Two days after the 500,000-strong orc army was annihilated, I led my team to the outskirts of Anpu City again. According to intelligence, when the orcs gathered more than 300,000 surviving orcs to chase my troops, they had completely abandoned Anpu City and only sent out the various supplies they looted. Afterwards, these huge quantities of supplies, mainly food, were burned to ashes by the few orcs who stayed behind after the orcs' pursuit troops were completely wiped out.
But from beginning to end, the few scouts sent to investigate the situation near Anpu City did not see any people from Anpu City coming out of the city. And because the scouts were too few in number, they did not dare to get too close to Anpu City.
"It seems that all the residents in Anpu City have died, otherwise how could there not be even a single person? Look, even the nearly 100,000 orc corpses outside the South Gate show no signs of having been cleaned up... Damn, they all stink..." Shen Qiang muttered in a low voice as he looked at the silent Anpu South Gate amidst a sea of corpses.
"The First Division is going to enter the city to search for traces of orcs, and at the same time check if there are any survivors in the city. The rest of the troops are going to retreat 2 kilometers and wait... Yiya, take Yaruo and the others to rest as well." After jumping off the horse, I checked the various traces on the city wall and issued a series of orders. Then, under the protection of the First Division, we slowly marched into the city.
"Shen Qiang, everyone will be killed without mercy..." After entering Anpu City, my first words were to issue a killing order.
"What?" Shen Qiang, who didn't react for a moment, looked at me blankly. He didn't understand the meaning behind my order at all.
"I say that all the living people in this city must be killed by me, and no one should be left alive! No matter if he is an orc or a civilian of the Kingdom of Yan, kill him all!" With an evil look on my face, I explained to Shen Qiang the meaning of my words word by word.
"Why... why? Sir, this... this..." After hearing what I said, Shen Qiang and several senior officers around him shuddered involuntarily, and their expressions when they looked at me became extremely hesitant, as if everyone had a lot of things to say to me but didn't have the courage.
"Do you have any questions about what I said?" I slowly glanced at Shen Qiang and the others. Whenever I saw their eyes, every officer lowered his head silently, not daring to look me in the eye. "Then why don't you follow the order?"
"Sir, I still don't understand..." Looking at the troops dispersing towards the city, Shen Qiang said what was in his heart.
"You still don't understand? Have you ever thought about how many people we killed at that time? How many of them were not orcs? Humph! I'm afraid at least half of them were humans that day? Do you think that if this news gets out, those groups and individuals in the Kingdom of Yan who are dissatisfied with me and the people in power will not take advantage of the situation and rise up
Even if it is the faction represented by Queen Yaen, even if they do not respond to my order now, do you think that after they drive out the orcs, they will definitely not settle accounts with us afterwards?"
Thinking of the human body erected like a shield on the south gate wall, I felt a bit eerie behind me. It was not because I was superstitious or opposed to my own cruelty, but because I was worried that someone would use this to cause trouble for me again.
In the Valley of the Forsaken, I was forced to step down due to groundless accusations and frame-ups, which also caused the entire war between humans and orcs to fall into a scene that I did not want to see.
And now, I am also afraid that this incident, which will definitely cause other high-ranking officials in the Kingdom of Yan to doubt my character, will be exposed to a scope beyond my control. . . And silencing and spreading rumors are my most important means to deal with this incident.
Suddenly, Shen Qiang woke up as if from a dream, and the look he gave me changed from the initial hesitation to the firmness and decisiveness after making up his mind: "The first brigade will protect the adults, and the rest of the troops will follow me to conduct another fan-shaped search with this as the center. We must not let a single person slip through the net..."
Soon, with my location as the center, there were constant cries and screams of humans, as well as a small amount of weapons colliding and bowstring vibrations. . . . .
Looking at the residents of Anpu who were escaping from the various paths from time to time and the soldiers of the First Division who were chasing after them, I silently calculated the number of people who might be left in the city. There might be only 10,000 to 20,000 people, otherwise they would never allow so many beastmen corpses to be left on the city walls and outside the city gates. They didn't even have time to clean up the beastmen corpses on the city streets, but only dealt with the corpses of the city residents. But it's better this way, so that I don't have to bear too many sins for this. . . Of course, this is just a little feeling, I don't care if I kill a few more people. . . . . .
After a whole day of searching, the entire city was turned upside down, but the only survivors finally brought out of Anpu City were a few babies. Of course, these were the survivors that Shen Qiang and his team accidentally found in the rooms that had long been slaughtered by the beastmen. Those who were killed by the First Division basically had no grass left in their homes.
"Sir, the entire city of Anpu has been searched. After two searches, no other survivors were found except for 17 surviving children under the age of 2. In addition, after searching the entire city, we have counted more than 600,000 human and beast corpses in the city. If we need to clean them up, I'm afraid our entire army will have to be busy here for nearly half a month... Please make the decision, sir..."
"Have the soldiers move all the bodies in the city into the wooden houses, and then burn down the entire city of Anpu. Also, have the two survivors' divisions on standby outside the city collect all the bodies of the orcs outside the city, and have the magician troops deal with them... In addition, have the soldiers send the surviving children to the nearest villages, to the villagers who are willing to adopt them!"
Listening to Shen Qiang's pretentious report, I also issued what I thought was the best way to deal with it. Burning the city can not only destroy the bodies and eliminate the traces, but also avoid the occurrence of highly contagious diseases such as plague that often appear in large-scale wars. As for those children, just consider it a great mercy! (To be continued)