"Yes...... I know...... Yes, we're already doing that. But...... Yes, I see. Yes, sir, the Empire will prevail (!)"

Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Balk lowered his headphones and pressed hard against his swollen temple, his brow tightly knit to indicate that the battle group commander was distraught. It seems that in the correspondence with Admiral Kleist just now, the commander of the army group put a lot of pressure on the lieutenant colonel, and as for where the pressure came from, everyone in the temporary command will soon know.

After rubbing it for a while, the lieutenant colonel lowered his hand, and the hesitation and distress had disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a chilling coldness.

"Boi, Moy. ”

"Yes, sir. ”

Lieutenant Boitsbacher and Lieutenant Johannes Moy, who were regimental staff officers and part-time interpreters, were responsible for communicating with the residents of the occupied territories.

Lieutenant Colonel Balk took a deep breath and commanded in a routine tone:

"Let the captives go to the church and put up a gallows. ”

"Yes, sir. ”

"Let them move quickly, General Kleist wants us to hang all suspected spies before the follow-up troops arrive, and they must be hung in the most conspicuous position. ”

"Yes...... Yes, sir!"

The two lieutenants' staff officers were not slow to react, and the lieutenant colonel's eyes had just begun to turn cold, and they immediately responded loudly. Judging from the slightly twitching corners of their eyes and their distracted eyes, doubts and horrors did not dissipate from them.

This is understandable, the lieutenant colonel himself is still adjusting his mentality, not to mention the two of them small staff officers.

"Listen, this is an order issued by the commander of the army group himself. ”

Lieutenant Colonel Balk softened his tone, but there was no room for negotiation in his words.

"Charlemagne's stragglers wreaked havoc on the transport system, causing us some problems despite their lack of unity of command and lack of equipment specifically designed to destroy infrastructure. In order to put an end to this, and to warn the Charlemagnes not to deal with things that should not be touched, the commander of the army group has ordered that the Charlemagne soldiers who have left the Ardennes should no longer be considered regular armed forces, and that the units have the right to dispose of saboteurs and partisans at will, and the commander has specifically requested that public executions be carried out at the occupied transport junctions. ”

As a method of intimidation that has continued since ancient times, public executions have continued throughout the history of civilization. Regardless of the final outcome, a significant number of invaders believed that public executions would intimidate the population of the occupied territories into submission. The Defence Forces are not exempt from this, and in Yalfheim sociopaths and saboteurs are publicly executed. In wartime, the army is also authorized to regularly execute irregular armed personnel in the occupied areas in order to maintain order.

It stands to reason that the most important thing now is to rush to the Maas River in a hurry, and then launch a strategic maneuver encirclement after quickly crossing the river, and there is no extra time and troops to carry out these tasks like law and order warfare, not to mention that the public execution in front of the residents is tantamount to telling the people that the new yoke will replace the old yoke, which is tantamount to intensifying the conflict. But in order not to delay the time that has been wasted, this is the only feasible solution at the moment.

The will of the people is fickle, as long as you put in the effort, you can always recover, and once victory and time slip through your fingers, you can never get it back.

All of the above has been said about this, and Lieutenant Colonel Balk can only carry it out.

"Do a careful job of screening, record their addresses, and if they can read and write, let them write a suicide note, and if not, help them write down their last words. ”

"Yes, sir!"

"After the hanging, seize the time to collect the corpse, anyway, the top ...... I don't want to wake up early in the morning and see a dead man hanging outside the window, which is not a good view. ”

"Yes, sir. ”

The two lieutenants saluted and withdrew, but the low pressure in the temporary headquarters did not leave with them, and the staff officers and non-commissioned officers concentrated on the business at hand while occasionally casting a glance at Lieutenant Colonel Balk's back.

This tense and delicate atmosphere lasted for about seven or eight minutes, and a knock on the door sounded, and a crisp and pleasant "report" liberated everyone from the bitterness.

"Please come in. ”

Pulling his uniform, Lieutenant Colonel Balk walked back to his desk from the window, where a group of Charlemagne prisoners of war were scrambling to fiddle with wooden shelves.

The girl in the uniform of the armored corps strode in, and after saluting the lieutenant colonel at the desk, the girl spoke:

"Lieutenant Colonel, the pacification work is over. We returned our things and people, and the translators and the mayor were going from house to house explaining our army's policy. ”

"yes, what's Charlemagne's reaction?"

The lieutenant colonel raised the corners of his mouth, and the staff officers with their backs to them gave strange smiles.

"They—"

Nona shrugged, trying not to put disgust in her tone, but failed completely.

"It's like looking at a monster or a disabled person looking at me and my men. ”

A room full of officers' lips twisted into twists, and in order not to laugh out loud, they had to endure a little spasm of their abdominal and expression muscles.

Since ancient times, there have been three broad categories of people who have greeted invaders. The guards who fight to the death, the small citizens who hide at home and are nervous, and die in their own homes even if they want to die, and the leading party who "the military boss will come with me to get good things".

When Bastogne was conquered, the first type of people was completely invisible, and the second type was quite numerous, and basically did not interfere with each other with the Balk battle group. The third ...... The groups of Charlemagne, the traitors, or the group collectively known as the Belt and Road Party, were generally not very large, making up only a small fraction of the total number of townspeople, but ...... How to say it, the performance of this group of minorities was the most exciting, and it really opened the eyes of the barbarian soldiers of Alfheim.

The 101st Experimental Heavy Armored Battalion is also a veteran unit that has participated in various military operations, and at the beginning of the war, it was also stationed in some Charlemagne towns, and it was used to seeing Charlemagne's apparent submissiveness, and the reaction of spat at the backs of the officers and soldiers of the defense guards turned their faces. At first they thought it would be the same, and at most Charlemagne would be a little more frightened. But no one told them that Charlemagne, who had always been as proud as a rooster, would beat gongs and drums, go from house to house, crying and shouting, "The Imperial Army is coming! Every family has wine and meat to entertain the Imperial Army!" "Go to Charlemagne! We will be the obedient people of Alfheim!"

...... Not to mention what the rest of the town thinks, the pointy-eared princes were taken aback first, and quickly looked up at the sky, hey? The sun didn't turn into a quadrilateral? So what kind of medicine did these Charlemagnes take? The information clearly said that many people in the town were filled with righteous indignation when they talked about Alfheim every day, and they wanted to tear the hands of the sharp-eared ghost animals and feed them to the pigs, and they all hated to beat ten ghost animals at a time. Why are there all those guys shouting "co-prosperity and coexistence", "friendship and goodwill", and "royal paradise", those touching tears, those heartfelt shouts, even the veteran non-commissioned officers who have been in the army for many years shudder.

Before the armorers could figure out how ugly they were, the second act, which they couldn't hold onto, began to play.