In the end, the remnants of the coalition led by Charles I in London did not choose to resist to the end, but chose to surrender when they completely lost hope of victory or even delayed the war. Of course, there were some defenders who were unwilling to surrender and were gradually wiped out by the fierce and accurate artillery fire and even the surprise attacks of infantry and combat engineers. Xiao Xuan actually didn't expect that the last battle in the entire expedition could be finally completed in such a way, but this also saved the team a lot of trouble after all. At least you don't have to clean up too many corpses on this rainy British summer.

All those who appeared to be of a certain age or a little more determined in the surrendering procession were put into special custody, while others handed over heavy arquebuses and other weapons that were enough to arm 100,000 men, and of course, the uniforms and banners that were most important in proving the identity of the armed men.

In the final battle of London, the entire expeditionary force still obtained about 500,000 catties of black powder, which exceeded the previous battle consumption a lot, which also made the expeditionary force seem to save a lot of trouble in the next operation.

After the initial conclusion of the fighting operations around London, the expeditionary force continued to advance northward, and soon approached the territory of the Scottish and Irish. Although there have been many civil wars against the Scots and Irish in the history of England, it seems that until modern times there has been no real solution to this internal problem. Xiao Xuan did not believe that this was historical, and it was difficult for the British to do this in any era. It is quite possible that the apparent demographic deficit of Britain itself has led the British upper class to feel that the population of the North still has some value, at least in terms of economic and foreign wars.

However, at this time, it is clear that Xiao Xuan does not need the Scots, or disdain to play the balance of power in the whole British Isles. If there is really a requirement of checks and balances, it is completely possible to allow many Tatars from Central Asia and even Eastern Europe, who are more different from Christianity and even Western Europe, to migrate here.

At the same time, Xiao Xuan also estimated that such a nation that had been facing the pressure of England for a long time may not have deep internal contradictions, so he warned the officers of various units in the process of marching: those locals in the north who did not obey the king were more stubborn "reactionary nations" than Jianzhou, and as long as they did not cooperate and cooperate with the actions of the army, all young and middle-aged people with weapons would be hostile armed forces.

In this way, under the pressure of fifty or sixty thousand foreign forces, the clean-up campaign against the Scots in the north of England as the core, as well as some other remnants of Western Europe, soon began. The Scots' ambush attempts were broken up by the Scots' repeated attempts at ambushes by using the hot air balloons that were ready to take to the air and detect distant enemy situations, and the Scots were forced to engage in at least one head-on battle with the attacking army by clearing the occupied territories through the migration of occupied territories, and finally forcing the Scots to engage in at least one head-on battle with the attacking army as they had done in the past against the encirclement and suppression of the English. After all, the entire Scotland territory and population are clearly limited, and it is far from being able to get out of its own crisis through so-called passive tactics. In this way, a fierce battle soon began in the north of England.

The Scots, who had the home advantage, eventually gathered more than 50,000 men and prepared for an attack against a strong enemy of about 15,000 troops who had landed from the north.

However, the inferiority of cavalry and even hot air balloon reconnaissance methods deprived the large-scale ambush of the necessary conditions for success, and finally had to evolve into a head-to-head duel.

Having discovered the ambush of the opposing army, the attacking team did not hesitate to launch a series of heavy artillery bombardments during the day to force the opponent to attack first. The main force of the 15,000-strong Volunteer Left Army was also equipped with more than 300 medium and heavy artillery pieces, which could fire tens of thousands of heavy shrapnel in almost every round of fire, and brought thousands of casualties to the Scots, who lacked the defensive means of the Spaniards, in just a dozen rounds of fire. The attack that forced the enemy had to be launched.

In this passive situation, the Scots finally launched a full-scale attack without hesitation rather than choosing to retreat. The artillery fire risked a certain degree of explosion, and once again began a continuous bombardment. Gunners and archers also launched a series of strikes as soon as the enemy came into effective range. By the time the 50,000 or so Scots approached a distance where they could shoot with bows and arrows or even muskets, at least nearly half of them had already lost their strength in battle, but the momentum of the attack really stopped when they encountered a powerful bow and arrow fire. The Scots had not dealt with the English longbowmen before, but the English archers were out of their prime. When encountering those elite of the East who were selected and trained at a large cost, the Scots finally understood why these strong enemies from the East far exceeded Genghis Khan to a large extent, and attacked the hinterland of Christendom in a very short time.

The firepower of the Volunteer Left Army within 100 paces was still too fierce, and the Scots, who had already paid a lot of price in the previous attack, except for a very small number of elite skirmishers who engaged the officers and soldiers in the front at close range, were still unable to break through the defense of the projected fire net on a large scale and approach the distance of hand-to-hand combat. When the courage to go all out is completely exhausted, the final result of the battlefield is gradually locked. Under the heavy blockade of artillery fire and the pursuit of cavalry, less than 10,000 remnants of the 50,000 Scots who participated in the attack finally escaped, and tens of thousands of corpses were finally left on the battlefield, and the final capture of less than 1,000 Scots. Most of the bodies were counted and eventually thrown into the fire. No matter where it is, after a large-scale decisive battle, the team always attaches great importance to cleaning up the battlefield and even avoiding the hidden danger of large-scale epidemics.

After this decisive battle, the army continued to operate, encountering sporadic resistance in many parts of the north of England, but the narrow homeland and even the limited population made the resistance of the Scots ultimately unsustainable.

And Xiao Xuan's first month after this decisive battle and a lot of combat reports can be determined: this large-scale expedition launched from the fourth year of Chongzhen can be regarded as the end of the campaign after about two years of campaigning, at least the real threatening opponent has been eliminated to a large extent.

(End of chapter)