In the afternoon of that day, after Wei Sheng finished searching the small town for supplies, he led his army back to Nuer City.
After all the troops returned, Jiang Ze got the most detailed report. After reading it, he held a military meeting.
During the meeting, Jiang Ze directly pointed out the mistakes Wei Sheng made during the siege. For example, he was the only one who did not concentrate the siege ram on a certain point. Whenever he encountered stubborn resistance from the defenders, he changed positions, resulting in another attack. Re-attack the city. Of course Wei Sheng also defended himself, saying that the defenders continued to drop grenades and incendiary bombs, causing the ground to become pitted and bumpy, making it difficult to exert the power of the battering ram, so he had to change many positions.
However, Wei Sheng was no match for Jiang Ze. No matter how he argued, Jiang Ze would have reasons to refute. For example, he said that it was entirely possible to only dispatch a battering ram to attract the opponent's grenades and incendiary bombs. In such a small town, the number of grenades and ammunition must be very limited, so it is easy to trick them into using up all the grenades and incendiary bombs on the first battering ram. In addition to this method, you can also use things to attack at the same time. In such a small town, there must be no intelligent generals left to guard it. When the defenders see the enemy coming from the east, they must use all their ammunition on the east side. At this time, as long as the west attacks at the same time, the opponent will be caught off guard and will have no time to prepare, so the wall can be broken within an hour. In short, there are many methods, and almost every method will be faster than Wei Sheng's method.
Wei Sheng was aggrieved after being criticized by Jiang Ze. Just as he was about to get angry, Jiang Ze suddenly raised a new topic, which was to hold Wei Sheng accountable.
"There are a total of 512 people in the small town, why are there only more than 300 prisoners? What happened here, do you want to tell it, or do I tell it?" Jiang Ze's imposing manner frightened Wei Sheng completely out of his anger.
Wei Sheng hesitated and couldn't explain why, because it was indeed Wei Sheng who did something wrong.
When Jiang Ze saw that Wei Sheng was silent, he took the initiative to speak for him: "Originally, after the city was broken, the defenders surrendered quickly, but you ignored them and still captured more than a dozen female militiamen. You captured the female militiamen." I won’t talk about the purpose here. Those who were related to the female militiamen clashed with the army again in order to save the female militiamen, which resulted in the deaths of more than a hundred people."
This time, Wei Sheng did not refute, he knew he had made a mistake and he admitted it. But if he could go back in time, he would probably do it again, because raping and killing women was his only motivation to fight.
In the end, Jiang Ze did not punish Wei Sheng. After all, he won the battle. Although it was only a small victory, it was barely able to survive, which meant that Wei Sheng did not get any military merit points this time.
No one else had any objection to this result, not even Wei Sheng himself. For him, military merit and other points are really not very important. You know, after Wei Sheng and Wei Jing establish a relationship, they can become a civil servant in the capital and live a life of fine clothes and fine food. However, Wei Sheng chose to go to the front line. He was not afraid of fighting or sacrifice, as long as his perverted needs could be satisfied.
To be honest, not only Jiang Ze, but also Wei Jing could not understand Wei Sheng. His hobbies are so perverted that he must rape and kill women to be satisfied. This kind of perverted demand cannot be met by even Ao Lie, let alone Wei Jing. To reasonably satisfy this need, only war can achieve it.
Therefore, Wei Sheng was born to fight and lived to fight.
Having seen through this, Jiang Ze no longer insisted on finding excuses to kill Wei Sheng, nor was he harsh on him, because he knew that people like Wei Sheng would not live long and would go wherever there was war. No matter what.
After the meeting, Luo Erhu went to see Jiang Ze alone, nominally just to chat.
Although Jiang Ze did not refuse, he was really afraid that Luo Erhu would come for Wei Sheng again, so he directly said: "It has nothing to do with Wei Sheng, right?"
"No no."
"Really do not have?"
"It's really not true. Xiaosheng is very satisfied with the result of this handling. He is satisfied, so I won't have nothing to do."
"Okay, so what do you want to talk about?"
"I just don't understand. In the past, we massacred small towns like this at every turn and established our reputation as a tiger and wolf force. But in today's meeting, you actually advocated a soft policy. If you can't, you won't kill. If you can, capture alive." The enemy's military merit points are much higher than the military merit points of killing the enemy. I don't quite understand that if we become so gentle, then our siege efficiency will definitely become very slow."
"The situation now is different from before. In the past, we just invaded the Chu country and had to establish a deterrent force. Now, we have hundreds of thousands of Chu civilians, and most of our soldiers are Chu people. Let the Chu people Capturing the Chu people's city is already too much, do you still force them to massacre the city?"
"I see, so now we have to win people's hearts, right?"
"That's right, if we want to do big things in the future, we will mainly rely on these surrendered troops and these Chu people."
"Brother, I really admire you. Many people used to say you were cruel, but in fact they didn't even understand you."
"Don't blame them, they only have one idea. And your brother's mind contains countless histories of ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad. Based on different situations, I will analyze the policies that are most beneficial to us." Jiang Ze smiled.
"However, if we want to consider winning people's hearts, then our westward march will be very slow. According to the reconnaissance report, other members of the five-star general are gathering personnel to evacuate to the capital from the northern and western fronts. They are gathering all available resources With the strength of our troops, it is obvious that we need to make a big move."
"Yes, I'm afraid they are discussing and planning every day how to take back Nuer City. However, we don't need to panic. If we guess correctly, the small towns around Nuer City will surrender soon, and there is no need to even fight."
"Why is this?"
"Because they belong to the people who were abandoned by the Chu State. There are countless large and small cities in the surrounding cities of Nuer City, but each city has not been emptied. A small number of troops or temporarily armed militia are left behind. Their role is In order to delay our time and prevent us from posing a threat to the capital Yecheng for the time being. These people who stayed behind had more or less connections with Nuer City, and many of them had even been to Nuer City. The King of Chu used them as cannon fodder , and we will accept them and settle them. I believe that within ten days, more and more cities will surrender on their own initiative."
"I see."
After that, everything went as Jiang Ze expected. Every time the New Army captured a city, they would treat the prisoners well. The Chu people convinced the Chu people that the efficiency was really high.
There are even many soldiers who, for the sake of high military merit points, will capture their opponents alive even at the risk of being chopped. The soldiers threw each other to the ground and kept persuading: "I'm not here to kill you, I'm here to liberate you."
Many enemy soldiers were gradually moved by the behavior of the New Martyrs Army and put down their weapons.
With the promotion of the soft policy, more and more small cities surrendered voluntarily, including some medium-sized cities. Of course, not every city is so easy to talk to. There are also a few cities that are stubborn and resist to the death. When peaceful occupation became impossible, Wei Sheng had no choice but to lead his troops to attack by force. Fortunately, there are not many such cities, otherwise it would affect the reputation.
A month later, Jiang Ze looked at the map on the wall and showed a satisfied smile.
About one-third of Chu State's territory is already under Jiang Ze's control. To the west of Nuer City, there are a large number of cities with flags of the Lie Kingdom, and many of them are very close to the capital of the country, Yecheng.
Just when Jiang Ze's momentum was at its peak, the gates of Yecheng, the capital of the country, opened wide, and four five-star generals, led by Xiang Mao and Chu Ba, led an army of 300,000 towards Nuer City.
The Chu State, after more than a month of full preparation, actually formed an army of 300,000 people. This is simply incredible.
As soon as the news came out, the whole Tianzhu was boiling.
Everyone said that the Chu State had used all its troops at the bottom of the box, and a fierce battle was inevitable.
The 300,000-strong army was invincible and conquered a city wherever it passed. The city that the New Martyrs Army had previously captured was slowly recaptured by the Chu Army. Of course, the Chu army's goal was not these affiliated cities at all, their goal was Nuer City.
Facing the Chu army approaching step by step, Jiang Ze held an emergency military meeting.
"What's the situation on the front line now? Have all the personnel been withdrawn?" Jiang Ze asked.
"Basically, they were all withdrawn, but because no one was left behind, they couldn't delay much. The Chu army recaptured twenty cities in just three days," the deputy general replied.
"It doesn't matter, it's just an empty city, just give it to them. We can't be like the Chu army, deliberately leaving hundreds of people in each city as cannon fodder. This will chill people's hearts."
"But according to this progress, an army of 300,000 will be at the gates of Nuer City within ten days."
"This is indeed a difficult problem. I didn't expect King Chu to be able to mobilize 300,000 troops."
"Actually, there is no need to be too nervous. I still know a little about Chu's regular army," Rogni stood up and said, "Even if he spares time on the northern, western and southern fronts, the King of Chu will not be able to produce more than 300,000 troops. I estimate that at least 100,000 of them are temporary recruits, maybe they were pulled from the militia. This kind of force is just to increase the momentum, but it is not very good in fighting."
"Even if there are 100,000 militiamen, there are still 200,000 regular troops. The key is that the four five-star generals, Xiang Mao, and Chu Ba are all here." Wei Sheng said.
"Chu Ba left King Chu. This is really a strange thing. It seems that King Chu is willing to risk everything." Jiang Feng smiled.
"Brother, I see you are not nervous at all. Do you have any good ideas?" Luo Erhu asked.
"Everyone, there are 300,000 Chu troops. The number of regular troops will not exceed 100,000. At least 200,000 are militiamen patchworked here and there." Jiang Ze guessed.
"Why do you see it?" Rogni asked curiously.
