From the north of River Valley Province to the south, Bear Fang had followed Lord Golden Fang through countless battles, capturing innumerable survivor strongholds, yet he had never encountered such a tough opponent.
That blanket barrage of rockets in particular had truly frightened him. Even after retreating five kilometers, he still had not recovered.
Nearly a thousand people stopped in a mountain hollow.
The surrounding vegetation was dense, making it easy to conceal themselves. Several nearby slopes offered wide fields of view and were easy to defend but hard to attack, making this an excellent place to set up camp.
Watching Bear Fang, whose courage had been thoroughly shattered, Tumen sighed inwardly, steadied himself, and stepped forward to comfort him.
"...You needn't panic. Those rockets may be powerful, but they aren't very accurate, and their effective range is inferior to our 100mm artillery. From our current position, there's no way they can hit you."
"As long as we dig trenches and build bomb shelters and tunnels on our position, no matter how powerful those rockets are, they won't hurt anyone inside."
He had underestimated the intensity of the enemy's resistance. That had been his mistake.
In Tumen's original estimation, the New Alliance had held the southern slope of Pine Grove Valley for less than twenty-four hours. At most, they could have dug a few trenches. After the artillery barrage, another infantry charge should have been enough to plant their flag there. There had been no need to waste time digging trenches on the position.
The real hard battle should have been in the outskirts of Qingshi County afterward.
Yet he had never expected their resistance to be so much stronger than anticipated. By the time he realized something was wrong, they had already reacted to the attack and returned fire