Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 738 Grassland Offensive
Although the refugee relocation plan in the border region is in full swing, it is still far away from Starfire City. No matter how efficient the Ministry of State and the Northern Army are, they cannot send people to the capital immediately to fill the labor shortage.

Fortunately, although the operation had only lasted for a short month, the Northern Army had already firmly established itself on the border and was gradually advancing northward... forming a strategic depth deployment with the three places of Chensang River Valley, Chisha City, and Fengyin Fort as the defensive front line, Highland City as the strategic transit base, and Langya Ridge as the supply rear.

Once the people heading south successfully crossed the defensive front, they almost no longer needed to worry about the threat of invasion from other races. Even if small groups of demon lizardmen occasionally broke through the defenses, they would be immediately discovered and locked onto by the Northern Army's mobile forces and wiped out as quickly as possible.

With the invasion of foreign tribes and the ensuing chaos in Eisengard, the powerful neighboring kingdom of Saint Valen finally launched an effective counterattack in the southwestern border region of the kingdom. This also prompted the desperate refugees to move rapidly southwestward.

……

Meanwhile, the Northern Army's high command and the General Staff were also embroiled in a heated debate over the direction of their next move.

The military intentions of the Lizardmen in Eisengard remain unclear to this day. They seem to have the same goal as in the Ice Sea region: to slaughter and wipe out human civilians as much as possible, burn towns and villages, and occasionally, when they encounter resistance from armed forces of noble organizations, they will deploy some low-level evolved beings such as Red Lizardmen or Winged Species.

Once victorious, they continued their advance without pause... making no move to encroach on city lands, like a swarm of locusts sweeping across the grasslands like the wind.

Vaughn held up a deep red charcoal pencil and drew a solid line diagonally on the huge map of Eisengard. "I think the defensive front based on the Valley of the Fallen Sands, Red Sand City, and Windwhisper Keep should not be pushed further north... The further north we go, the more vast the defensive area we need to cover becomes, and the more dispersed our forces become. Although we can use the Abyss Sea Map to find out where the enemy will surface in advance, our mobility will never be able to keep up with them, and we will end up being unable to cover everything."

With a total strength of just over six thousand men, it was already relatively difficult to establish a tight defensive line in the vast land of the Flying Cavalry Kingdom... The flat grasslands offered little in the way of terrain advantages, and most battles were skirmishes and pursuits, making it virtually impossible to hold a position in place while waiting for the enemy to tire themselves out.

Pierce, facing his old subordinate, clearly expressed his opposition: "Eisengard is the only breakthrough point for the Lizardmen to breach the defenses of the Divine Ridge Mountains and completely invade the Southern Territory. Compared to the nearly thousand-mile-long frozen sea and tundra, they are much closer to us in the Land of the Flying Cavalry... If we don't push the defenses north and drive them back to the north of the Divine Ridge Mountains, I fear that the Great Rift will become their main direction of attack in the future, and a large number of floating island fortresses will turn around directly from the frozen sea and eventually appear on the grasslands."

In that case... the northeastern border of Saint Valen would be in danger of being breached by alien forces directly gathering their strength.

This is a situation His Majesty the Emperor absolutely cannot allow to occur. Keeping the enemy at bay, beyond the borders... must be the goal that the Northern Army consistently upholds and achieves. If the battle breaks out within the borders, all the high-ranking military officers present at today's meeting, along with Commander-in-Chief Pierce himself, will likely be held accountable.

"The range of the defensive front can be flexibly contracted or expanded... but Highland City, as a strategic transit point, must be kept in our own hands no matter what. The General Staff recommends that Highland City be directly expanded into a military fortress of the same specifications as the Ice Sea Base, to be used as a permanent fortification for long-term troop deployment in the future."

With Asdaren absent, the General Staff was represented by several senior advisors, including Dickinson, whose proposals were relatively far-sighted and meticulously planned. It seemed they were preparing for a protracted war with the Lizardmen in Eisengard.

Pierce frowned and said in a deep voice, "The General Staff suggested to His Majesty a few days ago that the railway, which originally ended at Greenpool County, be extended all the way to the border region, and eventually even cross the border to reach Highland City. Do you know how many troops the Northern Army would have to spend to strengthen the defenses along the railway? Isn't this just making things more difficult for us?"

The area south of central Eisengard is full of rivers and lakes, unlike the desert and grassland of the northwest... and the Lizardmen rely on the connection between underground rivers and surface water systems to carry out their operations. To launch a surprise attack on the railway laid on the vast grassland would be a piece of cake.

Vaughn said in surprise, "Build the railway all the way to Eisengard? That's too much of a loss... We don't know yet whether the Lizardmen intend to make the Kingdom of the Cavalry their main target for southward attack. If we withdraw our troops later, we can't take the railway we left behind with us intact."

What about those steppe nobles who return to their fiefdoms after the war? Given their stupidity and shortsightedness, they'd probably pry these steel rails off one by one and remelt them into inferior armor and swords.

Dickinson and Ross exchanged a knowing glance, then he said meaningfully, "We're not doing all this for others... His Majesty means that since the Eisengard royal family has fallen and its bloodline is severed, and we were the first to send troops to aid and rescue innocent civilians... naturally, we will bring parts of the grasslands under our jurisdiction in the future..."

Dickinson then walked to the map and pointed to the red line that Vaughn had drawn himself. "So this so-called defensive front line still needs our careful consideration and deliberation..."

With things said to this extent, how could the high-ranking military officers present not understand... Chief Political Advisor Asdaren did not attend the meeting, but he subtly conveyed His Majesty's meaning through several senior advisors.

The defensive line that the Northern Army set up in Eisengard is the baseline for the territory they will eventually seize from the Kingdom of the Hussars... Advancing north will allow them to seize more land, while retreating south will mean taking less land.

Using the just and legal justification of sending troops to aid the invaded alien races, and the United Kingdom's military strength strong enough to dominate the southern border... the other human nations seem to dare not raise any objections to such blatant encroachment on neighboring territories.

Dickinson couldn't help but recall a sarcastic remark made by Chief Asdaren during a secret meeting at the General Staff a few days prior—

"His Majesty is, after all, a monarch, and sometimes he still needs to consider his reputation... He doesn't want to be seen as a bandit emperor by friendly nations like Orland, Pharos, and Barkley. Therefore, we need to find a suitable reason and excuse regarding the issue of encroaching on Eisengard's territory."

(End of this chapter)