Volume 3 Chapter 1 The Force of a Prairie Fire – Reverse at the borders
At the border of the Sack Kingdom to the south was the Lampuri Kingdom, there was a long stretch of mountains that weren’t too tall.
When the Lampuri Kingdom was founded, they stole a large piece of land from the Sack Kingdom to the south of these mountains. In the end, the two kingdom took these Muerto Mountains as their borders, with the north being the Sack Kingdom and the south being the Lampuri Kingdom.
So for this reason, from the king to the citizens of the Sack Kingdom, they all hoped to steal back their land from the Lampuri Kingdom.
Even after the Lampuri Kingdom had been founded for several hundred years, the dispute between these two kingdoms hadn’t been settled yet.
Although these countries didn’t have the courage and economy to declare all out war, small skirmishes continued to happen.
Each year the Sack Kingdom would place large amounts of manpower and resources into this border. On average, they lost several thousand men each year, causing theoretical losses in the hundreds of thousands.
Although before the Sack Kingdom had gained some advantage on this broder front, it didn’t come cheaply.
After all these years, they only advanced from the foot of the mountain range from the early days of the Lampuri Kingdom to just over the mountain peak. Every time they wanted to advance, they would be met with the fierce resistance of the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army.
At the beginning of the year, under the suggestion of the Sack Kingdom’s king, their army headquarters came up with a plan to use the Hungry Wolf Regiment that guarded the southern kingdom to launch super large sneak attacks that were different from before.
Faced with the abnormal large scale attacks from the Sack Kingdom, the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army was caught off guard and couldn’t fight back at all. In just a short week, they lost the area they controlled to the Hungry Wolf Regiment and the Muerto Mountains had fallen into the Sack Kingdom’s hands.
The Sack Kingdom was completely thrilled by this victory.
For the Sack Kingdom citizens, it held a great symbolic meaning. It meant that the balance between the Sack Kingdom and the Lampuri Kingdom had finally broken and the Sack Kingdom had won for the first time. This was their first time being the winning side.
For the Sack Kingdom military, this was a joyful victory. Because as long as they controlled the Muerto Mountains, it meant they had the geographical advantage.
For the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army, if they wanted to fight back, they had to fight from the low ground, so it was much harder to attack compared to fighting on flat ground.
The facts were like this.
The Hungry Wolf Regiment took the foothold from the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army and in order to secure it, they built many fortifications on the Muerto Mountains. Faced with fighting on low ground and the firm defenses of the Hungry Wolf Regiment, they couldn’t win at all and helplessly retreated after throwing away thousands of lives.
To the Sack Kingdom’s military, this meant that the Sack Kingdom had control over the Muerto Mountains.
From now on, with the absolute geographical advantage, the Sack Kingdom could use the Muerto Mountains to advance or retreat. The north of the Lampuri Kingdom was under the fangs of the Hungry Wolf Regiment and they could attack at will.
This good outlook didn’t last long.
At the beginning of the year, after the cold winter, the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army launched another attack. The Sack Kingdom’s Hungry Wolf Regiment found that the northern army’s attack was actually very fierce this time and they couldn’t resist.
In less than a month, the Hungry Wolf Regiment lost two mountain peaks and their defenses in the entire mountain range had been heavily hit.
If it wasn’t for the Sack Kingdom’s army headquarters taking the initiative to send strong support to the Hungry Wolf Regiment, even diverting another Strong Tiger Regiment to help, they might have lost the Muerto Mountains that they had worked so hard to obtain.
The reason why the northern army’s battle power had suddenly increased was only for one reason, which was that they had better equipment now.
Before this, although the Sack Kingdom’s Hungry Wolf Regiment had the advantage against the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army, to the Hungry Wolf Regiment, they had a high appraisal of the battle strength of the Lampuri Kingdom’s soldiers.
It was because compared to the full armours of the Hungry Wolf Regiment, the Lampuri Kingdom’s soldiers’ equipment really were hard to look at.
When fighting the Hungry Wolf Regiment before, the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army didn’t even have armour for each soldier, so many soldiers were wearing broken leather armour.
Moreover, their weapons were all very worn out. Whether it was their sharpness, weight, or quality, it couldn’t compare to the weapons of the Sack Kingdom soldiers.
It was clear to soldiers how good equipment could change their battle efficiency, so the Hungry Wolf Regiment were filled with admiration for the northern army who could guard the Muerto Mountains and could keep them at only a slight advantage.
The Hungry Wolf Regiment commander Chalon Linear had expressed his feelings to his chief staff officer Ivy Joao in secret many times. It was a good thing the Lampuri Kingdom was too poor, otherwise if the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army had the same equipment as the Hungry Wolf Regiment, the Muerto Mountains would be stolen by the Lampuri Kingdom.
And now, Chalon Linear’s greatest fear had occurred.
In this counterattack, Chalon Linear who was supervising the front lines personally witnessed the northern army soldiers charging at the defenses of the Hungry Wolf Regiment covered in bright and shiny new armour. At the same time, the weapons in their hands were sparkling and looked very sharp.
Chalon Linear and the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers were shocked to find that the armour of the northern army soldiers were very firm. Even charging into a sea of arrows that blotted out the sky, they were completely unharmed.
As a veteran general, Chalong Linear was helpless as he saw a northern army soldier’s armour only having a slight mark left on it when he was aimed at by over ten arrows. Not only did it not penetrate, it didn’t even leave a scratch!
When the northern army soldiers rushed over the peak and began engaging in close combat with the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers, the Hungry Wolf Regiment were shocked to find that the quality of the weapons in the hands of the northern army soldiers could actually match theirs. When the weapons clashed at full force, the ones that broke were the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers’ weapons.
Even some of the lower quality weapons in the hands of the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers were shattered by the weapons of the northern army soldiers.
With this difference in equipment and adding in the strength of the northern army soldiers being greater than the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers, there was no surprise how the battle ended.
Even though the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers had advantage in numbers and terrain, they couldn’t fight back against the northern army at all.
If it wasn’t for the northern army choosing to leave after gaining some victories, in the first week, the Hungry Wolf Regiment wouldn’t have just lost two mountain peaks.
After the fierce attack of the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army, the Hungry Wolf Regiment was filled with joy and doubt from this.
They were joyful that the northern army chose to retreat and didn’t break the Hungry Wolf Regiment’s line at once.
But they were also doubtful about this.
The northern army had the advantage in this battle, but they actually chose to retreat. Why was that?
They learned the answer half a month later.
After the first surprise attack on the Muerto Mountains, the northern army stopped for half a month before launching the second attack.
The Hungry Wolf Regiment was prepared to attack the northern army with their advantage in equipment, but they never thought that the northern army wouldn’t come up the mountains at all. Rather they brought several large and strange machines to the bottom of the mountain.
Then they saw countless large stones flying out from those strange giant machines, accurately landing on the Hungry Wolf Regiment’s defenses on the peak of the mountain.
Under this unceasing offense from the giant stones, the Hungry Wolf Regiment couldn’t even hold out for an hour before announcing they were retreating.
Each time the Hungry Wolf Regiment wanted to use their terrain advantage to attack the giant stone launching machines, they were met with a dense volley of arrows. As soon as the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers came out of their camps, they were turned into hedgehogs and chased back.
They couldn’t guard or attack, the Hungry Wolf Regiment soldiers knew the situation was bad, so they could only announce their retreat.
But this time the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army didn’t retreat. After capturing a position, they didn’t give any time as they attacked the next position.
When the Hungry Wolf Regiment found that there were only three of those large machines, they wanted to attack these positions that weren’t guarded. But they were faced with a volley of arrows and adding in the fact that the northern army wasn’t disadvantaged anymore in terms of equipment, the Hungry Wolf Regiment came back without any results.
The battle only lasted a month and the Hungry Wolf Regiment actually lost the Muerto Mountains. They were even completely expelled out of the Muerto Mountains by the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army.
So in just three months, the situation of both sides had been completely reversed.
Now that the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army had the terrain advantage and with their excellent equipment, as well as them using arrows like it didn’t cost them money, coordinating with the three large machines with incredible might, the Hungry Wolf Regiment didn’t have any hopes of fighting back.
But faced with this result, including Chalon Linear, every person in the Hungry Wolf Regiment wasn’t angry, rather they were all filled with doubt.
When did the Lampuri Kingdom’s northern army suddenly become this rich?