Chương 111: Reinforcements Arrive

Ten stout wooden posts were driven deep into the churned earth of the slum district, and the ten criminal recruits were bound tightly to them with coarse hemp rope. Li Qinwu strode directly before the stakes, his shadow completely enveloping the prisoners.

"The issues of plate armor and standard spears distributed to you by the quartermaster—where did you cast them aside?" he demanded, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. Not a single Goblin dared to utter a sound. The suffocating aura of lethal intent radiating from Li Qinwu's massive frame had caused them to utterly lose control of their bodily functions.

The localized trauma to their nervous systems had effectively shattered their language centers; with their transient mania spent, basic survival instincts re-asserted control over their brains, and the screaming warnings of their drill instructors regarding the price of violating military law now echoed incessantly through their minds. They were entirely consumed by a deep, hollow regret. Li Qinwu let out a harsh, guttural snort.

Stepping forward, he delivered a single, thunderous punch straight into the solar plexus of the nearest recruit, hitting the creature with such immense force that its eyes instantly rolled back into its head. Turning on his heel, Li Qinwu stepped aside to let his sub-commanders forward. Gobu Spear stepped up to the stakes next, his green face twisted into an expression of dark, boiling rage.

"You absolute pieces of sub-human garbage. You managed to get yourselves boxed into a corner by a detachment of human auxiliaries! You have completely humiliated our entire lineage!" With a vicious snarl, he unleashed a heavy gauntleted strike of his own, the blunt impact causing another prisoner to violently vomit blood onto the dirt. Gobu Bow stepped forward next, letting out a heavy, weary sigh as he looked over the line of defectors.

"To be entirely frank, I do not even blame your underlying nature. The physical temptations within these human stone cities are far too dense. Had you been stationed back within the strict boundaries of our Union's sovereign territory, you would have never encountered these external vectors to lure your minds into error. What a tragic waste!" He too delivered a heavy penal blow.

Following his strike, the command senior officers from every secondary battalion systematically brought their respective raw recruit companies forward to participate in the execution. By the time the final rotations concluded, the physical structures of the ten criminals had been thoroughly neutralized under the collective weight of the punishment. Yet, the retributive justice of the Union was far from complete; after all, an entire infantry company had participated in the mass desertion attempt.

Under Li Qinwu's explicit direction, the remaining members of that entire defector company were dragged out into the open square, forced to stand in a uniform line against the stone masonry before the thousands of gathered human slum-dwellers. Then, a firing squad stepped forward and executed them by collective volley fire.

Furthermore, the towering Hobgoblin Company Commander who had overseen the barracks was stripped of his rank and commission, every regular drill instructor attached to the training camp was named in a sweeping public reprimand, and all personal military merits and financial bonuses accrued during the active campaign were completely forfeited.

Conversely, the domestic human militia company that had successfully contained the recruits along the walls received a grand commendation; every auxiliary guard was personally issued a bonus of ten silver pieces from the treasury. This comprehensive cascade of reward and absolute retribution immediately rippled through the entire internal infrastructure of the military training academy.

With every single administrative officer facing varying degrees of personal punishment or systemic oversight, a heavy, somber gloom settled over the barracks. Standing amidst the rigid rows of the massed battalions, Kanda watched the broken remains of the criminals being cleared from the stakes, his young mind gripped by absolute, unmitigated shock.

This was his very first time witnessing the formal execution of military law, and the experience left him with an entirely new, terrifying appreciation for the absolute finality of the state's discipline. Gobu Spear walked slowly to Kanda's side, his eyes fixed on the empty posts as he spoke in the weathered tone of a seasoned veteran.

"Do you see that, boy? That is the exact price of defying a military directive.

"Imprint this into your skull: the Boss has repeatedly declared that an army is a singular, unified machine. Never fall into the arrogant trap of believing that as long as your personal performance remains flawless, you are free from peril. You must keep your eyes wide open at all times, tracking the actions of the comrades standing to your left and right. The moment you perceive a brother drifting toward error, you must violently intervene to halt him.

If he refuses to yield, you carry a systemic obligation to report his volatility to your commanding officer immediately." Kanda nodded slowly, his severely disfigured facial features tightening into an expression of profound, grim solemnity. He had just received a terrifying lesson in the true, crushing reality of collective responsibility. Li Qinwu's unyielding adjudication of the crime provided the civilian populace of the lower slums with the exact resolution they demanded.

The thousands of gathered human laborers left the square entirely mollified and deeply awed. The judgment was ruthless—staggeringly, beautifully ruthless. Over a hundred of their own kin executed in a single hour without a shred of hesitation; what manner of terrifying military apparatus was this? The authority of their law was absolute.

Walking past the lines of his heavy infantry, Li Qinwu approached the victim's surviving kin—the middle-aged human man who sat motionless upon the hard dirt, staring blankly ahead as he held the cold form of his daughter. Initially, the man's heart had been consumed by a burning, incandescent hatred for the monster occupiers.

Yet, having watched the supreme Chieftain personally order ten of his own soldiers beaten into non-existence and an entire company put to the sword to avenge his child, his anger had been entirely drained, replaced by an overwhelming sense of numbness. It was an unprecedented one-to-a-hundred retribution; he could harbor no further grievance against the state. He was simply left drifting in a profound sea of grief, completely uncertain of how to navigate his life now that he was entirely alone in the world.

Li Qinwu reached down, taking a polished wooden chest from the hands of an NCO. He threw open the lid, revealing the brilliant, metallic gleam of over thirty gold sovereigns nestled within the velvet lining, and placed it firmly at the man's feet. The father raised his hollow eyes, staring up at the towering Chieftain in mute confusion. Li Qinwu's voice rumbled with deep, solemn resonance.

"The failure to maintain absolute behavioral discipline within our ranks is a severe transgression of my administration. The criminals have been wiped from the earth, yet the tragedy has occurred, and the dead cannot be recalled from the grave. However, the living must continue to endure. These gold sovereigns constitute a formal state indemnity from the Punisher Army. Take them, and forge a new beginning for your life."

Leaving those final words behind, Li Qinwu turned and guided his vanguard out of the slums, leaving the murmuring crowds to disperse. He was confident that this calculated display of absolute justice would completely smother any seeds of civil unrest before they could germinate. Even so, he harbored a profound, consuming disgust for the volatile, chaotic impulses that periodically bubbled up from a Goblin's base biology.

With a massive external threat converging on their gates, he spun toward his assembled senior officer corps and delivered a sweeping decree:"From this exact hour, internal camp discipline shall be tightened to an absolute maximum. We are re-instituting the ancient directive of Decimation by Threes across the auxiliary units. If a single soldier managed to slip past the picket lines again, I will bypass the NCOs and hold the Battalion Commanders personally accountable for the breach!"

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Gobu Spear and Gobu Bow felt the fine hairs along their necks stand completely on end. They snapped into crisp salutes, their voices trembling with urgency: "Rest assured, Boss! We shall oversee the camp pickets personally! An incident of this nature will never occur within our lines again!"

Over the days that followed, the Goblins assigned to the recruit barracks experienced a suffocating, near-lethal tightening of internal discipline. The slightest infraction during drills was met with immediate, kinetic correction, and personal leisure hours were reduced to absolute zero. The officer corps paced the dirt lines day and night, their heavy muskets resting across their shoulders as their intense, unblinking eyes scrutinized every movement. The raw conscripts were left entirely paralyzed with fear.

A few days later, the mounted scouts finally breached the city gates, delivering critical intelligence. Count Fischer's primary host had officially penetrated the administrative borders of Poloia, and their massive heavy cavalry vanguard had established a temporary fortified camp along the territorial boundary to rest their mounts. Furthermore, the cavalry scouts had successfully mapped the exact positioning of the human host's primary logistics line.

Trailing roughly fifty miles behind Count Fischer's primary combat divisions, a colossal baggage train composed of hundreds of heavy freight transport wagons was crawling along the road, stretching across the terrain for nearly five or six kilometers. This critical supply line was protected by a dedicated escort of 5, 000 elite heavy infantrymen. Li Qinwu was profoundly pleased by the intelligence.

He immediately ordered the mobilization of the original ten veteran companies of the Punisher Army, intending to lead a lightning skirmish deployment to violently sever the enemy's logistics. However, before his battalions could even clear the city gates, a second wave of spectacular intelligence struck his command. The Union's massive heavy weapons reinforcement convoy had successfully crossed into the province!

Gobu Run had arrived, guiding a formidable vanguard that comprised three newly organized companies of line musketeers, two pieces of standard-caliber field artillery, immense stores of paper-cartridge ammunition, dozens of heavy demolition tubes, 500 fresh masterwork muskets, 60 heavy hand-cannons, and a strike detachment of 80 arachnid Spider Cavalry. Li Qinwu was utterly stunned by the arrival.

According to his chronological projections, the timing was entirely wrong—how could a heavy transport column possibly traverse the wilderness with such impossible speed? Driven by intense curiosity, he rode out beyond the stone gates to meet the convoy. Gobu Run stood at the head of eighty massive, armored war-spiders, flanked by mountains of military freight crates coated in protective black tar-paint.

Catching sight of the Chieftain, Gobu Run leaped down from his arachnid mount and let out a triumphant roar: "Boss! The mission is complete! The full weapon shipments have been delivered to your hand!" Li Qinwu charged forward, clapping his massive hand against Gobu Run's shoulder with enough force to make the veteran wince.

"Magnificent! Absolutely brilliant, Gobu Run! Your timing is flawless!

"It is high time your shoulders carried a proper weight of authority. From this moment forth, you are officially elevated to the rank of the third Colonel of the Punisher Army, and the 3rd Regiment shall be formally designated as our premiere Cavalry Regiment! Though our mounted numbers are modest today, the moment we conclude this siege, I will personally see to it that your ranks are filled to maximum capacity!"

A massive, ugly grin split Gobu Run's face, his features twisting into an expression of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. He had officially entered the absolute inner circle of the state's decision-making apparatus, and the taste of genuine systemic authority completely satiated a Goblin's inherent lust for status. Turning his head, he caught sight of Gobu Spear offering him a subtle, approving nod from the battlements, and he returned the gaze with immense gratitude.

Had it not been for this veteran commander constantly pulling him up through the ranks, he would have never secured an opportunity to distinguish himself—in truth, he would have perished long ago beneath the fangs of the wilderness cave spiders. Li Qinwu immediately set about inspecting the fresh military hardware. The field artillery pieces were in pristine condition, manufactured to the Union's exact standardized blueprints.

He pried open one of the ammunition crates, snapping a paper cartridge to verify the contents; the black powder remained perfectly dry, the waterproof lacquer paint on the crates having insulated the chemical compounds flawlessly. Li Qinwu turned to Gobu Run, his eyes narrowing in confusion.

"Gobu Run, clarify your marching vectors. How did your column manage to cross the terrain in such a brief span of time?" The distance separating the Union's core territories from the borders of Halyun Province exceeded 300 kilometers.

When Li Qinwu had originally guided the primary army across that exact path, the deployment had consumed over a month of continuous marching; the wilderness mountains were choked with dense, unforgiving vegetation, and the terrain shifted constantly between steep ridges and deep ravines. Securing a forward momentum of ten kilometers a day had been considered an immense stroke of good fortune.

While an unburdened messenger riding hard could theoretically cover the return distance in roughly twenty days, a heavy logistics column burdened with tons of ordinance and 400 combat troops should have required well over a month to navigate the passes. Yet, Gobu Run had completed the journey and delivered the full payload in under three weeks. Gobu Run let out a raspy chuckle, scratching his chin.

"Boss, it was the Grand River! We fully weaponized the flow of the eastern waters!" As it turned out, in his desperate bid to deliver the intelligence to the core before the human armies could close the trap, Gobu Run had ridden his mount to absolute exhaustion, pushing his frame to breach the tribal borders in just under twenty days. Currently overseeing the core logistics of the Union were One-Ear and Gobu Big.

The moment they parsed Li Qinwu's urgent request for munitions, they immediately bypassed standard administrative delays, throwing open the state armories to withdraw every single firearm and shell manufactured over the preceding quarter.

Furthermore, the standing National Defense Force had recently expanded to a full five companies; without a moment's hesitation, three entire companies were instantly re-designated as regular line infantry of the Punisher Army, placed under Gobu Run's command to reinforce the southern front. Combined with eighty fresh Spider Cavalry units that the Crimson Queen had recently gestated and trained, the reinforcement host was formidable.

However, Gobu Run recognized that if they attempted to haul this immense mass of troops and heavy artillery back along the overland mountain trails, they would utterly fail to beat Count Fischer's timeline. If the human host successfully established a tight blockade around the walls of Poloia, the weapons would be trapped outside the perimeter, completely useless. They required a radical acceleration vector.

It was precisely within this tactical crucible that the clever Goblin focused his attention on the Grand River. The massive river network possessed a exceptionally smooth, stable current entirely devoid of dangerous rapids, carving a direct path from the eastern mountains straight through the heart of Poloia's administrative jurisdiction.

Having served within the tribal hunting details during his youth, Gobu Run had frequently patrolled the riverbanks, occasionally noting massive trunks of timber drifting smoothly down from the high country. He calculated that if his teams could construct a massive fleet of wooden transports, they could utilize the river's current to drift due west, maintaining a continuous, non-stop marching momentum that would require zero physical exertion from the troops.

The resourceful commander immediately requisitioned every master carpenter within the Union's sectors, directing them to fell trees and construct simple transport rafts. Less than ten days later, a makeshift fleet of over a hundred heavy wooden rafts was pushed into the current, their decks packed to absolute capacity with munitions boxes, artillery carriages, and armored soldiers.

The riverine flotilla drifted day and night without interruption; in less than five days, they successfully traversed a distance that would have ordinary consumed over thirty days of grueling overland marching. Had it not been for the initial delay required to harvest the timber and build the rafts, they would have breached the Poloia border even faster. Listening to the narrative, a cold sweat broke out across Li Qinwu's brow.

He realized this reckless subordinate of his possessed an absolutely terrifying degree of operational audacity—the creature had actually risked the entire heavy ordnance reserves of the state on a fleet of unproven wooden rafts. Had a single major rapid or structural failure occurred along the mountain bends, the entire technological capital of the Union would have been sent straight to the bottom of the river. Yet, fortune favored the bold.

The gamble had paid off flawlessly, and the critical reinforcements had breached his lines intact. This logistical triumph provided Li Qinwu with a profound strategic epiphany: the Grand River was a flawless, high-velocity highway cutting straight from his sovereign core deep into the soft underbelly of the human kingdoms.

In all future campaigns of territorial conquest and resource plunder against the human realms, his armies could utilize mass-constructed river flotillas to project overwhelming force across the continent in a matter of days. Naturally, these crude rafts were strictly single-use transport assets; once they completed their downriver deployment, the soldiers would simply dismantle them, relying on their own iron boots to march back to the Union after securing their objectives.

With these fresh, premium reinforcements officially integrated into his order of battle, Li Qinwu's confidence in his ability to execute a devastating counter-strike against Count Fischer's host soared to absolute heights. He immediately distributed the surplus muskets to the elite Hobgoblins remaining within the city barracks, ordering them to undergo accelerated firearms familiarization so they could handle the defense of the parapets.

Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he marched out from the stone gates of Poloia at the head of a magnificent, roaring host comprising 1, 200 veteran line musketeers and 100 heavily armored arachnid war-spiders, advancing into the northern wilderness to bring thunder to the human lines.