Fu Shanhe

Chapter 175 Unequal War
"Open the city gates and attack with all your forces!"

Seeing that the enemy camp was in chaos, Li Mu decisively gave orders.

In an instant, the defenders rushed out of the city in an orderly manner and launched an attack on the rebel camp under the cover of artillery fire.

No matter how good the fortifications are, they still need people to guard them.

The camp gate was still closed, but the defending soldiers fled to the rear and simply handed over the gate.

In order to avoid accidentally hurting their own people, the artillery on the city wall has stopped working at this moment, and has been replaced by infantry field artillery.

The range is much shorter, but the lethality is no weaker.

The rebels finally mustered up the courage to fight back, but the artillery volleys disrupted their formation. The few soldiers who rushed to the front of the formation became targets for the musketeers.

After repeated failures, the morale of the rebels dropped greatly. They just wanted to run to the rear and were not willing to stay and fight to the death.

Especially the Tusi soldiers, they were the most eager to escape. No matter what the commander ordered, they ignored it.

As the head coach, Kong Siliu was extremely panicked at the moment.

He was primarily responsible for the rapid defeat of the army.

The enemy's long-range artillery attacks had no chance of hitting the target, and the panic they created far outweighed the actual casualties.

If he had not led the way to run to the rear camp in panic, the army would not have collapsed so quickly.

Especially the retreat order during the escape, which seemed to be to preserve the vitality of the army, but in fact it aggravated the chaos of the army.

The various tribes fled for their lives, leaving half of the camp to the enemy.

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

While the hit rate remains unchanged, the lethality is directly doubled.

"My Lord, the morale of the army has been lost, and this battle cannot be fought any longer.

Order a withdrawal!
After we gather the other two armies, we will concentrate our forces and fight a decisive battle with the Pseudo-Dynasty!"

Master Zhou began to persuade.

Wars are fought with military morale. Once morale collapses, no matter how many troops there are, they can only contribute to the enemy.

Deep down in his heart, he was filled with worries about the future of the Holy White Lotus Kingdom.

Marquis Zhongxiao is considered one of the most powerful generals in the Holy Kingdom.

However, that was when he was commanding thousands of troops. As the number of troops under his command increased, the shortcomings of his insufficient command ability were exposed.

Judging from the actual situation on the battlefield, this is a typical case of one incompetent general leading to the exhaustion of the entire army.

But he could only keep these words in his stomach.

It wasn't just the head coach who had problems; his staff also didn't expect the situation to develop in this way.

The battle plans were all based on previous experience in fighting against government troops.

I never expected to hit a wall today.

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

"it is good!"

"Pass the order down, fill up the pits in the rear, and evacuate the army!"

Kong Siliu gritted his teeth and gave the order.

Years of living at the bottom of society have taught him to submit to reality.

But I still feel unwilling to accept this defeat, as it was such an unfair defeat.

If the enemy had not been lucky and a shell had not hit his camp, he would not have made the wrong decision in a panic.

If the defense had been organized in time, it would not have been so easy for the enemy to break through the camp.

As for the enemy's artillery attack, the worst that could happen was that they would lose their lives. He didn't believe that the Puppet Dynasty was so corrupt that it could provide much ammunition to the front line.

In previous battles, the government army's artillery fired indiscriminately for a while and then lost its attack capability.

Either the artillery exploded or the ammunition was exhausted.

As the war progressed, the Holy Kingdom of White Lotus had also seized a lot of artillery. Unfortunately, the Holy Kingdom's gunpowder production capacity was limited and the quality was also problematic.

The ammunition was mainly imported from the neighboring country of Annan. Not only was it expensive, but the quality was also very poor, making it impossible to popularize it among the entire army.

……

"Pass the order down, those who surrender will not be killed, and the court will treat prisoners well!"

Seeing the army attacking the rebel camp, Li Mu, who was watching the battle on the city wall, hurriedly gave orders.

The Great Yu Dynasty counted military merits mainly based on heads. In the eyes of the soldiers, the rebels were just military merits and silver.

If they were allowed to play freely, there would be no prisoners.

Except for a few stubborn elements, the rest were good labor. The Dayu Dynasty was not short of people, but Li Mu lacked free labor.

The gentry in Guangxi fell, and he, the commander-in-chief, was well fed. A large amount of unregistered unowned land was waiting for him to take over.

Anyway, this is where criminals are exiled, and it has always been a poor and remote place in the eyes of the court. It won't be noticeable if the garrison takes more land.

"Commander Li, are all the rebels like this?"

Jia Bo, who was watching the fight from the side, asked with a puzzled look on his face.

Victory came so suddenly that it seemed unreal to him.

It's as if the rebels are made of paper and will break with just a poke.

“Master Jia, this was an accident.

The rebel commander probably lacked experience in commanding large troops and made a wrong decision after being bombarded, which led to the defeat.

If the enemy has fewer troops and chooses to stay away from the artillery range, there will be no problem at all.

The enemy's defeat was mainly due to mistakes in command, which does not mean that their combat effectiveness was poor.

If you look carefully at the local battlefield, you will see that there are still brave men fighting hard!"

After listening to Li Mu's explanation, Jia Bo became more confused. Isn't it true that the more soldiers there are on the battlefield, the better?
How come the same order is correct when there are fewer soldiers, but becomes wrong when there are more soldiers!

He simply ignored the rebels' hard fighting on the local battlefield.

The morale of the army has collapsed and it cannot be restored by any individual effort.

It is only natural that there are a few brave men among the rebels.

What puzzled him most was why the government troops were suffering defeat on various battlefields when the rebels were so easy to deal with.

He was full of doubts and no one could answer him.

At this moment, Li Mu's attention was focused on the battlefield and he had no time to pay attention to the military supervisor's thoughts.

Dayu likes to judge a hero by his success or failure.

If we win on the battlefield, then everything will be easy.

It doesn't matter whether your enemy is useless or you are really good.

As long as the imperial court won, the Ministry of War would only recognize heads, prisoners of war, and recovered lost territories as military merit.

Kong Siliu, who had just escaped from the camp, breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the cavalry in front of him ready for battle.

"Soldiers, follow me and fight your way out!"

When the distance between the two armies was reduced to 300 meters, a rain of rockets hit them head-on.

The "swarm" strategy, invented to deal with grassland cavalry, was now used against the rebels.

Rockets of various types began to be launched one after another.

The rebel cavalry rushing in the front were shot into sieves in an instant.

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

The personal soldiers who were guarding around were either dead or lying on the ground wailing.

The howling cold wind blew past, and the courage that I had finally mustered was extinguished again.

Before he could make a decision, he saw a row of chariots pushed out from the enemy's ranks, with cannons specially designed for cavalry on them.

The rumbling sound of artillery fire threw the team into chaos again.

As the commander-in-chief, Kong Siliu was brought to the front of the enemy's formation under the inertia of his horse's charge.

Then many bullet holes appeared on his body, and with reluctance and nostalgia in his eyes, he said his final farewell to the world.

The sky gradually darkened and the battle gradually came to an end.

The darkness makes it easy to escape, but it is also the most likely to crush a person's will.

"Those who surrender will not be killed, and the court will treat prisoners well!"

"Those who surrender will not be killed, and the court will treat prisoners well!"

As the government troops shouted, more and more rebel soldiers chose to lay down their weapons and surrender.

At this moment, the White Lotus Holy Mother and the White Lotus Holy Emperor are not as important as your life.

……

late at night.

A celebration banquet was held again, the soldiers celebrated the victory, and the generals were busy counting the results of the battle.

Report after report came to Li Mu, leaving the head coach very busy.

The battle report needs to be revised, and this kind of work must be decided by him as the head coach.

He was worried about leaving such an important matter to his subordinates.

If something funny happened, given the bad nature of the officials in the court, it would definitely be recorded in history books.

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

"Commander Li, why didn't you attend the celebration banquet?"

Hearing this familiar voice, Li Mu was speechless.

He was busy embellishing the war reports, naturally in order to fool the imperial court.

There's no way, the results look too fake.

Those masters in the Ministry of War simply don't believe that the losses are not exaggerated.

In order to reduce trouble and to obtain more pension money, he had to work hard on forging information.

Most of the Jinyiwei temporary battalion that came with him had been killed in the battle, and there were still not enough people now.

Now they can only forge the roster and fictitiously add a group of non-existent soldiers and record them on the list of casualties.

To do this kind of work, one naturally has to avoid the military supervisor.

For this purpose, he specifically asked Jing Yifeng to bring people to get Jia Bo drunk in order to buy time for the fraud.

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

"Master Jia, the rebels in Xunzhou have been dealt with, but the other two rebel groups are still there.

As the commander-in-chief of the army, I have to think about the next battle plan and have no intention of celebrating!

Lord Jia, I'll leave it to you to take care of entertaining the meritorious officials.

What are you still standing there for? Send Master Jia to the celebration banquet immediately."

Li Mu said casually.

As he spoke, he dragged the man back to the banquet despite Jia Bo's objection.

The generals in the army who got the hint toasted Jia Bo one after another, leaving him no chance to refuse.

……

(End of this chapter)