Chapter 295: Pacification (Five)

Seven days later, Nanzhou Front.

Wang Wen had difficulty getting up from the ground, moved to the pond next to him, wiped a dusty face with the dirty pond water, spit out a mouthful of black foam, and cursed in a low voice: "I really take it upon myself, why did I come up with such a bad idea?"

The fire burned for four days and four nights, and the fire did not weaken until the fifth day. Although the weather is cold and the air humidity is very high, the withered branches are out of control after being lit by fuel. Wang Wen's rangers threw three hundred oil tanks on the two-kilometer-long cross section, making the fire uncontrollable. It caught fire at night. By day, the entire bushes were already filled with fire. The flames made Wang Wen and others who were far away burn. With the fire, the rolling smoke was blowing towards the north wind.

They rushed over. Although they were prepared for a long time, they still did not estimate the seriousness of the matter. People were easy to deal with. They could lie on the ground and cover their mouths and noses with wet cloth to avoid the rolling smoke. But horses were difficult to deal with. They could not have such protection capabilities as humans. Although the cavalry also provided protection for their war horses in advance, animals were naturally afraid of fire. The rolling smoke and heat waves made them scream in the camp. If they had not tied them up in advance, they would have fled everywhere.

During these four or five days, Wang Wen's soldiers almost seemed to be suffering in hell. Every day they could only fall to the ground and constantly soak the mask in their hands with the pond water next to them. Even so, all kinds of unpleasant smells were still pouring into their noses. The most unpleasant one was the smell of burnt corpses. It seemed that Su Guo had arranged a lot of soldiers in the jungle opposite. When the fire started, many people fell into a raging fire before they could escape. This fire caused heavy losses to the soldiers of Su Guo.

Two days after the fire was extinguished, the thick smoke gradually dissipated. Wang Wen's soldiers stood up one after another, stretched their stiff bodies, greedily breathed the relatively fresh air, and then prepared to set off under the organization of the officers.

The scout arrived at the fire scene first, and the message he sent back was excited by Wang Wen. The endless and dense jungle seven days ago had disappeared, and the embers of the fire had completely extinguished. Looking around, the black ashes could not see at all, and the obstacles blocking them had been eliminated.

After ate something in a hurry, Wang Wen's remaining 70,000 soldiers formed a defensive formation and began to embark on the road of retreat again.

The Soviet soldiers in the dense forest behind seemed to have not yet reacted from the lingering fear of the fire. The actions of Wang Wen's troops did not attract their pursuit. Under the strict alert of both sides, Wang Wen's troops successfully arrived in front of the fire.

Although the fire has been completely extinguished for more than two days, when everyone came here, they could still feel the heat waves emitted from the ground and the unpleasant smell in the air. It turned out that the ground where the dense forest was located was covered with thick ashes, and the whistling north wind was blowing towards everyone.

Wang Wen hesitated in front of the fire scene, then waved his hand violently, and the drummer immediately beat the shocking war drum. Seventy thousand soldiers entered the ashes of the fire scene with careful steps. Suddenly, smoke from the sky enveloped them.

During these seven days, Li Ming, who was far away in the imperial city, was always paying close attention to the war in Nanzhou. It turned out that he thought that with his troops' super combat capabilities, although it was a little harder, it was not a problem to annihilate the troops of Su. But after hearing Wang Wen's report after the first day of the battle, he realized that he was too careless. The proportion of enemy and us casualties in the dense forest was one to one, and he could not afford this loss. Therefore, he began to take back his eyes from Linzhou and concentrate on studying how to deal with the Soviet army.

After the suggestions of the important officials in the hall and the research of a few core figures of His Highness, he finally felt that the method of burning the dense forests that Wang Wen had temporarily come up with was a feasible and good idea. Although this would kill many people living in the dense forests, it could also cause sudden changes in the ecological environment and climate in the Nanzhou area. However, as long as it was possible to ensure the elimination of the enemy, Li Ming was sure to re-transform Nanzhou. What's more, Nanzhou's climate was humid and covered with lakes. This kind of place should have been a hometown of fish and rice. Because of the bushes everywhere, it was still one of the poorest areas in the Tang Dynasty. After the dense forest was burned, a large amount of organic matter would be left behind, which could bring a lot of fertilizer to the local area.

The fertile land is therefore not impossible to consider in the long run. Therefore, Li Ming temporarily changed the army's action plan and ordered the ambush troops in Yuanzhou and Pingzhou areas to advance urgently. All the stone-throwing soldiers who retreated from Wang Wen's troops joined the operation and used the fuel they carried to burn the shrubs in Nanzhou. The group of more than 40,000 stone-throwing soldiers carried a large amount of fuel, and they were operating with the wind, so the efficiency was much higher than that of Wang Wen and the others. In the seven days when Wang Wen and the others were lying on the ground and waiting or extinguished, they had already advanced more than 100 kilometers, forming a straight passage on the cross section about thirty kilometers long.

Wang Wen and his friends walked on the ashes that emitted the residual heat for a whole day, and finally came to another empty ground. Large and small swamp ponds filled this area. Not far ahead, there was another dense bush.

Seeing that it was getting late, Wang Wen ordered the troops to camp and rest in the empty ground in front of him. For a day, the Soviet troops had not launched an attack on them. In the ashes of dust and smoke, neither side could see the other's whereabouts clearly. Wang Wen had no idea whether the enemy behind him had followed.

"Are we doing a bit too much? We scared the fish away, and the net in front was scattered in vain. Are the enemies scared? In that case, it would be difficult to deal with." After camping, Wang Wen said the first thing he saw when he saw Yuchi Xiong.

Yuchi Xiong's face was also surprised and pondered for a moment and said, "According to my understanding of the soldiers of the Soviet country, they are unlikely to give up chasing, but they are not ruled out that they gave up on us and instead consolidate the area they have occupied. In that case, the many soldiers we lost on the first day would not be worth it. We are not easy to chew on our bones, so don't be afraid."

Wang Wen sighed and smiled bitterly, "It's really hard to lure the enemy into the task. You can't watch my soldiers die in vain without resisting. After a little resistance, they are actually scared. It's really hard to deal with it. Can't we pretend to be bears from now on? Let our soldiers be slaughtered by them? I have never done this job. Since I followed the emperor to lead the troops to fight, I have won all my victories. How can I be as angry as today? General Yuchi, you have much more experience than me. Do you have any better ideas?"

Yuchi Xiong also said with a wry smile: "What better way can I do? It is not like being in a plain where cavalry can use the power of the cavalry to keep a certain distance from the enemy. In this kind of place, our movement speed is too slow. It is unrealistic to think of no losses. Wang Wen'a, if there is no way, he will only sacrifice these people in front of him. After all, it is more important to annihilate the Soviet troops. This is really difficult to achieve both."

"So, we will take the initiative to enter the jungle tomorrow to attract them?" Wang Wen said reluctantly.

"Send scouts to investigate first. According to my understanding of the soldiers of the Soviet Union, they should not give up so easily. Those people are brave and good at fighting, and they are definitely not greedy for life and fear of death. I am worried that they have other ways to deal with us."

Wang Wen's face became even more gloomy: "According to what you said, I still underestimate them? I really didn't expect that those Su people were so short, but they were so brave on the battlefield. They were really some respectable opponents. Well, as you said, I will send a large number of scouts to investigate first."

Thirty minutes later, a scout broke into Wang Wen's central army tent with a dark face, coughing while reporting: "Commander, the enemy behind us has caught up with him, and it has been covered with all the camps around us, and it has been densely packed with endless sight. However, no enemy troops were found in the woods ahead of us."

Hearing this information, Wang Wen and Yuchi Xiong looked at each other, and their eyes showed a look of disapproval. It seemed that a fire made the generals of the Su Kingdom much more awake, and they no longer pursued and blocked them with their superior forces. Fighting in the plains was not their advantage, so they would do everything possible to launch an attack when Wang Wen's troops entered the dense forest. Unless Wang Wen could burn the dense forest in front of him like he did a few days ago, otherwise, tomorrow

The general is the world of the Soviet soldiers. The problem now is that since the other party has become so cunning and no longer continues to fight with his own troops on the plains, it is a problem if the Soviet troops have the courage to continue chasing after they walk out of Nanzhou and get to the forest area. It seems that the rangers on the plains were too ostentatious on the first day, which made the generals of the Soviet countries alert. If this is the case, it is hard to say whether the plan to lead the snake out of the hole will be successful.

Realizing this situation, Wang Wen and Yuchi Xiong negotiated nervously for a while, and then immediately sent a telegram to Li Ming about the situation.

After receiving the telegram, Li Ming also felt that the situation on the front line seemed not optimistic. If the generals of the Soviet state dared not chase out of the Nanzhou area as Wang Wen and others estimated, this plan would be a complete failure. After thinking about it for a long time with the telegram, he found all the key figures such as Saint Wang, Gao Wei, and Malin, and discussed in detail for one night. Finally, he formulated a forced remedy method.

The most difficult thing now is that Nanzhou is too far away from Li Ming's power. No matter how powerful Li Ming has, he will not be able to support the front line for a while. Even if he sends troops from Nanguo City, it will take a month. Therefore, what Li Ming can use now is the only 50,000 heavily armored cavalry and more than 30,000 stone-populated soldiers who are on standby on the border of Heping Prefecture, Yuanzhou. They are currently approaching Wang Wen's troops step by step. However, it takes a certain amount of time to burn the shrub forest, so they cannot meet with Wang Wen in a short time.

Based on all the difficulties and intelligence, Li Ming and his team decided to change the plan to prevent the Soviet soldiers from not advancing after reaching the border of Nanzhou. From Wang Wen's fire-burning jungle incident, Lin Ming and his team decided to let Wang Wen continue to station there, and then send light infantry from Yuanzhou to send them combat supplies. Li Ming decided to fight the enemy at the current position where Wang Wen was stationed.

The key to this plan is whether Wang Wen can clear out enough space before the 50,000 heavy-armored cavalry arrives so that the subsequent heavy-armored cavalry will raid the enemy. You must know that the area remaining 300,000 soldiers currently occupy a very large area. If the open space is not enough, the heavy-armored cavalry will not be able to exert its due power, and it may also cause a large number of enemy troops to escape. Therefore, the key to this mission is still on Wang Wen.

Therefore, Li Ming's call back not only included orders to Wang Wen, but also his explanation of this plan. He hoped that Wang Wen could fully understand his intentions and clean up enough space as much as possible. Otherwise, if he wanted to recover Nanzhou in the future, he would have to use fire attack to clean it up piece by piece.

After reading the telegram, Wang Wen handed it to Yuchi Xiong, and then he was there alone to ponder for a long time. The plan seemed to be no difficulty on the surface, but Wang Wen's current situation was not optimistic. The army carried only one month of marching rations. It has been nearly ten days since the retreat began. According to estimates, it will take half a month for the heavy armored cavalry to return to implement the new plan to arrive. This is still a smooth situation. If it is not smooth, the time may be longer. It is hard to say whether the 70,000 soldiers he led can last until that time.

In addition, in the last fire, Wang Wen had already used up the fuel they carried. If he wanted to ignite the wet bushes in the cold weather, it would not work without fuel to ignite the fire. Li Ming asked him to burn out the surrounding jungle as much as possible with his current location. This was an impossible task in itself. Therefore, at this moment, Wang Wen was really worried. Since Li Ming's task has come down, he must complete it himself. But it is hard for a cook without rice. How should he burn the forest without fire?

"By the wind." After reading the telegram, Yuchi Xiong immediately made a decision: "The Rangers stay here to block the pursuit of the enemy in the rear, and then dispatch 10,000 infantry to pass through the jungle in front of us and start igniting from the upper vent. Although the forests are not easy in winter, if you don't use the wind, just ignite one place. What do you think?"

Wang Wenjiangxin looked at Yuchi Xiong with skepticism and said helplessly: "Since I have no good idea, then let's do as you said. Without further ado, we will take action immediately."

It was already early morning after Wang Wen stationed. With the help of the slight light in the sky, the selected 10,000 heavy infantrymen carried carefully selected fire-driven objects and quietly entered the jungle ahead of them. At the same time, 30,000 cyclists rushed out of the camp and patrolled on both sides of the camp to prevent the enemy from taking the opportunity to pursue.

Although they discovered the abnormal behavior here, they saw that Wang Wen's camp was still in place, so the generals of the Su Kingdom did not rush to rise up. The Rangers' lethality on the ground were still scared. They would not fight head-on with these cavalry unless they had to.

However, the ten thousand heavy infantry encountered the remnants of the Soviet Union in the jungle.

These soldiers all escaped while burning the jungle. Because they were out of the upper vent, the fire was so powerful that it did not cause much damage to the Soviet soldiers hiding in the jungle. After escaping from the jungle in front, they hid in this forest. The ten thousand heavy cavalrymen soon encountered obstacles after they entered the jungle.

Fortunately, the opponent's soldiers do not have a unified organization now, so the heavy infantry encountered a group of scattered soldiers. Without intensive attacks, even the Su Guoshi soldiers who are good at jungle combat cannot be the opponent of the heavy infantry. Their role they can play is only to block their steps.

After Wang Wen learned about the situation in the jungle through the intercom, he immediately sent 20,000 heavy infantrymen to the side of the jungle to prevent the soldiers from causing an impact on his camp when the fire broke out. Now, all his hopes are placed on the ten thousand soldiers who are traveling through the jungle.

The area of ​​this jungle is a little smaller than the first burnt jungle. Ten thousand heavy infantrymen fought and walked in the forest, walked out before the sun set, and did not care about rest. While sending a message to Wang Wen, ten thousand soldiers lined up and lit the fire-attracting items in their hands on a one-kilometer-long cross section.

Most of these items were dry branches, worn clothes, etc. In order to ignite the fire, the team members lined up into human walls to block the fierce north wind and let the sparks gradually burn. Although most of the ignited flames were blown out, more than a dozen fires were still ignited over a kilometer distance. With the assistance of the north wind, these flames became bigger and stronger, and with the blood-red sunset light, they burned rapidly towards the jungle.

After receiving the news that it was inflamed, a big stone in Wang Wen's heart finally landed on the ground. The whole army was ready to prevent the damage of thick smoke, just like the previous few days.
Chapter completed!