The Hyades Campaign was difficult until the end. The Chinese could reinforce worlds before our ground forces could defeat the defenders. That cost us many ships and forced us to retreat far too many times. Within a few years though we had a rhythm in effect. Attack, wait for reinforcements, then attack another system, wait for reinforcements, and by the fifth or sixth attack we would assault the main fleet base of the area. They never knew which attack would be the real one, but they couldn’t leave their systems without support, so we spread them out and hit them with local superiority. We killed as many of their ships as possible in each engagement, and made them pay for every world they held or retook. We wore them down.