On the 7th of the 10th month, Year 586 of the Sacred Light Calendar, Claude finally received an order from General Michelic. There were only two words on the letter: Move out!
Behind it was Michelic's signature and the seal of the division command.
"Myjack, pass down the order. Have the four battalions move out according to plan. The other divisions are to follow me," Claude ordered.
"Yes, Sir." Myjack saluted.
He was now a captain and had been promoted to the next rank after returning from his half-year leave. He was now Claude's adjutant.
"By the way, have Big Gum keep that chest of treasure safe. Don't let anyone know about it.
That's our secret weapon, understood? "Claude reminded Myjack.
Myjack nodded and left the office.
The chest of treasure Claude mentioned was the result of Myjack and Angelina's vacation. It was a crate of hand grenades with long wooden handles.
That was the only result of the two blueprints Claude gave his sister. The development of the grenades went smoothly. All they needed to do was solve the ignition and delay of the explosion before they could complete the prototype.
The crate of grenades was made by Angelina using her alchemical formation. There were 24 of them in total.
The only problem was that the explosion wasn't too powerful. But that was a problem with the gunpowder and not a mistake in the design or manufacturing.
However, the ignition was enough to split the outer shell into more than 20 pieces when thrown. It would deal enough damage to a target within three meters. That was the conclusion Myjack and Angelina came to after experimenting with a herd of goats.
Along with the box of grenades, there was also a production blueprint drawn by Angelina. Based on the process of manufacturing the grenades in the alchemy rune arrays, she had deduced the equipment and steps needed for the actual mass production, as well as the procedures for product quality inspection.
In other words, with the blueprints, he only needed to buy the necessary equipment and materials to mass produce grenades.
Claude only told Myjack to keep the blueprints safe. He didn't want to produce any grenades in the short term.
It was easy to replicate them. Claude didn't want to add to his troubles before he could secure the rights to produce the grenades.
Getting Angelina to make the grenade sample was just a personal preparation for the upcoming battle. Perhaps it was to save his life, or perhaps it was to earn some merit.
There was also a revolver blueprint that Angelina was still working on. According to Myjack's report, Angelina believed that the rest of the revolver's components could be made with the alchemy rune array. The only problem was the primer.
Among them, the pointed lead bullet and the cartridge case were very simple. The only problem was the primer.
It was said that Angelina and Myjack had tried many methods, but the failure rate was still too high.
Angelina was a herbalist, not a chemist, after all.
Chemistry and Physics did not exist in this world. It was said that some knowledge about Chemistry and Physics was classified as mysterious alchemy and was not disseminated to the public. It was in the hands of the royal family and mages. That was why people were still using matchlocks even after six hundred years …
Let's take it slow. Claude himself was a terrible chemist in his previous life. He majored in computer science in university and went down the technical path after graduation. After joining his boss, he was in charge of logistics and technical management.
It wasn't until he transmigrated to this world that he realised that not learning the basics of chemistry and physics was his biggest mistake.
Following the news from the frontlines, Claude quickly got to know the latest situation.
Two days ago, the two Shiksan standing corps stationed at the border, Tanya and Wicklund, crossed the border and marched towards Cromwell in large numbers.
Behind these two corps were the three standing corps of Cybok, Kujoa, and Faybort, which were separated by a hundred miles.
Perhaps having learned their lesson from the last time two standing corps were wiped out, Shiks decided to use a heavy force to suppress the border and fight steadily in tandem with the front and back.
All five standing corps were thrown into the attack. As soon as they encountered any resistance from the Aueran defenders, they would surround them and wipe them out. It would be like killing a chicken with a butcher's knife to vent the anger of the two standing corps that were annihilated the last time.
What disappointed the Shiksan soldiers was that the Aueran army had no intention of defending Cromwell at all. They retreated right after the first attack and abandoned Wickhamsburg as well as the four towns within its borders.
By the time the five Shiksan corps occupied the entirety of Cromwell, they discovered that there wasn't a single Aueran civilian living in Wickhamsburg and the four towns. All they saw were nikancha people roaming about.
The massacre happened soon after. The Shiksan soldiers were ordered to chase the filthy nikancha out of the towns and back to their slums.
That order was met with resistance from the nikancha who occupied the abandoned homes of the displaced natives. They believed that the abandoned homes and fields were now their property, so they surrounded the Shiksan soldiers and pleaded for their innocence. They refused to leave even if they had to die.
The impatient Shiksan officers gave the order to open fire as a warning to the stubborn nikancha. The moment the shots were fired, the Shiksan soldiers thought that they could fire at the nikancha who refused to leave their homes.
As a result, a massacre ensued. Almost every nikancha in sight became the target of the new occupiers. Only the young women were spared. However, they ended up being captured by the bestial Shiksan soldiers and were brought into the camp to be ravaged.
The massacre in Wickhamsburg quickly spread through Nubissia through word of mouth from the nikancha who had fled to safety.
In truth, there weren't many victims. There were close to a thousand casualties and more than two hundred young women were taken into the camp.
What the perpetrators of the massacre didn't know was that the massacre had cut off their only source of information other than scouting. From then on, not a single nikancha in the colonies was willing to work with the Shiksan army to provide them with information.
The main reason Shiks chased away the nikancha in Wickhamsburg was to use the castle as the main supply base for the five corps. The other four towns would also serve as important supply points for the other corps.
On the other hand, the nikancha were unwilling to leave their houses and residences, hoping to get some money or food as compensation.
However, they didn't think that the Shiksan soldiers would really open fire on them.
The nikancha had always been seen as mixed-bloods. They were greedy, smart-mouthed, liars, thick-skinned, lazy, petty, thieving, scoundrels … Almost every bad adjective could be used to describe them.
However, the only undeniable good thing about them was that they were rather united.
While they treated outsiders the same way, they took great care of their own people.
From a certain point of view, the Aueran colonies treated the nikancha fairly.
While they weren't recognized as citizens of the kingdom, they could still earn enough to feed their families as long as they worked hard in the colonies.
Also, as long as they paid taxes, their safety and freedom within the borders were guaranteed.
For instance, while the citizens who migrated to the colonies were commoners, they would hire nikancha to do basic labor in mining, ranching, taverns, and so on. Their own families would work as supervisors, and most of them would get along well with the nikancha and earn a decent income for their families.
That was also the main reason why the seven colonies of Aueras developed their basic industries well.
Shiks, on the other hand, mostly had colonies in the interior of Nubissia. The nikancha who liked to roam around the coast rarely ventured inland to make a living.
On top of that, most of the Shiksan colonists were engaged in mining, not farming or ranching.
They were known as gold diggers who explored all sorts of resources in hopes of making a fortune.
Unlike the Aueran commoners who migrated to the colonies, the Shiksan gold diggers were mostly hired by nobles and influential figures. They could earn a huge sum of money for any rare mineral they found in the colonies.
The mineral would then be taken over by the nobles and influential figures to develop it for a steady stream of income.
As mining required a large amount of labor, the nobles and influential figures turned their attention to the native tribes. They would form mercenaries to attack the native tribes, capture them, and throw them into the dark mines to extract endless wealth for them.
It was a lucrative slave trade and they didn't even have to pay for it.
That was also the reason why there were constant riots among the natives in the Shiksan colonies. In the eyes of the gold diggers, a native tribe was equivalent to a mine.
Had it not been for the colony of Vebator from Nasri, Shiks wouldn't have had much interaction with the nikancha.
Compared to the pure-blooded Etate, the nikancha were more civilized. They lived in the slums next to the towns and were willing to use their own labor for food. At the same time, they would have nikancha women sell their flesh in exchange for payment.
The first batch of Pancry and Krado soldiers to come to Nubissia had learned how to interact with the nikancha. So, when their scouts couldn't find any clues about the enemy, they would use food and money to get information from the nikancha. For example, when they learned that the two regiments they sent to attack the enemy had been wiped out by the fire at Modo River Town, they didn't know what to do.
However, the five corps that came later didn't learn how to interact with the nikancha. They didn't care about the massacre at Wickhamsburg.
On the contrary, some noble officers thought that perhaps the slave masters who developed the mines could turn their attention to the nikancha. Compared to the aggressive Etate, the nikancha were more docile …
The five Shiksan corps took a month to occupy Cromwell before setting off for Balingana with their troops sealed off.
They had no choice but to do so. Balingana was simply too big. If they continued with their slow and steady strategy, it would take them twice as long to occupy the whole colony.
In a situation where the enemy had no intention of defending and had almost given up on all the towns, it would be foolish to use such a slow pace to attack those places without any defensive forces.
Under the unanimous recommendation of the corps strategists, the five corps no longer grouped together. Instead, they moved towards Balingana like four arrowheads, intending to occupy the entire colony in the shortest time possible. At the same time, they left a corps at their rear to prevent their supply routes from being attacked or destroyed.
Balingana wasn't as defenseless as Cromwell. There would always be an Aueran battalion or a line stationed in some of the more dangerous areas.
They fought back tenaciously and always retreated at the crucial moment when the enemy closed in.
While the four Shiksan corps suffered some casualties during the attack, it only made their victory seem more genuine.
One of the high-ranking officers who conquered the enemy's defences proudly ordered his subordinates to report to headquarters. "The enemy can't even withstand a single blow. We're invincible!"
The high-ranking officers of Shiks, who hadn't experienced war for more than forty years, were indeed confused by their victory.
They forgot to check the ratio of casualties on both sides. The defences they conquered usually didn't have many corpses on them, while the casualties of their attackers were usually counted in battalions.
They successfully took over the enemy's defensive position and forced the enemy to flee in a sorry state. However, they lost one battalion after another. The high-ranking officers of Shiks didn't pay much attention to such losses as they saw it as a normal casualty rate.
A standing corps had twenty battalions. As long as they kept winning and conquering enemy territory, losing half of their battalions wasn't a big deal.
However, the high-ranking officers of Shiks didn't know that they had been lured away from their original targets by Ranger and were falling into the enemy's trap one by one.
Ranger used small defensive positions to make every corps think that the enemy's main force was right in front of them and set up new defensive positions to wait for them to attack.
So, they charged forward bravely and inadvertently neglected to look out for each other. As a result, the corps grew further and further apart.