Even though the ordinary Great Xia soldiers ate grains, some of the pract.i.tioners still had to eat meat. Although their appet.i.te wasn't as huge as the aboriginals, it wasn't significantly smaller.
"How should we make arrangements?" Ren Baqian asked with his head inclined.
"Distribute the food to the commoners and bring the livestock with us," Li Qianqiu answered. The rice could be eaten by the commoners, but if the soldiers ate it, there wouldn't be a need for them to do anything else other than eat from morning to night.
At noon, the soldiers of the Protectorate of the Center returned. They were all starving to the point of sulking.
The winged cavalry only returned in the afternoon. The corpses of Great Xia soldiers were lying everywhere in the dozens of miles north of the north barracks.
If it wasn't for the fact that they were extremely hungry, they would have still been able to chase for another day.
One month. They had been under attack for an entire month. At long last, they could release the resentment they had.
Just like what Ren Baqian had expected, the guards defending the east barracks had already slipped away from the back. There weren't any aboriginal soldiers to chase after them, and he considered them lucky.
"Get people to bury the corpses. Otherwise, it will be troublesome when an epidemic occurs." Li Qianqiu nodded his head when Ren Baqian finished his words. After all, they knew this logic.
Going down from the city wall, Ren Baqian heard countless people asking from time to time, "Did we win?"
"The Great Xia soldiers ran away!"
"When do we fight our way there?"
...
The aboriginals placed more emphasis on the fact that Great Xia had besieged them rather than worry about being defeated.
With regards to these boorish people, being besieged by Great Xia for one whole month was an absolutely embarra.s.sing matter.
On the other hand, the aboriginals took issues such as death and injuries very lightly.
Perhaps it was because everyone was convinced that their ancestors' dead souls existed. As a result, they weren't very frightened by death.
Like some believers of religions on Earth, they weren't afraid of death. Instead, they believed that they would find an even better place to return to after death.
From these behaviors, it could be seen that the aboriginals weren't narrow-minded and accepting.
The faces of the commoners in the city were filled with joy and accompanied by hearty laughter. Everyone spoke much louder now, particularly when carts of food were delivered into the city. This made them rather excited because their supplies were running low. Many people stuck their heads out from their homes to see what was going on too.
As for other scenarios, for example, young girls giving kisses to das.h.i.+ng young officers wearing their official robes to express their excitement or even having a celebration, they were non-existent.
Everyone did what they were supposed to do. The soldiers began to eat after they returned. After that, they lay down to sleep. A portion of the commoners helped to handle the rations while among the remaining people, those who had to dry their laundry and those who had to beat their children, did so respectively.
In the commoners' hearts, they merely defeated an enemy. If anyone shouted loudly to celebrate, he or she would become a laughingstock.
"The aboriginal children are really rugged..." Walking on the road, Ren Baqian saw a woman carrying an eight-year-old child by his neck and throwing him out of the courtyard.
"Go outside! Don't create any trouble over here!"
That child rolled over, dusted the dirt off his body, and flashed his sparkling incisors at Ren Baqian. Following which, he kicked up a racket and disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
Was that his biological mother?
Ren Baqian was a little curious about what the empress would be like if they both had a child together in the future.
From the empress's character... it was very likely that the child would watch her eat snacks and candies or even see her catching up on television series...
Ren Baqian rubbed his face as soon as he thought of this scene. It was better for him not to think so much.
In the end, they still celebrated for a while. However, everything was taken care of by Ren Baqian. In any case, it was his first time experiencing war. Furthermore, he experienced an arduous month of defending the city. With the sacrifices of the soldiers and the generals as well as everyone in the city uniting, they finally emerged victorious even with a huge gap in the number of soldiers between them and Great Xia.
This victory definitely deserved a celebration.
There wasn't any wine and even though the meat was sufficient, they slaughtered the livestock which they had just obtained from the Great Xia barracks. The entire army finally ate a full meal, and the atmosphere was joyous.
There were dozens of circles within the barracks, and in each circle, there were topless burly men who were wrestling without any rules or regulations. From time to time, someone would be thrown out from the crowd, attracting excited shouts from the spectators.
"Next! Who's up?"
Ren Baqian was hugging the wine that had been left behind by the empress. He drank a bottle of wine as he watched the wrestling matches and immediately lay on the ground.
A noisy night was over.
The next day, he checked the battle results. Great Xia's casualties were more than half of their entire army. As for the aboriginals, the damage done was minimal. The greatest damage incurred was the ten over winged cavalry warriors that had died by Lu Pinghai's hands.
However, there was updated news that had been transmitted back today.
"Sir, the Protectorate of the Northeast has new updates. The Yun Nation has sent their troops out, and they have arrived near the front of our battle formation!"
"..." Ren Baqian grinned after hearing this piece of news.
Alright, I don't even need to find an excuse anymore.
After fighting with Great Xia for more than a month, there wasn't any sign of activity from the Yun Nation. Even if Great Xia had the upper hand, the Yun Nation was still doing their research when Dayao was building up their defense, step by step.
Now that the war was almost over and you made a move, not attacking you would go against my conscience.
n.o.body is as professional as you when it comes to courting death.
As expected, you don't even know how to find piping hot sh*t to eat.
Upon hearing this news, Li Qianqiu laughed heartily because he had almost the same thoughts as Ren Baqian. Presently, the Yun Nation dispatched their soldiers at the worst time. If they had done so earlier, Great Xia would still have had the upper hand. If they did so later, who knew if they would be able to obtain detailed news from the Great Xia army? They might have reconsidered sending their troops out.
Everyone in Dayao was extremely interested in stealing from the Yun Nation.
However, Ren Baqian knew it wasn't that simple this time around. After dealing with Great Xia, he had to take the Yun Nation down and incorporate it into Dayao's territory.
The mineral and saltpans of the Yun Nation were very important to Dayao.
Li Qianqiu made some arrangements before leading his soldiers toward the south to encircle the two other Great Xia armies.
After waiting for a long time, Ren Baqian returned to Earth and restocked another 100 mortar sh.e.l.ls as well as 1,000 machine gun bullets before he came back to this world and chased after those two Great Xia armies with his guards.
This time around, the number of guards accompanying him increased from 50 to 100. With 100 Earth Wheel experts as his guards, as long as they didn't come across a large group of enemies, they would be able to walk around freely.
In Great Xia, even the aristocratic families wouldn't have such a luxurious lineup of guards.
Ren Baqian felt that if he brought these 100 guards with him, he could walk all over Earth without getting into any trouble.
After three days of chasing on the road, Ren Baqian added 50 mortar sh.e.l.ls and another 2,000 rounds of machine gun bullets.
With a gun in his hand, he wasn't panicky anymore. Regardless of what kind of enemy he encountered, 170 mortar sh.e.l.ls and 5,000 rounds of machine gun bullets would definitely be sufficient.
As for those two Great Xia armies, they merged, changed their direction, and headed north on the day Ren Baqian returned to Earth. It seemed like they knew about Wu Shenghou's death and that their troops outside Liao City had been defeated. If they didn't retreat and continued advancing forward, they would reach Dayao's base.
That place was easy to defend, but difficult to attack. However, after the Great Xia troops in Liao City were obliterated, these two armies were completely stranded in hostile territory. Dayao didn't even need to attack them. As long as they were surrounded for half a month, they would starve to death.
Therefore, even if they wiped out the northern territory of Dayao and occupied Dayao's base, they would still have no choice but to retreat.
Since the Great Xia troops outside Liao City had been destroyed, the mission of the other two armies was already considered a failure.
If there was any good news that resulted from this war with Great Xia, it would be the fact that the Yun Nation was made into a scapegoat.
At this time, the Yun Nation was still excited about the joint attack with Great Xia. They wanted to exterminate Dayao and wash away the humiliation that they had suffered a decade ago.