Chapter 175

"Open the city gates, the whole army attacks!"

Seeing the enemy camp fall into chaos, Li Mu ordered decisively.

In an instant, the defenders killed their way out of the city in an orderly fashion. Under the cover of artillery fire, they launched an attack on the rebel camp.

Even the best defensive fortifications need people to guard them.

The camp gates remained tightly closed, but the defending soldiers had fled to the rear, directly handing over the gateway.

To avoid friendly fire, the artillery on the city walls had stopped working, replaced by infantry field artillery.

The range was much shorter, but the lethality was not weak at all.

The rebels finally mustered the courage to try to counterattack, but the artillery volley disrupted their formation. A few soldiers rushed to the front of the formation and directly became targets for the musketeers.

After failure upon failure, the rebels' morale plummeted. Everyone just wanted to run to the rear and was unwilling to stay and fight to the death.

Especially those Tusi soldiers, who were the most active in fleeing. No matter how the commander ordered, they ignored him.

Kong Siliu, as the commander, was panicking.

The army was rapidly collapsing, and he had to bear the main responsibility.

The enemy's long-range artillery strikes had no accuracy to speak of. The panic created was far greater than the actual damage.

If it weren't for him leading the way to run to the rear camp in panic, the army wouldn't have collapsed so quickly.

Especially the retreat order while running—it looked like preserving the army's vitality, but in reality, it exacerbated the army's chaos.

All units fled, handing over half the camp.

The army was all huddled in the rear camp, and the dense crowd created favorable conditions for the enemy's artillery attack.

With the accuracy remaining the same, the lethality was directly doubled.

"Marquis, military morale is lost; this battle cannot be fought anymore.

Order a retreat!

After gathering the other two armies, we will concentrate our forces to fight a decisive battle with the pseudo-dynasty!"

Secretary Zhou advised.

War is about military morale; once morale collapses, no matter how many troops there are, they can only contribute battle results to the enemy.

Deep in his heart, he was full of worry about the future of the Bai Lian Holy Kingdom.

Marquis Zhongxiao was already considered a fierce general in the Holy Kingdom.

However, that was when commanding a few thousand troops; after the subordinate units grew, the disadvantage of insufficient command ability was exposed.

Judging from the actual situation on the battlefield, this was a typical case of an incompetent general tiring out three armies.

Yet he could only keep these words in his stomach.

It wasn't just the commander who had problems; they, the advisors, also hadn't expected the situation to develop like this.

The formulated combat plans were all based on past experience in fighting the imperial army.

They never expected to hit an iron plate today.

Past experience became the main factor in the army's collapse.

"Good!"

"Pass the order down: fill in the pits in the rear, and the army retreats!"

Kong Siliu ordered through gritted teeth.

Years of grassroots life had taught him to bow to reality.

However, his heart was still full of unwillingness; this battle was lost too unjustly.

If the enemy hadn't been lucky, with a shell hitting his commander's tent, he wouldn't have made a wrong decision in the panic.

If he had organized a defense in time, the enemy would never have broken through the camp so easily.

As for the enemy's artillery attack, he could just use human lives to fill it. He didn't believe the pseudo-dynasty was so corrupt that it could equip the front line with so much ammunition.

In previous great battles, the imperial army's artillery would always fire wildly for a while before losing its ability to attack.

Either the artillery exploded, or the ammunition was exhausted.

As the war progressed, the Bai Lian Holy Kingdom also captured quite a few cannons. Unfortunately, the Holy Kingdom's gunpowder production capacity was limited, and the quality was also problematic.

Ammunition was mainly imported from the neighboring Annan Kingdom; not only was the price high, but the quality was also very poor, and it was completely unable to be popularized to the whole army.

"Pass the order down: those who surrender will not be killed; the court treats prisoners of war well!"

Seeing the army break into the rebel camp, Li Mu, who was watching the battle on the city wall, hurriedly ordered.

Great Dayu counts military merit mainly with heads as a reference. In the eyes of soldiers, rebel soldiers are military merit and silver.

If he let them play freely, there would be no prisoners to see.

Apart from a few stubborn elements, the rest were excellent labor. Great Dayu didn't lack people, but Li Mu lacked free labor.

The gentry in Guangxi fell, and he, the Regional Military Commissioner, got full. A large amount of unregistered ownerless land was waiting for him to receive.

Anyway, this is a place for exiling criminals, and in the eyes of the court, it has always been a poor and remote place. If the garrison takes more land, it won't be an eyesore.

"Regional Military Commissioner Li, are the rebels all this kind of stuff?"

Jia Bo, who was watching the battle on the side, asked with full confusion.

The victory came too suddenly, and he felt it wasn't real.

It was as if the rebels were made of paper; they would break with a single poke.

"Master Jia, this was an accident.

The rebel commander should have lacked experience in commanding large army groups; he made a wrong decision after being shelled, which triggered the collapse.

If the enemy had fewer troops and chose to stay away from the artillery range, there wouldn't have been any problems at all.

The enemy's defeat was mainly due to command errors; it doesn't mean their combat effectiveness was poor.

If you look closely at the local battlefield, there were still brave men fighting hard!"

After listening to Li Mu's explanation, Jia Bo became even more confused.

Isn't it better to have more troops on the battlefield?

How could the same order be correct when there were few troops, but become a mistake when there were many!

The rebels' hard fighting on the local battlefield was directly ignored by him.

Once military morale collapses, it's not something individual strength can save.

It was perfectly normal for there to be a few brave men among the rebels.

What puzzled him most was that if the rebels were so easy to deal with, why was the imperial army still collapsing on all battlefields?

With a belly full of doubts, no one could answer him.

At this moment, Li Mu's vision was focused on the battlefield; he had no time to pay attention to the Army Supervisor's thoughts.

Great Dayu likes to judge heroes by success or failure.

If you win on the battlefield, then everything is easy to say.

Regardless of whether the enemy was useless or you were powerful, none of it matters.

The court only wants victory; the Ministry of War only recognizes heads, prisoners of war, and recovered lost territory when verifying military merit.

Kong Siliu, who fled from the camp, had just breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the cavalry waiting in full battle array ahead.

"Soldiers, follow me and kill a bloody path!"

When the distance between the two armies narrowed to three hundred meters, they were met with a rain of rockets.

The "Beehive" invented to deal with grassland cavalry was now used on the rebels.

Various standard rockets took turns performing.

The rebel cavalry charging in the front were instantly shot into sieves.

In the blink of an eye, Kong Siliu found himself charging at the very front of the team.

The personal guards protecting him were now either dead or lying on the ground wailing.

The whistling cold wind blew, and the courage he had finally mustered was extinguished again.

Before he could make a decision, he saw a row of war chariots pushed out from the enemy ranks, and on them were artillery pieces specifically for cavalry.

The roaring artillery fire sounded, causing the team to fall into chaos again.

Kong Siliu, as the commander, was carried to the front of the enemy lines by the warhorse's inertia.

Then, many bullet holes were added to his body, and with unwillingness and nostalgia in his eyes, he made his final farewell to the world.

The sky gradually darkened, and the great battle gradually entered its final stages.

The dark night provided convenience for fleeing, but it was also the most effective at breaking a person's will.

"Those who surrender will not be killed; the court treats prisoners of war well!"

"Those who surrender will not be killed; the court treats prisoners of war well!"

Following the shouts of the imperial soldiers, more and more rebel soldiers chose to lay down their weapons and surrender.

At this moment, no Bai Lian Holy Mother or Bai Lian Holy Emperor could compare to the importance of their own lives.

Late at night.

The victory banquet was held again; soldiers celebrated the victory, and generals were busy counting the results.

Report after report gathered toward Li Mu, leaving him, the commander, with no time to rest.

Battle reports need to be embellished; this kind of work must be decided by him, the commander.

He couldn't rest easy leaving such an important matter to those below.

If a joke were made, given the nature of the civil officials in the court, they would definitely record it in the history books with heavy strokes.

When it comes to suppressing military generals, they have never spared any effort.

"Regional Military Commissioner Li, why didn't you attend the victory banquet?"

Hearing this familiar voice, Li Mu was speechless.

Being busy embellishing the battle report was naturally to fool the court.

There was no other way; the battle results looked too fake.

Without inflating some losses, those old men in the Ministry of War wouldn't believe it at all.

In order to reduce trouble and also to swindle more pension money, he had to work hard to fake it.

The temporary battalion of Embroidered Uniform Guards that came with him had been mostly killed in battle, and now it was still not enough.

Now he could only forge the roster, falsely increasing a group of non-existent soldiers and recording them on the list of those killed in action.

Doing this kind of work naturally required avoiding the Army Supervisor.

For this reason, he specifically let Jing Yifeng lead people to get Jia Bo drunk, buying time for the forgery.

Judging from the results, Jia Bo was indeed drunk, but he still ran over to cause trouble.

"Master Jia, the rebels in Xunzhou have been solved, but the other two rebel armies are still there.

As the commander of the army, I have to consider the next combat plan; I really have no heart to celebrate!

Master Jia, I'll leave the matter of entertaining the meritorious officials to you.

What are you still stunned for? Hurry and send Master Jia to attend the victory banquet."

Li Mu fooled him casually.

While speaking, regardless of Jia Bo's opposition, he dragged him back to the banquet scene.

The generals in the army who received the hint toasted Jia Bo one after another, not giving him any chance to refuse.

(End of chapter)