Chapter 182: Capitalizing on Success (Part 1)

“I must take responsibility!”
Before he could finish speaking, a bloodied messenger rushed over. When he reached Erminga, he shouted, “Major Sart has led infantry and artillery out—there are many of them! Everyone, go reinforce them quickly!”
His words left Erminga no chance to speak. Colonel Bissel asked loudly, “How many? And artillery? We’ll go reinforce them right away.”
But as soon as the messenger finished speaking, he collapsed to his knees, exhausted: “Many… so many!”
It turned out that “many” was a relative term. Compared to the 15,000 soldiers and laborers involved, the force led by Major Sart was insignificant.
Through the telescope, Erminga’s heart raced at the sight of this seemingly insignificant force. He saw a relatively well-organized infantry battalion, along with some rescued people of various ethnicities. Even in the middle of the troops was an artillery company with four 65-mm guns.
Colonel Bissel was equally excited: “Thankful to the merciful God.”
Of these 700 people, 500 were French—this was the only organized French unit to break through after the battle began.
This was inevitable. Though Erminga’s command was almost incompetent, with 15,000 troops on the battlefield, the Black Flag Army could not gain a decisive advantage in any aspect, allowing a significant number of French troops to escape.
Major Sart’s French force had broken through via a shortcut before being surrounded by the Black Flag Army. He even brought good news: “Colonel, there are two smaller units following us. Please reinforce them as soon as possible!”
The Black Flag Army had only slightly more troops than the French, so quite a few small units managed to escape. Unlike Major Sart’s well-organized force, they carried only light weapons, but together their numbers were substantial.
Especially after two French units of 200–300 men were successfully rescued, both Erminga and Colonel Bissel regained much confidence.
“We’ve rescued nearly 2,000 people. What if we send troops to help them?” Erminga suggested immediately.
Nearly 10,000 people were trapped in the encirclement, many of whom had already been killed by the Black Flag Army. Even capturing 10,000 pigs in a day would be a daunting task, let alone 10,000 infantrymen.
But before Colonel Bissel could respond, Erminga dismissed his idea: “What we need is a solid defense…”
He gazed at the battlefield in the distance, where gunfire and artillery fire never ceased. The size of the French forces breaking through kept shrinking, and their numbers continued to decline. The two infantry brigades sent out had rescued less than 30% of their original strength.
Colonel Bissel offered a good suggestion: “We can use the existing positions here to rescue the escaping troops while maintaining a solid defense!”

Since capturing Danfeng, Colonel Bisselle’s garrison had continuously strengthened the fortifications along this front, eventually creating an extremely solid defensive line. In the battles of the previous months, the Black Flag Army had launched several counterattacks against Bisselle’s forces, but all attacks ended in failure as the French managed to hold their line. This was one of the few victories the French achieved on the Tokyo front. Although their opponents had launched their final assaults out of reluctance to incur greater losses, it still boosted Colonel Bisselle’s confidence. “We can hold this place!” … “We must capture Danfeng!” The fighting continued, with the French still organizing resistance. Many units were in disarray, but some officers took command on their own and fought a desperate last stand, with the sounds of battle thundering across the front line. Liu Yu sighed softly as he watched the battlefield, while Liu Suiyun beside him said, “Commander, after this battle, France won’t dare wage war for thirty years!” “I want them to never think of fighting in the East for a hundred years!” What put an end to France’s grand dreams of a vast colonial empire were two humiliating wars for the French—the Franco-Vietnamese War and the Algerian War. These wars drained France of all its strength, forcing them to withdraw from their colonies even more urgently than the colonized peoples themselves. And now, this battle had already caused France to suffer such a painful experience seventy years ahead of schedule. Liu Yu had just inspected the battlefield in the evening breeze, with stray bullets flying from time to time, but what impressed him most were the corpses on the field. In previous battles, although many enemy soldiers had died, there were few actual French nationals; those who died were usually local infantry from Tokyo, Algerian infantry, or foreign legions. But today, French nationals were dying in large numbers. Just the corpses Liu Yu saw with his own eyes numbered in the thousands, and it was estimated that the number of French nationals killed in this battle would force the prime minister to step down. This reminded him of the Battle of Anqing twenty years ago, a decisive clash between the Hunan Army and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. In that battle, the Hunan Army killed thousands of soldiers from Guangxi—far more than they had killed of Taiping soldiers from Guangxi before. After that, the Taiping forces declined sharply and struggled to win any more battles. Yet, even seeing so many corpses, he still sighed, “A kind ruler should not command troops!” “Hmm! We can probably stop now,” Liu Suiyun suggested ending the battle when things were going well. “After this battle, the French won’t be able to continue fighting!” Today’s battle had been a resounding success, with many captures, but the Black Flag Army’s victory came at a high cost—both ammunition and manpower had been depleted to an astonishing extent. Following Liu Suiyun’s advice, “We can try to finish off all the enemies in the encirclement by tomorrow, then go into rest!” “No! We should keep attacking, capture Danfeng, and advance on Hanoi!” “But we don’t have enough troops!” Liu Suiyun lacked Liu Yu’s determination. “We still need to keep some troops to deal with those in the north!” He was clearly referring to the Qing army, but Liu Yu had his own plans.

“There are few who offer help in times of need; as for those who add embellishments, there will always be people willing to participate. I’ve already ordered troops to be transferred from Taiyuan, and they should arrive by tomorrow.”
“Besides that, we can use both the Flower Sect and Shen Sheng’s independent regiment!”
“For a battle like this, I have only two words…”
“Chase the fleeing enemy with remaining strength; don’t seek fame by imitating the Overlord!”