Butler was a superior qualified person and meditated very quickly, but unfortunately his meditation method was incomplete, and Richard only deduced the Book of Curses to the Five Rings.

In recent years, Haaland has been in a lot of chaos and territory, and Richard has little free time.

The deduction of the two meditation books slowed down, and Butler needed to rely on his own deduction for the rest of the meditation.

In this way, his speed of advancement will naturally slow down.

Berica is a medium-sized magical talent, has been studying magic for more than ten years, and he is one of the first magicians trained by Haraland's leader.

Among the advanced mages this time, Adrian is the most special.

Compared to other magicians, Adrian's talent is average. He studied magic at about the same time as Richard and Wendy, and it had been almost twenty years now.

Although he also worked very hard, he did not dare to slack off for a day for twenty years, rain or shine, insisted on meditation every day, and spent a lot of energy and time on the study of magic.

But the weakness of his talent made him gradually widen the gap with Richard and Wendy.

Normally, with Adrian's inferior qualifications, it would be difficult for him to be promoted to a three-ring mage at the age of forty.

However, Adrian is an important member of the Harland Leader Mage Association, and has made no small contribution to the study of magic.

Because of the accumulation of a large number of contribution points, Adrian can exchange them for ample magical resources.

Thanks to a variety of potions that increased the speed of meditation and improved the affinity of the elements, Adrian was finally promoted to the fourth ring at the age of thirty-five.

Adrian once created a ring of magic detection rays, which is a very important magic in the field of medicine, and the effect is equivalent to that of an X-ray machine, which greatly promoted the development of diagnostics.

It has been more than ten years since the creation of the detection ray, and Adrian's research has been stagnant for many years, and he has gradually developed new ideas after focusing on the study of blood, but it will take luck and time to make important results again.

January passed quickly, February was a little warmer, the freshmen had started school, and as the temperature rose and the soil thawed, Haaland began his annual reclaim of the farmland.

This year, the key development areas of Haaland are all in the northern part of the Eagle Mountains, and priority is given to the area around Xuejing Lake and near Martins Castle to resettle and open up wasteland to accelerate the development of these two areas.

The northern part of the Snow Crystal Lake is very flat, and there are large impact plains on both sides of the Samba River, because of the victory in the Battle of the Samba River last year, a large number of orc tribes on the north bank have chosen to migrate, and the control area of the Harland territory extends to the north.

Although it is not yet ripe to cross the Samba River to develop the area on the north bank, the land on the south bank can be cleared.

The south bank of the Samba River is fertile and does not lack water, and if it can be developed and matured, it can carry tens of millions of people.

This year, Haaland plans to reclaim 4 million acres of farmland in the northern part of Xuejing Lake, and the number of immigrants has exceeded 150,000.

In addition to the area around Snow Crystal Lake, another development focus this year is around Martins Castle. This territory has been occupied by the Grant Kingdom for seventeen years, but unfortunately the Martins family can't withstand the orcs, and it hasn't developed very well.

In more than ten years, the situation in northern Xinjiang has changed, and this area has been incorporated into Haaland's territory under the circle, and finally got Richard's attention and invested a lot of resources.

This year, Haaland has also emigrated more than 100,000 people near Martins Castle.

Two years ago, King Roger conferred the county of Martins to Richard, when the situation of Harland's territory was bad, the northern orc army was overwhelming, and there were dragon lairs in the east, in order to avoid being attacked on three sides, and the legendary ogre tribe in the west was at war. Richard made a number of compromises, giving up 20,000 square kilometers of land as a buffer zone.

Now the situation has changed, the orcs in the north have been beaten and have not dared to fight the Harland Leader head-on, and the legendary dragons in the east have fled in embarrassment and abandoned their lair. There are no enemies around Haland's territory, so naturally they want to come to trouble the ogre tribe.

However, in order to defeat the ogre tribe, a large army must be dispatched to fight.

Although the Harland Territory has not engaged in large-scale battles with the ogre tribes in the past two years, the garrison in the west also carries out a large number of reconnaissance missions every year. Gather a variety of information by using magic hot air balloon reconnaissance.

Haaland's territorial intelligence estimated the number of ogres to be between two and three thousand.

Although the number of more than 2,000 ogres is small, the combat effectiveness is very impressive.

Ogres are transcendent creatures, even if they don't awaken their bloodlines, their innate strength is more than ten points, which is a little more than that of second-order warriors, and most third-order warriors and knights have a similar level of strength to adult ogres.

The ogres of the awakened bloodline, even if they are of the third order, are very difficult to deal with, and they are enough to fight against the sixth-order warriors. If you don't have sophisticated weapons and equipment, a sixth-order warrior may be a little less powerful than a third-order ogre.

There are more than 2,000 ogres, about half of the awakened bloodlines, of which there are nearly fifty high-level professionals, more than two hundred middle-level professionals, plus legendary ogres, the combat power is more powerful than an orc legion.

Although Richard has a starlight necklace, as long as the ogres do not gather to fight Haraland, it is not an easy thing to exterminate the ogres in a radius of tens of thousands of square kilometers, and it will take a long time.

Now that the news that Richard has a legendary fourth-order magic item in his hand has spread, as long as the legendary ogre is not a fool, he will naturally not gather a team to fight against the regular army led by Haaland. On the contrary, he will take advantage of his familiarity with the terrain to fight guerrilla warfare with Haaland and his soldiers in the mountains of tens of thousands of square kilometers.

Compared to Haaland's army, small groups of ogres are usually more elite and better suited to guerrilla warfare. Last year, the ogre tribe had this symptom and attacked many of the strongholds opened up by the Harland Territory. In just a few months, more than 1,000 casualties were inflicted on Haaland.

In order to defeat the ogre, it is necessary to develop the county of Martins. In order to protect the immigrants, this year Richard reduced the garrison of the northern defense line, increased the number of soldiers near Martins Castle by 6,000, and strengthened the demon hunting squadron, the special squadron, so that the two units took on the task of harassing ogres.

Haaland has ample human resources, and now more than 1,200 people are promoted every year, and the last thing he is afraid of is fighting a war of attrition. Although fighting guerrilla warfare is very troublesome for Haraland's leader, now that Haaland has a big business, Richard has the means to deal with guerrilla warfare.

Time flies quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it has entered March, the temperature has risen, and spring ploughing is about to begin.

At this time of year, Haaland intensifies his reconnaissance mission.

Now that Haaland has formed a two-legged wyvern knight, he has gained a firm foothold in the northern part of the Eagle Mountains, and can scout the northern savannah, in order to figure out the combat objectives of the orcs, the wyvern knight has penetrated deep into the northern part of the Priland region.

According to the information detected by the Harland Leader, no intention of the orcs was found.

After receiving the reconnaissance information, Richard just breathed a sigh of relief, he thought that the orcs would not invade south this year, but he didn't expect that the orcs just didn't move troops in the north of Haaland's territory.

On March 16, the orcs mobilized an army of ten legions and poured into the southwestern part of the Eagle Mountains.

The Jonathan family in the eastern part of the Eagle Mountains was also uncomfortable, suffering from the attack of two orc legions, and the main force was pinned down by the orcs, unable to send reinforcements to other areas.

This time, the orcs completely gave up attacking Harland's territory, and targeted the two dukes, Edward and Fawkes.

Among them, the Duke of Edward suffered a major blow from the orcs, and more than six orc legions crossed the Eagle Mountains and entered the Duke of Edward.

Such a powerful force suddenly collapsed the defense line of Duke Edward's county.

In just one week, the Duke of Edward lost seven brigades of soldiers, and the key points of the front line, such as Vera and Sawyer, were lost one after another.

Even the most prestigious commander of Duke Edward's county, the legendary second-order warrior Hamon, was killed and was not spared.

Harmon is the son-in-law of Duke Edward, and has been promoted to legend for more than ten years, although he is only a warrior, he is still the strongest and most prestigious member of the Edward family.

Unlike Harland, Duke Edward's has not developed a flying class, there is no flying class, and the reconnaissance force is suppressed by the Harpy, and it is like a deaf and blind person on the battlefield, and it is easy to be calculated and besieged by the orc legion. In previous battles, the Grant Kingdom was defeated, and most of them were due to this reason.

In the battle with the orcs, if you can't develop a flying class, you can't grasp the initiative on the battlefield.

The reason why Harmon died was that he fell into the calculations of the orcs, and the cavalry he led was surrounded by the superior forces of the orcs. Despite the crippled defeat of the Orc's two trump cards, Duke Edward's army was still no match for the Orcs.

Even the Warcraft cavalry led by Duke Edward lost half of them in this battle.

After Harmon died in battle, the news came back to Maple Leaf Castle, and the old and frail Duke Edward, unable to withstand such a severe blow, was furious and died in the dormitory that day.

As soon as the old duke died, members of the Edward family immediately began to fight for the inheritance. Although the orc strikers broke through their defenses, it was not far from Maple Leaf Castle. But it was almost instinctive for the nobles to compete for power, and before they could fight for a victory, Maple Leaf Castle was already surrounded by orcs.

Maple Leaf Castle is the capital of Duke Edward, there are 300,000 people near the castle, and now the capital is besieged, and the territory is full of orcs who burn and loot, and in the blink of an eye, the situation of Duke Edward's county has become dangerous, and it is on the verge of being destroyed by orcs.

In just ten days of the orc invasion, the Duke of Edward lost more than 400,000 people. The capital of Maple Leaf Castle was besieged, and the defenders of Parani Castle were insufficient to divide their troops to help, so they could only send messengers constantly to ask for support from the nearby nobles.

In late March, the western border between Gascoyne Province and Haraland's Dominion had already seen a large number of fugitives from the Duke of Edward.

After the courier entered the province of Gascoigne, he found the Legion of the Lions.

Because of the mutual help, the Wild Lion Legion sent six brigades into the Duke of Edward, containing some of the orcs and providing a certain degree of protection for the eastern part of the Duke of Edward.

The royal family's elite Central Army was transferred south, and now it can only provide this little help for the Duke of Edward, and the neighbor to the west, the Duke of Fox, is unable to protect itself in the face of the attack of the four orc legions, and the current situation also needs the Grant Kingdom to send troops to support.

The only thing that the Duchy of Edward can count on today is the Duchy of York in the south and the Duchy of Harland in the east.

In recent years, the Dukedom of Haaland has risen rapidly, and its national strength is far ahead of the other three dukedoms. However, Edward, Fox and other great nobles in Northern Xinjiang are very jealous of the Haaland family, and the relationship between the two sides is relatively estranged. After all, the territory of Haaland was besieged by orcs last year, and the two major dukes, Edward and Fawkes, did not provide any help to the Dukedom of Haaland.

Now it is obviously difficult for Richard to ignore his past suspicions.

Harris of Palani Castle consulted with Simeone and decided to focus his request for help on the Duke of York, which had three legions of regular troops, although not as powerful as the Duke of Haaland. It is also a large force, and if this legion participates in the battle, it can help the Duke of Edward's general to reduce the pressure by half.

Although the focus of the call for help is on the Duchy of York, the direction of the Duchy of Haaland cannot be abandoned.

At the critical time of life and death, they must grasp every straw.

Harris of Palani Castle acted separately with Simon, handing over the six brigades of soldiers of Palani Castle to the lieutenant general and acting as messengers himself, and at such times, the messenger for help must have decision-making power and high enough status. If you want the two dukes to help as much as possible, you must give up a lot of benefits, and it is likely that you need to cut the ground and tear the earth, and ordinary envoys simply do not have enough authority.

Harris has a higher status in the Edward family, and is now an eighth-order Golden Knight, and is considered the fourth most powerful person in the Edward family, and now Duke Edward died in anger, and Harmon died near Villa Castle. Prott, the eldest son of Duke Edward, the first in line of succession, was surrounded by orcs in Maple Leaf Castle.

The decision-making of the Duke of Edward has actually been dominated by Harris and Simeone.

Harris went directly to the Duke of York, promising to marry his daughter to the third son of the Duke of York, and to carve out 14,000 square kilometers of land on the border between the two sides as a fief for his daughter and son-in-law, in exchange for the Duke of York to lead two legions of reinforcements.

Although it sounds good and nominally passable, this deal is actually a cede of territory to the Duke of Edward in exchange for the support of the Duke of York.

The Duke of York has another legion to help the Duke of Fork. The situation in the Dukedom of Fox was not as bad as that of the Dukedom of Edward, and it only cost a fiefdom of a viscount to ask for support.

Although the war was won or lost, the Duke of York had already gained a lot of benefits, cutting off a piece of meat from the two major families of Edward and Fox respectively, and expanding the territory by more than 20,000.

(End of chapter)