There are many soldiers in Wasteland City, and none of them can escape, and the experience points they give are much more than Long'an City.
After two days of fighting, the entire Qingfeng Legion could hardly see any level 2 soldiers, and they all had to start at level 3 at the very least.
Of course, almost means that there are still some, but the number is completely disproportionate to the large army.
The entire Qingfeng Legion, not counting marching and rest, fought on the official battlefield for 4 days.
The auxiliary battle to clear away the servants, servants, private soldiers and mercenaries of the powerful families also lasted for 2 or 3 days.
In the two cities, a total of about 50,000 regular troops of various types were killed, and there were also 20,000 to 30,000 auxiliary troops, including mercenaries.
The key is that, except for those strong men, almost all mercenaries and regular soldiers are of a higher rank than the soldiers of the Qingfeng Legion.
Basically, if you kill a level 2 soldier, you will definitely be able to advance.
After a whole week of fighting, no one has been able to advance, or they are extremely unlucky and can't even touch the enemy.
This is almost impossible, unless you hide at the end of every battle and really don't dare to go forward and fight with others.
After all, they are all conscripted soldiers, and the training time is short, only more than a month.
It is normal for someone to kill someone in actual combat so quickly and not be able to do it.
But a week of continuous fighting was still like this, which Xu Lai couldn't bear.
The names of these people, like those soldiers who advance extremely quickly, will also be recorded.
After returning to Qingfeng City, you can either withdraw your troops, but it is a pity to do so.
After all, after several battles have been settled, the experience gained from sharing profits has already reached the point where he is almost advanced.
With a little training later, you can break through level 3 in a few days.
Just like withdrawing the troops and returning to the people, all the early investment was in vain, and there were too few opportunities.
In any case, they were just civilians two months ago.
After thinking about it, the two cities that happened to be captured also needed a large number of security guards to maintain stability.
Simply, all of these 300 people, Xu Lai, were demoted to security guards, led by 30 security guards sent by Aaron to maintain law and order in the two cities.
After the last two days of clearing operations, there was no trace of resistance in the entire wasteland city.
Not to mention those heroes who descended from heaven, even the original nobles, wealthy businessmen, and various organizations in Wasteland City were all cleaned up by Xu Lai.
He has no contact with people from the Western Empire, and has never interacted with each other. Instead, he has a good relationship with the Northern Empire, the former enemy of the Western Empire.
Naturally, Xu Lai had nothing to say to those powerful families in the Western Empire.
If you want to completely rule these two cities, you must clean up all the original forces.
Even if someone is willing to serve Xu Lai now, Xu Lai cannot accept it. Even if he accepts it, he can only transfer him back to the grassland.
After Xu Lai thoroughly cleaned up the entire Wasteland City, additional officials sent from the grassland began to take up their positions.
As usual, Xu Lai left a cavalry team of a thousand men for these people.
In the two cities, even the mercenaries were killed by Xu Lai, and there was almost no resistance left.
Even if there are still some gangs that disperse relatively quickly and merge into the civilian population, the 200 level 3 security officers in each city are enough to handle them.
Although he is a defective product who retired from the army, he has received training, participated in actual combat, and dealt with some gangsters. Gang members are not a big problem.
So, these one thousand people are almost troops that do not need to be used.
They are a deterrent and an insurance.
As for Xu Lai, he took a large army to rest for a day and continued deep into the Western Empire.
If we continue forward, there are still two border cities, but they are no longer directly connected to the grassland.
Flat stone roads, endless fields of rice, and watermills and windmills everywhere.
As the large army approached, all the farms were cleared, and no one even came to harvest the ripe rice.
Xu Lai asked Charles to bring a group of knights to take back all the villages, towns, and manors outside Wasteland City and Long'an City.
The land in the Western Empire is relatively fertile, the population is large, there are many rivers, and the land is relatively flat. It is a good place for large-scale production.
But the deeper you go into the Western Empire, the stronger the smell of sulfur becomes in your nose.
After walking 3 or 40 miles, we saw the small town in the distance.
It was a base camp-level city called Thorns, famous for its abundance of Thorn flowers.
Less than ten miles east of Thorn City, there is a small city called Hantan City, which is built on the edge of the river at the mouth of the Western Empire.
These two cities do not belong to the Michel family, nor are they favored by the descending heroes.
Because these two cities are too close to hell, and hell is on the other side of the river.
Most of the territory that originally belonged to these two cities has been swallowed up by hell.
If you can climb the watchtower erected by the river, you can still see the city in the distance.
The small town on the edge has not yet been transformed into a hell city, but the surrounding terrain has undergone tremendous changes.
On the originally flat land, large and small flaming mountains appeared, and the continuously flowing magma covered most of the farmland and roads.
The smell of sulfur that Xu Lai smelled was emitted from these large and small flaming mountains.
Had it not been blocked by the big river, Hell's army might have defeated the two cities of Thorns and Hantan long ago.
Hell likes fire but is afraid of water. He is not good at swimming, not good at building ships, and he is not good at fighting on the sea and in the water.
The name of the big river is Hanjiang, and it flows toward the sea.
Hantan City introduced a tributary from the Han River, forming a large pool near Hantan City.
This pool was originally used for irrigation, but now there were nearly a hundred warships piled inside.
On the other hand, there were almost no sergeants in Hantan City.
Hantan City took advantage of Hanjiang to temporarily block out Hell's troops.
However, having Hanjiang is not safe, because there are so many flying troops in hell.
It’s just that Hell is unwilling to invest its elite forces into such a fringe city.
Otherwise, the small Hantan City would not be able to survive at all, let alone spend all its efforts to build warships.
The Thorn City behind Hantan City also survived thanks to Hanjiang, and they even provided considerable support to Hantan City.
However, in order to utilize the cold river water, Thorns City was too close to Hantan City. After Hell destroyed Hantan, he could reach Thorns City in the blink of an eye.
In order to have sufficient strategic depth, Jiang Jian and the others chose the most peripheral cities, but their relationship with Hantan and Thorn City was not good. Without him, most of the wild resources in these two cities have been plundered by these people.
Even the farmlands and manors outside the city were sometimes robbed.
Even so, when Xu Lai attacked Wasteland City, Thorn City still provided support with 3,000 soldiers.
Although Thorn City is only a base camp-level city, this city was established 300 years ago.
Had it not been for the recruitment of many soldiers and horses when the noble coalition was formed to go to war with the Northern Empire, at least 70,000 to 80,000 troops could be drawn out of Thorn City alone.
Although only about half of it is left, it can still provide reinforcements to Wasteland City.
However, the city lord of Thorn City never expected that Wasteland City, as a castle-level city, would be so ruined and fell in just two days.
Wasteland City fell, and the dignitaries of Thorn City were completely panicked. They didn’t know whether to prepare for war or surrender directly.
Xu Lai did not give them a chance to hesitate, and did not even persuade them to surrender. He went to war directly after arriving at their destination.
However, in this battle, Xu Lai only invested long-range troops and some phantom shooters.
More than a hundred phantom shooters have advanced, and the remaining phantom shooters are obviously no longer able to take advantage of long-range shooting.
The base camp city is much smaller. Although the city wall is not as high as that of the castle-level city, and the growth rate is much lower, it cannot withstand the many shooters.
With city walls, arrow towers, and tens of thousands of archers, Xu Lai only had 700 phantoms and more than 7,000 level 3 archers, level 3 crossbowmen, and 3,000 level 4 long archers and heavy crossbowmen.
In addition to the phantom archer who can stably suppress enemies several times larger than one's own, the rest of the archer units are not only weakened by the city wall, but the enemy also has the bonus of the city wall and arrow tower.
Of course, we also have Super Defense and Angel Alliance, which are basically enough to offset the bonuses of city walls and arrow towers.
However, the gap between levels still exists.
The average range of one's side is less than 3.5 levels, but the opponent's range exceeds 4.5 levels, at least a gap of more than one level.
And the enemy also has defensive weapons such as ballistae, and there are a lot of them. It is estimated that they were originally used to deal with the hell camp.
Seeing that our long-range troops were able to completely suppress their opponents, the Lord of Thorns City and the other dignitaries finally felt relieved.
Of course they don’t know that Xu Lai has no formal plans to attack the city today, but is here to test.
Having not experienced civil strife like Long'an and Wasteland City, the combat effectiveness of Thorn City and Hantan City has been maintained fairly well.
Moreover, when we arrived at the city today, it was already getting late, so after just a brief test, Xu Lai retreated his troops.
After the battle, Xu came here to heal and resurrect.
Looking back at the Thorns City, the more than a thousand shooters who died in today's battle have been completely desolate.
Many of the others are injured and may not be able to recover tomorrow.
But Xu Lai did not pose much of a threat to the city. Instead, it gave the city lord of Thorn City hope.
In any case, the City of Thorns has been passed down for more than 300 years. The city owner was really unwilling to give up the City of Thorns.
And, after all, the difference in strength between the two sides is not big. He can also recruit mercenaries, but Xu Lai needs to supply supplies from the grassland hundreds of kilometers away.
Although Wasteland City and Long'an City have been captured, it is not easy to organize the transportation team so quickly.
Xu Lai was not under much pressure to supply at all. After Lina came back, she had already returned the warehouse ring to Xu Lai.
After Xu Lai's battle every day, he can even get hot fresh food directly from Qingfeng City through this ring.
This is also the reason why Xu Lai brought nearly 100,000 soldiers, but not many logistics troops at all.
In terms of consumption, Thorn City would not be able to consume Xu Lai at all.
And if it was just a long-range shooting, Xu Lai wouldn't even lose his body.
If there are no accidents, any number of people who died can be resurrected. Anyway, the more than 600 shooters who died in the battle yesterday evening were all resurrected in the evening.
Early the next morning, the dozens of catapults that had been smashed were all brand new, and they flew onto the wall of Thorn City with freshly fired stone bullets.
The process of conquering Thorn City was far more difficult than conquering the other two cities.
Xu Lai is not willing to lose his own troops. Even if the catapult is broken, he only needs to throw it into the warehouse, and someone in Qingfeng City will naturally clean it up.
But once more than 600 of his own archer troops are killed, Xu Lai will order the troops to gradually withdraw from the battle.
After that, there will basically be no other battles on this day.
Xu Lai did not take the initiative to attack, and the people in Thorn City did not dare to go out to fight, so the two sides remained in a stalemate.
Anyway, Xu Lai's side has more and more advanced phantom archers, but there will also be more and more archers who have advanced to level 4 long archers.
By the way, you can also raise the level of shooters on the city wall to gain higher experience.
Although the dead shooters on our side have been resurrected, their experience must be given.
But compared with Xu Lai, the shooters lost in Thorn City are basically permanent losses, and they will also lose a lot of morale.
Although we basically only fight for one or two hours a day, the remaining time can be used to slowly make up for the lost morale.
But after all, our losses are increasing every day, while the enemy is resurrected every day, which makes people desperate just thinking about it.
Except for the morale of the recruited troops, which can barely be improved, the rest of the army can hardly continue to improve their morale no matter how they are encouraged.
Finally, a week later, even the hired mercenary shooters were dead and running, and the city wall was finally no longer suppressed by long-range power.
After losing their long-range power, the infantry who had been waiting for a long time finally launched a charge against Thorn City.
After a week of continuous bombing, the walls of Thorn City along with the city gates have long been blasted to pieces.
The infantry did not need to climb the city wall. They could just use ladders set up on the moat and rush directly into the city.
Infantry is much harder to kill than shooters, and after gradually increasing their levels, with the blessing of god-level offensive skills, they can completely crush opponents one or two levels higher than themselves.
On the other hand, the soldiers in Thorn City basically have no fighting spirit at all. Even if they recruit soldiers, their morale is only 2 or 30 points, which is basically a collapse at the first touch.
At this time, the Lord of Thorn City, along with his relatives and officials in the city, knelt on the ground with a roar.
Xu Lai narrowed his eyes and ordered to kill them all, leaving no one behind.
He doesn't like to be a tyrant, but their heads, Xu Lai, are still useful.
The heads of these people were all sent to Hantan City.
Xu Lai wanted to persuade Hantan City to surrender, because Xu Lai was extremely lacking in the navy of Hantan City.
He told Tahan, who was responsible for transporting these heads, that he would not be blamed for surrendering, but that if he persisted in resisting, no chickens or dogs would be left behind.
As a result, Tahan rushed to Hantan City with only more than a hundred riders. The city gate was opened directly, and the city lord surrendered directly with the entire city's soldiers and civilians.
Xu Lai obtained a naval fleet with 120 warships of various types, 5,000 infantry, and more than 15,000 shooters without any bloodshed. (End of this chapter)