Chapter 88: Forest Bloodbath Part :5
Updated from novelbIn.(c)om
Looking at the scene in front of him of the defeated Dutch soldiers, Vijay had a smile on the corner of his mouth. If anyone saw him now, they would be shocked to see that he looked like the scheming villain from a children's cartoon show.
Vijay had already expected that the enemy would try to scatter in the forest even before the battle was decided upon. He called the brigadier general and ordered him, "Let the rangers take action."
Immediately after the message was passed to the various battalions of the Ranger division.
Vijay had, even before the war, trained these rangers specifically to fight in forest terrain. He had recruited experienced hunters and had them train the rangers to fight effectively in forest environments. This was necessary because, in the forested terrain, a conventional army was less effective due to the trees obstructing their movement. Therefore, Vijay organized the rangers in a way that each battalion was divided into 10 squads, and each squad acted independently in a loose formation, each having its own objectives to fulfil.
Vijay designed this formation because he wanted the Ranger unit to serve as the exploration team when Bharat would send expedition fleets to Africa, South America, and other places. In the 21st century, rangers do not play a significant role in most major countries, except for countries like those in the central part of Africa and South American countries, which have extensive forested areas. However, in the 17th century, much of the world remained uncharted and unsuitable for human habitation, except for the European continent, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Therefore, Vijay's plan was to establish the groundwork and train the Ranger unit specifically for situations like the current one they were facing and for the future missions in foreign lands they would undertake.
"What are the casualties?" Vijay asked Yogendra, the commanding general of this operation. Yogendra Singh, drenched in blood and breathing heavily, was the man Vijay was addressing.
Vijay, still unaccustomed to the gruesome scenes of war, found his face contorting in response to the sight of Yogendra's appearance. However, he quickly regained his composure. He needed to adapt and become a monarch of an empire, not a politician.
Yogendra quickly replied to the king's question, "Your Highness, in this battle, we utilized 20 brigades consisting of around 100,000 men. The infantry comprised 16 brigades with two brigades of forest rangers and a single brigade of artillery personnel, along with a brigade for emergency support."
Unfortunately, due to our inadequate defence measures, there were more casualties in the infantry brigades than we expected. We lost 2,000 soldiers, and there are up to 15,000 seriously injured and 25,000 lightly injured soldiers. As for the artillery battalion, since they did not participate directly in the battle, there were no casualties, but there were a few light injuries due to the misuse of the cannons. In the forest Ranger brigade, there were only a hundred casualties with more people injured."
Yogendra relayed this data with a normal expression on his face as if this information were routine. However, everyone who listened to the data was shocked, not because the casualties were high, but on the contrary, they were surprisingly low. In a battle of this scale, depending on the conditions, it could have resulted in more than 10,000 casualties. Controlling the casualties to less than 3,000 was a miracle, but Vijay did not see it that way. His heart ached for all those good men who were fathers, sons, and husbands dying for their country. He felt a slight twinge of guilt because he couldn't advance the weapons of Vijayanagara quickly enough. If he could have, this situation might not have occurred.
But as the emperor of an Empire for a while, he quickly gained control of his emotions and commanded their next move, "Very good. Let's move on to the next part of the plan. Send the injured back for treatment, let the rest of them rest for a while, and then, we march to retake Kochi. We will show the Dutch that we are not so easy to mess with."
"Yeah!" All the important military personnel in the camp cheered with high morale as they prepared for another hearty battle.