Chapter 170: Unstoppable Advance

The second lieutenant was well aware of the actual situation at the outpost. As soon as fighting started, these Vietnamese auxiliary troops would act like timid turtles. They were soldiers recruited only at the beginning of the war and had not received any rigorous training. “We should retreat…”
But before he could finish speaking, shells were already whizzing and hitting the outpost. They were 60-mm mortars, the signature weapon of the Black Flag Army. A few shells caused moderate damage, filling the entire outpost with thin trails of smoke and dust.
“The Black Flag Army is here…” At that moment, the Annamese auxiliary troops had already disappeared. They turned and ran, some hiding under tables inside buildings, while others dragged their guns and jumped out of the outpost. “Let’s run!”
The outpost, originally staffed by over thirty people, had lost half of its members after just one round of artillery fire. Then both sides exchanged gunfire, with bullets causing more casualties. “The Black Flag Army has an entire battalion…”
The second lieutenant could now clearly see their enemy. Although it didn’t have a full infantry battalion, it had at least two infantry companies, well-equipped and far beyond what their small outpost could resist. “Soldiers, the enemy has sent an entire regiment to attack us. We must make a difficult choice.”
The French tricolor flag fluttering above the outpost suddenly came down, replaced by a white flag. “Is this really our war? We surrender unconditionally to this powerful enemy and demand civilized treatment in the European style.”
They knew the Black Flag Army’s mixed attitude toward prisoners—sometimes offering generous treatment, other times behaving like true barbarians—but those who surrendered voluntarily had never suffered any abuse.
“Keep your rifles and ammunition safe for handover to the Black Flag Army. Burn our confidential files. This is not our war.”
The second lieutenant’s decision left several Frenchmen hesitant, but he said to them, “We should die on the battlefield against Germany, facing their bullets with our chests. I love you.”
“As for the Annamese, they have nothing to do with this war in the first place.”
The second lieutenant’s explanation won everyone’s agreement. After a brief exchange of fire, the 23 soldiers at the outpost handed over all their weapons and ammunition to the Black Flag Army and received corresponding treatment.
Such incidents occurred frequently along the border. The Black Flag Army never expected to achieve such a sweeping victory. Nearly a hundred French soldiers surrendered voluntarily, and there were seven to eight hundred captives from the Vietnamese indigenous forces.
When the sun rose again, the Black Flag Army’s headquarters was filled with joy. “A great victory! An unprecedented victory!”
Within the past 36 hours, seven infantry battalions and one reinforcement battalion of the Black Flag Army had flooded into Indochina, completely destroying every border outpost on the map. Almost all outposts fought in isolation before being easily breached by the attacking Black Flag Army forces.

Each outpost on the map was marked as occupied, but what was truly pleasing was that the soldiers at these outposts, even the French ones, lacked strong fighting will. Each outpost had only a small number of troops, and in some cases, the Vietnamese sergeants simply lined up their troops and saluted as they surrendered to the Black Flag Army: “We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

“At least two enemy infantry battalions have been wiped out in the past day. There are only two remaining strongholds. We can end the battle by noon today, with very few casualties,” said a staff officer cheerfully to Liu Yinggong. “If we keep this up, taking Shunhua won’t be a problem either.”

Eliminating nearly half of the enemy force in just one day was beyond Liu Yinggong’s imagination. Even under the most favorable circumstances, they had thought it would take three days to break through this border defense line—actually, his estimate was a little less than a week. But in just 36 hours, the French defenses, which had been in place for so long, collapsed like an avalanche under the assault of the Black Flag Army, leaving even more lucrative targets ahead.

To maintain order in their colony, the French adopted a highly common tactic in policing operations: dispersing their troops across countless small strongholds, creating a vast network of security forces right before them. The French spread their troops across the countryside with no intention of concentrating them. They had troops stationed in every province, every prefecture, and every county, controlling everything in the colony.

But they had no reserve forces, no mobile units, no backup troops. “We’ll concentrate our forces and sweep through them in batches,” he said.

Liu Yinggong was aware of his advantages. “We should be able to take out three to four more battalions within a week…”

As he gave the order, thousands of soldiers in grass-green uniforms continued moving south. Any French stronghold that stood in their way was easily destroyed, and the tricolor flags were replaced by the black banners of the Black Flag Army. For the French, this was a disaster upon disasters.

In front of a large-scale military map, several French senior officers were furious. “In the past 72 hours, we’ve lost at least three infantry battalions—meaning one battalion lost per day.”

The actual losses were even worse than they admitted. The black arrows on the map marked attacks by the Black Flag Army everywhere, with numerous strongholds now marked as occupied by the enemy. Even for those still fighting, they held little hope—they surely couldn’t hold out much longer. “Most of our troops are out of contact. That’s all we know.”

The Governor-General of Indochina looked grim. Now, three provinces were under simultaneous heavy attacks. He had no idea how many of the troops stationed there could survive this onslaught.

But he knew this was the greatest disaster in the colony’s history. Looking at the countless defeated strongholds, he could only ask, “How many troops can we deploy? As quickly as possible?”

“A battalion and a half of infantry, but we can’t guarantee their safety, and Saigon’s own security will also be at risk.” The French had no idea how large the enemy forces were—how many infantry battalions the Black Flag Army had deployed. “We estimate the enemy’s forces to exceed ten infantry battalions. So far, we’ve identified at least nine infantry battalions, with the total possibly ranging from twelve to sixteen.” The French and Vietnamese forces in Indochina combined numbered no less than that, around twenty infantry battalions, but these were scattered across the entire colony, and gathering them together would be a time-consuming process. Especially in a colony without telephones and a poor telegraph network, it would take at least a week to assemble the troops stationed in outlying units far from the provincial capitals. In fact, even now, many garrisons attacked by the Black Flag Army were unaware of the situation before the battle began; they only learned of the attack when it started. In many remote areas, it took at least half a month to confirm news of the Black Flag Army’s advance—all of this combined led to a disaster. Troops were being lost every minute, and worse still, the three northern provinces were now almost completely cut off from Saigon. These provinces had about eight battalions of troops, along with thousands of less combat-effective Vietnamese local auxiliary forces, militia, and police—none of whom could resist the Black Flag Army’s attacks. “Request support from Huế!” the governor shouted angrily. “We’ve given Huế too much support, to the point where it’s affecting the colony’s defense. They must repay us.” In the eyes of the Black Flag Army, those past eighty-plus hours were merely a straightforward advance. After effortlessly eliminating the border defenses, the next step was easy battles and forcing the surrender of Vietnamese auxiliary forces. The Annamese indigenous infantry, touted as the elite of French indigenous infantry, were utterly helpless. They surrendered in droves to the Black Flag Army, especially Zhou Chu’s battalion, which took in thousands of Annamese indigenous soldiers. All officers immediately understood why—once-proud Annamese indigenous infantry had been utterly defeated, both in the Tonkin region and Huế. Among the Annamese indigenous infantry units they encountered, the “oldest” unit had been formed just eighteen months earlier—though still older than the Black Flag Army’s forces, it had previously been a transport unit. Over the past year, the core of the entire Annamese indigenous force, in fact, the entire old Annamese indigenous force, had been dispatched to Tonkin, where they were repeatedly annihilated. Every month, entire battalions of indigenous troops were sent to the north, only to be defeated there. Half a year earlier, the entire old Annamese indigenous force in the colony had been depleted, leaving only troops from newly formed “old units” available.

Especially after the Battle of Shanxi, to make up for the huge losses in troops in the Tokyo and Huế areas, even newly formed indigenous infantry units, as long as they had received basic rifle training, were sent to the north. Under such circumstances, it was obvious what kind of enemy forces remained in the south—many infantry companies were essentially composed of recruits still in training. Faced with a surging enemy force, with no friendly troops around and no hope of receiving reinforcements, they made a wise choice.
“It’s too easy!” Li Qiu praised Liu Yu over the phone. “The commander is extremely wise. Now I don’t even know what to do with so many prisoners. I only have 600 soldiers, but now I have 1,100 prisoners.”
Liu Yinggong faced similar troubles on his end: “My situation isn’t much better than yours.”
The original plan was to eliminate three to four enemy battalions within a week. Now, excluding those killed or wounded, there were already over 2,200 prisoners and defectors, not including the 1,100 prisoners captured by Li Qiu.
The Black Flag Army sent south this time consisted of only seven infantry battalions and one reinforcement battalion, plus some direct subordinate units, totaling just 4,600 soldiers. “Yinggong, we need support from Huế. We can’t let such a favorable situation be ruined by us.”