Before entering the mountains, Renyu and Niiyama discussed what should be done with the prisoners, and Niiyama's opinion was to dispose of them all. Infiltration operations behind enemy lines usually leave no prisoners. This would instill fear in the enemy's mind.
But Renyu denied it. Seeing Renyu's denial, Niiyama persuaded, “Mr.Ren, this is a war, and sympathizing with the enemy is cruelty to ourselves. We can only think of ourselves.”
Renyu looked at the Japanese man in front of him, changed by the war, and thought for a moment, “Niiyama, even if we spread fear as much as we can, our forces are just so scarce that we can't intimidate all of our enemies. But it is easy to invoke the hatred of all.”
Niiyama said in a strong tone of voice, “Being able to kill some people is also an advantage.”
Renyu shook his head and said, "Killing won't solve the problem."
Watching Niiyama get a little emotional, Renyu said, "Listen to my explanation and you make your decision."
Niiyama said, "You said."
Renyu said calmly, "There is an old Chinese saying, 'If you know yourself and know your enemy, you will not be in danger in a hundred battles'. Let's try to put ourselves in each other's shoes for a moment. For those Frigoro armies that have come to exterminate us, we have indeed caused them some trouble. However, they can take a different approach to dealing with us as a problem. They can either choose to run away from the trouble or take the initiative."
He paused and then continued, "But if we show our determination to never leave anyone alive, then there is only one response left for these forces besieging us. They must be on constant alert, guarding closely against our possible sneak attacks and making sure that the various units work closely together. For if they slacken the slightest, they may be annihilated by us. Neither the commanders nor the lowest soldiers have any other choice but to fight us to the death. But what if we decide to spare their lives after achieving victory? When faced with a life-and-death decision, knowing that they still have hope of survival, their mindset will change. After all, no one wants to die easily. So, in this case, their fighting spirit will be greatly weakened."
Niiyama frowned and asked, "Are you saying that if we let them live, they will give up fighting us again? How is that possible!"
Renyu gently shook his head and explained, “No, you've misunderstood. What I'm trying to say is that if we release the captives, then for the other troops who have not yet been defeated by us, they will have one more option when facing us. People are afraid of trouble, and as commanders they are even more reluctant to lose a battle. As long as a portion of the remaining troops develop the idea of avoiding battle, the pressure we face will be greatly reduced.”
Niiyama countered, "But if the soldiers we let go are rearmed and then continue fighting us once more, won't our previous victories be in vain?"
Renyu revealed a faint smile and said, ''Victory in war does not depend solely on killing, but also on destroying the opponent's will to fight. As long as we continue to win, those troops who were defeated by us but managed to survive will inevitably be hesitant and slow to act when they see us when fighting alongside friendly forces. This emotion of avoiding war can be infected to their entire army as long as it exists, and then the impression is reinforced by the blow of defeat after defeat."
"There's also another reason, their army is fighting us in small squads, even if we wipe out one of their squads, it doesn't have much of an effect on the other squads. And those commanders are all nobles, this kind of battle without a lot of casualties will just be ridiculed for the nobles, it won't make higher level commanders take away their command, but they will definitely want to disgrace those people as well after being ridiculed by their peers. This way they will unconsciously help us spread the sentiment of avoiding war."
Renyu gazed at Niiyama, and seeing him nodding thoughtfully, he continued to explain, ''If I am faced with an enemy whose strength is far inferior to mine, and who dares to provoke me, I will use the strongest means, and the fastest speed to completely destroy them; however, if I encounter a strong enemy that is difficult to defeat in the short term, then my battle bottom line will be drawn based on what the enemy has done. At this stage, our combat goal is not to destroy as many enemies as possible, but to stall them and trap them in the outer battlefield. But we're too weak, so if we push the other side to leave no room for maneuver, it will trigger them to fight to the death, and then we'll be in danger of extinction.”
Niiyama was convinced.
And it is due to Renyu's control that the entire army does not move in the direction of depravity. Each time the enemy was defeated, the captured personnel were released back after being disarmed, in addition to the casualties inflicted in battle. Those commanders and soldiers who fled back to the rear with shame suffered the ridicule of their fellow soldiers, and as the ridicule grew, they came to greatly expect their ridiculing colleagues to return with shame on their backs.
Over the course of a month-long battle, Renyu and Niiyama's forces had exchanged fire with a total of thirty-seven combat squads in the mountains. Every single time, they crushed them. The opponents had also gone from cursing in the beginning to having to use honorifics in combat meetings.
Of course this raid on the four combat squads and the airships was a new record of victory. Those routed Fleeglo soldiers very skillfully put down their weapons and raised their hands to surrender. There were even some soldiers who had gotten to know each other with the soldiers guarding the captives because they had surrendered several times.
While the cleaning of the battlefield on the ground was proceeding methodically, the airships in the sky were not adjusting back, due to the fact that the airship airbags were dangling from the front and back weights of the silos. The steam furnace that provided the power also tilted to one side, and after five minutes the boiler began to catch fire, and the flames then ignited one of the connecting ropes between the huge airbags. This aerial disaster occurred fifteen minutes after the tilt. The ropes connecting the airbags on the originally warped side broke in the fire. Countless airbags flew out of the airship's shell, and the silo, which was originally pointing at sixty or seventy degrees to the sky, suddenly dropped slowly without buoyancy, pulling the entire airship down diagonally toward the ground as well.
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A tragic disaster occurred as the many people and goods that were originally concentrated at the front end were inverted due to the top and bottom. It slammed steeply into the back of the airship. After a loud sound of wood breaking. These unlucky people and objects directly smashed through the barn of the boat, and as the barn swung a large number of them were flung down. Hundreds of soldiers and warhorses fell down from the huge broken hole at the back end of the boat barn.
Including the captives, as well as Renyu, Niiyama's troops unconsciously looked at this tragic sight in the sky with their mouths wide open.
Looking at the airships in the sky that had fallen apart beyond recognition, Niiyama said, "It's really comparable to a disaster blockbuster."
Renyu said, "War is supposed to be the greatest disaster."
Renyu turned to Niiyama and said, "You quickly withdraw east with your troops, leaving me with fifty men. I'll take command of the prisoners and see if I can save a few."
With a look of incredulity on his face, Niiyama pointed at the huge barn of a boat hanging from the airbag and swaying from side to side, "That thing could come crashing down at any moment, are you crazy?"
However Renyu had already rushed out by now, leaving behind the words, "You take the troops out first."
"You, all of you, go over there right now, and get anyone you see with a breath in two minutes out of there fast." Hearing Renyu's order, these captives hesitated a bit. But then Renyu waved his hand fifty soldiers raised their shining bayonets, matching the rows of soldiers' bayonets, Renyu sucked in a breath and said, "My soldiers will be watching you guys from fifty meters away whoever doesn't run over there for a trip will suffer the consequences.Ten seconds and counting."
Rows of guns were aimed at the surrendered soldiers. The captives quickly ran towards the crash site. As all the captives ran towards the crash site, Renyu said to the remaining troops, "Maintain the force suppression formation. I'm going to take a look." Renyu then followed the captives as they ran over to the site with his own people looking on in amazement.
In fact, Renyu wasn't sure if he really wanted to save people, the war was too brutal, some people were driven crazy and went on a killing spree, while others were psychologically weak and committed suicide in the barracks.Renyu couldn't be sure if he was strong, or if his current behavior was a case of suicidal tendencies taking over, or if it was the many years of education that had made it impossible for him to tolerate the fragile lives wailing in front of his eyes. wailing before his eyes.
Even rushing halfway by himself, hearing the huge boat silo that made a creaking figure in mid-air, Renyu even developed a strong feeling of regret.
Reaching the fall zone of a field of corpses, Renyu heard a hoarse plea for help from the bushes, and with the threat of a death hammer swinging overhead, Renyu got close enough to carry the man on his back. This person's seventy to eighty kilograms of weight, Renyu himself did not know where he got the courage to swing this person towards his body and run quickly. After running for three to five seconds, Renyu heard the sound of a huge rope collapsing above his back, and the huge black shadow that was blocking out the sunlight fell towards the other side.
There was a loud thud. The massive hull of the boat slammed into the ground, the tiny splinters of broken wood grazing his own forehead.Renyu stopped putting the man behind him down and gasped loudly. The fallen man behind him said in a tone of self-deprecating doubt, "Mina's officer?"
Renyu twisted his head to look at the middle-aged knight with a bloodstained face. Gasping, he said, "As the victor, I have the right to decide whether to save you or kill you."
This middle-aged man let out a night-lord-like laugh and said, "Don't expect anyone to be grateful, I know you blew up the steel cables of the blimp, you made this happen."
Renyu shook his head and said, "Back then, you were my opponent, and trying to fight you guys in every way possible was how I survived. As for now, you are the defeated, it is my freedom to do what I want. As an opponent you're in a position to judge me, as the defeated, you're not in a position to do so now."
This middle-aged man laughed and said, "It's funny that Mina has someone like you."
Renyu patted his pants leg and said, “I'll have Fleeglo's defeated soldiers find you later. This little encounter is over. Feel free to bring more troops to us if you want to seek revenge on me.” Ten minutes later Renyu disappeared out of sight of the defeated soldiers with fifty of his soldiers.
The middle-aged man was surrounded by a group of soldiers with their heads bowed. In the middle-aged man's hand a flowing mass of healing magic potion circled his ribs as well as his thighs. After a few minutes he stood up, although his face and clothes were a bit dirty, he could not hide his aura of superiority. Looking at a group of remnants without any weapons. This middle-aged man said angrily, "All of you raise your heads, seeing you like this, it would be better to let Mina's people just kill you."
What Renyu doesn't know is that the middle-aged man he just saved is actually the Duke of Silari, who is in charge of Fleeglo, and once Renyu kills him, the months-long war will be over.
On this journey, Duke Silari brought eight infantry squads (seven hundred and twenty infantry), four cavalry squads (120 cavalry), and one artillery team to the east for inspection. The main purpose was not to eliminate Renyu's group. For Duke Silari, Renyu's Mina was just a small problem. Since Renyu's Mina was just a defeated unit and caused fewer casualties, Fleeglo's army, which was in charge of the siege of Renyu, changed the name of the battle to “fierce fighting”. The battle report submitted to the Duke of Silari only showed a large loss of equipment.
Silari's real concern is that General Battalio is in contact with Mina.
So landing in the middle of the way to drop off a group of besieging troops was done only in passing. The real purpose was to provide support to the troops besieging General Bataleo and to inspect the defenses there in the meantime. Unfortunately, this support was all but wiped out halfway through by the forces commanded by Renyu and Niiyama. What surprised him even more was that the airship was only thirty meters from the ground. At this height, even if all the airbags were destroyed, they were still able to land safely. However, they were actually almost completely wiped out by an enemy with far fewer troops than their own.
This fiasco witnessed by Silari seems to have given the noble officers who were defeated by Renyu Niiyama an excuse, and it's almost as if no one has ever said to Silari, "Look, it's not that we're incompetent, it's that our opponent is too strong."
And Silari sensed that his troops had this mood of justified failure, so the mood was very stormy. Duke Silari thought longer term and thought, “This Sergeant Mina is commanding just a small unit. If Mina Command gives this unit more support, then won't the troops here even have the courage to fight against it.”