Chapter 387- The Situation in Leizhou
Translator: ryangohsf
Editor: Nora
5th month 12th day, Ouyang Shuo returned to Shanhai City.
After Little Green and Little White became protector beasts, they were all the more unwilling to leave the Spirit Beast Hall. Ouyang Shuo went to take a look at both of them and Xue'er before returning to Shanhai City.
Ouyang Shuo looked forward to the future achievements of these three.
The moment he returned, Ouyang Shuo called for Du Ruhui, Zhao Kuo, and Cobra. Half a month had passed since he asked them to come up with a plan, so Ouyang Shuo felt that they should have made some new progress.
Cobra was the first to report, "The Leizhou Region is of similar size to the Lianzhou Basin. There are twenty-seven territories, twenty-two grade 2 counties, and five grade 3 counties. There are no grade 1 counties."
When Ouyang Shuo heard this information, he nodded his head.
If he took down Leizhou, not including Qiongzhou Island, his territory would double in area.
Six months had passed since the Battle of Changping.
Even if no new battle map showed, the ranks of the lords would rise from killing raiders and bandits. Most had basically reached rank 2 earl and above.
With this conjecture, the ranks of Di Chen and the others should not be far from rank 3 Marquis.
Ouyang Shuo remembered that the fourth battle map in his last life activated with the birth of the fifth prefecture. The current China region already had three prefectures. As long as two more from the Yanhuang Alliance ranked up to Marquis and upgraded, they were really close to the fourth battle.
The prefecture quests were nothing to the big powers.
Cobra paused before he continued, "The territories in Leizhou have pretty much all hit their upper limit, which means that a grade 2 County has two regiments of around five thousand. The five grade 3 counties all have a city protection regiment. The entire Leizhou region has around 180 thousand troops. If we add the subsidiary territories, to be safe, we can say there are around two hundred thousand troops.”
Two hundred thousand men. If they all grouped up together, it was enough to destroy the Dragon Legion.
Luckily, the situation had not escalated to such a bad state.
Song Wen had already replied Ouyang Shuo. Eight territories in Leizhou had joined the Tianshuang Alliance, all grade 2 counties.
As for these territories, when they saw that his army had gained the advantage, Ouyang Shuo believed that they would know what to do.
Black Mamba reported that they had completed their infiltration of five territories.
With that, it was the same as nullifying a third of the enemy.
Even so, based solely on the Dragon Legion's 2nd division and the Guards division, it was hard to smoothly take down Leizhou, not to mention the casualties.
Ouyang Shuo was confident that under the buffs of the territory, thanks to their elite equipment and overpowered generals, Shanhai army could take on three times their number.
If one considered Baiqi, Shanhai City Army could go one against four. More would be a huge test.
Furthermore, considering that the Battle of Leizhou would mainly consist of sieging, it was even more difficult. Hence, conservatively speaking, he needed to throw in another one or two divisions to successfully take down Leizhou.
Out of the four divisions of the Dragon Legion, the 1st division needed to go past the hundred thousand mountains, and the 3rd needed to guard Mulan Stronghold. As such, only Mu Guiying's 4th division could move.
Moving them would involve a certain amount of risk.
The moment he used the 4th division, in addition to the Guards division taking part in the attack, the entire Shanhai City defence would lie in the hands of the city protection division. Without any reserve forces, this was a very dangerous prospect.
Ouyang Shuo thought about it and decided to keep the three thousand palace Guards in Shanhai City. Although he did not feel that the Yanhuang Alliance would choose to attack at this point, he still had to defend his territory.
Playing safe was always the best virtue.
At the same time, the Dragon Legion 1st division would push back the time that they would cross the hundred thousand mountains. They would temporarily camp in Tianfeng House, near the hundred thousand mountains.
When the situation in Leizhou stabilized, Shi Wanshui would lead them on a long and arduous journey to deal the killing blow to Chiyou City.
With that, the city had the city protection division and the palace Guards, while on the outside, they had the 1st and 3rd divisions defending. There should be no problems.
Even if Yanhuang Alliance tried to attack, they could not take down Shanhai City.
Moving the 4th division was only to equal the numbers.
Ouyang Shuo's goal was to quickly take over the entire Leizhou. Hence, the best method was to throw in another division.
Once he thought about this, Ouyang Shuo raised his head and looked at Du Ruhui, "Send orders to the Tiger Legion, order the 1st division to prepare to enter the Leizhou battlefield. The 2nd division will prepare to defend Shanhai City at any moment."
"Yes, my lord!" Du Ruhui nodded.
"Leizhou is near the ocean, so there might be sailors. During the Battle of Leizhou, the Beihai Bay Squadron’s 1st division will join in to monitor the ocean situation."
Although they could not help with the sieging, they could act as a great special surprise force. Counting in the sailors, Shanhai City would send seventy thousand troops to this battle.
Shanhai City was destined to stun the world once again.
After the military meeting ended, the war machine which was Shanhai City started to turn.
The 2nd and 3rd divisions of the Dragon Legion left their camps and did not gather in Shanhai City. Instead, they boarded ships disguised as merchant ships along the Friendship and Qiushui rivers. From there, they went down the stream to Beihai Harbor.
The Guards division made use of the darkness to leave the city and rush to Beihai Harbor.
As Beihai City developed, they had built a commercial harbor at the other side of the territory. The merchant ships could not come close to Beihai Harbor. As it was a military harbor.
The 1st division of the Tiger Legion would board warships from the South Mountain Harbor and head straight to Leizhou.
The warships prepared for the Yashan Squadron had already left from Beihai Harbor. After they received supplies in South Mountain Harbor, they would send the 1st division toward Leizhou.
Just like this, before anyone knew anything, Shanhai City had gathered all their men and resources.
The navy would play a large and important role in the upcoming battle.
The entire Beihai Bay was the territory of the Shanhai City navy. Here, they could do whatever they wanted.
His plans for becoming the overlords of the sea were finally coming into fruition.
Since the army they moved was too huge, the Beihai Bay Squadron 1st division could only send one division at a time. Hence, they needed to build a sentry base in Leizhou.
Luckily between Leizhou and Lianzhou, the shortest route was only a day, while the longest route was four to five days.
Although they were both besides the ocean, Leizhou was very different from Lianzhou Basin. Lianzhou Basin only had one ocean entrance, and it had a limited shoreline.
Leizhou was like a carrot; a huge half or it laid in the ocean. In terms of geography, it was east and west small, while north and south long.
Based on this strategic geography, Baiqi decided to split the troops into three and attack together.
The north would be the 4th division of the Dragon Legion that Mu Guiying led, while the middle was the Guards division that Lin Yi led. Baiqi would follow them and act as the commander. The south was the 1st division of the Tiger legion that Fan Lihua led.
Lastly, the 2nd division of the Dragon Legion that Luo Shixin led. It was the only cavalry division. It used its huge mobility to act as backup.
Baiqi planned to sweep up a huge half of Leizhou before anyone could react.
If not, once the twenty-seven territories worked together, it would be a huge problem.
For this battle, Ouyang Shuo had no choice but to break the alliance rules; he bought one thousand trebuchets from Consonance City.
Mu Guying and Fan Lihua both took three hundred, while the Guards division took four hundred.
Ouyang Shuo had basically swept up three to four months of Consonance City’s trebuchet production.
Apart from the trebuchets, Ouyang Shuo also bought a hundred siege chariots and five hundred siege towers. In addition to the thousands of scaling ladders that Shanhai City made, this would totally change the face of the Battle of Leizhou.
Buying this set of siege weapons alone had used up 35 thousand gold.
Toward Ouyang Shuo's actions, as the military coordinator and contacter, Zi Luolan grumbled a lot.
As for why he bought so many at once, although his allies were curious, they did not ask. Even Zi Luolan just randomly sprouted words and did not mean it.
Toward the understanding from his allies, Ouyang Shuo naturally felt very thankful to them. The Battle of Leizhou was a battle that Shnahai City could not afford to lose. He had to be careful.
Apart from siege weapons, Ouyang Shuo also bought a huge amount of grain from the various Chamber of Commerces.
When the troops gained a footing in Leizhou, the various merchant ships would transport millions of units of grain to Leizhou.
It was the same as saying that the Chamber of Commerces would help to solve half of the grain transport problem.
Once the grain was transported to Leizhou, how it was transported internally would depend on Shanhai City. For this, the Combat Logistics Department arranged fifty prisoners to enter Leizhou.
Fortunately, the spring sowing season had just ended. Otherwise, it would be difficult to amass such a huge prisoner force.
One must know that the construction projects in Lianzhou Prefecture had never stopped, and the demand for labour was terrifying.
Based on rough calculations, solely on the logistics, Shanhai City had spent sixty thousand gold. As a result, they had used up the fifty thousand that Ouyang Shuo had saved up in his storage bag.
This amount did not consider the costs of the military workshops and factories. If those were considered, the sum would easily pass a hundred thousand.
If not, why would one say that war was based on one's economic ability.
After a huge war, if one could not achieve their goal, it was enough to cause the economy of a territory to collapse.