Operation Concluded
Upon receiving James's message, Victor immediately frowned. Fortunately, James did not act first and then report back, showing that a general in the field may disobey orders from the emperor.
However, Victor, Victor decided to leave Santos at the Number Five Supply Station to organize the transport of troops and spoils of war.
He then took Ron and the Second Cavalry Detachment of the First Regiment with him to James's place, and also brought Morey and Gale along.
Before the army set off, Victor also sent a team of messengers, one man and four horses, with the horses replaced but the men not, to quickly convey the order to James, who was to stay put, clear out the nearby herders to avoid being discovered, and deal with them after Victor arrived.
Victor led his troops toward James. This time, Victor was leading Cavalry. In order to increase the speed of the march, the Second Cavalry Detachment originally had 100 Heavy Cavalry, but for this operation, their equipment was temporarily left at the Number Five Supply Station in Green Lake Plain.
After three days of continuous forced marches, covering 270 kilometers, they quickly found James's location with the help of Gale. Victor and his troops successfully reunited with James.
"Victor, you've finally arrived! We've been resting here for five days," James complained as soon as he saw Victor.
"Regimental Commander James, I hope you will follow orders from now on and avoid causing any trouble. Our time is precious and should not be wasted." Victor seriously.
After all, James was not only Victor's childhood friend but also an independent nobleman. He couldn't be treated entirely like a subordinate. However, this problem could be described as disobeying military orders and violating military discipline, which required punishment.
James also saw Victor's attitude and immediately began to admit his mistake. "I'm sorry, Viscount, I failed to complete the task you assigned and violated military orders. Please punish me."
Victor nodded. Fortunately, James was a smart man and also thick-skinned, so he quickly figured out how to respond.
"Considering this is your first offense and there were problems with the intelligence for this operation, you are temporarily relieved of your post as acting Regimental Commander of the First Regiment and demoted to deputy Regimental Commander of the 1st First Regiment. Ron will take over as acting Regimental Commander of the First Regiment. Anyone with objections may raise them."
Victor loudly proclaimed the order in front of everyone, emphasizing that this matter had to be widely publicized, otherwise there would be no point in taking action.
James did not object and accepted it smoothly. Although the soldiers of the First Regiment had some discussions, no one objected. After all, when James was not in the army, Ron was in charge of the specific work of the First Regiment, and no one had any objections.
No one objected to the appointment, which relieved Victor. He had been worried that his decision might shake the morale of the army, but thankfully it seemed that there was no major problem so far.
Afterwards, Victor led a few men directly into James's tent to discuss the battle situation.
"I'm sorry, Victor, I've caused you trouble and delayed the army's return journey." James kept apologizing to Victor.
"You have already been punished. We'll discuss the rest when we return to our territory. Now, you can tell me what information you have."
"Okay, here's the thing. After we learned about the brother tribe of Target Number Four, we started to send out scouts to monitor the tribe and captured dozens of herders who were grazing their livestock on the outskirts."
"Based on the information obtained from the interrogation of these herders, we learned that the name of this tribe is the Moss Stone Tribe. It is not large and is a vassal of the Horned Wolf Tribe. To be honest, this is the first time I have ever heard of this tribe."
"Tell me about this Horned Wolf Tribe. You should know something about it by now." Victor was also curious about the Horned Wolf Tribe, since the Horseshoe Tribe's caravans had never traveled in this direction and they certainly didn't know anything about the tribe.
"This Horned Wolf Tribe is a truly large tribe. According to the information obtained from the interrogation, the grasslands where they graze are about 400 kilometers to the northwest. This Moss Stone Tribe is their most remote vassal tribe. They have a total of more than a dozen vassal tribes, but the herders don't know the exact number. Moreover, this Horned Wolf Tribe can mobilize tens of thousands of Cavalry. I estimate that it is not much different from the Iron Hoof, Iron Bone, and Blood Scorpion Tribe."
"Tens of thousands of Light Cavalry, and a large tribe at that. This Horned Wolf Tribe must have at least 100,000 people, plus a dozen or so vassal tribes. Even if we in the Two Rivers Territory were to face them alone, it wouldn't be easy for us." Victor was also very surprised by the strength of this Horned Wolf Tribe, especially since such a large tribe hadn't participated in last year's invasion by the Barbarian Tribal Grand Alliance.
"By the way, according to the herders, the Horned Wolf Tribe has not joined the Barbarians tribal Alliance. They are neighbors with the Iron Bone Tribe and have a good relationship with them. As for the specific reasons why they did not join the tribal Alliance, the herders do not know either."
After hearing this, Victor thought for a moment and then asked James, "What are your thoughts? What do you plan to do now that you know all this?"
James scratched his head with a wry smile, "To be honest, before I knew all this, I could have wiped out the Moss Stone Tribe without hesitation. Now that I know this information, I'm scared. So these past few days, we actually retreated more than ten kilometers before we set up camp."
"Fortunately, you still knew to report to me before you took action. If you had acted directly, it wouldn't be as simple as just removing you from your position as acting Regimental Commander. I would have even helped you drive the army out of the Two Rivers Territory."
"Yes, fortunately I thought things through in the end and didn't take action directly, so we didn't make a big mistake and invite a terrible enemy."
Victor patted James on the shoulder. "You've finally grown up. You always acted impulsively. This time you were able to think things through one step further, which is progress."
"Alright, clean up all traces of those herders and camps. We'll set off early tomorrow morning to return to Green Lake Plain. As for the Horned Wolf Tribe..."
Victor glanced to the northwest. "We'll meet up with them later. For now, let the Horseshoe Tribe's caravan scout ahead for us."
The crowd responded in unison, "We will follow your will."
James quickly added, "I'll be the forward then."
Victor immediately glared at him.
The next morning, Victor led his troops back to Green Lake Plain, while James and his men had cleaned up all traces of the Temporary Camp.
Even when the Moss Stone Tribe discovered their herdsmen were missing, they found no clues and assumed they had been attacked by a large pack of wolves.
However, when Victor led the Northern Frontier nobles in another northward expansion war a few years later, some members of the Moss Stone Tribe pieced things together, but by then they had become herdsmen of the Two Rivers Territory.