Chapter 2021: Retrieval

The thirty people they escaped with—he has no idea where they have gone now.

"Alas, I blew up the distillery, and only the thirty of us escaped; I have no idea where they are now either."

Zhang Mang let out a heavy sigh.

Although he had led these people to escape, it had only given them a glimmer of hope; now, he did not even know where the others were.

Jiang Xuelan nodded and said, "We have already scouted the location of the distillery; we originally intended to go to the distillery to find you all..."

Zhang Mang looked at Jiang Xuelan, a flash of pain crossing his eyes, and said, "It's useless. The French have long since made all kinds of preparations; whether you go or not makes no difference."

"Others have gone before; they even saw us, but there was no Method. In our records, we are nothing but criminals to the French."

Hearing this, Jiang Xuelan clenched her fists in anger; she could not imagine that the French could commit such base and shameless acts!

She said in a deep voice, "The French will surely pay the price for their actions!"

At this moment, Yang Dong was also brought in by Qian Dahao. Seeing that Zhang Mang was unharmed, she let out a sigh of relief, and tears she could not hold back streamed down her eyes.

She threw herself into Zhang Mang's arms and said, "Thank goodness you're alright. When I saw the French coming out from inside, I thought you had met with misfortune."

Zhang Mang felt the warmth in his arms; this was his first time in such close contact with a woman, and his heart was pounding violently.

A man who had never changed his expression on the battlefield suddenly turned bright red.

"Ahem, ahem, ahem..." Jiang Xuelan pretended to cough nearby.

Only then did Yang Dong notice Jiang Xuelan and realize how bold her current actions were; she hurriedly pulled away from Zhang Mang's embrace.

Zhang Mang looked at Jiang Xuelan and introduced her to Yang Dong, "This is Miss Jiang, someone sent by Longyan to help us."

"Miss Jiang, this is Yang Dong, our scientist..."

Jiang Xuelan nodded slightly, while Yang Dong's face was full of excitement.

She said with a trembling, tearful voice:

"I thought Longyan had forgotten about us all..."

Jiang Xuelan looked at her tattered clothing and the chilling, terrifying scars on her face; Jiang Xuelan understood at once that she was in a desperate situation, and every second was an ordeal of suffering.

Under such circumstances, being consumed by fear was undoubtedly despairing.

Jiang Xuelan took a deep breath and said solemnly to Yang Dong in a resolute tone, "We will absolutely not abandon a single compatriot!"

"Lord Liu Zheng is very worried about your safety. Lord Li Hongtian will arrive in France very soon, and he will come to uphold justice for you all!"

At this time, on Australia.

The Longyan fleet was fighting the French forces all across Australia.

The French forces had almost exhausted their last reserves of strength, yet they still could not defeat the Longyan Navy.

The Battleship and Weaponry and Equipment of the two sides were simply not on the same level.

Now, the sea was filled with the wails of French Soldier, and from day to night, the sea was filled with miserable cries, scaring the ordinary people into thinking they had arrived in a ghost realm.

The battle at sea had already entered a white-hot stage.

But by this time, the Longyan army had already occupied several ports held by the French forces.

The Australian front was collapsing across the board.

In the war, the Longyan army's victory was indeed somewhat effortless.

Although the naval strength of the French forces was powerful, facing the Longyan Navy, it was still somewhat inadequate.

Especially under such combat effectiveness.

But the French navy had erupted with an astonishing level of combat.

By comparison, the French forces guarding the ports on the shore appeared exceptionally clumsy, and even seemed to have forgotten how to fight.

Just like at Sydney Port, even though the old General Li had already led the troops to attack the main force of the French troops, the other French units had clearly seen it and were aware of it.

Yet, because of the orders Delu had previously issued, they did not act rashly.

Instead, they were defeated one by one by the Longyan army's landing forces.

Thanks to Delu's suicidal behavior—after he came up with such a pathetic plan to kidnap Xie Fang in an attempt to threaten Longyan into letting him live—

In this battle where he could see no hope of victory, Delu directly announced his surrender.

The final result was that he was captured by the Longyan army general Wu Kunpeng.

The current Australian war situation, due to the capture of the supreme commander, was in a state of total disarray across the entire battlefield.

Especially after Zuo Zhizhong's troops captured Sydney Port, those French naval forces saw that the bases they could dock at and rely on to continue a Protracted War had been occupied by the Longyan army.

They completely abandoned the idea of continuing to fight the Longyan army. Thinking of this,

Their Battleship immediately turned around and chose to retreat without looking back; Delu was captured, and the port was lost.

This battle already signaled their defeat.

There was no need for them to continue fighting here; for them, continuing to fight would only cause their Battleship to suffer heavy blows.

Rather than that, it was better to choose to retreat, so as to preserve their combat strength and give later forces a chance to make a comeback.

The Australian war situation ended in failure for the French forces!

The victorious Longyan army quickly launched a mopping-up operation against the French forces on the battlefield, targeting the French forces on the island that had not managed to evacuate in time.

Seeing their main force's warships fleeing the battlefield in a sorry state, those troops who had no Method to evacuate could only curse the cowardly and shameless behavior of their own troops on the sea.

"You are simply the shame of France!"

"You bastards are not worthy of being called the Gallic Rooster!"

But no matter how they cursed or how they spat, their troops would never return to this place to pick them up.

The cruelty of this battle had thoroughly made them realize the terror of the Longyan Navy's Battleship once its firepower was fully unleashed.

Their Patrol Ship Strike Group and the Yinzhou ship were invincible forces on such a vast and boundless ocean.

They possessed the fastest speed, the most powerful Cannon, and the thickest defense.

They felt what it meant to be crushed!

After the French navy heartlessly abandoned their troops and retreated rapidly, the Longyan Navy supply ships, due to the distance and after making an assessment, ultimately decided to let these French Battleships, which could no longer pose a threat to them, depart.

Following the landing of the Longyan army, and with large numbers of French troops failing in battle, being killed or captured.

The situation in Australia changed completely.

The French Soldiers who were previously acting tyrannically at sea had now become prisoners.

But Li He could not feel the joy of victory in this war at all.

His five sworn brothers had almost all died in battle, and even the blood relatives of his brothers had, in the end, been forced to die by his own hands.