Chapter 132: Getting Serious

Three days after the final ultimatum was issued, the other side still showed no reaction whatsoever. It seems this Madou bunch are utterly stubborn and determined to march down the road of no return against the King's Army!

Very well. The Great Office immediately issued an order, directing the Tainan Suppression General Headquarters to launch security operations against the Madou and Xiaolong villages as planned. At the same time, a corresponding civil affairs working group was to be formed to prepare for post-war matters.

After receiving the order, Han Bo commanded all participating units to begin rest and reorganization, then coordinated the Marine Corps to advance into enemy-occupied areas for reconnaissance, and finally deployed drones to review the data and intelligence transmitted back.

For reconnaissance in Tainan, drones did not need to fly at heights of several thousand meters at all; three hundred meters was sufficient. Through this kind of slow, low-altitude reconnaissance, the images sent back by the Datong Eagle could achieve a precision of 0.1 meters — the natives' eggs dangling out in the open were clearly visible.

The Madou and Xiaolong villages were relatively large in scale. Historically, when the Dutch counted the population, Madou Society's total exceeded four thousand, and Xiaolong Society was about the same. Xingang Society, however, only had a little over a thousand people. This was precisely why Xingang Society was anxious to compromise with outside powers: their strategic situation was extremely perilous, and their powerful northern neighbors could completely annihilate them within the next few decades or century.

As the drone reconnaissance proceeded, the native villages located in what later generations would call Tainan's Madou District and Jiali District appeared one by one on the computer screens. The targets were no different from the Xingang native villages, only larger in scale, with a somewhat greater population inside.

All the military Transmigrators spent these days analyzing intelligence at the command post — the villages were not the problem; the problem lay in the roads. The enemy's large villages were all distributed north of the Zengwen River. If the troops set out from the Kiln Area Base, it meant first crossing Xingang Creek, then marching eight kilometers on foot through vegetation-covered areas, then crossing Taiwan's fourth-largest river, the Zengwen River, and then marching another five-plus kilometers on foot before reaching the destination.

After assessment, everyone generally felt the difficulty was too high: the distance was too far, there were too many patches of vegetation and streams along the way, and even during the winter dry season, the 17th-century Zengwen River was still over fifteen meters wide with a swift current — and the troops had received no forced-crossing training.

It seemed Plan No. 2 was the reliable one after all: the troops would travel by sea, heading north along the coast and detouring thirty kilometers, then seek an opportunity to storm the beach from the area of the later-generation Seven Shares Salt Field. This position already lay beyond the Zengwen River; they only needed to find a passage through the wetlands and lagoons, and the main force could fight their way straight to the core village of Xiaolong Society — marked on the map as "Jiaxi Village" — which was closest to the landing point.

To find a path through the vegetation-covered area that could accommodate the passage of a large force required a large group of people collectively analyzing photographs, picking out paths and animal trails among the dense grass, shrubs, lagoons, and wetlands, and then linking them together. In between, they also had to avoid patches of seemingly safe mud and hidden ponds. In short, the workload was enormous.

The Transmigrators were different from the Red Hairs; they did not need to maintain a reign of terror through a policy of kill-all, burn-all, loot-all. Therefore, the form of warfare would be a concealed march, followed by capturing the enemy leaders in one fell swoop.

Burning and slaughtering everything like the Dutch, then going home to sit and wait for the natives to come and surrender, did not align with the Transmigrators' interests: it was a massive waste of resources. Only when the natives could no longer endure the mountains would the leaders consider yielding, and during that process, adults and children would die in large numbers — all the labor that could work would be gone.

Through analyzing drone intelligence, combined with Commander Qian of the Marine Corps personally leading his greenhorn subordinates in close reconnaissance, three days later the Pacification Headquarters finally confirmed both the primary and backup marching routes. Han Bo immediately gave the order: the troops would set out at 3 PM the next day. Additionally, at the same time as departure, the remaining warriors in the New Affiliated People Tribe were to assemble at Chikan Military Camp and await orders.

The next afternoon at Chikan Wharf, over two hundred Allied Forces warriors boarded their ships on time. The Yuan Dou, the base-guarding vessel retrofitted with power and reconnaissance equipment, was tasked today with delivering the unit to Qigu Coast.

To achieve a concealed advance, the Yuan Dou's arrival at the landing point was timed for dusk: the troops would eat after disembarking, then march through the night across eleven kilometers of vegetation zone, launching the offensive against the target at dawn the next day.

Yang Er was among the last batch to board the Yuan Dou.

All in all, Yang Er's days had been pretty good lately. No endless military bearing and formation drills, and no Black Ebony Short Stick — which had already become the nightmare of thirty trainees. The instructors were busy fighting natives and had no time to beat them.

Marching on foot was far more relaxing than standing on the drill field aching all over and sweating. There was sea wind, there was beach, and meals were on time. Even though the last few days involved night marches, the trainees, long accustomed to commands and formations, very rarely got injured.

Probably a skill honed from sneaking through Hangzhou's night alleys, that scoundrel Yang Er even wore a fluorescent vest during night marches to guide those behind him, earning him a few words of praise afterward. Yang Er's recent days were filled with satisfaction.

These two days of rest and reorganization were even more like living the life of an immortal: no morning drill. On the first day, the Yuan Dou took about a hundred men out for a spin on the sea. It wasn't the sardine-can operation from when Yang Er first came to Dayuan; this time it was more like a wetland park tour group. The Yuan Dou sailed north along the coast, Yang Er and the others joyriding the whole way, pissing into the crystal-clear lagoon to lure sharks. Just as they reached Qigu Coast, the boat turned around and went back.

They singled out the few natives who got seasick even on short sea voyages, and the rest were let loose that afternoon. Yang Er cheerfully went to Chikan Academy to find his sworn brother Teacher Jiang, scrounged a meal of special-supply red-braised pork, and returned to camp wiping his greasy mouth to sleep like a log.

It wasn't until the next afternoon that the troops boarded the ship. This time it was for real. Yang Er knew perfectly well what the troops were about to do: the large force would hide by day and move by night, then break those native stockades that refused to offer tribute to the masters.

"Ah, break them if we must. The masters have it hard too, feeding and supplying so many..." This was now Scoundrel Yang Er's genuine state of mind.

He now felt a sense of belonging to the New Recruit Company. This place was nothing like a Beggar Sect lodge. Here, three meals filled his belly, no one bullied or beat him, no one robbed him of the copper coins he needed to stay alive. On the contrary, they even paid him wages. The instructors were fierce during drills, but it was fair — they only struck those who didn't put in the effort to learn real skills.

After drill, the instructors were all easy to deal with; some even told stories for everyone to hear. Everyone's daily needs were well looked after, someone checked the bunks at night, and all injuries and illnesses were attended to. Here, Yang Er tasted the feeling of "home" for the first time.

Now he no longer resisted his identity as a lowly soldier so much. Though he was still timid and still shrank back when trouble arose, that was forged in hardship and would take time to purge — a scoundrel who wasn't slippery would have long since died in the stinking gutters of Hangzhou City.

Setting out with the troops today, Yang Er and the other trainees were each still issued only a single machete as a weapon. High-difficulty stuff like spears and AKs — forget it for trainees, lest they carelessly get themselves killed. The operation hadn't counted on them in the first place. For these young people who had consumed so much of the Transmigrators' painstaking effort, this battle was more like an expensive live-combat observation.