Chapter 331: The Strategy of Great Xia and the Idea of Forming a Militia

Ren Baqian’s doubts were quickly dispelled by the answers he received from the frontlines and confirmed that his conjectures were correct.

That section of the Great Xia army obtained provisions from Yusheng City, which were enough to supply them with half a month of rations. This section then separated themselves from the supply line of Great Xia.

As a result, the speed of their military advance was impeded.

However, they were not bothered by this because the soldiers of the Protectorate General of the North were too busy to chase them, and they only needed to capture the rest of the cities within this half a month.

To put it simply, they were an isolated army.

Since the other Great Xia soldiers were entangled with the northern forces of Dayao, the isolated army had to rely on themselves for their own rations. If they found themselves stuck in a certain city, they would have to rely on the other Great Xia forces taking great risks to establish a supply line that delivered additional rations into their hands. Consequently, they would collapse if they were to run out of rations.

However, Great Xia dared to let a lone troop travel deep into the north of Dayao because they had the ability to rely on themselves.

This was because the Dayao soldiers that could be mobilized were all pinned down.

As for the 200 to 1,000 guards in each and every city and town of Dayao, they weren’t able to resist this well-organized troop.

On top of this, many practitioners from Great Xia’s sects were attached to this troop as well.

Therefore, before the arrival of the reinforcements from the Protectorate General of the South, Dayao had no choice but to tolerate the lone troop in their interior.

What Dayao had to do now was very simple, which was to destroy them.

Besides being strong individually, the people of Dayao were inherently weak in all aspects of agriculture. If everything was destroyed and many refugees left the cities, a prolonged war would drag Dayao down.

There were about 10 million aboriginals in total, and most of them stayed within the Sixty Thousand Mountains. In the plains, there were 3 to 4 million aboriginals, and Dayao could barely sustain them based on their current situation. If most of the fields and livestock were destroyed, Dayao’s imperial treasury would be emptied to prevent the large number of resulting refugees from starving.

Earlier on, it was already difficult for Dayao to provide rations for the 20,000 new recruits. It was only after the war started that they decided to add another 20,000 new recruits, indicating just how empty the state treasury was.

Could they just ignore the fate of these refugees? It must be remembered that these refugees weren’t like ordinary refugees who had meager fighting capabilities. The commoners in Dayao were all capable fighters.

By that time, Dayao would have already descended into chaos.

Great Xia also shared the same view. This was why they initiated with a continuous wave of attacks. It would be ideal if they could advance through multiple paths, but if they were blocked, it certainly meant that they had encountered a huge part of the aboriginal forces. As there was a limited number of aboriginal soldiers, locking down a large portion of them would enable the rest of the Great Xia soldiers to be deployed in the interior of Dayao.

Apart from the small amount of news from the frontlines, the strategy of Great Xia was based on Ren Baqian’s speculations.

He didn’t know whether his speculations were accurate, but they were based on what he would do. If this was what Great Xia planned to do, it would cause serious harm to Dayao. The region north of Lan City comprised of at least half of the land settled by the aboriginals, if not more. They were now exposed to enemy aggression from the other side. If this land was destroyed and unable to produce any crops, the impact on Dayao would be enormous.

He and Great Xia totally differed on one point, however.

Great Xia believed that with a stalemate in the war, the damaged region of Dayao wouldn’t be able to resume production and that with the ecological damage, food production would be reduced as well. The daily living conditions would get worse inside Dayao and more problems would be highlighted, causing Dayao to become weaker and weaker.

It was just like a healthy person whose immune system was destroyed, causing him or her to suffer from all kinds of diseases before finally dying.

Conversely, in the opinion of Ren Baqian, the ripening of the high yield crops like sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and potatoes, while not suitable for military rations, would have no problem keeping the refugees from starving to death. Consequently, when the wartime fighting potential of Dayao was unleashed, Dayao would get stronger and stronger instead.

It must not be forgotten that Dayao had enlisted 20,000 new recruits. According to the battle loss ratio, this meant Great Xia had to enlist 200,000 recruits.

However, all of the aboriginals could be considered as soldiers, and up to a million soldiers could be recruited from a population of 10 million natives. Could this be done in Great Xia? Even though the population of Great Xia was 10 times the size of Dayao, the training of the recruits in Great Xia was much slower when compared to that of Dayao.

While Dayao only needed half a year to train their recruits, Great Xia needed at least two years to train the recruits.

When Great Xia’s elite soldiers were used up, would they then send their farmers to war?

Of course, the crux of this matter was the high yield crops like the sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and potatoes that could fill the stomach and comfort the people in Dayao. This was something that Great Xia didn’t know about because they were new crops.

Furthermore, Dayao also had the biggest trump card, which was none other than Ren Baqian himself. As long as there was enough ammunition and enough soldiers to stop the experts from the other side, Ren Baqian felt he could defeat 10,000 enemies alone.

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Ren Baqian turned his head to look at the ammunition boxes on the backs of the fork-horned cows and continued to write and draw in his book. The details were all about the current war, his analysis, and his speculations.

Ren Baqian felt that based on the present situation and his own conjectures, if the war continued along this path, Great Xia could inflict great damage on Dayao. Yet, they would still find it difficult to completely defeat Dayao.

This was the case unless Great Xia had some killer weapons that hadn’t been deployed yet.

As for whether his conjectures were correct, he only had to look at the movements of the Great Xia soldiers in Yusheng City to know.

If the other party were really planning to act as he expected, then what they would do next would be to spread out to the remote areas to mop-up before regrouping to attack the cities. Next, they would repeat this cycle again.

“What are you writing about?” Lin Qiaole asked while riding and swaying on the back of the fork-horned cow.

She had been swaying and dozing off on the cow for three days, but ultimately, she still hadn’t fallen off.

The reason for this was because she had bound herself tightly with ropes to the back of the fork-horned cow.

Ren Baqian didn’t understand how useful an expert like her, who was bound tightly, would be if they ran into their opponents. He figured that he couldn’t wait for her to slowly untie herself since he would have already been reduced to ashes by then.

“Some conjectures,” Ren Baqian said as he closed the book.

“Oh.” Hearing him say this, Lin Qiaole couldn’t be bothered to ask anymore.

“There are no more candies!” Lin Qiaole exclaimed expectantly.

“Do not bother me when you get a toothache!” Ren Baqian took out a packet of White Rabbit Creamy Candies from a bag on the back of the fork-horned cow and tossed it to Lin Qiaole. She immediately perked up, smiling as her eyes sparkled.

The news came quickly, and on the second day, they heard that the army of Great Xia, which had invaded Yusheng City, had split up and were heading out in different directions.

Upon hearing this news, Ren Baqian instantly knew that the other party was acting according to what he had anticipated, so he announced the attacking strategy of Great Xia on the radio station.

“What is the probability of this thing happening?” The weak voice of Hong Wu was heard from the radio station.

“After all the impossible causes have been ruled out, what is left is the truth.” Ren Baqian adjusted his sunglasses. “War is not just about killing and injuring the enemies, destroying their economy and production is also an effective tactic.”

“These 80,000 soldiers are not all of what Great Xia has. Don’t forget, they have another 200,000 soldiers, and a portion of this contingent could join forces with those soldiers outside Liao City. Moreover, another portion could continue to penetrate inland. These are all entirely possible. ”

“Cough, cough! Protector General Li, what do you think?” Hong Wu asked.

“I think there is a possibility of this happening,” Li Qianqiu said after a short pause.

“I also agree that there is a possibility,” Hong Wu said softly.

After hearing this discussion over the radio station, the empress, who was in Liao City, tapped her finger lightly on the arm of her chair and gently asked, “What do all of you think?”

Both Hong Wu and Li Qianqiu frowned.

“Your humble servant has an idea,” Ren Baqian immediately said.

“Speak up!” The empress nodded her head even though her actions could not be seen by Ren Baqian.

“Besides the few cities in the throes of war, there are 16 towns and cities north of Lan City with 4,600 troops from the Protectorate General of the South guarding them.

What if these 4,600 soldiers were transferred out? With the current situation in every city and town, it is very difficult to withstand the attacks from the Great Xia army, so we can only delay them for some time. In that case, why not bring out these soldiers and merge them together to give the enemies more trouble. Otherwise, even when the 5,000 reinforcement soldiers from the Protectorate General of the South arrive, it will be very tough to stop the over 80,000 Great Xia soldiers and sect practitioners.”

“This plan would leave the area north of Lan City completely defenseless, and the other party would not even need to join forces, but would only need to spread out and attack.” Hong Wu shook his head gently and thought that Ren Baqian was being too simplistic.

“We can form a militia. The army was previously affected by weaponry and food shortages, but the weaponry problem has already been resolved. As for food, each aboriginal family should contribute since they are protecting their own homes. Furthermore, each aboriginal will receive a steel saber for a weapon. As such, I presume that many will be interested in joining the militia.

During this period, wartime achievements will be recorded and rewards will be given out after the war.”

“Please narrate the details!” The empress’s interest was aroused, and she found the militia idea refreshing.

“Assign a small number of elite soldiers as the bare bones crew needed to hold the fort. Then, the commoners will be the flesh. They will be trained whenever they are unoccupied so that they can protect our nation during wartime.”