Chapter 1009

Alden watched the scene before him in horror.

From his vantage point, his soldiers were suffering unprecedented casualties. In the gaps of the Great Yu Empire’s formation, twenty oddly shaped firearms continuously spewed flames. Streams of light points poured out from these firearms, forming a tight net that covered the soldiers in the line.

As time passed, the number of these terrifying firearms on the battlefield increased rapidly: thirty, forty, fifty.

The increasingly dense network of firepower accelerated the rate of life-harvesting. Before he could react, all three thousand regular army soldiers fell in a pool of blood, not a single one surviving.

“Retreat! Retreat!”

Alden shrieked, profound fear completely shattering his will. He had never seen such a terrifying killing weapon. In the face of the Great Yu Empire’s army, their soldiers seemed utterly vulnerable.

But his warning was too late. Although the militia were not within fifty meters at this point, they were all within the machine gun’s range.

After shooting down the regular army soldiers in red uniforms, the machine guns immediately turned their muzzles to fire at the line formed by eight thousand militiamen.

Within a minute, a rain of over thirty thousand bullets charged into the densely packed line, and the militia began to suffer the same fate as the regular army.

“This is a massacre! Alden, the world must have gone mad.” Kenneth’s face was ashen, and his lips trembled incessantly.

In panic, he turned and got on his horse, heading straight for the governor’s mansion without looking back. He now had to leave this place at all costs.

Alden was also in despair. For him, this was not war, but a massacre. Facing such an enemy, they were completely defenseless. Deploying any more troops now would be futile.

He could no longer care about the militiamen still on the battlefield. He mounted his horse and also headed towards the governor’s mansion. Before this, they had made secret preparations. If the war failed, they would escape through merchant ships hidden in a bay thirty miles south of Wales. As for the descendants of these criminals and the free citizens, who would still care about them?

On the beach, Chang Yuzhu stared in astonishment at the British army corpses covering the entire beach. Although they had a thorough understanding of the machine gun’s performance, the effect achieved during its first use in battle was still unexpected.

After the machine guns opened fire, the battle actually lasted only a little over ten minutes, but within those ten minutes, the battle turned into a one-sided slaughter.

The unprepared British army adopted the line formation, which was most advantageous for machine guns, making the harvesting of enemies easy and simple.

Blood stained the white beach. Chang Yuzhu sniffed the pervasive smell of blood in the air and issued another order, “Advance to Wales. Resistants will be killed without mercy!”

“Yes!” The soldiers roared loudly, their morale boosted by the smooth progress of the battle.

They stepped over the corpses of British soldiers, holding Han-style rifles equipped with bayonets. Before them, a small city in the British style appeared.

At the same time, news of the war’s defeat, spread by the fleeing soldiers, swept through Wales like a plague.

Nobles from mainland Britain fled with their wealth along with Governor Kenneth, while the free settlers who had migrated for free land trembled, awaiting an unknown fate. They did not have the same escape routes as the nobles.

The exiled criminals, taking advantage of the lack of soldier supervision, broke free. They robbed and killed people throughout Wales, venting their dissatisfaction at being exiled to Australia.

“Crack crack crack…”

In the chaos, Chang Yuzhu led his soldiers across the beach and approached Wales. At this point, the Imperial soldiers no longer used line formations but adopted skirmish lines.

The soldiers held Han-style rifles, vigilantly observing their surroundings while shooting any resisting British people.

And when they entered the urban area of Wales, the surroundings suddenly became quiet. There were no British people on the streets, but through the windows of the buildings, the soldiers could still see fearful eyes observing them.

Lei Ming had already landed by this time. He and Division Commander Shi Yanjun, protected by soldiers, arrived at the center of Wales. Although this war had some interludes, it was generally very smooth.

In a very short time, they annihilated all of Australia’s military forces.

“Reporting, Commander, we have eliminated the British soldiers who stubbornly resisted in the city and have taken control of the entire city,” Chang Yuzhu saluted Lei Ming and reported loudly.

“Very good!” Lei Ming said happily, “Now I’ll give you another task: gather all the British people here. I want to announce to them that from now on, this place belongs to the Chinese Empire.”

Chang Yuzhu acknowledged, then said to his subordinate generals, “Don’t let a single household escape. Drive them all to the wilderness outside the city, quickly!”

With that, Chang Yuzhu led the wolf-like soldiers into the residents’ homes, and British people were driven out of their rooms one by one.

Shi Yanjun observed the exotic-looking city. He said to Lei Ming, “Commander, this city is not small. How do you plan to deal with its residents? Kill them?”

“It would be a pity to kill them. Since most of the people living here are criminals and their descendants, let them continue to do hard labor here. After all, their own country treats them this way, so why should we pity them?” Lei Ming said calmly. Before coming to Australia, he had a general understanding of Australia.

Simply put, there were three types of people living in Australia now: the first type were mainly prisoners and their descendants. They performed heavy labor in Australia and did whatever they were told under the supervision of soldiers.

The second type were free settlers who had migrated from Britain. Since Australia was declared British territory, the British government announced that all land in Australia could be obtained for free. So some British people who dreamed of having their own ranches ventured here to herd sheep, because Britain’s prosperous industry needed large quantities of wool, and the endless pastures here were very suitable for grazing.

The third type were nobles from Britain, including governors appointed by the British Parliament, military officers, and greedy noble merchants. They used their positions to occupy large tracts of fertile land, while also using prisoners as laborers to serve them and acquire great wealth.

Now that he had occupied Australia, he naturally wanted to make full use of the first two types of people, as this was a considerable labor force.

As for the nobles, they had fled with their wealth when the war was lost.

Although he wanted to capture all of them, these people had already fled completely, and he did not understand the local geography, so he could not pursue them at all.