Its been two weeks since the Princess had left for Rozaria, and two days since the 3rd Infantry Division had arrived straight from the capital, along with the 1st Attack Air Fleet. The operation to evacuate the 64th Infantry Battalion had encountered a bit of a problem, especially after the city elders found out that they are being evacuated. A terse negotiation between Commandant Regina and the city elders ensued after they tried to stop it, demanding that their people should be evacuated first. In the end, Commandant Regina agreed to transport one company out of the city at a time, together with hundreds of citizens of Colossus, packing each transport airship with as many people as they could carry. The operation lasted for five days, enabling them to ferry out the whole battalion and the military instructors out of the city, and evacuated over 2400 citizens.
Aside from evacuating the 64th Infantry Battalion, he was also successful in recalling the 2nd Cavalry Regiment from Orentha and have them rejoined its division back in Alropolis.
Surprisingly, the enemy army halted their advance and decided to dig in instead, and their activity were limited to reconnaissance. Nevertheless, the build up of forces in and around Samasus was increasing, and from the latest scouting report he got, the enemy had an estimated 75,000 troops in the city, with hundreds of more troops coming in from the north.
At the seas on the east coast, the corsairs operating from Colossus and Dimapolis had reported of skirmishes with the enemy ships, causing a mass exodus of trade and merchant ship sailing out from the Colossus and headed further down south, seeking refuge towards the fishing and trading ports on the southern principalities.
The Confederacy has no standing navy, but several duchies had their own corsair fleets, and they were rarely being utilized except for several punitive raids on independent city states in the southern coast and against Anahuacan coastal towns. On paper, the corsair fleet looks impressive, the Dimapolis fleet has 12 large ships, 10 fast ships and 16 raider ships. The Colossus fleet has 8 large ships, 9 fast ships and 10 raider ships, while the fleet based on port city of Meledion near the southern border has 6 large ships, 6 fast ships and 10 raider ships. In reality, the Hellenic corsair fleet and like all of the naval ships in the new world were based on old antiquated ship designs. The large ships was basically a Trireme armed with several ballista and a catapult, and manned by 80 to 100 soldiers, mostly trained as archers, and powered by 240 to 300 slave rowers. The fast ships was basically a Dromon or a bireme and manned by 60 to 80 soldiers including the crews for the ballista and catapults and powered by over 120 slave rowers. The raiders are smaller bireme used for coastal raiding. Worst, these ships are not suited for long Ocean voyage and had to skirt along the coast and occasionally had to make a port call to restock their supplies.
The Hellenic Army on the other hand makes full use of the enemy inactivity to strengthen their fortifications. The Third Hellenic army fortified two river crossings along the Edisto River and strengthen the fortifications of a fortified town straddled between the northern end of the Edisto river and two creeks, building palisades and trenches. The remnants of the two Hellenic armies continued their raids on enemy supply camps at the same time helped in strengthening the defenses near Fort Ares and the trench line along the southern banks of Kiawah River.
Lerris had not been idle either, after securing permission from the lords and ladies of Aeolia, Delphi and Alban to make use of their bridge forts, he began to fortifying them. He assigned the 3rd Provisional Brigade to Alban, with its two battalion reinforcing the garrison of the bridge forts there, while the rest of brigade would help in the defense of the port city of Dimapolis. He assigned the infantry battalions of the 6th Infantry Brigade to reinforce the garrisons on the bridge forts near the city of Alropolis, and the two bridge forts in Delphi, and set its cavalry squadron and gun company on a nearby fortified trading town west of the two bridges. With the arrival of the 3rd Infantry Division, he immediately put them in charge of the defense of southern district of Aeolia and the entire duchy of Alban, with two of its infantry brigade along with two artillery battalion covers a 90 kilometer stretch of the river starting at the southern district of Aeolia down to the bridge fortress 23 kilometers north from the city center of Dimapolis, and another infantry brigade and artillery battalion defends the city itself, while its Cavalry brigade serves as their mobile reserve force. The air fleets that brought the new division also brought the 6,000 Mk IIIA carbines, replacing the T-34 rifles that the 1st Cavalry Division was armed with, along with the newer Type 38 81mm mortar, replacing the old mortar that the division was still using. After the cavalry division was rearmed with the new carbines, he put the division in charge of the defense of the northern district of Aeolia which includes the city of Alropolis and the duchy of Delphi, with the 2nd and 4th Cavalry Regiment deployed near the bridge forts in Delphi, while the 1st Cavalry Regiment was tasked in defending the city of Alropolis with the 2nd Airborne battalion.
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A New Life in a Parallel World
FantasyA man in his late forties suddenly found himself in a body of a young boy, in a parallel world. To survive he has to adapt to his new surroundings. (This is my first novel, fantasy genre, which I wrote out for fun)
