Chapter 89 The fleeing Rabbit general
Translator: Tchu
Editor: Hydro
Heavily breathing, Kevin’s bald head was covered with sweat, and his helmet was bent crookedly. He was already so tired that his arms were numb and aching, and he could barely lift up his claw hammer.
Next to his side were the Praetorian Guards and fourth legion; these two cavalry units were responsible for covering the rear. After successfully blocking the Odin’s pursuit twice, Kevin was so tired that he couldn’t even keep his back straight, especially after the second attack.
Seeing the Odins retreating like the tide, they watched the ground covered with corpse that they left behind.
Did these Odins stop their pursuit? The bald man frowned.
However very soon, he didn’t ponder over it anymore. The general’s order was to cover the rear and since these Odins had stopped their pursuit, it could be considered that he had completed the order.
At his side there were more than one hundred cavalry right now. After experiencing two attacks, they had ended up losing about two hundred brothers. Although the soldiers were tired and the horses worn-out, Kevin still cautiously a.s.sembled the remaining troops. Lining up in formation, they slowly separated from the battlefield, and tried to catch up to the main force in the south.
Just as Kevin took his group away, trumpets could suddenly be heard behind the pursuing Odin troops…
Did the Odins go mad? The bald man was at a loss in his mind.
General Adrick who was at the Northern frontline received the news that the rear camp was flanked by Hasting three days ago.
The credit for discovering this news so early must actually go to the rabbit general Ruhr. Before marching north, the chubby person prepared a mixed unit on the ground that stayed one day’s distance behind the main force. When he made that decision, it was purely because that chubby person had an inborn sixth sense to escape danger when it approached.
And this time, his premonition was a big help once more.
The chubby man’s army was infantry and walked very slowly, therefore the unit following at the back was even slower.
Very soon, the mixed unit discovered some Odin caribou raiders coming, and searching for signs from the south!
This discovery immediately gave the rabbit general a severe shock!
From the south?!
The Odins are unexpectedly behind us?!
This news was immediately transferred to Adrick’s force with the fastest horse.
Afterwards, Adrick didn’t delay and made the decision: March toward the south!
The battle harden Adrick understood very clear, if the rear camp was outflanked by Odins, then the only general who would dare to do something this big was their old rival who they could never beat – Hasting!
Moreover, if a terrifying enemy such as Hasting went to rear and besieged the camp, Ardrick didn’t even want to think about it!
It is not too late; the 13th Army immediately turned and headed south!
Once the speed of the cavalry adopted their quick pace, Adrick’s first idea was to catch up to the chubby Ruhr who was further in the south. According to their distances, they should be able to catch to that chubby guy in a day time.
But in fact, the 13th Army only managed to reach Ruhr’s army on the night of the second day.
What really left Adrick in admiration was that General Ruhr, who was worthy of his famous escaping skills, had discarded a large number of commodities on the road while running! Spare weapons, armor, food and large military baggage carts, even special Ballistas as well as catapults were all destroyed before thrown onto the roadside!
When Ruhr started to run, he simply fell in hysteria! This chubby fellow unexpectedly ordered the army to only carry three days worth of dry rations and basic equipment, while completely discarding all of the other things!
Using that chubby fellow’s words: In any case, if we don’t hurry back to the camp within three days, then we are all doing to die! As of the other things, throw it all way. Even clinging on to it would be worthless; therefore, there is no need for it.
When the 13th Army caught up with Ruhr, he made a request: Let the cavalry of 13th Army take the unused horses of the cavalry and give them to his men.
The 13th Army was pure cavalry, and each cavalrymen had at least two warhorses. Under Ruhr’s intense begging, Adrick reluctantly gave out 2000 horses.
Afterwards, Ruhr started his magic, and the series of actions that followed immediately proved that his nickname, “Running Rabit”, was absolutely deserved!
Still remembering the mixed unit that was following behind his main unit, they turned around and marched toward south, becoming the vanguard for the main unit! They marched at the forefront!
After Ruhr and Adrick joined forces, their speeds happened to catch up to that unit, and rea.s.signed it to their ranks.
Moreover, that unit who was originally following behind still carried large quant.i.ties of military transports and grain carts!
Under Ruhr’s order, the soldiers of the 6th Army divided the horses from the 13th Army with astonishing speed, and a.s.signed each to a cart. They then changed the grain carts with planks into big horse-drawn carts, and lined up two hundred into a line!
The entire process took less than two hours, and it was as if the soldiers of 6th Army were used to this kind of work.
With more than 200 big horse-drawn carts available now, the 6th Army, which was an infantry unit, improved their marching speed greatly! Several thousand infantries jumped up on the horse-drawn carts, and with the rolling wheels, they unexpectedly managed to reluctantly keep up with the cavalry’s speed!
The two hundred huge horse-drawn vehicles used 800 warhorses to pull the carts, and they could load about 3000 men on them. The remaining 1200 warhorses carried two riders each and covered another 2000 men. With everything considered, it was equal to giving over 5000 infantry units wheels and horses!
They only pity was that the horses would probably dying of exhaustion while they rushed towards their destination.
5000 men were able to ride horses or sat in a horse-drawn cart, but the remaining 5000 men of the 6th Army could only use their legs.
However, subsequently, the soldiers of the 6th Army demonstrated their outstanding qualities: The ability to run!
It was simply crazy! These infantries ran on the main road and rotated with the men on the wagon once every hour.At the end, they unexpectedly didn’t fall too far behind the 13th Army.
This chubby yellow, I am afraid he only pondered on how to escape. Adrick thought to himself full of evil suspicion.
After three days!
When the two Armies joined forces, they force marched for three days and discarded all commodities as much as possible. In only in three days time, they killed their way through Al Bactre plain and the cavalry vanguard killed off two small units of Hasting’s army. In the evening of third day, the vanguard arrived at a place ten miles away from the camp.
The chubby fellow used Adrick’s warhorse until total exhaustion. In order to pursue speed, this chubby fellow didn’t spare on horsepower – in his own words, if we die, what use do horses have? As long as we can make it back alive, we can buy new warhorses, but human can’t be reborn.
Adrick discovered that the calculating power of this chubby fellow was quite outstanding!
His army discarded a large number of commodities on the road and at the end, many soldiers even threw away their armor, shield and weapons!
However, it was not panicked discarding, but an ordered one where he had everything under control.
This chubby yellow would calculate every step of the roads, and according to the speed as well as the physical strength of soldiers left after the marching, he then calculated how many commodities to discard to endure the journey. Discarding while walking, he took into account the maximum strength, battle efficiency as well as balancing the marching speed.
After arriving at their destination, only three soldiers shared on average one set of armor and weapon. This means that the battle efficiency of this army had only one-third of its original strength remaining! However, because of that chubby fellow’s rotation method which allowed his men to rest on the horse-drawn cart, the one-third of the soldiers who would have equipment still maintained their minimum standard of physical strength to battle!
An army that was on a forced march for three days straight, and yet still managed to maintain one-third of its battle efficiency, it would be regarded as a difficult feat even for an elite army.
In this regard, Adrick could not help but admire this feat. At least he knew very well that if they changed places and it was him who led a pure infantry army, it would be absolutely impossible for him to achieve the same result as this chubby fellow.
Regarding this, the chubby fellow gave an explanation: “You know what the 6th Army usually drills under normal circ.u.mstances? I will tell you – full equipment long-distance cross-country training! In order to get into my 6th Army, the first requirement is not being able to strike, but being able to run.”
Kevin and his subordinates soon caught up with the main army. The 600 cavalry accompanying this bald man were obviously utterly exhausted; however, from the look on everyone’s faces, their eyes were still shining brightly. Sitting on horseback, they still kept their backs straight.
The news that Kevin brought however wasn’t really good.
After accepting to cover the rear and intercepting the pursuing troops, Kevin maliciously fought twice with the Odins. Afterwards, the Odins suddenly inexplicably retreated. They lined up in the distance and gave them a farewell, while even also sounding the trumpets… On the battlefield, who would fight to death one moment, and then later see off the enemy while waving them farewell?
Although the Odin’s at their heel no longer tried to kill them, it wasn’t as if they did nothing at all.
The irregular Odin troops behind them gathered all of their cavalry, and a.s.sembled more than 3000 caribou riders to continuously push Kevin and his group forward – these d.a.m.n Odins wouldn’t attack them, but once they reach a certain distance they would intentionally slow their tempo, shouting in the distance while brandishing their weapons to create a huge ruckus. They were like a flock of sheepdogs, driving Kevin’s group south as much as possible.
On several occasions, their anger reached their limit and they started to turn around to fight it out with these Odins – the brave warriors of 13th Army were courageous and didn’t fear death! However, once they turned around, these Odin unexpectedly panicked and turned around to flee!
In short, during these three days, everyone was chasing around each other and it only ended up in roaring or threatening each other from a distance. Their weapons didn’t even touch each other once!
Although Kevin turned around several times, but with his low manpower, he didn’t really dare to pursue them too far. Frightening the opposite side was enough for them. However, the Odin riders stuck to them like flies to dung and were unable to be shaken off. They continuously chose to stop, chase and make a ruckus…
“They are not far behind us and after seeing our main force, they immediately retreated. I think that they didn’t run away and are probably hanging two or three miles behind our backs.” Kevin gasped for breath.
General Adrick spat on the floor: “F*ck, what do these Odins actually want?!”
The nearby general Ruhr who had already untied the tendon on his armor, let out his chubby belly as he satisfiedly gasped for breath. Hearing this, he grunted: “What else can they do? They are driving us away! Like sheep into the mouth of Hasting, that wolf.”
Thinking for a moment, Adrick’s face flashed with a killing intent: “Rest fifteen minutes! Then get ready for battle! Is the camp still in our hands? It seems like the boys inside the camp did well. As long as we can slaughter our way back to the camp, then this war can still be turned around!”
General Ruhr standing next to him frowned and patted his belly gently. This was one of his habits and every time he did this his mind had something that couldn’t be resolved. He then would subconsciously do it out of habit.
Only after making loud noises while patting his round belly did the chubby fellow open his mouth. His expression was somewhat strange and it seemed as if something was confusing him.
“I actually think… slaughtering our way back to the camp will perhaps not be that difficult. Hasting wouldn’t fight us to the death! However, he will probably fiercely take a big chunk of meat from us.”
Adrick immediately looked at Ruhr with a serious look.
After several days of forced march, and since Adrick wasn’t a fool, he naturally saw through that chubby fellow who was well-known for his escaping skill, wasn’t actually the idiot everyone said he was!
“What do you mean General Ruhr?”
This chubby fellow patted his belly and said: “Ah, the Odins behind us didn’t really chase us. According to my original calculations, if they really pursued us, our speed to return would at least be slowed by over one day under their hara.s.sing, probably more. What does this mean? It means that they didn’t try! What about in front of us? The camp is unexpectedly still in our hands! Aren’t you surprised? Although the boys in camps are a good bunch of young fellows, but we are all know their strengths. They only had one battalion of garrison troops and some other mixed people. Ah… I don’t believe in the existence of miracles. If it was a different Odin general leading the troops, then they might be able to hold the camp with a miracle! However… Who was the general that is currently in front of the camp soldiers? It is Hasting! Do you think Odin’s number one general, leading a ten thousand man army of the most elite soldiers, was unable to capture a small fortress that had less than a thousand soldiers? Would it be possible? Come on, he is Hasting!!”
The more this chubby fellow talked, the more excited he got and bead of sweat ended up rolling down his forehead.
Adrick also took a deep breath while thinking: “This indeed didn’t make sense… The pursuing army wasn’t going all out and Hasting was also going easy on us? What are they planning? Properly speaking, the pursuing troops should hara.s.s us, stall us, and win as much time as possible for Hasting to conquer our camp, but now …”
The chubby guy looked at Adrick and suddenly lowered his voice while saying:”General Adrick, this has always been your weakness. You always look at wars too one-sided! You must know, when I followed the grand duke Minas in the past, I heard him say a few words: War is just the continuation of politics, and these words don’t apply only between us and the enemy, but it also applies to the people of the same side!”
“…” Adrick frowned. The grand duke of Minas was the highest military commander of the older generation, and naturally his words held great value.
Ruhr smiled and squinted his eyes: “Still not clear? The troops pursuing behind us, and Hasting in front of us… These two Odin armies, their – mind, is, not, one!”
This chubby fellow was really good!
(Editor Note: Hydro- Hey guys, I’m really tired and it is entirely possible I missed some edits in this chapter x) Really hope you guys enjoyed it!)