My planet is infested with Goblins

Chapter 63: The Province Before the Capital

Grand Marshal Rakhar Veyr returned from the ridge before dawn, but he did not sleep. The rough maps of the eastern province were already spread across a long table inside the forward command tent, weighted at the corners by captured Caldris helmets, stones, and supply ledgers.

Eastwatch sat near the center of the largest sketch, surrounded by roads that reached north, south, east, and west like veins spreading from a heart.

Around it were smaller towns, villages, river crossings, agricultural districts, roadside forts, and settlements the scouts had only partially identified. Rakhar stood over the map for nearly an hour, moving markers and measuring distances with his fingers while officers came and went around him.

By sunrise, he had stopped considering how to attack Eastwatch first. He had begun considering how to make Eastwatch the last meaningful piece of Caldris left in the province.

His senior commanders assembled soon afterward. Field Commander Varek stood nearest the table, while Captain Dravik Sorn and several officers responsible for infantry, scouting, engineering, logistics, and occupation forces formed a rough semicircle around them. Most expected Rakhar to announce preparations for a siege.

Eastwatch was the largest target they had discovered, and after the destruction of Alaric Veyne’s counteroffensive, momentum seemed to favor an immediate strike. Rakhar allowed them to study the map before speaking.

"We are not attacking Eastwatch yet. The city will be contained, but the army will not waste lives against those walls while the province around them still belongs to Caldris."

A few commanders exchanged looks. One eventually asked the question the others were thinking. "Grand Marshal, if the capital is the center of the province, why not take the center first?"

Rakhar placed one hand on the map but did not touch Eastwatch. Instead, his fingers spread across the surrounding countryside.

"The capital is strong precisely because the province itself supports it. Rural towns bring food and supplies. Farms feed the population. Villages provide carts, animals, labor, and recruits. Smaller towns hold soldiers. If we march directly to the walls, all of this remains behind us. If we take all of this first, then the walls become a cage."

Varek studied the markers scattered across the countryside. "You want to occupy everything outside the cities."

"Everything that are vital to its survival."

Rakhar pointed toward the smaller settlements closest to Eastwatch.

"Caldris cannot defend every farm, every bridge, every village, and every crossroads.

They have already shown us how they respond when threatened. They gather soldiers into larger formations and pull civilians toward fortified places. We shall exploit that."

The idea became clearer as Rakhar explained. Viridian possessed thirty thousand soldiers on the eastern front, far more troops than were necessary to stand motionless beneath one city wall.

Caldris might have enough men to fortify Eastwatch and several other major settlements, but defending the open countryside required spreading those troops across hundreds of locations.

Rakhar intended to force the humans to choose between holding exposed positions with weak garrisons or abandoning them and retreating behind stronger walls. Either choice favored Viridian.

"If they hide behind stone walls," Rakhar said, looking around the table, "then everything outside the walls becomes ours."

The main phase of the operation would therefore begin with the countryside.

Twelve thousand goblins would be divided into numerous columns and detachments, each moving through assigned sectors rather than following one enormous road.

Some formations would number five hundred soldiers. Others would be smaller, depending on the expected resistance.

They would seize villages, farming communities, mills, grain stores, river crossings, bridges, roadside stations, crossroads, and small administrative settlements.

Once a location was secure, part of the force would remain behind while the rest continued forward. Neighboring columns would advance in overlapping sectors so that isolated detachments could be reinforced quickly if they encountered a stronger human garrison.

One commander frowned at the number of separate formations.

"If we spread too widely, the humans could gather their soldiers and attack one column at a time."

Rakhar nodded.

"Which is why no column advances beyond supporting distance without permission. We are spreading control, not scattering troops. If five hundred encounter a thousand humans, they stop. Nearby columns converge. If fifty humans defend a village against five hundred of ours, there is no need to wait for anyone."

He then shifted several markers toward the major fortified settlements. Those places would be treated differently.

Viridian would not storm every city simply because it remained under Caldris control.

Instead, goblin forces would surround the approaches, occupy the surrounding roads, establish observation posts, and prevent large military formations from moving freely in or out.

Small forces might slip through, but any organized movement would be met by concentrated troops.

Eastwatch itself would initially receive roughly six thousand soldiers. That force would not be ordered to assault the walls. Its purpose would be containment.

Scouts would watch the gates. Patrols would dominate the approaches. Field positions would be built beyond easy range of the defenses. Any major sortie would be met by prepared formations, while smaller patrols would be forced back whenever practical.

The defenders would remain aware that thousands of goblins stood outside, but they would never know exactly when the attack would come.

Varek looked at the map again. "And the other large cities?"

"Four thousand spread among them, adjusted according to size and resistance. Enough to keep their soldiers inside and their roads under pressure. If one is weaker than expected, we can take it. If one has walls worth respecting, we leave it isolated until later."

The remaining numbers filled the rest of Rakhar’s design. Three thousand troops would serve as a mobile reserve positioned where they could reinforce whichever countryside sector encountered unexpected resistance.

Another five thousand would remain behind to secure Brackenford, the portal route, captured supply points, bridges, rear camps, and the long chain connecting the expanding occupation to Viridian’s original foothold.

Rakhar refused to repeat a mistake common to armies drunk on early victories. He would not move so much strength forward that one attack behind the lines threatened the entire campaign.

The logistics officers became more interested when Rakhar shifted the discussion from troop movements to farmland.

"Do not burn fields unless there is a military reason. Do not slaughter livestock simply because it belongs to the enemy. Grain, animals, mills, wagons, wells, barns, and storehouses are resources. We are not crossing this province to leave ash behind us. We are taking it."

That order is crucial because the deeper Viridian advanced, the longer its supply lines became. The portal could support the expedition, but moving everything from the entry point to the front would become increasingly inefficient. If the occupied countryside could feed goblin garrisons and marching columns, the invasion would begin sustaining itself from Caldris territory.

A supply officer asked, "What about the civilians?"

"Civilians who flee toward the cities are not our priority. Let them go unless they attack our troops or interfere with operations."

Several officers looked toward Rakhar, and he clarified the reasoning.

Every refugee entering a fortified city increased the demands placed on its food, water, space, and sanitation.

Viridian did not need to chase farmers through fields when Caldris was already pulling its own population behind walls. At the same time, villages that remained outside could be placed under occupation and required to continue producing food.

"We want the countryside functioning," Rakhar said. "Fear may empty some areas at first. That is acceptable. But destruction for its own sake gives us nothing."

Roads would form the skeleton of the occupation. Rakhar ordered important intersections seized before surrounding minor settlements.

Once a crossroads was secured, nearby detachments could spread outward, then reconnect with adjacent sectors. Fortified camps would be established along the major routes, creating a network of goblin positions rather than isolated islands of control.

Supply wagons could move from one secured point to another under patrol protection, while scouts ranged beyond them.

Organized human military forces outside the cities would be treated differently from civilians.

If several hundred Caldris soldiers tried to move between fortified settlements, Viridian columns would converge and destroy them before they could reinforce another position.

Small groups fleeing after a collapse were secondary unless they threatened supply lines. Rakhar had already learned the difference between destroying an army and wasting days chasing individuals.

Dravik Sorn nodded at that. "Once a garrison retreats behind a city wall, we leave it there."

"Exactly," Rakhar replied. "A soldier trapped behind stone wall is one less soldier contesting the countryside."

The commanders began to see the wider effect.

Eastwatch was already drawing refugees, supplies, militia, and professional soldiers inward. If the same pattern repeated across the province, Caldris would gradually concentrate its remaining strength into a handful of defended cities.

Those cities would look powerful from inside their walls, but the land connecting them would belong to Viridian. Messages would become harder to move. Food from surrounding districts would stop arriving. Military units would lose the freedom to reinforce one another.

One officer asked whether Eastwatch might use its concentration of troops to break the containment force and retake the countryside.

Rakhar answered that this was precisely why six thousand soldiers would remain near the capital. "If they send a small force out, destroy it. If they send a large force out, call the reserve and destroy it. If they keep everyone behind the walls, let them watch."

That image appealed on the imagination to several commanders.

Eastwatch’s defenders would stand on their towers and see the province disappearing around them. Roads once traveled by Caldris patrols would carry goblin columns. Villages would stop sending taxes and grain.

Military posts would cease reporting. Refugees would continue arriving with stories of green-skinned soldiers appearing along routes previously thought safe. Yet the capital could not respond everywhere without weakening the very walls meant to protect it.

Rakhar then explained why Eastwatch would not remain untouched forever. The strategy was not an indefinite blockade.

The countryside phase existed to remove every complication that could interfere when Viridian finally concentrated against the provincial capital. Once roads, bridges, farmland, smaller settlements, and strategic positions were firmly occupied, the number of troops required for active expansion would decrease.

Local garrisons could hold captured territory. Patrols could maintain road control. Major cities other than Eastwatch would remain surrounded by dedicated forces.

Then the field columns would begin returning toward the capital.

Rakhar moved several markers inward from every direction until they clustered around the Eastwatch symbol.

"When this phase ends, our scattered legions come back together here. By then there should be no hostile countryside behind them, no unsecured road carrying attacks into our supply lines, and no nearby garrison free to march to the city’s relief."

Varek studied the concentration of markers. "Eastwatch will watch the army grow around it."

"That is the intention."

The meeting continued into the morning as sectors were assigned. Northern columns would take the farming districts and road network above Eastwatch.

Southern formations would secure river crossings, mills, and larger agricultural settlements. Western columns would push far enough to control approaches beyond the capital without advancing recklessly deeper into Caldris. Smaller detachments would occupy territory between those sectors until the separate areas connected into one continuous Viridian-held region.

By the time the commanders began leaving the tent, orders were already spreading through the expeditionary army. Scouts were reassigned.

Supply wagons were divided among new formations. Engineers prepared portable fortifications and bridging tools. Occupation detachments received instructions on holding villages, crossroads, and food stores.

Thousands of soldiers who had previously operated around Brackenford or the captured battlefield were told to prepare for movement along dozens of routes instead of one.

Rakhar remained behind after the command tent emptied. The map looked different now.

Eastwatch still stood at the center, but the markers no longer pointed directly toward its walls. They spread across the countryside around it, branching into roads, settlements, fields, and crossings before slowly curving back inward.

The capital could wait.

Viridian would take the province around it first. When every useful road carried goblin patrols, when the farms fed goblin soldiers, when the smaller settlements answered to Viridian occupation forces, and when the other large cities were isolated behind their own walls, the countryside columns would turn toward Eastwatch.

Only then would the goblin legions begin closing on the provincial capital from every direction.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!