Our army returned, and by the time we reached an agreement with the kingdom to withdraw from the inner city of White Oak, the system had already designated a large area of territory south of White Oak City as my territory, that is, the 127,000 square kilometers of land. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info But this is not all the land we have won in this northern expedition, although the Southern Noble Alliance has declared its allegiance to us, their land is still not owned by us. Similarly, Fang Zi also got a part of these territories, about more than one-third of the territory I captured, plus Zeng Qiang's land, these lands have encompassed almost the entire southwest of the kingdom, and for the current Subic Kingdom, the land has also been reduced by one-seventh.

Hundreds of large and small cities, from the military dividing line between the east and the kingdom to the north of White Oak City, large chunks of land have been occupied by the three of us, and we finally have enough (albeit temporary) foothold in this world. Although we haven't even taken half of the southern part of the kingdom, militarily, we can already compete with the kingdom, and the rest of the forces will not ignore us.

But this land was acquired at a terrible price, and it was not only covered with bones, but also sprinkled with the blood of both sides of the enemy. These lands now belong to us, and we will remember the price we paid for these developed territories, and we will hold on to them, and never let an inch of land run out of our hands!

Of course, although we said that, when we returned along the main road, we realized that although our trip to the north had brought us benefits, it was definitely not only the kingdom's army that had suffered.

Many towns along the route have been destroyed, and some villages have been left in ruins. Countless residents fled along the way, and their eyes were filled with horror when they saw our army. Houses were destroyed, and many were reduced to char and ashes in the flames. Crops that had just been planted in the fields were trampled down, and goats and other herbivorous beasts entered through the broken fences, munching on young seedlings that no one cared for. This is basically the case in the villages along the way, where fences have been erected, and the prime of life in the villages who can fight are nervously guarding behind the fragile wooden fences with inferior weapons and even hoes.

I can swear to God, we didn't destroy these villages when we came, maybe we sent troops over to declare the occupation, and sometimes we demanded some supplies, but we also ensured the safety of their property and lives, for which some village chiefs and mayors and the like expressed their gratitude to us. After our troops left, we also left a small number of troops in nearby cities, and had the previous city leaders work with our men to stabilize the situation, wait for our return, and ensure that our supplies can be delivered to the front line.

Fang Zi was also puzzled, because she also knew that our troops had never done anything to make the people suffer, in fact, because the soldiers in the hometown world played an exemplary role in disaster relief, and had a close relationship with the masses, so we also formulated a lot of discipline for the troops, and although the troops of the tribal world liked to plunder, they were not willing to harm these civilians, so our march was still very satisfactory to us.

But the current situation was completely unexpected, and in fact, if it were a week later, I would have guessed that even if we had won the kingdom, the rear would have been on fire, and we would have ended up worse than if we had lost the battle. If you don't grasp the people's will well, then it will be difficult to do things in the future. The exploitation of the people in the kingdom was average, but the southern aristocracy was full of evil, so many of the local residents were reluctant to help the kingdom's defenders. If our reputation is worse than that of the kingdom, I am afraid they will be more than just whining.

Fortunately, Zeng Qiang has a large and sophisticated intelligence network, and he left a lot of intelligence troops behind when he marched in the army, and has been collecting intelligence, and now it seems that this move has indeed played a very key role.

When the information was delivered to us, we knew what had happened in these occupied areas during our absence. Although there were no atrocities committed by our troops, the inhabitants of the areas along the route suffered more than the exploitation of the southern aristocracy due to a series of side effects of the war.

As soon as we left, the bandit bandits roaming the southern part of the kingdom took aim at these unprotected villages and we were not nearby, and brutally plundered and even burned down the weakly defended villages. Soon, the fruits of the victory whetted their appetites, and the defenseless towns suffered, and if they were able to repel the attack, they suffered heavy losses. However, this situation did not attract the attention of the local city lord. It's not that they don't care, it's that these officers started their own looting operations while our garrisons were not yet familiar with the form. In the name of us, they forcibly seized the wealth of the people, vigorously attacked hostile forces, eliminated dissidents, and even openly smashed shops to extort gold coins. And when our troops found out, they had already defeated their competitors and driven them away, so our troops could only cooperate with them first, threatening and criticizing them. In this way, there are no Kingdom troops in the city, and our troops cannot directly tear their faces with them, so these guys have accumulated a lot of wealth by this means. And in the areas we occupy, there are dozens or hundreds of such officials, and the economic losses they cause are even greater than those of robbers.

Even if Zeng Qiang's intelligence officers reported the information of the robbers to the city, these city lords refused to provide military assistance on the grounds that they had no soldiers and no power, and in order to control the city and prevent them from doing major things, we could only send a few hundred troops to clean up the bandits everywhere, but because there were too many bandits and they were too widely dispersed, the effect has not been good.

And when the robbers plundered on a large scale and the city leadership sat idly by and did not care about the looting of wealth, those land snakes in the countryside also stood up one after another, and these people were landlords and had a certain amount of wealth and manpower. Some are warriors and mercenaries of average level, but belong to the master in the countryside. These men soon banded together, imposing taxes (many local tax collectors joined them) and grain in our name, and then pulling up a team in the name of dealing with bandits, even the mayor of the town could not control them, and these local alliances of landlords became the de facto controllers of these rural areas.

After such a toss, the area we occupied was a mess and almost anarchy. Some people have made a lot of money from the war, but the remaining ordinary civilians can only survive the disasters brought by the war.