Accompanied by the Leite Kingdom's counteroffensive, the mêlée between the 11 nations seemed to have undergone a fundamental change.
However, soon conflicts erupted in other regions, once again rendering the outcome of the war unpredictable.
In the north, the Poplar Kingdom engaged in warfare with the Elm Kingdom, battling fiercely along the border.
Compared to the eastern front of the Leite Kingdom, the state of warfare here was somewhat different, with both sides still employing tactics from two years earlier, yet using advanced firearms like needle guns and breech-loading cannon.
This instantly escalated the bloodiness of the war to an unbearable level, with both sides suffering over 30,000 casualties within 3 days of the outbreak of hostilities.
The Poplar Kingdom held absolute superiority in machine-gun firepower, but the Elm Kingdom had the advantage in troop numbers and artillery, resulting in a stalemate with rapidly escalating losses.
The Songmu Kingdom was also forced to withdraw from the borders of the Poplar Kingdom, to counteract the attack from the Rosewood Kingdom.
However, having reserved its strength and equipped with some weapons from the Great Tang, the Songmu Kingdom managed to attain a certain level of advantage on the battlefield.
They invaded the territory of the Rosewood Kingdom but, due to insufficient reinforcements, could only mire themselves in a bitter fight, stabilizing the front line roughly 50 kilometers inside the Rosewood Kingdom.
At that moment, they were unable to advance despite having the capability, and felt reluctant to retreat, having no choice but to hold their position and slowly deplete their forces.
The Suthers Kingdom and the Phalak Kingdom also went to war, as tax reforms in the Suthers Kingdom had sparked a minor internal rebellion, placing them in a defensive position on the battlefield. Chapter Discover:
With Tang Mo's support, Suthers managed to secure their defenses, but expecting them to counterattack was unlikely.
Moreover, the bulk of Tang Mo's supplies had been transported to the eastern war zone of the Leite Kingdom, leaving him without the capacity to support a large-scale counteroffensive in Suthers.
Now, the greatest pressure on the Great Tang Group actually came from the south, the Dorne Kingdom—where a coup had just taken place and Dorne was forced to face the joint attack of two neighboring countries, a situation fraught with peril.
The Taren Kingdom amassed a 30,000-strong army on land, while the Xilun Kingdom's force of over 50,000 troops launched a two-pronged attack on Dorne.
These forces initially advanced unrestrained, with the troops from the Xilun Kingdom in the southeast closing in on Dorne's King City, and the Taren Kingdom's forces in the southwest approaching Hotwind Port.
The Dorne troops, having to maintain control over occupied areas, were dispersed across the vast territory without proper preparation for a consolidated defense against war.
Thus, despite having a nominal force of 70,000 troops on paper, Dorne could not withstand the sudden assault from the neighboring countries and kept retreating.
However, once they were relentlessly pushed back to strategic points, Dorne's commanders realized they had no further room to retreat.
So, in the direction of the King City, Dorne's newly appointed commander-in-chief led a hastily assembled force of 20,000 troops into a narrow encounter with Xilun's 50,000-strong army. This young officer, named Bolton, was 27 years old, a graduate of the second class of Great Tang's military academy, and a blacksmith two years prior.
To keep his troops in line, the commander of Taren Kingdom tried everything, but the next morning, Strauss led all his troops in a counterattack.
This completely dispersed the already collapsed morale of Taren's troops. They put up only a token resistance before retreating entirely.
From that moment on, things started to become bizarre: knowing the situation was hopeless, the commander of Taren Kingdom had his own plan.
While leading his troops to retreat, he plundered the local populace, intending to take some benefits back to Taren Kingdom to make up for the losses of this failure.
However, this robbery incited the fury of the locals. Compared to Dorne's occupants whom they were not fully pleased with, they found that those claiming to liberate them were even worse.
Thus, these people began to actively get in touch with the scattered Dorne troops within the occupied area, who had not been mobilized, providing them with information, passing messages and organizing to intercept these retreating Taren troops.
In the end, what was supposed to be a total rout turned into a peculiar war where fragmented Dorne forces, already in disarray at the rear, pursued and hit Taren's main forces out of the national border.
And then, when everyone thought that Strauss would pursue the routed Taren troops along the way after the great victory,
Strauss instead divided 7,000 men to seek out the bad luck of the Xilun Kingdom forces.
Just as these 7,000 troops rushed toward King City, Bolton led more than 20,000 Dorne troops, taking advantage of the terrain, to set up ambushes and cut off Xilun Kingdom's supply lines.
In a bloody battle, Bolton led 2,000 troops to great victory, burning more than half of Xilun army's food and forage, destroying at least a third of their ammunition, then returned triumphantly.
At the cost of 1,200 men, he crippled the ability of Xilun Kingdom's 50,000-strong army to continue northward, ensuring the absolute safety of King City.
What enraged Shireck's liaison was that Xilun Kingdom had to wait on-site for five precious days and even sent troops back to protect their supply lines.
By the time this force began to move forward again, what stood in their way were three trench defense lines meticulously constructed by Bolton.
After attacking ferociously for five days and at the cost of 2,000 men, the commander of Xilun Kingdom realized what kind of trick his opponent had played.
Bolton had been ceaselessly building defensive fortifications. Each time he completed a line of defense, he would willingly give up the previous battered one, maintaining a steady rhythm of slow retreat.
These troublesome defense lines indeed wore down the force of the Xilun Kingdom troops, much to the chagrin of their commander.
More importantly, these lines were buying time! With the days passing by, Dorne was gradually recovering from the shocks of political turmoil and was reassembling its troops.
Any fool could see that continuing in this manner of attrition, Dorne, clearly regaining its national strength, would hold the home-field advantage and make Xilun Kingdom and Taren Kingdom pay a much heavier price.
Therefore, the Xilun Kingdom commander sent messengers urging the troops responsible for attacking Hotwind Port to hasten their assault...
What he didn't know was that a full force of 7,000 men was already nearing the King City war zone and, relying on their familiarity with the terrain, was moving at full speed towards the rear side of the Xilun Kingdom forces.