Chapter 216: Chapter 149: A Strategy to Win Hearts_2
Translator: 549690339
“All the people inside Linwu County are rebels. These people stubbornly resist the imperial court and are deeply involved in the rebellion, making them impossible to reeducate.”
Lu Yuan looked at the interrogation results, his face turning completely livid. He instructed his disciples, “Lead your men, and go to every village and town and capture all the rebellious civilians there.”
These rebels in the county are stubborn and unwilling to surrender, right?
I want to see what happens when I capture their families and fellow villagers and force them to be the first to attack the city.
Would the rebel forces within Linwu County’s walls still have the heart to kill their own families?”
He has become profoundly disgusted by the attacks in the past days.
In two days’ time, the army had only covered thirty miles, half the speed of their previous pace.
Moreover, every few miles traveled, they experienced another rebel ambush, which was truly infuriating.
Now, learning that nearly everyone in this county was a rebel, determined to fight the imperial court to the end, Lu Yuan’s final shred of patience and kindness vanished.
The local people here were just like the Miao people, a group of ineducable and unsavable diehards.
The best way to deal with these unstable elements was to physically eliminate them, just as they would do with the Miao people.
If they couldn’t deal with the trouble itself, they would deal with the troublemakers.
The family members of these Seven Star Sect’s disciples were the root of the problem. Without removing them, Linwu County and even the whole Luyang Prefecture would never be stable.
Such a revelation arose in Lu Yuan’s heart.
The order from the valiant general was quickly executed.
His disciples soon led their respective troops, based on a unit of five hundred men per camp, dispersed to various villages and towns to arrest the local rebels.
After making the decision to resist to the end, the people of Linwu County had indeed tried to evacuate civilians so that they could avoid military disaster and escape imperial retaliation.
However, with tens of thousands of people scattered across hundreds of miles, the dozens of villages and towns were hardly able to evacuate in time.
Therefore, when Lu Yuan sent people to arrest the rebels, although many villages and towns were already emptied, there were still one or two that couldn’t avoid fast enough.
Even those who managed to hide somewhere had been found and captured.
This strategy was indeed effective.
After sending a large army to search and arrest them in various villages and towns, the number of attacks on the road had significantly decreased.
Many of the attackers were actually locals from these villages and towns.
At this point, their homes had already been raided and they naturally couldn’t continue to cause trouble.
Those whose homes hadn’t been touched also feared that further attacks would expose their families’ hiding places and bring disaster upon them, so they didn’t dare to act either.
In this way, the army’s advance was finally unimpeded, and they had shaken off the harassing flies.
This operation took several days.
By the time Lu Yuan finally arrived at Linwu County town with his army, many of his disciples had already escorted thousands of captives to converge with his forces.
However, since they had just arrived and the camp wasn’t ready yet, Lu Yuan didn’t immediately attack the city. Instead, he ordered the construction of the camp, waiting for the others to return.
After waiting for two more days outside the city, all the disciples who had been sent out finally returned.
At this time, after days of searching, they had captured more than ten thousand rebels from various locations.
Among these ten thousand captives, the majority were the old, weak, women and children. In fact, women accounted for more than half.
After all, their husbands, sons, and fathers were either besieged in Luyang Fu City or holding out in Linwu County town, prepared to fight to the death.
So, it was only natural that those left behind were women, children, and the elderly.
Lu Yuan had little sympathy for these people.
Their fathers, husbands, and sons were now rebelling against the imperial court and standing as his enemies.
If he didn’t capture them now and dismantle the rebels’ resistance.
Then a normal siege of the city would result in the deaths of not just a few hundred or a few thousand of his men, but tens of thousands.
Lu Yuan was a valiant general, and on the battlefield, he was only responsible for his soldiers’ lives.
As for the families of these rebels, whether they live or die depended on whether the rebels had the heart to be ruthless.
If the rebels could actually kill their own wives, parents, and children, then there was no doubt that these madmen should be thoroughly eradicated, without leaving even one behind.
If they couldn’t do it, then he could take advantage of the situation, easily break through the city walls and seize control of Linwu County.
Boom!
With a thunderous drumbeat, one unit after another emerged from the camp and gathered a hundred steps away from the city walls.
Lu Yuan stood on a high command vehicle, and as he saw the anxious city dwellers far-off, his expression was cold and he ordered directly, “Bring out the family members of those rebels.”
Once the order was given, it didn’t take long before a large group of crying and wailing men, women, and children was herded by soldiers towards the front of the army.
Although they were said to be forced to attack the city, these people had no weapons, as soldiers had learned their lesson from previous events:
The family members of the Seven Star Sect rebels had practiced martial arts. Even women and children could wield their weapons if they found them in their hands.
During the recent days of arresting rebels, many soldiers had suffered losses due to surprise attacks from the rebels..
