"Good news! Good news! The 4th Corps is only half a day's journey away! ”

In the trenches of the Ulster Frontier Line, the exhausted coalition soldiers stood up. For them, the news was like a rumbling thunder in a long-dry land, giving hope to people in desperate situations.

"The 4th Corps? The Iron Fist Regiment of the 1st Legion? They came from the Western Front to reinforce us? Beside Weiss, Hart Resos, a third-year student at the Barston Military Academy, muttered to himself.

In the last spring convention, the attacker played by the 1st Legion performed quite well. As one of the four ace corps of the 1st Army, the 4th Corps, nicknamed the "Iron Fist Corps", sat on the left flank and once ordered the defenders who were several times their strength to return home. This marine unit has been stationed on the western border for a long time, and although the natural environment there is harsh, the officers and men are well-equipped, well-trained, and logistically supported, so they have always maintained a strong fighting spirit. In the last war, the 4th Corps fought the Norman army many times, winning two crucial battles, and was one of the few elite divisions in the Union army that could rival the Norman army.

The 4th Corps, which has been fighting on the border for many years, certainly does not have the combat strength and willpower that those ordinary combat divisions can match. After the previous arduous fighting, Weiss no longer had the heart to think about the overall situation of the war, and only hoped that the federal troops who went north to reinforce could clear the obstacles as soon as possible, dredge the border defense line and the land passage in the rear, and receive the troops leaving the country to withdraw to the mainland.

After getting up, Weiss looked around, then to the south. The Royal Norman 1st Marine Division, which landed in the Commonwealth, was brave, but the two attacks in one day had already made them do their best, and it was unlikely that they would launch a third attack until a new round of replenishment of troops and ammunition was carried out at night.

Seeing that there was no abnormality in the mountains and forests to the south, Weiss looked up at the sky. At the critical moment, with the support of their own aircraft, the ground forces of the Federation Army held the border defense line with great difficulty, but in the air, the Federation fleet was defeated again. Of the 12 flying warships, 5 were sunk and 4 were heavily damaged, basically losing their combat effectiveness, while the Normans only sank 3 and suffered heavy damage 2. Fortunately, the Federation sent a backup fleet of 2 armored ships, and the Norman fleet voluntarily disengaged from combat contact and only kept a watch from a distance. After a brief artillery bombardment of the Norman army in the woods, the Norman reinforcements arrived, and the two fleets returned to the standoff.

From dusk until nightfall, there were no new movements by the air and ground forces of both sides.

In the dead of night, the night sky suddenly lit up with artillery fire, and the fighting that took place south of the border line continued all night. At dawn, a group of cavalry dressed in Union uniforms appeared outside the woods across the position, and seeing this, the coalition guards of the border line boiled.

That night, the 4th Corps of the Federation Army defeated the Royal Norman 1st Marine Division with their "iron fist", opening a land passage for reinforcements to the north. Although the Norman "Devil's Division" was not completely annihilated, but continued to attack the logistics supply lines of the Federation Army, for the defenders of the border line and the outbound combat troops retreating from Wessex, this battle has fundamentally improved their situation!

On the evening of the day when the 4th Corps arrived at the border line, the Basston Student Regiment received an order from the command to pack up and withdraw to the rear on a transport ship.

On the border defense line, the various units of the federal army fought side by side for many days. In the fiercest and most brutal moments of the battle, they supported each other and survived the darkness before dawn together. When the young officers and men of the Baston Student Regiment passed by in a procession through their own defense area, the officers and men stood up one after another to see each other off, their eyes full of respect.

Before boarding the ship and leaving, Weiss and Otto-Lunders carefully counted the personnel. Before the battle began, there were more than 500 instructors, inspectors, and cadets at the Baseton Military Academy, plus more than 1,000 reservists who were replenished during the war, totaling more than 2,400 people. After just over a week, nearly 90 percent of the troops have been reduced due to the number of killed, missing, and seriously wounded, and now only 311 people have been able to leave with their heads held high, and among these 311 officers and men, excluding the officers deployed during the war and the reservists who were mobilized and conscripted, only 137 came from the Gaston Military Academy.

After nightfall, a light transport ship flew to the line of defense and landed on a potholed position. The remnants of the Basston student regiment lined up in three columns and boarded the ship in silence until they were seated in the cabin seats, and no one looked through the porthole at the border defense that was about to say goodbye.

More than half a month ago, when the Baston student group arrived here in a neat queue and full of spirit, I am afraid that no one expected that they would undergo a purgatory-like test here, and many of their former classmates and friends would remain here forever......

With a dull roar of machinery, the transport ship flew off the ground. Leaning against the slightly quivering bulkhead, Weiss had mixed feelings. At the beginning of the war, the Baston Student Corps had been severely disabled, what fate awaited them? Replenish the troops, reorganize, or split them up and send the cadets as midshipmen to all levels of staff and command?

Close your eyes and remember the bloody battle scenes that you will never forget. Even if you are exhausted, you are extremely sleepy, and it is difficult to fall asleep. Along the way, Weiss awoke twice from bloody dreams and fell asleep in hesitation twice.

After more than six hours of flight, the transport ship finally landed at the Hoffentis military base, located more than 300 miles north of Aocheng. It is more than 1,400 miles to the northern border defense line and the western border defense line, and it is a relatively important military stronghold.

In this large rear, which is more than 1,000 miles away from the front line, there will be no sudden gunfire and cannons, let alone the company of death at all times. After arriving at the campsite, Weiss took a warm bath, changed into clean clothes, lay down on the camp bed, and finally slept peacefully.

After breakfast, the surviving officers of the Patton Student Corps, above the company level, and the inspectors were summoned. In the tent used as a conference room, they were surprised to see Colonel Capes, his two major officers, and five of his fellow military academy officers, including Lune Schmidt. Most of the men were wounded, Capes's head and arms were still bandaged, and Luhn-Schmidt was on crutches. It turned out that after the troops incorporated into the Durm battle group were defeated by the Norman army, some of the survivors withdrew to the border defense line, some followed the friendly forces to the south, and some were cut off by the Normans, and it took a lot of hardship to break through. Excluding those captured by the Norman army and those who returned to the border line, a total of 57 people survived, and 8 of the 62 seriously wounded who were evacuated from the border line died in the early stage, so the survival rate of the student regiment sent by the Barston Military Academy to the war was about 45% - the specific number depends on the number of people captured by the Norman army, to be precise, the number of people who were able to return home after the war.

The overall survival rate of the Baseton student corps in the last war was 49%, mainly because the casualties of the later participants had improved significantly. If we look only at the casualty rate in the early stages of the war, the survival rate is only 30%.

In the face of the enemy's guns and bayonets, the Basston Student Regiment was not fundamentally different from ordinary troops.

Colonel Capes and others met with the "large army" at the Hoffentiis military base this time, which was not only an official return to the team, but also a farewell before leaving. Colonel Capes announced to the crowd that he had received an order from his superiors to serve as acting commander of the newly formed 190th Division, and that several of his capable garrisons would accompany him. After his departure, the position of head of the Basston Student Corps will be assigned by the 8th Garrison, which is still part of the 8th Garrison in the northern part of the Union, although all members of the Basston Student Corps have been evacuated from the Northern Border Defense.

The remnants of the Badston Student Corps rested at the Hoffentis military base for two days, during which time not only did not replenish a single soldier, but all the reservists were transferred out and became a skeleton composed of only Bathton students, instructors, and inspectors. In this way, the higher authorities are not ready to send this special unit to the front in the short term.

The peaceful days in the rear passed quickly, and on the northern front, the coalition officers and soldiers were still suffering. Although the Union army that came north to reinforce defeated the Norman "devil's division" and turned the situation around, the Norman army was not as easy to deal with as expected. Behind the 2nd and 4th Army Corps of the Union Army, which retreated to the border, followed by the 1st Norman Northern Battle Group, they were the best soldiers in the conquest of North Fries and Wessex, creating a series of successful battles that can be called military classics. The day after the Bathton student regiment withdrew from the border line, the Normans launched a fierce attack on the rearguard of the Union Army with armored fighting vehicle units as the vanguard, while the 2nd Norman Northern Combat Group, which had formed positions north of the Ulster-Wessex border line, first showed weakness to the enemy and voluntarily abandoned some positions, and then suddenly counterattacked and slammed the flank of the Union Army.

Just a stone's throw from the border, the rearguard of the Union Army, which had been struggling for a long time, collapsed. Losing the cover of the rearguard, the headquarters of the 2nd and 4th Army Corps of the Union Army, which had just arrived at the border line, together with the accompanying Wessex 1st Task Force, rushed to withdraw into the border line, and the chaotic order gave the Norman army an opportunity to take advantage of it. After all the troops leaving the country retreated to the border, the Union army voluntarily abandoned the crumbling border defense line and retreated in an orderly manner to the reserve fortifications between the two fortresses of Marorgos and Celsello, and formed a new northern defense line based on favorable terrain.

In the Battle of the Border, the losses of the Union Army and the Wessex Army reached 3-4 times that of the Norman army, and it was a truly painful defeat. One of the few positive factors on the coalition side is that most of the "Star Source Stones" in the wreckage of the warships on both sides have been recovered by the Federation Army, which can allow the Federation fleet to obtain relatively more replenishment in a relatively short period of time.

Through the survey and analysis of the wreckage of the Norman battleship, the coalition forces also have more information about the construction principle of the "devil's bomb": they use batteries to act on artificial star stones to provide floating power, and gunpowder combustion to provide forward driving force, forming an extremely offensive "aerial torpedo".

The key to this new weapon is the artificial star stone technology.

The characteristic of the Star Source Stone is that it provides the same floating force, and the weaker the power, the more Star Source Stone is needed, and vice versa. The output of the power system of the warship using the natural star source stone needs to take into account the driving star source stone to provide floating power, drive the rudder propeller to provide horizontal power, drive the normal operation of weapons and equipment, and how to distribute it to maximize the utility, which is a rather complex system engineering, and the output of the star source stone has always been the primary factor restricting the number of flying ships built by various countries.

The appearance of artificial star source stones, at first glance, seems to be a force that completely breaks the strategic balance, but the number of Norman battleships has not increased abnormally, indicating that artificial star source stones cannot replace natural star source stones to become the floating power source of battleships, as for the specific reason, it should only be a problem of stability or limit from logic - either it cannot provide stable floating force for a long time, or it cannot withstand a certain strength of electricity, so it does not have the conditions to become a power source for battleships. The Coalition side should be glad for this, because at least they don't have to deal with the overwhelming Norman warships.