The wildfire in Xiayang Valley lasted for a whole day and a night!

At its peak, the fire and black smoke could be seen from ten miles away. It wasn't until most of the vegetation in the valley was burned that the wildfire was forced to be extinguished. Looking down into the valley through the weak smoke, the charred ground was littered with burnt ashes and the remains of soldiers, turning the once barren valley into a living hell.

Even the strong-willed rebels will have nightmares after watching too many of this kind of scenes.

Those that were directly burned to the point of only bones were good, and the most permeable were some of the corpses that were roasted to dry, or half burned, and the appearance was the most terrifying. Combined with the disgusting, burnt smell of human flesh, many of the rebel soldiers and followers of the Good Friends even vomited bile, and could not eat all day.

The people above the valley are still like this, and you can imagine how miserable the officers and soldiers trapped in the Xiayang Valley are.

For a day, hunger is not a problem. The real deadly threats are suffocation, heat and dehydration from flames and smoke. Even the most conservative estimates put more than 1,000 officers and soldiers dead in the past day and night. Among them, no more than forty percent were actually killed or injured by the archers and stone throwers of the rebels.

"When I read the military book before, there was a saying on it: Fire attacks and hurts Tianhe. I hadn't seen it with my own eyes at the time, so I always felt that it was a bit exaggerated. When I saw it with my own eyes today, I realized that the record was not exaggerated at all. ”

This is the only impression that Dian Yong said after seeing the tragic situation in the valley.

Chen Wu also feels the same way.

In "Empire", similar fire attack tactics have been used many times, and there is even a scale of 100,000 troops. But a game is a game after all, no matter how virtual it is, ordinary battles can be simulated 99%, and this kind of scene that is enough to cause permanent psychological trauma will inevitably be optimized and shielded. Although the thing "Tianhe" is completely unnecessary, even the impossible thing of crossing has happened, and Chen Wu feels that if it is not necessary, it is better for him to use less of this strategy in the future.

"Let's open the valley."

Influenced by such thoughts, Chen Wu issued an order in advance.

If it was according to the original plan, he wanted to wait another day or two, so as to ensure that the officers and troops in the valley did not have the slightest ability to resist. But firstly, it was what I had just thought, and secondly, the weather was very hot, and the embers were not extinguished, the temperature in the valley was extremely high, and the speed at which the corpses decomposed was also very fast. If it drags on any longer, it is easy to breed plague. Another important factor is that the surviving officers and soldiers are killing horses and drinking horse blood.

It's a pity that the best war horses were killed like this.

As a result, the officers and soldiers in the valley were lucky to get a chance to surrender in advance.

Six stone throwers and bed crossbows were erected, realigned to the southwest exit of the valley, ensuring that they were ready to fire. The Volunteer Battalion of the Taiping Righteous Army and the Dharma Protector Buddha soldiers of the Good Friends Association also lined up outside the exit, including more than 100 foot archers. Before the military formation, two rows of strict rejecting horses were also arranged, which can be said to be extremely precautionary. Any officer or soldier who has any ill intentions will be immediately killed.

In this case, not to mention that they have completely collapsed, even if they can miraculously organize a thousand-person team, it will never be possible to fight out of the valley.

Pieces of boulders and logs were laboriously removed, revealing a way to get in and out.

When they were ready, the rebels shouted above the valley to surrender.

"It's time to get out of the valley!"

Hearing the preaching of the rebels, the exit of the valley has been opened, and the surviving officers and soldiers are in a commotion.

The hellish experience of the past day has taken down their morale and pride, and many of them are on the verge of spiritual collapse. Knowing that it was possible to escape, no one tried to resist in vain.

Soon, the tortured officers and soldiers gathered from all over the valley one after another, threw down their weapons and armor with a numb face, and lined up to surrender to the rebels outside the valley.

Seeing this scene, the soldiers of the Righteous Army and the Buddhist soldiers of the Good Friends Association fell into a carnival.

Even the army of the county town was defeated by them, and in the entire Taiping County, who else could stop them?

The boulder that had weighed on their hearts for the past few days was almost swept away by the joy of victory. With the previous successive victories in Yicheng and Linxian, and after the baptism of this battle, the military spirit and morale of the soldiers of the Taiping Righteous Army were truly established. Not to mention the followers of the Good Friends, the name of Maitreya Buddha can be heard everywhere.

This cheer, accompanied by the surrender of the surviving officers and soldiers, lasted for half a day.

The officers and troops who came out of the valley on their own exceeded two thousand after preliminary statistics. Of those, there were about 1,500 people who were not injured or had only minor burns. The remaining 500 people were more miserable, some were burned by Yan Zhan, some were injured by arrows, some were smashed by stone bullets from the stone throwing machine, and some had mental breakdowns that could not withstand the blow.

After that, more than a dozen teams of soldiers on each side took the initiative to enter the valley to search.

By nightfall, the searching soldiers had successively captured more than 100 officers and soldiers who could not be hidden, and by the way, they also brought back many war horses that had lost their owners.

In other words, excluding those inconsequential levies, only more than 2,100 of the 3,000 light infantry and 600 light cavalry in the valley survived. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that there are still hidden survivors of the official army in the valley, but the number is definitely not large.

Nearly 1,500 enemies were killed and 2,100 prisoners were captured, which is an extremely brilliant record. What's even more terrifying is that the price paid by the rebels and the Good Friends is only six dead and twenty-three wounded!

All of the six people who died were killed in an attack while entering the valley to search.

The injuries of the 23 wounded were even more bizarre, some of them broke their feet when they went in to search, some were accidentally burned by the mountain fire that had not yet been extinguished, and some even fainted from severe dehydration due to excessive vomiting......

Although this was a perfect fire attack and ambush, standard enough to be included in the Art of War canon, it is not surprising to hit such a battle loss ratio, but after all, this is the only brigade-level establishment that has been completely annihilated during the pacification of civil strife in the three hundred years since the founding of the empire!

Its significance and impact are immeasurable!

Once this result spreads, not to mention the sensation of Taiping County, even the entire Qianyuan Empire will cause an uproar. Not to mention the impact of this battle on the general trend of history, even if it was only for the Taiping Rebels, its significance was not only to defeat a group of officers and troops who were enough to bring them ruin. What really matters is that while destroying the other side, the rebels also received an extremely staggering number of gains.

Weapons, bows and arrows, armor, horses!

Any of these ordnance was in dire need of the rebels. Relying on the capture of Yicheng and Linxian alone is far from enough to meet the demand. But this time, Qian Boming, the governor of Taiping County, generously sent them a whole brigade. Although at least a thousand sets of leather armor and hundreds of horses were destroyed by a fire, and the rest had to be shared with the Good Friends, even so, the capture was unprecedentedly rich.

In the case of war horses, at least one hundred and fifty or sixty were captured.

Most of the weapons, including swords and bows, have been preserved, at least 3,300 pieces, except for those that have been lost and a few damaged!

As for the armor, it was a little less due to the greater losses.

After the restoration, it is basically usable, plus the intact ones on the surrendered officers and non-commissioned officers, totaling about 2,400 sets of standard leather armor, plus at least 40 sets of chain mail. Among them, it even includes a set of Mingguang armor with a total weight of more than forty catties, the main body is cast by a hundred refined iron, and only the generals of the empire are qualified to equip it!

Such a set of full-body iron armor has outrageously powerful defense. Due to their staggering weight, the average soldier was not physically fit enough to march even in clothing, let alone engage the enemy. Only a strong general can wear such bright armor and carry a weapon to fight the enemy general.

If there is no accident, this set of Mingguang armor should be the armor of the protector general Lin Anluo.

According to the rebels who found it, the armor had been stripped from a hastily buried corpse, with a corner exposed, and the corpse had been completely disfigured.

This is undoubtedly a very suspicious thing.

After asking about the results, Chen Wu immediately realized that the general of the Protector Army was most likely not dead, but had taken off his armor and disguised himself as an ordinary officer and sergeant.