Chapter Twenty-Seven: Cleaning Up the Mess

Five explosive packets were thrown into the mouth of the pit, and the five demolition team members had just run 30 paces away, when five explosions sounded almost in unison, a puff of white smoke rose from the mouth of the hole, and a violent vibration from the ground almost made the five demolition team members stand unsteadily.

The earth was raised, the stumps and broken arms flew up, and the key thing was that the pit collapsed as expected, and it is not known how many Eastern Wu soldiers were buried inside. But one thing is for sure, and here the battle is over. Soon, Liu Hou heard a huge explosion at the station of the Second Division, and it seemed that the mouth of the pit had also collapsed, which also indicated that the whole battle was about to end.

After the two pits were smashed and blocked, it didn't take long for the Eastern Wu army, which was attacking like crazy outside the Shu military camp, to stop attacking and slowly retreat to the city. It should be that they received the news of the failure of the sneak attack in the tunnel and had to retreat. The Shu army suffered heavy losses in this sneak attack and was unable to pursue, so it could only let the Eastern Wu army calmly return to the city.

Guo Youzhi arranged for people to strengthen vigilance and clean up the battlefield. In view of the fact that the Soochow people were likely to suddenly come up from the ground, Guo Youzhi ordered the people to bury many urns around the camp, and arranged for the soldiers to use these urns for twelve hours to listen to the movements underground.

Generally speaking, the defenders are afraid that the besieging party will dig tunnels, so the method of listening to the urn is used to monitor the movement underground.

Soon, the battle report was presented and placed on Liu Hou's case. Liu Hou gritted his teeth and clenched his fists to slam the case several times. Even if he had been mentally prepared, he would definitely suffer heavy losses this time, but when he saw those loss figures, he still couldn't believe his eyes, this time he was sneak attacked, and the losses of the Shu army were too great.

More than 7,000 vine soldiers were killed and wounded, mainly concentrated in the second division of the vulture bones, that is, half of the second division was gone.

Because of the suddenness of the incident, most of the rattan armor soldiers of the second division entered the battle before they had time to penetrate the armor, without the protection of the rattan armor, under the blow of the superior forces of Eastern Wu, it is not surprising that there are such large casualties, if it were not for the fact that these barbarian rattan armor soldiers were brave enough and ruthless, they almost couldn't stop it, in that case, it is not impossible for the second division to be wiped out.

What hurt Liu Hou the most was that the musketeers also lost nearly 2,000 people, and more than one regiment was gone. There were many Eastern Wu soldiers who broke through the encirclement and suppression of the Shu army, broke into various camps to kill people and set fires, some soldiers were burned to death or hacked to death while still asleep, and some musketeers woke up, but they were killed by the Eastern Wu soldiers who were scurrying around before they could load their guns.

Half of the 30,000 Ding Feng's subordinates who were originally captured escaped in this chaotic battle, and only more than 10,000 people remained. Captives, who are of no use to others, are undoubtedly equivalent to private property in the eyes of Liu Hou, who has always valued population resources.

Escaping more than 10,000 captives is equivalent to losing more than 10,000 strong laborers or soldiers, which is also a significant loss of property.

In addition, there are countless tents and baggage that have been burned, but fortunately, the Shu army camped very particular about fire prevention, and there were various measures to prevent one fire from spreading to other places, so it was not burned by the Eastern Wu soldiers. The Eastern Wu soldiers usually lit a tent, and after the fire burned this tent, the work was over, and the other tents were separated from this tent by a certain distance, so they would not be affected by this lit tent. This made the Eastern Wu soldiers who set the fire very depressed.

This sneak attack on Soochow caused about one-fifth of the battle losses of the Shu army, and the Hong army suffered the greatest loss since its debut. This sneak attack fully demonstrated Lu Xun's military talent, and also established his unshakable position in the sneak attack world. Originally, the battle of crossing the river in white to attack Jingzhou last time was a battle in which he became famous and established his status, but it was destroyed by the prophetic Liu Hou.

This time, he once again planned an excellent sneak attack, causing a large number of losses to the Shu army. If he hadn't encountered the Hong Army, a super strong army that was much stronger than this era, this operation would have been a complete success and the enemy would have been completely annihilated.

It was in the face of this unspeakably strong postmodern army that although the Eastern Wu Army achieved very good results, its own losses were also huge. They kill 1,000 enemies and lose 800 of their own lives, and they kill 1,000 enemies and lose 5,000 of their own lives.

This time the Shu army cleaned up the battlefield, and in the Shu army camp, there were more than 20,000 corpses of the Eastern Wu army that were counted, and on the periphery of the camp, there were as many as 30,000 corpses. In other words, the Soochow army lost at least 50,000 people in this operation.

That's a scary number. The exchange ratio between the Shu army and the Eastern Wu army reached 1:5. This battle seems to be won by the Shu army, and the Eastern Wu army suffered a big loss, but in fact, it is not. There are more than 140,000 troops in the Eastern Wu army, and the Shu army is less than 40,000, and the Eastern Wu army has 50,000 deaths, which can afford to die, and the Shu army may not be able to afford to die if 10,000 people die.

If it weren't for this kind of sneak attack, it would be impossible for Eastern Wu to achieve a 5:1 exchange ratio, and the Shu army's previous battles with cold weapons troops could often achieve a 100:1 result. Destroying the enemy's 50,000 troops, the Hong army suffered no more than 500 casualties.

If the exchange ratio of that battle reaches 30:1, it proves that the battle is a failure, and if it is lower than 10:1, it will undoubtedly be a fiasco for the Hong army. Therefore, this sneak attack was the most painful defeat suffered by Liu Hou and his Hong army.

No matter how much Liu Hou hates or is angry, life still has to be passed, but fortunately, Guo Youzhi, a very rational adult* person, arranges various follow-up affairs in an orderly manner. The disposal of the 50,000 corpses of the Dongwu people was very simple, and the Shu army had no obligation to help them bury them. Guo Youzhi transferred a large number of wagons and ox carts from the baggage team, transported the corpses to the east gate of Changsha City, and stacked them outside the city gate on the spot, piling them up into a mountain of corpses several stories high.

Why choose the East Gate? Because Guo Youzhi calculated, this season Changsha City blows the east wind, the corpses are piled here, the corpse smell will drift into the city with the wind, and the city will be "fragrant for thousands of miles", if the Dongwu people do not deal with this pile of corpses in time, it is very likely to cause an epidemic of plague in the city, and this place is far away from the Shu camp, which will not have the slightest impact on Shu.

Shu and Wu had a tacit understanding, and did not attack each other when dealing with the corpses, and the carriages of the Shu army transported the corpses over, and the Eastern Wu army at the head of the city did not release arrows. Later, the city also sent people to dig pits and bury them in a place outside the city. It took the Shu army five days to transport the corpses, and the Eastern Wu people took another five days to bury the corpses. During this period, both sides were calm and there were no clashes.

It is simple to deal with the corpses of the Dongwu people, but it is not so simple to deal with the corpses of their own people. Liu Hou ordered to choose a feng shui treasure site, build a martyr's tomb and a seven-story pagoda, bury the soldiers who died this time, and carve the stone as a stele.

The stele described the war in detail, and required the supreme administrator of Changsha County to visit the martyrs' tombs in person to pay tribute to these martyrs. So that the heroes and martyrs who died in this war can enjoy blood and food forever with the continuation of the national honor, and the incense will continue.

Originally, Liu Hou wanted to use granite to build martyrs' tombs and pagodas, but in this era without mechanical power, the quarrying and stone carving project was not ordinarily large, and it is estimated that it may not be completed in a few years. Under Guo Youzhi's hard persuasion, it was changed to burn bricks with mud, and bricks and cement were used as the main building materials, which greatly accelerated the project.

Fortunately, there were close to 15,000 Soochow prisoners, so there were plenty of people to build the project. Liu Houxian recruited soldiers from these Eastern Wu captives to replenish the battle losses of various units, especially the second division lost more than half of its losses, and it was in urgent need of replenishing new soldiers.

Liu Hou's salary was very generous, more than double the salary that these Eastern Wu soldiers had received as soldiers in Eastern Wu, which made many prisoners moved. In addition, Liu Hou's construction of the martyr's tomb and memorial pagoda this time not only moved the Shu army up and down, but also moved these Eastern Wu soldiers to a mess.

There has never been a general who cares so much and respects his soldiers, many soldiers who die in battle are thrown into the field, and the better ones can be buried, that is, they are just a roll of mats and dig a pit at random to bury them. Where have I ever seen such a solemn thing, build a martyr's tomb and pagoda, and then bury it so solemnly.

Not only are there inscriptions about the battle, but the name of each soldier is engraved on the stone tablet and is honored and worshiped by thousands of generations of Taishou, officials and people. This mourning, let alone an ordinary soldier, even those high-ranking officials dare not imagine that they can have it after death. If such a lord is not loyal, who else can he be loyal to?

As a result, as soon as the recruitment of soldiers was announced, more than 5,000 people soon signed up, willing to switch to the Shu army and serve the prince. If it weren't for the fact that other people had families in Soochow and were worried that the family of the Shun Shu army would be implicated, I believe that there would be more people willing to join the Shu army.

Liu Hou gave the 5,000 men to the vultures to replenish his huge shortfall. For the rest of the 10,000 captives who refused to enlist, Liu Hou asked them to build a martyr's cemetery, and after repairing, they would be incorporated into Zhu Bao's baggage team.

Then, as usual, Liu Hou transferred manpower from Zhu Bao's baggage team to supplement the other damaged troops. Of these, 2,000 were added to the Vine Armor Army, and 2,000 to the Musket Corps.

The 6th Regiment of Musketeers was originally a reserve, and after a long period of training in the use of muskets, they were already qualified musketeers, but because they did not have so much musket equipment, they could only serve as reserves for the musket team in peacetime. Now that all the units were damaged, it was time to turn them into full-fledged musketeers and assign them to the 1st to 5th regiments.

The new recruits from the baggage brigade were reorganized into the new Sixth Regiment. As a result, the combat effectiveness of the entire musket unit was not affected much. Because of the peacetime fighting, it was mainly a matter of the 1st to 5th regiments. And the recruits of the 6th Regiment are a group of qualified musketeers as long as they have undergone a period of training.

Liu Hou felt that this form of reserve was very good, and after the troops suffered certain losses, they could still quickly restore the combat effectiveness of the troops. He intended to introduce this reserve system in the Fuji Armor Army as well.

The losses of the Fuji Armor Army this time were too great, and the overall combat effectiveness would inevitably be affected. In particular, the Second Division was flooded with a large number of new recruits, and without a certain amount of time for training, it was believed that it would not be able to restore its previous super combat effectiveness. Fortunately, these new recruits who came back were also soldiers before, and most of them were elite soldiers in the original Eastern Wu Army, and they still had good military qualities, unlike ordinary people, who had to be trained from scratch.

The most important thing now is to train them to be familiar with the military orders, military discipline, and military regulations of the Shu army, these things are a bit complicated in the Hong army system, and it is not easy to train them to the point where the order is forbidden.