Kevin gasped for breath. His bald head was covered in sweat, his armor was crooked, his arms were sore and numb, and he could barely lift the hammer in his hand.
He was surrounded by the Guards and the two cavalry battalions of the Fourth Banner Regiment. They successfully blocked the two pursuits of the Odins. The second time was especially difficult. Kevin was so tired that he could stand on horseback. Not straight anymore.
Watching the Odins recede like a tide, leaving only the corpses on the ground.
(Why don't these Odins chase?) The bald man's brows knitted together.
But soon, he stopped thinking about these things. Anyway, the general's order was cut off. Since these Odins are not chasing, it can be regarded as completing the order.
He was surrounded by more than 600 cavalry soldiers. After two battles to stop the chasing soldiers, his brothers were also killed and wounded about 200. Although there were few people and horses, Kevin still carefully assembled the remaining people and horses, lined up and slowly left the battlefield, Chased the main force south.
Just as Kevin was leading people away, the Odins behind him pursued the soldiers, but blew the horn...
(Are these Odins crazy?) The bald man was at a loss.
※※※
It was three days ago that General Adrick of the Northern Front learned that Hastings had been outflanking his back.
The reason why the news was discovered so early is thanks to Rabbit General Ruhr. When this fat man went north before, he carefully set up a mixed rear team behind him, allowing the rear team to maintain a one-day distance from his own team. Making this decision at that time was purely due to Fatty's innate talent for escape and his sixth sense before danger came.
And this time, that hunch helped a lot again.
Fatty is an infantryman. He was originally a slow walker, his team was dragged at the end, and the next team was even further behind.
Soon, the mixed rear team found traces of Odin's reindeer cavalry coming from the south to search!
This discovery immediately shocked General Rabbit once!
South? !
The Odins are actually behind us? !
Such news was immediately sent to Adrick's army.
Then, without hesitation, Adric made a decision: go south!
The battle-hardened Adric knew very well that if he was outflanked by the Odins and dared to make such a big deal, among the generals of the Odins, there was only the old opponent he had never defeated—Hasting !
And if a terrifying enemy like Hastings has gone around the back of your ass, then...
Adrick didn't even dare to think about it!
Without hesitation, the 13th Corps immediately turned around and headed south!
Once the speed of the cavalry took a rapid march, Adric's idea was to catch up with the fat man Ruhr who fell to the south. Originally, according to everyone's distance, they should be able to catch up with Fatty in one day.
But in fact, the 13th Corps did not catch up with Ruhr's troops until the night of the next day!
What impressed Adric even more was that Ruhl really deserved to be a famous escaped general, chasing him all the way, and he saw a large number of discarded materials on the way! Spare ordnance armor, heavy food and grass vehicles, and even some infantry-specific ballistas and assembled catapults were also smashed and thrown on the side of the road!
Ruhl running away is hysterical! This fat man actually ordered the entire army to carry only three days' worth of dry food, basic weapons and armor, and all other things to be discarded! !
In the words of Fatty: Anyway, if we can't get back to the station within three days, then everyone will have no choice but to die! As for the other things, just throw them away, hold on tight and don't lose them, you'll lose your life. What else do you need to do
And when the 13th Corps caught up with Ruhr, Ruhr made another request: let the cavalry of the 13th Corps divide a part of the surplus cavalry and prepare horses for his people.
The Thirteenth Corps was all cavalry, each with at least two horses. At Ruhr's strong request, Adrick managed to separate out more than 2,000 horses.
Next, Ruhr began to perform tricks, and the series of actions he showed later proved to everyone that his nickname of "Rabbit Run" was definitely not a vain name!
Remember his mixed back team? Once you turn around and head south, the back team becomes the front team instead! on top!
After Ruhr and Adric joined forces, their speed just caught up with the mixed back team.
And in the mixed back team, there are also a large number of grain trucks!
With Ruhr's order, the soldiers of the 6th Corps skillfully put the horses divided from the 13th Corps into the cart with amazing speed, and then used a wooden board to quickly transport the grain cart. After rebuilding and building, two hundred long and wide carriages were quickly produced!
The whole process took less than two hours, as if the soldiers of the Sixth Corps were used to this kind of work.
With more than two hundred large carriages, although the Sixth Corps is an infantry, its marching speed has been greatly improved! Thousands of infantrymen jumped on the carriage, and then the wheels rolled, barely keeping up with the speed of the cavalry! !
The two hundred oversized carriages consumed 800 horse-drawn carriages, yet the two hundred carriages carried nearly 3,000 people. The remaining 1,200 war horses, each riding together by two people, can be regarded as pulling more than 2,000 people. This time, it is equivalent to installing wheels and horse legs for the infantry of more than 5,000 people!
The only pity is that these horses are only afraid of running to the place, and they will basically end up exhausted.
Five thousand people can ride horses, and there are carriages to sit in. The remaining five thousand people of the Sixth Corps can only use their legs.
But then, the soldiers of the Sixth Corps showed their excellent quality: the ability to run!
What the hell! These infantrymen ran and marched across the continent, and then took turns with the men in the carriage every hour. In the end, the cavalry of the 13th Corps did not fall too far.
(This fat man, he is afraid that he has been thinking about how to escape all his life.) A malicious guess in Adrick's heart.
So, three days!
After the two regiments joined forces, the three-day marching hurriedly discarded all the supplies that might have been discarded. It only took three days for them to return from the Albact Plain, and the cavalry forward on the road swept away the Hastings Corps twice. After the small block intercepted, on the third night, the forward had already arrived at a place that was only more than ten miles away from the station.
Most of the war horses that Fat Man asked Adric to pass over were basically exhausted. In pursuit of speed, Fatty doesn't cherish horsepower - in his words, if his life is gone, what do you need a horse for? As long as they can go back alive, war horses can be bought again, but people cannot be regenerated.
Adric found that the fat man's computing power is quite outstanding!
His team dropped another batch of supplies on the way, and in the end, many soldiers even threw away their armor, shields and weapons!
However, such discarding is not in a panic, but in an orderly or even controlled plan!
Fatty has calculated all the steps. After walking, he will calculate how many materials can be discarded within the tolerance range according to the soldiers' physical strength and marching speed. Walking a little bit and throwing a little bit, taking into account the physical strength of the soldiers to the greatest extent, the balance of combat effectiveness and marching speed.
After arriving, in Fatty's army, on average, only three soldiers could share a set of armor and weapons. In other words, only one third of his army's combat power is left! But because of Fatty's way of resting on the carriage, these one-third soldiers still maintained the minimum standard of combat stamina!
Three days of rapid marching, and still maintaining one-third of its combat capability, for an army that is not elite, it is already very difficult.
In this regard, Adrick also has to admire. At least he knew very well that if he were to lead an army of pure infantry in a different place, under such circumstances, it was absolutely impossible for him to achieve the level of Fatty.
In this regard, Fatty explained: "Do you know what is the most practiced item of our Sixth Corps on weekdays? Let me tell you - armed long-distance cross-country training! To join my Sixth Corps, the first requirement is not to be able to fight, but to be able to fight. It can run."
After the break, Kevin's team also caught up with the large army. The 600 cavalry soldiers accompanying the bald man were obviously exhausted, but everyone's eyes were still bright, and their waists were still straight when they were riding on horseback.
But the news brought by Kevin is not very happy.
After accepting the task of intercepting the chasing soldiers at the rear, Kevin fought two battles with the Odins fiercely at the beginning, but then the Odins suddenly retreated for no reason. They lined up in the distance to watch themselves go away, and even sounded the horn... How can there be such a thing on the battlefield where one is killed one moment before and then waved goodbye the next moment
Although the Odins in the back didn't try to hunt down again, they didn't do nothing.
The rogue army of Odins in the back seems to have gathered all the cavalry, and more than 3,000 reindeer cavalry drives Kevin and others behind them day and night—these damn Odins will not really kill them. When I came up, I deliberately slowed down every time I chased an arrow away, shouted from a distance, swung a knife and an axe, and tried to make a big noise. They are like a group of shepherd dogs, driving Kevin and the others to run as far south as possible.
Several times, Kevin was angry and couldn't help but turn around and go back to fight with these Odins - the warriors of the 13th Corps are all bloody! But once they turned back, those Odins turned around and ran away in a hurry!
In short, for three days, everyone chased after me, yelling, yelling, and intimidating each other from a long distance, but the battle was not fought!
Although Kevin made U-turns several times, after all, there were few others, and he didn't dare to lead him too far, so he just had to scare him. But the Odin cavalry at the back seemed to have become candy, and they couldn't get rid of it. Stop, go, chase, chase...
"They are not too far from our rear team now. After seeing our large team, they immediately retreated. I just don't think they have gone far, they will probably hang behind two or three miles away." Kevin panted. .
General Adric also spit: "Damn, what are these Odins trying to do?!"
Next to General Ruhr has untied the tendons on the armor, let go of his chubby belly, was panting comfortably, and snorted when he heard the words: "What else can I do? Drive us! Drive us sheep to the At the mouth of the wolf at Hastings."
Adrick pondered for a moment, and a sullen look flashed on his face: "Rest for a quarter of an hour! Then prepare to fight! Is the garrison still in our hands? It seems that the boys in the garrison are doing a good job. As long as they can kill the garrison, This battle has turned a corner!"
General Luer frowned next to him, and the fat man patted his belly lightly. This was a habit of his. Whenever there was something that was difficult to resolve in his heart, he would make such a move subconsciously when he was thinking.
The fat man slapped his round belly before he spoke. His face was a little weird, as if something else was confusing him.
"I think... I'm afraid it won't be too difficult to kill back to the city. Hastings won't really fight with us! However, it is possible to bite off a piece of our flesh severely."
Adric immediately looked at Ruhl seriously.
After a few days of rapid marching, Adric was not a fool. He naturally saw that this fat man, who was famous for his ability to escape, was actually not the kind of sloppy bag that everyone said!
"What do you mean, General Ruhr?"
Fatty patted his belly with one hand: "Well, the Odins behind us didn't really pursue. According to my calculations, if they pursued with all their strength, then our return speed will be slowed down by their entanglement for at least a day. Above, and more. What does this mean? It means they didn't try their best! But what's ahead of us? The station is still in our hands! Aren't you surprised? But we are very aware of their strength. There is only one battalion of soldiers, and the others are just miscellaneous soldiers. Well... I don't believe in the existence of miracles. If other Odin generals lead the soldiers, there may be miracles to defend. The garrison! But... Who is the one who is standing in front of the garrison now? It's Hasting! Do you think that the number one general of Odin, with tens of thousands of Odin's most elite army, will not be able to take down a small fortress with less than a thousand troops? Is it possible? Please, he's Hastings!!"
The fat man became more and more excited as he spoke, and a few beads of sweat dripped down his forehead.
Adrick also pondered: "This really doesn't make sense... The pursuers at the back are not working hard, and Hastings in the front seems to be releasing water? What are they paying attention to? Logically, the pursuers at the back should entangle us to the maximum extent possible, dragging Just stay with us and buy Hastings time to copy our den, but now…”
The fat man glanced at Adric and suddenly lowered his voice: "General Adric, this is your usual weakness, you always see the war as too simple! You know, when I followed Archduke Minas back then , I once heard the Grand Duke say a sentence: War is a continuation of politics, and this sentence is not only applicable to both sides of the enemy, but also to the same faction!"
"..." Adric frowned, Archduke Minas, who was the military commander of the older generation of the Byzantine Empire, his words must be quite reasonable.
Ruhl smiled lightly and squinted his eyes: "Don't you understand? The chaser behind us, and Hastings in front... These two Odin troops, they-heart, no, together!!"
This fat man is really good!