Chapter 567: Chapter 268: Assimilation Conscription _3

Coming back, the journey was familiar.

Under the pressure of 10,000 forbidden soldiers, threatened by the lives of their wives and children in the city, under the coercion of their superiors, these 15,000 Yi people had no choice but to grit their teeth, with bloodshot eyes, step into the cruel grindhouse of flesh and blood and join the camp’s battle.

Since they were all Yi people, Lu Yuan was, of course, not as hesitant as before, reluctant to let the forbidden army launch a fierce attack and trying to minimize casualties.

For him, who was already intending to exhaust these Yi men, he naturally took the opportunity to exhaust them to the fullest.

Batch after batch of Yi soldiers were sent to the battlefield, then quickly worn down, those who managed to escape were executed as deserters by the fierce supervising team.

Under this brutal exhaustion, in just half a month, out of the 15,000 Yi people, only slightly more than 3,000 remained.

However, Lu Yuan was not at all concerned about this.

Because news had already come from Li Xiong’s side that with the deployment of the recruitment teams, within the territories ruled by the Wu Savage Country, new hands had quickly been scraped up from the various small nations and tribes.

About 10,000 more Yi soldiers would arrive in about ten days.

However, after this turmoil, many tribes and even small nations of the Yi people, in order to evade military service, chose to escape to the mountain forests, far away from this terrifying war.

In response to this, Li Xiong had also specifically formed several cleaning teams led by local Yi traitors and the experts he had gathered, going into the mountains to clean up and round up these refugees.

According to Li Xiong, he was confident that even if these refugees fled to the mountains, he could drive them out and return them to the battlefield.

In another month, after the refugees are cleaned up, another batch of 10,000 Yi soldiers will continue to be brought in after squeezing those tribes and small nations again.

However, after these two blood-lettings, it should be impossible to squeeze any more soldiers out of the old Yi people in the Wu Savage Country.

According to Li Xiong’s plan, after completing these two recruitments, he planned to send a work group to the Nongdong Kingdom and continue to work from there.

This Wu Savage Country’s original ally, after its own defeat, quickly turned to the da Changhe Country, with its vitality relatively well preserved.

If he squeezed hard enough, he should be able to recruit 30,000 soldiers.

In this way, with both the Wu Savage and Nongdong Kingdoms combined, Lu Yuan’s small goal of recruiting 50,000 soldiers would be accomplished.

The additional contribution from the Hui Chuan Kingdom would be icing on the cake.

Until the last drop of blood is drained from the Yi people, for the sake of his throne and his semi-country territory, Li Xiong will not stop his footsteps.

Having such an efficient recruitment magistrate, Lu Yuan naturally has no concern about the consumption of Yi soldiers on the front line.

Even these remaining three thousand men were driven back into the battlefield without even two days of rest.

Until the last drop of a Yi person’s blood has been drained, Lu Yuan will not stop this war either.

“Despicable!”

In the great Changhe Barracks, Li Chuan watched as yet another round of attack was launched towards him, and his hand slapped hard against the wall next to him. The force of his anger shattered the hard wood, the debris flying all over the place.

But toward this, Li Chuan was oblivious, instead gritting his teeth with red eyes and saying, “Those Chu people, afraid of dying themselves, but driving our clansmen to attack the city, causing us to slaughter each other, really despicable!”

The pressing anger in his heart, uncontainable, made the grand general of the great Changhe Country long to burst out immediately, fight the Chu people, and have a fair and square final battle.

But he didn’t dare.

The battles of these few days, the Chu people’s successive victories, and their own continuous retreat, all demonstrated the other side’s terrible and powerful strength.

After years of warfare, consuming a large number of elite troops, the great Changhe Kingdom, on this side, was truly seriously injured and extremely weak.

Not only was the quality of the soldiers extremely poor, but even the various military equipment was far inferior to the sturdy armor and sharp weapons of the Chu people.

On the battlefield, with the same number, or even two to three times the number, the great Changhe Army could not defeat the Chu Army.

Even with the desperate defense of the heavily fortified barracks these couple days, even if there were only fifty to sixty thousand Chu troops across the field, Li Chuan did not have much confidence of defeating them.

And this continuous streak of failures made the grand general all too aware that the current Great Changhe Country is no longer a match for the rising Chu State in the East.

Even though his side had been established as a country for a thousand years, in face of the Chu State which was only a few years old, the two were not in the same league.

‘Damn it, is this the strength of the Yang people?

Even after just experiencing war, even as a newly established country, as long as they consolidate their internals and initiate external aggression, they are still so powerful and frightening.

Is this the terrifying enemy that those extinct Yue, Miao, Qiang, and Man etc., had faced?

Facing such an enemy, can my Chilih tribe really resist?’

Li Chuan had these pessimistic thoughts in his heart, but he couldn’t show them on his face.

He is the commander of the army, the only hope for the great Changhe Country now.

If he lost confidence, the people underneath would feel even more desperate.

And in this state, when meeting the enemy again, the great Changhe Country would truly have no hope left.

Embracing this will, Li Chuan forcibly suppressed his internal fear and pessimism, suppressed his present anger, and turned to ask, “How is the situation in the Nongdong and Hui Chuan countries now?”

The Chu army that met his eyes was not the only force the other side had.

Aside from Stone City, the Chu people had also sent 20,000 soldiers to attack each of Hui Chuan and Nongdong two countries.

So when he got the news, Li Chuan, aware of the unfavorable situation, immediately pulled out troops. From the Stone City’s main camp, he pulled out 30,000 troops each and sent them to the two countries for reinforcement.

After these 60,000 people were dispatched, the number of people left in the main camp was only 120,000.

But now, after these days of cruel offense and defense, another 10,000 soldiers were lost.

What infuriated Li Chuan even more was that the soldiers who had died these days were killed by people of his same descent. The Chu people who really killed them were less than two.

A war that was supposed to have been between the Chilih tribe and the Chu people eventually returned to its original form, a bloody civil war within the Chilih people.

What filled him with even more dread was that with the continuous warfare, in the entire main camp, the soldiers that were still capable of fighting were just over 100,000.

Initially, when the army surrounded Stone City, he had more than two hundred thousand troops, such ambitions.

But in just two short months, the original two hundred thousand troops were cut by more than half, leaving only a mere one hundred thousand.

In this situation, he naturally wanted to urgently know the situation on the other two fronts.

Over there, hopefully, they were not as difficult as over here?

Li Chuan’s heart was cold.