Seeing the boxes of firearms and ammunition produced by the Kingdom of Hicks stored in the arsenal being moved out and loaded onto four-wheeled carriages before being transported to Rodex Bay City, Colonel Belkerin scratched his head and looked around. , quietly moved to Claude's side, lowered his voice and asked:
"General, I don't understand. The entire Fox Islands United Kingdom's army does not have more than one corps, and the total strength is less than 60,000. Why do these local administrative officials of Rodex Bay City dare to buy more than 20 troops? Weapons and equipment for ten thousand people? This is a deal for one million gold crowns, what can they do?"
In fact, Claude had no idea that the local officials of Rodex Bay City would be so bold. He originally just wanted to sell some of the captured weapons and equipment to the local garrison camp of Rodex Bay City so that they could be replaced. cash.
Anyway, they are all things to be burned. It doesn't matter if you sell more or less. The main thing is to add some trouble to the five standing legions of Hicks who will arrive in the future. No Hicks soldier would feel comfortable seeing the soldiers of the local garrison in Rodex Bay City holding the captured Hicks weapons and equipment bought from Claude.
But when the local officials in Rodex Bay City heard what Claude asked Lieutenant Colonel Le Mando, their eyes lit up. They grabbed Lieutenant Colonel Le Mando's clothes and walked aside. After a brief discussion, they gave him There was an unexpected reply from Claude.
If Claude really wants to sell the captured weapons and equipment of the Hicks Kingdom, then they will need as much as they want. As for money, it is not a problem. There is a United Bank in the city that can provide loan guarantee for this arms transaction.
Of course, it was not Claude who made the loan, but these local administrative officials and Lieutenant Colonel Le Mando. This answer really surprised Claude, but after thinking about it for a while, Claude understood what these local administrative officials were trying to do. They were just trying to make a fortune by changing hands, and Kaizi naturally had five standing armies. The regiment did not reach the Kingdom of Hicks in Rodex Bay Colony.
In war, weapons and equipment are always consumables. The Hicks Kingdom reserves enough weapons and ammunition to equip more than 200,000 troops in this general logistics base camp just to make up for the consumption and losses on the battlefield. Perhaps this may be the consumption of weapons and ammunition reserved for the entire colonial war. There are more than 600,000 troops and more than 200,000 horses have been prepared for consumption of weapons and equipment. A one-third loss rate is very normal.
Now this general logistics base camp has been captured by the Thunder Legion in the Overseas Directly Administered War Zone of the Overas Kingdom in a night attack, which means that all the weapons and ammunition stored by the Hicks Kingdom have become the enemy's trophies and can be obtained from their own warehouses. Crossed off the list.
Then after the Hicks Kingdom's next five standing legions arrive at Rodex Bay Colony, the Hicks Kingdom will also have to purchase a batch of weapons and equipment that are to be lost on the battlefield, and then transport them all the way to the Nubisian continent. , the human, material, financial and transportation capacity spent during this period even exceeded the original value of this batch of weapons and equipment.
Now the local administrative officials of Rodex Bay City have this idea. They will buy the seized weapons and ammunition from the Hicks Kingdom at a low price from Claude, and wait for the Hicks Kingdom to After the subsequent five standing legions arrived, they were sold back to the Hicks at a high price, earning a large amount of income from them, and even the profits could be doubled.
They are not worried at all that the Hicks people will not pay the bill. For the Hicks Kingdom, even if they buy back these weapons and equipment at a high price from the local administrative officials of Rodex Bay City, it is more cost-effective than reproducing them in the kingdom and transporting them there. First, it saves time, profit and money. There is no need for the Sea King Fleet and the Combined Fleet to make another trip to transport these weapons and equipment.
The second reason is more difficult to say, and everyone understands it tacitly. If the Kingdom of Hicks does not buy it, the people of the United Kingdom of Fox Islands promise to sell these weapons and equipment throughout the continent. By then, all countries in the mainland will know about the glorious achievements of the Hicks people, and they will once again become the leader of other countries. Big joke.
Some small principalities that do not have the ability to produce arms will definitely be interested in these advanced weapons and equipment of the Kingdom of Hicks. For the United Kingdom of Fox Islands, there is no need to worry about not being able to sell these weapons and equipment. It just takes a little longer and makes it more troublesome to find buyers.
Whether it is Claude or the local administrative officials of Rodex Bay City, this is a huge arms deal, worth one million gold crowns, which can equip more than 200,000 people. Claude's muskets, artillery, ammunition and other armament supplies were all sold at a 40-50% discount to these bold local administrative officials.
Anyway, for Claude, these weapons and equipment produced by the Hicks Kingdom are useless to the direct-administered war zone. If they are sold, they can get real money, which will not be a small supplement to the military expenditures in the direct-controlled war zone. As the saying goes, when a cannon is fired, there is ten thousand taels of gold, which means either a big profit or a big loss. Claude didn't want to owe a huge sum of military expenses after winning the battle in the directly-administered war zone. He could earn whatever he could, so he spent more than two days here.
A local administrative official from Rodex Bay City came to Claude. In the past few days, Claude had gotten to know the financial director of Rodex Bay City. His name was Blanc Putt, who was fifty-four years old. He is one of the leaders who led this arms deal.
He was responsible for handing over the gold and silver coins transported from the Union Bank in the city to Claude's financial director of the logistics department. However, now that the weapons and equipment and other military supplies in the arms warehouse have been almost transported, he will come to Claude. De should be saying hello and saying goodbye.
Sure enough, this Blanchard came to say goodbye to Claude. The smoothness of this arms transaction made both parties very comfortable. Claude is acting vigorously and resolutely, and the local administrative officials of Rodex Bay City are not fussy. They have purchased so many weapons and equipment from Claude at low prices, and it is obvious that they can make a lot of money. All participants can get a huge profit, so they are very sensible and don't think about making any more cheap money from Claude.
However, Brampton still refused to give up and asked Claude if he could reconsider and sell them another batch of trebuchet-style throwers and iron pumpkins produced by the Hicks Kingdom. They were even willing to pay a high price. Buy.
Claude shook his head and rejected the old man's request again. All the matchlock guns and three types of artillery produced by the Hicks Kingdom, as well as ammunition, bayonets, uniforms, leather boots, water bottles and other military supplies can be sold. Only the throwers and iron pumpkins, Claude only sold ten throwers and one One hundred iron pumpkins were given to Lieutenant Colonel Le Mando to strengthen the city wall defense of Rodex Bay City. The remaining throwers and iron pumpkins were all loaded into vehicles and prepared to be taken away.
Although the United Kingdom of the Fox Islands is known for its powerful navy, its military industry is not advanced. Most of the weapons and equipment produced are geared towards the navy, but its shipbuilding technology is very developed. When various countries in Farea continent were imitating grenades, the United Kingdom's Navy Department had discovered that this was an advanced weapon that could be used on land and sea. However, it was limited by the backwardness of its military industry. The grenades produced were obviously inferior to those produced by other countries. Far and powerful.
Brown Putt, the financial director of Rodex Bay City, obviously wanted to take a further step in his official career, so he set his sights on the throwers and projectiles produced by the Kingdom of Hicks. If the deal goes through, his name and credit will be put before the United Kingdom's most powerful decision-makers. It's a pity that he quoted from low price to market price and then to high price, but Claude was not tempted and could only return disappointed.
Colonel Belklin already knew the inside story of this arms deal. He looked at the old man Brown Putt who was leaving, curled his lips in disdain, and spat on the ground: "Profiteer!"
Claude asked thoughtfully: "Isn't there any news coming back from Murray Ed these days?"
Colonel Berklin replied: "No."
Strange, logically speaking, the news should have been passed back yesterday, because according to calculations, the garrison troops of Hicks's three divisions on the northern mountainous border would send at least one after learning that the General Logistics Base was attacked. Division troops came to the rescue. According to the plan, two days before the trip, they would enter the ambush circle of the Murieled and Diavid regiments. Could it be that the enemy has not received the news asking for help, or is it that they still don’t know about the changes in the attack on the camp
Claude felt a little confused.
"We will leave after lunch. According to the plan, your regiment will be in front, and Colonel Jed Walker's fourth regiment will be responsible for escorting the prisoners and the logistics convoy," Claude said.
Originally, Claude was planning to leave the camp tomorrow morning, but now that the local administrative officials of Rodex Bay City are so awesome that they have already transported all the traded arms, Claude decided to evacuate half a day early.
"What to do with the wounded prisoners?" Colonel Belklin asked.
In this night attack, about 8,000 Hicks were killed and injured, and more than 20,000 Hicks soldiers were captured. After the camp was captured, the captured soldiers were interrogated and it was discovered that the Hicks garrison division guarding the general logistics base was not all veterans who had been captured and worked hard. Most of the more than 30,000 troops in this garrison division were from Hicks. The local defense forces dispatched from within the Kingdom of Sri Lanka originally belonged to the territorial guard forces of the rebellious nobles.
In fact, the number of 300,000 Hicks prisoners who were used by the kingdom's emerging business aristocrats as the main labor force to develop new occupations no longer numbered 300,000 after their release. Some of them died or were disabled during the labor process. Tens of thousands of people. So much so that after the Kingdom of Hicks sent people to take over these vengeful captured veterans, they reorganized five legions but still lacked the strength of one division.
So Melchid III organized a division of the private armed forces of the noble territories that had surrendered during the domestic counter-insurgency and dispatched them to make up the numbers. Because these soldiers who originally belonged to the private armed forces of the noble territories considered themselves superior and looked down on the veterans who had been prisoners, there were many conflicts in the military camp. In the end, the division could only be sent to the general logistics base camp as a garrison. Not seeing them is a crime, and it will prevent them from being embarrassed when they fight on the front line.
It must be said that Claude was very lucky. He happened to encounter such a mob during the night attack. It only took more than an hour to defeat the more than 30,000 garrison division with minor casualties and captured the entire camp. If it were a garrison composed of Hicks veterans who had done hard labor, then Claude and the soldiers of the Thunder Legion might have to face a hard and fierce battle, and even have to pay several times the casualties.
After the night attack, more than 6,000 wounded soldiers were treated by Hicks, and less than 2,000 were killed or killed by thrown bombs. Seeing that the situation was not going well, the rest surrendered early and there were more than 23,000 intact prisoners.
Now Colonel Belklin asked Hicks what to do with the wounded soldiers. In fact, he had two meanings. Either let the prisoners with intact hands and feet carry the wounded soldiers on the road, or simply cut their throats and dispose of them, which would lead to a happy death. Live and suffer. There is no need to spend precious medical drugs to treat the enemy's wounded soldiers. This is a normal thought for ordinary soldiers in this era.
Claude shook his head. When cleaning up the battlefield, he could treat the enemy's wounded soldiers as if he hadn't seen them, but he couldn't do it now: "Bandage all the wounded soldiers and give them a tube of captured healing potion, and then carry them all out." Set up a place far away from the main camp. When we left, we set fire to the General Logistics Base camp. As for the wounded soldiers, weren't Hicks' senior officers still hiding in Rodex Bay City? We will leave these wounded soldiers to them, since their military expenses are still high anyway, so they should spend some money on treatment."
At one o'clock at noon, Lieutenant Colonel Le Mando saw soldiers from the Thunder Legion carrying countless stretchers from the camp on the city wall, and then placed these stretchers on the plain more than 500 meters away from the camp. He picked up the telescope to see what these soldiers wanted to do, and found that the stretchers were all filled with Hicks' wounded soldiers, and their bodies were thoughtfully covered with a military blanket.
After the thousands of wounded soldiers' stretchers were placed on the field, the soldiers of the Thunder Legion left. Soon, flames began to break out in the general logistics base camp built by the Hicks in the distance. Perhaps it was because of the kerosene poured on it. The flames soon spread into pieces, raging in the camp. Black smoke and blue smoke kept rising, even Le Mans Duo Zhong standing on the city wall. The school seemed to be able to feel the fierceness and heat of the fire in the distance.
No wonder they moved the wounded soldiers so far. It turned out that they were going to set fire to the camp. They should have evacuated at this time. Lieutenant Colonel Le Mando called the soldiers from a garrison camp: "Go tell those Officer Hicks in the city. , it was said that the troops from the Overseas Territory War Zone of the Kingdom of Overas had evacuated. They also set fire to the camp, leaving them with thousands of wounded soldiers. They must deal with these wounded soldiers as soon as possible, otherwise the weather will get cold at night Or if it rains, these wounded soldiers will die."
They escorted 23,000 Hicks prisoners and walked for three days before reaching the ambush location of Murray's second regiment and Diavid's third regiment. Unfortunately, more than 9,000 soldiers from these two regiments were ambushed in the wilderness. Five days and five nights, but no enemy reinforcements arrived. Morale was already extremely low at this time, and many soldiers had colds, fevers and gastrointestinal problems due to the large difference in temperature between day and night and the five days and five nights of eating only dry food and drinking cold water.
"Set up camp and rest for two days before leaving." Claude ordered that there is no need to ambush. It is obvious that the enemy will not send any more reinforcements. It has been so long, and the enemy also knows very well that sending reinforcements again will lead to death. They are not fools. .
But this is really strange. Could it be that the enemy expected an ambush, so they didn't even send reinforcements? This is too unreasonable. After all, it is also their general logistics base camp, which stores all the weapons, ammunition, military supplies, and food and grass they prepare to lose on the battlefield. After learning that they were attacked, they had to express their concern and send a division here. Rescue is a normal situation. It turned out that no reinforcements were sent out, which seemed very strange.
"Have you received the Falcon message from General Albert?" Claude had no choice but to call the communications director and ask.
"No, General." The communications director replied, and then explained that they were deep into enemy territory and could only send hawk messages to General Albert from here, but General Albert could not send hawk messages from there. come over.
After all, the hawks that use messengers also have certain communication limitations. The hawks cannot find the target of the message when the troops are in motion, because the hawks in the sky cannot tell whether the troops on the ground are the enemy or ours. They can only rely on Use special flags to identify your destination. The biggest taboo about using these special flags in enemy territory is that after the falcon flies once, it will continue to look for flags on the ground next time. At that time, if your own troops are not available, it is easy for the messenger eagle to fall into the hands of the enemy. , thereby leaking military information
Therefore, Claude can only send an eagle message to General Albert to explain the progress on his side, but he has no way of knowing the battle situation on the eastern front and the northern mountainous border.
"Then send an eagle message to General Albert, tell him where we are currently camping, and ask him to send someone to explain to us the changes and progress in all aspects of the current war." Claude could only give this order. Communications Director.
After two days of rest, the morale of the Second and Third Regiments had recovered, and most of the soldiers who had suffered from minor illnesses had recovered physically. Claude was ready to break camp and return to the northern mountainous border again, and then decide whether to attack the three divisions of Hicks stationed in that border area based on the situation.
It is expected that the three-day journey will be dragged down by more than 20,000 prisoners and numerous horse-drawn carriages carrying supplies, and it is likely that it will take five days to return to the northern mountainous border area. Fortunately, after traveling for a day, I ran into a messenger sent by General Albert, who told Claude two pieces of news. First, the Hicks veterans of the three divisions in the northern mountainous border area were originally prepared to send reinforcements, but after walking for half a day, they sent out fast horses to recruit the reinforcements back to the camp.
Another piece of news was about the eastern mountainous front. The Hicks there suddenly withdrew, which made General Beach Green very embarrassed, because he never expected that the Hicks would give up everything so quietly. The first defensive line occupied fell back. It was not until a day later that the movement of the Hicks was discovered, and the troops were commanded to pursue them. As a result, they were unfortunately ambushed by the Hicks' rear-guard troops. The Nikanchas who were chasing at the front suffered heavy losses.
However, the current situation is that General Beach Kerin has commanded the Rock Army to bite the main force of the Hicks. The current battle situation is that one wants to evacuate the mountainous area as soon as possible, and the other is very attentive to stay. Both sides are in the eastern frontier mountainous area. Killed in a mass, inextricable