The desert's unique environment limited movement efficiency, and with the Goblin Kingdom and Great Zhou so far apart, every operation was destined to consume a great deal of time.
From the border of the Goblin Kingdom to the border of Great Zhou, a small force needed two months just for a one-way journey. A large force would take even longer.
By now, a year and a half had passed since the first exploratory forces dispatched by Great Zhou and the Goblin Kingdom clashed.
Although they had only fought two small-scale battles during that time, the enemy could launch a follow-up attack at any moment. As a result, Great Zhou had remained in a state of war for the entire year and a half.
Compared with peacetime, more troops had been stationed along the border, while new recruits were being steadily conscripted and trained. At the same time, the various military factories had ramped up production.
Although they had seen no fighting for most of that time, merely maintaining all this required a considerable increase in fiscal expenditure every month.
But there was nothing to be done about it. When two powers went to war, they were, in a sense, competing over their reserves. There were no fancy tricks involved—it came down to seeing who could outlast the other. Being able to afford the attrition was itself a manifestation of hard power.
From this perspective, based on their current understanding of the Goblin Kingdom, the resource-starved kingdom certainly could not outlast them.
The other side had only two choices: stop sending troops and abandon the idea, or dispatch heavy forces and stake everything on one desperate gamble.
That slow-paced, sustained approach they had used before was tantamount to cutting the Goblin Kingdom's flesh with a dull knife—pure torture for them.
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