Chapter 1931: Chapter 1924: The Burden of the People

But Lipei’s defeat still made King Gudelv exceptionally angry.

He hadn’t anticipated that dispatching two hundred thousand troops to blockade Lipei, attempting to cut off Lipei’s logistical line with the Church Court, would not only fail to achieve the objective but also result in a defeat.

At this point, he couldn’t allocate more troops for reinforcement, only symbolically transferring thirty thousand soldiers, ordering Brolan and others to capture Lipei at all costs.

Gudelv realized that if he continued to fear souring relations with Lipei and hesitated to wage war, he would end up with nothing.

Since that was the case, he might as well directly attack Lipei. Even if he couldn’t achieve his goal, he could force Lipei to sign a treaty at the city gates, which was much better than being stuck at the doorstep.

A week later, thirty thousand troops arrived at the Western Army camp, compelling Brolan to discuss the plans to attack Lipei with Oklo Laf.

Lipei’s advantages are clear, boasting strong supporting fire and a complete reconnaissance system, making it easy to detect the Aud Army’s movements and call in artillery strikes.

However, Lipei’s disadvantage is equally apparent: a lack of manpower.

The Western Army now boasts two hundred thousand troops, while Lipei at best can barely muster ten or so thousand, putting them on unequal footing in both scale and quality.

Previously, the campaigns were minor, leading to a failure to utilize the Western Army’s numerical advantage, sometimes even attacking the enemy’s superior forces with fewer troops, which was evidently incorrect.

Therefore, the Western Army’s strategic intent became clear: to avoid the enemy’s firepower as much as possible, quickly approaching Lipei’s main city and engaging in a decisive battle beneath its walls.

Two hundred thousand troops advancing quickly upon Lipei’s defenses would cause significant damage, even if not entirely destroyed, enabling pressure for treaty signing to conclude everything.

Yet, the issue at hand was how to evade Lipei’s scouts and prevent artillery strikes.

As the two were pondering this, a new advisor provided them with fresh insights.

This advisor clearly wasn’t Aud, nor an Otherworlder, likely being a messenger from Earth.

The fact that the King deployed this individual to guide the combat strategies left Brolan and Oklo Laf quite puzzled.

However, they soon realized this advisor’s capability, albeit with few ethical restraints.

This mysterious advisor suggested that if Lipei’s artillery couldn’t be avoided, then the solution was to prevent Lipei from firing at all.

From the border to Lipei’s main city is over a hundred kilometers, mostly plains terrain. If Lipei’s artillery advantage could be limited, the army could swiftly reach Lipei’s main city within a day and night, forcing a decisive battle.

But the question remained: how to limit it?

Brolan and Oklo Laf simultaneously raised the same question.

Facing the skepticism, the advisor smiled slightly and proposed a devious plan, one that Lipei couldn’t resist.

Simply put, it involved using civilians to restrict Lipei’s artillery strikes.

Since Lipei prides itself as a moral guardian, it wouldn’t easily fire upon civilians, allowing the Aud Army to advance into Lipei’s heartland under civilian cover with impunity.

Furthermore, the advisor’s scheme went further: the Aud Army could drive a large number of civilians to flood into Lipei, breaking down Lipei’s defensive system and creating a humanitarian crisis. Spies could also hide among them to secretly scout Lipei’s military movements.

Even further, they could use civilians to hostage and threaten Lipei’s army, then exploit worldwide media to report that Lipei was committing mass slaughter in the Otherworld, guiding international Earth opinion to pressure Lipei.

Upon hearing the advisor’s scheme, the two couldn’t help but gasp.

It wasn’t that their moral sense was particularly strong, but they couldn’t imagine that Lipei would easily fall for this tactic.

However, upon careful analysis, they found it indeed seemed feasible.

If they remembered correctly, Lipei’s initial anger stemmed from Brolan’s army attacking villages within Lipei, killing civilians hiding there.

It was later proven that those people weren’t even Lipei natives; they were merely refugees fleeing from abroad to Lipei’s villages for shelter.

Lipei went to war with the Aud Army over a few dozen refugees, indicating that the advisor’s plan was viable, and Lipei would indeed fall for it in such circumstances.

Thus, under this advisor’s planning, the Aud Army began engineering humanitarian disasters outside Lipei, driving these originally Odelanqi refugees into Lipei.

By the fifth day of implementation, over two hundred thousand were driven to seek refuge in Lipei.

Simultaneously, the Aud Army began a significant advance into Lipei, burdened with refugees.

Although the advisor suggested a day-and-night rapid march to reach Lipei’s main city as quickly as possible, both commanders chose to advance steadily.

At the same time, Earth’s media scene began extensively reporting the humanitarian crisis within Lipei, portraying Lipei’s army as the instigators.

For a time, outrage erupted, public sentiments grew heated, and global Earth opinion began condemning the crisis attributed to Lipei.

At this critical juncture, Luo’er was summoned back to Earth to face inquiries from superiors.

In Shenghua Academy’s conference room, facing numerous leaders, Luo’er calmly articulated the facts, pointing out that the crisis stemmed entirely from the Aud Army’s reckless actions.

While Headquarters and higher-ups generally trusted Luo’er’s actions, they still hoped for a definitive answer from him.

Upon hearing Luo’er’s response, there was a collective sigh of relief, and they began contemplating steps to counteract.

The immediate task was to quell or even reverse the public opinion on Earth, directing the blame towards the true instigators.

However, regarding how Lipei should respond to such a crisis, everyone, including Luo’er, initially struggled to come up with a good solution.

Fortunately, Luo’er brought along Cheng Ziang, the Chief Strategist.

During the meeting, Cheng Ziang took the initiative to stand up and deliver an impassioned speech.

His proposal was simple.

Firstly, accept as many of these refugees as possible, arrange and monitor them, preventing any Aud Army informants from causing trouble amidst the chaos.

Secondly, since the Aud Army intends to use civilians as cover to avoid Lipei’s artillery fire, maximize the precision of the strikes instead, specifically through precision strikes and even decapitation actions.

Utilize precise firepower to target enemy command centers, logistics bases, and troop stations, minimizing civilian casualties.

Simultaneously, to intimidate the enemy army, conduct decapitation actions, identifying and targeting senior enemy leaders for elimination.

Cheng Ziang’s iron-blooded proposal won unanimous approval from those present, who nodded with satisfaction.

They could hardly believe that this strategist under Luo’er’s command had such insights, displaying even more assertiveness than Commander Luo’er himself.

Of course, it’s widely recognized that Cheng Ziang excels at planning but lacks in decision-making.

Luo’er’s hesitation largely stemmed from his accountability for implementing decisions; a mistake could result in severe losses, making hesitation almost inevitable.

If Cheng Ziang were in Luo’er’s role, he likely wouldn’t fare much better.

After all, making suggestions is easier than implementing them, given the myriad of considerations involved.

Returning to the meeting, Cheng Ziang’s proposal had long been endorsed by Luo’er, who refrained from presenting it during the meeting to give Cheng Ziang a moment in the spotlight.

Luo’er also needed to cultivate trusted allies, otherwise coping with the increasingly complex situation would be difficult. As a confidant, Cheng Ziang was undoubtedly the ideal candidate for fostering.

Cheng Ziang’s proposal was commendable, but challenges soon followed.

Executing precision strikes or decapitation actions would ideally require airstrikes.

Yet the issue was that Lipei currently faced a scarcity of aircraft.

With only six Skylark Fighters available for aerial reconnaissance, even employing them all for airstrikes would be insufficient and unable to meet combat demands.

After all, six fighters facing two hundred thousand troops was almost mythical.

However, there was some good news.

The Black Tortoise airship, which was undergoing modifications in Helros, had completed its upgrade and would soon be airborne. During this time, it was possible to place an urgent order for a batch of Skylark Fighters from the High-peak people, transporting them via the Black Tortoise to bolster Lipei’s aerial capabilities.