Steel Dynasty - Chapter 887

[Chapter 885 Annexing Chu State]

“Sima Hao really had a good plan. He thought that deliberately letting go of the parliamentary army would give my troops a reason to withdraw from the Chu Kingdom. It was really whimsical.”

On a high ground, Xiao Ming and Li Chu Yuanfeng chatted lightly.

Li Chuyuan sweated slightly on his forehead and did not dare to breathe. Although he knew that Xiao Ming’s goal was to unify the Chongqing Kingdom, but he had just cooperated with the Sima family and then turned around and destroyed the Sima family, it was a bit too fast.

He couldn’t help but sigh in his heart that maybe he was really not suitable for political strategy, and he could only be played to death in front of Xiao Ming.

“The Sima family has long had treasonous intentions, and I want to get rid of them. Now I am really happy.” Li Chuyuan smiled with a smile on his face, but his heart was bitter. In his opinion, Xiao Ming and Sima Hao were not good people, but why was he?

It’s just that the winner is the king and the loser is the enemy.

Xiao Ming nodded lightly, “Don’t forget what you have to do next, I will fulfill my promise to you.”

The current situation in Chu State is complicated. In addition to some people who support the Sima family, there are also a group of people who support Li Chu Yuan’s, but the strength of this group of people is obviously not comparable to that of the Sima family.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. As his mind grows, Xiao Ming has seen through many problems. If he wants to build an immortal empire, he must pay equal attention to kindness and power, and go hand in hand with killing and kindness.

Therefore, he no longer had any sympathy for the wealthy people of Chu State. In the face of internal and external troubles, he only used iron and blood methods to bring Chu State under the management of the imperial court as quickly as possible.

And enemies that stand in the way of this goal must be completely eliminated.

Because of this, he decided to let Li Chuyuan issue a guilty edict, officially announcing that he would no longer inherit the king’s title, ending hundreds of years of Li family rule over the Chu State, and handing the Chu State over to royal rule.

After sizing up Li Chuyuan again, Xiao Ming patted him on the shoulder. Wang Xuan also sent other information about the defection incident a few days ago.

This information made him feel that the reunification of the Chongqing Kingdom was imminent and could no longer be delayed so slowly.

In fact, this is a set of data. According to Wang Xuan’s various investigations, he obtained the approximate population numbers of some countries, including Japan with a population of 22 million, Britain with a population of 29 million, and France with a population of 32 million. Tsarist Russia has a population of 44 million, and India has a population of 120 million.

In addition, Korea has a population of 7.5 million, the Netherlands has a population of 1.9 million, and so on.

This general data is similar to the contemporary data recorded by technology crystals. In fact, with the improvement of living standards, the population of Europe has surged.

But it has to be said that these population data put a lot of pressure on Xiao Ming, because the current population of Great Chongqing is only slightly advantageous.

Relatively speaking, these countries are all populous countries, especially Tsarist Russia.

Knowing this, Xiao Ming did not dare to take it lightly anymore. If the enemies he faced were united, they would be a very powerful force. Although Europe often had internal strife in history, it had always been united in dealing with foreign enemies, such as in response to the Ottoman invasion.

However, dealing with enemies always requires flexibility. He also has a plan to divide Europe and deal with another new country.

According to the intelligence obtained by Wang Xuan, the British Sequoia Army had just failed in the North American Colonial War, and the American War of Independence had begun.

The Netherlands, Spain, France, Tsarist Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Austria all secretly supported this war of independence in the North American colonies, and the Redwood Army was in a difficult situation.

For Xiao Ming, he has no good impression of the United States, which is fighting for independence, but in this era, Britain is the world hegemon.

That’s why France, Tsarist Russia and others support the independence of their colonies. According to normal logic, they should support this new country, because Britain will lose a large piece of territory. After all, Britain is the world hegemon now.

After pondering for a while, Xiao Ming shook his head again. Although he had many ideas, he was beyond his reach now. What he wanted to do now was to strengthen the Chongqing Kingdom.

As for whether the United States will be established, he is not very worried. After all, this new country is very weak and he can bully it as much as he wants.

The fierce gunfire continued, and then the rumble of cannons also rang out.

Xiao Ming continued to look, and the war in Suzhou City had now entered a fever pitch.

Tiger soldiers holding falcon rifles used the trenches dug by the merchant council outside the city to shoot, and the soldiers flexibly ran between the obstacles between the trenches and the ground.

The clumsy Chu army still moved towards them rigidly with flintlock guns. This dense formation immediately became the artillery’s favorite.

Three hundred and sixty field guns loaded with explosive shells directly bombarded the Chu army advancing in a dense formation.

The artillery shells exploded in the crowd, and the Chu army’s soldiers rose into the sky together with the splashing soil. After no artillery shells were fired, a large piece of the Chu army’s array would be missing.

“Boom, boom, boom…”

The artillerymen seemed to have found an opportunity to vent their anger. They fought more vigorously, and the frequency of artillery fire also increased.

At the same time as the bombardment, some Huben soldiers formed an array of skirmishers, and after some shooting based on their distance advantage, they quickly dispersed.

Under this fierce attack, the Chu army soldiers finally collapsed. In just half an hour, more than 8,000 Chu army corpses were left in front of Suzhou City.

The most important thing is that these soldiers had no chance to shoot until they died. This despair caused the morale of the Chu army to collapse.

“Kill!”

Lu Fei shouted, and the soldiers rushed out of the trench and rushed towards the defeated Chu army.

A soldier of the Huben Army took one step and loaded a paper-cased bullet into the gun chamber. When he closed the locking structure, the locking structure cut the paper-cased bullet out of the gunpowder. The trigger was pulled, and the flash cap ignited the gunpowder.

With a “pop” sound, the Chu soldiers fifty meters away fell down.

Xiao Ming withdrew his gaze at this time. This was the advantage of breech-loading rifles over flintlock rifles. Before this advantage was lost, he wanted to unify the Chongqing Kingdom.

“Boom, boom, boom…”

In the hail of bullets, Chu soldiers suffered heavy casualties. These Chu soldiers and children of wealthy families who had been living in their comfort zone were crying and running away. Now they finally understand that war is not about whose uniforms are more beautiful.

Li Chuyuan followed Xiao Ming. He also saw this scene, and his expression suddenly became more respectful.

Suzhou is a big city and is connected to Taihu Lake. It can be said that it controls the waterways and land routes south of the Yangtze River. Relying on Suzhou as a support, Lin’an is always under threat from the royal army.

“Your Majesty, the soldiers are ready.” Niu Ben suddenly said to Xiao Ming at this time, with a hint of fanaticism in his eyes.

Xiao Ming’s eyes narrowed. When they were in Jinling City, they had decided on a strategy to stabilize the Chu Kingdom. He said: “Confiscate the property of all the wealthy families and give the land to the people for farming. What do I want to show the people of Jiangnan?” It’s the emperor’s grace!”

(End of this chapter)