vanguard cavalry ran headlong into the ambush circle of the orc troops and was surrounded by an orc army that was eight times their number. The more than one hundred cavalrymen were like a piece of fat meat thrown into a wolf pack. They were gone in an instant, and both the men and their horses were torn to pieces.
By the time the follow-up troops came following the pungent smell of blood, all that was left at the ambush site were large stains of blood and a small amount of minced meat whose race and location could no longer be identified. For many refugee soldiers who had escaped from the orcs with great difficulty, their most horrific memories were suddenly evoked and they even suffered from PTSD.
However, this little episode could not scare off Marquis Richard's ambition. He had a powerful army of 100,000 at his command. The sacrifice of just over a hundred people, and they were not his subordinates, was not worth mentioning in the eyes of the Marquis.
147. The gap between ideal and reality
The 100,000-man coalition army marched in a mighty force, but because the troops were mostly infantry, they moved very slowly. In addition, they were marching in the snow in winter, so they only advanced less than 30 kilometers in two days, even though Richard had been urging them along the way, resulting in hundreds of non-combat casualties.
Many refugee soldiers were in poor physical condition and managed to have a full meal before the expedition. However, they were starving again after half a day of marching. Some even fainted on the snow and never got up again.
Some officers could not bear it and reported the situations truthfully, but they received an extremely impatient response from the Marquis, who told the officers not to bother him with such trivial matters. He wanted to focus all his energy on military affairs, and when the big battle came, he would use his exquisite tactical micro-manipulation to defeat those ignorant orcs.
Richard really believed that he had the potential to become a famous general, and he even went to the military academy in the imperial capital to study. Although the number of times he went to class was far less than the fraction of his visits to the nightclubs in the imperial capital, this did not hinder his confidence in himself.
Richard's first goal was to recapture the important central city of Aidid from the orcs, and then use this city as a strategic node to gradually recover the surrounding fallen towns.
If Dick were here at this moment, he would definitely be so angry at this guy's strategic thinking that he would shake his head.
With an army of 100,000 men, they did not think about finding the enemy's active forces as soon as possible to annihilate them, but instead focused on "conquering the city", without even considering whether they could defend the city!
Unfortunately, no one could check Richard at this time. Dick and Banner had already withdrawn from the coalition, and Hoffman, after giving Richard enough food and grass for ten days, did not go with him on the grounds of illness, but stayed to guard his ice city and continued to build it. The main defense wall facing the Nie River was twice as thick as the original one, and the height of the wall reached 15 meters.
Hoffman was a little obsessed with building fortresses. Anyone who sees him now will say, "You are a little too urbanized."
When the 100,000-strong coalition army arrived at Aidid City, there was no living creature to be seen, no humans or orcs, and the entire city was eerily silent.
After the army entered the city, the soldiers carried out a routine search. Ordinary soldiers were looking for food, while officers hoped to find some leftover property. After all, it was said that orcs had no interest in gold and silver.
Richard couldn't wait to hang his family emblem high in the city, which made him feel like a conqueror.
In the next two days, Richard's troops only encountered sporadic attacks from orc troops. Although there were certain casualties, it was not serious overall and did not arouse Richard's vigilance.
There were indeed some capable people among his retainers who vaguely sensed something was wrong and suggested that they should find the remaining main force of the orcs as soon as possible. After all, just occupying the city without much gain would inevitably make people question their results.
Richard's retainers understood their master and knew that he would most likely not listen to direct advice. You had to hit the spot for him before he would listen.
This is indeed the case. Richard wants fame and wants to prove that he is better than others. Therefore, he cannot tolerate others questioning his "great results".
But to be honest, he had no idea how to find the main force of the orcs. He just regretted that the skulls of orcs were different from those of humans. Otherwise, he could use the "old method" and borrow human heads from civilians.
Fortunately, Richard’s troubles were quickly solved. He didn’t have to go through the trouble of looking for the orcs. The orcs took the initiative to find him.
On the fifth day after occupying Aidid, Richard sent a troop back to the rear and asked them to ask Hoffman who stayed behind for food and fodder. They had brought ten days' worth of food and fodder with them, but in the blink of an eye, less than a third of it was left.
As a result, not long after the 5,000-man grain transport team left the city, they were attacked head-on by an orc army of several thousand people. The grain transport team was almost defeated at the first blow. The refugee soldiers were no match for the ferocious orc soldiers. They were killed and abandoned their armor. In the end, only a few hundred people escaped back to Aidid City and reported the bad news to Richard.
After listening to this, Richard was stunned where he was. He didn't expect that his retreat was cut off by the orcs without him knowing it. He subconsciously panicked, but soon remembered that he still had a huge army of more than 90,000 people, and since the main force of the orc army had appeared, it would be a good opportunity to destroy them!
Richard quickly cheered up and immediately ordered his army to form a battle formation, ready to destroy the "remnants" of the orc mopping-up army from the front.
Until this time, Richard still believed that he could win.
The rebel soldiers who were taking shelter from the cold in various houses in the city were soon forced by officers and supervisory teams to go out of the city and form a battle line to prepare to meet the enemy.
Tens of thousands of people were shoulder to shoulder and formed a winding battle line on the plain. The advantage in numbers could indeed boost the morale of the soldiers to a certain extent, so that everyone would not be too scared.
But soon, with the sound of horns from the opposite woods, groups of orcs as strong as evil spirits walked out of the woods. They did not line up like human soldiers, but like wolves seeing their prey, they howled and approached the human army, and their pace changed from jogging to charging.
Richard climbed to the top of the city wall of Aidid, surrounded by his retainers and guards. This was not the first time he had seen orcs. Richard's family had bought some orc slaves and watched them fight for fun.
But the orcs before him were completely different from the domesticated orc slaves he had seen. Their savage nature of choosing who to kill made him secretly frightened even from a distance of several hundred meters. What's more, there were thousands of such orcs, launching a head-on charge against a human army of tens of thousands.
"These beasts! Are they mad? Don't they know fear?"
Although he said these derogatory words, Richard swallowed several times subconsciously because of nervousness.
He ordered his guard of honor to blow the bugle, hoping to boost his own morale, because he could clearly see that the refugee soldiers below the city were in turmoil, and before the orcs rushed up, the front line had already begun to become unstable.
"Hold on, hold on! Let the orcs get closer first...Fuck! You idiots!"
On the city wall, the organized archers and crossbowmen should have waited until the orcs were within shooting range before shooting, but because they were too nervous, someone accidentally slipped and shot an arrow prematurely, which caused others to subconsciously follow suit, resulting in the first round of volleys being poor. Not only did it fail to form a dense rain of arrows, but most of the arrows fell on the open ground because they were shot too early.
This was the reason why Dick had taken the initiative to attack with only elite soldiers. The untrained conscripts could not even understand the orders of the officers, and could only serve as an atmosphere group in a low-intensity civil war among the lords. Facing a high-end game like the orcs where individual strength was extremely outstanding, they were not even qualified to be cannon fodder.
However, Richard thought that by gathering an army of 100,000, he could simply achieve qualitative change through quantitative change, which was somewhat taken for granted.
The orcs charged very quickly. Before the human archers and crossbowmen could shoot the third round of arrows, their vanguard had already slammed into the human army formation.
Although the human soldiers formed a seemingly dense spear formation, they were still knocked to the ground by the orcs' desperate charge, and their impact was almost as strong as that of the human cavalry.
Some orcs were indeed stabbed to death by the spears, but some others risked their lives to break into the army formation despite being seriously injured, wielding simple but brutal weapons and killing people in all directions, allowing the subsequent orcs to file in through the gaps they had created. The scene soon became so chaotic that the officers were unable to give effective command.
The orcs' military literacy is indeed rough, but their soldiers are brave enough, and their religious beliefs make them believe that the souls of the heroes who died in battle will fly to the Milky Way and become shining stars, so they fight without fear of death!
Faced with the simple and brutal desperate charge of thousands of orcs, the fragile human army quickly fell into chaos. It was a mess everywhere. The orcs were good at fighting this kind of disorganized chaotic battle. A few thousand people disrupted the human army of tens of thousands of people. Some areas even began to show signs of defeat.
Seeing the situation take such a sharp turn for the worse, Richard could not help but regret that he should not have sent his troops out of the city to line up in the open space outside, but should have defended the city. Even if the walls of Aidid were severely damaged, it was better than the open plain without any shelter.
"We can't let them get any closer, close the city gates quickly! Where are our magicians? Have them prepare to use spells to attack and teach those beasts a lesson!"
On the city wall, Richard shouted loudly, trying to display his command ability, but as the commander-in-chief, he looked confused, which actually affected the morale of his own side.
Fortunately, there was chaos both inside and outside the city at this time, and not many people noticed the embarrassing situation of their commander in the face of danger.
At Richard's urging, the Mage Corps, which was supposed to be on standby until the critical moment, was mobilized early. They were Richard's biggest reliance and the "trump card" of the coalition forces. After all, heavy weapons such as catapults and crossbows were too heavy to move with the army, so the Mage Corps became the only "heavy firepower output unit" that could fight with the army.
After the mages climbed up the city wall, they felt their scalps tingling at the chaotic scene outside. They thought that now both the enemy and us were mixed together, and we couldn't let them attack indiscriminately, right?
However, Richard really thought so. He didn't care about the lives of the lower class people at all.
But at this moment, the sound of rapid war drums came from the forest behind the orcs again, and then a fresh force of orcs appeared in front of the human coalition. They were obviously more elite than those of their own kind who had rushed up in a mess before, and they could maintain a relatively complete formation while marching slowly, showing obvious signs of having received formal military training.
Seeing this group of orcs, the magicians of the Mage Corps automatically adjusted their attack targets and began chanting spells without Richard's urging.
However, the magicians were interrupted in the middle of their chanting by a strange cry. The sharp and piercing sound made their hearts tremble, and also interrupted the spell they were brewing.
Some people looked up at the clouds following the sound and saw a huge shadow swaying in the clouds. Then they saw a huge and ugly bat-like creature swooping down.
After recognizing the monster, some well-informed magicians couldn't help but exclaimed, why would a long-extinct "Ominous Dragon" appear here, and from its appearance, it was obviously here to help the orcs. His cry was an extremely terrifying wide-area mental attack that would forcibly interrupt the casting of spells, so it was not an exaggeration to say that it was the nemesis of magicians.
Under the sonic suppression of this ominous dragon, the wizard group, who were dizzy and unable to use magic, instantly became useless waste.
