A shifting war

Victor rode his horse along the riverbank, where a large fleet of ships was moving eastward with the current.

Victor looked through his binoculars at the front of the convoy; the first few small boats were almost invisible.

At that moment, a messenger ran up from behind, handed a letter to the guard on guard duty, and then turned and left.

The guard jogged quickly to Victor's side and handed the letter to one of the guards behind Victor, who was none other than the new captain of the guard, Baron Brown's nephew, Sura.

Sura opened the mailbox, took out the letter, glanced at it briefly, and quickly presented it to Victor.

"Lord Victor, it's a letter from the scribe Tors. It mentions that all the supplies have been handed over to Ironvine Territory."

At this moment, Victor also put down his binoculars, dismounted, and took the letter from Sura.

Victor glanced at Sura was still in the offering posture, and said, "Sura, there's no need to be so reserved. You're all young; you can be more lively."

"Yes, Lord Victor!" Sura quickly agreed, but his expression remained blank, as if he were just saying it for show. Victor was helpless and shook his head to continue reading the letter in his hand.

After reading the letter, Victor complained, "That guy Tors, I told him not to rush for money after handing over the supplies, and just to return to the army first. Why did he still accept the money from Lenster, and even increase it so much!"

In the letter, Tors mentioned that after the handover was completed, Tors planned to leave, but was stopped by Lenster and his men.

Lenster immediately handed Tors 10,000 gold, much more than the originally planned 8,000 gold. Lenster also said that this was only half, and the other half would be given to Victor in the Northlands by him when Ironvine Territory's finances were more abundant next year.

Victor had originally planned to sell these supplies at half price and give them to the Iron Vine Family, and he did not intend to accept Lenster's Victor to pay an additional half.

"Forget about Lenster for now, get Tors back on track with the main group. There's still a lot of work to be done here."

Sura nodded and immediately left to find the messenger.

Victor stopped dwelling on these matters; his top priority now was to lead the main force back to the Eastern Region as quickly as possible and find a way to support the fighting in Sykes County.

Previously, during the battles in the Ironvine Territory, due to the chaotic state of the war Ironvine Territory, many battle reports could not be obtained in a timely manner.

Even the battle reports obtained through the Northern Frontier Chamber of Commerce of Commerce's branch were severely delayed. It wasn't until the battle in Ironvine Territory ended that the Northern Frontier Chamber of Commerce branch in Ironvine Territory contacted the headquarters and obtained a complete set of battle reports.

To be honest, when Victor first saw these battle reports, he couldn't believe it; the entire Grand Duchy was in complete chaos.

From south to north, from east to west, war raged everywhere. It could be said that there was no peaceful land in the entire Grand Duchy. Even the Eastern Region, which he had previously suppressed, was experiencing rebellions.

For some unknown reason, several noble families in the east have started to raise the banner of loyalty to the Grand Duchy and Grand Duke Silver Maple, and are preparing to attack the Coalition of Nobles that Victor left to guard the Eastern Region.

Victor was very curious as to why they were doing this, especially since their family members and important hostages were serving in Victor's Southern Marching Legion with their private army. They had been very reluctant when Victor coerced them into sending people, so why were they now completely disregarding that?

However, Victor also confirmed with the noble members of these families who served in his army, and they all said they were unaware of the situation and that their families would not abandon them.

Victor also felt that there was something fishy about this matter. After all, these noble families were not very strong. Their elite private armies had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Rotten Tree Beach, and the rest had been taken south by Victor.

Logically, their uprising should have been quickly suppressed, but the opposite happened; they ended up fighting a fierce battle with the garrison troops arranged by Victor.

It should be noted that although the main force of the garrison was scattered in the Eastern Region, several private armies of families such as Blue Rose, Black Oil Pine, and White Asparagus participated in the battle, which can be said to be quite powerful, yet they failed to achieve victory.

Victor suspected that these nobles might have received external support, but this was just speculation. After all, communication channels had only just been established, and many details of the battle reports were missing. He could only hope that the intelligence sent over later would contain more detailed information.

Fortunately, there were garrison troops in the Eastern Region, and the few noble families that had raised armies were not very strong, so the stalemate did not affect the overall situation in the Eastern Region.

However, the battle reports from other places were not so simple. The main forces of both sides were still engaged in a fierce tug-of-war on the battlefield in Sextus County.

Based on the limited text in the battle reports, Victor could also tell that both sides had suffered heavy losses during the more than one month that Victor was fighting in the south.

The casualty figures on both sides reached an astonishing level. Excluding the losses from previous battles, the two sides combined had only a little over 200,000 men. Now, they have lost more than 10% to nearly 20% of their troops. Despite this, both sides remain highly motivated and determined to kill the other.

The Duchy lost a Legion Commander, Northern Alliance also lost several nobles, including a name Victor was familiar with: Viscount Philip the Viscount Sage, whom he had clashed with during the war against the Northland Barbarians.

This surprised Victor. He knew that this viscount's family was a long-established noble family in the Northlands, with considerable strength, a large private army, and important military positions in the Northern Alliance Army. He couldn't think of any other reason why they could be killed on the battlefield except for the Victor of the battle.

The fighting in Sextus County is relatively reasonable, given that the main forces of both sides are there, including Count Colt and the Grand Duke Silver Maple, so it's normal for the fighting to be intense.

The other battlefields were even more unexpected for Victor. When he first arrived at Ironvine Territory, he received intelligence that the Duchy Army had broken through the Carson Mountains, but Viscount Albert and Viscount Benjamin had led their troops to stop the Duchy Army in time.

The situation there has changed over the past month and a half. As a result, the Legion Commander the Sixth Legion of the Duchy Turas, has led the Second and Sixth Duchy's Direct Legion under the Duchy's control, into Durham County and occupied a salient of over a thousand square kilometers, backed by the Carson Mountains.

The two legions of the Northlands defenders suffered more than 20,000 casualties. Viscount Benjamin the Northern Alliance Army Second Legion was wounded, and Viscount Albert was leading the remaining troops to assemble the remaining Northlands reserve legions to fight them hard.

However, perhaps due to the limited reserves of the Duchy Legion, it had not launched any further offensives for a long time. With other Northern Frontier nobles territories sending their only troops to support them, the situation in Durham County stabilized after receiving reinforcements of three regiments.

Seeing his father-in-law injured made Victor very worried, but fortunately the battle report indicated that Viscount Benjamin's injury was not life-threatening, which put his mind at ease.

However, Victor was aware of the impact of the Duchy Army's invasion of the Northlands. Fortunately, the offensive was now under control. If the Duchy had been truly unstoppable, the main battlefield in Sextus County would probably have collapsed.

Victor was also curious as to why the Duchy Army had suddenly halted its offensive, but he understood the reason after learning about the fighting in the western region.

The navy of the Raine Kingdom crossed the Inland Sea, landed in the western region, and successively conquered several noble territories.

Count Sibeth, who was originally fighting in the Carson Mountains, was forced to retreat to the western region with the Western Noble Alliance Army. After all, his own backyard was on fire, so Turas, who was missing some troops, was unable to make more breakthroughs in Durham County.

However, the fighting in the western region was not very intense. The navy of the Raine Kingdom may have been limited, and after occupying some key positions, it ceased its offensive.

The Count Sibeth's troops were also unable to conquer these heavily guarded passes and could only stand in a stalemate, making it arguably the most peaceful battlefield in the Grand Duchy.

Victor was also surprised to see such a chaotic battle situation. He had only lost contact with the enemy for a month, how could the situation have changed so quickly? He hoped that his return would break the stalemate as soon as possible.