Herald of Steel

Chapter 785 Spoils of Thesalie (Part-3)

Alexander's decision to send the bulk of his army down south was taken primarily based on reading the various missives Perseus sent Lord Ponticus.

Those had proved to be quite insightful for Alexander, as they detailed various internal secrets of the country.

For instance, he could indeed confirm that the 10,000 reinforcements so touted by Lady Felicia indeed exist.

He also learned of Tibias' dire financial strains, the various factional rivalries, the most prominent one being between Mithriditus and Lord Theony, the king's thoughts on his son, much interesting but not useful palace intrigue, and most importantly of all, the country's grievous manpower shortage.

And upon reading it, as well as Lapitus informing that the most force the capital would be able to master was perhaps another further 10,000, alongside the already raised 10,000, Alexander saw no reason to dally and give the enemy any chance to breathe.

So sending the supplies on boats or even rafts due to a shortage of enough vessels, Alexander sent Menes marching towards all the nearby large cities, ordering him to capture them and then replace the garrison there, and then escort the rulers of all those cities to Thesalie in order to seek audience with him.

And Menes actually made remarkable process in quite a short time in following this order, for being able to transfer the bulk of their supplies onto the boats, he was able to advance at a lightning pace, covering as much as 30 kilometers a day even in these unpaved, hilly routes.

Truly there was nothing better than travel by water.

So by the middle of November, which was three months from the time Alexander had given the order, Menes would report having covered an astounding total of almost 3,000 kilometers, though that number was a bit misleading.

This distance was not covered in a straight line from Thesalie directly south, that would have been impossible since the entire length of Tibias was only 1,300 kilometers.

Instead, the number was creatively calculated by adding the miles of every single unit of the army he would send out.

This meant if Menes sent three small contingents to three nearby towns, the individual mileage each unit covered was added to the score, even though this was clearly double counting,

And he even counted the return journey of these units when they returned to the main army, thus inflating the numbers even more.

It was almost like- well each man in the army covered 1 meter, and there are 30,000 men in the army, so the total distance was 30 km.

But nevertheless Menes did still manage to produce results that were satisfactory to Alexander, for within three months, Alexander managed to gain control of around one third of the country, amounting to 100,000 to 120,000 sq km!

It was almost ten times of his current area of control of only 13,000 sq km and finally, with this much area under him, Alexander would not feel embarrassed to call himself a pasha.

Prior to this, it was really a hollow title.

Thus due to Menes's capture to the territories, Alexander's dominion extended from the Mad Sea located west of Tibias (The sea overlooking Zanzan city) to the Calm Sea, located on the easter side of the country, the two being separated by a distance of around 250 kilometers, the entirety of which was under Alexander's control.

While lengthwise, Alexander controlled about 450 kilometers straight south of Thesalie, being just 150 km from the capital- Parthenigh.

As he conducted this large campaign, Menes actually found himself overwhelmed, for as per Alexander's order, he was to take as much territory as possible before the enemy would react.

A feat that proved to be quite challenging for his limited 30,000 men.

So he concentrated the main bulk of his army on capturing the river cities first since they were bigger population centers and acted as key nodes through which a majority of the country's trade flowed.

Then, once these places were fortified with his men, he could turn them into secure supply dumps, points from which he could send out smaller battalions (600 men, 480 soldiers, 120 servants), or even company sized elements toward all the nearby towns. secure in the knowledge that these units would not get lost or starved due to supply complications.

After the fiasco with the supplies last time, Menes seemed to have grown cautious of such eventualities.

And it was using a technique that he increased Alexander's influence, like an ever expanding web.

And though most places the soldiers visited accepted Alexander's rule without question, of course, there were exceptions.

During such instances, if the forward units faced resistance, they would try to deal with it themselves, or if unable send word to Menes, who would send a legion or two to utterly crush them.

And that would usually do the job, for most Tibian nobles did not have enough men to withstand Menes by themselves, not after the losses they suffered.

And so these fights were quite boring and predictable, with Menes or the officer he would send using their huge army to crash into the enemy in a brutal, frontal attack and snapping the thin enemy lines in two like a small twig.

This was also how most ancient fights went.

The ones involving complicated maneuvers and formation changes were really the exception.

And after the fight, almost all the surrounding people, especially the nobles would be slaughtered, to set an example.

Menes even managed to claim himself quite a kill count like this, reaching almost as high as ten thousand.

And though the loss of those lives was tragic, its efficacy could not be denied, for in exchange for one such despicable act, the entire region would quickly bow down to Alexander.

After all, Alexander simply asked the lord to go meet with him, nothing too draconian, and only a few boorish few had the guts to fight knowing the impossible odds and the grim fate awaiting them upon failure.

And even if they did win, well more were sure to come.

So most either accepted their invite to Thesalie, or simply fled south towards the capital, or to strongholds even beyond that.

And for their fiefs, well since they were left unguarded, Menes sacked them, sending the gathered loot back to Thesalie, which contained- gold, furniture, expensive vases, slaves, and livestock, to name a few.

As for the rule of these lands, well since there was no one to administer, it was left in limbo.

If these nobles were to kneel to Alexander and do so quickly enough, they would get to keep the lands,

If they did not, well they would carved up by Alexander as he saw fit.

In this way, these fleeing nobles were actually taking a gamble.

They chose to believe that Perseus would be able to push Alexander out from Thesalie or at least from the areas they owned, by defeating him in battle and forcing him to the negotiating table.

And if that happened, it was very much possible the king would reward their undying loyalty to him by taking the lands of those nobles who flipped so easily and gifting them to them.

While Alexander, he wished to totally obliterate Perseus and his family, and then take over Tibias in its entirety.

And though he wanted to do so before the year was over, Menes was forced to halt his advance by mid November, still quite a bit away from Persuus's home.

The reason- extreme cold.

Winter had finally come and as if to make up for the two previous relatively mild seasons, this year, the frost king had seemingly come with a vengeance.

Blinding blizzards for days, constant hailstorms, and snow up to one's knees.

All this made it impossible to keep any army in the match.

And even if they could, Alexander would not be able to keep them supplied anyway.

For even the mighty Diannu, which spanned tens of kilometers in some places was frozen along many points, making boats useless.

Now, it would not have been too bad if the entire river was frozen.

When the river Volga was frozen during the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets used it to more easily bring supplies on convoys of trucks.

Alexander could have done something similar, sending his supplies along a flat, pristine road by simply changing out the wheeled carts for sleds.

But the problem was the river was not all the way frozen.

And it was those parts that were arguably even more dangerous.

The flowing currents would carry huge frozen ice sheets that would occasionally break apart from the main piece, or even simply form by themselves, which would then travel downstream with impressive speed, posing a devastating risk to any vessel traveling along it.

If Alexander were to send his supply boats in the midst of them, the tragedy of the Titanic would repeat itself almost every day of the week.

So upon sensing the terrible weather and knowing the possibility of worsening temperatures as the season only got deeper into its months, he ordered his general to stop all advances, take shelter in large cities, and use the grain harvested during the fall to sustain himself till spring.

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