Chapter 717: Chapter 403: The Iron Teeth War_2
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Gu Hang’s warship arrived at Korolya.
He inspected the recent restructuring effects of the Alliance Army and watched an elite legion parade before him.
Then, he made a circuitous visit to some officials in several Nest Capitals and stayed a few days at the governor’s mansion, thus completing his itinerary in Korolya.
Currently, Gu Hang spent half of the year in the governor’s mansions at Flying Wing Star or Rage Owl Star, and the other half flying around various planets in the Alliance, checking things out.
A Crazy Shark-class, two Silver Helmet-class, and seven or eight patrol ships were specially designated as his personal transports, ferrying him around the star sectors.
…
On the destroyer named ‘Meditation Number,’ a cabin had been specially modified for him, his headquarter office, and the Alliance staff group, to assist with his work. The star-language signals on Meditation Number were also enhanced to facilitate his execution of official duties and communication with Alliance officials, ministries, and planets.
Thinking about it, the life of such a supreme leader of the Alliance was indeed monotonous and dull.
However, there had recently been an event that required his attention.
The main force of the Tianma Fleet was returning.
And that also meant that Yelisia was coming back.
…
Yelisia had been away from Tianma Star Sector for over six years.
An engagement had been made, yet the wedding had not taken place in six years.
But this was an unavoidable matter.
In the beginning, no one expected the war against the Iron-Tooth Clan to last so long.
The Iron-Tooth Clan had been entrenched in the northeast of the Dragonhawk Star Domain for over seventy years. Not only had they not been dealt with, but they had also grown stronger over those seven decades.
What started as a minor hassle on a single planet in the Iron Pass Star Sector had escalated into the entire star sector being dragged into war; then the first Iron-Tooth War broke out, and humanity, despite having space superiority, was disastrously defeated in the ground war. A massive number of landing pods were launched from the planetary surface onto human warships in orbit, leading to the destruction of at least fifty naval vessels of various classes.
The Green Skins were fearless, launching manned rockets directly from the ground to orbit, handling both explosion damage and boarding in one go, something human troops couldn’t manage; after capturing the naval ships, they would then pilot them straight to the planetary surface, not caring if the ships were damaged or destroyed upon impact.
After the failure of the first Iron-Tooth War, the star domains urgently mobilized more forces to fight back. However, before the second Iron-Tooth War could begin, the entire Iron Pass Star Sector had fallen. The Green Skins were no longer just ground combatants, as numerous rickety, weak, but plentiful Green Skin junk ships began to roam the Iron Pass Star Sector and spread outwards.
The second Iron-Tooth War erupted, a campaign primarily fought by naval forces.
The human military, underestimating the enemy’s strength, was once again defeated.
This time, the consequence was the fall of the surrounding sectors: Silver Pass Sector, Kuoluo Sector, and Jiang Meiyu Sector.
The warlord who had unified all Green Skin tribes launched a massive waaagh, attacking vigorously around the Iron Pass Star Sector.
Humanity hastily engaged in battle, and then the third Iron-Tooth War broke out in the Golden Pass Star Sector.
In this battle, human forces finally achieved victory.
The death of a Green Skin Overlord pirate threw the vast Green Skin Fleet into chaos and led to its widespread annihilation; humans seized the opportunity to deploy the Extinction Order onto a planetary surface, killing most of the Green Skins there and causing the death of the commanding Green Skin overlord who had personally led the expedition.
The Beastman Empire across four star sectors plunged into civil war. With the loss of the warlord’s leadership, many first-level Green Skin overlords began to fight amongst themselves.
This could also be considered a traditional skill of the Green Skin Orcs. Under the unified leadership of a warlord, the Green Skins would unleash formidable combat power; but once their leader fell, internal strife would immediately begin, continuing until they vied for a new chieftain.
In theory, this was the best opportunity to completely eradicate all Green Skins. However, in reality, after three consecutive Iron-Tooth battles, the first two were defeats, and the third at best could only be considered a Pyrrhic victory. After the battles, there simply wasn’t enough strength left in the Star Domain to pursue a decisive strike.
The Green Skins were indeed in chaos, but the sheer number of them still posed a threat, and the infighting was between planets and even among overlords who occupied multiple planets.
Recovering lost territories and exterminating the Green Skins still required sufficient force.
And the Dragonhawk Star Domain no longer had the necessary strength. The aid they requested from nearby Star Sectors and the higher-level Space Domain Government was nowhere in sight.
In such circumstances, they could only attempt to recapture the Golden Pass Star Sector, clearing out the Green Skins within it and calling it a day, lacking the capability to carry out comprehensive extermination operations in the four Star Sectors that had completely fallen into Green Skin hands.
The third Iron-Tooth war had taken place twenty-six years ago. In the twenty-six years since, the Dragonhawk Star Domain had established a defensive line around the six directly accessible Star Sectors surrounding the four occupied Star Sectors, effectively sealing them off. This defensive line came to be known as the ‘Iron-Tooth Defense Line’.
The human forces would often organize troops to attack the occupied areas, attempting to take back some planets, destroy Green Skin Fleets, and raze their shipyards.
At the same time, the Iron-Tooth Clan’s raiding fleets would often penetrate into the six Star Sectors that composed the Iron-Tooth Defense Line, attacking the human side.
The Green Skins would also fight amongst themselves, and the whole situation reached a dynamic equilibrium.
It wasn’t until six years ago that the Star Domain Government believed they had recovered sufficiently. Noticing the Green Skins had not yet unified and that the entire Star Domain had revitalized after twenty years of rest, the Star Domain Government planned to organize another war, intending to hit the Iron-Tooth Clan hard.
A problem that hadn’t been solved in seventy years could not be expected to be resolved all at once, but at least, some results needed to be produced.
Initiating this war led by the human side, the first step was to sever the Green Skins’ reach towards the Golden Pass, Copper Barrier, and the defensive Star Sectors, fully liberating those worlds embroiled in the Green Skin wars; following this, the next move would be to strike at the Silver Pass Sector, at least capturing and eliminating three to four Green Skin worlds and establishing a beachhead to prepare for subsequent actions.
Following this plan, the main force of the Tianma Fleet was dispatched.
At the same time, several main Army Groups from the Dragonhawk Legion and Dragonhawk Fleet were also put into action.
When the war first started, it was reportedly going smoothly. In just a little over a year, the Green Skins in the three Iron-Tooth Defense Line Star Sectors were dealt with by the human army. Then, the Fleet and Land Forces advanced into the Silver Pass Sector to begin the second phase of the campaign.
However, here they reached a stalemate with slow progress.
A task initially estimated to take three years dragged on for six.
But recently, at last, some good news had arrived.
Silver Pass 2, Silver Pass 3, Water Fog Star, and White Fog Star—the four predetermined targets within the Silver Pass Sector—had finally all been captured.
As a result, the human forces established a beachhead within the Silver Pass Sector.
Although the course of the war was quite strenuous, with the elimination of Green Skins within the ‘Iron-Tooth Defense Line’ and the capture of four worlds in the occupied territories, the achievements could be considered satisfactory.
What followed was waiting to accumulate another wave of power to slowly erode the occupied territories from within.
Even so, the Star Domain Government had drafted a timetable to completely eradicate the Green Skins, boldly stating they would resolve the Green Skin issue within the Star Domain definitively in the next fifteen years!
Under such premises, with the preliminary objectives of the war achieved, the Tianma Fleet also had an opportunity to return and recuperate.
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Below is a Star Map of the Tianma Star Sector