Chapter 305: Decisive Battle (IV)

The night was already very deep. Wang Wen was seriously injured. Although he was worried, he was already drowsy. Cheng Wu, who was acting as the commander of the Legion, still had no sleepiness.

Losing the troops of two regiments in non-combat situations. Although this loss was his responsibility, it could not relieve him. After reporting the situation here to Li Ming overnight, Cheng Wu began to consider how to avoid non-combat casualties to the greatest extent.

However, before he could figure out what to do, the messenger rushed in again.

"Report, news came from the city just now that the three soldiers we patrol suddenly disappeared, suspected that the enemy lurking in the city was damaging."

Cheng Wu's head became bigger again. The prisoner riot was not over yet, and an accident occurred in the city. Why did the expedition go so hard? Was it caused by the tolerant attitudes they adopted?

"All garrisons in the city were dispatched to search for suspicious situations. When catching the destruction, be sure to find out their details. In addition, the soldiers who ordered the search were more vigilant. The enemy may use the seized guns to cause greater casualties to us. Pass my order. When encountering a life threat, the soldiers can shoot and kill the enemy."

The tiger city, which was gradually falling into silence, suddenly became noisy. More than 60,000 soldiers with guns and bullets in the city immediately took action and searched every corner of the city from door to door. In a short while, they found three murdered soldiers in several residential houses, and killed two men holding seized rifles. The families and neighbors around were taken outside the city overnight.

Cheng Wu, who had not been asleep all night, immediately interrogated those people overnight.

The people caught seemed very hostile to Cheng Wu and their words were extremely tough. Under heavy punishment, they admitted to the act of attacking the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty. However, at the same time, they also denounced the invasion of the Tang Dynasty in front of Cheng Wu. From the confessions of those people and the neighbors who were arrested by the way, it can be concluded that they were indeed local residents, not spies who were ambushed by the Great Zhou army or the government.

During the interrogation, not only the few people who attacked the soldiers, but even the captured neighbors were extremely hated against Cheng Wu and the others. People with a few children even dared to scold the Tang Dynasty's invasion in front of Cheng Wu, which made Cheng Wu feel helpless.

The next day, General Cheng called Li Ming about his situation at night.

Li Ming felt that his heart was bleeding when he lost two regiments within a day, but he also knew that it was useless to blame the commanders on the front line at this time. The most urgent task at the moment was how to avoid such things happening again. It can be seen that the soldiers of the Great Zhou Kingdom were the same as the news he received. They were all loyal and righteous people who would rather die than surrender. It was not easy to make them surrender willingly. The only way was to force them to subdue. Those white people were relatively easy to get their recognition because of Liu Gu's name, but in their eyes, they were purely invading.

After thinking about it all night, Li Ming didn't sleep much and received a second telegram from Cheng Wu early in the morning.

The entire people of the Great Zhou Kingdom were soldiers, and even members of the royal family were inevitably trained. The resistance of the people was reasonable, but they did not expect that they would attack their soldiers. If this problem was not solved, the non-combat casualties caused in the Great Zhou Dynasty will definitely not be small in the future.

"The first legion will be ordered to be the acting commander of Cheng Wu before Wang Wen's health is fully recovered. As for the people of Hucheng, I will let the third legion who arrives later handle it."

"Order the Third Legion to leave the customs immediately from now on, and they are limited to two days to arrive at Hucheng to accept defense there. The First Legion will continue to rush north after the Third Legion arrives. After the Third Legion arrives, it will immediately send troops to move all the people of Hucheng into the territory of Datang. The more developed Jiangzhou and Huzhou are ready to accept these immigrants. Gao Wei, you must arrange for these immigrants to be dispersed, not to let them stay in the same place, let the local people monitor all their actions, and strive to assimilate them. If those adults cannot be assimilated, then take their children away and find some people to foster them, and completely eliminate the hostility of those children to the Tang Dynasty."

At the subsequent secret meeting, Li Ming made the final decision on the current situation.

If you want to completely eliminate a country, you must eliminate their history and eliminate everything they had before. This is very important for the future stability of the Tang Dynasty. A country like the Great Zhou with very strong national self-esteem needs to do this. Even if this generation cannot completely resolve the hostility towards the Tang Dynasty, their next generation must adapt to the Tang Dynasty and identify with the Tang Dynasty. Only in this way can these immigrants completely eliminate some unfavorable behaviors in the future. Li Ming knew that his actions were unfair to the people of the Great Zhou Dynasty, but in this society, strength determines everything. If the descendants of these immigrants in the Great Zhou Dynasty could live a good life like the people of the Tang Dynasty, perhaps they could compensate for their invasion.

Following Li Ming's order, the Third Corps marched to Hucheng overnight, organized 100,000 soldiers, forcibly escorted 500,000 people in Hucheng to move into the territory of the Tang Dynasty, and sent them to the two continents of the rivers and lakes through a developed transportation network. The local government had long received the order from the Prime Minister's Office to disperse the 500,000 people in different parts of the rivers and lakes, and completely cut off the connection between them.

After a little rest, the First Legion continued to advance towards the hinterland of the Great Zhou. The Third Legion had turned Hucheng into their rear supply base, and their marching had no worries. In addition, after passing Hucheng, there was no decent garrison within more than 500 kilometers. Therefore, the First Legion's advancement was quite fast.

The mission of the Third Legion seemed to have become a full-time immigration escort team. In addition to moving the people of Dazhou occupied by the First Legion to the territory of Datang, people from remote areas in the northern part of the Tang Dynasty also had to move the people from relatively poor areas in the northern part of the Tang Dynasty to those occupied cities in the Dazhou. Some places on both sides of Mengyin border and Zhongzhou were barren and inconvenient mountainous areas and forest areas. The people there did not have much arable land and seemed relatively poor. Moving those people to Dazhou can improve their lives on one hand, and on the other hand, they can also completely occupy the territory of Dazhou, killing two birds with one stone.

The task of immigration is very complicated and important. Except for the Third Legion, government officials in various states were mobilized to be busy with this largest immigration operation in history.

Since they occupied the towns and sent troops to the Third Legion, the First Legion seemed quite relaxed. With the experience in Hucheng, they were very cautious when facing the Great Zhou troops. They would never put down their weapons before the other party completely lost their resistance. As a result, the soldiers of the Great Zhou Kingdom suffered huge casualties and were very few prisoners. In the battle, the soldiers of the Great Zhou Kingdom holding simple and primitive weapons showed a rare tenacity. None of the enemy troops captured by the First Legion was intact. Not a seriously injured soldier could really capture them. This kind of integrity was deeply admired by the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty.

After advancing more than 600 kilometers in the Great Zhou Dynasty, the First Legion encountered the Desert Legion, which was ready for the first time.

Judging from the results of the aerial reconnaissance, there were only more than 20,000 white legions in front of them, and to their right, there was a fast-moving truck convoy that was circulating towards their rear. In terms of scale, the force was no more than 10,000.

Although the Desert Legion also has powerful rifles and artillery in its hands, it seems a bit insignificant compared to the large army of 300,000 people in the Tang Dynasty. What's more, the sky of the Tang Dynasty troops was still circling with more than a dozen airships, constantly reconnaissing all situations within a radius of four or five hundred kilometers. All military operations of the Desert Legion could not escape their eyes. Therefore, although this Desert Legion had learned the tactic of roundabout encirclement, it could not cause greater damage to the Tang Dynasty troops.

This desert legion had obviously been ambushing for a long time, and on the way forward of the Tang Dynasty vanguard troops, they encountered a dense mine formation again.

Wang Wen had basically recovered his health at this time, and Cheng Wu returned to the vanguard unit as commander. When he encountered this situation, he ordered the troops to stop and communicated with Wang Wen in the telegram. Then, he ordered the airship unit to reach the airship unit.

After receiving the order, more than a dozen airships hovering over the sky and reconnaissance, they immediately rushed to the camp of the desert legion ahead and dropped more than 30 napalm bombs on it.

To deal with these people, there is no need to talk about kindness. Eliminating the other party as soon as possible is the best choice. Therefore, Cheng Wu used an air strike that he had never used since entering the Great Zhou Dynasty.

The sky-sky fire instantly swallowed up the camps and defensive positions of more than 20,000 people in the Desert Legion. The napalm incendiary bombs have amazing lethality to soldiers. The gel-like filler has super adhesion ability and can firmly adhere to people's skin with a raging fire. Whether it is slapping or rolling on the ground, it cannot completely extinguish the fire standing on the body. It can be said that this is a very vicious weapon. It is a waste of more than 30 incendiary bombs against more than 20,000 soldiers arranged in densely.

In the raging fire, soldiers who did not die on the spot fled everywhere with flames all over the body, and many soldiers ran into the mine formation in front of the positions of the two armies in a panic and were blown to pieces. Cheng Wu's vanguard troops basically wiped out the 20,000 white soldiers in front of them without a single soldier.
Chapter completed!