The orcs were discussing countermeasures here, and Xu Lai was also very anxious.
He wished that the orcs would transport all the cattle and sheep back to the camp immediately.
However, by letting the orcs transport it back so easily, these guys will probably become suspicious again.
They must pay a certain price before they will believe that this is something Xu Lai is really reluctant to let go of.
As Palame guessed, Xu Lai did not have enough reliable manpower, so he did not dare to divide his troops.
But this does not mean that Xu Lai has no one available.
On the contrary, Xu Lai can mobilize far more manpower than Aini and the orcs.
The grassland west of Hard Rock City is not only a few hundred square kilometers, but there are countless villages and wild animals living here.
It is up to Xu Lai to move and drive away these things by himself. He is exhausted and cannot do it. If he can do it, it will not be enough in one or two months.
In addition to appointing officials, more importantly, he directly issued tasks at the mercenary guild and major taverns.
There are hundreds of mercenary regiments, tens of thousands of mercenaries, and the descending hero teams, going to every corner of the grassland to relocate and drive away the herdsmen here.
The plan he made for himself to clear the country with a strong wall, the loss was much greater than that of the orcs. It was a way to kill eight hundred enemies and lose a thousand to himself.
However, this method indeed forced the orcs to despair.
According to the experience of previous invasions, as long as they climb Pingfeng Mountain, they can get a lot of food supplements on the grassland, especially all kinds of meat.
At the very least, rounding up a herd of bison can at least solve the food problem of all the orcs for three to five days.
Besides, the Gobi Desert is the most barren land in the world, and too much was consumed in the previous wars, so the Beast King could not save much food.
So, the next day, the orcs still didn't do anything to the food, and Xu Lai was still not in a hurry.
He just released two more tasks in the mercenary guild and the tavern.
One is a safer reconnaissance mission, and the other is a wanted mission with a relatively high bounty, even much higher than the reward Xu Lai promised to the soldiers.
For the former, as long as you find any information related to the orcs and report it, you can get rewards.
Whether it is the location of the orc reconnaissance team, the temporary station in the wild, or even the location of the base camp, you can get rewards.
The latter is harassing the orcs at all costs.
Whether it is a sneak attack, a forced killing, or a trap.
No matter what method you use, as long as you can kill an orc and peel off the unique tattoo on the orc's back, you can exchange it for a large amount of gold coins in Xu Lai here.
Xu Lai is not a stingy person, this has been proven countless times.
Especially since the mission released this time is a bounty mission, each person who accepts the bounty needs to be responsible for it.
When the mercenaries get the orc skin back, they can exchange it for a lot of rewards. If they don't get it back, they get nothing and they have to bear the travel expenses themselves.
If they died outside accidentally, Xu Lai would not be responsible for their pension, let alone take care of their family.
So compared to the soldiers, the rewards Xu Lai gave to the mercenaries were much higher.
But to be honest, if they had a choice, these mercenaries would rather join Xu Lai's army, because at least they are guaranteed.
In addition, Xu Lai conquered the entire grassland, took away two-thirds of the grassland nobles, and accumulated hundreds of years of wealth, so there was no need to worry about financial resources.
Of course, they still don’t know that Xu Lai has gained even more richly in the underground city.
In the end, Xu Lai issued the mission through the mercenary guild, which was guaranteed by the mercenary guild. Moreover, Xu Lai's own reputation was very good and he won the trust of many people.
Therefore, many masters on the grassland appeared alone or in groups in the area west of Hard Rock City.
These people have brought great trouble to the orcs, especially the orc reconnaissance troops.
There are still many creatures on the grassland. No matter how hard we drive them away, we can only drive away those large groups of creatures, such as bison and wild horses.
However, carnivorous groups, such as wolves and lions, are not large in number and are still dangerous.
In addition, wild beasts also have fixed territories. If they are driven away for a while, they will return to their previous territories soon.
The orcs were in extremely short supply of food, and of course they would not let go of the meat. Xu Lai had worked hard to clear the country, and it was even more impossible for the orcs to hunt these beasts wantonly.
The ninth-level knight Tahan and the cavalry shooter Yanfeng each led their own knights to hunt these orcs everywhere based on the information provided by the mercenaries.
As for Xu Lai, he personally led the Paladins and the Knights of Naru to support the various mercenary groups that were trapped.
The orcs' wolf cavalry are very troublesome. At this time, Xu Lai had no interest in a decisive battle with the orcs.
At this time, the morale of the orcs was still quite high and their physical strength was not lacking.
It is better to wait for a while, wait for the poison to take effect, kill a bunch of orcs, and force their morale to drop significantly.
If Xu Lai was determined to avoid the battle, although the wolf cavalry would attack faster, they would not be able to hold on for too long.
Xu Lai, who possesses the power of speed, can easily get rid of these wolf cavalry as long as he uses attack acceleration and charge at the right time.
The main thing is not to fight the main force of the wolf cavalry. No matter how many troops the orcs send out, what level of heroes they lead, and how many priests and high priests are in charge.
When encountering Xu Lai, everything was destroyed like a piece of cake.
The charging Paladins and Knight Legions, and in an open area like the grassland, are simply unstoppable and terrifying existences.
Not to mention ordinary orcs, even Behemoth or even the Behemoth Beast Legion, Xu Lai had the courage to charge forward without any scruples.
And Tahan, Yanfeng and the others who were separated from Xu Lai would not be at a disadvantage at all.
Although they are not even generals and only have the bonus of a captain, they are not afraid at all even when facing the orc heroes.
Even with top-notch defensive protection, when level 9 knights and level 8 heroic knights charge at top speed, the damage bonus is terrifying to over 300%.
The enemies they encountered, unless they were huge in number, could not be defeated in one charge.
Even so, cavalry with a speed advantage will be difficult to stop unless there are a large number of enemies.
Xu Lai is very relieved about this. Both Tahan and Yanfeng are very stable people.
After clarifying Xu Lai's strategic purpose, he will not easily rush into enemies that are not easy to deal with.
There is no need to worry about Yan Feng. He is bringing archers, and they are archers with the ability to move quickly.
The largest number of people on the grassland are herdsmen. Almost every recruit who signs up to join the army has high-level riding skills.
You must know that it is much more difficult for normal people to upgrade than to recruit soldiers, and the rewards for upgrading are also much smaller. It is a minimum to recruit horse archers to improve their riding skills by one level every time, but for ordinary people, it may take two or three levels to upgrade their riding skills.
The better the foundation, the higher the combat effectiveness will be after reaching the corresponding level and obtaining the corresponding attributes and equipment.
Therefore, the herdsmen on the grassland are most suitable to be organized into cavalry units.
But Xu Lai allocated the melee cavalry and archers according to the ratio of 3 to 7, and prioritized them into the cavalry team.
Firstly, it is easier to recruit cavalry in melee combat, and secondly, cavalry archers are safer.
Like Yan Feng and others, if they go out with a space ring, the arrows stored in it are enough to kill tens of thousands of orcs, so there is basically no danger.
Tahan and the others led the charge, which exerted a great deal of physical energy on the horses and soldiers.
Not only can Yan Feng and the others kill without damage, but the physical consumption is not very high, but the arrow consumption will be staggering, but who makes Xu Lai rich?
For these two teams, Xu Lai expected them to go out to accumulate experience and quickly improve their levels. Naturally, he didn't care about a little consumption.
Faced with Xu Lai's aggressiveness, the orcs have always shown extreme restraint.
Of course, they have no choice but to restrain themselves. Even though there are more wolf cavalry, compared to the harassment ability, they really can't compare with humans.
Even if you don’t count Xu Lai’s three cavalry, just the tens of thousands of mercenaries, it is an extremely large and difficult force.
The number of these mercenaries is scattered, and the largest mercenary group only has a few hundred people acting together.
The mercenaries on the grassland don't even know a single combat skill, and their riding skills are impossible to beat.
If the wolf cavalry wants to hunt down a mercenary, they can't do it without three or four times the number of wolf cavalry.
The number of wolf riders is small, and there is still a risk of being counterattacked. But when the number of wolf riders increases, the mercenaries will recruit mercenary groups or even Xu Lai for support.
Mercenaries are all warriors who are very capable of fighting alone. Regardless of the fact that orcs are stronger, fighting alone, or even two against one, is very risky.
And the constant division of troops also gradually dispersed the size of the Wolf Cavalry, becoming more chaotic and difficult to command.
Anyway, after two or three days, the grassland turned into a big pot of porridge, and human knights and wolf cavalry could be seen everywhere.
At this time, six full days have passed since the first batch of wolf riders and flying legions crossed Pingfeng Mountain.
One more day and it would be a full week.
In this week, in addition to losing tens of thousands of flying soldiers, the orcs also lost nearly 10,000 wolf riders.
It cannot be said that there are no benefits obtained. They are only some abandoned villages and towns that were too late to transfer all the resources, and nearly a thousand mercenaries were hunted and captured.
The battle loss ratio between the two sides, excluding the flying troops, is as high as 1:10. This is the result achieved by the stronghold camp, with all the masters and all kinds of ambushes.
The key is that as long as the bodies of these mercenaries are not left behind and they are snatched back, these mercenaries will be seen again within two days.
Although Xu Lai's angels were not many, they were unable to withstand the strong resurrection ability, and the intensity of the battle was never high. At most, more than 200 mercenaries died in one day.
Forget about Xu Lai and his paladins. Even the two armies of knights without heroes could not defeat them.
If Ruda locks the opponent in the air, Xu Lai and the Angel Legion will inevitably come to support him.
It was also in that battle that Kenlo Hager and Xu Lai had a small encounter.
As expected, Kenlo Hager was completely at a disadvantage.
Thousands of level 7 paladins armed with the Holy Shield technique rushed into the wolf rider camp. Apart from being disintegrated, their own side had no power to parry.
If it weren't for this time, the orcs already had a long-range one-eyed legion to cover them, and there was Ruda's flying legion in the sky, Xu Lai would have really dared to pursue them in depth.
This wave of charge killed more than two thousand wolf riders of Kenlo Hag, which was almost equal to the entire harvest of the mercenaries in the past three days.
The most helpless thing is that due to the continuous harassment of humans, the orcs have been unable to obtain the batch of blood food.
Although they have hunted dozens of large and small groups of wild animals in the past few days, their food reserves can last for a while longer.
But lack of food has always been a sharp sword hanging over the heads of all the orcs, and they don't know when it will be cut down.
Beast King Sachs can no longer wait. If he waits any longer, the morale of the orc army will be completely exhausted.
After leaving the base camp to the troops that continued to arrive from behind, he personally led the 100,000 orc infantry that had been transferred to move towards the Stone City.
As the orc army approaches, there is less and less room for movement on the grassland.
The Wolf Cavalry Legion serves as the vanguard, and the Flying Legion provides support. Even if Xu Lai recalled all the cavalry troops, he would not dare to attack the hundreds of thousands of orcs.
Xu Lai's efforts to strengthen the walls and clear the country allowed the orcs to obtain no food supplements, but it also freed them from the need to spend time and troops on the periphery.
The remaining cities are either abandoned or in complete ruins.
The orcs sent a large number of hard workers to recycle the resources of these ruins.
Xu Lai did not dare to attack the hard workers who were covered by a large army, but kept confronting the wolf cavalry.
They are not allowed to cross the defense line of Hard Rock City and harass the transportation and supply routes behind Hard Rock City.
This finally gave the orcs a chance to successfully drive away all the tens of thousands of cattle and sheep that Xu Lai had hidden in the hiding cave.
After being stuck in the hiding hole for several days, even with the spell scrolls made by the priests, hundreds of cattle and sheep still died.
These long-dead cattle and sheep were fed by the orcs to the big-eared monsters and the peons.
Both the peon and the big-eared monster have no orc blood, so they will be fine.
The shaman also used magic to check, and the remaining ones were all living cattle and sheep, so the orcs became less vigilant.
Ten thousand cattle and 20,000 sheep were slaughtered on the spot, and 3,000 cattle and 5,000 sheep were slaughtered to supply all the orc warriors who needed to go to war tomorrow.
Although the Orcs' catapults and crossbows have not had time to be transported.
But among the orc infantry, there is also a Cyclops force of 5,000 people. When the rocks are thrown, no city wall is enough for them to smash.
However, it was these confirmed beef and mutton that caused extremely horrific harm to the orcs that night.
In order to make the poison effective as much as possible, Xu Lai asked the poison masters to improve Aini's poison formula.
All poisons will not take effect immediately, but will be delayed for at least more than an hour, and will become more and more serious.
Of course, this will reduce some of the medicinal properties and give the orcs more treatment time.
But because of this, even if a chef ate it secretly, this batch of beef and mutton was successfully eaten by the vast majority of the orcs. (End of this chapter)