Chapter 77 Great Changes
"Move faster, we'll set out after half an hour of Ai Su, don't waste time." Such words came from the military tent where Liu Yu lived two days later. At this time, Liu Yu, who was wearing a black leather armor, was squatting in the military tent collecting miscellaneous items on the ground. Next to him, Ivan and several Mongolian soldiers were doing the same thing, while Digang was directing them while collecting things at the same time.
Liu Yu's Hu Army has now been replenished and reorganized after the war. Liu Yu, Ivan, and Di Geng, three old soldiers, plus three new recruits who had just come of age at sixteen, as well as four veteran soldiers transferred from other places, made up a full complement of ten men.
After the sneak attack on Sas Province, the Beastmen army controlled the entire southern mountain range. The many permanent defensive fortifications built by the Fanaud Empire at great cost in many easy-to-defend and hard-to-attack locations have now become the Beastmen's defensive fortifications.
Because the defensive fortifications built by the Fano Empire were to prevent the beast tribe from attacking from west to east, while the beast tribe had to prevent the Fano Empire from advancing from east to west, the direction of attack and defense was exactly opposite. In addition to the damage caused by the war, the beast tribe had to make some repairs and adjustments to these defensive fortifications in order for them to be effective.
After the end of the Great War, the Beastman Kingdom disbanded ten veteran legions and the Wolf Tribe disbanded six veteran battalions. However, both tribes still retained many veterans on the front lines, on the one hand to guard against the counterattack of the Fanaud Empire, and on the other hand the beast tribe army will fully enter the fortifications in the mountains and be responsible for the repair work of these fortifications.
The Fourth Legion will be divided into several small squads, stationed at various passes, and there will no longer be a complete Fourth Legion camp. Liu Yu and his team received the transfer order yesterday, they will be sent to a pass near the northern part of Sas Province, located in the border area between the southern mountains and the northern centaur territory.
And Liu Yu went with them on their entire journey, along with a corresponding mixed regiment of two thousand Loufan warriors.
"Departure." Half an hour later, at the north gate of the fourth division's campsite, a cavalry unit of over two thousand men, led by a golden-haired Bimon wearing black iron armor and riding a brown warhorse, slowly marched north along the main road.
Liu Yu rode his own horse at the front of the troops, closely following their traveling envoy as they advanced. The fourth division was originally defending the southern region of the Wolf Tribe's territory, and this time they were heading north for a journey of over 700-800 miles, which was still quite far away, so Liu Yu had already made preparations for the long journey.
"Is this what they mean by 'making clothes for others'?" Two days later, in the evening, Liu Yu rode on horseback, looking at the flat road surface with a sarcastic smile. In his heart, he thought that if Hadrian, the prince of the Vano Empire, saw these beastmen cavalry rushing forward on this road, what would he think?
The Fano Empire had mobilized a large number of troops and recruited many ordinary civilians to turn the entire southern mountainous region into an efficient and solid defense system, opening up many roads in this mountainous area. The garrison of Sas Province also specially leveled all the roads several times.
In this way, their large army can borrow several important passes as a support, and use cavalry troops to quickly dispatch reinforcements to any pass around. After all, for the Empire of Fanord, this is also a border of several hundred miles, and it is impossible to deploy a large number of defenders everywhere.
In the eyes of Liu Yu, who had read a lot about modern military common sense, the garrison of Sas Province in the Empire of Fanoed was very mature with this set of defensive systems. This practice of building roads on a large scale during peacetime to facilitate rapid deployment of troops during wartime has been an important idea in the military construction of various countries in the 21st century, that is, the famous Rapid Reaction Force.
The southern mountainous terrain is rugged and complex, before the surprise attack on Sas Province, this mountainous area was occupied by the Beastman Kingdom in the west and the Fano Empire in the east. In the past, whether it was a beast tribe patrol or a Fano Empire patrol, they were all on foot patrols, because many places in this mountainous area are impassable for horses.
The beastman kingdom that now monopolizes this mountainous region has also learned from the methods of the Fano Empire. After the war, many mouse people and ant people were mobilized to start building a flat and wide road in the western part of the mountain range, which will be connected to the roads built by the original Fano Empire in the east in the future.
In this way, the smaller number of beast tribe troops can also be used most efficiently by having the large army ride horses and hurry on the road. This avoids the danger of dispersing troops to defend many passes, which would lead to being defeated separately by the enemy.
After two days of continuous day and night travel, Liu Yu's team had advanced more than 500 miles, and the pass they were going to garrison was also within a two-day journey.
Along the way, Liu Yu had already encountered many mouse people and ant people who were recruited to build roads. Liu Yu carefully observed that the construction of many roads was almost halfway through, and after entering winter, road construction would definitely be suspended due to various bad weather conditions in winter. It is estimated that the western mountainous roads will not be fully completed until next summer.
Roughly estimating the time it would take for the road to be completed, Liu Yu suddenly had a hunch. If he were a high-ranking officer in the Farnod Empire's army, he should launch a counterattack on the southern mountains while the beastmen were still unstable.
Liu Yu heard from his father Gaiya that last year, before the winter, the war between the Empire of Fandor and the Empire of Elves was a great defeat for the elves, but the elite guards of the empire also suffered greatly. The losses they suffered were not small either.
The Beastman Kingdom made such a big noise in the Sas Province, but the Fano Empire did not immediately dispatch the Imperial Guard to punish the Beastman Kingdom. They didn't want to, but the situation within the empire was temporarily not suitable for doing so.
Liu Yu estimated that Fanoder, the Hadrian prince, did not expect that the beast tribe would have such a strong reaction to their construction of defensive fortifications in Sas Province, almost mobilizing the entire nation's army to attack. This made all his original arrangements seem very weak.
Now that the southern mountains have all fallen into the hands of the Beastman Kingdom, Sas Province has no more natural barriers to rely on. Previously, the southern mountains would be the first line of defense for the Fano Empire against the beastmen's attacks, but now without this layer of protection, Sas Province will directly face the kingdom's great army.
This is absolutely not what the Empire of Fandor wants to see, and it also disrupts the empire's strategic deployment. If they want to continue attacking the northern centaur territory to consume the beastman kingdom's national strength.
The kingdom can defend against the north and attack the south, relying on the bravery of the beastman army, and it's still uncertain who will win or lose at that time.
He took a sip of cool water from his canteen and calmed himself down, cooling his brain.
"In three more months, winter will be coming, and counterattacking at that time won't be a good opportunity. If we wait until next summer after all the roads are repaired, it still won't be a good opportunity. It seems that there will be a battle next spring." Liu Yue felt the cool breeze as he estimated the timing of the Farnod Empire's counterattack.
"Alexander, take those three kids to move stones." Three days later, Liu Yu accepted Di Qing's order with a bitter smile.
Liu Yu is now wearing a sleeveless black linen garment, with several inches of golden hair on his arms blowing in the wind, and he has a pair of tattered grass shoes on his feet.
Liu Yu stood desolately under the city wall of a strategic pass that guarded a gorge, looking helplessly at the slightly damaged wall.
Yesterday night they arrived at the pass they were to garrison, facing north into Sas Province and northeast towards the fortress of Emarbal in Rhyn Province. The fortress had originally been garrisoned by only a few thousand soldiers of the Fano Empire, but the Horde's great army had reached here just as the war of surprise against Sas was ending.
When the beast army arrived here, the defeated Farnod garrison, which was already defeated and collapsed like a mountain, organized an effective defense here. They gathered many remnants of the defeated soldiers and held out against the beast army for several days. In the end, it was the wolf tribe leader Erida who led the Dark Wind Wolf Riders and three veteran battalions of the Bimon to take down this fortress at some cost.
As a result, the city wall of Womai suffered no small damage. On the second day, Liu Yu and his men had the task of moving stones to repair the city wall.
"This, I was able to catch up through the crossing, I was able to catch up through battle, and even doing hard labor was caught up by me." Liu Yu muttered to himself, shook his head, and called out to the three Bi Mon soldiers standing behind him with a few hints of green on their faces, heading towards the southern pass.
These three Mohe soldiers were newly assigned to Liu Yu's fire team, and one of them had a deep connection with Liu Yu.
